Sydney NewmanRecensioni

An alien travels through space and time with a human girl.

Good. There are some delightful things in it. But most of the stories are bad, and I am so damn sick of Moffat by this point.½

Sydney Newman, the man who created the long-running British TV series Doctor Who, was actually Canadian. This previously unpublished memoir is supplemented with an afterword by his daughter and an essay that discusses his place in the history of British television. Unfortunately, I didn’t get as far as that, instead becoming bogged down in Newman’s childhood and young adult years. While I am grateful to Newman for starting Doctor Who and admire him for saying back in the 1980s that Doctor Who should be a woman at some point, I found this memoir very hard going indeed. Recommended for more patient fans.

The Doctor and friends vacation in ancient Rome.

Someone interviewed for the DVD featurette claimed that "The Romans" was the best episode of classic Doctor Who (or maybe it was just of 1960's Doctor Who). While it's not a personal favorite of mine (I'll take science fiction over historical drama any day), I'd say that's a completely reasonable claim.½

Four scientists (two of which are up to no good with a "time scanner") find a 12-million-year-old skull.

My synopsis sounds much more interesting than the actual story turned out to be. What briefly promised to be science fiction quickly devolved into one of the more melodramatic and cornier of the gothic horror stories. Baker's shenanigans save it, but only just barely.

A fugitive from genocidal soldiers hides in a group of alien tourists visiting 1950's Earth.

For a story that's only three episodes long, there's a surprising amount of time spent stalling. And for a story that spends a lot of time stalling, there's surprisingly little time spent explaining the plot or establishing characters. Everyone, including characters who couldn't possibly have any idea what's going on, just seems to understand everything that's happening, and that's going to happen, right from the start (while the audience can only hope to piece it together afterward).

A whiny schoolboy is enlisted by to kill The Doctor by an apparently omnipotent weirdo; meanwhile, The Doctor battles would-be immortals.

Not exactly your best Doctor Who, even by 80's standards.

Concept: F
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: D

Enjoyment: C minus

GPA: 1.3/4

A whiny schoolboy is enlisted by to kill The Doctor by an apparently omnipotent weirdo; meanwhile, The Doctor battles nonsense and plot holes.

Not exactly your best Doctor Who, even by 80's standards.

Concept: F
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: D

GPA: 1.3/4½

Intrigue, as alien delegates visit a backwards planet.

Nothing really worth seeing, but I was reasonably entertained - often for the wrong reasons.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: D
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: D
Music: C

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 1.7/4

Aliens want to turn The Doctor & company into museum displays.

It's a silly episode, and I found it very entertaining. Unfortunately the Doctor disappears from the narrative for about an episode and a half, which is a real shame as he's written and played better than usual for the era in this story.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: B
Cinematography: F
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.3/4½

Chased by Daleks through time and space.

Just plain dumb. Every now and then they have to bring in Terry Nation to write a story, to make the rest of the show look good by comparison. It could have been a lot worse (and some 1980s stuff is a lot worse), but I can't think of any significant redeeming value.

Concept: B
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: D
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: D
Music: B

Enjoyment: D

GPA: 1.6/4½

A dictator enjoys throwing her enemies into a pit, where there is a creature.

What would have been a terrible story if it had been produced a year later, rescued and then some by unrelenting silliness. Whoever's name might be on it, this is unmistakably Douglas Adams' script.

Concept: D
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: A
Pacing: B
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.2/4½

The Master hopes to resurrect himself by stealing The Doctor's lives.

Who thought this plot was a good idea for a standalone movie and/or American pilot? It's bad enough that it doesn't make any sense, even if you know who these characters are; they also completely fail to include the stuff that hooks people into the series. The whole point of the show is that he can and does go anywhere in time and space, and this movie is set entirely in present day California. (Oh, sorry, it's set three years in the future. For no apparent reason.) They don't even bother to explain what the TARDIS is until about halfway through; before that, you get inexplicable images of a 1960s police box spinning in a CG vortex juxtaposed with shots of an old man in a vaguely steampunk sitting room. How can that possibly make any sense? Seen as just an episode of the series, it's mediocre at best, but as a movie it's a horrible mess.

Concept: D
Story: F
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: D

GPA: 1.4/4 (Bad)½

A thought-creature plots its return to reality.

A simpler, more accessible version of "Kinda." What was bad there is bad here, but not quite as much. And what was good there is good here, but not quite as much.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: B
Dialog: C
Pacing: B
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: B
Music: C

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 2.0/4

A spaceship will crash if a rich old man doesn't become a good person overnight.

