Doctor Who - "Utopia"

[iainjclark]

I'm even more rushed than usual this week so here goes the stream of consciousness:

I'd say this is an episode of three parts: 1) the early, generic Doctor Who adventure with an actual bona fide quarry and sub-Blake's 7 baddies but enlivened by Who!Jack instead of Torchwood!Jack, 2) the really rather excellent sense of dawning revelation as the fob watch appears and Derek Jacobi's character begins to come into focus, 3) the cheesy ending with Murray Gold's music in full-on gorgonzola mode and John Simm's performance being disconcertingly flippant.

Returning to the beginning I rather like the interplay between the Doctor and Jack. The Doctor's initial reaction to Jack is odd and cold, but when we learn why it begins to make a lot of sense and the discussion here makes Jack into far more of a rounded, believable character than all Torchwood's fake angst put together. It's great to have happy, flirty Jack back and this aspect of the episode works well. Sadly the episode that surrounds them pretty much defines the word "unremarkable" with even the production values seeming a little cheaper than normal. Some of the far future stuff does reek pleasingly of HG Wells and Stephen Baxter, although without any real effort being invested by the script.

The episode continues to be fairly shapeless with the injection of Derek Jacobi, and we have to put up with a great deal of sound and fury signifying nothing. It turns out that the reason for the utter blandness of the backdrop is that it's really the bed of lettuce on which we're being served the meat of the Captain Jack and Professor Yana storylines.

It's with Yana's reaction to discussion of Time Lords, and Martha's horrified realisation about the fob watch, that the episode, briefly, comes alive in the best possible way. This is great season finale material and just the right way to pull the arc together. Although I'd been massively spoiled about John Simm I had no idea about Jacobi's connection to the character and that paid real dividends here. I must confess that all my critical faculties went out of the window during this portion of the episode and pure fannish glee took over.

Unfortunately as the episode picks up momentum it goes into overdrive with every element of the production becoming overly frantic. Everyone starts mugging, including the composer. This spoils the pay-off, although Tennant emerges best and his pleas through the Tardis door are very effective: far more so than the Master's rather hammy gloating.

On this last point I feel I may be having some adjustment issues. For so long the Doctor has changed beyond all recognition with each regeneration while the Master has contrived to be a melodramatic bloke with a goatee beard and the fashion sense of Ming the Merciless. Eric Roberts aside this makes it quite hard to accept the Master as a young, cheeky bloke. In principle I think the change is not only a good idea but almost required in order to make the character work in the modern incarnation of the show. In particular it makes him more like David Tennant, and therefore admirably suited to be his dark mirror. I'll therefore reserve judgement until we've seen a bit more of him because I really want him to work. He's written and played too broadly in this episode to do so.

Overall, 'Utopia' is not ideal. (You see what I did there?) But at the very least the episode serves its purpose as part one of the three-part season ender because I'm very keen to see the final two episodes.

Comments

[fba.livejournal.com]

Don't buy Radio Times for the week 30th June.

Seriously - avoid anywhere you may see TV guide spoilers for ep 13 as I suspect there is something coming you won't have been exposed to yet.

FWIW I liked it - mainly for the character stuff (I'm half disappointed that Jacobi doesn't get a longer crack at The Master). I particularly liked Martha's disbelieving 'I know that voice....'

[white_hart]

Is 13 the final episode? I tend not to read the RT until after Who anyway, because they do have a dreadfully casual attitude to spoilers, but if there may be even more I may suggest we just don't buy it until Sundays...

[fba.livejournal.com]

Well - I've read a BBC press release that I wished I hadn't.

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

Seriously - avoid anywhere you may see TV guide spoilers for ep 13 as I suspect there is something coming you won't have been exposed to yet.

I was wondering this at the start of the season: each of the two completed seasons so far has seen someone being written out. And RTD has talked about how great it'd be to do a regeneration without people knowing in advance. I wonder if that's what he has in mind?

And if so, wouldn't Simm make a great Doctor?

[fba.livejournal.com]

Simm has quite categorically stated his dislike of continuing series (that he did a second season of Life on Mars was quite unusual).

The press release I've read doesn't mention any deaths (but doesn't mean there aren't any - DT is signed up for S4 I believe but there has been no announcement about FA) but is a pretty ginormous spoiler IMO (though it may all be revealed next week rather than in 13).

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

I didn't see Jacobi/the watch thing coming, and I may have done a sex wee in my pants at that point.

This is, if anyone's keeping count, a really bloody clever way to resolve the opening scene of 'Dalek' when the Doctor says he'd know if there were any Time Lords left. I'm almost willing to forgive 'Boomtown' and the crapness that was the 'Bad Wolf' arc just on how this episode pulled together various strands. It was, for a show from which I have no expectation of subtlety, really quite nicely done.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

That whole sequence with Jacobi was chills-down-the-spine awesome. I really didn't expect any big reveals this week, and I didn't expect 'Human Nature', being an adaptation of a novel, to have any repercussions for the season arc. Really cleverly done. It's a shame that the rest of the episode wasn't of the same quality.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

I may have done a sex wee in my pants

...

