Day 5107: DOCTOR WHO: Wizard vs Aliens vs Santa

Christmas Day flashback:


26th March 2015 makes it ten years to the day since Christopher Eccleston first took Billie Piper by the hand and, with one word– "Run!" –changed television for good. So in celebration of that first episode of the gloriously successful return, here's a look at the most recent…

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on…"

I normally count Christmas Specials as the first episode of the new season, but "Last Christmas", the point where the Doctor and Clara stop lying to each other and run away together, feels properly the conclusion to Season 34 (8).

As a necessary measure of reality, true information does pass between them: the Doctor admits that he did not find Gallifrey; Clara tells the Doctor that Danny is dead. So in a strange way, in spite of it "all being a dream", this is, in a sense "real".

"It was all a dream" or "it was all a story", and that that does not necessarily stop something being "real", are of course defining characteristics of Stephen Moffat's time on Doctor Who.

The eleventh Doctor survives the crack in his first season because Amy remembers his story back into existence; the Silence arc is mostly about things being written in stone because they are history and how to rewrite them; the 2012 stories are set in the shadow of the Doctor erasing his story; Clara the "impossible girl" is the ultimate retcon, reinserting herself into the whole of the Doctor's story; and Peter Capaldi's first year has dwelt extensively on the danger of the story in the form of the lie.

This makes Santa only the most-cuddly of Moffat's self-insertions into his own writing, explicitly telling us that he is a dream; more than that, a dream that is trying to help.

Santa having an existence in the Doctor Who universe (as written by Mr Moffat) has indeed been alluded to before: the eleventh Doctor claimed to know him as Jeff in "A Christmas Carol"; while Rose asks the ninth if he thinks he is Santa in "The Doctor Dances" – "who says I'm not? Red bicycle when you were twelve," he replies, quoting "Miracle on 34th St" though Rose is perplexed enough that he may have genuinely delivered that red bike to her, too.

And the idea that the Doctor might be Santa does not entirely go away here. Since he first appeared to the Doctor alone, at the end of "Dark Water", you can infer that this "story" of Santa is a little corner of the Doctor's psyche that finds strength and resonance in the shared dream with first Clara and then the other victims of the deliciously creepy Dream Crabs, making him something a little bit more than the Dream Lord and a little bit less than the Valeyard – a distillation of all that is Christmas somewhere between the Doctor's twelfth and final incarnation. (sorry!)

This means, of course, that Nick Frost is playing the Doctor here, applying his usual "bumbling Nick Frost" persona with a salting of asperity, giving his Santa a grumpiness and fake bonhomie, to make it a not-quite-but-almost-reflection of Capaldi, which certainly fits the fact that they rub each other up the wrong way (he always does). As always, there's a lot of humour to be found in different aspects of the Doctor trying to score points of each other ("No one likes the tangerines", "bigger on the inside", "No, I do the science bit", "Dreamy-weamy"). Terrifying to think what the elves mean for the Doctor's view of his companions, though.

"…and our little life is rounded with a sleep."

But if Santa is not ever real, then how many of the other people in this story were really there? Do we accept at face value the Doctor's explanation that it was a shared dream? Does that not raise rather more questions – in terms of how the Dream Crabs arrived on Earth; why they picked the small number of people they attacked; why only those people – or are the rest of us supposed to be still trapped (which will make Fiona's Christmas dinner "uncomfortable" to say the least); are there more Dream Crabs (a whole invasion force, as is implied)? Or is it possible that Ashley, Fiona, Shona and Albert, the "Professor" with the suspiciously-familiar face, were all dream-aspects of the Doctor too?

The charismatic competent leader, the science-genius mother-figure, the gobby shop-girl who's smarter than she appears… don't they all sound just a bit like generic companion descriptions? While the nasty "Professor" who is the butt of the Doctor's scorn… would anyone like to hazard that he's not a reverse-Dream Lord, with the Doctor dishing out the self-hating instead of receiving it? Makes for a whole new take on death-of-the-self when he's swallowed by his own image. (And a Troughton interacting with a television screen is itself an in-series flashback to the second Doctor era.)

We see them wake up… but we see Clara wake up, too and that turns out to be a dream…

And what about the Dream Crabs? The fact that they look like Face-huggers doesn't just get a lantern hung upon it, it gets a 1000 Watt spotlight trained on it and gives us the best gag in the show ("No wonder you keep getting invaded!"). So do Face-huggers look like Dream Crabs because Giger was once a victim too, or do Dream Crabs look like Face-huggers because the Doctor (in his real reality) has seen "Alien" and is still pissed about it?

It's not completely impossible that all of this takes place in the TARDIS, inside the Doctor's head, in the minutes (seconds?) after the end of "Dark Water": everything from the moment Santa first appears, Dream Crabs included, being a Doctor-generated dream. He did open up the telepathic circuits again earlier in that story so that Clara could lead them to wherever, if anywhere, Danny was. And he did smash up the console (again) just before the end. There's no knowing what sort of state the old girl was in, and could easily have been cross-wiring the Doctor and Clara's brains (especially if his subconscious is trying to tell him that he cannot leave things that way).

And so what about Clara herself? Of all of them, she seems the most likely candidate to be in the Doctor's dreams – just as Danny Pink is (in a beautiful sequence) in hers. Well, we will have to come to the conclusion that aside from the Doctor she, and perhaps only she, is real. But it's a definite Descartes's second axiom moment ("cogito ergo sum" proves that "I" exist, but other people are real… because God's not a bastard.)

There is some rather clever direction going on, changing the lighting and tone to suit the different "depths" of the dream. Clara and Danny's dream Christmas is full of warmth and soft focus, and a lot of blurring of time – not just the jump-cuts allowing the intruding Doctor's thoughts to place chalkboards in her dream home, but the entire day vanishes in seconds. In short the artificiality is heavily emphasized so you cannot help but arrive at the Blackadder conclusion: "Baldrick? Who gave you permission to turn into an Alsatian?" (Oh, all right: "Oh god, it's a dream, isn't it? It's a bloody dream!")

But notice too, the way that all the scenes at the North Pole are filmed to be reminiscent of the movies – well "Aliens", specifically, from the creepy laboratories to Santa's "war movie" entrance to the bucket-loads of X-Files blue lighting – setting them apart from the more conventionally "TV" looking scenes on Clara's roof at the start (and for that matter inside her house at the end).

"If we shadows have offended; Think but this, and all is mended…"

Here, the clue of the tangerine on the windowsill, the last image of the episode, might suggest that it's all been a comforting dream in the mind of the dying Doctor, with the happy outcome that he gets a second chance with his friend.

So if you're one of those people who've lost the taste for the series – and it happens – then this is one of those rare moments when Doctor Who occasionally provides "jumping off points" (the opposite of "jumping on points" such as "An Unearthly Child", "Spearhead from Space" or – since we're celebrating it – "Rose"), places where the story can be said to have "ended". Places like: the conclusion of "The War Games", for example (and any stories you might imagine being made after that are in fact an illusion woven by the Time Lord guardians of their prison planet Shada where the Doctor is imprisoned); or "The Well-Mannered War" (Gareth Roberts' slightly-spiteful novel set at the end of Season 17, which ends with the Doctor and Romana leaving reality altogether before the John Nathan-Turner era can begin); or the end of "Survival", which sees the Doctor and Ace depart with work to do (with no messy modern-era New Who getting in the way).

