Closing Time

Chapter The 100th, which will not celebrate meaningless milestones.

Plot: 
The Doctor decides to spend the precious last hours before his foreseen death at Lake Silencio with a bloke he once lodged with for a few days many years earlier. This is Craig Owens, who is having a crisis of confidence as a new Dad, looking after his baby son for the first time on his own. The Doctor can't help noticing odd things, like a few local disappearances and fluctuations in the power supply. Craig is later surprised to find the Doctor working in a local department store, which upon investigation contains a teleport to a Cyber-spaceship. After some scares, comic interludes and a tussle with a Cybermat, they both find themselves trapped on the ship. The Cybermen start to convert Craig, but the sound of his baby crying helps him resist the process, and the resultant emotional feedback destroys the Cybermen and their ship. A little bit more confident that he's going to manage being a Dad, Craig says goodbye to the Doctor. The Doctor, stetson on and blue notepaper in hand, goes off into his destiny. Somewhere else, River Song is kidnapped by the Silence, forced into a spacesuit, and dropped in a lake (one might think it's a bit unrealistic to be a credible assassination plan, but then one reads the news about Russians in Salisbury and it doesn't seem quite so far fetched).

Context:

Murky evening pic of store

In a very small example of the kind of cosmic coincidences that the Doctor waxes lyrical about in one nice moment during Closing Time, I had to go to Cardiff for day job stuff at the same time a story was settled upon by the randomiser that was not only filmed in that city, but also which had a really easy location to find: the exterior of the department store. I was relieved that I didn't have to explain to either of the two colleagues who accompanied me why I had to go to some back street to take photos before we could have dinner. In fact, after we'd had something to eat and drink, we were walking back to the hotel and literally stumbled across Sanderson and Grainger (Howells / House of Fraser, in real life).

Easier to see shot from next morning

I took the episode with me on my phone to watch in the hotel room - the BBC iplayer app still has every episode from 2005 available in the UK to download for a little while longer. Apart from that, and a bit of work obviously, the trip was a whistle-stop affair - up, one night in a hotel, half a day in the office, then home - so there was no time to go out of the centre to Cardiff Bay. But I'm sure there will be a next time (and I'll keep my fingers crossed for Boom Town or The Last of the Time Lords that I can take with me to watch on that particular trip).

First-time round:
I don't have clear memories of many of the Matt Smith episodes; the only thing I recall clearly about  first seeing this story (at the time of its first BBC broadcast in 2011) was that an online Doctor Who forum that I frequented at the time was down, because of some server problem or other. During this period, I was still habitually rushing straight on to the internet after a story was transmitted to see what everyone else thought of it. For the sake of my mental fitness, I don't do this anymore. At the time - with that site unavailable - I had to go cold turkey. When the site was was back up a couple of weeks later, I was very surprised to find most people had despised Closing Time and loved The Wedding of River Song. For me, it was indubitably the other way round.

Reaction

As well as being the sequel to 2010's previous Matt Smith and James Corden story The Lodger, Closing Time is also the middle part of a loosely connected set of stories by writer Gareth Roberts where the Doctor gets himself an ordinary job (with The Caretaker completing the trilogy in 2014). I love this type of story. The intertwining of the domestic with the fantastic always appeals, and is one of Doctor Who's celebrated story generating engines. As I said above, though, a lot of people reacted badly to this story when it was first shown, with comments that it was an 'insulting misuse of the Cybermen'. Seriously. Probably they also moaned about Doctor Who 'becoming a soap'. I can't understand this attitude: from the very beginning, the show had characters in it worrying about their cardie or their tie, even at moments of high adventure. It's part of the fun to bring things down to Earth occasionally. More than fun, it's essential: without grounding in real life, Doctor Who stories can float off into a rarefied geeky atmosphere which depletes its appeal.

Perhaps this story is caught in a triangulation of fire: from one direction, the haters of Who domestique are gunning for it; from another, those that are allergic to jokes in their sci-fi are having a pop; and, finally, there are the missiles coming from the corner where reside the James Corden Un-Appreciation Society. Yes, even before he became famous in America and kissed Sean Spicer, he was a divisive figure. Personally, I've always been tickled by the kind of stuff he delivers in The Lodger and Closing Time. Other material of his I'm not so comfortable with, so I do sort of get it, but I can't say I didn't laugh and smile at all the right moments during the story's 45 minutes - both this time and the first time. It helps that Matt Smith and Corden are old thespian muckers, and have great chemistry, much better than Smith achieved with any of his companions.  I suspect I'm alone in this, but I'd have loved Craig to join the TARDIS crew as a regular the following year in the style of Catherine Tate or Matt Lucas's characters.

