Category: Reviews

REVIEW: Schindler’s List

Schindler's ListHistory is far more than facts and figures, especially since the text books tend to get watered down by committee or skew to a particular point of view. Instead, history is really the stories of mankind. Who did what, and what drove them to commit those acts? Every era has its known heroes and as historians do their work, it’s also clear there are the lesser known players whose efforts remain equally valuable and their stories worthy of being told.

Few events have spawned more tales of heroism than perhaps World War II. We know of the Axis and Allied generals who made bold moves to change the tide of the conflict and of the American scientists who raced their German counterparts to split the atom and harness their power. Since the 1970s or so, more and more stories have been discovered and told, many about those who endured the war and survived to tell their stories. There’s Elie Weisel and Night, Anne Frank and her diary, and Oskar Schindler and his list. The latter’s story didn’t really come out until Australian writer Thomas Keneally released Schindler’s Ark in 1982 (retitled List for America). Almost immediately, Steven Spielberg snapped up the rights and then spent a decade trying to find the time and approach to honor the work and the man that inspired it.

Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since we sat mesmerized for three hours and sixteen, watching this black and white drama, which won numerous accolades, earning Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards. Now Universal is releasing Schindler’s List a 20th Anniversary Limited Edition which comes in a combo slipcase with Blu-ray, DVD, Ultraviolet digital. Right up front, it should be noted that Spielberg wanted little attention drawn to the film and it’s making so the special features here are the same ones from the DVD release. But, the director oversaw the high definition transfer and did a masterful job so the film, with Janusz Kaminski’s cinematography, looks wonderful and John Williams’ score sounds even better. It’s nice to have the movie on a single disc so it can be enjoyed uninterrupted.

The story of German industrialist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) and his efforts to rescue one thousand Jews from death in a concentration camp run by the cruel and psychotic Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes). Yes, Schindler made a profit and could be considered a war profiteer but he did use that money and influence wealth provided him to see to it that people did not die. He worked closely with accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) in crafting the typewritten list of names that became the symbol of survival.

The special features that do reappear here are worthwhile, starting with Voices From the List (77 minutes) as Spielberg hosts a series of interviews with Holocaust survivors and witnesses; USC Shoah Foundation Story with Steven Spielberg (5 minutes); About IWitness (4 minutes), an online application allowing educators and students to access more than 1,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses.

Time has not diminished the film’s power nor has its message been obscured by the director and performers’ other works. Nor has the deluge of Holocaust and WW II memoirs changed that each is a piece of a tapestry telling a story of when a world teetered on the tip of a pyramid, plunging one way towards peace and another towards unspeakable horror. While the stakes were never higher, the stories of people from both sides need to be heard and understood, seeing who had the courage of their convictions to do what was right despite the odds and personal dangers. Oskar Schindler wasn’t the only one, but saving some 1200 people is an accomplishment few other German civilians could claim.

For those who saw it when they were younger should see it again. For those with children in the intervening 20 years, should show it to them to understand what it means to be a Good Person. Its important film making and a powerful testament to the global outreach of the movies.

 

REVIEW: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 2

The Dark Knight Returns 2The second part of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns demonstrates how the world has changed since the graphic novel source material was published in 1986. Frank Miller’s reinvention of Batman was also his personal reaction to the conservative, jingoistic United States of America of the decade. President Ronald Reagan was a folksy president, good with a quip, and saw the world in stark black and white terms, which was feeling wrong in the final years of the Cold War. Miller also questioned all authority figures from know-it-all doctors who loved to hear themselves on the growing number of vapid talk shows to the unformed law-enforcement representatives who fired first and then questioned orders. While some of this was evident in part one, which was released last fall, this installment, out on Tuesday, really shines a spotlight on the themes.

Batman punchA visual tour-de-force, Miller’s four-part The Dark Knight took the storytelling techniques he developed for Daredevil and applied them to DC’s two biggest icons. Readers had seen nothing like it before and heralded the work an instant classic. Here we are, more than twenty years later being given a two-part adaptation of this story and suddenly it feels dated. Here’s no question screenwriter Bob Goodman and director Jay Oliva honored the source material and its satisfying as an adaptation.

