DOCTOR WHO 5.3 - Victory of the Daleks

One of the more unanimous niggles about the resurrected Doctor Who has been the fact that the Daleks have returned, regular as clockwork, every single season. And even though none of the four specials last year were tales concerning Skaro’s finest, those pesky pepperpots still managed to get their polycarbide shells back on the old goggle-box with a generous cameo in The Waters of Mars.

And I have to say, I broadly agree with this popular sentiment that we are seeing them far too regularly these days. Now don’t get me wrong, I love the Daleks to bits but I do think that things were better when you couldn’t set your watch by their reappearances. In the classic series, despite the great public appetite for Dalek stories, they rationed their appearances and so a new battle between the Doctor and his arch enemies was a big deal – what we would now call ‘event television’ – rather than an expected feature of every season.

However other diluting their screen power, there is another problem tied up with the overexposure of the Daleks, and I suspect, a major source of the annoyance with their constant returns in the new show. And it’s this: in every appearance, they rebuild their ranks from a handful of survivors only to be completely wiped out again.

Now way back in 2005, when Who had just returned this was acceptable; when the Emperor and his hoard were dissolved by Bad Wolf/Rose it made for an epic and thrilling finale to the first series. The mass destruction of the Dalek fleet had an almost operatic feel to it and neatly provided closure to the back-story arc concerning the Time War and its effect on the Ninth Doctor. And from a production point of view, considering that no one foresaw the huge success of the show would turn out to be, it made sense to tie up all those loose ends neatly. More to the point, as it was very possible that the new Who could end up being axed, Russell T Davies could afford to go for a real Götterdämmerung ending and exterminate the Daleks completely.

However repeating this formula every series since is less forgivable. Firstly, even though we always expect arch enemies to cheat death and return again and again, does every outing have to end with their final end? Couldn’t the Doctor just defeat them for a change? Foil their plans and force them back, rather than commit another act of genocide. Secondly, these constant Dalek apocalypses create a real pain in the arse for the unlucky sod that has to find a way to conjure up another hoard of Daleks to menace the universe.

And for this latest Dalek return, the aforementioned unlucky sod is Mark Gatiss. Although perhaps best known for being one of the League of Gentlemen, he also is a long time Doctor Who fan who has ended up realising his dreams to be involved with the show. In the regenerated series, he penned The Unquiet Dead - a personal favourite of mine from Series 1, The Idiot’s Lantern in Series 2, and starred as the villainous Professor Lazarus in Series 3’s The Lazarus Effect.

Furthermore, during what Gatiss himself wryly refers to as ‘the interregnum’ – that dark time between 1989 and 2005 when the good Doctor had vanished from our screens - he wrote four Who novels. Two were for Virgin Books’ continuation of the series, furthering the adventures of the Seventh Doctor in Nightshade and St Anthony’s Fire. And the other pair were for the later BBC range of Past Doctor Adventures; The Roundheads which was a historical outing for the Second Doctor, and Last of the Gaderene which was a tale set in the UNIT era of the Third Doctor’s life. Plus he also scripted two audio plays for Big Finish (who were also furthering the travels of the Doctor while he was away from television) -Phantasmagoria and Invaders From Mars.

And if all of that wasn’t enough Time Lord credibility for you, his favourite book in childhood was the Target novelisation of the Jon Pertwee classic Planet of the Daleks. And perhaps this is most relevant thing on his Who CV…

But more on that later! On the episode itself…

Considering the first two episodes have effectively been new pilots for the revamped series, Gatiss was a good choice to helm the third, the point when the show can just get on with the action. And being very familiar with most of his previous Who output, and indeed the rest of his canon, I was hoping an old school adventure but packed with fresh ideas rather than lapsing into a mere pastiche of past stories. And indeed this is what he delivered. In spades!

My initial reaction is that this is perhaps the best of the three episodes he has penned for new Who. Let’s face it, when you give a writer who understands stories and genre tropes as well as Mark Gatiss the brief 'write a script involving Daleks and Churchill', you’re bound to get something good out the other end.

So we have a wonderful portrait of Churchill, that is both fun and respectful, and brilliantly performed by Ian McNeice, Bill Paterson shining as the slightly bumbling but quite brilliant Dr Bracewell, the Daleks being subtle and cunning, and all wrapped up beautifully in the wartime setting. Throw into the mix an impressive set piece consisting of spitfires taking on a Dalek saucer plus some clever plot twists and we have a winning episode here.