This is one real flaw with the Moffat approach to storytelling: when story is treated as as important, as "real" as "reality", then it's never entirely clear where the dream or the story ends and the "real" events begin. If you're the sort of person for whom that matters, if you want your stories to be reportage (if of a fictional world), then this is going to become grating, an abdication by the writer to tell you what "really" happened.

But in our really real "real world", of course, the series hasn't been cancelled, indeed new production is already under way. So we know that the Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman will be returning to our screens in the Autumn (probably) for more episodes. So the meta-reality is telling us that in the story-reality, these events must properly finish as they appear to, with the Doctor and Clara escaping to adventures new.

That's sort of grating too – Moffat cannot, ultimately, pull off the (to pick a movie entirely at random) "Inception" trick of leaving you with an ambiguous ending, for the simple reason that he is making serial television. He might be able to keep us puzzling until September, but eventually the top has to topple over.

(Can't resist popping this in here: people say that the spinning top in "Inception" doesn't prove anything because it was never Leo DiCaprio's totem, it was his wife's. It doesn't matter whose totem it was; if the darn thing won't fall over, it definitely proves you're still in someone's dream!)

An interesting – at least to me – fact of semantics: adding an assertion of truth to a statement does not change that statement.

What I mean is:

"This is a dream"
"It is true that this is a dream."
"It is true that it is true that this is a dream."

All mean the same thing.

Moffat's hanging a lantern on the fictionality of his storytelling does much the same thing (or rather doesn't do). By repeatedly telling us that this is a story (within a story within a story) is he really adding anything (beyond circumlocution)?

"And this weak and idle theme; No more yielding but a dream."

But as a celebration of the telling of stories, and that stories – like Santa – can be "true" even when they are fiction, "Last Christmas" is a great success, unusually heart-warming for a Christmas horror story, and a much-needed antidote to the "year of lies", finally resolving Clara and the Doctor's position with some truth between them.

It is difficult to believe that Jenna Coleman ever thought of leaving because of working with Peter Capaldi, such is the quality of their chemistry here as always. She picks him up on his faults; he challenges her to better herself. (Shame Clara still thinks punching him is an acceptable chastisement, though.)

Coleman is touching throughout, emphasising the smug and controlling Clara when in the Danny dream, fading to self-effacingly good in the "old" make-up. (Many people thought the reverse of the Christmas cracker touching; I thought it slightly undermined the better moment with the eleventh Doctor – for me it was all about the companion doing something for the Doctor.) Again there is good direction for the "Doctor's eye view" where he genuinely still sees her the same, unchanged by the years (or perhaps just insufficiently changed by a human lifespan compared to his millenniums).

The guest cast are all outstanding too. Even the reindeer. It's always good to see a Troughton back on the show. Dan Starkey makes a great elf, and Nathan McMullan makes a hot one. And especial kudos to Faye Marsay as the loveable Shona. If she does turn out to be real after all, I'm with the many who would see her as a potential companion.

Even aside from the clever visuals, which I've already admired, the pacing of the story is very well handled – possibly the sleigh ride goes on a little bit too long – as usual, showing that Moffat can fill up the longer form story better than when keeping to forty-five minutes. There's a profusion of set pieces – the crashed sleigh on Clara's roof; all the pastiche Face-hugger attacks; Santa's rescue, a literal army of toy soldiers; the dream-within-a-dream of Danny; and so on, through to the old-Clara fake-out – and they all come off. I'm reminded of, say, "The Runaway Bride" or "Voyage of the Damned" where the one big set piece (the TARDIS/taxi chase or the trying to cross the abyss) seemed to draw life away from the rest of the story. Nothing like that here, with the dreams-within-dreams shtick actually helping the structure to build with each level of "but ah ha!". The jokes arise naturally from the script, and they are good, clever jokes too, whether pointed or even poignant. They even manage to get away with the car lock bleep gag that defeated David Tennant in "The End of Time". Maybe it's a shame – or maybe it's a relief – that Moffat couldn't quite bring himself to go the full meta and include "Blink" on Shona's DVD marathon list.

More challenging than the usual Christmas fare, even by Doctor Who's standards. And all the better for it.

And, at least for the few brief moments as they run to the TARDIS, the Doctor and Clara can actually be happy. A dream come true.


Next Time…
A very familiar Witch. Possibly the fastest ever bounce back from absolutely, categorically, unequivocally dead. SPOILER! "Did you Missy me?" I imagine that trying harder than ever to be the Doctor makes Clara "The Magician's Apprentice".

(Or will she be "The Witch's Familiar"?!)

But first… if you're really, really lucky, I'll go back and fill in the gaps with reviews of "The Caretaker", "Kill the Moon", "Mummy on the Orient Express", "Flatline" and the rest, but starting with "The Crimson Horror"!

Day 4377: DOCTOR WHO: The Snowmen

Christmas Day:

Hark the jolly Christmas Choir,
Jingle Bells roasting on an open fire,
Christmas comes but once ’tis true,
Along with Daddy’s Doctor Who review…

 “Abominable”

Steven Moffat’s “dark fairy tale” Doctor Who is best at Christmas, so it’s glad tidings that, after last year’s misstep, he’s back on sparkling Winterval form.

Call me a fanboy sucker if you will, but give me one juicy returning enemy and I’ll forgive you a “nobody dies (really)” and a “victory by the power of schmaltz” any day.

But let’s be honest, I was in love with this from the new and vastly improved opening title sequence.

For the fiftieth anniversary, they’ve created an homage to all the earlier titles, reminiscent of the McCoy flight through whirling CGI galaxies, but with exploding shapes that resemble the old howl-round patterns of the Hartnell and Troughton eras, finishing up in a whizzy time tunnel like the Tom Baker diamond-era one but done in Pertwee era colours. Even some hints of the pastel vortices of the Cushing movie titles. Toss in a nod to the DVD releases. And, of course, the Doctor’s face back in the titles at long last. Hooray, as Russell T Davies would put it, hooray.

(And as an added bonus… you would hope that they might have secured the sensational Mr Smith’s services for, say, another couple of years before forking out to fit his phizog to the starfield.)

Still not got the theme tune quite right, though.

The acting is pitch-perfect throughout and the look is beautiful too; steampunk era Victoriana can always be made to look good, but the Doctor’s magical cloud contrasting with his machine is very clever. The TARDIS hasn’t looked this mechanical since the return in 2005. Arguably since before McGann’s wood and brass affair, too. The new look, very reminiscent of the design that was being considered for Sylv’s fourth series (had it happened), is cold and steely to fit the Time Lord’s mood. I like the theory that I read that the TARDIS has been regenerating herself since the Time War – first we saw the bones, then the structure of the console room, and now the mechanism itself is growing back.

And on its own terms the story works.

To give Moffat his due, while he clearly has a fundamental failure to understand what Doctor Who is actually about – and we’ll come to that – he does appear willing to try and address his deficiencies as a writer.

Last year, I said he was on a mission to write drama without conflict. No danger of that here, with meaty confrontations to draw the Doctor back into defending the Universe.