But the notion that Superman, the ultimate authority figure, was blindly taking orders from the President, and allowed himself to take lives in an international conflict feels wrongheaded. That Batman and the other costumed heroes and villains would all willingly vanish into the shadows that spawned them feels wrong, as well. Much as it felt wrong for Batman to vanish for eight years in the Christopher Nolan films, it also now feels like Bruce Wayne would never stop fighting crime in his city.

tdkr_r2_06604-e1359470838114-9727910But he’s back, pushing fifty, and feeling the effects of time on his bulky form. He’s dealing with a city that needs him but an administration that does not want him, especially as Commissioner James Gordon steps down, turning the police over to Ellen Yindel, who immediately wants Batman shot on sight. Where Oliva’s action sequences totally fail is that the criminals and police alike fire endless streams of bullets with little consideration of the collateral damage being inflict or civilian lives being endangered. Thousands of bullets are fired, but none strike Batman or Robin, which is stunning incompetence (and bad storytelling).

tdkr_r2_03783-e1359471202360-9960922The conflict on the island of Corto Maltese is the backdrop as the Joker talks his idiot doctor into bringing him to a talk show to tell his side of the story. Michael Emerson’s clown prince of crime is cold and maniacal but depicted, he is a homicidal figure, nothing funny about his actions or methods at all. The character design may be Miller inspired but he’s too normal looking, just a muscular specimen in makeup which feels wrong. The criminal madman is free and after Batman after making a stop to humiliate a gone-to-pot Selina Kyle, now a Madame. The Joker and Batman face off one final time and this is when the Dark Knight finally gets hurt, in the Tunnel of Love of all places, a subtle nod to the homoerotic subtext Miller added to their relationship.

superman-vs-batman-e1359470926352-4034295All the episodic explosive action leads up to the inevitable conflict between the symbol of conformity and the agent of justice. Their climactic battle is nicely handled as is the denouement, bringing the 76 minute story to a fine ending.

Peter Weller’s Batman is okay but nothing special while Mark Valley’s Superman works much better. Ariel Winter’s Robin doesn’t get nearly enough to say but plenty to do in the film. The rich voice cast blends well together, aided by a good score from Christopher Drake.

The combo pack contains the Blu-ray, DVD, and Ultraviolet versions of the film. Special features include a too-short 9:24 Superman vs. Batman: When Heroes Collide, as the usual suspects talk about why these two fight and who should win. The longer, 14:07, The Joker: Laughing in the Face of Death nicely uses archival material so his creator, Jerry Robinson gets his say. While it’s good to have Emerson’s take on the character, Mark Hamill’s absence is missed as are his current handlers such as writer Scott Snyder. Oliva takes us through numerous sequences in the 43 minute From Sketch to Screen and he gives kudos to those who took Miller’s work and brought it the screen. Oliva is well-spoken and some of the information provided is interesting to hear and see.

Three episodes from Batman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Brave & the Bold are included on the Blu-ray disc. On the other hand, the promised preview of Superman: Unbound is curiously absence from the disc. Instead, there is another digital excerpt from the graphic novel.

IT’S LUCKY #14 FOR THE SHADOW FAN PODCAST!

The Shadow Fan podcast returns for a 14th episode! This time around, New Pulp Author Barry Reese announces some exciting news regarding a future show before diving into reviews of “The Bride of Death” (Radio Show, 3/6/38) and The Shadow Special # 1 from Dynamite. He also responds to some listener feedback!

If you love The Shadow, now’s the time to start downloading!
Join the conversation about pulp’s greatest hero today at  http://theshadowfan.libsyn.com/the-bride-of-death.

REVIEW: Dredd

dredd1-4514935Despite Karl Urban uttering, “I am the law” his overall demeanor was just one of the many disappointments in the new film take on the classic 2000 AD hero, Judge Dredd. Dredd is out on home video this week from Lionsgate and it is amazing how bored I was watching it.  The majority of the 96 film takes place in the Peach Trees Block and is effectively Dredd playing John McLane, trying to survive a sealed off building under siege.

