To recap, then. On first viewing:
* * * * *
Boring.
Boring.
Boring.
God, "The Sound of Drums" is boring.
* * * * *
On second viewing:
* * * * *
Actually... it's not that boring. But if nothing else, then it marks the point at which
modern Doctor Who enters its self-parody phase: the point at which you can
positively, definitively say that there's such a thing as a "typical" Davies-era story,
and you positively, definitively know what all the set-pieces are going to be like. A
problem which might easily be cured by going back to 1963-basics rather than
1970-basics, and by making sure that the TARDIS never lands in the sodding
early-twenty-first century ever again (or at least, by making sure there are no
comical politicians around if it does end up there). Because as we've already seen,
the idea that the audience "needs" a constant return to Earth circa 2007 - like the
idea that it can only "accept" regular characters from the present day - is not only
wrong, but rather insulting. And the sight of Big Russell constantly trying to trump
himself, by making the alien hordes and the human body-counts bigger every time,
is getting embarrassing.
But the biggest problem here, even if you can accept that it's made up of bits from
other two-part stories, is that nothing in "The Sound of Drums" has the gravity it
needs. It certainly doesn't have the gravity it thinks it's got. We're supposed to
believe that the Doctor / Master face-off is an iconic, world-changing battle, but we
don't, because John Simm just isn't interesting enough. We're supposed to be
impressed by the epic political scale of the story, but we're not, because this sort of
thing happens every year. We're supposed to be shocked by the Toclafane
(literally) decimating the population, but we're not, because to us it looks no
different to what the Cybermen did twelve months ago. We're supposed to be
appalled by the Doctor becoming an old man, but we're not, because... well, it looks
silly. (The obvious fan-comment is to point out that this happened in "The Leisure
Hive", but the most important thing to notice is that it made sense there: "The
Leisure Hive" was a story about age and renewal. Here, it's simply gratuitous.)
Since this is That Difficult Third Season of Doctor Who, we might draw a
comparison with The Godfather Part Three, which failed - quite notoriously -
because the writer and director were so obsessed with the details of their own
creation that they didn't bother looking at things from the audience's point of view.
Only a film-maker with too much power could seriously believe that Michael
Corleone's relationship with his ex-wife deserves more screen-time than the Calvi
Affair, and likewise, only a writer-producer with nobody to rein him in would think
that putting Martha's family in peril is a good way of generating tension. To Russell,
these are essential human characters at the heart of an epic drama. To the rest of
us, they might as well be glove-puppets. And who's going to tell him that? Are you
going to? 'Cos nobody in the production office will, and I'm fairly sure he's not going
to listen to a word I say.
* * * * *
Now, on third viewing (and at this point, anyone might think I've got too much time
on my hands):
* * * * *
Perhaps the worst part is that this pathological need to raise the stakes every year,
this pattern of putting more and more people in jeopardy from more and more
elaborate CGI sequences, plays against the author's strengths. Less accomplished
writers generally seem to feel that since Doctor Who is either fantasy or (God
forbid) sci-fi, any sort of depth or credibility is to be avoided, and that "drama"
means bashing goodie-stereotypes and baddie-sterotypes against each other until
something "dramatic" happens (the most egregious example of this in modern-day
Doctor Who is probably "The Idiot's Lantern", in which even the members of the
POV character's family only exist so that they can make loud, grating comments
about beating homosexuals, but the old series is full of this sort of clunking
stupidity). Russell T. Davies' greatest strength has always been his ability to let
characters exist on their own terms, even when they're only on-screen for thirty
seconds: this is, for example, why even the doomed hospital consultant in "Smith
and Jones" has more of a personality and a backstory than anybody in "The
Shakespeare Code". Even Shakespeare, weirdly. Yet this kind of detail is bound to
suffer, under the crashing weight of six-billion Toclafane. Suddenly, humanity is
represented by two-dimensional grotesques like Jean Rook and President Winters,
not to mention Sharon Osbourne. Faced with this, it's hard not to be on the Master's
side... especially since the only genuinely human human character around here is
his wife, a woman who can't even stop herself dancing to the end of the world.
When the brainwashed villainess who gets an obvious sex-kick out of genocide
turns out to be more likeable than the companion's family, something's gone
mightily wrong.
So we're left with cop-outs, with routine explanations for routine events. The worst
of these is the set-up which lies at the heart of "The Sound of Drums", and which
therefore hamstrings the entire episode: the Master has only been on Earth for
eighteen months, yet he's brainwashed everyone into believing that he's been here
all the time. Why, for Christ's sake? Why not just say that he's been around for the
last twenty years, revelling in his false identity and setting up his uber-plan? If
you're going to write a story in which the Master infiltrates the British political
system and turns the entire country against the Doctor, then it only carries weight -
both dramatically and as a work of satire, assuming that the word "satire" really
means anything here - if he becomes the Prime Minister "properly". Captain Jack
even points out how easy this would be, and it makes perfect sense. But, no... the
Doctor immediately pooh-poohs the idea, paving the way for endless, turgid
exposition scenes about co-ordinate lock-offs, mind-controlling mobile 'phone
networks (what, again?) and perceptual filters. This is the greatest single cop-out of
the series so far, basically a way of saying "don't worry, he's not really the Prime
Minister, it's all just a horrible dream" while simultaneously weighing us down with
technobabble. If this had been done well, then the sight of the Doctor going on the
run from the whole of British society would have been genuinely scary. As it is, it
just looks as if everybody's gone temporarily mad, so we're killing time until he finds
a way of sabotaging the Archangel Network and putting everything back to normal.
Russell T. Davies' biggest problem - and I've said this before, but it's never been
more relevent - is that he doesn't understand what "war" means. We were promised
a "war on Earth" in "Army of Ghosts", but what we actually got were a couple of
pitched battles and then a whacking great reset switch. Fortunately, the rest of the
story was good enough to distract us from this, and the same could be said for "The
Parting of the Ways". But wars don't end with the push of a button. Now we've got
the biggest catastrophe so far, and I have a terrible feeling that all the twaddle
about the Archangel Network is only there so that the Doctor's team can use it as
this year's spurious doomsday weapon.
I also have a terrible feeling, more a nightmare than a rational response, that "The
Last of the Time Lords" will feature a shock ending in which David Tennant
regenerates into Matt Lucas. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it'd be somehow
typical of the kind of mistake this series is starting to make.
And: "Paradox Machine"? Dear God, even I never sank that low. It's like The
Ancestor Cell all over again.