There's not much else to say, I don't think. It's a slight story, yes, but nonetheless a pleasant confection. The location is different enough to be interesting. There's some nice moments of slow anticipatory dread as an innocent wanders around, before a well shot and lit Cyberman crashes blank-faced into frame and gets 'em. All the performances are seemingly effortless in their comic charm (which usually takes a lot of effort). Lynda Baron particularly gives a lot of value add in her extended cameo. The other cameo, from Amy and Rory, is also handled well and doesn't become sentimental. In fact, the story excels in those less showy moments of a rueful Doctor on his way to face his fears, and Craig's picking up on something that's wrong with his friend. The only blemish for me would be when the season's arc plot kicks in at the end. Space suits and Space men in suits are just not as interesting as the world of Colchester, and Craig and Sophie and Alfie, and Don Petheridge snogging Andrea Groom outside the Conservative Club on his so-called day off golfing.

Connectivity:

Both stories have famous A-list Doctor Who baddies (the Cybermen, and the Kandyman - OK, I may be joshing about the second on that list). Both have scenes of the bad guys being defeated by emotion. In both, there are moments of redecoration: the TARDIS is painted and repainted in The Happiness Patrol, Craig and Sophie's flat needs a lot of work done after the Cybermat battle.

Deeper Thoughts:
(You gotta have) friends, to make the day last long. Doctor Who hasn't often dwelt on friendships. In the 20th Century episodes, it was mostly - wonderfully - underplayed (cf. the Doctor's little speech to Vicki after Ian and Barbara have returned to London, 1965, or Sarah-Jane's farewell in The Hand of Fear). In the episodes since 2005, a decision was made by showrunner of the time Russell T Davies, which has been followed more or less since, that being a companion is special - not everyone need apply.  To a certain extent this undermines the ordinariness of the friendship, and makes it either implicitly or explicitly (Rose's love, Martha's unrequited love) heightened. The rare occasions where the new series episodes have dwelt on friendship - definitely Closing Time, but also Love and Monsters, a very interesting take on shifts in group dynamics, and maybe a couple of others - it's always seemed divisive. I love these stories, but some people really would rather Cybermen were just zooming around blowing things up in shiny spaceships , and never have to hear about anyone's challenges with parenthood, or their mortgage, or having to meet their kid sister outside the Chinese Takeaway.

It's a shame: friendship is an essential part of life, and avoiding it in fiction would just cut one off from a wide scope of interesting stories. I've been thinking of this a bit recently, as I've had a few occasions in the last few weeks where I've caught up with groups of old friends after not having seen them for too long. As well as spending some time in Cardiff with some new friends, as related above, I met up with some colleagues I worked with a year ago, and a group of friends who I've known for twenty-odd years. In all instances, the conversations started up immediately where they'd left off.  (Some of that last group - friends who all met in Worthing growing up - occasionally frequent this blog, so I should do a proper shout out to: Rachel, Alex, David, Bez, Bec, Mark, Rebekah, Chris, Andy and Linnie; hope I haven't missed anyone out.) It's the only form of time travel available to me, but still wonderful: to be transported instantly back to the 1990s!

I'm intrigued that pre-publicity of the new series 11 of Doctor Who has consistently described Graham, Yaz and Ryan as friends not companions - the latter a term that the Doctor muses on to great comic effect in Closing Time. It's a change I like. I wonder whether this means a difference in stories as well as overall outlook. Not long to wait: we not only have a launch date of Sunday October 7th, but a time now too - it airs in the UK on BBC One at 6.45pm (1.45PM EST in the US). Exciting!

In Summary:

Don't shop around - comic, domestic Who is worth every penny.

The Happiness Patrol

Chapter The 99th, wherein happiness may not prevail...

Plot: 
The Doctor takes Ace to a planet he's heard nasty rumours about, Terra Alpha, a human colony in the future where sadness is outlawed and everybody has to smile all the time. People get killed or  disappear at random by government order, and capitalism - or maybe communism - is represented by metaphors about sweets. The TARDIS team find quite a few allies (a bit too many, and too quickly given it's only three episodes long and set over the course of one evening, but there you go). Together they foment rebellion again the despot ruler Helen A, and her hench-robot made of sweets, the Kandyman. She's overthrown and finally cries over the death of her pet puppet dog-rat, Fifi.

