The Only Way Is Essex
Doctor Who: Closing Time
When I was 15, I had a letter published in Doctor Who Bulletin in which I declared, with the arrogant certainty of youth, that the second episode of The Trial of a Time Lord was the greatest ever example of the art of the moving image. That’s rating 25 minutes of Colin Baker dicking about with a robot and two comedy gays over the entire canon of Welles, Kubrick, Kurosawa and even Douglas Camfield. Let’s just say that, after 18 months’ enforced absence, I was quite excited to see Doctor Who back.
Last year, I wrote a review for Tachyon TV’s late sister site, Behind the Sofa, in which I declared, with the arrogant certainty of age, that The Lodger was a better Doctor Who story than Genesis of the Daleks, The Deadly Assassin, The Daemons and Earthshock, among others. That’s rating 45 minutes of Matt Smith dicking about with a football and James Corden over the introduction of Davros, the Doctor’s nightmare journey into The Matrix and the best returning monster cliffhanger, like, ever.
The only difference is that, this time, I stand by it completely.
(Okay, so comparing The Lodger with Genesis of the Daleks is a bit (in fact, quite a lot) like comparing The Odd Couple with Downfall – i.e. pointless. But, on balance, I’d say I prefer The Odd Couple to Downfall, because Jack Lemmon’s comic timing is generally better than Hitler’s.)
So what I’m saying, in an about the houses sort of way, is that I was pretty psyched when I heard there was going to be a sequel to The Lodger (The Lodger II? The Lodger Strikes Back? Lodge Harder?).
I was conscious, though, that most sequels are wont to fall prey to law of diminishing returns. (And Closing Time has form in this area, being the name of Joseph Heller’s bewilderingly bad sequel to Catch 22. It’s also a brilliant song by Leonard Cohen, and a less brilliant one by Semisonic. Started well that sentence, didn’t it?) And I suppose, in a way, this did fail to match up to its predecessor. But only a bit. And only when it veered too far from The Lodger’s gold-plated Smith/Corden comedy bromance template.
Because I could watch that stuff all day – or, at least, I think Matt Smith’s Doctor trying to interact with normal human beings has enough legs to sustain a full series – sort of like The UNIT era crossed with Mork and Mindy. The way he ingratiated himself with his co-workers, all childlike innocence and fumbling intimacy, was adorable. Should The Oncoming Storm be adorable, do you think? Who cares – he is.
I particularly loved the scene in the nursery – just Matt Smith and a baby and some magic stars. He started out as Frank Spencer talking to baby Jessica, before effortlessly shifting gear into universe-weary sadness and resignation. The Doctor is a gear-shift part, and Smith never crunches them. “It was funny, he seemed so happy but so sad at the same time…”.
It’s a measure of Smith’s impact on the show that they can build a whole episode around his skills like this. It’s hard to imagine the tenth Doctor pulling off those toy shop scenes – a hip second-hand record store maybe, but not toys and small children. (“Why a shop? Why not a nuclear power station?” the Doctor asked at one point – possibly anticipating the question being asked by those old-skool fans who preferred Doctor Who when it was set in Magnox reactors, not toy departments, and had less kissing and jokes and stuff.)
Also, brilliant as Tennant was, it’s fair to say Smith does that whole “burdened by the weight of so many deaths and departures” thing a lot more subtly than his predecessor, and it’s all the more affecting for it – as showcased in the lovely Amy and Rory cameo. (And if it’s a bit of an unlikely coincidence he should run into them in a Colchester department store… well, coincidence is what the universe does for kicks. Incidentally, how long has it been since the Doctor last saw them, do we reckon? He tells Craig he’s been “knocking around on my own for a bit”, and his imminent date with death would suggest it’s actually 200 years – in which case that coat is wearing really well.)
If you found the Ponds’ appearance a bit cheesy, you’ll have hated the ending. Again. Seriously, how many times is love going to save the day this year? And how much more father-son bonding can we take? Nevertheless, you won’t be surprised to learn I bought into it – especially as Gareth Roberts nicely undercut the whole concept with the “grossly sentimental and over simplistic” meta-gag.
And yes, initiating a feedback loop into the Cybermen’s emotional inhibitors may be bollocks but, as TTV reader Charles_Yo pointed out a couple of weeks back, it’s quite a challenge to do set-up, character, action and resolution in 42 minutes, which is why we inevitably end up with so many cop-out endings. It’s also what happens when, unlike most action series (yes Torchwood, we’re looking at you), the show’s brains-over-brawn advocacy means you can’t solve everything by just blowing shit up.
Closing Time did end with something blowing up, of course, but it was very deliberately a controlled explosion – Roberts literally keeping the story contained and domestic, or as contained and domestic as you can get in a story about a Cybermen invasion.
Perhaps for this reason, the Cybership scenes – in fact the whole Cyber presence – felt a bit awkwardly grafted on to the wider buddy movie/sitcom; as if Roberts knew he had to have a bit of a monster mash-up, but didn’t quite have the heart – or the budget – to really go for it. As a Cyberman story, this is even more lacklustre than The Next Doctor. But it didn’t really matter because, unlike that particular Christmas turkey, the main event was so appealing – though the sight of those Cybes doing the Peter Crouch Robot might take a while to live down…
The only other false note, for me, was the whole sentient baby shtick, but you can probably blame that on Steven Moffat’s A Good Man Goes To War. (I know Doctor Who is science fantasy and I need to suspend my disbelief and all that, but rewriting a fundamental fact of human biology for a cheap gag already flogged to death in three crap Bruce Willis movies seems a bit unnecessary.)
Oh, and the sudden appearance of River Song killed the party mood a bit, reminding me how much more perfect the Smith/Moffat era would be without Alex Kingston being so very LARGE and ARCH all over the shop. (I’m sure there’s a very good explanation as to why they’ve strapped her in a spacesuit and stuck her in a lake. I’m just not convinced we’ll ever find out what it is.) Thankfully, even Dr. Wrong couldn’t distract too much from the charm a story that casually chucked out such gems as:
“It’s your parents’ cash and they’ll only waste it on boring stuff like lamps and vegetables.”
“We didn’t call him The Doctor.”
“The Alignment of Exeter.”
Holli Dempsey as Kelly: if you ever wanted to know what the teenage Donna was like…
Lynda Baron. Lynda! Baron!
“Aliens in Colchester”
Cybermats – with teeth.
The Sonic – with apps.
“No-one’s noticed yet – they’re far too excited about Nina’s emotional journey” (Is this getting the excuses in early for next week’s X Factor drubbing, do you think?)
Also, is the fact Doctor Who’s format can encompass Star Trek jokes, but Star Trek could never have contemplated a Doctor Who joke, evidence of our show’s innate superiority? Of course it is.
Closing Time, then: it probably isn’t better than the entire canon of Welles, Kubrick, Kurosawa and Camfield. But it is almost certainly the most fun you can have in Colchester on a Saturday night. And, for my money, it’s also a much better story than Sp… oops, out of time!
