[Image: very characteristic pose for the 2007 Christmas Special. Melancholy Time Lord, on his own, enters lonely home, whilst recalling depressing events of year gone by and desperately missing and moping over lost companions. Oh, bugger off, this makes me too depressed. Me wants happy sci-fi, and me wants it NOW! Also, David - as seen pictured here - deserves so much more and so much better. Copyright david-tennant.com, slightly PhotoShopped by yours truly, all rights reserved and personalized. David T. belongs to the fans and the Beeb, as do his heroic persona.]
Just a briefing. Reactions. Feedback, inspirations, mood, shaking it off-stuff. Back for more later. But for now: I don't really know what to say about "Voyage of the Damned". Finished wathing it about three seconds ago, and the first thing I did was run over to the boards to read more responses to the piece. Since, in all honesty, I have no defined opinion to voice. It was all very flimsy and inconsistent and speedy, but also quite epic and magnificently filmed, at times, the special effects were marvellous, the costumes were cool, the cinematography were customarily stylish, but all in all - and really, the big picture, the main impression; that's what counts - it wasn't very good. And I'd been looking forward to this for such a long time, the anticipation was unbelievably oversized, and at the moment I am indeed slightly disappointed. Or, no, I am actually enormously disappointed, sad and angry. Because there was nothing grand about it, and that's just what we'd been expecting, and what we've been given the last couple of years. This was, in addition, promoted as the biggest, most dramatic, most exciting Special to date, with the most advanced technology, but it completely missed out when it comes to distinction. Eccentricity, charm, fun, what the others had so much of. I was counting on the Who Team's ability to say in-continuity, to follow up the magnificent storylines of Series 3, to give us a touch of the proper Doctor Magic and in that respect this was a total failure. I am left with a feeling of emptiness, of insignificanct events and pointless exploisons. And I'm embarassed. Cos this was below the standards, in every possible sense. "Titanic" is a giant big ship (unfortunate name, by the way, would you imagine?) drifting about in space, first crashing into the TARDIS, then getting hit by meteors, then falling to Earth. Basic synopsis: big tragedy must be avoided at all costs. Biiig-bara-boom's inbetween. Who can rescue men and mice, if not The Doctor? Well, not this on this occasion. Not quite. Some points of critique, in short: first, way too much action packed into one little piece of TV making. The proportions were constantly off the scale; as though they'd tried too hard and then just given up, when nearing the end. When the credits rolled, and I tried summing up what I'd been witnessing, I hadn't got a clue. The Episode was halting along like a train off course, with a non-existing story outline and inexplainable incidents. Not to mention the the very surprising lack of nifty dialogue. I counted three memorable lines. Highly unusual for "Doctor Who", and most tragic for a writer like Russel T. Davies who used to be magnificent. Still is, from time to time. But this was a step in the wrong direction. DW scripts need polishing, ingenius twists and turns, heart-warming conversations, pompous monologues. Here, we got panic-ridden one-liners and inappropriate mentionings of Gallifrey. Bah. Loved The Doctor's comment on the "unlucky suit", though, but mostly because of the ironic detail of how this and "The Lazarus Experiment" both are episodes in which he wore that particular garnment, and how they both suffer the same writing malfunctions. Didn't hate either, but that doesn't justify the major flaw. Moreover, really bad acting overall. Too little screen time for each character and thus, the lousiness was probably due to inability to give believable performances. I mean, the material they were offered was limited to say the least. Scared faces, crying faces, hysteric faces, robot faces. Kylie Minogue had it all, and simultaneously, she was missing everything. Pulled it off very badly. She's a great singer, but she didn't show any particular acting skills, so unfortunately my sum of fears came true. I'd hoped she would be wonderful, instead she was a flat and uninteresting waitress whom The Doctor apparently came to fancy, which is something that I - again - have real trouble understanding, seeing that this Astrid Perth is probably the dullest person ever to have been on the show. Pretty, yes, but not someone I could have imagined travelling with our hero. (And