It’s hard to watch this without comparing it with the Sylvester Stallone misfire of the 1990s. While the story sucked and the star violated the character by taking his helmet off a lot, it looked like the weekly comic come to life. The high tech, futuristic clutter of Mega City One was expertly captured, reminding us of how much the visual of Blade Runner derived from the British comic which has been around since 1977. Also, the costuming was perfect. Here, everything is scaled down and the Judge’s uniform does not look anywhere near as imposing.

Urban, no stranger to the genre, gets credit for playing the character accurately, keeping the helmet on and the upper lip and jaw prominent. On the other hand, he is not physically imposing as Stallone was or as Spanish artist Carlos Ezquerra envisioned him.

We open with a voiceover setting the stage telling rather than showing and this vision is less imposing than the one in the comics. Somehow, the corridor from Boston to Washington has become this singular city with these 200+ story blocks that have become isolated communities. In this one, Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), a drug-dealer/gang leader has become the distributor for a new drug and a routine case pits Dredd and the rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) against an entire community out for blood.

This is more Anderson’s story than Dredd’s and we learn about her mutant ability is that of the most powerful psychic the Justice Department has ever seen. She is deemed ready for evaluation and goes out with Dredd and becomes embroiled in the case. Thirlby, a rising independent film star, is the best part of the film, but then again, she has the most to work with. Her interactions with the prisoner Kay (Wood Harris) give the film any sense of character.

Everyone else plays a type, from the stoic Dredd to the stereotypical Ma-Ma. Headey, a genre veteran, snarls nicely but has little else to do and seems not to care. Dredd is the most feared Judge of all but here, he lacks that reputation which diminishes the character.

The movie is a hard R with exceptionally graphic violence and gore courtesy of director Peter Travis. He’s done this sort of thing before and he handles it well, but doesn’t seem to know what else to do with the characters so has them run, hide, shoot, bleed, repeat.

The best of the extras is “Mega-City Masters: 35 Years of Judge Dredd” (14:27) where creators Ezquerra and John Wagner, accompanied by Brian Bolland, Mark Millar, Jock, Chris Ryall and others, discuss the uniqueness of the character and the opportunity the series has given the writers and artists for topical social and political satire. Everything that is just over the top enough to remain entertaining and amusing in the comics is absent from the film. Screenwriter Alex Garland is exceptionally talented but appears to have read a Wikipedia entry about the series before writing the script. This is perhaps the biggest disappointment of the film, which died at the box office, as much for inept marketing as a poor adaptation of the source material.

The other special features include “Day of Chaos: The Visual Effects of Dredd 3D” (15:21), although this is wasted on those of us who don’t care about 3-D; “Dredd” (1:53), “Dredd’s Gear” (2:31), “The 3rd Dimension” (2:00), about the film’s stereo, and “Welcome to Peach Trees” (2:33).There’s a little more Ma-Ma character substance in the motion comic prequel (2:57).

The combo set includes the 2-D, 3-Dand ultraviolet digital copy. This is the first combo set I have seen without a standard DVD version offered, a portent of the future.

Also included in this set is a digital copy of the film and an Ultraviolet stream or download.

A Doctor A Day – “The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode,The Snowmen.

Humanity’s natural response to the order “no” is “why?”  Put up a sign marked “wet paint”, and count all the people who touch what it’s hanging on.  And if you bury the devil, it’s a poor idea to put him on…

THE IMPOSSIBLE PLANET / THE SATAN PIT by Matt Jones Directed by James Strong

The Doctor and Rose land on a space base orbiting around a black hole (this is of course impossible), filled with writing so old the TARDIS can’t translate it (this is of course impossible).  The crew of the base explain that there’s an ancient power source at the core of the planet so strong it’s not only holding the planet in place, but generating a safe path to and from the planet (this is of course impossible).  After a bit of investigation, it’s discovered that a being who claims to be The Devil (The definite article, you might say) is imprisoned at the core, and this mad geostationary contraption is its eternal prison (this is of course, even if the other stuff was possible, which it isn’t, impossible).

impossible-planet-toby-redeyes-1687243The beast cannot escape his prison, but his mind can, and successfully takes over one of the crew, as well as its stock of alien slaves, the Ood.  While The Doctor spelunks down to the cavern in the planet’s core, Rose and the crew fight the now quite violent Ood in the station.  The Doctor is left with a terrible choice – destroy the beast’s prison and doom Rose, or let her and the crew escape, along with the beast’s mind.

