The episode, which managed to be touching, innovative and terribly exciting, was well within the Doctor Who pantheon. The solar flares, which had caused earth to be abandoned, took place in the twenty-ninth century and had previously been referred to in ‘The Ark In Space’ and ‘The Sontaran Experiment’. Liz 10 refers to the fact that the Doctor has met many other British monarchs, which he has indeed, including Victoria and Elizabeths I and II.
Audiences loved it and so did the critics. In The Times, Andrew Billen awarded it a full five stars. ‘Doctor Who … showed what quality writing was like in Matt Smith’s second outing in the title role,’ he wrote. ‘Saturday’s The Beast Below sparkled with ideas and wit while providing nightmarish images – in the form of arcade machine ventriloquist dummies – to keep the kiddies sleepless. Older viewers will have spotted the tribute to Terry Pratchett in the giant whale that powered a space station version of England across the universe. Older ones still will have appreciated the topicality of an election in which citizens every five years “choose to forget what they have learned”. Sophie Okonedo, no less, was a splendid future Queen Liz, and Karen Gillan came into her own as the Doctor’s deceptively wise companion, Amy Pond.’
Keith Watson, writing in Metro, felt the same. ‘Sparks there are aplenty in Doctor Who (BBC1) as Karen Gillan’s winning turn as new assistant Amy Pond is shaping up to make both of the Doctor’s hearts beat faster,’ he said. ‘Hard-core fans have been moaning on the forums about the danger of sexing up their beloved Time Lord but, thus far, it feels to me like Matt Smith and Gillan are going to get that whole subliminal Mulder and Scully-style passion spot on. Add to that lead writer Steven Moffat’s creepy-child obsession and some cracking space art, and it’s official: the Doc is hot.’
Sam Wollaston, in the Guardian, was pretty impressed, too. ‘It may look different from the old planet, but there are all sorts of parallels and similar issues going on,’ he wrote. ‘Devolution, animal rights, save the star whale, freedom of information, civil liberties, openness, the monarchy, police brutality, North Korea … Smilers – terrifying mannequins with rictus grins that will suddenly swivel their heads through 180 degrees to reveal frowns when something displeases them – are pure Peter Mandelson,’ he wrote.
‘There’s even Prozac, though it no longer comes in capsule form. Now, when the people learn the miserable truth, they get a button with “forget” written on it, and their memories are wiped clean … The Doctor dumps her [Amy], says he’s taking her straight home, just as soon as they get out of this pickle. But then she majorly makes up for her mistake by seeing what no one else, not even the Doctor, can see: the truth. The people are saved, the children are saved, the star whale is saved; it’s all back on with the Doctor. Thank God for that. I would have been sorry to see the end of Amy Pond, even if she is an anagram of mad pony. I like the tweedy new Doctor, all his hair and enthusiasm. But I suspect, like quite a lot of other boys up and down the country, I’ve fallen totally in love with Amy Pond. It’s probably the Scottish accent. And I thought I’d never get over Rose.’
By this time, no one was in any doubt that Doctor Who was in very safe hands. The Doctor, Amy and a simply superb writing and production team were taking it to ever-greater heights. And they could afford to be a little bit cheeky, too. No Doctor is completely the Doctor until he has faced the Daleks, and in the third episode of the new series, ‘Victory of the Daleks’, the Doctor did just that. Winston Churchill, the great, wartime prime minister, summons the Doctor to the Cabinet War Rooms, during the Blitz, in World War II. There he introduces Professor Edwin Bracewell, who has created robots called Ironsides, which the Doctor immediately recognises for what they really are. But these are Daleks with a difference, painted in five separate colours, denoting Scientist, Strategist, Drone, Eternal and the Supreme.
Initially, the Doctor is unsuccessful in convincing Churchill that these robots, who appear to be serving the British war effort, are not what they seem. However, a Dalek ship is in orbit nearby; it activates a ‘Progenator Device’, which turns the earthly Daleks nasty. They exterminate a few unfortunates and flee; Bracewell, it turns out, is an android. The Doctor sets off in hot pursuit.