her name was not explained as to have anything to do with the Blue Box, nope, sorry.) I certainly didn't mourn her death, despite the heroic deed that lead to it. Pity is, I think Kylie made an effort, but someone screwed up her chances. Not very difficult guess, who that was. Her interaction with The Doctor didn't work, despite Kylie and David's obvious chemistry, since the dialogue was out of place and the scenes were so incoherently put together, I wanted to weep. The rest of the gang, accidentally saved by The Doc and then following his tail, was equally annoying. Crazy couple in blue shirts, arrogant stock market speculator, old man with strange and somewhat deluded ideas about Earthly traditions. Whoa. Spikey dude with the red painted head was too silly to be worthy of mentioning. Whereas the new Angels, the Host, were a group of pathetic villains in pathetic costumes with pathetic agenda; aaargh; making them, in a way, the biggest disappointment of all. When they carried The Doctor off the bridge and started flying up towards the roof, like some ridiculed Christmas Carol, I buried my head in my hands, unable to watch. What's with the religious fuss, eh? What's with the flying Doctor? I seriously don't like this tendency! On top of this, literally, you had the depressing themes, unfathomable loads of deaths, people being butchered carelessly throughout; no breaks, no logic; confusing plot, stupid gags, even the extras messed up, and - most irritating thing ever - the constant running! All they did was run around - for no reason whatsoever! The were screaming, and shouting, and talking on intercom's; then teleporting, then killing, then getting killed, and suddenly The Doc was left all on his own again. Boohoo. He looked rather frustrated with the whole situation, and I don't blame him one bit. David did a superb job, as usual, but he couldn't save this. No-one could. Come to think of it, everything was simply out of order. Just didn't function. Sank like the ship; like a stone; just impossible to put my finger on what was wrong with it; I can't say it totally sucked, but it had no style; I do think that's the main problem. It did in no sense resemble the classic "Doctor Who", the show at its best, the way we've grown used to seeing it. And I love "Doctor Who", like that, and espcecially because I love it so very much, I am terribly let down by this Disaster Special - but similarly, I am sincerely waiting to be surprised again, in a very different manner, with the upcoming series that has got to be better. I need a comeback with a bang. A well-written, well-composed, well-enacted, well-syncronised, well-ordered bang, that is. And no Kylie. Please? I can't wait to see Catherine Tate spice things up, and I can't wait for Billie's return, and oh, they'd better not ruin this. They didn't ruin my Christmas, I love David Tennant too much to ever let them, but they surely made me a bit mad. For last, but most importantly - my dear Doctor, you are so very wrong about one thing. So very, very, very wrong. You might say your Christmas'es are always like this (see title of this post), you might claim to be habitual about it, sticking to the great traditions, but that's not true. Your Christmas'es can be utterly brilliant as well; they can be invasions of the Sycorax, swordfighting alongside Rose Tyler, revitalization through tea and sinister Prime Minsiters. Nothing (yet) beats "The Christmas Invasion" when it comes to really GREAT Christmas Specials. You bet I miss Rose, more and more. The 2007 Special was a shell of glittering polish with blunt, daft contents. Series 1 and 2 can't even be considered in comparison, and I do pray it's not a continuing drop of quality we're spotting here. Preview for Series 4 was awesome, admittedly, but judging from our experience with trailers, with regard to "Voyage of the Damned", maybe that's not a good sign after all? Fact is, in this case, they should have stopped with the trailer. The "VotD" trailer was excellent, very promising, would've done nicely. The episode in itself, on the other hand, was a different case altogether. Ok, it wasn't down right poor; for my conclusion I have to say, it did have its brighter moments, but it certainly didn't live up to my hopes and expectations either. Rounding off with a drop of positivity: David is the best, The Mill still knows how to make computer animated machines look fantastic, Murray Gold creates living magic, Kylie Minougue has nicey boots. Fingers crossed, this was a one-off tale of lacking inspiration and that we'll have the best show in the Universe back to its normal heights in just a short while.
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