A very moody episode, with a well-designed set that allowed for lots of corridor runs and corner turns.  The Doctor even comments at the beginning that a lot of these bases look the same, and are made from kits. It’s got a very haunted house feel, which is basically what the classic sci-fi film Alien is, as are all tributes to it. The Doctor gets a number of very nice speeches about how amazing humans are, boldly rushing in where angels fear to tread, and wanting to do things solely because they’ve not been done yet.  It’s a recurring idea for the Doctor, interspersed occasionally with his comments about how blind and small-minded they are.  We’re clearly his favorite race, and not simply because humans are cheaper to portray in a TV show.

It’s the premiere of another new recurring alien, the Ood.  They return a few time over the course of the new series, including a much more Ood-centric story in the Donna Noble season. The Ood are played as an unintelligent hive-minded race here, a “perfect slave race” as they’re described, and there’s simply no time for the story to address that.  Rose makes a passing comment about it, but it’s quickly waved off, especially after they went all red-eyed and scary, and could be classified as a threat.  It’s not until the next Ood story do we get a real idea of their situation, and a more proper addressing of their status as slaves.

An Ood appeared in Neil Gaiman’s story The Doctor’s Wife, mainly because they didn’t have money in the budget to make a new alien.

While The Doctor had never met the devil himself before, he’s come close.  The Demoniacs, Sutekh, and other races were believed to have interacted with humanity  in the past and give it the idea of devils.  Tom Baker was supposed to have fought the devil, in the guise of Scratchman, in a film written by Baker and Ian Marter titled Doctor Who meets Scratchman.  It had a mad throw-everything-at-it plot, but never got past the talking stage.

A Doctor A Day – “New Earth”

new-earth-20061002001542382-8763109Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

A trip to the future, a return of a foe presumed dead (get used to THAT one) and a moral conundrum.  And it all happens on…

NEW EARTH
by Russell T Davies
Directed by James Hawes

“It’s like living inside a bouncy castle!”

The Doctor and Rose travel back to the five billions, to the time after The End of The World, to New Earth, the city of New15 York. The Doctor got a message from someone via his psychic paper, asking him to come to his aid at a nearby hospital.  But someone is watching, and as soon as the pair try to enter the elevators, they are separated.  Rose is sent to the basement, and is confronted by Lady Cassandra O’Brien, the last pureblood human, and the baddie behind the events on Platform One.  Saved from her apparently grisly death by cloning a new “body” from leftover parts (parts from the …back), she barely survives in the basement of the hospital, and has made plans to move on.  And for Rose to come along, another pureblood human, specifically one responsible for nearly killing her…well, when the fates hand you an opportunity like that…  Cassandra uses a device to transplant her mind into Rose’s body, and begins to take stock of new assets.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was summoned by The Face of Boe, who he met on Platform One as well.  The Face is dying, and his nurse, Novice Hame, explains that legend says that as he dies, he will impart great knowledge to someone like him, “A traveler, a lonely god”.

Amazingly, Cassandra’s not the real threat.  The Sisters of Plenitude, a feline race who run the hospital, have been breeding clones expressly to infect with every disease known to man, for the purpose of finding cures for them.  They maintain the clones are not sentient, but as soon as they’re awakened, that’s immediately proven untrue.  The Doctor starts to investigate, and also starts to notice that Rose knows a bit more about technology of the year five billion than she should.

So The Doctor has to find out the secrets of the hospital, get Rose back in charge of her own body, shut down a sect of cat-nuns, and stop a horde of disease-ridden clones from overrunning the place.  Not a bad first day out…

The Christmas episode was a bit different from later ones would be – it was the first appearance of the new Doctor, and was more “in continuity” with the rest of the season, as opposed to being a stand-alone adventure. It also features other recurring characters, as opposed to later specials that would only feature The Doctor and all-new characters. Functionally, it’s the first episode of this season.  So this episodes starts shortly after the special, with The Doctor and Rose off on new adventures, already with a much lighter tone.