The titular Snowmen themselves may have been more Muppet than menace, with a tendency to loom rather than threaten, and, perhaps wisely they opted not to show their instantaneous forming, perhaps lest it resemble something from the Chorlton and the Wheelies Christmas Special (on ice!). But an icy performance from Richard E Grant as baleful Dr Simeon, the child with the frozen heart, paired with the mellifluous tones of Sir Ian McKellen as the world’s most sinister snow globe meant there was no lack of threat.

And if “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe” was Moffat trying to respect his female characters “as a woman”, this year appears to be an exercise in proving he is willing to kill people.

Of course, I mean the yard-full of workers devoured by the Snowmen at the start, under the disdainful eye of Dr Simeon (when weall knew where the “I promised to feed them” line was going.)

Because if they’re “important” people, Moffat brings them back to life again, which may be sign of missing the point somewhat.

When even a Sontaran clone – surely the least irreplaceable lifeform in the galaxy – gets a touch of the resurrection, then you’re left with a distinct feeling of “what’s the point?”.

(Not that Dan Starkey’s Strax isn’t a terrific addition to the ensemble; at the very least he makes a terrific straight-man. Bit troubled by the Doctor repeatedly mocking his height, intelligence and body-shape, though, as I don’t think the Time Lord should be encouraging bullying.)

There’s something a bit, well, class-ist here, when the obvious workers are disposable drones while the Sontaran (and “Commander” Strax is officer class after all) gets resurrected. And there’s also the question of whether Clara is posh-Clara pretending to be working class or Cockney-Clara pretending to be gentlefolk class. In fact this is the same with Strax: mockable as a manservant, he’s actually a displaced Commander, so “important” and gets to live.

Is this going somewhere though? The Doctor says that Strax gave his life for a friend… and then another friend brought him back. Who? And why? Will we find out?

There’s a sense that this is a point that ought to be followed up, but Moffat’s got form on this sort of dangling thread. Does anyone really understand why or how the Silence – and we must assume it was they – blew up the TARDIS in “The Pandorica Opens” or what made them feel that blowing up the Universe would further their alleged aim of, er, saving the universe? One suspects that this unsatisfying plot got lost with the Ponds’ leaving (it would be a little odd to refer back to it for an explanation now); on the other hand, the plot was unsatisfying precisely because it kept deferring its explanations. But then – to drag this back to relevance – here we see Moffat providing an “explanation” forty-five years after the original story. We can but hope he’s not leaving the “Silence arc” to be explained in the hundredth anniversary series.

But instead he’s found a shiny new plot arc to go chasing after, the mystery of new companion – or potential companion – Clara, who has already died twice. Appearing in multiple time zones, yet able to quote the words of her other selves… clearly she’s part- Jagaroth on her mother’s side.

More seriously, Alex was immediately struck by the patterns of speech and behaviour shared by Clara and the Doctor. It might just be Moffat’s inability to write in more than one “voice” (note: all other Moffat women are basically Sue Virtue with escalating levels of weaponry) but the ingenious theory is that these “Clara”s are constructs made out of the Doctor. Running with this idea, I suggest that all the ladies around the Doctor – Madam Vastra and Jennie Flint… and the TARDIS – all disapprove of his self-imposed hermitage, and want to encourage him back into the world. And the TARDIS is the one able to make a “perfect companion” out of his memories and his (tawdry) quirks. The Doctor himself says he doesn’t know why but he knows who.

The opening scene could in fact be very clever. It features a snowman, naturally, that appears out of nowhere. Just at the right moment, the Doctor happens to be walking past – as though he is the one who has appeared from nowhere. But there’s a third person in the scene, Clara, who’s just emerged from the Rose and Crown (the “Rose and Pond” would have been more on the money). Perhaps it’s not a coincidence that she’s there at just the perfect moment to bump into the lonely Doctor. And perhaps she’s the one to have appeared from nowhere.

“Oswin” means “god’s friend” and “Osgood” means “god’s gift” which are clearly pointing in the right direction (although “Clara” means “clear”, “bright” or “famous” or possibly “I can’t go having the Doctor shout “come on Oswin”). If you want more evidence, then a look at her gravestone tells us she was born on 23rd November and died aged 26. And is still alive. A metatextual in-joke, or a heavy hint that she’s made of the story of Doctor Who? Even her introduction “Clara Who? Doctor Who?” points this way.

The notion of a “perfect companion” made from the Doctor’s own biodata (“time DNA”) was first seen in the Faction Paradox stories of the early Eighth Doctor Adventures (notably “Alien Bodies” and “Unnatural Selection”). But who said Moffat had to be original? And why change the habit of a lifetime? Fortunately Jenna-Louise Coleman has more personality in one cheeky grin than Sam ever had in her entire time in the novels.

Moffat has – flattering himself – suggested that the Doctor “in retirement” is a plot that has been waiting to be done since Douglas Adams was told to write “Shada” instead. But Moffat’s self-absorbed, sulking Doctor – “the Universe doesn’t care” – couldn’t be further away from Adams’ conception of a Time Lord that the Universe just won’t let go. (Which is even more odd when remembering that Moffat himself was so much more on the money in his spoof Doctor Who “Curse of the Fatal Death”.)

The Doctor has suffered losses before. He lost his entire species. He lost his love when Rose fell into a parallel world. He lost his faith in himself when he destroyed Martha’s life. He lost his best friend when he wiped Donna’s memories. He lost his entire species again. But it’s the loss of his mother-in-law that drives him into seclusion?

Partly, this is Moffat flattering himself again – it’s his companions who are the “most important evah” ones. But partly it’s another example of the way that for all his cleverness in story and story arc writing, Moffat is very short-termist in his thinking, grasping an idea and using it as soon as he has it, rather than moulding the series to prepare for it. Recall the way that the Ponds were suddenly getting divorced and then it was totally forgotten all within one episode. Of course you remember that episode; it’s the one he kept asking you to remember during this one.

The least we needed was a scene – perhaps one with Madam Vastra – to say, “You’ve suffered losses before.” For him to reply: “Yes, and this is one too many. This camel’s back is broken”. What we really wanted was a crisis that was bigger, where victory cost him more than “The End of Time”. But Moffat’s not good at that, as “A Good Man Goes to War” showed. “You have never risen higher.” Er, he has, you know.

(Ironically, losing River would be crisis enough to justify this fugue, which from his point of view would have meant arriving at the start of her story… which happened in “A Good Man Goes to War”; had that and “The Wedding of River Song” been swapped round, and then followed by this, it might have worked. But to do that you’d need to be following the emotional logic of the tragedy, not trying to pull off flashy card tricks with the plot.)

This same sense that Moffat doesn’t understand the importance of scale, or emotional weight, if I can use such a term, shows itself in his treatment of the Great Intelligence.

The whole premise of this story is – spoilers – as a prequel to two classics of the Troughton era: “The Abominable Snowmen” and “The Web of Fear” where the second Doctor encounters a disembodied power that calls itself “the Great Intelligence”, a force from the astral plane that seeks physical domination of the Earth, the plots of which Moffat refers to disparagingly at the end (okay, it is using robot Yeti, but it was a less complicated age).

