Doctor Who Christmas 2007 Voyage Of The Damned - Did It Float YOUR Boat?

Now ... IS THIS part of Series 4 or NOT? Well the Christmas Special story of Doctor Who always seems to be regarded as the start or possibly pre-start of the series to come later in the year. So I think I'm quite safe to talk about it here. What's that? SOME of you reading this DIDN'T WATCH IT on Christmas Day like you were told to? Some of you are just going to be lazy and watch it on New Year's Day? SHAME ON YOU! Well so if you read this, your fun will just get spoilt then and you'll have to find something else to do at 2.15pm New Year's Day.

OOPS I've told you now! Yes, OK, for those of you who regarded eating as more important than watching both David Tennant AND the adorable Kylie Minogue TOGETHER IN ONE SCREENSHOT, then yes, you CAN see the repeat at that time. On BBC One of course!

So how was it for you?
OK, so down to business then. So what did YOU think of it? Inevitably we have to compare it to the previous two with those pesky Sycorax types and that yukky Racnoss lady-thing.

I must say this: I did not enjoy it nearly as much as the Racnoss Christmas Special last year. And the Sycorax were real BAAAAAD! The villain this year didn't show up right until the last fifteen minutes or so and his exit was already guaranteed by then. The mysterious Max Capricorn who, it seemed, oversaw everything and overtook everyone he could to .... plan the perfect retirement.

The political bit for the grownups
Ohhh THAT MAN Russell T Davies does it AGAIN! He just LOVES getting in those little oh-so subtle political back-stabs into his stories. Yes, THIS time its the pensions chaos of all those poor unfortunates who had company pensions only to lose everything when their bosses refused to pay up on collapse of the corporation they had all given their entire working lives for. EHHHH no politics here!! This is a family programme! Ahh, but we adults watch it too AND we got it even if the kids didn't!

What about Kylie? Was she any good?
If you're one of those people who worships the very ground Ms Minogue walks on, then you certainly had your fill a-plenty of the pint-sized princess of pop. Personally I am NOT one of those. And sorry to say, but I thought she was pretty naff. Yes, she's got the most carefully choreographed movoes to PERFECTION when it comes to music, but stuck here in a role like this she did NOT shine. I did not like her delivery and was not really very convinced by her character. Even the little in-joke when she had to run off to get a box to stand on to kiss David T. was .... well, I'm actually surprised she let them use it. I thought all those jokes about her height disappeared with Charlene in 'Neighbours'. And so yes - I'm not at all unhappy that she won't be riding with the Doc in the Tardis.

The character of Astrid Peth
Acting aside, there are several important things to note in your Doctor Who fact-file about Astrid Peth. The most notable is that we must surely consider her to be an official 'companion'. She had joint top billing in the credits so that confirms that for me. Given this, Astrid Peth is the shortest-living companion (literally) EVER of The Doctor in ANY series. I trhink I'm right in saying that NEVER BEFORE has ANY companion of Doctor Who been introduced and KILLED OFF in the same episode.

Now, another thing RTD is well-known for by now is his use of anagrams. And the name Astrid Peth has just GOT TO BE an anagram of SOMETHING.

Well, I have tried. But nothing plausible comes up.

You can try it too with THIS COOL TOOL I found today:-


The best one I could make was 'Tepid Trash' which is .... err ..... well, NO!

So she got fried in the engines and was then 'brought back' as atoms to float in space forever. Does this mean she could make a comeback someday? Or develop strange powers to help the Doc and his merry men? Everything is possible in sci-fi, but THIS writer thinks not.

Now to the Story Itself ...
If you loved those old disaster movies of the 1970's then THIS would be right up your shipping channel! Because THAT is what most of the story was about. The Doctor and a dwindling number of trapped survivors finding their way out to the bridge where the brave survivor Midshipman Alonzo Frame (Russell Tovey) was hanging on to life after having been shot by the Captain (Geoffrey Palmer) who, it seems, had been persuaded that it really was a 'good thing' to lower the shields of the ship so that any oncoming meteors could inflict whatever damage they could. Ah, how convenient! There they were! But were they MEANT to be there? Did he take down the shields on the off chance of a meteor shower or were they radio-controlled or guided meteors being lured onto the Titanic's side? That wasn't clear, but hey, I suppose in THAT part of space in orbit above the earth anything can happen! OK, I'll let that pass.

