The Next Doctor
review

Holistic Review: It's a pleasant enough action story, except there's not much actual action in it; overall it's uneventful and one-dimensional.

I waited far, far too long to review this story. Not entirely my fault; it's largely a result of my having been travelling so much lately (among other places, I've now made my pilgrimage to Pompeii) and not having much time to sit down and take notes. But I think the length of time that I've been dragging my feet about writing this review is very telling as to how I really felt about The Next Doctor. I wasn't fired up to review it, either because it was great or because it was terrible. I just felt kind of ho-hum about it. My feeling after the story aired was mostly one of disappointment, and I'll go into the reasons why below. On the upside, I got to watch it with my mother on Christmas Day again this year, and she quite liked it — more than me, even! I found out she's always liked the Cybermen, even better than the Daleks, which I certainly never knew until now. So, while it has a special place in my heart for that reason, I find it difficult to love otherwise.

The main problem, I think, is that the majority of the story's appeal hinges on the fact that we don't know who this "next Doctor" is, or why, if he's the real deal, he doesn't recognize the tenth Doctor. To be fair, on first viewing, this is quite an intriguing question, and it certainly seemed possible that David Morrissey could indeed be Doctor number eleven. Giving him a "sneak peek" début like this would have been a pretty cool idea, too. The thing is, they drop hints that he's not really the Doctor fairly early on, first when Lake claims — very out-of-character for the Doctor — that "this is hardly work for a woman" (and it's hard to believe that he would ever say something like this if he knows anything about "all those bright and shining companions"). When we see, very shortly thereafter, that Lake's screwdriver is not sonic, suspicions are most definitely raised. (Just before the credits, you can almost tell that Lake is holding an actual screwdriver rather than a sonic one, but at the time we're so caught up in the revelation that we barely notice.) Once we see the hot-air-balloon TARDIS, it's pretty clear that something is not right. And once this plot element is cleared up, there's not a whole lot left in the story to grab our attention.

What's that I hear you say? Cybermen? Pshaw! Do they do one interesting thing in this story? No, they stomp around a whole lot and delete a whole bunch of people, and they build their precious CyberKing. What's the purpose of this stupendous new addition to their mythos? To... convert a lot of people. Hmmmmmmmm. I don't really get the sense in building a walking conversion factory, other than the "wow" factor, which would certainly be lost on the Cybermen. As far as we're concerned, the CyberKing does nothing more interesting than wreck a bunch of Victorian buildings (and how smushing people is supposed to advance its stated goal of mass conversion, I have no idea). But we'll come back to this later. I hope, too, that someday we'll get a story with Cybermen from our own universe again... I rather miss them!

RTD can talk all he likes about how stories have to involve humans in order to engage the audience. The truth is, a story needs to have a solid emotional core and character-consistent actions to be engaging, and this story is certainly lacking the former. I was about to say that Buffy had spoiled me, but I mean, c'mon, we've had Father's Day and Blink and Turn Left. Those succeeded because they featured characters that we really cared about, so we connected to the story on an emotional level. (It doesn't hurt that all three of those stories also featured some quite emotional scenes involving those characters, either.) Here, the best we get is the revelation that the Cybermen killed Lake's wife and stole his son. I mean, that's nice and all, but it doesn't exactly tug at the heartstrings in a series where people's wives and sons go missing all the time, particularly when we don't know a single other thing about either character. For that matter, we know barely anything about Lake himself, other than that he came to London with a lot of money to become an academic or researcher in some unspecified field.

David Morrissey certainly gives it a good effort, and once Lake realizes who he is, I find him to be a very likeable character, vulnerable and earnest. Of course, at that point, he also ceases to get anything at all interesting to do, save zapping a few Cybermen with infostamps. Prior to his changeover, I found him verging on unlikeable as the Doctor. His Doctor is so flawlessly brilliant, full of grand pronouncements, smug and self-important, that I found myself really hoping Morrissey wasn't going to be following Tennant. No fault of Morrissey's, I hasten to add — this is simply how the character was written. And this really seems to be a theme of RTD's... also witness the postcard-perfect Christmas at the start, and Lake's saccharine speech about How Wonderful the Doctor is, and how he has Never Ever Been Thanked, which is of course followed by Whooping Applause and Soaring Music by Murray Gold. Gag me with a spoon. At any rate, although it briefly felt like a cheat, ultimately I was glad that Lake wasn't any version of the Doctor at all, just a man who thought he was a Time Lord. It made for a nicer story and it was a clever way around the problem, much like Jenny's origins in The Doctor's Daughter.