What those stories have, which means they do not deserve the Mister Moffster’s mockery, is heart. “The Abominable Snowmen” is one of several Buddhist parables in Doctor Who, where the Intelligence represents everything that Buddhism is about getting rid of: it is the ultimate sense of self, all ego and ambition. The “Web” in “The Web of Fear” is as much the tangle of greed, hubris, jealousy and paranoia that keep us bound to the wheel of life (or the Circle Line of destiny) as it is the sticky mess on the Underground.

On the one hand, Moffat has the Intelligence as an idea that – like the Angels – has escaped from the person that is thinking it, which is great. A child’s imaginary friend that has made itself real… no wait that was the Doctor. (Nice moment when the Doctor modulates the Intelligence’s voice back to child Walter’s – borrowed from “The Face of Evil” of course, but nice nonetheless.) But on the other hand, he expresses this as basically, a computer virus (operating on an operating system of programmable snow) with ideas above its station. As an idea it is expressly described as “a child’s fear crossed with Victorian Values”, something essentially “Earthly” in origin.

The Great Intelligence of Season Five is “Lovecraftian” not in the mundane sense that it is literally Yog-Sothoth trading under a pseudonym, as the New Adventures (specifically “The Adventure of the All-Consuming Fire”) might have it, but because it is something totally alien even to our sense of reality, an intrusion into our existence that causes the Universe to fray at the edges (or bubble up with the BBC foam machine, subject to budget).

And, because he thinks he’s so clever, Moffat never checks his facts. Although “The Abominable Snowmen” takes place in 1935, Padmasambhava has been kept live by the Intelligence for hundreds of years before hand (so not just since 1892). And “The Web of Fear” was broadcast in 1968, not ’67, and is set in the future. (Probably at least 1975, given a line of dialogue that says it is more than 40 years after the events of “The Abominable Snowmen”. Only Larry and Tat date “Web” to before it was broadcast, so good luck with that date.) In fairness, the date of a tube map is not what determines when the Intelligence chooses to attack London via the Tube (it takes its chance as soon as Professor Travers reactivates one of the Yeti control spheres – though there’s the possibility he’s acting under astral influence, who knows).

Moffat’s undeniable cleverness with plot – compared with the feel of the series under Terrance Dicks or Robert Holmes or Andrew Cartmel – reminds me of the difference between Classical and Romantic music. For all the genius shown in the twiddles of a Back or Mozart, it doesn’t move you in the way Beethoven or Tchaikovsky or even (heaven – Valhalla? – help us) Wagner can.

So this is all constructed with utter ingenuity. The Doctor is living on a cloud – water vapour – while the Intelligence is inhabiting snow – water solid, establishing them as elemental opposites. Clara’s tears are, of course, water. The sit-com business with Strax, and the memory worm, while hilariously establishing that the Doctor is really bad at the Torchwood sort of stuff is, obviously, a Chekov’s gun for the Doctor’s ultimate attack on Dr Simeon. A lot of the dialogue is enormously clever wordplay (“The snow will fall and so will mankind”), particularly the “single word responses” to Madam Vastra’s questioning (“Do you understand what I am saying to you?” “Words.”) although perhaps too much use of “Pond” as the magic word.

(And, incidentally, it is not “a first” when Clara describes the TARDIS as “smaller on the outside” as Donna did so in “The Runaway Bride” having, uniquely, seen the interior first.)

All of which makes it more ironic that "emotion" is increasingly used as the universal plot device. Yes, you can look at the conclusion as an Avengers-esque "killed by his own weapon" as the Intelligence's attack on Darkover House is what leads directly to all the mirroring snow being there and nowhere else, and hence getting reprogrammed by grief, as though only one family could be grieving on Christmas Eve. Heavens, to really give the Snowmen what for he should have had them hang around another hour for EastEnders.

But then using emotion as a plot device is still a device, another shiny cog in Moffat's machine. Instead of people reacting to events, it's just another of the events.

In many ways, the right time emotionally for this story was straight after “The End of Time”, but instead we had “The Eleventh Hour”, where the Doctor essentially forgot all the trauma and went back to saving the world as normal.

People have suggested that this has the feel of a “mini reboot” to it. In a way that may be true: a reboot not of the series, but of the Moffat era.

It’s possible that his first series, the “carry on as normal” series, came about through a lack of courage on the new team’s part, falling back into following the RTD model that worked but was… safe. Moffat’s second series struck out in much more… bold directions. But the story arc spiralled out of control and betrayed the characters along the way. What was most noticeable about the five stories we had in September was their disconnectedness from anything Silence-related. Even River Song, when she appeared, was treated as a recurring character, not part of a developing story. Like the television adaptation of John Christopher’s “The Tripods” this feels very much like a trilogy without its closing chapter.

So instead we’re trying again.

Matt is a great Doctor, and has sparkling chemistry with Jenna-Louise. They deserve to have a really good series written for them, something with joy, humour, drama and a touch of fatal death. Well, three out of four ain’t bad. A decent (re) start.


Next Time… You’re once, twice, three times exactly the same lady, apparently. Where will the Doctor find Clara next? Where will he run? And what will he remember? Fifty years on and Doctor Who returns once more in April with “The Bells of St John”. Now is that St John as in "Ambulance" (like the badge on his TARDIS) or as in "the Beheaded" (like the Library in "All-Consuming Fire")?

As we were writing this, we heard the sad news that Gerry Anderson, creator of almost all Britain’s not-Who television sci-fi, has died. Always a generous rival, he can be seen speaking about Doctor Who on the “More Than 30 Years in the TARDIS” documentary released next month as part of the “Legacy” collection.

Responsible for such classic series as “Captain Scarlet”, “Stingray”, the highly underrated “UFO” (not least for Wanda “now remembered as mum of Sherlock/Smaug” Ventham), ill-omened but fondly-remembered “Space 1999” and of course “Thunderbirds”, he also created the CGI return of Captain Scarlet that gave us Phil Ford, who has gone on to be a stalwart of “Sarah-Jane” and now “Wizards v Aliens”.

More recently and bravely Gerry was an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s society, speaking about his condition as recently as June this year. Arguably a mercy if the disease was starting to bite, nevertheless his passing is a tragic loss.

Day 4010: We Wish You A Yoda Christmas

Saturday:

From Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar

...and a Jedi New Year

Day 4009: A Star Wars Lego Advent Day 23 - Spirit of Chrimble

Friday:

From Star Wars Lego Advent Calendar

Day 23: Tree, probably from Endor or something


PS: late today - been listening to JAMES BOND on the RADIO

Day 3645: DOCTOR WHO: The Christmas Invasion

Christmas Steve*:


Well jingle my bells if BBC1 isn't going to run its first series of Doctor Who repeats since (Daddy Alex tells me) 1993, showing Christmas Specials all next week, starting with, er, "The Runaway Bride"…

Never mind, let's dial our anticipation for tomorrow's "Christmas Carol" Special up to eleven by getting Daddy Richard to look back on that OTHER Dr Woo story with "Christmas" in the title… "Christmas on a Rational Planet" by Lawrence Miles…

What? It's not?

Look: it's got bone masks, voodoo curses, and Time Lord continuity… are you SURE this one isn't by Mr Larry?