At this point (and not for the only time in the series), the plot gets a little complicated, although it would appear to involve eugenics, a Nazi preoccupation back then. In order to regenerate themselves, the Daleks need the Doctor to recognise them and so lure him to come to Churchill. Earthlings set out to fight, but for various reasons involving saving the human race, the Doctor is forced to allow the Daleks to escape. Bracewell is convinced by the Doctor that, android or not, he can still do some good, and off they go again, back into deep space. The crack appears again, behind where the Tardis had been.
Again, it went down well. ‘It’s easily the best that Mark Gatiss has written for the show,’ blogged Daniel Martin on the Guardian website. ‘Facing the Daleks off against Winston Churchill was just always going to be funny, and the idea of them as “man-made” war machines wasn’t as heavy-handed as you might have expected. But really, the WW2 backdrop was really just window-dressing for the real story. This was an infinitely better resurrection of the Daleks than the ropey Peter Davison adventure of the same name. It’s true that the repetitive thing of them always being the last ever Daleks in the universe was getting implausible. And what fun it is to impose plausibility on a show about time travel! Victory of the Daleks serves as a prologue for something bigger to come – restored and pimped up into a sleek new Technicolor upgrade, they’ve scuttled off through time to grow in number. And will be back, deadlier than ever.’
Patrick Mulkern, meanwhile, was blogging for the Radio Times. ‘Gatiss indulges the cogn Whoscenti with references to that 1966 classic, ‘The Power of the Daleks’ – sometimes shot for shot,’ he said. ‘Menacing eye-stalk views of the Doctor …“I am your ser-vant!” becoming “I am your sol-dier”… But, as with all the best Dalek stories, there are innovations. First, Bracewell’s Ironsides, conniving in khaki, eavesdropping around the Cabinet War Rooms and dishing out tea – and then, thrusting from a Progenitor, a souped-up super race in five collectable colours. It’s Invasion of the Dulux! I spy a shameless merchandising opportunity there.’
Mark Gatiss was becoming a very popular writer on the show, much as Moffat had before him. And it was a mark of the faith Doctor Who’s producers had in him that they allowed him to get away with such liberties. For a start, the Daleks actually won. How did that make him feel?
‘Very exciting!’ he proclaimed. ‘They’ve sort of wriggled out of defeat before but I think this is the first time they’ve got it away with it. Steven [Moffat] was very keen that, with the Time War behind us, the Daleks should simply be re-established as the threat they used to be. That plus the chance to “re-invent” them was just wonderful.’
And, indeed, Mark had been involved in the redesign. ‘We talked at the first meeting about making them more like the Daleks from the 60s movies – which I’ve always loved,’ he said. ‘The sheer boldness of those colours and the size of them just get to you! So we discussed the idea of a new “paradigm”. A template from which future Daleks would spring. Then we had lots of fun coming up with the classifications: Drone, Scientist, Strategist, Supreme and the Eternal. Originally I wanted a green Dalek but green just doesn’t seem to work somehow. Funny the things you discover. In the script I put “Big buggers. Bigger than they’ve ever been.” And they are!’
And like so many others involved in the new Who, Mark himself was a long-term fan. What would be his favourite? ‘My desert island Who is a tough one!’ he said. ‘For sheer entertainment and brilliance, I’ve always adored “The Talons of Weng Chiang”. Ticks all my boxes as well as being incredibly clever, mould breaking and funny. If it existed, maybe “The Web of Fear”, but I suppose I’d have to say “The Green Death”. It means so much to me to this day and not just as nostalgia. An eco-story years before its time. Legendary monster (“the one with th
e giant maggots”). Witty and perfectly Pertwee script. And, of course, that ending. It still makes me cry and completely sums up why I’ve always loved Doctor Who.’
Now that it was so clear that the new Doctor was a real success, Steven Moffat was allowing himself to deliberate on the series. Could the Doctor be thought of as a brand? After all, the new merchandise was selling heavily, and the show was clearly a commercial success. But brand? Absolutely not, according to him.
