Christmas and flying fish
Dec. 27th, 2010 11:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charameiThis Christmas in Who-land: airborne fish, time manipulation, and grumpy old men who won't let go of the past.
I'm talking, of course, about 8DA: Relative Dimensions, in which the Eighth Doctor tries desperately to have the perfect family Christmas in the TARDIS while a pandimensional flying fish rips the guts out of the walls.
What? Which Christmas special did you think I was talking about?
I do wonder how much communication there is between Big Finish and the BBC's writers, because there are some odd similarities between their Christmas offerings this year. In other respects, though, this is a brilliant example of how two writers can have basically the same idea and go two completely different ways with it.
While the BBC's Christmas specials are all rotating Christmas trees, evil Santas and Dickensian steampunk, the 8DA ones are basically episodes of Eastenders. Last year, Lucie got hit by a car and found out that a Zygon was impersonating her aunt. This year, Alex is panicking over what to call his alien great-grandfather, the Doctor seems slightly obsessed with the idea that Alex can't possibly be only 7% Time Lord, and poor Susan is fighting a losing battle to prevent her son from turning into her grandfather. And Lucie's gravy has lumps in it and her pudding won't cook properly. And a version of the Doctor from the near future, yelling for help and impaled on an enormous fish, keeps appearing and disappearing. And the power's on the blink...
Well, first things first - Lucie's return is a breath of fresh air, it really is. I'm sure the intention was for me to not be too keen on Tamsin, given the way the arc plot is going, but my, the difference is tremendous. Carole Ann Ford does a rousing reprise of her older Susan from An Earthly Child; and while Jake McGann is still quite weak when it comes to acting for radio, he's good enough to carry a solid script.
There's something about a pandimensional fish, but what makes this is a chance to see the Smiths/Foremans/Campbells/You Know, That Family being a proper family. Everything from The Thing You Never Knew About Your Parents ('Wait, Mum, does this mean you have two hearts?') to The Stubborn Patriarch ('We're in flight! You said we wouldn't leave Earth, you promised!') to the Doctor's kind-of sweet, kind-of offensive, as-yet-unexplained insistence that Alex is a chip off the old block worthy of being bequeathed the TARDIS one day, explores their interpersonal relationships in a way that just isn't usually possible in Doctor Who. Throw in the constant admonitions to 'Be careful!/Look after [him/her]!' that get thrown around every time someone runs off in the direction of extreme danger (which, this family being this family, happens every five minutes or so) and suddenly this alien family is looking all too human.
Older Susan is an interesting character: determined and protective, yet still reticent about trouble, and she's still quite unwilling to rejoin the TARDIS crew on even a temporary basis. However, she's also a lot more willing to stand up to the Doctor, and she demonstrates a more than lingering familiarity with the TARDIS when she's trying to find out what's wrong with it.
Alex... Alex is an odd one. This Alex seems radically different to the one we met in An Earthly Child - he's got a new vocation, for one thing, and I never read him as the sort to go charging towards the trouble in that story. I was expecting a more gradual character development towards that point, but I'm not complaining - this new Alex is rather less annoying. It's interesting just how fast he bonds with the Doctor, too. I don't think I'd want him as a permanent companion - Jake McGann isn't good enough for that - but I'm very interested to see where his character development goes next, especially now he's run off to adventure with Lucie. Next Christmas, maybe.
And one last round of applause for Lucie, or more importantly, Sheridan Smith. She doesn't have much to do this episode, apart from trying to keep the family functional and the dinner unburned, but her performance was masterful nonetheless - in particular, the nervousness and shakiness when she realises that she's just met the Doctor's family was adorable, and the gradual transition from that to comfortably leaving to travel with Alex was pitch-perfect all the way through.
Oh, and the fish! The fish was spiny and red and had teeth and terrified me and they trapped it in the walls, man, the walls! But really, it was no more the main story than a certain shark I could mention, and that's excellent.
Obligatory WTF moment: Time Lords can 'pass over' telepathic messages like a phone? That's on a par with remote-locking the TARDIS doors like a car key for me. It's the same blend of 'well, I guess...' and 'the writer was clearly trying too hard to be clever and funny'.
This Christmas special was compelling and soulful and funny and everything that the other Christmas special wasn't.