"I wish today could be like every other day…" warble the words of Murray Gold's elegiac "Song for Ten" over the closing montage of the Doctor's first Christmas with Rose and her family "…because today has been the best day." And this, succinctly, is the tragedy of the Tenth Doctor. Because his first day is is best day.

I'm not saying that this is his best story, nor even David Tennant's finest hour. There will be plenty of triumphs yet to come, "Gridlock", "Human Nature", "Blink", "Midnight", many others. But from the Doctor's point of view, this is as good as it gets: he saves the world with a swordfight and wins the girl. With hindsight, everything from now on is looking back to this: the cloying relationship with Rose in his first year is clearly trying desperately to cling on to it; and obviously everything after "Doomsday" is yearning to return to that moment that has slipped through his fingers. No wonder he goes bonkers in the end. "I can do anything!" he boasts as the Time Lord triumphant; but the only thing he wants to do is the one thing that he can't. And inevitably he ends up where he started, returning to Earth at Christmas, and at the end, returning to Rose at Christmas. "I don't want to go." Doctor, you never did.

Mind you, it is a ruddy good episode.

For starters, Tennant nails the Doctor straight out of the traps, completely redefining what it is to be the Time Lord.

We've had Doctors before who use bluff and bluster to cover up their actions, but never one that uses such a blizzard of words. And where Troughton uses bluster to cover up a vast intellect, and Colin Baker uses bluster to cover up his Doctor's bleeding heart, Tennant creates a Doctor who is covering up his… disappointment at the universe, and a white-cold burning fury.

The ninth Doctor was a damaged man, for whom wonder was the only solace in a universe tainted by guilt and loss, who in the end found redemption through Rose, in love and self-sacrifice. He was the most powerful person in the universe, but his power was constrained by his fear of himself. The tenth Doctor has no such restraints and anoints himself judge, jury and executioner for all creation. "No second chances." He's that sort of a guy.

True, he's barely in it for forty minutes, doing little more than suffer nobly and exhale meaningfully (with CGI fairy dust added later), though in the two moments when he is up and at 'em – the pre-title sequence with its remarkable TARDIS crash, and the confrontation with the sinister Santas after the killer Christmas tree which still never fails to delight me – in both cases we see him already putting together the two sides to his Doctor: the gabbling, so full of ideas the words tumble over one another so they can barely get out of his mouth Doctor and the silent, wrathful demigod.

But from the moment that the TARDIS translation starts to work again, and we have a moment to work it out just ahead of Rose and then Harriet and the others, and the music builds and the camera zooms in through the gathered cast to the opening TARDIS doors and Tennant stands there and tips us a cheeky, insouciant, "Did you miss me?", he absolutely has us.

It's funny and wise and dynamic and completely televisual. Unlike Eccleston, he's totally unselfconscious about the jokes, and if he's slightly overdoing the boggler-boggler look-at-me thing – as he will later really overdo the boggler-boggler look-at-me thing; yes, "The Satan Pit", I'm looking at you – you can also say that he's doing it deliberately because the Doctor is trying to keep the Sycorax attention on him and off balance.

And he looks so young. We've gotten used to the way that Tennant has aged with this series, but here he looks so fresh and unlined, without the weight of seriousness that his years as the Doctor add to him.

It's not just Tennant who looks young. The entire production feels new and fresh and original, looking like it did before it became bloated and flabby in trying to do an event just like this one again and again, but bigger and louder and brasher each time.

Here there is something pure and true about the story of Earth's "first" encounter with an alien invasion (particularly when the government's level of preparation for such an event turns out to be shockingly neither pure nor true: it's a fully armed and operational Battle… er …Earth).

It's not something you can do again, and they shouldn't have tried. Before the Sycorax it doesn't stretch our disbelief, that the human race doesn't believe in aliens yet. But after this it starts to get silly.

There are so many little moments that it gets just right: the scaffolding around the top of the repaired Big Ben (all right, Westminster Clock Tower). The hilarious Christmas tree-shaped hole in the wall of Jacqui's flat. The fact that Jackie is actually spot on when the first thing she offers the regenerating Doctor is a nice cup of tea.

As in "Aliens of London", Russell uses newsreaders and reportage to add to the "realism", cogent of how a 24-hour news world would react to an event of global significance. And for the first time we get those shots of "all around the world", a bit cheesy, perhaps, using world landmarks like this, but it sells the story to us. Of course, that's also one of the reasons why subsequently all the "retractions" are so unbelievable.

Here and there, there are the odd silly mistake. All those people stood up on London's roofs and not a one topples off when the Sycorax ship arrives with a blast wave sufficient to shatter the Gherkin. The Sycorax appear to have designed their spaceship for the convenience of the Doctor's battle, with easy access to the exterior and a very handy button for dropping treacherous defeated warleaders over the side. We can maybe be generous and say that business with the "still within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle" means it's less than fifteen hours since he finished regenerating (thanks to the tea) than since he started.

In many ways it's a story in two clear parts: the "Christmassy" part, with the Santas and the Tree, and the Sycorax who, in spite of their red robes, are not very Christmassy at all. The Doctor almost says as much with his "something is coming". Future episodes will see this sort of thing become the most ludicrously portentous prophecies, but this time it's very nearly and very clearly an "end of part one" trailer. The Santas don't add anything to the main plot, and literally disappear from the story halfway through. We don't get a resolution to them; in fact, it's not even clear that they're robots until next Christmas. But without the robot Santas there would be very little Christmas about this invasion at all.

And then we get the Sycorax. They do look really good, not just the bone masks and the reveal that underneath they are even more hideous (not merely a reference to Larry's Faction Paradox, but also a nod to that earlier Doctor Who panto, "The Horns of Nimon", where the bull-headed Nimon were allegedly supposed to be revealed as masks over something even worse), but also the choreography of them, from their "Bohemian Rhapsody"-inspired message to Earth to their council chamber. And there are enough of them that they look like a crowd even in the scenes where they are digitally multiplying them.

Up against them: Earth's finest. The entrance of UNIT, how many fanboys punched the air at that? And the reveal of their base in the Tower of London is a triumph, no matter that the "secret base in major London landmark" will become such a cliché of the show that even the Doctor starts to comment on it.

But in "The Christmas Invasion" it seems right, it seems blindingly obvious that of course the defence of Earth would be mounted from the centre of England's power for centuries.

And at the centre of England's power, Penelope Wilton is magnificent as Harriet Jones, Prime Minister. The "yes, we know who you are," joke is pitched perfectly for her: it isn't overplayed, it doesn't outstay it's welcome, and it's actually complimentary, saying how much she has achieved even as it reminds us, and her, of her former status as non-entity in "Aliens of London".

The script goes out of its way to show that she is kind and wise. She makes tea for Mr Llewellyn when no one else remembers; she is appreciative of Alex her "right hand man"; she says to the President what we all wish someone had said to the President.

And then she murders the retreating Sycorax.

Oh, how I remember the arguments on the online forums about that. Was she right, was she wrong; back and forward.

The case for Harriet Jones is that the Sycorax attacked us, they had demonstrated their hostile intent, and their leader had sworn peace on his people's life and then betrayed that oath and tried to stab the Doctor in the back. They could not be trusted. And worse, the Doctor had just made it quite clear to her that the universe was full of such dangerous and hostile enemies.

