Doctor Who Thread III: Reverse the Polarity of the Neutron Flow

[Dr. Simon]

Also, I don't see why Fear Her is so hated. Love and Monsters, I get. Black Spot, I get. Boom Town, I get. Narnia, I get Colin Baker, I get. Every Season Finale ever, I get. What's wrong with Fear Her, It had no specific special effect fails or plot holes, it was scary, there weren't any mary sues or character de-railment. What was wrong?

For me, a mix of reasons.

1) There's nothing wrong, in itself, of the concept of drawing that come to life (and/or turning life into drawings) - see the 1988 film Picturehouse for a better (and creepier) interpretation - but I think it stretches even the dodgy pseudoscience of Doctor Who too far into pure fantasy.

2) Too many concepts squeezed into one story. Lonely alien joins with lonely child (see ET), helps her collect "playmates" - nothing wrong with this idea. This is then coupled to the drawings come to life/life turns to drawings idea (which is it? One or other would have been better, not both). This is also then coupled to the "scary father" idea (again, see Paperhouse) which is given short shrift and doesn't really go anywhere except to provide a sudden burst of suspense at the end. The whole concept is revisited in Night Terrors, which is still less than satisfactory but maybe done a little better.

3) All of those elements could have worked with more careful story construction, but the bit that really made my teeth hurt was the Olympic torch sequence, too much of the "Cult of the Doctor" that grew up around Ten. What next, How the Doctor Saved Christmas? (Well, okay, maybe we do get that one many times....)

@Simon: One could say that Fathers Day and Family of Blood (not it's brother though) are cheapened due to their similarity with each other (namely, a siege dominating most of it, probably working better without a monster (as per Father's Days initial intention), Same Writer and a character procrasinating over an action which will save the day at the cost of his life (which makes the whole thing tedious as he is putting the world at risk and we know he will do it). What do you think?

I wouldn't say that a superficial similarity like that necessarily "cheapens" the stories. A Monster Siege has been a staple Who storyline since the days of the Second Doctor (e.g. The Abominable Snowmen, The Moonbase, The Web of Fear, Fury From the Deep, The Ark in Space, The Seeds of Doom, The Robots of Doom, Horror at Fang Rock), and pretty much all Who stories are treading water until the Doctor comes up with a solution.

Because we know that the Doctor will pull through in the end, a seige story shouldn't make this the focus. Individual moments of suspense are fine - I mean, all Bond films work this way - but what, for me, makes a Doctor Who story memorable are the character moments, be they light and humourous or deep and inciteful, or preferably both.

So Father's Day and Family of Blood differ because they are about different things. Father's Day explores an aspect of time travel paradox not often (if ever, I think) addressed on the show, and it examines Rose's relationship with her father. What happens when someone you think of as a hero turns out to be just an ordinary bloke with a line in failed businesses? And the problem isn't solved by the Doctor with some fancy technobabble but by Pete's sacrifice (and redemption?). By removing the Doctor as the source of the solution, the story removes the inevitability common to such stories. And it turns that concept further on its head. The Doctor is doing all he can to find an answer that he knows probably won't work, purely to save Rose the pain of losing her father again - he knows Pete's death is the only way to solve the paradox. This in turn not only demonstrates the Doctor's compassionate side but viewers who have been paying attention will know that Nine knows what it is like to lose family (Time War?) and also that he is "adventuring" to hide the hurt that comes from caring.

Family of Blood, on the other hand, not only gives the Doctor the dilemma of choosing an "ordinary life" with a woman he loves, or to save everyone and return to his troubled, lonely, dangerous old life but it provides some beautiful period details and (again) an examination of the nature of heroism. Most of the characters are well-drawn and three-dimensional; the Headmaster for example comes across as a pompous and rule-bound man but he is also an old soldier, and brave (if foolish) to the last. Two conversations sum up the attitudes of the story to me - Baines (as Brother-of-Mine) asking the Headmaster if the boys will thank him for turning them into soldiers, given what is in store for them in the trenches of the Great War, and Jessica Hynes' character's disbelief that Martha (as a woman and as a woman-of-colour) could have medical knowledge. The Family of Blood are almost incidental under the weight of all this, but they provide a great mirror for the attitudes and prejudices of the human characters. Which is what the monster in a truly good Who story should do.

Which is all to say that, no, I don't think it cheapens either story because what you describe is really the barest bones upon which the rest is hung.

Regarding "Good as Gold", by the way, check out the winning entries in the "500 Words" competition by contrast, particularly the winner of the Under-9s category. That's written by a 7 year old! It's on-topic because it's read by Catherine Tate.