The Bishop on Doctor Who: 'New Earth'
I’ve seen The Second Coming; I’ve seen Casanova; and there is no doubt in the Bishop's mind that Russell T. Davies is a TV writer of considerable skill. With ‘New Earth’, however, he does little more than take the piss.
Even in this story, there are moments of Davies flair. It isn’t so much Cassandra dying in her own arms that charms, it’s the way it’s foreshadowed: Cassandra, almost (but not quite) indifferently, watching a recording of her early, ‘human’, self; it’s the way in which it was the last night ‘anyone called me beautiful’; it’s the way the Doctor knew exactly what to do. It’s all very slick, of course, but it’s textbook slick, and Davies has read the thing from cover to cover. And speaking of textbook, the Doctor’s comment after the parting of the Face of Boe is postmodern deconstructive shtick worthy of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer—if, indeed, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is the sort of thing that something else can be worthy of.
But apart from that and a lovely, almost balletic, turn by Sean Gallagher as the dying Cassandra (the dying swan?), there’s not a lot else here; at least not a lot worth taking any notice of.* Were it not for the budget, pacing, and a considerably higher dose of charisma, the story’s silliness alone would be enough to slot it straight into a convenient gap in season twenty-four (of course, your pastoral pontificator would be more than willing to lose, say, ‘Paradise Towers’ to create such a gap). Without dwelling on the fact that the supposedly disease-proof air does nothing to help the zombies, or that even the most virulent infections shouldn’t kill on contact—or that the zombies, infected with every illness known to man, should probably just keel over and die (plague carriers are always the last to go? Bollocks)—we have a resolution that would have stretched credibility if it had been offered as part of ‘The Mind Robber’. It’s not so much that you can’t just mix a whole bunch of different solutions together (while he was reading that textbook on slickness, Davies obviously skipped chemistry class); but that surely, if one did inhabit a world in which that sort of thing worked, you wouldn’t need the bloody Doctor to figure it out. And in a hospital full of doctors!
But wait, there’s more (or should that be less). Not content simply to challenge the old adage ‘No sex please, we’re Time Lords’, nor content even to rub the Doctor’s newfound sexuality in everybody’s faces, Davies has now made it the modus operandi of the entire sodding show.** ‘I LOVE travelling with you, Doctor.’ Hmm . . . I’m sure he was ‘great in bed’ last night, too. It’s enough to make an old fan sick to the stomach, I tells ya.
*Apart, that is, from Billie Piper's tits. The Bishop apologises for this oversight; how on earth could he forget?
**The Bishop writes this having seen ‘New Earth’ (obviously), where we learn that Rose is in love and Cassandra in heat; ‘School Reunion’, where we learn that Rose is in love and that the Doctor’s little sister, Sarah-Jane, may not have been his little sister after all; ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’, where we learn that Rose is in love and the Doctor gets a girlfriend; and ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, where we learn that Rose is in love and that the Doctor may have gotten over the loss of his girlfriend by nailing a waitress. Of course, that canny old bastard Davies might flip the whole thing on its head before the season’s done—apparently he’s very clever that way . . .
Even in this story, there are moments of Davies flair. It isn’t so much Cassandra dying in her own arms that charms, it’s the way it’s foreshadowed: Cassandra, almost (but not quite) indifferently, watching a recording of her early, ‘human’, self; it’s the way in which it was the last night ‘anyone called me beautiful’; it’s the way the Doctor knew exactly what to do. It’s all very slick, of course, but it’s textbook slick, and Davies has read the thing from cover to cover. And speaking of textbook, the Doctor’s comment after the parting of the Face of Boe is postmodern deconstructive shtick worthy of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer—if, indeed, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer is the sort of thing that something else can be worthy of.
But apart from that and a lovely, almost balletic, turn by Sean Gallagher as the dying Cassandra (the dying swan?), there’s not a lot else here; at least not a lot worth taking any notice of.* Were it not for the budget, pacing, and a considerably higher dose of charisma, the story’s silliness alone would be enough to slot it straight into a convenient gap in season twenty-four (of course, your pastoral pontificator would be more than willing to lose, say, ‘Paradise Towers’ to create such a gap). Without dwelling on the fact that the supposedly disease-proof air does nothing to help the zombies, or that even the most virulent infections shouldn’t kill on contact—or that the zombies, infected with every illness known to man, should probably just keel over and die (plague carriers are always the last to go? Bollocks)—we have a resolution that would have stretched credibility if it had been offered as part of ‘The Mind Robber’. It’s not so much that you can’t just mix a whole bunch of different solutions together (while he was reading that textbook on slickness, Davies obviously skipped chemistry class); but that surely, if one did inhabit a world in which that sort of thing worked, you wouldn’t need the bloody Doctor to figure it out. And in a hospital full of doctors!
But wait, there’s more (or should that be less). Not content simply to challenge the old adage ‘No sex please, we’re Time Lords’, nor content even to rub the Doctor’s newfound sexuality in everybody’s faces, Davies has now made it the modus operandi of the entire sodding show.** ‘I LOVE travelling with you, Doctor.’ Hmm . . . I’m sure he was ‘great in bed’ last night, too. It’s enough to make an old fan sick to the stomach, I tells ya.
*Apart, that is, from Billie Piper's tits. The Bishop apologises for this oversight; how on earth could he forget?
**The Bishop writes this having seen ‘New Earth’ (obviously), where we learn that Rose is in love and Cassandra in heat; ‘School Reunion’, where we learn that Rose is in love and that the Doctor’s little sister, Sarah-Jane, may not have been his little sister after all; ‘The Girl in the Fireplace’, where we learn that Rose is in love and the Doctor gets a girlfriend; and ‘Rise of the Cybermen’, where we learn that Rose is in love and that the Doctor may have gotten over the loss of his girlfriend by nailing a waitress. Of course, that canny old bastard Davies might flip the whole thing on its head before the season’s done—apparently he’s very clever that way . . .
posted by Salisbury at 1:47 pm
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