Destroying the Sycorax was justified punishment of an aggressor; it was pre-emptive defence against a hostile and treacherous enemy; and it was a statement and warning that Earth is not to be taken lightly.

I don't agree. None of that justifies shooting them in the back as they were trying to run away.

Harriet was wrong. It was human. It was so understandable. But it was wrong.

And it was the Doctor's fault. He frightened her. He didn't bother to take care of her. He was too caught up in his happy family reunion with Rose to notice that Harriet needed a Doctor too. It must take enormous strength of character not to take revenge, to do the right thing, to forgive – in case we forget that that is the meaning of the Christmas story. Harriet needed support, not a lecture.

His bringing down of her government is petty, too. It doesn't put anything right. And who gave him the right to unseat her? Why is his justice any less arbitrary than hers? Okay, at least she can walk away from it, but…

There is justice in punishing Harriet for killing the Sycorax, but the Doctor isn't acting from justice, he's acting from anger. He has every right to be angry about the ship, but he gets more angry when she throws his own failings in his face: he was the one who said Earth had to get used to alien attention, he was the one who failed to save the Major and Mr Llewellyn. Neither of them will back down. This is how arguments between people who should care for each other spiral out of control.

"I should have stopped you!"

"What does that make you? Another alien threat?"

He is an alien; he is threatening her. Of course her own threat is implicit – she has just shot down a spaceship the size of an asteriod.

But his threats (to bring down her government) get worse (whereas she only tells him to "stop it!" leaving her own threat only implied). It prefigures Queen Victoria's reaction in "Tooth and Claw" and the coming of "Torchwood" (evil mark one version).

It's a really bold Christmas Special that challenges us with such complicated questions. Because the Doctor is acting on the side of "good", but does he have any right to do so? From a certain point of view, he is a big alien bully intervening arbitrarily.

And also, isn't he just ripping up the Web of Time? Which, from a Time Lord's perspective, ought to be even worse. What happened to Harriet Jones, three times elected Prime Minister? Some might say that that timeline only existed because of his actions in "Aliens of London" anyway (and hence the Eccleston incarnation only "remembering" who she is once he's changed time to put her in that position) but that still shouldn't give him the right to mess with time at a whim. Indeed, arguably the gap that he makes in history here creates the opportunity that the Master later seizes. Still, start as you mean to go on, eh Doctor.

As a sign of the power of the Time Lord, those six words are outstanding. She does look tired. And she surely didn't help herself by appealing for "a doctor" on live TV during the crisis. (Lovely aside about the Royals on the roof, though.) But they're also a first sign of how dangerous he is, how far he will go if no one is there to stop him, how far eventually he does go. Themes that will be developed in "The Runaway Bride" (and revisited in "Turn Left") and ultimately in "The Waters of Mars" and, of course, "The End of Time".

It is a brilliant moment. Without it, this is a happy jolly tale of bad magicians and a good wizard who defeats them (honestly, they accuse him of witchcraft after the whole "blood control" curse thing!), with a group hug and a jolly Christmas dinner after. With it, there is real bite to the drama, and real cost to the events here.

"This isn't snow; it's ash." The very nastiness of the black humour is what stops "The Christmas Invasion" from being like anything else on at Christmas. It turns the festive treats into killers and murder victims and shows us the flaws in our heroes even as they seem to save the day. And it does it without us ever feeling that this is not heroic.

A little slice of genius. A Christmas Cracker.

And with that, a very Merry Christmas to all of you at home.

*I am indebted to Lady GoreGore for this festive reminder that it is Adam and Christmas Steve not Adam and Christmas Eve with my gay daddies!
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Day 3637: Before we have Plan B, Shouldn't we see if Plan A works? Plus… a Christmas Panto!

Thursday:


Master Gideon has suffered a series of disappointing economic statistics this week, just in time to spoil Christmas: inflation has increased from 3.2% to 3.3%; unemployment has increased by 35,000 to a rate of 7.9%; and November's High Street sales are up by just 0.3% on last year.

On top of this, it's been leaked that the Cabinet Secretary, Mr Gust O'Doomladen, has asked the Treasury to prepare contingency plans in case of further recession.

This has led to many calls for the Coalition to U-Turn and return to the Hard Labour model of, er, what was that again?

Look, I'm sure we EXPLAINED that thing were likely to get WORSE before they get BETTER…

Ironically, some of the self-same people who were saying that the BETTER-THAN-EXPECTED performance of the economy in the second and third quarters this year was REALLY the legacy of Hard Labour Chancer, Mr Alistair Dalek, are NOW saying that this is all the fault of incoming Minister for Living off the Trust Fund, Master Gideon.

The truth is rather more COMPLICATED.

Economies never turn around in MONTHS. It normally takes YEARS unless there is a Greece or Ireland style catastrophe in which case it takes DAYS, but it's never MONTHS!

The strong Coalition agreement and Master Gideon's emergency budget STABILISED the British economy and hopefully stopped it taking a dive off a cliff.

The Conservatories key demand in the Coalition agreement was to start the cuts THIS year, not leave them until next year. And cutting six billion pounds in spending SOUNDS like a lot of money, but in the context of a hundred and fifty billion pound overspend, or a total spend of over seven hundred billion it's chicken feed.

(Not that you can't feed a lot of chickens with six billion quid, and that a lot of chickens go hungry without it, but…)

So what the Coalition have done this year is less about actual change and more about setting a direction of travel and convincing the markets that we mean it by setting off with CONFIDENT stride along the route.

(And of course, CONFIDENCE depends on you APPEARING CONFIDENT, which is WHY Master Gideon and Mr Dr Vince and Mr Danny will go on SAYING that they have CONFIDENCE in the Coalition PLAN. It's NOT because they're being BLOODY MINDED but because they're NOT being BLOODY STUPID!)

So, anyway, it's NOT UNFAIR for Mr Dalek to get some of the CREDIT for those good months in summer. But it's ALSO his fault that things are going flakey NOW.

The drivers for INFLATION are the higher cost of food and clothes (and also furniture), which all depend quite a lot on IMPORTS. Droughts and floods and assorted climate change chaos has taken its toll of world crops, REDUCING SUPPLIES somewhat, and INCREASED DEMAND in China and also in India and Brazil and other rising economies has also pressed up prices. But we have ALSO been systematically DEVALUING our CURRENCY, undermining it with low interest rates and a quantum of easing (printing money).

I'm fairly sure we did warn you that stimulating the economy with imaginary money leads to inflation.

(And while I'm mentioning inflation, there was a VERY misleading statement on the news from a person from the IFS saying how the extra money going into education wasn't an above inflation increase now: strongly implying that LESS money was going in, rather than inflation having overtaken the increase we DID put in!

And then this morning we get SCARE stories saying "electricity bills could rise by £500 a year". Yes, over the next 20 years, it is claimed, an average bill of £1,157 could rise by over £500 because of the Coalition's green energy measures. Hang on… If inflation is 2% then, over 20 years, £1,157 rises to £1,686, that's a rise of…er… over £500. So the shock news is: government green energy plans mean bills could be exactly what they were going to be anyway!