Both Billie Piper and David Tennant get to camp it up a bit as Rose and The Doctor get inhabited by Cassandra, with the requisite fun and silly accents.  Davies excels at keeping a balance between drama and humor in his stories, and this one’s a good example.

One could argue that this plot is an argument against various forms of experimentation.  I prefer to stand by Dr. Mordin Solus’ philosophy from mass Effect – “Use of sentient beings in scientific tests disgusting. Have personal standard – Never experiment on species with members capable of calculus. Simple rule, never broke it.”

We see a new emotional side to The Doctor here.  Not only is this the first time he’s “Sorry…so sorry” at the site of the clones, it’s also the first time he gives a foe who truly deserves it a merciful end.  One of the things we see him do many times is offer threatening aliens a chance to leave in peace.  Sometimes they refuse, and his judgment is swift and hard, sometimes others pull the trigger (like Harriet Jones did last episode) and he’s just as merciless on them, but sometimes, if they deserve it, he helps them.  Cassandra really did try to help at the end, and once she came to peace with her fate, The Doctor gave her a chance to at least die happy.

The payoff to the promise from the Face of Boe wouldn’t come till next season, tying into the Big Bad for that season.  So even though Moffat is doing it with more deliberation, Davies was also setting up multi-year plotlines, teasing events quite a ways off.  Looking back like this, it’s amazing how many things we ascribe to Moffat were already being done from the beginning.  More fodder for the “who’s a better showrunner” argument, certainly.

A Doctor a Day – “The Long Game”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

Making the same move for new Companion Adam he did for Rose, The Doctor takes the trio to the year 200,000 – the middle of the fourth great empire, mankind at its height.  So when everyone seems to be not a lot further up the social advancement scale than the 20th century, he suspects something’s wrong.  Someone is trying to change things, very slowly, playing…

THE LONG GAME
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Brian Grant

“Time travel’s like visiting Paris; you can’t just read the guidebook, you gotta throw yourself in. Eat the food, use the wrong verbs! Get charged double and end up kissing complete strangers! Or is that just me?”jagrafess-300x198-4119236The Doctor and co arrive on Satellite Five, news center for the empire, streaming information from everywhere, to everywhere. Journalists and techs are all angling for promotion to Floor 500, where it’s said the walls are made of gold. They’re off by one letter – it’s deathly cold, to ensure the health of the mysterious “Editor-in Chief”, the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. The Jagrafess has been stunting the advancement of the human race, keeping them from achieving its potential.  His assistant, played with style by Simon Pegg, works for a consortium of banks who are manipulating the news, and as a result, the people, to make things better for their investments.

(Eerily prophetic, isn’t it?)

And meanwhile, new companion Adam has decided to take advantage of the opportunities that access to 198,000 years of future history can provide, and attempt to download enough info to make his former employer look like the owner of a lemonade stand.

A simple done-in-one episode with a strong message and a solid monster, It’s a great example of how much Russell could get into his stories.  The set is both well designed and very efficient, budget wise – a bit of redressing and it takes the role of several separate floors.  And it’ll return later in the season as the plot threads of the season start to get tied up.

Russell T Davies made a running gag of the alien and planet names getting progressively more complex, all culminating in next season’s “cheap episode”, Love and Monsters, where the baddie is from the planet Clom.

Simon Pegg is the first big name to appear in the series, the first of a still-growing list who are all too happy to become a part of the show’s history.  Simon also narrated the first season of Doctor Who Confidential.  While she’s not as well known in the US, Tamsin Greig is a popular comedic actress in the UK. She recently played Sacharissa Cripslock in the two part mini-series Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal.

Interestingly enough, in an earlier draft, Adam has quite a different reason for doing the old Back to the Future Sports Almanac trick.  Originally, it was written that Adam’s father has a disease of some type, and he tries to access medical information in the hopes of saving him. It’s an interesting idea, but for The Doctor to take the information away and chuck him out of the TARDIS in punishment would make him the jerk.  It’d be warranted for breaking the laws of time and space and all, but it would still come off as a dick move.  The idea that he simply wants to profit works much better, and it shows that once again, this new Doctor is not infallible.