Also it was nice to see Amy getting plenty to contribute throughout the story and again it was good that the resolution involved some old fashioned quick thinking rather than the magic solution new Who has relied on too heavily in the past, particularly when the Daleks are involved.

However I do have some negative points to raise. I don’t whether it was down to the traditional adventure yarn structure or the fact that this is an early outing for a new incarnation, but the Doctor himself felt a little more generic. Now Matt Smith was wonderful as ever, but some of the time his part could have been played by any of the other Doctors. And I am perhaps being a little nitpicky - after all we get the superb scene where he bluffs the Daleks with a jammy dodger!

On reflection, I think the problem was that the episode was so fast paced that at some points there just wasn’t the time for the Doctor’s new personality to shine through as much as the previous two episodes. Of course, stories not having the space to breathe is the curse of modern Doctor Who.

To be honest, I really think that the BBC should bite the bullet and extend the running time and make each episode an hour long. As the specials last year proved, that extra fifteen minutes does make for better pacing and story telling. I appreciate that in an effects heavy show like Doctor Who the mandarins at Broadcasting House will be worried about the extra expense but really the additional time doesn’t need to be more explosions and eye candy. In fact, the extra time would ideally be more of the cheapest scenes - people talking and mood shots; all those little details that flesh out the plot and the characters.

And certainly I feel that this episode was deserving of more a little more time. Perhaps not stretching it out to a two parter, but an extra quarter of an hour would have given the plot more room to breathe and for the script to spread its wings a lot further. For example, I'm not sure we get to spend enough time with Bracewell for his ultimate salvation to have all the proper dramatic impact it could have.

Secondly, those spitfires in space… They were marvellous but - and this is not a criticism of the episode itself - I did think it was a bit of shame that they’d showed snippets of this impressive set piece in the trails. Now obviously as it’s a brilliantly executed sequence that looks truly cinematic it's only natural the BBC wanted to show it off in the previews.

But as stunning as it was - and I heartily concur with a tweet I’ve just seen by comics author Andy Diggle that reads ‘Hard to focus on the aerial dogfight in tonight's DR WHO because I was literally weeping with joy’ - imagine how much more amazing it would have been if you didn’t know it was coming...

Last niggle - the new Dalek design. Now I don’t mind the bright colours - after all, these are a set of Dalek leaders. The Stolen Earth/Journeys End has shown us a Supreme Dalek in red livery, and in the classic series we've seen colour coded Daleks in command positions - a pertintent example here would be the Gatiss favorite, Planet of the Daleks which features another Supreme Dalek in gold and black. Similarly the loss of the slats around their waists and the enlarged bumpers is a return to the designs of the Hartnell days - check out this Dalek Commander from their second outing The Dalek Invasion of Earth and compare it with tonight's newcomers.

My problem is they seem to be, well, a little too chunky for my tastes... Oh sod it, I’ll just come out and say it - to my eyes it looks like they’ve got fat arses now! Exterminated all the pies, did you? Maybe the new look will grow on me - I hated the new Cybermen the first time I saw them but love the design now - so time will tell.

Of course, not all future Daleks may follow the new design - these were a set of founding father models remember. Which brings me to the biggest issue I had coming into this episode and the one I addressed in the opening of this review - were the scourge from Skaro back again only to meet another ‘final’ end?

Thankfully no! As I’d hoped, the new Moffat broom isn’t repeating the same lazy pattern of threat to the universe/destroy the Dalek race. And as I suspected Mark Gatiss was the perfect man to break the cycle. Remember I mentioned his love for the Third Doctor story Planet of the Daleks? Well, the pertinent point here is the portrayal of the Daleks in this outing. This six parter’s plot takes place in future history when the Daleks are plotting an major intergalactic campaign, one of several they launched in this period. On the mysterious planet Spiridon, they are secretly building up an army to conquer the galaxy and carrying out covert experiments to replicate a unique ability Spiridon’s natives possess - the power of invisibility.

Now while the Time War and the elevation of the Daleks to universe destroyers was a logical extrapolation of their ultimate plans, it is a limiting factor for story lines. After all, after they have attempted to obliterate the rest of creation, how do you top that? And the cycle of return/total destruction was just as constricting.