What's tomorrow's headline? "Study shows that in ten years, people will be an average of ten years older! Calls to stop this Coalition policy of ALLOWING TIME TO PASS!!!"

But that's as may be…)

The rise in unemployment is almost entirely due to PUBLIC SECTOR jobs going, and not being replaced by PRIVATE SECTOR ones. I'm sure that the fact that unemployment has actually FALLEN in Scotland and Wales (with their more interventionist governments) compared to substantial rises in the English Midlands will be taken as a sign that the Coalition is wrong, but the fact that it has fallen in ultra-free-market LONDON as well would seem to belie that. It's unlikely that Bojo the Clown could be painted as a socialist.

There are a couple of significant points to think about though. First, and most important, these are actually HARD LABOUR'S CUTS.

In spite of the COINCIDENCE (or WAS it a coincidence?) in the timing of these announcements with the introduction of the Localism Bill and the admittedly tough settlements for local government, those are the amounts that they'll have for NEXT YEAR'S budget; the cuts this year are all coming out of Mr Dalek's last budgets.

(Or do you genuinely believe that local government is SO EFFICIENT that it can work out all the job cuts in two days flat?)

And second, the Coalition have actually acted to try and PRESERVE jobs by FREEZING PAY and RECRUITMENT in order that as widely as possible the contraction is by so-called NATURAL WASTAGE i.e. people leaving their jobs that would have left them anyway.


We had a DEEP and HARD recession and this year we started to bounce back. But, as they say in the City, even a DEAD CAT MONSTER will bounce if it hits the ground hard enough. After thirteen years of Hard Labour – and weighed down by all their DEBT – we may not be strong enough to achieve lift off on our own.

Rising inflation and rising unemployment are signs of this UNDERLYING WEAKNESS of the economy, not of ANYTHING that the Coalition has done.

That is not saying the Coalition are getting everything right. But neither does it mean we are getting anything wrong. It is simply TOO SOON to say.


In the LONG TERM there are HUGE problems with the Great British economy, which, it being Christmas, I shall explain through the medium of PANTOMIME…

Once upon a time, PRINCESS ROSE RED went into the ENCHANTED FOREST and came across the SEVEN DWARFS.

In those days, all seven of the little men would go down their mine and work work work the whole day through, digging up precious jewels. It was hard work, with constant danger of comic pratfalls and singing animals but it paid well and they were earning good money.

Princess Rose thought that she could help them out.

So she took two of the dwarfs out of the mine and gave them jobs in the "public sector" as Health and Safety Inspectors.

[Please, no "Elf and Safety" jokes, thank you.]

In order to pay their wages, Princess Rose raised a TAX on the other dwarfs. Now there were fewer miners mining so the mine was making less money. But there were the SAME number of dwarfs to pay. "Hmm, said one of the miners, "with all this extra tax to pay, I seem to be work work working harder than ever and getting less money for me! I had better put up my prices to protect my standard of living."

(And "quite right too," agreed Princess Rose.)

This caused RAMPANT INFLATION and made the mine less competitive. Unfortunately, some Chinese dwarfs came along and undercut the market, so the mine had had to close.

This made the dwarfs very UNHAPPY.

But Princess Rose told them that it was all the fault of the WICKED QUEEN because SHE was in charge now, and anyway Rose had had a NEW idea to help them out again.

Several of the dwarfs had been able to retrain and find work in the IT industry doing web design work. This earned them good money again.

But to help the others, Princess Rose employed ANOTHER two of the dwarfs as Health and Safety Inspector Inspectors, to make sure that the first two dwarfs were meeting their inspection targets.

[No, I said NO "Elf and Safety" jokes, thank you.]

Now there were only THREE dwarfs doing wealth-creating work, and their taxes were not enough to pay for the FOUR dwarfs in the "public sector". But that was okay, said Princess Rose, because she could borrow the difference from those nice Chinese dwarfs (who had LOTS of money to spare, now, thanks to their successful mine, er…)

And while we're at it, why don't you all go and borrow money from the nice EVIL VIZIER so that you can buy homes that you cannot afford. For the three little pigs had built three little houses, one out of straw and one out of sticks and one out of good red brick, but the EVIL VIZIER said that he could use his magic to make all the risks go away and everyone could be rich and there was no danger of the big bad wolf huffing and puffing and blowing and causing a global economic collapse.

"But won't we have to repay all this money one day?" asked Vincey, the most impertinent of the dwarfs.

"Oh no, we can go on borrowing money forever!" said Princess Rose. "For the Evil Vizier assures me he can create GOLD out of THIN AIR, and besides I have abolished boom and bust."

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a FAIRY STORY.

The Evil Vizier was ACTUALLY the EMPEROR WITH NO CLOTHES ON and the SUB-PRIME houses made of straw and of sticks were ACTUALLY worth bugger all when the big bad wolf came huffing and puffing.

In order to stop all of everyone's money from disappearing like a genii, Princess Rose had to borrow a whole lot MORE from the Chinese dwarfs in order to buy out the Evil Vizier, and she asked the Fairy Godmother to turn a Quantative Pumpkin into some extra money to tide things over (subject to it turning back again at midnight).

Everything would come right, she promised, if we could just keep on borrowing…

"Yes, Rose Red," said the Fairy Godmother, "you SHALL go to the Ed Balls."

[You may groan.]

And the dwarfs said: "we think we'd like the Wicked Queen back, please."

And the Wicked Queen said: "Mirror mirror on the wall, isn't THIS the FAIREST scheme of all!"

But Rose Red said "ooh, it wasn't MY fault, it was all the fault of the Evil Vizier and nothing to do with me, and ooh the Wicked Queen doesn't REALLY want to pay off the debts that we ran up with the Evil Vizier but REALLY just wants to cut the "public sector" as an attack on the poorest and weakest dwarfs, and ooh hasn't that Nick Whittington betrayed all the munchkins by breaking his pledge to the Lollipop Guild…"

[this metaphor's wearing a bit thin now, isn't it]

Look, the moral of the story is you need enough wealth creation in your system to cover what the Princess is spending if you're going to create the GROWTH that will take you to the GOOSE that LAYS the GOLDEN EGGS. You can't just count on the MAGIC BEANS to grow you a BEANSTALK, especially if you don't seem to know how many beans makes five!

To cut a long story short, it turns out that Rose Red was actually Rose BROWN…

And the Chinese dwarfs all lived happily ever after.

So, the Coalition's "Plan A" is to REBALANCE the economy, REDUCING the amount that the GOVERNMENT controls (i.e. spends) and ENCOURAGING PRIVATE sector growth through the New Green Deal and that same Green Energy Plan that the papers were scaremongering about (because cutting the amount we have to spend on importing energy is effectively wealth-creating – in a double-negative "cutting loss of created wealth" sort of way).

Failing that, we can always SELL DRUGS!

If Plan A WORKS then in a few YEARS' (not months') time, we can make a PROFIT re-privatising the banks that we bought AND give the economy a BOOST at the same time and see if we can't get it to TAKE OFF!

And if it DOESN'T work, THEN it will be time for Plan B. And Plan B is probably a General Election.
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Day 3281: It Doesn't Often Snow At Christmas

Christmas Day:


Those Irony-meisters the Pet Shop Boys appear to have brought down the Curse of Ubastard, Evil God of Bad Timing, by releasing their Christmas single shortly before it in fact DOES snow at Christmas, paralysing all planes, trains and automobiles.

