TV Review: DOCTOR WHO

This article was originally published in The Courier on 13th October 2018.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

DOCTOR WHO: Sunday, BBC One

“Half an hour ago I was a white-haired Scotsman.”

And there it was. Just one brief, throwaway line to acknowledge that the 13^th Doctor is a woman. After months of hoopla - and tedious whining from some quarters - surrounding the introduction of Jodie Whittaker as the first female incarnation of the Time Lord, the latest series of DOCTOR WHO just got on with things. A smart move.

Drawing overt attention to the Doctor’s gender change would’ve reduced it to a self-conscious novelty as opposed to an entirely natural development. It would’ve undermined the integrity of Whittaker’s performance. She is the Doctor and that’s that.

So what’s 13 like? At heart(s), of course, she’s essentially like all the others: brave, eccentric, inquisitive. What Whittaker brings to the role are flashes of contagious childlike wonder, breathless energy, quiet compassion and smart comic timing. Her expressive face runs the gamut from goofiness to gravitas. She’s charming, funny and thoroughly commanding: everything you could want from a Doctor.

I personally never had any doubts about that, as Whittaker is a fine actor. She was always going to nail the part. My main concern with this new series is the arrival of Chris Chibnall as showrunner.

The brains behind Broadchurch and the wildly uneven Who spin-off Torchwood has five previous Doctor Who episodes to his name, the best of which were little more than adequate. His writing lacks the flair and ingenuity of his predecessors Steven Moffat and Russell T. Davies. 

However, after watching this rather elegantly plotted episode - demonstrably his best effort so far - I began to think that maybe Chibnall’s relatively straightforward approach might be just what Doctor Who needs right now. As much as I admire Moffat for the most part, his cerebral style of continuity-heavy storytelling alienated some viewers. My usual response to that would be ‘their loss’, but I’d like to see Doctor Who become a national talking point again.

More than anything, of course, I want it to be good, but I get the impression that Chibnall and his team know what they’re doing. Doctor Who has always thrived on change while feeding off successful elements from its past, and I welcome the decision to reboot the show as an accessible piece of blockbuster family entertainment unburdened by prolonged story arcs.

The plot of this first episode – a satisfyingly dark affair involving a Predator-style alien hunting on Earth – was merely a framework to support Whittaker's debut while establishing a brand new era. Chibnall has stated that he wanted the episode to function as a jumping-on point for new viewers while assuring die-hards that it's the same old show they know and love. In that regard, it was an unqualified success.

Whittaker is an engaging Doctor, her new companions - sorry, 'friends' - seem promising, and the production team appear to have a distinct vision for the show. Doctor Who always looked great during Moffat's tenure, but Chibnall's first episode established a new aesthetic. Set mostly at night on the mean streets of Sheffield, it was steeped in Nordic Noir-esque atmosphere. The cinematography, direction, visual effects and sparingly used score were very impressive.

It wasn't perfect - Chibnall's dialogue is occasionally quite clunky and rote - but overall this new era of Doctor Who feels confident and energised, a show reborn. The future looks rather bright.

TV Review: COLLATERAL + TRAUMA

This article was originally published in The Courier on 17th February 2018.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

COLLATERAL: Monday, BBC Two

TRAUMA: Monday to Wednesday, STV

It’s typical. You wait ages for one homicide-themed drama starring John Simm, then two come along at once. Now that we’ve got that obvious zinger out of the way, let’s turn our attentions to the four – count ‘em - hours of Simm we were treated to last week.

Fans of this always watchable actor were spoiled for choice on Monday when he cropped up in both COLLATERAL and TRAUMA, written respectively by veteran playwright David Hare and Mike Bartlett of Doctor Foster renown.

Simm isn’t the star of Collateral, he’s part of an impressive ensemble including Carey Mulligan, Billie Piper and Nicola Walker. This is heavyweight territory.

Mulligan plays an inexplicably smug detective investigating the mysterious murder of a pizza delivery man. Piper was the last person to see him alive before he was shot on her doorstep. She’s also the ex-wife of a Labour MP (Simm). Walker, meanwhile, plays a gay vicar whose troubled migrant partner saw the murder take place.

The key question of course is: why would someone randomly assassinate a pizza delivery man? Well, they wouldn’t would they? The crime was premediated and carried out by a slick professional military officer. But why? The murdered man was an innocent Syrian refugee. The obvious conclusion is that he wasn’t the intended victim. And off we go.

Driven by Hare’s eminently sincere thoughts on illegal immigration and the way we treat vulnerable asylum seekers, Collateral is a sombre state-of-the-nation address disguised as a thriller. It’s sometimes rather earnest and clunky. You’d think that after all these years, Hare would’ve learned how to deliver exposition more smoothly.

By and large, however, his cast paper over the cracks. Piper, an underrated actor, is particularly compelling as a cynical character wreathed in ambiguity.

Where it goes from here is anyone’s guess, but episode one established a fair amount of intrigue. Its slow-burning momentum and overt political subtext are quite effective, but I have a nagging feeling that Hare’s lofty ambitions are in excess of his reach. We’ll see.

While one can’t argue with the calibre of Collateral’s cast, you should never trust the judgement of talented actors when it comes to choosing material. God only knows why John Simm and Adrian Lester hitched their collective star power to TRAUMA, a melodramatic maelstrom of utter tosh which never convinced for a moment.

Simm played the father of a teenage boy who was stabbed and killed for no discernible reason. Lester played the surgeon who couldn’t save the boy’s life. Simm somehow managed to barge into the operating theatre at the moment of his son’s death, and immediately blamed Dr Lester for failing to do everything he could.

He became obsessed with proving that Lester wasn’t fit for purpose. His stalking campaign even stretched to finding work in the hospital’s coffee shop. That was the point where I gave up on the possibility of Trauma being based in any kind of plausible reality. It was laughable.

Simm did his best, but his relentlessly angry, unbalanced character came across as a strident mouthpiece rather than a three-dimensional human being. His vendetta never rang true. I had similar misgivings about the equally contrived and unlikely Doctor Foster, which suggests that Bartlett isn’t a writer unduly troubled by notions of dramatic authenticity.

Suspension of disbelief is one thing, but expecting us to go along with a total absence of logic is quite another.

This was ostensibly a drama about the unimaginable trauma of losing a child, but the sensitive subject matter was fatally cheapened by Bartlett’s lack of subtlety.

ITV would no doubt argue that stripping Trauma over three consecutive nights was an attempt to create so-called event television, but I suspect it was more a case of getting it out of the way as swiftly and painlessly as possible.