Steven also had a very strong vision for the format of the show. ‘For me, Doctor Who literally is a fairy tale,’ he said. ‘It’s not really science fiction. It’s not set in space; it’s set under your bed. It’s at its best when it’s related to you, no matter what planet it’s set on. Every time it cleaves towards that, it’s very strong. Although it is watched by far more adults than children, there’s something fundamental in its DNA that makes it a children’s programme and it makes children of everyone who watches it. If you’re still a grown up by the end of that opening music, you’ve not been paying attention. You don’t think of it in terms of a challenge. You think, “Ooh, wouldn’t it be great to do that!” and I’m now in the fortunate position of being able to think that and make it happen.’
Steven was also aware of both the advantages and the dangers of trading off past glories – a very delicate balance had to be struck. ‘The more you back-reference, the more it feels like a sequel and the sequel is never as good as the original,’ he said. ‘[But] old favourites can return, provided you can do something new and exciting with them. There are no past characters coming back in this series, but I imagine that kids would love to see Captain Jack meet the new Doctor.’
As a matter of fact, the Doctor was about to meet someone else – River Song, who had already encountered the Tenth Doctor and who might at some stage have been (or will be) the Doctor’s wife. She was about to reappear in the next episode, ‘The Time of Angels’, along with the Weeping Angels, some of the most terrifying monsters to appear in Doctor Who to date. The Weeping Angels had originally appeared in the Steven Moffat-scripted episode ‘Blink’, thought by many to have been the best episode of Doctor Who ever made. The extreme malevolence of their nature was summed up by the Tenth Doctor: they are ‘creatures of the abstract’, ‘the lonely assassins’, ‘the only psychopaths in the universe to kill you nicely’, because their touch sends victims into the past to live out their lives before they have actually been born. They are, according to the Doctor, ‘as old as the universe, or very nearly, but no one really knows where they come from.’ On screen, they have the power to petrify.
The Weeping Angels look like statues (hence their name): their physiology is quantum locked, so that they can only occupy a single position when they are being observed. This means they can’t move, but can get about very quickly indeed when unseen, occupying many positions in space. They’re a difficult enemy to get one over on, as well – ‘You can’t kill a stone,’ the Tenth Doctor observed – but while in locked state, they often cover their eyes with their hands, in order to avoid accidentally catching one another’s gaze and remaining locked in stone forever more.
And this time, it was personal. The episode opened with the Doctor and Amy rushing to rescue Dr River Song from a starship, Byzantium, seconds before it crashes 12,000 years in the past. Deep within the starship’s hold is a Weeping Angel, which is getting steadily more powerful as it absorbs radiation from the ship. Dr Song calls on Father Octavian and his troops to help her recapture it and protect a human colony on a nearby planet.
In one of those moves that the viewer just knows is going to end badly, Dr Song produces a four-second video of the Angel. She is left alone to watch it as the other two read a book written about the Angels, which informs them that any kind of image of the Angel – such as a four-second video loop – will turn into the Angel itself. Just as they make this rather worrying discovery, Amy realises that the Angel is moving out of the footage, and as the Doctor frantically battles to break into the viewing room and save her, she seems doomed. Finally, however, she manages to freeze-frame the image, which disappears.
To get to the Byzantium, the group then set off through ‘Maze of the Dead’, a stone labyrinth full of stone statues where the Weeping Angel could be hiding. Two soldiers are left to guard the entrance; the group splits up to explore. It is only when they are in the middle of the labyrinth, absolutely surrounded by Angels, that the Doctor and Dr Song suddenly remember that the natives of the plan, long since vanished, the Aplans, had two heads – and these statues only have one. Belatedly they realise that every one of the statues is actually a Weeping Angel, currently in an extreme state of disintegration due to centuries without sustenance, but now absorbing energy like there was no tomorrow (which there wouldn’t be if the Doctor and his cohorts didn’t get a move on). It appeared that the Weeping Angel locked away in the Byzantium deliberately caused the ship to crash in order to rescue its kind.