Context:

I had high hopes for this one; it's popular with most fans of the Sylvester McCoy Doctor Whos, and - perhaps because of some of the over-stylised visuals, or the prominent satire - is well remembered by the casual viewers of the time as well: it's the only Doctor Who story to my knowledge to be mentioned, more than twenty years after broadcast, separately on Newsnight and in a speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It's fine as a memory, but how would it work to actually sit down and watch the episodes? I asked the Better Half to watch with me, and she was cautiously optimistic as I started up the DVD. McCoy was her childhood Doctor, and Ace her favourite companion. What could go wrong? Alas, dear reader, she bailed after one episode, and I watched the other two without her. Sample comments, or at least the repeatable ones, as follows: "Look at the shiny studio floor", "Crud!", "Why are we watching this?!", "Is it supposed to be noir? Call the Midwife is more noir than this,", and "It's just so awful." If she'd stayed the course, she may have found the final two episodes better - I definitely noticed an improvement. The kids joined me instead (daughter of 6 years old from episode 2, her brothers, aged 9 and 12, for the final part) and were not nearly so critical.

First-time round:
Why was home video-taping so difficult for some people in the 1980s? It can't have been just me, as there was a mini-industry of joke-telling on the subject involving stand-up comedians and sitcoms of the time. My memories of late 1980s Doctor Who are dotted with episodes that I tried to record but missed, or those where I only caught half, or those which I did record correctly but then accidentally got recorded over later because someone had rewound the tape a little. My first glimpse of The Happiness Patrol was shown on a Saturday morning kids show ('Going Live!' I assume) when Sylvester McCoy was being interviewed. I didn't - as many fans did - have a tape ready for such occasions to record these Who-related odds and sods - too inept to record things with no warning, you see.

I was out ward visiting, collecting dedications, on the evening of episode 1's broadcast, during my brief period as a Hospital Radio DJ; I remember catching a glimpse on a TV in a ward of the bit where Cy Town is drowning in a pipe of fondant. It was an intriguing excerpt, I suppose, but I wouldn't have wanted to extrapolate the whole story from just those few seconds; luckily, the recording did work. Episode 2, I watched as it was broadcast, but somehow failed to get onto tape even though I was sat in the same bloody room as the VCR. I remember reading reviews years later talking about how good was the scene between the Doctor and the two snipers, but I couldn't remember it at all. I was only over-familiar with the first and last parts. 

Reaction

The three-parter stories (two per year) were an interesting structural innovation of Sylvester McCoy's tenure in Doctor Who; faced with a reduced yearly episode count, the producer used a money stretching technique to give him four substantial serials: instead of doing a six episode story made up of a mix of studio and location work, they would do three episodes on location, and three in the studio, both as self-contained stories by different writers. It definitely got more bang for the buck; but did the stories themselves suffer? Before this point, it was rare to have a Doctor Who story with an odd number of episodes: 4s and 2s were common in the 1980s pre-Slyv, 4s and 6s before that; maybe there's a structural reason. For me, the 3-parters rarely work well. In The Happiness Patrol episode 1, for example, Ace gets angry that someone she's befriended has been killed; but she's literally exchanged four sentences with him over the course of a couple of minutes: the reaction is disproportionate, and therefore feels unearned and crudely melodramatic. Perhaps another episode of build up might have bedded in some relationships, and made this moment work better. Or perhaps it's just badly written and / or directed.

The Happiness Patrol suffers like most of the three-parters I've viewed for the blog previously (Silver Nemesis, for example, or Delta and the Bannermen) from too much going on - too many characters, too many subplots -  for any one of them to have resonance or depth. Why, when there's only three parts, was the trend to stuff in so much? What does Silas P contribute to the overall plot? Or Trevor Sigma? Or even the Kandyman, for that matter? It's a great idea for a villain, great costume, great performance, some great lines. But all of that fuel burns outside of an engine, because the character has nothing to do, and doesn't propel any part of the plot forward. He's also criminally introduced mid-episode, doing something non-threatening in a dull long shot, with no build up. This may not be wholly down to bad direction, as there were so many scenes deleted from the overrunning episodes; one of those could have been a better intro for the main villain (I couldn't muster enough enthusiasm to check the DVD). Still, they held back revealing the rubbish pipe people but not the Kandyman - they didn't have a clue what they had.

Talking of characters that don't propel the plot forward: what do the Doctor and Ace do in this story exactly? There are some little bits of business here and there, but mostly they just get captured, escape and get recaptured again. There's a big build up (including the episode 2 cliffhanger) about Ace's imminent gladiatorial turn in Happiness Patrol auditions, but then it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen! The Doctor meanwhile inspires a rebellion. Maybe. A bit. Does he, though? When exactly? We don't really see it on screen, except for an implausible bit where he persuades a Patrol squad that they can't shoot people who are smiling. Why don't they just go ahead and shoot them anyway? There are no witnesses, and the Patrol have been shown to be ruthless in previous scenes. Perhaps there are witnesses - it takes place in the forum, which we've been told it is mandatory for the populace to attend, but there's nobody in the audience (unless they were supposed to be quietly off-screen)? In the end, the dictatorship falls as it just must have been its time to do so, and all those factory workers and guards rebel on their own with no help from our heroes. It's hardly satisfying.