Now with Victory of the Daleks Gatiss has returned them to the status they held in the classic series - a constant menace to other civilised worlds, building empires and hatching fiendish plans to conquer galaxies. And the redesign, which harks back to these earlier days, reflects this back to basis approach. The way is open once again for smaller stories - the small defeats and thwarted schemes we all want to see again. Indeed skirmishes like this one, where the stakes are high but not apocalyptic.

And for this reason, despite a few niggles, I rate this episode very highly. Victory of the Daleks is well named - it restores the Daleks to their rightful place in the show’s mythology, but more importantly, the Daleks actually win this one! Yes, the Doctor and Amy may have prevented them from destroying the Earth but that was never their real objective. Their true goal was accomplished - to build a new Dalek race and even as I type this they are no doubt making planet fall on their old home world Skaro, ready to begin hatch further diabolical plans…

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

Spoiler and dragon free!

Although fitting movies into clearly defined demographic slots – such as ‘chick flick’, ‘teen movie’, ‘kids’ film’ or ‘family entertainment’ – maybe useful from a critical standpoint, it’s not necessarily such a good thing when it comes to marketing. Demographics are useful in their way but in recent years have come to a dominant factor in the herd-mind of Hollywood studio bosses and this has led to many decisions where the tail has been wagging the dog. The trouble is as much as you try to reduce your audience to chunks of figures of predictable patterns, the general public have a remarkable tendency to not have the good grace to stay put in any category the hardworking and very clever men with the graphs have the decency have carefully placed them in.

And this is why How To Train Your Dragon opened to disappointingly low box office returns. The knuckleheads who believe the world is just one big bloody pie chart reasoned thus – its animation therefore it’s for kids and hence as it’s a kids’ flick you gotta shove it out during school holidays. Now there were some rumbling and grumbling from theatre owners who were concerned about a logjam of 3D films, but as cinema owners and the limited availability of 3D capable screens weren’t on the predicted audience pie charts they were roundly ignored.

And so How Train Your Dragon was released head-to-head with the remake of Clash of the Titans. Now the demographics wizards no doubt reasoned that this wouldn’t be a problem as they were going for two different age markets accorded to their data. Because as we all now little kids don’t love big monsters and definitely aren’t bloodthirsty little sods… So therefore they certainly wouldn’t be pestering their parents to take them to see Perseus hacking lumps out of giant scorpions and beheading a gorgon. Of course not!

Now I have some pie charts of my own and according to my data analysis, demographics experts are Type Z people – berks who need to get their heads out of their arses and take a good look at the real world for a change…

Of course, you may say that I’m being a little too sarcastic here and that maybe the industry string pullers just really, honestly believed that their movie was the better piece of cinema and quality would win out at the box office. However years of reading and watching making of features and retrospectives, plus countless tales from actors and directors about what goes on in the business end of the Hollywood, does lead me to severely doubt this as my overall impression is that the folk in charge of the purse strings aren’t actually that interested in any given movie’s actual content and in general seem to be people who don’t actually like movies at all.

However fortunately for How To Train Your Dragon it is easily a far better film than the botched Clash of the Titans - and not simply because Louis Leterrier can’t seem to make a film in Hollywood without someone sticking their oar in and screwing everything up with perpetual reshoots and re-edits. No How To Train Your Dragon isn’t just better by default, it’s one of the best animated features I’ve seen in quite a while. And I’d go further - it’s one of the best pieces of all round family entertainment we’ve had in some time too.

Now there is some serious competition for these accolades but for me How To Train Your Dragon trumps them all. Wall-E and Up both start really well but their second halves don’t quite manages scale the heights of the first. Fantastic Mr Fox is a delight of wit and old school stop motion and although it plays better to kids than some critics gave it credit for, it still entertains the grown-ups a touch more than a good family should. Avatar is probably a little too intense for the very young to earn a family tag and A Christmas Carol is an excellent adaption of Dickens’ classic but as such belongs more to the genre of Christmas films. As for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland… rubbish wasn’t it. Pretty rubbish I’ll grant you, but rubbish none the less. Like his trademark trees, Burton needs to branch out a bit…

So then what makes How To Train Your Dragon so good? First up, it looks absolutely gorgeous. A recurring irritation I’ve had with a lot of modern animation, both CG and old fashioned 2D, is the tendency to overly stylized designs. There seems to have been far too many cartoons all featuring characters that comprise of polygonal shapes with stick-thin arms and legs and in general, demonstrate only a passing acquaintance with correct anatomical proportions. Now stylization is fine and I love The Nightmare Before Christmas, which seems to have popularised this particular style, as much has the next skellington. But it would appear that this tendency to carry it to the point of needless freakishness and often regardless of whether it suits the subject has increased in direct proportion to the use of computers in the animation process. And this leads me to suspect that a lot of lazy, if not downright shoddy, draughtsmanship is masking its failings by playing the stylistic card – why else did the animators of the first Clone Wars get the gig when they blatantly could draw an elbow to save their lives?

