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The Fundamental Weirdness of Doctor Who
Oct. 21st, 2018 09:44 pmSo, for various reasons, in the past week I have ended up (re-)watching not only The Ghost Monument, but also Marco Polo and The Pilot. Is there anything that makes it clear what a completely bizarre TV show this is than choosing three stories from three different eras and watching them all in a row? (For bonus points, I'm also listening to the latest Eighth Doctor on audio in between all this. It has been a Doctor-y sort of week.)
It's particularly remarkable to line up The Pilot against The Woman Who Fell To Earth as two very different ways showrunners introduce new companions and reintroduce the Doctor to a fresh audience. Their broadcast dates are only eighteen months apart, but they feel like entirely different programs. Just look at the way Moffat scripts that montage of Bill being tutored by the Doctor and compare it to ... well, absolutely anything in The Woman Who Fell To Earth, actually, because they are separated by light years. (I love Moffat's approach and always will, but I accept that it was time for the show to regenerate into something else. Which it certainly has.)
While The Ghost Monument takes some interesting influences from the Hartnell era - that whole bit about the acetylene would fit right in - they're still a lot closer to each other than either of them is to Marco Polo. One of the many reasons it's notable is that it's a relatively rare example of Doctor Who actually being the program that the BBC thought they were commissioning, with lots of educational bits and no bug-eyed monsters. And it turns out that the original concept can be truly excellent when it's done right! Just like all of the other things that Doctor Who kept turning into over the next five decades can be excellent. I don't think there's any Doctor Who writer in history who could have made Ian explaining how condensation works as tense and exciting as John Lucarotti makes it in Episode Three of this story.
One of the many startling things about it when you watch it light of everything that happens later is how it reminds you all over again that the Doctor is not a good person yet. Everyone remembers the time he picks up a rock to brain that caveman with in An Unearthly Child, but it's still surprising when he basically threatens to torture Marco Polo to get his TARDIS key back. Also odd: the time he offers to take Polo's entire caravan off in the TARDIS to avoid a bandit attack. I guess he figures he's already kidnapped two English school teachers, what are a famous historical figure, a local warlord who clearly wants to kill them all, a teenage girl from Samarkand and their entire retinue of guards and bearers and horses at this point?
It's particularly remarkable to line up The Pilot against The Woman Who Fell To Earth as two very different ways showrunners introduce new companions and reintroduce the Doctor to a fresh audience. Their broadcast dates are only eighteen months apart, but they feel like entirely different programs. Just look at the way Moffat scripts that montage of Bill being tutored by the Doctor and compare it to ... well, absolutely anything in The Woman Who Fell To Earth, actually, because they are separated by light years. (I love Moffat's approach and always will, but I accept that it was time for the show to regenerate into something else. Which it certainly has.)
While The Ghost Monument takes some interesting influences from the Hartnell era - that whole bit about the acetylene would fit right in - they're still a lot closer to each other than either of them is to Marco Polo. One of the many reasons it's notable is that it's a relatively rare example of Doctor Who actually being the program that the BBC thought they were commissioning, with lots of educational bits and no bug-eyed monsters. And it turns out that the original concept can be truly excellent when it's done right! Just like all of the other things that Doctor Who kept turning into over the next five decades can be excellent. I don't think there's any Doctor Who writer in history who could have made Ian explaining how condensation works as tense and exciting as John Lucarotti makes it in Episode Three of this story.
One of the many startling things about it when you watch it light of everything that happens later is how it reminds you all over again that the Doctor is not a good person yet. Everyone remembers the time he picks up a rock to brain that caveman with in An Unearthly Child, but it's still surprising when he basically threatens to torture Marco Polo to get his TARDIS key back. Also odd: the time he offers to take Polo's entire caravan off in the TARDIS to avoid a bandit attack. I guess he figures he's already kidnapped two English school teachers, what are a famous historical figure, a local warlord who clearly wants to kill them all, a teenage girl from Samarkand and their entire retinue of guards and bearers and horses at this point?