Sheila Hancock's barnstorming performance as Helen A, a caricature of then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, is rightly praised, but - the nice analogy about sweets as emblems of unfettered capitalism, and the miner's strike parallels, notwithstanding - Helen A's regime isn't like Thatcher's; and, though their soundbites are very similar, she doesn't act much like Thatcher either.  The disappearances are more like Pinochet, the factories are reminiscent of Stalin's 5-year plans. Lack of focus blunts the satire. But then there's the final scene, with the Doctor confronting Helen A, and her breaking down into tears, with a crane shot pulling up just a little, the music swelling, and it all comes together, and one feels like forgiving the many sins. There are a few other moments that are similarly wonderful amongst the mess: Gilbert M and the Kandyman squabbling, the scene with the Doctor and the snipers, of course; plus, the music is outstanding - one of the best scores of the 1980s, composed by Dominic Glynn. It wouldn't normally be enough to save it, but it's just such a great concept that it doesn't seem to need to be a great narrative. No Archbishop of Canterbury is ever going to write a sermon about Silver Nemesis, after all. (Though I have to say, if one did, I would want to hear it!) 

Connectivity:

Both this story and the last have an underlying theme about shallow things being used to placate the masses, and both take this to the extreme of depicting thematic killings by mechanised creatures: death by sweets in The Happiness Patrol, death by game shows in Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways.

Deeper Thoughts:
The Politics of Dancing (around the schedules). The Happiness Patrol's satirical focus could easily be a prompt for me to go off on one in the Deeper Thoughts section about UK politics again, but all of Doctor Who is political. Everything is political. Moving a popular TV show that's been shown on the same night of the week for more than a decade is, in some small way, a political act. Yes: Doctor Who's 11th series since it returned in 2005, Jodie Whittaker's first run, is not going to be a Saturday night adventure, but a Sunday night drama. It's been over a week since the announcement of this (which also confirmed that the series starts on Sunday 7th October) and I'm still processing it. There were presumably howls of outrage from some quarters of online fandom about it, but - and this is becoming a regular pattern - I've not seen any signs of negativity. Maybe we're all getting more mature; or, maybe the usual suspects are all outraged out, having already exploded in recent times about the Doctor being female and the Doctor Who Magazine Time Team being too young.

How do I feel about it? Slightly, just slightly, mentally dislocated. It is another bit of evidence to add to the accumulated weight that suggests that the new production team is making a hell of effort to do things differently, and make this a true relaunch: new Doctor, new gender, new number and length of episodes, new showrunner, all new commissioned writers, all new directors, new house composer, new logo, etc. etc. Now, a new day of the week to view it on. There is no precedent for a new series of Who to change so many things from the previous year, all in one go. When Steven Moffat took over in 2010, a lot of things changed, but the music and some of the writers at least provided continuity. And it was still on Saturday. Going back further, the closest analogue might be when John Nathan Turner took over, and revamped almost everything. It was still on Saturday, though, but it moved from that traditional slot the following year. To be presented with something so unprecedented now is refreshing, but ever so slightly scary.

Why scary? Well, that move in 1982, from the traditional Saturday slot where Doctor Who had resided for eighteen years to two early evening weeknight slots per week, is seen by some as the point where it all started to go wrong, the beginning of the end. After that, Doctor Who bounced around the schedules without a proper home: different weeknights for a couple of years, back to Saturday for a couple more, then finally the last death rattle before cancellation when the show was back on weeknights but opposite ITV's highest-rating programme at the time, Coronation Street. It was as if the schedulers didn't know what to do with it, couldn't understand why people were watching, and were a little bit ashamed of the show.

Any comparison of that situation to what's happening now is probably ridiculous, but we don't like change, we long-term fans, and we worry still that any day now, the BBC could decide to just stop making the show. It's understandable, as the last four or five years the show was on in the 1980s, that's how it felt, that's how it was - every series could have been the last. It's not the only political shadow that fell during the 1980s that is still potentially affecting my generation's feelings and behaviour now, it was a turbulent but never boring time to be young. The good news is I very much  doubt that's going to happen this year or any time soon: every little hint and glimpse we're being given - the latest being the wonderful 'glass ceiling' teaser - has been confident and successful. Roll on Sunday the 7th...

In Summary:

Conceptually, it makes me happy; but the actual story brings on mostly frowns.