Thankfully though, the animators and designers on How To Train Your Dragon are not followers of this trend, and instead deliver characters that are cartoony but still realistic enough to pass as people rather modern art sculptures come to life. Wisely they have channelled their wilder inspirations into the designs of the different species of dragon and as a consequence have created a range of marvellous beasties that are fantastic in every sense of the word.

And these deft character and creature designs are given a wonderful home in the island of Berk. The world of How To Train Your Dragon is portrayed in loving and lush detail; we are talking an Avatar-like level of realistically rendering a fantasy landscape. I was very impressed that the designers had perfectly created an authentic Viking look for the buildings and artefacts; clearly they have done a lot of historical homework and their efforts are rewarded with the creation of a fantasy world with an original vision and brimming with flavour.

But equal to the design work in bringing depth and life to the universe of How To Train Your Dragon is the cinematography. Directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois hired Roger Deakins, veteran cinematographer for the Coens, to help craft the visual look of the movie; apparently the concept was to give the film a more live action/real life look than is usual for an animated feature and this has paid off in spades. At a couple of points, I honestly caught myself thinking ‘Wow! Stunning location!’ before remembering it was filmed in the land of RAM – seriously I had completely forgotten I was watching an animated feature!

In addition the 3D work is superb too – this is a film firmly in the not-too-pointy and plenty of depth school set up by Zemeckis and Cameron. How To Train Your Dragon is packed with whizzing firebolts and breath taking flying sequences but equally important is the little details it brings to life such as the characters expressions and the textures of their gorgeously rendered world. It’s another demonstration that you really need both imaginative directors and to plan a movie for 3D from the outset to creatively justify using the process. How To Train Your Dragon don’t just knock the retro-fitted 3D of Alice in Wonderland and Clash of the Titan into a cocked hat, it fells them with a great axe and performs a blood eagle on their quivering backs.

However that said, this film is not dependant on the 3D wow factor and although it is nice to see it with dragons flapping off the screen it’s not essential. Partly because the direction and cinematography is dynamic enough to be impressive when viewed flat, but more importantly than delivering the eye candy, How To Train Your Dragon tells a great story that is wonderfully rounded in many different ways.

We have a nicely balanced selection of memorable characters which, incredibly for a film with an eye on the younger market, doesn’t include a cute, supposed to be comedic but actually as funny as the Black Death, sidekick. And this Viking crew is ably voiced by a fine cast who all have a good grasp on both the script’s comedy and drama. And the story has plenty of both; unlike so many family films it doesn’t feel the need to wrap everything in broad comedy.

On the comedy front, it’s a refreshing change to have a family movie whose humour stems from wit rather than just slapstick. It doesn’t play the game of throwing in a custard pie gag for the kids and then a smart arse reference only the grown-ups get; rather it’s humour is completely inclusive – a challenge most scripts fudge with the one for them, one for us approach.

However some mainstream critics have docked it marks for not being funnier, but I applaud it for having the balls to treat its dramatic elemetns seriously. A bane of modern fiction that is aimed at children is the reliance on the same old platitudes – the worst repeat offender being the ‘just be your self and everything will fine!”. Now this is a noble enough message for a younger audience but so often it is delivered in a story so devoid of any real danger, pain or darkness that it starts to grate and becomes a bit “…and we’ll all go and live with the tofu dolphins who live under fridge”.

And at first glance, it would seem that How To Train Your Dragon is heading down the same path – introducing us to Hiccup, a most un-Vikingly Viking who is better at thinking and making things than hitting them. However as the movie unfolds, it becomes clear that that this is more of a coming of age story than the usual watered down ugly duckling routine. And it lead to some harsh emotional places and there is a personal cost to the happy every after.

