The Hungry Earth/ Cold Blood
• This story is actually rather nice, in spite of not having the best reputation.
• One of the things I appreciated about it was its solid cast of female characters. Although Amy is overly sidelined in part one, she gets a strong role in part two, Nasreen is a great fun pseudo-companion, and Ambrose’s moral conflict and desperation to save her family is handled very well, so that we can understand when she attacks and kills Alaya in spite of the Doctor’s orders. Alaya and Reztek are less well served, and are a little too simplistically evil, with only gestures towards moral ambiguity, like the lovely moment where Reztek sees Alaya’s body, and is genuinely grieved, but there are not enough moments like this, when they are the characters that need the complexity most of all.
• Overall, the way the story handles its characters gives me a lot of hope for the Chibnall era: he handles the regulars particularly well, and will do even better work with this TARDIS team in Series Seven.
• I also appreciate the way Elliot’s Dyslexia is handled: it’s very brief, but gives a nice, positive, message for dyslexic kids watching.
• It’s also worth talking about the way the Silurians are depicted with more “human” faces: it’s a controversial decision, at least among some classic fans, but I think it works. The actors are given more range to perform in the Silurian prosethics, and this helps us distinguish between individual Silurians better than in Classic series stories, and is a demonstration of this story’s strength: it is able to display the complexity of The Silurians as a species in a way “The Silurians” simply couldn’t due to limitations of its effects and budget.
• That said, the “moral ambiguity” has limitations here: while the episode can do the concept behind “The Silurians” better than that story could, “sympathetic monsters” is less of an original idea for Doctor Who now, and that fact is to the story’s detriment: the fact that the status quo will inevitably be restored at the episode’s end makes it feel predictable, instead of fresh and original, and makes its attempt to portray the Silurians as a complex species feel pat and tokenistic, even though this story can and does depict them with more complexity than “The Silurians” did.
• And here, the season arc is actively detrimental to the story in a way it wasn’t in “Flesh and Stone” as there is no attempt to integrate the arc scenes into the story. Rory’s apparent death here will ultimately pay off well, as do the other revelations from the crack’s appearance, but the arc material still makes this story worse, not better.
• One of the things I appreciated about it was its solid cast of female characters. Although Amy is overly sidelined in part one, she gets a strong role in part two, Nasreen is a great fun pseudo-companion, and Ambrose’s moral conflict and desperation to save her family is handled very well, so that we can understand when she attacks and kills Alaya in spite of the Doctor’s orders. Alaya and Reztek are less well served, and are a little too simplistically evil, with only gestures towards moral ambiguity, like the lovely moment where Reztek sees Alaya’s body, and is genuinely grieved, but there are not enough moments like this, when they are the characters that need the complexity most of all.
• Overall, the way the story handles its characters gives me a lot of hope for the Chibnall era: he handles the regulars particularly well, and will do even better work with this TARDIS team in Series Seven.
• I also appreciate the way Elliot’s Dyslexia is handled: it’s very brief, but gives a nice, positive, message for dyslexic kids watching.
• It’s also worth talking about the way the Silurians are depicted with more “human” faces: it’s a controversial decision, at least among some classic fans, but I think it works. The actors are given more range to perform in the Silurian prosethics, and this helps us distinguish between individual Silurians better than in Classic series stories, and is a demonstration of this story’s strength: it is able to display the complexity of The Silurians as a species in a way “The Silurians” simply couldn’t due to limitations of its effects and budget.
• That said, the “moral ambiguity” has limitations here: while the episode can do the concept behind “The Silurians” better than that story could, “sympathetic monsters” is less of an original idea for Doctor Who now, and that fact is to the story’s detriment: the fact that the status quo will inevitably be restored at the episode’s end makes it feel predictable, instead of fresh and original, and makes its attempt to portray the Silurians as a complex species feel pat and tokenistic, even though this story can and does depict them with more complexity than “The Silurians” did.
