What I'm trying to decide here is if Orphan 55's preachiness is a fatal flaw, and I don't think it is - if done well. The Green Death was pretty much just as preachy in its own way, but not nearly as annoying. It too had speechifying, right in episode 1. Jo Grant has a go about the need to curb pollution. But: it arises from a story conflict. (She wants to protest the oil company, the Brigadier's been tasked with protecting it.) It's played for laughs - she gets lost in mixed metaphors and peters out. Even so, the entire adventure is saying "You know, she wasn't wrong". (Not to say there wasn't condescension, but it was by the Doctor towards Jo. As usual.) I'd add that beyond talk, there were characters trying to take practical steps towards making things better. (Developing protein-rich fungus to cut down on the need for meat, for instance.) That in itself raises an interesting parallel. Global Chemicals is all about the need for more oil energy. The Nuthutch is about fungus. Both oil and fungus are, in their way, products of decay, of putrefaction. The story is to some extent about what kind of decay - productive and part of nature, or destructive and a distortion of nature (giant maggots!).
Finally of course there's Oxygen from Season 10, which was an utterly over-the-top anti-capitalist rant, and a great episode to boot. Doctor Who is well capable of delivering political messages - including shoving 'em down people's throats on occasion - in quality adventures. Which makes the failures of Orphan 55 just that much more disappointing.
In conclusion, the Orphan 55 monsters should have been the haemovores, not because callbacks are cool, but because they were simply more interesting monsters than the Dregs.
(PS: I have seen Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror and am happy to report that it's a definite improvement on Orphan 55. It's an episode with little ambition but reasonable competency, and manages to be
about
something in a consistent fashion. So that's nice.)
ooh, I think there's going to be an actual Legends of Tomorrow episode on tonight - hope so!
Is anyone watching the Canaries pilot on Arrow tonight?
Nikla Tesla's Night of Terror: aside from being better than last week's, I think there was a lot more going on too. It's a bit sad that this is noteworthy, but it's nice to see an ep with some conceptual cohesion. Mirroring the central theme, the argument between Tesla and Edison, in the showdown between the Doctor and the Skithra smacks nicely of competent storytelling. Felt a bit Davies era. (As did the Skithra, which were a pretty obvious reskinning of the Racnoss from The Runaway Bride. Right down to the Queen's particular brand of scenery-chewing.)
By my count, this is Chibnall's fifth historical, and fourth celebrity historical, in 1.4 seasons. That's quite a number. Not that I'm objecting, I think they're better than his average strike rate. More interesting to me is comparing the celebrity historical in Chibnall's era to those done by Steven Moffat and Russell T. Davies, because there are some sharp differences. Moffat's celebrity historicals are looong on celebrity, very short on historical (to their detriment, IMO). Churchill: cuddly curmudgeon with resolve and a cigar. Henry Avery: concerned pirate father, pretty much nothing of his actual depredations. Nixon gets the most superficial treatment he's ever been subjected to. We even get comedy Hitler, for goodness' sake. They're barely even theme park caricatures, they're so stripped down and sanitised.
(There is one important exception - written by someone else - namely Vincent and the Doctor. That one actually felt like it could be about a real person.)
Davies was more grounded in material conditions, so one might think he'd do better. But there's an odd quirk in his celebrity historicals - of his five such adventures, three of the names were: Shakespeare, Dickens and Agatha Christie. All writers. All mash-ups throwing Doctor Who into their own genre. It's a neat trick really, but it means that these aren't explorations of history, they're explorations of literature. If you take them out, the only other figures from the Davies era are Queen Victoria and Madame de Pompadour - not a lot for four seasons.
And then there's the Chibnall adventures. There's been a drop in the quality of the show, no doubt; but I'm going to say that this is one thing he does better. His celeb historicals feel like they care about the historical aspect. More than that, they strike me as being closer to the original intent of the show. I've mentioned before that at the outset, Doctor Who was supposed to be an educational show, alternating between imparting scientific and historical knowledge. In The Aztecs, the viewers were supposed to learn something about the Aztecs. The Reign of Terror was a French history lesson (more breadth than depth, but still). Viewers were intended to come away knowing more than they did before watching.
A single episode of the modern series, especially since it's now compulsory to make space for monsters, can't teach that much; but it can try to pique some interest. Moffat's historicals largely picked figures everyone knew and said "Here! You all know these two or three things about this guy!" (All guys, with one exception.) Chibnall, it's "Here's a figure you maybe don't know that well, but they're pretty interesting! Why don't you go google them?" I think that's a decently solid idea for the show in the modern era.
Some particular character points: I was impressed that they didn't fall into the temptation of making Edison a straight-up villain. In his argument with Tesla he presented a valid argument. When his employees were killed his reaction recognised their humanity, not their profitability. And he got probably the cleverest moment of the ep (clearing the streets). The writer is clearly on Tesla's side, but she plays fair.
I liked the Doctor in this ep too. There's a comment I came across that Tesla was the perfect figure to meet the 13th Doctor, because they're both basically intelligent, sweet and ineffective. That whitewashes Tesla, of course. Interesting, though, that I think that it's not true of the Doctor in this ep either. She was pretty effective. Also, she went the "one chance" route, without even clearing it with the companions first (as per Resolution). (Not much different from the Tenth Doctor, really.) It's a bit odd that copyright infringement is her line in the sand, but there you go.
This gets tricky. The Doctor needs to be effective. The Doctor also should be distinctive; every incarnation has its own flavour. Here the Doctor has an impact, but in the process, compromises her distinctiveness. She succeeds, but as another incarnation would. (I contrast it to It Takes You Away, where she succeeded on her own terms.) I think it's a net positive; stopping the monsters is in the show's DNA, and personalities can evolve. But right at this point it's just as well she's still the Inventor Doctor, so she still has something.
Casting: Goran Visnjic of course was very good, and he and Whittaker played well off each other. Edison was played by Robert Glenister, whose brother played Gene Hunt in Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes. This is not Robert G's first time on Doctor Who. He also had a supporting role in the highly acclaimed Fifth Doctor adventure, The Caves of Androzani. Oh! And the Queen was played by Anjli Mohindra, who was a regular on the Sarah Jane Adventures as one of the plucky teen adventurers.
Now THAT was a Doctor Who episode! Whee!
the Queen was played by Anjli Mohindra
Whoa! She was Rani! That's awesome!
Ok, that was awesome. Whee!