REVIEW: Dick Tracy

Today, comic book fans may recall Warren Beatty’s adaptation of Dick Tracy as a memorable misfire. When it was released in 1990, it was met with, at best, mixed reviews and while it performed respectably at the box office, missed Walt Disney’s estimates so the hoped for franchise was stillborn. Blame could be squarely placed at Beatty’s feet since he had a strangle hold on the film as its director, producer, and star. It got so crazy that poor Kyle Baker had to use only three approved head shots for the 64-page comics adaptation, which stretched even his considerable skills.

We have a great opportunity to reconsider this film now that Disney is releasing it tomorrow on Blu-ray.  One of the things about the production is that Beatty wanted to recreate Chester Gould’s strip as faithfully as possible, which meant he limited the color palette to a mere seven colors, predominantly red, blue, yellow, and green – all the same shade. Surrounding himself with a veteran crew consisting of production designer Richard Sylbert, set decorator Rick Simpson, cinematographer Vittorio Storaro, visual effects supervisors Michael Lloyd and Harrison Ellenshaw, and costume designer Milena Canonero, Beatty got the best looking film possible. The translation was so faithful that mainstream audiences took issue with the look.

What Beatty seemed to forget is that adapting from one medium to another requires certain accommodations and this experiment just didn’t work. In vibrant Blu-ray, after a digital restoration, its sharply garish and not necessarily for the better. What did adapt better were the makeup designs that replicated the grotesque Gould rogues gallery thanks to the ministrations of prosthetic makeup designers John Caglione, Jr. and Doug Drexler.

Only someone as major as Beatty could have corralled the roster of stars to don the latex, including Dustin Hoffman (Mumbles), William Forsythe (Flattop), James Tolkan (Numbers), Mandy Patinkin (88 Keys), R. G. Armstrong (Pruneface), Henry Silva (Influence), Paul Sorvino (Lips Manlis), James Caan (Spuds Spaldoni), Catherine O’Hara (Texie Garcia), and Robert Beecher as (Ribs Mocca). In fact, there are probably half-a-dozen too many of Gould’s creations in the mix, diluting the impact of any one foe especially when they were all under the influence of Al Pacino’s Alphonse “Big Boy” Caprice.

On the side of good there’s Glenne Headly as Tracy’s longtime love, Tess Trueheart; Charlie Korsmo as The Kid, Charles Durning as Chief Brandon, and Dick Van Dyke as District Attorney John Fletcher. Headly’s little girl voice has always annoyed me and she really didn’t have much to do, which meant she was easily eclipsed by the film’s real femme fatale: Madonna as Breathless Mahoney.

The script from Jim Cash and Jack Epps, Jr. is remarkably faithful to the golden era of the strip, with the blood-soaked streets of the big city, and a cops and robbers vibe. The main story involves the Kid witnessing a mob hit from some of Big Boy’s enforcers and the crime lord wants him silenced before a possible trial. And Breathless is the only witness to a kidnapping so Tracy spends quality time with her, where she does her best to seduce the square-jawed hero. And pulling the strings from the shadows is a criminal known only as The Blank, whose true identity is revealed late in the film and may surprise a handful of viewers.

The movie crackles along but even in the rewatching, just lacks a vital spark to make us care or cheer. The story and performances almost take themselves too seriously and when set against the uniquely colorful setting is more jarring than anything else. It’s not a bad film in the end, just not a very exciting one.

The digital restoration needs to be seen to be appreciated and Disney did a lovely job, The Blu-ray comes with a digital copy but neglects to include any extras to strongly recommend its acquisition.

A Doctor a Day – “Dalek”

dalek-5464984Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen.