In short, there are a lot more layers than is usual in this kind of family fare and the movie is all the stronger for it. And it’s this emotional depth that’s got people talking as much as the thrills, the laughs or the 3D. Indeed I’d say it’s the strength of the story that’s inspired the word of mouth that has turned the film’s box office fortunes around.

More to the point, it’s also what makes How To Train Your Dragon a real classic. And that’s why I gave the demographics boys such stick earlier for allowing this movie to go out and be shoved in the afternoon only showing ghetto of school holiday cinema schedules. However in a delicious piece of irony, How To Train Your Dragon has successfully challenged and overturned the received wisdom just like Hiccup himself.

It skilfully avoids the pitfalls and tar pits that scupper many films for all the family – it’s not too cute, patronising or fluffy. Instead it’s fun, exciting and thrilling with a strong heart and a smart head on its shoulders. How To Train Your Dragon is simply pure gold.

DOCTOR WHO - THE BEAST BELOW

Spoiler warning! Press 'Read' or 'Ignore'!

After inflicting several thousand words on the return of Doctor Who upon you all last week, I honestly intended leave well alone and perhaps return for a mid season report. However like Vic and Bob, I just couldn’t let it lie! And so ignoring the rod manufacture/my own back equation, I’ve decided to review every damn episode in this season…

Last week’s opening episode, which ushered in the Moffat era, was a huge success; generally going down very well across the board and saw Matt Smith very swiftly winning the hearts of the general audience and the die hard fans alike. And this was no mean feat, considering David Tennant is pretty much tied with Tom Baker for the title of most loved incarnation of the Doctor.

And although Moffat didn’t stray too far from the templates laid down by Russell T Davies, The Eleventh Hour showed a tighter grasp of plotlines and characterisation, a better integrated sense of humour and a whole new level of brio. In short, although it didn’t deliver the darker, more adult Who some were hoping Mr Moffat to unleash, nearly everyone could agree that this was a show refreshed and reinvigorated.

But there were still many questions and expectations hanging over the next story. After all, as the old saying goes one swallow does not a summer make, but more pertinently, episodes in the previous series of new Who often varied in quality. So then, having got all those pilot episode constraints out of the way, where would Moffat take us next? Would The Beast Below see the show’s tone and style shifting further? And would Matt Smith’s performance differ now the regeneration had fully stabilised?

As it stands, a quick trawl of the reviews popping up all over the web show that this second helping seems to be somewhat more divisive. And while I wouldn’t hail this as a masterpiece, it is far from being a failure, and I can’t help feeling that some of the more negative critics out there are missing some key points.

The main bone of contention seems to be that the plot is a little thin and some are seeing this as a proof that the script demons of RTD are going to continue their reign of terror. Now I appreciate that from the trailers and teasers, a lot of folk would have been expecting something different. Having seen the sinister Smilers, I’m betting more than a few were expecting Moffat to be donning his King of the Scary crown and giving us another hunted by monsters with a catchphrase outing. And hence I completely understand why it is something of a let down to find out that the Smilers and Winders don’t actually do much in the story other than be a bit creepy.

And others have felt that the whole plot is a little too derivative for its own good. And again I can sympathise, the general set-up was very redolent of Season 3’s Gridlock and the reveal that the titular beast was a benign star whale was a little too close to the Torchwood episode Meat.

However in fairness, the whole future society living by the grace of alien monsters below is a very old saw in the science fiction toolbox. And if you look closely you can still see the words ‘Property of Herbert George Wells’ inscribed on the handle – because this is another of the myriad descendants of the Eloi/Morlock dynamics from The Time Machine. Equally one of the other big twists in The Beast Below; the ‘this has all happened before’ routine, can be found in the same toolbox.

But I’d argue this isn’t the Ghost of Thin Storylines Past manifesting once more. The key point here isn’t the originality of these tropes but what use a writer makes of them. And Moffat does build a solid enough story with them. But crucially he’s not relying on them to deliver the big punches, because it’s not the ins and outs of the storyline that are his real focus.

No, this isn’t meant be a scary tale of tunnel chases and grinning manikins – this is an episode about getting to know Amy. Yes, we were introduced to her last week, but it’s in The Beast Below we get a proper measure of who she is. In a way, this is her pilot episode. What was so great about The Eleventh Hour was that it was a story from the Doctor’s point of view, and so for the Time Lord/Companion dynamic to be properly set up, it’s only natural that Moffat would follow it up with an episode where Amy takes centre stage.

