Worlds Collide and Days are Dark

We're only ten days away from Blue Monday, the January day acclaimed by US pseudoscience to be the gloomiest one of the year. Certainly, today has begun with persistent rain, thick cloud and leaden half-light. The Indy movement is marching again in Glasgow and while I'm very sympathetic to the idea of a self-determining Scotland, I'm increasingly unconvinced that we're progressive enough yet to be part of the Nordic Council. Maybe when my generation finally expires.

Despite this and the imminent prelim marking beginning next week, I was still excited to see a deluxe edition of Doctor Who Magazine celebrating the return of the series on Ne'er Day.

Spyfall 1 was appropriately glossy although it dragged a bit in the middle. Jodie made me laugh and I was amused by the Tardis Fam and their Bondian antics. I thought Lenny Henry was very good as the entrepreneurial  Elon Musk figure "repurposing humanity". Given the name of his company (VOR) and the indistinct, invading entities with the tapering skulls, I thought Chibnall was reviving those alien Voord.

Maybe he still will. Making the enemy Big Data feels more contemporary and threatening than the monsters in the Wi-Fi of Matt Smith's era.

SPOILERS

Of course the big reveal was extremely exciting, up there with Professor Yana and Missy, appropriately enough. Back in 2013, I said Sacha Dhawan would make a good Doctor ( Lenny Henry still would) and  I was half-right.

If Spyfall 1 reminded me superficially of 1968's The Invasion, part 2 bore more than a passing resemblance to 2007's The Sound of Drums, with the Fam on the Lam.
 Like his predecessors, the new Master mimics the idiom of the new Doctor: " I can't 'ear yer, love".
Noor Inayat Khan was an inspired guest character; Ada Lovelace previously appeared with Tom on audio in last year's Enchantress of Numbers, however and there was no reference to that- maybe Chibnall's era isn't embracing Big Finish canon the way Moffat did. And while the Master remarked on his own sharp-shooting skills from The Deadly Assassin, he seemed confused about Logopolis. Twitter tidied up those threads suggesting the Pharos Project was based at Jodrell Bank.

The first two episodes had a pace and confidence that I felt was lacking in Jodie's first year  This season also seems to have an arc again: the Timeless Child, previously mentioned in The Ghost Monument and its attendant "lie" has resulted in the destruction of Gallifrey. Again.
I liked the way the Doctor used the Master's monologues against him and I hope we see this giggling, psychotic rage-y Time Lord again before the end of the season.

Sacha Dhawan then turned up in the second episode of the Gattis/ Moffat Dracula- as if there weren't enough Whovian in-jokes already. " I may call you Zoe, mayn't I?" ;"Brave heart, Jack"; Countess Scarloni aka Maya the Pyschon; the "adorable barmaid"- Clara Oswald, apparently.

 I wonder if Sr. Agatha's London detective was Holmes or Madame Vastra? 

There were also nods to Polidori's The Vampyre ( Lord Ruthven), Inside No.9, the BBC's 1977 Supernatural series (Dorabella); even the trailer for House of Dark Shadows ("There's no one...living here").

In this welter of self-awareness- I mean, Gatiss actually had to play Renfield himself and as Alfred to Drac's twisted Bruce Wayne- the creators of Sherlock were almost sure to provoke and irritate with their metatextual preoccupations. If Dracula himself ( the magnetic Claes Bang) was a hypermasculine sexual predator armed with Missy's Central Belt sarcasm ( and more than a touch of Roger Moore in the night), then the popular Sister Agatha Van Helsing utilised  both the Twelfth Doctor's blunt directness and some of River Song's roleplaying skill.

I'd never had the experience of watching a tv show as it was "livetweeted" and the audience's patience proved short as the (entirely predictable) shift to 2020 baffled then infuriated them. "It's gone like Doctor Who" they huffed. I would have liked the final episode to have been titled Dry January - or even Crispy, Duck? as Moffat's bizarre cremation phobia from Dark Water resurfaced.

While it wasn't quite as frustrating as 2019's War of the Worlds (which was still visually impressive and ambitious), Dracula's campery and shock tactics irked me. The HIV imagery of episode one clashed with the resolution- an immortal apex predator ( essentially a sentient virus) just...longs for death? Wha? At least the unconvincing religious imagery of the BBC's WOTW wasn't wheeled out or the  "Promise of a Soldier" war porn of the Twelfth Doctor's first year. It was also staggeringly violent and bloody television- but we seem okay with that at the beginning of the new decade. Just don't mention male rape or trans rights. Just too, too SJW.

Next time, I'd like to talk a little about the Target Storybook, Saward's Revelation of the Daleks novelisation and Daughter of the Gods from Big Finish. I'm also thinking about posting on- at least, later in the month- Jim Steranko, Starfleet Academy. Thanos, Gil Kane's Star Hawks, Cave Carson and Tigra. There just aren't enough hours in the day.

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