Fluffy hugs especially to everyone who got trapped in the Chunnel or in Europe. We know how you feel; Daddy Richard's mummy and daddy went shopping in BASINGSTOKE. It took them EIGHT-AND-A-HALF hours to get home!

Here's hoping you got safely home to your loved ones!

Help yourself to a nice warming PIE and meanwhile… Run VT, daddy!




Fluffy Christmas Everyone!
MM xx


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Day 2916: Mysteries of Doctor Who #17: Is Kylie a Conker?

Christmas Day:


Isn't it ODD how many aliens in Doctor Who look just like human beans? Some people say it is because the Doctor's people, the Time Lords, made the other species evolve that way; some people say that it's to do with the pattern they made in the Universal morphic fields; some people say Just be grateful we don't get wrinkly rubber noses like they do on Star Trek…

For example, the people of the Planet Sto aboard Max Capricorn's doomed space liner Titanic.

(Incidentally, since they're all far from home does that make everyone on board Sto Aways? Okay, never mind that.)

The funny thing is, we've seen a bunch of tourists on their way to visit the Earth before: the Navarino coach tour to 1950's Disneyland that comes to grief (in so many more ways than one) in "Delta and the Bannerpersons".

In their natural form, the Navarinos are purple blobby things, slightly like upright caterpillars, but with pointy heads and stubby arms. It is not unreasonable to suppose that such folks might STAND OUT slightly, especially in one of Earth's more, shall we say, conservative decades.

Fortunately, they have to hand a "transformation arch" that handily disguises them as an assortment of British character actors who've raided the BBC costume department.

Could the people of Sto have taken a similar precaution?

Well, take a look at Bannakaffalatta. Just take a LOOK at him! But nobody on the ship blinks an eyelid. Clearly, he's not in any way UNUSUAL on Sto. Well actually, he IS unusual, but it's because he's a closet CYBORG, not because he's bright red and spiky! But equally there aren't any OTHER aliens of any description on the ship, so he OUGHT to stand out. It's a "dog that didn't bark in the night" observation, but perhaps it because as far as everyone else is concerned he DOESN'T stand out.

Maybe, maybe, he's not unusual because EVERYONE on Sto looks like that.

What if, in fact, the passengers and crew on the Titanic all look like that as well?

Perhaps Mr B has taken advantage of the option NOT to transform himself to cover up the fact that the process doesn't work on Cyborgs.

Actually, there are a couple of things that count against this theory: first, there's his NAME: Bannakaffalatta. It's just not the same as all the other Sto people's names: Astrid Peth, Alonzo Frame, Foon van Hoff and the rest. They're all a little bit… Earth-like. And his really isn't; it's a "comedy alien name". Like the one Mr Russell is always deriding: "Planet Zog". In the Doctor Who scheme of things (in which the scale of things as large as planets, where hugeness allows for a VARIETY of cultures, is never properly taken into consideration) it suggests he's MORE alien than they are. And second, there's Mr Max Capricorn, who (never mind the sheer redundancy of transformation-arching himself, or for that matter his portraits and corporate videos) is definitely much MORE cyborg than little Bannakaffalatta, but does not have a Conker-head on top of his box.

Still, it's rather ENTERTAINING to think of everyone on planet Sto running around looking like the little red spiky guy, and it would certainly teach Dr Who a lesson for making eyes at another blonde.

When, after all, she's really a Red Head.

PS

I have a TANGERINE in my STOCKING!

Elephant’s Treasure

What? What?! WHAT!?!

Dragon’s Christmas

Merry Christmas, everyone!


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Day 2832: Thirty Second Naïvety

Thursday:


A Church group has launched a COMPETITION to tell the story of CHRISTMAS in thirty seconds or less.

So here goes:

"Once upon a time, there probably was a person called Jesus who said some good and wise things.

But the Church thought that that wasn't MAGICAL enough to convince ignorant poor people, so they made up a FABULOUS story about parthenogenesis, comets, astrologers, inadequate motel accommodation, and the alien abduction of sheep."

Mind you, it's not REALLY a fair question because even the Bible has TWO goes at it and manages to get different versions that don't agree.

Mr Luke has Mr Joseph and wife-to-be Ms Mary living in Galilee until the decree comes from Mr Caesar Augustus that they have to go to Bethlehem to get taxed. No room at the inn, away in a manger, while shepherds wash their socks by night and Hark the Herald Angel does go on a bit.

Mr Matthew, on the other fluffy foot, after some genealogical numerology to prove that Mr Joseph is descended from Mr King David – which shouldn't make a hoot of difference because Mr The-Little-Baby Jesus is very specifically NOT Mr Joseph's son – Mr Luke has Mr The-Little-Baby Jesus born in Bethlehem and apparently it's because Mr Joseph lives there. In this version we get We Three Kings of Orient Are, one in a Taxi One in a Car… they blow the gaff to King Herod who slaughters the firstborn while Mr Jesus, Ms Mary and Mr Joseph escape to Egypt where they live until Herod is dead, but on coming home discover that Herod Junior has taken over so they make a diversion and that's when they end up living in Galilee instead.

UNFORTUNATELY there's a bit of a CONTINUITY ERROR between the two stories, because if Mr Caesar DID order all the world to be taxed (and there's no evidence that he did – which is surprising because the tax records of the Roman Empire are actually quite good) if he DID do that, and specifically if this was when Cyrenius was governor of Syria, like Mr Luke says, then it would have to be after 6 A.D. when Mr Cyrenius got MADE governor of Syria… except that Mr King Herod the Great, assassin of babies, was dead by 4 B.C. a decade earlier, at the latest.

This is the sort of problem you get when… well, actually you get this problem when your book of eternal verities is cobbled together by a committee three-hundred years after the fact, by which time there are countless different factions, all sold on different traditions, and you're trying to please everyone in spite of the obvious self-contradiction… but you ALSO get this sort of problem when you want your chap to be a MAGICAL MESSIAH, and not just a BLOKE with a line in GOOD ADVICE.

Being a messiah means ticking all of the prophetic boxes. Specifically: Mr Isaiah says that he'll come from Galilee while Mr Micah insists that he will be born in Bethlehem and Mr Hosea claims he shall be "called out of Egypt". Meanwhile, Mr Jeremiah wants him to be descended from King David… AND drops in the lamentation of Rachel for her lost children, taken to mean the slaughter of the innocents. But Mr Daniel talks about the child being born within weeks of a decree to rebuild Jerusalem… and it seems Caesar Augustus's decree will do.

You would ALMOST think that the early STORY-TELLERS were just making up the details to make sure that THEIR messiah scored more messiah-points than their rivals!

Besides, nowadays EVERYONE knows that Mr Jesus was really born in SEPTEMBER, and not at Yule Tide at all!



Apropos of nothing, we watched the "Life of Brian" on Blu Ray disc when we got back from conference. It is very funny.

Day 2550: Fluffy Christmas, Everyone!

Christmas Day:


On the FIRST day of Christmas, my Daddies gave to ME...

an ELEPHANT in a FLUFFY HAT!

Ho ho ho!