Too rushed and overstuffed with timey-wimey cuteness for there to be time for the character stuff (which the story is supposed to be about) to work. Also, there are plot holes and crimes against science (does Moffat even know what the word "frequency" means?). But it is nice that they at least tried to do something more low key in a special for a change. And its faults are made up for with some first rate Doctor Blathering.

Concept: B
Story: B
Characters: B
Dialog: A
Pacing: D
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: D

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.6/4½

A space colony is harassed by underground creatures.

For most of the story, it's just run-of-the-mill, unoriginal mediocrity. Then somewhere in the last episode, it turns to nonsense.

Concept: D
Story: D
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: C minus

GPA: 1.5/4

An alien travels through space and time with a human couple.

I don't find any of the individual episodes to be particularly remarkable (at least not compared to what the show was doing a few years ago); the best ones fall apart at the end when the plot holes are brushed aside with babble. But the tone of the show is back to the old standard of fun and adventure, and I'm back to being Unreasonably Excited about watching it.

Concept: A
Story: C
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: B
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: A plus

GPA: 3.0/4

A passenger spaceship carrying a drug smuggler materializes on top of another ship.

Occasional great dialog and some clever ideas keep it watchable. The script is a mess, but it's a silly mess that might have made for a fun serial. It's execution, though, is bad at best.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: D

Enjoyment: C

GPA: 1.8/4½

An ice planet/grocery store has an evil mastermind and maybe a dragon.

Horrible, horrible writing. Despite a simple plot, nothing about it makes any sense. There are some attempts at humor, but they're pretty bad and I wasn't always sure if something was meant to be funny or not. McCoy is always clowning regardless of the intended tone of a scene, which makes it feel like he's just not taking the role seriously, rather than that the character is silly. Not that you can really blame him considering the scripts they were giving him.

Concept: D
Story: F
Characters: D
Dialog: D
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: D
Acting: D
Music: F

Enjoyment: D

GPA: 0.9/4½

Unseen aliens/machines need strong minds and destroy what they can't use.

Sometimes it's very good, sometimes it's pretty bad - in just about every aspect of the show. There's more good than bad, but the bad is bad enough that I can't bring myself to give it a good score. I enjoyed watching it well enough. Zoe's very-mini miniskirt doesn't hurt.

Concept: C
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: D
Music: C

Enjoyment: C plus

GPA: 1.9/4

A dictator has outlawed unhappiness.

A nice idea, not all that badly written, ruined by crap production.

Concept: B
Story: C
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: F
Special effects/design: D
Acting: C
Music: D

Enjoyment: C minus

GPA: 1.7/4

Astronauts returning from Mars are kidnapped as part of an elaborate conspiracy.

At its best, it's suspenseful and intelligent. At its worst, it's campy fun.

Concept: C
Story: B
Characters: C
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.3/4½

Three Doctors are thrown together to help one of them make a decision.

Seeing Smith and Tennant side by side, it becomes painfully clear that the problems with the 11th Doctor aren't entirely due to Moffat's writing. Largely due to it, but not entirely. So... I guess that bodes well for series eight? I can hope.

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: B
Dialog: B
Pacing: C
Cinematography: C
Special effects/design: C
Acting: B
Music: B

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.4/4½

Robot yetis invade London.

A lot of things are done surprisingly well in this story. Sadly, the plot is not one of them. People just wander around in the sewers for six episodes. And not being able to see the first yeti story (this is a sequel, and the original is lost) leads to a lot of basic questions not being answered (such as, "What the hell is this villain?" or, "Why is that robot so fluffy and huggable?").

Concept: C
Story: D
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: C

GPA: 2.0½

Enjoyable with great special effects. The first two episodes of the season, Asylum of the Daleks and Dinosaurs on a Spaceship are the best. Sadly, all the epsidodes start off well, but have weak endings.

Substance: Sixties glamour-adventure, featuring Diana Rigg in designer pants as a distraction from the utter mindlessness of the scripts. Fun for nostalgia buffs, and to see what passed for hi-tech in the good old days. However, the pace is too slow and the inanities too abundant for sustained interest.
In this particular episode, the victims of an extortioner behave totally unreasonably (they give no credible explanations for their failure to seek assistance) and the extortioners themselves exhibit both unexplained expertise and unbelievable stupidity.
(Did not watch the second episode).
Style: Low-key British humour, mild suspense, cellophane fights.½