Four Doctors next, I suppose. Then I've only got, oh, six more stories to catch up on from the Big Finish main line?
I'm talking, of course, about 8DA: Relative Dimensions, in which the Eighth Doctor tries desperately to have the perfect family Christmas in the TARDIS while a pandimensional flying fish rips the guts out of the walls.
What? Which Christmas special did you think I was talking about?
I do wonder how much communication there is between Big Finish and the BBC's writers, because there are some odd similarities between their Christmas offerings this year. In other respects, though, this is a brilliant example of how two writers can have basically the same idea and go two completely different ways with it.
While the BBC's Christmas specials are all rotating Christmas trees, evil Santas and Dickensian steampunk, the 8DA ones are basically episodes of Eastenders. Last year, Lucie got hit by a car and found out that a Zygon was impersonating her aunt. This year, Alex is panicking over what to call his alien great-grandfather, the Doctor seems slightly obsessed with the idea that Alex can't possibly be only 7% Time Lord, and poor Susan is fighting a losing battle to prevent her son from turning into her grandfather. And Lucie's gravy has lumps in it and her pudding won't cook properly. And a version of the Doctor from the near future, yelling for help and impaled on an enormous fish, keeps appearing and disappearing. And the power's on the blink...
Well, first things first - Lucie's return is a breath of fresh air, it really is. I'm sure the intention was for me to not be too keen on Tamsin, given the way the arc plot is going, but my, the difference is tremendous. Carole Ann Ford does a rousing reprise of her older Susan from An Earthly Child; and while Jake McGann is still quite weak when it comes to acting for radio, he's good enough to carry a solid script.
There's something about a pandimensional fish, but what makes this is a chance to see the Smiths/Foremans/Campbells/You Know, That Family being a proper family. Everything from The Thing You Never Knew About Your Parents ('Wait, Mum, does this mean you have two hearts?') to The Stubborn Patriarch ('We're in flight! You said we wouldn't leave Earth, you promised!') to the Doctor's kind-of sweet, kind-of offensive, as-yet-unexplained insistence that Alex is a chip off the old block worthy of being bequeathed the TARDIS one day, explores their interpersonal relationships in a way that just isn't usually possible in Doctor Who. Throw in the constant admonitions to 'Be careful!/Look after [him/her]!' that get thrown around every time someone runs off in the direction of extreme danger (which, this family being this family, happens every five minutes or so) and suddenly this alien family is looking all too human.
Older Susan is an interesting character: determined and protective, yet still reticent about trouble, and she's still quite unwilling to rejoin the TARDIS crew on even a temporary basis. However, she's also a lot more willing to stand up to the Doctor, and she demonstrates a more than lingering familiarity with the TARDIS when she's trying to find out what's wrong with it.
Alex... Alex is an odd one. This Alex seems radically different to the one we met in An Earthly Child - he's got a new vocation, for one thing, and I never read him as the sort to go charging towards the trouble in that story. I was expecting a more gradual character development towards that point, but I'm not complaining - this new Alex is rather less annoying. It's interesting just how fast he bonds with the Doctor, too. I don't think I'd want him as a permanent companion - Jake McGann isn't good enough for that - but I'm very interested to see where his character development goes next, especially now he's run off to adventure with Lucie. Next Christmas, maybe.
And one last round of applause for Lucie, or more importantly, Sheridan Smith. She doesn't have much to do this episode, apart from trying to keep the family functional and the dinner unburned, but her performance was masterful nonetheless - in particular, the nervousness and shakiness when she realises that she's just met the Doctor's family was adorable, and the gradual transition from that to comfortably leaving to travel with Alex was pitch-perfect all the way through.
Oh, and the fish! The fish was spiny and red and had teeth and terrified me and they trapped it in the walls, man, the walls! But really, it was no more the main story than a certain shark I could mention, and that's excellent.
Obligatory WTF moment: Time Lords can 'pass over' telepathic messages like a phone? That's on a par with remote-locking the TARDIS doors like a car key for me. It's the same blend of 'well, I guess...' and 'the writer was clearly trying too hard to be clever and funny'.
This Christmas special was compelling and soulful and funny and everything that the other Christmas special wasn't.
Four Doctors next, I suppose. Then I've only got, oh, six more stories to catch up on from the Big Finish main line?