It’s been a Doctor Who sort of week for me, which should surprise no one.

I’m still listening my way through the backlist episodes of the prolific Radio Free Skaro podcast. It’s been so entertaining going back to the beginning, in that gap between seasons two and three. They’re just so young and hopeful and uncynical, and so very in love with David Tennant’s Doctor and RTD as a writer. Heh. I think it’s kind of downhill from here. My favourite episode this week was #42, their retrospective on Douglas Adams and his work, which veered well out of Doctor Who territory but was, as ever, interesting to listen to.

Also listened to this week, while I was sorting the final boxes of things into my library, was the Big Finish audio of Shada, the infamous lost story of Tom Baker’s era of Doctor Who, which happens to have been written by Douglas Adams. The story was halted during filming because of strike action, and never completed. I watched the VHS release of Shada back in the day, which is an exercise in frustration. It starts out pretty well for the first episode or so, and then descends into stills, narration, and lots of talk about invisible spaceships..

(not many spoilers for Shada, lots for the first 3 episodes of the new Doctor Who)
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There’s a certain romanticism about Shada, mostly because Adams also wrote the much adored Tom & Lalla & Paris (& Duggan!) lovefest that is City of Death, and the bits of Shada that were filmed do seem to be rather awesome. Douglas Adams obviously thought so himself, as he rewrote the story as the first Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency novel, taking out the bits about Time Lords and Gallifrey and shuffling a few other things around. Clips from the episode were also used in The Five Doctors in order to make it look like the Fourth Doctor and Romana were caught in a time rift rather than, you know, not on set, after Tom Baker declined to be involved in filming.

This new (okay not that new by now, I get to these things eventually) audio version features Paul McGann’s Doctor with Lalla Ward’s Romana, as well as a bunch of other voice actors recast in the various roles. The most notable one for me was Chris Parsons, played by Sean Biggerstaff aka Oliver Wood from the Harry Potter films, the closest thing we had to a Harry Potter pin up before Robert Pattinson came along as Cedric Diggory.

Where was I? I’m not sure why, but I was surprised that the play was actually rewritten slightly to explain why the Eighth Doctor is teaming up with Romana, and in an extra lovely touch it’s the Lord President Romana of the later audios and not the much younger version from the Tom Years, which adds some nice bite to the interplay between the two characters. I would happily listen to season after season of Eight and Lord President R, who really are splendid together.

As for the story itself, it was rather good, with cracking dialogue, though there are certain jokes which frankly are wearing a bit thin after, you know, hearing them time and time again. I zoned out a bit in the later episodes, and was disappointed to realise at the end that the whole ‘may week in june’ scene didn’t seem to be there. On the other hand, there is much to enjoy, and it’s one of those that is tempting me to listen to it again straight away, rather than just filing at the back of my iTunes, which has to be a good sign.

Oh, and there’s been some Doctor Who on telly too, hasn’t there? I enjoyed The Beast Below almost as much as the wonderful Eleventh Hour, thought the whole thing was note perfect, and aren’t Eleven and Amy fun to watch? There are many classic lines and moments in this one story, and apart from a little bit of over-sentiment and repetition right at the end, I thought it was cracking. I also love love loved the call from Winston Churchill right at the end, with the shadow of the Dalek in the background.

I was determined to like Victory of the Daleks going into it, because everyone else seemed to be muttering about it, and I did like lots of it – the first ten minutes was brilliant, with the sneaky servant Daleks swanning around innocently and driving the Doctor up the wall, and the War Cabinet, I liked the Doctor’s relationship with Winston, and I am very intrigued that Moffat is writing out the extravagant Dalek spectaculars of previous seasons by having them fall out of human (well, Amy’s) memory. Does this mean Shearman’s Dalek is back on the time tracks again?

I also rather liked the parts where they ended up on a spaceship apparently straight out of a Peter Cushing movie. I don’t mind the size of the new Daleks or the colours, but I do rather object to the hump at the back, which means they lose that classic silhouette which has been used to such great effect in the first half of the story!

I thought it was excellent that the Daleks actually won (victory indeed, clever what they did there) and on the whole the story was made up of so many good bits, I’m not sure why it sits so flatly in the pit of my stomach. I think it might be that Amy was verging on annoying in this one and it’s such a shame, I love her, I don’t want her to give me the irrits! Please give us some more Moffatt Amy so everyone else knows what to do with her… ooh good, coming right up.

The odd thing is that the story feels cheap, which is silly because I’m sure all those daleks and space dogfights were hugely expensive, but I came away from it thinking ‘oh they saved money there’ because the whole thing was rather static, mostly taking place in square, ordinary rooms. Maybe it was a direction thing? It seemed like no one was directed at all well apart from the old daleks, which is not a good way to make viewers love the new daleks.

It is very important that I get this up now because I’m going over to  godieva‘s place and I’m sure she’ll tell me everything that was wrong with their version of Winston Churchill. I thought he was rather sweet. The theme of how willing he was to do ANYTHING to win the war was rather important, and right there in the script, and I think I would have liked to spend a bit more time looking at that than having the daleks reveal their true colours quite so fast.

It looks to me like this is the beginning of something – I am hoping that we will get a season finale featuring something other than the daleks, but if we do have to have one I would like New iDaleks v. Old Skool daleks please. Or just whack that in episode 11 as the Doctor lite ep, maybe, get it over with?

Tags: amy pond, doctor who, douglas adams, eighth doctor, eleventh doctor, listening, podcasts, radio free skaro, watching