I was hoping that phrase was all a figment of my drunken nightmarish imagination

[majuran.livejournal.com]

I didn't see Jacobi/the watch thing coming, and I may have done a sex wee in my pants at that point.

*relief*

[ajp.livejournal.com]

I have even less time than you today (well, I say that – but really, I've no idea how much time you had: so it's all speculation. But I digress)...

Anyway, I've been trying really hard to avoid any and all spoilers for Who; and was completely unprepared for what we saw here. From the outset I was expecting a filler piece (are there really only two episodes left this season? How time has flown); and the use of the gravel pit confirmed that. Everything appeared as an homage classic Doctor Who.

Before I move on, I have to mention the near-complete lack of continuity between this and the Torchwood finale. I was always concerned as to how this would work – and let's just say it didn't work well (maybe Jack detected the Doctor and high-tailed it up the stairs – or something); but the important part is that they got on with it. They didn't try and justify it, or tie it in properly. And that was just about the best thing they could have done, really.

As you say Who!Jack is noticeably different to Torchwood!Jack – but again, this is probably a good thing – Angel!Jack Torchwood!Jack wouldn't have fitted well into this (or indeed any) Doctor Who episode.

Back to Utopia. Derek Jacobi was great; and managed not to telegraph anything of the ending – despite conveying a sense of something not being right, from the outset.

The bait and switch with Jack and the reactor room, or whatever it was (did anyone else think of Star Trek II?) was clever, in that it set-up the Master's theft of the Doctor's tardis perfectly (taking them both away): but again it didn't telegraph what was going on. Right up until Martha told us about the watch, this episode had the appearance of classic Who.

Jacobi's tenure as the Master was short (sadly) – but it couldn't have been any longer (although the reference to the Master not explaining his plan in detail to the Doctor – was rather nice).

Simms' seems, as you say, like a very different Master. To a certain extent I hope they let the Master keep a little of his camp melodrama – since that was such a defining feature of his character – but the switch to someone more "normal" does make sense, in the context of the new series.

One final postscript. Am I right that this is not the first time that the Master has stolen the Doctor's tardis? (Did it happen in Logopolis? Or am I getting confused? Didn't it happen to the third Doctor too?). Presumably, the Doctor's escape route is using the Master's tardis: if he can find it. Does it still look like a Doric column?

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

camp melodrama

This is the problem I have with the character. Yes it's a defining characteristic (some might say his only one) but it makes him such a one dimensional baddie. He's evil because he's evil, and the manner in which he's evil is every bit the stereotype of a gloating megalomaniac. I've seen Bond villains with more personality.

I'm hoping they might go a different direction with the character and inject some much-needed things like psychology and motivation. For example I'm trying to remember the context of the Doctor's "I'm sorry!" as the Tardis disappears. Potentially this is very intriguing because it could imply that the Doctor has something to be sorry for, and that the Master has some right to be aggrieved. I'm assuming this would be the end of the Time War and the destruction of the Time Lords which we believe was largely the Doctor's doing, but it could be something else. In fact there are a host of interesting directions they could take this.

Let's see if they do.

[icundell.livejournal.com]

This is the problem I have with the character.

The key with the Master will be not to over-use him. OK, so my perceptions are somewhat shaped by the sheer sameness of huge swathes of 1970s Dr Who (and the memory of a distinctly unworthy peevishness when they recast the role after Roy Delgado died - look I was about 11 or 12 OK?). I wonder if, back then, they had re-invented him as they have apparently done now I would have felt the same. I suspect I would have, because even using the Daleks too often gets tiresome after a while.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Yes I think there was a Pertwee Season in which the Master was involved in every single story. It certainly feels like it!

Although my earliest Who memories go no further back than Pertwee's departure, I've since caught up with a lot of old episodes and I do prefer Roger Delgado's version of the Master to Anthony Ainley's, mainly because Ainley was essentially playing a riff on Delgado's version.

[fba.livejournal.com]

Yes I think there was a Pertwee Season in which the Master was involved in every single story. It certainly feels like it!

There was - and that was kind of the point.

As for Ainley - blame the directors not the actor, the poor guy kept doing understated performances only be told to retake with the hamminess cranked up to 11! FWIW I like the character and you can do interesting things with him (watch Survival again - he's been too long with the cat people and is vicously verging on feral) but he is always at his best when he is being Machevellian.

[ajp.livejournal.com]

I have to agree – to an extent (motivation is always good); but to a certain degree the Master has been an archetype for simple, malevolent, evil. He's the devil, to a messianic Doctor...