Mr. Henry Van Staaten owns the Internet.  He also has a museum of alien artifacts under Utah, including a Slitheen claw, a Cyberman head, and a…

DALEK   by Robert Shearman Directed by Joe Ahearne

“Broken…broken…hair dryer…”

The TARDIS lands in 2012 (!) in Utah, or more precisely, under it.  They’re in the personal horde of Henry Van Statten, an impossibly rich American who obtains alien artifacts, reverse engineers their technology, and sells it for profit.  The Doctor picked up a distress call from his one living exhibit, a mysterious creature that Van Statten calls a Metaltron.  Only when The Doctor sees it does he realize what it truly is – a Dalek, which somehow survived the Time War and fell back in time to Earth, damaged and alone.  The Doctor immediately tried to destroy it, but Van Statten, not wanting his most valuable item damaged, stops him.  But when Rose tries to reach out to the creature, touching it, the Dalek is able to user her DNA, charged with the energy of time travel, to restore its systems.  In seconds it breaks free of his chains, absorbs the power grid of the western United States, and downloads the Internet, searching for information about his people.  Finding nothing, it resorts to the primary command of all Daleks: exterminate.

Pretty much as soon as the new show was announced, questions came up as to when the Daleks would appear.  The show was shot into the stratosphere once the Daleks appeared, and they’ve been linked inextricably ever since.  The Daleks almost didn’t make it to the new series of Doctor Who, and it was all Steve Martin’s fault.  When he was to appear in the film Looney Tunes: Back in Action, he insisted they include a Dalek in a madcap scene full of old movie aliens.  He was a big fan of the series, and thought it’d be a nice tip of the hat.  Permission was asked, but the estate of Terry Nation, who controls the rights to the characters, was not.  This caused offense, so when the BBC asked to bring them back for the new series, the estate originally refused.  When Steve Martin heard about it, he wrote a personal letter to the estate explaining the situation, and apologizing personally.  This calmed everyone down, and the proper paperwork was signed to allow the characters to appear.  But for about a month, Robert Sherman was forced to work on a draft of the script with another alien.

The new Dalek was designed to match the height of Billie Piper, so she could look it in the eye.  Similarly, the New Paradigm Daleks were designed to match Karen Gillan’s eyeline.  But in a recent interview on the BBC website, Steven Moffat wonders that making them too big was a mistake. “They’re scarier when they’re wee”, he says.  The scene of the Dalek at the bottom of the stairs was a clear reference to the classic gag about not being able to climb stairs. But of course, in the original series, Daleks had found a fix for this long since. They had anti-gravity mats in Planet of the Daleks, but the big reveal in Remembrance of the Daleks as the Imperial Dalek slowly floats up the stairs was the scene that had fans laughing and squeeing.

Nicholas Briggs, the voice of the Daleks, got his start working on fan productions and the Big Finish audio dramas.  He’s also provided voices for the Cybermen, the Nestene and the Judoon.

Eccleston played the episode as positively bloodthirsty.  After several episodes of offering the aliens a chance to leave in peace, he does not hesitate to try to kill it.  His rage at the Dalek, and later at Van Statten is a sight to see.  Billie Piper has equally good scenes against the Dalek from the other side of the spectrum, trying to help the unstoppable tank who is trying to get the hang of feelings.  This could have been a perfect final Dalek adventure, but as you’ll see, they’re far from gone.

There are a lot of parallels between this episode and the first of this season, Asylum of the Daleks.  Both this Dalek and the tragic prisoner in Asylum are kept in chains, and both are more than a little conflicted by being a mix of human and Dalek.  Both are capable of amazing destruction all on their own, even as far below the surface of their respective planets.  The idea of human and Dalek hybrids has been a theme as far back as Evil of the Daleks, where The Doctor introduces a “Human Factor” into a number of Daleks to start a civil war between factions.