Amy, meanwhile, has been having problems, and as the rest of the group flees, she believes her hand has turned to stone, rooting her to the spot. In fact, this is an illusion, and the Doctor gets her moving, before they learn that the Angels have killed their guards and are using one of them, Bob, to talk to the Doctor. They gleefully tell the Doctor they have lured the group into a trap directly under the crashed ship: this time round, rather than sending the group into the past, they intend to kill them and use the energy to regenerate. But they put something else in this trap that marked the fatal flaw in their cunning plan, the Doctor remarked. ‘Me.’
It was a high note on which to end the cliffhanger, and the moment at which the Doctor totally exuded the authority and wisdom that goes with the role.
Matters were resolved in the next episode, ‘Flesh and Stone’ (the title was suggested by Steven’s son). The Doctor destroys the gravity globe, thus freeing the assembled company to leap into the Byzantium’s local gravity well, and gets everyone into the ships oxygen factory, a forest, with the Angels in pursuit, and with another view of the sinister crack first seen on Amy’s bedroom wall. It now appears to be leaking energy, which the Angels are feeding upon.
Everyone makes for the ship’s control room, with the exception of Amy, who is becoming too weak to move. There is an image of an Angel embedded in her mind: the only way she can negate its influence is to keep her eyes closed, which in turn makes her vulnerable to the other Angels, as she can’t see them. Four clerics are left to guard her, as the Doctor, Song and Octavian move to the ship’s control room. The Doctor discovers that Song is actually Octavian’s prisoner, with a promised pardon should she complete the mission, although this is soon immaterial, as Octavian dies.
Back in the forest, the ominous crack is opening ever wider; the four clerics guarding Amy go to investigate and disappear. Amy is thus forced to make her own way to the control room, under the Doctor’s guidance, walking as confidently as she can in order not to let on that she cannot see. Inevitably, she trips, but is saved as Song teleports her to the control room.
By this time, the Doctor has realised that the mysterious crack, which causes time itself to be unwritten, is due to an explosion somewhere in time and it can only be closed if a ‘complicated space-time event’ happens: this is achieved when the ship’s gravity fails and the Angels fall into the crack. Song is recaptured by the remaining clerics, her crime being to have, ‘killed the best man [she’d] ever known’ and tells the Doctor they will meet again when the Pandorica opens. The Doctor and Amy return to earth where Amy, in a scene that occasioned much comment, propositions the Doctor, before revealing she is to be married the next day, 26 June 2010 (also the date of the series’ finale). The Doctor realises that this is the same day as the time explosion and whisks her out into the stars once more.
Despite a certain amount of tutting in some quarters about Amy’s brazen behaviour towards the Doctor (she had appeared to offer the Doctor a one-night stand, greatly upsetting the traditionalists and greatly amusing everyone else)
, both audiences and reviewers loved it. The plot bounced from one climax to the next; the pace fairly scuttled along, partly courtesy of the mysterious crack, which was clearly going to feature heavily in the climax of the show.
‘The overriding feeling I got from this week’s episode was one of speed,’ wrote Gavin Fuller in the Guardian. ‘The pace barely let up, as Steven Moffat gave us a rollercoaster ride of thrills and spills, with an ever greater threat than the Angels suddenly rearing its head, while Matt Smith’s quick-paced delivery of many of his lines only accentuated this impression. Indeed, despite the visual action, the wordiness given to Smith’s Doctor seems to be a key part of this season and looks like being a major facet of this incarnation if the first few weeks are anything to go by. Genuinely one of the most terrifying monsters of the series, the Angels were back here in their full sinister glory, and the staccato way they tend to be shot only adds to their general scariness.’
Dan Martin, blogging for the same paper, went further still. ‘I’m just going to come right out and say it. “Flesh and Stone” can lay credible claim to being the greatest episode of Doctor Who there has ever been,’ he wrote. ‘That’s better than “Genesis Of The Daleks” and better than “City Of Death” and better than “Tomb Of The Cybermen” and, yes, better than “Blink”. It’s just ridiculously good – so much that there’s scarcely any point in picking out moments because there was an iconic sequence every couple of seconds. Amy’s creepy countdown; “I made him say comfy chairs”; the oxygen factory; the clerics being erased one by one; “I think the Angels are laughing”; the moment when the Angel starts to move … You literally have to keep catching your breath.’
Matt Smith--The Biography Page 6