Anyway, the meteors hit - about four or five slammed into the side. Badly damaged, many crew and passengers dead and damaged engines. Ah, but not just ANY OLD engines you know - THESE ones are NUCLEAR. The Titanic is a very large ship, and so the idea is that the Titanic is now falling through space and is on collision course with us here on Sol 3. Nuclear engines, nuclear explosion and a VERY nasty hole in the ground would result so therefore has to be stopped.

The Doctor is already in and is with Astrid, Mr Copper (Clive Swift), Morvin and Hoon Van Hoff (Clive Rowe and Debbie Chazen) and cyborg Bannakaffalatta (Jimmy Vee). But now they have to contend with The Host - a number of robot angels with VERY NASTY halos to match. They press on to try to reach the bridge but the Van Hoffs are lost and Bannakaffalatta also dies heroically using a large electromagnetic pulse (EMP) from his robotic innards which disables The Host angels which are closing in. Having established that they now have a weapon, Astrid takes it from the dead cyborg's body to use when needed.

The Doctor finds a way too to get information out of The Host angels and discovers that Deck 31 is the place where it is all controlled from. He heads off there and sends the survivors on with their weapon. And AT LAST - over 1 hour into the story we finally meet our Bad Guy #1 Max Capricorn. He is revealed slowly to us - his chair trundling out of its indestructible "impact chamber". The story is that he was forced out by the company directors due to their prejudice against cyborgs. A simple revenge story! Revenge against the board who would be charged with mass murder of humans and revenge against human-kind itself! He would survive in his impact chamber and then retire very nicely.

BUT Astrid has teleported down to Deck 31 to The Doctor to see him struggling in the grip of The Host Angels and facing a grim end. Ah hah, a fork-lift truck! Just what she needs! So in she gets and rams Max Capricorn and herself in the truck off and down, down to the engines to be incinerated. And a very sad Doctor results.

The Titanic is still on crash course with the Earth with no engines working. BUT using the heat from re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere they manage to restart the engines and avert a disastrous collision with Buckingham Palace moments before impact and sail off back into the stars.

One more vain attempt to save Astrid, but all The Doctor can do is bring back her atoms using the teleport. So now she can go and explore the universe after all! AHHHH how SWEET! Oh, and there is a happy ending for Mr Copper who has a cool million pounds on his ship's expenses credit card to do with as he pleases on the planet. Some guys have all the luck!

OK, that completes Part 1 of my review. I didn't want to do it like this but the other night I couldn't save what I was doing and so couldn't finish at that time. But patience my brethren - it will be done. All comes to he who waits!

Christmas Is Coming - and So Is Doctor Who Series 4!

So here we are. On the verge of Christmas 2007, looking forward to the annual Doctor Who Christmas Special and, inevitably, thinking further ahead to Series 4 which will hit our TV screens in about 4 months time.

I do not plan to write much about the Xmas Special tonight since by this time tomorrow it will all be over. No, instead I have already collected much info on the rumours, gossip and chit-chat which surrounds the forthcoming new series. And now is a good time to share it with you. You may well have heard much of this yourselves, but if not here we go with much food for thought.

I will start with what must be the return of the Daleks at some point of other and possible storylines for them ....

The Daleks - sure to return
Somewhere out there is Dalek Caan having escaped from The Doctor at the end of the Empire State building edition of the Series 3 story. But WHERE will his emergency temporal shift have taken him? It was said that a possible reason that the Cult Of Skaro ended up in New York was due to them having visited NYC before. So maybe we can assume that this will be the case again in some form or another.

Given the current preference for Earth-related stories, this may take us (back) to several locations on the planet from the following stories in the past:-