Much as I want to see some depth (and yes, in the past the Master has been very one dimensional) – I don't think you'd want to escape the fact that he's a useful manifestation of evil...

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

In a shocking reversal of our usual roles, I'm a great deal more positive about this episode than you are, mainly because I'm (as I suspect I was intended to) all-but ignoring the plot. There's just so much good character stuff going on, including but not limited to:

1. Acknowledgment, by Martha, that her obsession with the Doctor verges on the pathetic. I particularly liked the parallel drawn between Martha and the bug lady. Even though in certain respects she is clearly Martha's mirror image, I liked seeing Martha faced up with a potential future version of herself. Here's hoping something comes of it.
2. Acknowledgment, if not by the character himself than by people around him whom he doesn't dispute, and certainly by the narrative, that the Doctor is a dick.
3. That absolutely fantastic conversation between the Doctor and Jack, which hit so many right notes and touched on so many interesting subjects.

Am I the only person whose first reaction to the Doctor's disgust at the sight of Jack and his hurry to get away from him was 'oh, he must have seen Torchwood'?

I imagine the TW fans are pretty pissed at this point. Most of that show's first season was spent dropping cryptic clues about the gap between the Doctor abandoning Jack at the game station and Jack heading up Torchwood in Cardiff, but the payoff for those clues is a throwaway line in a DW episode, with none of the TW regulars around to hear it. On the other hand, I suppose if you're a TW fan, you must be a glutton for punishment.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed a lot of the episode, especially the character pieces. Beyond the Jacobi 'awakening' sequence the best part was undoubtedly the long conversation between the Doctor and Jack in which Jack explains what happened to him and the Doctor confesses his unease.

You'll be unsurprised that I disagree that the Doctor is a dick - or rather, that this is a complete summation of his personality. He can be a dick - such as when he fails to sympathise with Chantho because he's engaging intellectually and not emotionally - but he's an interesting character because he quixotically blends idiocy and intellect, compassion and arrogance. For example, even when talking about how Jack is a Wrongness in the Universe he can't help beaming with delight at the idea that this attitude is a prejudice. He's engaged by the idea, and even open to it, and he's certainly not holding it against Jack personally.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Ref the Doctor being a dick - I pretty much agree with everything you said there. one thing that struck me a week or two ago was how often the Doctor apologies; he says "sorry" in almost every single episode. And Tennant somehow manages to make this seem utterly real, whatever the context. Whether it's a "I wish I didn't have to do this but I'm going to anyway", or a "I really wish I hadn't done that" or a "I sympathise" or whatever. Somehow, he takes this flippant arrogant egotistical dick and creates instant depth to the character, simply by being convincing when he says "sorry". I don't recall any of the earlier Doctors apologising half as much.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

I'm less thrilled with all the 'sorry's. Once or twice were, as you say, interesting and compelling, but the writers go back to that well too often. It's started to seem like an unfortunate tic, or even self-parody.

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

You'll be unsurprised that I disagree that the Doctor is a dick - or rather, that this is a complete summation of his personality. He can be a dick

I'd argue, though, that he's been a dick more often than not recently. Which is not a problem for me so long as the narrative doesn't expect me not to notice - as you say, there's enough goodness in the character to keep me from turning away from him completely.

[icundell.livejournal.com]

Pretty much agree with that. I did rather like the one word nod to Ark in Space.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

I think you're spot on your assessment of the episode starting poorly, getting wonderful, and then getting a bit over the top. And frankly I'd have preferred Jacobi as The Master rather than Simm - I knew Simm was going to appearing at some point this series *cough*thankyouMrPhipps*cough* but not when or how or who, and it wasn't until the watch appeared and the Doctor's reaction that I guessed that Jacobi might be The Master.

I had expected to pretty much loathe the reappearance of Jack, but in fact I loved it; everything from the Doctor's distance, to the constant "stop it" everytime Jack smarmed up to someone new, to the wonderful conversation between them in the reactor room.

Were the "futurekind" ever explained, by the way?

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

thankyouMrPhipps

Not my fault you live in a bunker, is it? :p

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes it is.

[pikelet.livejournal.com]

You invaded Poland.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

Well, it was a quiet day and I was bored, Mr Godwin.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

Right, that's it, you're going to get a damn good thrashing.

[iainjclark.livejournal.com]

For some reason I found the scene in which the Doctor sees Jack on the screen running towards the Tardis and still dematerialises quite chilling. Without the explanation we get later in the episode it would seem very odd indeed. With the explanation it works very well.

I was spoiled for Simm, as I said, but Janet wasn't so I've spent the last several weeks trying to keep her unspoilered. I'm quite relieved that the cats's out of the bag!

[fba.livejournal.com]

Random comment on re-watch. Isn't Jacobi's Professor Yana terribly Troughtonish?