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| Will The Silence be golden for our TARDIS quartet? DOCTOR WHO Season Six continues. Image: BBC AMERICA. |
Writer/ Executive Producer Steven Moffat unleashes the second half of his intergalactic confectionery box today with the much fan anticipated second half of New-WHO Season Six adventures in both the UK (BBC 1 and HD), and in a territory seemingly more important now than it was for Auntie Beeb even back in 1983, the US-on the BBC AMERICA channel. And within this new jamboree is a planned and well packaged (publicity-wise), veritable collection of weird and wonderful characters, monsters, and environments of such diversity that they would make WOOLWORTHS legendary Pick ‘n’ Mix department producers green with envy! Though the individual flavours and charms of this particular WHO configuration, like the unwanted coffee cream or strange toffee in the red wrappers we somehow often end up with at the bottom of our goodie bags, may not necessarily appeal to all viewers at the same time! To sweeten such hit, and possibly miss, viewing pills, we have a collection of successful returning favourite guest star/supporting characters like James Corden (back as Human lodger Craig Owens), Alex Kingston as tough and tasty River Song (though now, instead of keeping her “magic” a mystery, it’s all been ruined as we know who she is-Pond’s daughter no less!), Ian McNeice as Winston Chruchil, to shore things up, as well as the best old (revised) and modern WHO baddies you can get- crowd pleasers like the Weeping Angels (Moffat’s so far unbeaten in popularity alien creations of this new era), the Cybermen (please, use them better this time!)- and their pet Cybermats- the big headed The Silence (hoping for some improvements there, too, please, Mister Moff) and, judging from an episode screening and trailer shown to fans at the BFI a few weeks back, the welcome return of at least one Dalek (perhaps as part of some dream sequence or other confounding plot line to come. And no news if it’s the superb original design or one of those ghastly multi-coloured M & M blob travesties!). Around all that there’s lots more new creepies awaiting round the corner including deadly squat servile Teflon safety cookers (METAL MICKEY's cousins perhaps?) with flowing silver Bob Marley dreds, part of the Teselecta, trying to change Earth’s history, weird and wonderful clog-faced looking killer dolls, alien quarantine robots with blasters in their heads (Moffat obviously has had some bad experiences with the NHS over the years!), a Viking-like warrior (apparently played by WHO’s other modern day actor/author and all-round clever sod, Mark Gatiss) plus the return of Cruella DeVille meets Travis’s eye patched mum baby thief, Madame Kovarian, as realized by the indomitable Frances Barber, with further traps and misdirection aplenty for our Time Lord hero.
I can’t say I was that impressed with the first half of this year’s WHO season, and, beyond what looks like yet another ghastly saccharine Christmas episode to round off 2011, I’m hoping that the double umbrella plots -the death of the Doctor at the Utah lake by the “Impossible Astronaut” and the revelations behind/ rescue of Melody Pond (which, far from exciting in my eyes, actually made the series and its format less special and more soapy than it ever should be, weakening the lead character’s overall presence in he show) get some kind of satisfactory closure that will make me want to continue watching the series any further. As a viewer singular, and as part of the collective audience watching the series, we deserve a proper conclusion to this “epic” and not over the top mumbo jumbo, blame it all on the time travel nonsense seen with The Pandorica season finale last year.
Arising from this previous cliff-hanging plot, season half opener LET'S KILL HITLER will either sink or swim for me, and looks packed with the sort of Moffat “humour” (the Doctor in Morecambe and Wise top hat and tails no less!) that worries me more than anything Douglas Adams did in his script editing/controversial work for Tom Baker’s Season Seventeen (unlike Moffat, though, Adams was a true rarity: a one of a kind person who actually was naturally intelligent and funny without having to try hard at it). Mark Gatiss’s following episode, NIGHT TERRORS, may hopefully balance the books a bit, and looks promising, possibly even elicit some worthy chills on a summer night’s eve. Alas, my hopes that Amy Pond will be departing his season appear to have been quashed-she gets her own story this year, too: THE GIRL WHO WAITED, and, for those that love her, she’ll be around for at least the Thirtieth Anniversary. Pass me the Nurofen! Though it seems unlikely to happen (at least so far), if any future anniversary tale/season does gives us the welcome return of a reunion Doctor story, I hope at least one of the Time Lord’s former selves won’t take any jip from her and promptly throw the annoying lassie out of the TARDIS and into the time vortex!
Here are the trailers for the new run:
Look out for the next KOOL TV review on WHO in a few months time.
DOCTOR WHO: SEASON SIX - PART ONE is out now on DVD and Blu-ray from 2ENTERTAIN.
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