• WILLIAM HARTNELL and Carole Ann Ford came across them in the "Dalek Invasion Of Earth 2164" in which they were invading London (ah HAH!). According to the Wikipedia rendition of the story, there was also an important character called TYLER there. Rings any bells? Yup, an old RTD favourite character surname! It also involved Battersea power station and "robomen" who are some kind of Dalek servants. Many parallels exist here with the 'Daleks In Manhattan' story and so perhaps this is not really a possible storyline since it would be seen as just a copy of that earlier tale.
• PATRICK TROUGHTON and Frazer Hines had a Dalek encounter in the "Evil Of The Daleks" story which was set in 1866 and involved the Daleks trying to find the secret of "The Human Factor" which was something they believed humans had which was the secret to human resistance of Dalek invasion plans. The Emperor was also involved here but was seemingly destroyed at the end.
• JON PERTWEE and Katy Manning had a very brief "Day Of The Daleks" which involved future humans coming back into the past to prevent it all happening for them. Classic sci-fi stuff of course, and this time the Daleks had the Ogrons for company.
• There was also a fairly minor appearance in the Pertwee story "Frontier In Space" in which the main villains, the Draconians, and Earth people were squaring up for a war. The Daleks aided by The Master, were hoping to pick up the pieces of this conflict which was based in the 26th century.
  
• PETER DAVISON and Janet Fielding had a battle on their hands in "Resurrection Of The Daleks". In this one, The Doctor and Tegan were dragged to Earth in 1984. Here it was not so much the Daleks who were to be resurrected but the great leader himself, DAVROS. Now this DOES have significant possibilities for our Series 4 since it has been rumoured in many places of his inevitable return (and who will play his part). More on Davros a little later. The plan this time was to clone the Doctor and his companions in order that they would eventually kill the High Council Of Time Lords on Gallifrey. There was also a rebellious Dalek element in this one with Davos' Daleks at war with Daleks loyal to the Dalek Supreme, who was a black Dalek similar in many ways to Dalek Sec. Also, they had something called a Movellan Virus to contend with.
• SYLVESTER McCOY and Sophie Aldred had their little brush with Dalek-kind in the "Remembrance Of The Daleks" story which was set in 1963. It is well-known as being a story of some complexity and so is unlikely to be referred to much apart from being Earth-bound and involving Davro again (OK, so maybe it IS significant then!). The Doctor had been looking for the Hand Of Omega when he came here. This story brings to us the Imperial Dalek and the Special Weapons Dalek as well as the warring Dalek Supreme and Davros once again.
• Last of all, PETER CUSHING played the Doctor in a movie role which was basically a movie version of a previous book. However, this movie and its storyline is not considered as being part of the 'real world' of The Doctor so it has to be discounted.
  

So the Davros-orientated stories would probably give us the most clues. His more-than rumoured comeback has been splashed across the media. And there are a number of viewer videos giving some kind of weight to this. For example, this one:-


It's a start! Not sure about Ben Kingsley and also not sure about Sarah Jane Smith's comeback either since she has her own spin-off show for the kids together with K-9.

HOWEVER, there ARE rumours abound about Ben Kingsley playing Davros in Series 4. But according to this more recent report, he denies this. But, as we well know, it was denied for ages and ages by Russell T Davies himself that we were to have Kylie in the Christmas Special this year. So any denials OR, for that matter, confirmations at this stage are interesting though unsubstantiated.

But back to where we started with Dalek Caan. Where will he turn up and in what form? Well, on the Freema Agyeman forum there is a rumour that he will meet up with Davros after or during his emergency temporal shift. Once they have met, they will concoct something evil to try to defeat the Doctor once and for all. This might form the end to Series 4 I suppose.

Or how about this. Dalek Caan wants revenge and wants to retrieve all the Daleks that got trapped in The Void by The Doctor at the end of Series 2. Well those Daleks are clever types, and they did manage to build that void ship in Series 2 so why not another? Having built it, Dalek Caan can locate the missing Daleks and attempt to retrieve them. BUT of course in trying to do this it is possible that the Torchwood in our world and the parallel Torchwood will see what is going on. This will then involve both Captain Jack AND Rose Tyler in some way and hey presto we have the Great Comeback!

This speculation in the last paragraph was adapted from a comment in a forum on SliceofSciFi.com. In particular, if you scroll down to Comment Number 42 by 'lucy' you will see a very interesting set of comments by someone who is obviously very observant in matters of Doctor Who. It is just opinion but it just looks like something very possible and carries some weight for me.

OK, I think that will do for Dalek Rumours. I will continue my search into Series 4 most lilely in a couple of days time when I will be looking into other rumoured comebacks. These, by the way, do include, The Rani, Sontarans, The Ood and maybe a Krynoid or two somewhere!

Enjoy the Christmas Special tomorrow!

And remember .... You Are Not Alone!