Once more unto the breach in my tragically completist quest to own all the Doctor Who novels... these are the third batch to feature Matt Smith's Doctor and his companions.
James Goss proved himself thoroughly on the Torchwood novel series before being allowed a go at the parent series. He's responsible for my favourite books in the series, making Torchwood in print as witty and thrilling as it only rarely is on screen. Dead of Winter is his second published Doctor Who story after an entry in one of Big Finish's Short Trips collection, Snapshots. It's set off the beaten historical track and, to a degree, prefigures the Gangers two parter from the 2011 season. The humour's only slightly toned down, but it's as clever a tale as you'd expect from Goss with what initially seems like mischaracterisation being a deftly executed plot point. And it also has a heartbreaking twist in relation to one of the narrators along with some wonderfully spooky imagery. Early spoiler - it's my favourite of the batch.
Una McCormack returns with her second Who book, The Way Through The Woods, following last year's The King's Dragon. It was a promising debut, with a fine premise perhaps only falling apart slightly when explanations were needed. The same problem rears its head here - the set up is fabulous, with inexplicable disappearances linked to an area everyone mysteriously avoids. The scenes with the Doctor in the police station are beautifully executed, as perfect a depiction of Matt Smith as you'll find in print. The trouble is whilst they're funny, they only serve to stop the Doctor from getting to the heart of the trouble early as it'd be a much shorter book if he wasn't somehow held back from the action. Again though, it's the prosaic SF explanation for what's going on that lets things down a little. That aside, it's another good, if not quite outstanding, effort from McCormack.
Hunter's Moon is the sort of Doctor Who adventure I don't tend to have much time for. Doctor Who can do pure SF, much as it can do historical drama, loves stories, high fantasy and pretty much anything else. It just tends to fall down when writers interpret the show as straight SF. I've not heard Finch's other Doctor Who story, an adaptation of his father's unmade script Leviathan, so I don't know if it's a misconception that dogs other stories. Hunter's Moon is certainly competently executed and exciting enough (though personally I think it would've been more effective had the prologue and first chapter been swapped round), with effective bad guys who might well have been memorable on TV if cast well. As I say though, it's a type of Doctor Who story I don't find overly engaging, having little to mark it out from other stories set on Earthlike colonies. But if you do like Who as an out and out SF show, it's perfect for you.
Overall then, a nicely balanced set of books covering historical, contemporary and SF settings and maintaining a good standard for Eleveth Doctor books. Trouble is, the next batch are a mere two months away after this release, so there's little time to savour them. Unless, of course, you've got a time machine.
Showing posts with label Torchwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Torchwood. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Friday, 4 April 2008
Torchwood 2.13 Exit Wounds (spoilerific from the off)
Well now we know how Chris Chibnall sees Torchwood, essentially an SF version of Spooks. And he's the new Eric Saward. And that means, since we've seen since Doctor Who's second season working for Torchwood is dangerous, dammit, we have to prove it!
If you've been watching carefully it's been fairly easy to guess who's not going to make it through to season three. Naoko Mori was permanently underused in the show, all of her character's plot functions being pretty much duplicated between Ianto and Owen. And every time she got centre stage there was only one plot - fall in love, get hurt due to time/species incompatibility issues. If you've got such a limit on the character it makes sense to get rid of her. Fair play to Naoko Mori though, she got the best dramatic scenes she's had in two years and made the most of it, giving the overly drawn out death scene pathos and impact, although Barrowman's mugging undercut it just seconds later. As for Owen, Burn Gorman's raging against the second dying of the light was the sort of thing he does best but the lack of a definitive final scene meant Owen's finale just tailed off. If he did survive I like the idea of Owen feeling abandoned by Torchwood and being King of the Weevils. I've got a great image in my head of the team marching in and finding him sat brooding on a Weevil throne. Killing him undermines the emotional arc from his earlier death though - oh he's dead again, bet he's back. At least this series redeemed the first season's treacherous rapey bastard to an extent, finding some sympathetic character traits that he utterly lacked before. It's hard not to see Martha's temporary substitution for Owen earlier in the series as a trial run for her being his permanent replacement.