• And here, the season arc is actively detrimental to the story in a way it wasn’t in “Flesh and Stone” as there is no attempt to integrate the arc scenes into the story. Rory’s apparent death here will ultimately pay off well, as do the other revelations from the crack’s appearance, but the arc material still makes this story worse, not better.
Vincent and the Doctor
• This episode marks the start of a very strong run of episodes: for my money, there’s a case to be made that the next seven episodes (and five stories) are all classics, and make up a mini “golden run” for the Eleventh Doctor’s era.
• Again, as with “The Vampires of Venice”, this is a gorgeous episode, helped by the decision to film in Croatia
• Also important: they got Richard Curtis! Getting that well known a writer is a big coup for the show – and very much a good choice – his dialogue has a lovely poetry to it, that stands out from Moffat’s also excellent, but more banter heavy, approach to dialogue, and so sets this apart from the stories around it.
• While I’m very much a fan of this story, it’s worth acknowledging El Sandifer’s critique of this episode (http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-pleasure-of-smelling-a-flower-vincent-and-the-doctor/) Sandifer makes a strong counter argument to the overwhelmingly positive fan response, arguing that the story’s embrace of “tortured genius” tropes and Great Man theory undermines its positive messages about the complexities of depression and mental illness. It’s a pretty solid critique of the story, and one worth checking out when thinking about the ethical side to Doctor Who’s storytelling.
• This episode marks the start of a very strong run of episodes: for my money, there’s a case to be made that the next seven episodes (and five stories) are all classics, and make up a mini “golden run” for the Eleventh Doctor’s era.
• Again, as with “The Vampires of Venice”, this is a gorgeous episode, helped by the decision to film in Croatia
• Also important: they got Richard Curtis! Getting that well known a writer is a big coup for the show – and very much a good choice – his dialogue has a lovely poetry to it, that stands out from Moffat’s also excellent, but more banter heavy, approach to dialogue, and so sets this apart from the stories around it.
• While I’m very much a fan of this story, it’s worth acknowledging El Sandifer’s critique of this episode (http://www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-pleasure-of-smelling-a-flower-vincent-and-the-doctor/) Sandifer makes a strong counter argument to the overwhelmingly positive fan response, arguing that the story’s embrace of “tortured genius” tropes and Great Man theory undermines its positive messages about the complexities of depression and mental illness. It’s a pretty solid critique of the story, and one worth checking out when thinking about the ethical side to Doctor Who’s storytelling.
• For all that, the episode is, for my money, a great piece of television. It’s beautifully filmed and acted, and structured in a way that makes it stand out: wrapping up the “Doctor Who” adventure thirty minutes in to make space for an extended epilogue about the Doctor and Amy giving hope to Vincent Van Gogh. And the weight given to the epilogue works because the material for it, the Starry Starry Night sequence, Doctor Black’s speech, and the “Pile of good things and bad things” speech, is so very good.
• And if we’re going to do an ahistorical “Celebrity Historical” that celebrates a historical figure in an uncritical way, then Van Gogh, a misunderstood outsider, is a better choice than Winston Churchill. It has a mainstream approach to its subject matter that can make some damaging assumptions, but it’s also a beautiful and moving episode that, at its best approaches mental health issues with sensitivity and care. It’s not unproblematic, but no media is. We just have to choose what stories we find productive and helpful, in spite of their problems. In the case of “Vincent and the Doctor”, I think the pile of good things outweighs the pile of bad things.
• And if we’re going to do an ahistorical “Celebrity Historical” that celebrates a historical figure in an uncritical way, then Van Gogh, a misunderstood outsider, is a better choice than Winston Churchill. It has a mainstream approach to its subject matter that can make some damaging assumptions, but it’s also a beautiful and moving episode that, at its best approaches mental health issues with sensitivity and care. It’s not unproblematic, but no media is. We just have to choose what stories we find productive and helpful, in spite of their problems. In the case of “Vincent and the Doctor”, I think the pile of good things outweighs the pile of bad things.
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