Poor Velile Tshabalala, despite her awesome name, is even more underused than Morrissey. While the idea of a black Victorian prostitute companion is super-awesome, as a character, Rosita practically defines the word "cipher". Please name for me one defining aspect of Rosita's personality. Well, okay, she's mouthy. And another? ...Yes? Come on... mmmmmm-hmm. That's about it. She's mouthy. (Or, as the production team like to describe her, "feisty"... ooh, original!) Does she get anything to do? Hardly! She's handy with an axe, and she helps lots of people run away from lots of things, and she follows both Doctors around and (astonishingly) does whatever they tell her to do, and she is indeed feisty (this we know because she talks back to the Doctor, and she slaps Miss Hartigan). Even her name is disappointingly dull (and misleadingly Latina). Is Rosita meant to be nothing more than a commentary on how boring the "ideal" companion would be? Because I see nothing but wasted potential.

When you get right down to it, Miss Hartigan is practically no better. By all accounts she has a fascinating backstory, but of course practically none of that actually makes it to the screen because it was too adult for the kiddies. We get a few snippets about her personality and background, but no real sense of what motivates her. Dervla Kirwan, bless her little cotton socks, manages to breathe life into Miss Hartigan through her sensual and snarky performance. I still wouldn't say that Miss Hartigan becomes anything more than a run-of-the-mill villain, but she's quite entertaining to watch, and Kirwan delivers a number of memorable lines: "Is it too exciting?", "Hark! I can hear them now.", and "A birth, and a death. Namely yours."

It's all the more disappointing because, on 29 October 2008 — just two months before the airing of this story — David Tennant announced that he wasn't going to be coming back as the Doctor for series 5, totally deflating what was left of my post-Journey's End buzz. (Why spare us a regeneration in one story only to pop the bubble a few months later?) So, there go all my hopes of keeping Tennant around for four to five years (I'm not counting this much-shortened gap year as a full series), much like Billie and Catherine dashed them before him. Will nobody stay in their role as long as I want? Hmmm? I think the possibility of the tenth Doctor ever meeting the Zygons just went up in smoke, too, which I find very disappointing. So already, I've begun the mourning process for this most fantastic of Doctors, and I think: if we only have five stories left, shouldn't we be making the very most of them? Why are we sticking poor David in this fluffy runaround? Granted, this story was in a rather unique position, playing off fan uncertainty about whether or not Tennant would be sticking with the role, particularly once it had been announced that he was leaving but before his successor had been named. But I still think the time could have been better-filled. Tennant does, as always, give some great line deliveries: "Really? Wow.", "Okay, this is really your last warni— okay, I give up.", and "Can I say I completely disapprove!"

Of the other characters, the only one who makes much of an impression is balloon-tender Jed, played by Neil McDermott, who only gets a small handful of scenes but manages to be likeable. Mr Scoones and Mr Cole, played by Edmund Kente and Michael Bertenshaw respectively, are quite good in the funeral scene, but they don't really get enough to do to be noteworthy.

Turning to music, I sadly found Murray Gold's score more intrusive than complementary, particularly during the opening scene as it bombasts happily along, but there were some nice moments as well, so I wouldn't really call it a liability. Much like the story as a whole, I'm neutral-with-a-bent-toward-negative about it. I'm pleased with Andy Goddard's direction, though, perhaps the only thing in the story that I'm unreservedly in love with. (Well, David Tennant too, of course, it's just that this story isn't worthy of him. Ouch, that sounded harsh.) He's a master of the overhead shot (Rosita yelling "You idiots!", and the men fleeing the graveyard, to give two notable examples). I sure I'm probably exaggerating, but it seems to me that the scenes of Miss Hartigan in her crimson dress sashaying through the very black-and-white backdrop of a snowy funeral are some of the most striking ever filmed in Doctor Who. (And, if you look closely, the seams of her dress echo the Cyber-stomachs nicely!)

Not a ton of effects to discuss in this story, mostly three. First: why do Miss Hartigan's eyes turn black when she's converted into the CyberKing? Surely silver or electric blue would have been a lot more appropriate. Second: why on earth did they decide to represent Miss Hartigan's destruction (and that of the Cybermen) by having them pop like Cassandra? And then wisp away into nothingness? Puh-leeze. Third: love the effect of the dimension vault, very nicely done.

I could forgive a lot if this story had at least had a really good Christmas theme layered throughout the plot. But here, aside from that one great establishing shot of the Christmas market in the snow, with the blazing fires, the children (why do I automatically assume they're all orphans?), the chestnuts, and the carolers, there's not a lot of Christmas otherwise. We get a couple of mentions that it's Christmas Day, and there's a slight theme of (re?)birth toward the end, but that's all. I think even The Christmas Invasion had more Christmas spirit.

When the highlight of a story is footage of other stories (but oh, what a joy it is to see all ten Doctors represented), something must surely have gone wrong.

Minor points:

So I think this one could've used another few drafts... give Morrissey and Tshabalala more to do, and ramp up the plot from "generic set-pieces" to something more emotional and engaging. The only consolation I get from Tennant's imminent departure is the fact that at least we'll get to enjoy the start of the Moffat era, and after The Next Doctor, I start to think that it can't come soon enough.

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