Now the Moff rattles through a good deal of the usual stuff the companion has to learn very quickly and effectively. Rather stint on the story to cover such topics as the Doctor’s species, what happened to the Time Lords, and basic time travel etiquette, he builds them into the action in a way that feels natural and doesn’t bore the audience who already knows all of these things. Similarly, the plot is structured to allow the audience to discover Amy’s real character through its events rather than clunky expository dialogues. And it’s here where the REAL plot twist occurs.

For although some are looking at this episode and seeing the same shallow treatment of big sci-fi ideas as in the Davies version of the show, I can’t help but feel that there is a crucial difference going unnoticed. And it’s a big one too – can you see the 10th Doctor as written by RTD being actually stumped by the plot threat and the companion saving the day?

What would probably happen if this was an RTD script is that Amy would mention children in passing and then Tennant yells “Yes, yes, yes you beauty, that’s it! I’m brilliant!”, burble the full solution to the dilemma like a puppy with logorrhoea, and then no doubt tow Starship UK to a safe planet with the TARDIS. And I wouldn’t rule out the Doctor actually riding the star whale like the universe’s smallest jockey in order to accomplish the happy ever after ending either…

See how that different that is from the Moffat end we actually got? Now that’s what I call a real tonal shift! And so I can easily forgive the fact that this episode wasn’t creating another addition to the Scary Monsters Hall of Fame, because what we have here is the creation of a fallible hero once again; an incarnation of the Time Lord who doesn’t have all of the answers, all of the time. And also The Beast Below presents a problem that isn’t one that can be solved with the invention of another superpower for the sonic screwdriver or some extreme extra-human cleverness on the Doctor’s part.

Although the boundless confidence and energy of the 10th Doctor was fun at the time, this tendency to omnipotence was getting all a bit much, to the point it was actually weakening the character. And Who has been down this road before, and funnily enough it was during Tennant’s rival for favourite Doctor, Tom Baker’s tenure. In the latter half of his run, the Fourth Doctor was suffering the same problem of being such a smart arse as to negate any real sense of threat in the stories. Indeed, Baker himself was so convinced of the Doctor’s god-like genius that he felt that he didn’t really need a companion anymore and mooted the idea of having a talking cabbage perched on his shoulder to provide the necessary expository questions.

But The Beast Below scales back the Lonely God motif of the RTD days, showing us a Doctor who doesn't know everything. But also it shows us why the Doctor really needs a companion - it's not because he's so powerful he needs a mortal to anchor his perspective but more simply because he needs a friend and helping hand as much as the rest of us. And just like us, no matter how intelligent or talented we are, we all need rescuing sometimes by the people closest to us.

So while the surface plot may not be dazzling, the redefinition of the character dynamics is laying the foundation for stories that won’t rely so heavily on deus ex doctor resolutions. And this is both an important change and a very welcome development.

However, debates over the plot’s strengths and weaknesses aside, what this episode did provide was excellent performances from the two leads. Karen Gillan really shone in this story, showing there is a lot of heart and intelligence to back up her feistiness. Although a typical fiery red-head would have made a good and interesting foil for the Doctor, I’m pleased that her character is turning out to have far more depth. And she can deliver the funny lines naturally too without slipping into broad comedy.

As for Matt Smith, well, he’s just magic isn’t he? His performance has lots of touches of previous Doctors – Troughton’s mischief, both Bakers’ alien quirks, Davision’s vulnerability, Pertwee’s scientist, McCoy’s twinkle and Hartnell’s irascibility – all tied up with his own weird energy. But he also brings a thoughtful gentleness underscored with a touch of melancholy. Now I really enjoyed David Tennant, but I have to say Smith has totally out Doctored him.

In conclusion, it’s all the little touches and not the big plot lines that make the difference here. And I think that The Beast Below works best when you see it as the second part of Moffat's new pilot. Now of course that leaves us back where we started the episode in a sense – waiting to see what Moffat and his merry band are going to produce when they tackle a story unfettered by character intros and bring a plot to the foregorund. And as it happens guys and gals, next week we’ve got Churchill meeting the Daleks in a Mark Gatiss script … and if that’s not an opportunity for a full blooded slice of Who adventure I don’t know what is. In Moff we trust - oh yes!