The Idiot's Lantern

"The Idiot's Lantern" was a text-book Doctor Who adventure, New Series style. The trouble is, the New Series is Very Good Indeed and we therefore have very high expectations - we're used to being scared, made to laugh out-loud, unexpectedly jump mid-scene when something leaps out and feel tearfully crushed when somebody dies tragically. That "The Idiot's Lantern" managed to be otherwise faultless while not evoking a single one of these emotions naturally came as something of a disappointment. As did being given something of a cold shoulder when posting an honestly mixed review of the story on the forum last night.

The key was the person that noted "vibes of indifference" - almost every gut reaction was that of satisfaction, yet slight disappointment. Note that disappointment is relative to expectation, and not an indication of quality. Manchester United and Chelsea fans are "disappointed" if they don't win the double; Cheltenham United will be pleasantly surprised if they avoid relegation next year. That's why I think it's important to judge every episode of this new series in relation to the others - in truth, every episode since 2005 has been at least as good as 80% of the old series. This we all know. But to base our comparisons on twenty year old, low budget "Old Who" would be to simply say "completely brilliant" every week; not very useful. Also, I feel sure that the modern day viewers whose participation determines the fate of the show will not base their opinions (and, perhaps, decision on tuning in next week) on comparisons to "Battlefield" and "Frontier In Space", but on whether the show has improved from previous recent episodes. At the end of these 13 weeks, we will have one episode which is thirteen places higher in each of our 'league tables' of the series. Thus as intelligent reasoning adults we should be able to say what was lacking in the episode at the bottom, and what was similarly much better in the one at the top. That's the point of weekly reviewing, surely.

So it goes without saying "The Idiot's Lantern" maintained the staples of New Who that we so love - the glossy production values and interesting period setting, the stylish and intelligent portrayal of the companion, Rose, and a monster to send the kids scurrying behind a cushion. In addition, writer Gatiss again repeated the trick with the pacing that he pulled off so well with last years "The Unquiet Dead", making us feel as if we were lingering on detail while not having to subsequently race to a conclusion. Maureen Lipman was nothing short of superb, and I personally liked her much the subplot with the bully of a Father getting his comeuppance. So it's something of a mystery why the whole shebang failed to rise into truly exciting territory for me. Perhaps it was Tennant's performance, which while not terrible we are now having to take minus its "getting himself established caveat" and accept that he is missing the maturity and subtlety that an older actor might bring to the part. The Doctor is joyous to be in 1950's Britain so Tennant has to be very, very joyous indeed. Later, Rose is taken so the Doctor is very, very angry. This is a Doctor whose moral compass is finally tuned, but who seems at times to have the everyday emotional sophistication of a child or a lunatic. Sometimes I wish he'd slow down a little. For some reason the scares were less liberally apportioned in this episode too, the faceless people being somewhat wasted in the absence of many truly heart stopping directorial touches.

And yet my fairly balanced appraisal of this episode was not gladly received on Planet Skaro. Before long phrases like "Doctor Who fans are never happy" and "born to bitch" were being bandied around. People get very annoyed indeed whenever new Doctor Who is criticised, perhaps forgetting that it's also very annoying not to be able to intelligently critique it against similar episodes without being labelled a killjoy. And you can't critique without criticising. If there were no relatively bad episodes, there'd be no relatively great episodes by comparison. It's all relative. "The Idiot's Lantern" was a great slice of entertainment for a Saturday Night, yet felt average when compared to the great run of episodes between "Tooth and Claw" and "The Age Of Steel". The judgement sounds mean, but then again, without the freedom to judge these episodes in relation to each other, I think any assessment at all is rather pointless.