Aside from that the finale fumbled a few very cool ideas. James Marsters stole the show again, even if Spike lite Captain John was largely wasted - was he just written in after being so damn good in episode one? There's a lot of dramatic mileage in the sundered brotherly relationship, and one blaming the other but you need decent actors to do it. John Barrowman's got charisma, but he's basically a stage actor, not a TV actor, so every emotion is overplayed when the nature of television enhances the small gesture and lampoons anyone going OTT. And Jack being buried alive for nearly 1900 years? Surely anyone would go somewhat nuts at that, and nothing we've seen from Jack before indicates he'd go for the meek acceptance he gives here, even for his brother. Essentially that storyline hits all the wrong emotional beats, rare for a show from the modern Doctor Who stable. And was it me or did Gray's plan make any sense whatsoever, particularly when most of it had no dramatic payoff? As a Newport lad it was fun to see Cardiff blown to smithereens, but the plot didn't demand it when the Rift distractions lured the Torchwood team out anyway.
And damningly, just when it could have done with it most, Torchwood abandoned the snarky sense of humour that had raised it from the swamp of angst and despair series one sank itself in. Not coincidentally the last three largely humour free episodes have all been Chris Chibnall's. The ending implied we won't be seeing too much fun next season, at least to start with, since Torchwood seems to demand angst. So it'll be back to square one unless we can get some characters (or, please God, writers) who can lighten the tone. A few more episodes along the lines of Something Borrowed , a few less angsty episodes that play to the fans, would be a stride in the right direction.
Two years in I'm not sure anyone quite knows what to do with the show, which is a shame since the first episode of each season offered tantalising of what a smart, sexy show Torchwood could be, modern, witty and slick, adult in the truest sense and providing enough subtext to fuel generations of fanfic-ers, something we've only seen intermittently since. There's a sense that lessons were definitely learned from the mistakes of season one, but there's still a frustrating sense that this could be so much more.
If you've been watching carefully it's been fairly easy to guess who's not going to make it through to season three. Naoko Mori was permanently underused in the show, all of her character's plot functions being pretty much duplicated between Ianto and Owen. And every time she got centre stage there was only one plot - fall in love, get hurt due to time/species incompatibility issues. If you've got such a limit on the character it makes sense to get rid of her. Fair play to Naoko Mori though, she got the best dramatic scenes she's had in two years and made the most of it, giving the overly drawn out death scene pathos and impact, although Barrowman's mugging undercut it just seconds later. As for Owen, Burn Gorman's raging against the second dying of the light was the sort of thing he does best but the lack of a definitive final scene meant Owen's finale just tailed off. If he did survive I like the idea of Owen feeling abandoned by Torchwood and being King of the Weevils. I've got a great image in my head of the team marching in and finding him sat brooding on a Weevil throne. Killing him undermines the emotional arc from his earlier death though - oh he's dead again, bet he's back. At least this series redeemed the first season's treacherous rapey bastard to an extent, finding some sympathetic character traits that he utterly lacked before. It's hard not to see Martha's temporary substitution for Owen earlier in the series as a trial run for her being his permanent replacement.
Aside from that the finale fumbled a few very cool ideas. James Marsters stole the show again, even if Spike lite Captain John was largely wasted - was he just written in after being so damn good in episode one? There's a lot of dramatic mileage in the sundered brotherly relationship, and one blaming the other but you need decent actors to do it. John Barrowman's got charisma, but he's basically a stage actor, not a TV actor, so every emotion is overplayed when the nature of television enhances the small gesture and lampoons anyone going OTT. And Jack being buried alive for nearly 1900 years? Surely anyone would go somewhat nuts at that, and nothing we've seen from Jack before indicates he'd go for the meek acceptance he gives here, even for his brother. Essentially that storyline hits all the wrong emotional beats, rare for a show from the modern Doctor Who stable. And was it me or did Gray's plan make any sense whatsoever, particularly when most of it had no dramatic payoff? As a Newport lad it was fun to see Cardiff blown to smithereens, but the plot didn't demand it when the Rift distractions lured the Torchwood team out anyway.
And damningly, just when it could have done with it most, Torchwood abandoned the snarky sense of humour that had raised it from the swamp of angst and despair series one sank itself in. Not coincidentally the last three largely humour free episodes have all been Chris Chibnall's. The ending implied we won't be seeing too much fun next season, at least to start with, since Torchwood seems to demand angst. So it'll be back to square one unless we can get some characters (or, please God, writers) who can lighten the tone. A few more episodes along the lines of Something Borrowed , a few less angsty episodes that play to the fans, would be a stride in the right direction.
Two years in I'm not sure anyone quite knows what to do with the show, which is a shame since the first episode of each season offered tantalising of what a smart, sexy show Torchwood could be, modern, witty and slick, adult in the truest sense and providing enough subtext to fuel generations of fanfic-ers, something we've only seen intermittently since. There's a sense that lessons were definitely learned from the mistakes of season one, but there's still a frustrating sense that this could be so much more.
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