Who the hell are you ?

Watched that first episode of the new Doctor Who series last night. I had previously tuned right out of the whole re-birth thing mid-way through the second series after finally getting sick of Billie the vampire slayer, "good old London taaaan", the whole fucking Tyler family, and the sickly notion of a 900 year old Time Lord leching over some practically adolescent girly jailbait (just try and visualize, dear reader, ol' William Hartnell making Bambi eyes at Rose for two series on the trot to get things into proper perspective - yeeuch). It started off well, certainly, with the mildly unhinged Mr Eccles-cake at the helm, but towards the end it all seemed to rapidly degenerate into a hi-tech Hollyoaks with (nicely rendered) Cybermen - pretty vacant, no fun, never mind, it's bollocks (ed. - up the Pistols!).

Nah, I wasn't having it. Especially as I'd been watching wall to wall Pertwee and Baker classics at the same time which, in fair consideration, frankly still smack the bottom of the modern young upstart attempts, regardless of any piss-poor effects and ropey costumes or sets from back in the day. That stuff's all just gloss anyway, the feel is the real thing... that whole alien weirdness of the old skool Who which has been practically posted missing in the brave new Russell T era. At first I thought it was over exposure to sci-fi on telly and at the flix that made the new stuff look too comfortable and too grounded in the familiar... but revisiting the 70's stuff again gave lie to all that. All the post-modern awareness and self referencing in the world can't disguise the lack of otherness in the soul of the new breed. Back when I was a mere padawan, I was never quite sure whether the Doctor was really a good guy or a bad guy such was Tom Baker's barking, goggle-eyed lunacy - to this day I've still got visions of him as a giant flippin' cactus. Maybe it was the regular mix of outside broadcast film and cheapo, studio-based vt which added something intangible and unsettling to the mix. Maybe it was the burbling oddness of Dudley Simpson's incidental music. I can't quite put my finger on it. I'll stick my neck out and suggest setting the vast majority of stories (certainly for Tom) in oddball alien environments instead of, say, down town fucking Cardiff certainly helped out with the pesky science fiction bit that us nerds are rather keen on...

Anyway, the new one... well, it seems to have started off a fair bit better already. I do like Dr Tennant and think he's got the acting chops to really make the grade if the material is up to snuff. The effects are pretty damn excellent yet again, maybe even a step up from the last couple of runs so at least it should continue to look the part. Yes, the new assistant is pretty damn lovely (Uncle Mex sez black is always the new black but that's whole other blog entry) but at least they seem to have started off with a different kind of relationship than the previous gurning luv-in. I just hope we don't have to see the assistant's extended family every other frigging week like last time. I'll keep giving it a chance, I think. At least I've always got "The Robots of Death" to turn to if things go tits up (Christ, Russell Hunter, you don't get special guests like that these days... )

Made with the help of -

Einstürzende Neubauten "Kollaps" and "Halber Mensch" - a bunch of shouty German blokes with power tools making a quite horrendous racket... bloody great :-)

Hmm, seems to be quite a Germanic feel to this blog lately... which sounds like something I'd like to give the lovely neighbour but never mind...