A Doctor a Day – “Aliens of London / World War Three”

Using the new Doctor Who Limited Edition Gift Set, your noble author will make his way through as much of the modern series as he can before the Christmas episode, The Snowmen. And thank you all for wearing your ID cards…

Rose has let time get away from her a bit, but once that’s sorted, she and The Doctor have come back just in time for the…

ALIENS OF LONDON / WORLD WAR THREE
by Russell T Davies
Directed by Keith Boak

“Harriet Jones, MP, Flydale North“

Rose returns home after a brief time away…no, sorry check that; she’s come back a year after she left, relative to the current timeline. So after a great deal of explanation to friends and family as to where she’s been, she ruminates about the things she’s seen on her roof, how nobody else knows about what she knows…until the giant alien spaceship comes careening through the skies over London and into the Thames.  Unable to make it past the police blockades in central, they watch the events on the TV.

tumblr_m73r9r9f1d1qfe17ro1_1280-1703069Inside Number Ten, the Prime Minister is missing, and a minor back-bencher, in a staggering coincidence, is the highest-ranking politician in the city, and is named acting PM.  A little TOO coincidental – as soon as he and a couple of civil servants are alone in the PM’s conference room, they begin to laugh with the confidence that a plan has come together. The spaceship, and the alien within, are all a dodge to place these three people in power.  They are members of a race called the Slitheen, who are packed into the skins of the now deceased politicos like Wonder Wart-Hog into his Philbert Desanex suit.  They plan to panic the planet into releasing nuclear hell, wiping everyone out, and sell off radioactive chunks like a galactic Odd-Lot.  The Doctor needs the help of Jackie and Mickey to do the only thing that can be done to eliminate the threat – blow up Number Ten.

This is the first two-parter  of the new series, and the end of the first episode is a perfect old-school cliffhanger, with every member of the cast in peril in separate locations.  This also gives the impression there’s more than a couple Slitheen suits, as well.  Even now, the subtle art of sleight of hand can stretch a dollar.

As he did with the Nestene, The Doctor offers the Slitheen a chance to walk away.  We see that happen quite a bit in the new series; like Sun-Tzu said, do everything you can to prevent going to war, but when you have to, go in hard and fast, with intent to win. Odds are The Doctor helped co-write that book.

Once again, the collection of recurring characters grows.  Penelope Wilton brings us the spectacular Harriet Jones, MP for Flydale North, who will move on to great things in a very short period of time.  And another member of the Torchwood crew makes an appearance; Toshiko Sato, seen here as the coroner examining (and running from) the little alien.  The Slitheen themselves became recurring characters – they’ll return later this season, as well as more than a couple times on The Sarah Jane Adventures.  One recurring actor, Lachele Carl, is almost unnoticed, but she’s the only one to appear as a named character on all three Who series. The American newsreader she plays doesn’t even get a name in this adventure, but does eventually – Trinity Wells.  She appears every time news about aliens is reported from the US in future episodes throughout the Davies run of the show.

There’s an extra on the DVD that talks about the miniature work used to get the shot of the ship crashing through Big Ben.  After the shot was completed with the LEFT wing of the ship tearing through the clock, the CGI team realized it looked better with the RIGHT wing going through.  So the miniature shot was flipped, but not corrected – if you look quickly, you’ll see the number on the clock faces are reversed.

Re-watching the Eccletson season, I’m struck as how much more realistic the world feels.  The look on everyone’s faces as an alien ship crashed in their midst is that of not horror, but mild inconvenience.  Jackie’s reaction to Rose’s prodigal return is honest and angry. The series of shots as a progressively larger number of people fill up Rose and Jackie’s flat, more there to scold Rose than to see the events on the telly are hilarious. And at the same time, he shoehorns in the fact that uncontrollable flatulence is a tell for a Slitheen.  The balance of the serious and the silly is expertly done. Moffat’s interpretation of the world is much broader, more tongue in cheek,  Not better or worse, just different.  Similarly, each of The Doctor’s companions had family, as I’ve mentioned before.  Amy didn’t – no parents, just a mysterious aunt who never even appeared on screen.  This allowed the trips they took to be less tied to home.  When they brought Rory into the narrative in a larger way, he joined the crew, resulting in no substantive reason to pop back to Earth for a while.  Only in the first half of the season did we meet Rory’s Dad, and we learned that their visiting times on Earth were few and far between.

If anything, I think the more serious (relatively speaking) take Davies took in his years gave Steven the freedom go go bigger in his run of the show.  If they’d started that big, it might not have caught on.  It certainly looks like the back half of the new series will take a more serious turn, as the last couple of episode certainly did, but we’ll see how much of a balance Moffat can keep.

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