Something Blue: “Doctor Who” Series 5 Overview

Something old, something new

Something borrowed, something blue

Sorry to break it to American fans of “Doctor Who”, but at least five minutes are edited with every episode aired in the USA to accommodate cable schedules and commercials, which is why I always prefer to watch the original English broadcasts over showings this side of the pond. I would have liked to have seen the complete, unedited 2010 series finale of “Doctor Who” at Comic-Con last month, but time ironically escaped me. Yet considering that the Doctor is a Time Lord winning over TV viewers worldwide since it’s debut on the BBC in 1963, I didn’t mind too much waiting a month to watch it.

Because it was definitely worth the wait.

There were many question marks hanging over the show when the highly popular David Tennant left the role of the good Doctor. There was to be a new actor (Matt Smith) in the lead with another new actor (Karen Gillan) as his latest companion, Amy Pond. What didn’t worry me was entrusting “Doctor Who” to a new showrunner, Steven Moffat. As Moffat wrote my favorite Tennant-era episodes (Girl In The Fireplace, Blink and Silence In The Library/Forest Of The Dead), I had faith that new series was going to be a wild ride!

A wild ride it was, as this year’s 13-episode series dealt with the issue of faith. After meeting the Doctor when she was seven, Amy had faith that he would come back for her. Which he did – fourteen years later, after saving Earth (again) and the night before her wedding. As adventures drifted through the ages (past, present and future) with enemies (Daleks, Weeping Angels and Silurians) and friends (Liz 10th, Winston Churchill and River Song), everything in this series led up to the Pandorica and the end of all existence! Not even that could stop the Doctor, sacrificing himself to save time and space, because he had faith that Amy could bring him back. Which she did – on the day of her wedding, in front of the parents, family, guests and husband Rory (the most loyal man in all time and space)!

Kudos to Moffat for crafting such an inspired series! All the stories stand alone, yet are all subtlety connected. Smith was brilliant as the Doctor: quiet, quirky, subdued, and nothing like the bombastic way Tennant treated the role. Smith even looks cool in a bowtie!  Some may think Gillan's Amy is too sexy for a family show, but she's feisty, outrageous, very kissable and definitely a two-man woman!

What also made this year’s series special for me was that for the first time since the 2005 revival of the show, Moffat did not write my favorite story of the series. That honor goes to Richard Curtis, who wrote the poignant Vincent And The Doctor, where the Doctor and Amy meet Vincent Van Gogh. If you prefer slapstick funny, there’s Gareth Roberts’ The Lodger, a witty tale with the last of the Time Lords trying to live as a normal human being.

Yes, the end of Series 5 left a few nagging questions (What is the Silence? How did the Tardis blow up? What is River Song’s relationship with the Doctor?), everything is in a good place. Time and space are secure (for now), the Doctor still exists, Rory got the girl and Amy got her men. And the 2010 Christmas Special promises to be another Tardis-sized load of fun, with an escaped Egyptian goddess on the Orient Express… in space!

I can wait.


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A New Way Of Looking At It

Comic books are not immune to fads. Just like movies, television and books, comics can have that “been there, done that” feel. Comics have had two distinct phases over the last 20 years. There was a dark and gritty phase, typified by Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which gave way to a conspiracy phase and notable books such as The Invisibles and Y: The Last Man.

Now I sense a new phase in comics, one where everything is made over new. Marvel has its Heroic Age and DC has Brightest Day. My two current favorite comic books (other than Pretty Vacant) have a makeover feel as well: DC’s Batman and Robin (with the original Robin, Dick Grayson, as the current Dark Knight) and Dark Horse’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight (a full television season in a comic book format).

My previous comic book series before Pretty Vacant was The New G.A.R.D.E., a superhero comic which could be summed up as “Yesterday’s heroes showing today’s world what it truly takes to be a hero.” It was my best selling series, but I ended the comic on issue four as I felt I had nothing more to say.

Thankfully my next project came quickly. When I originally pitched Pretty Vacant, I was told how the concept was very original. I will admit that I don’t see many mad-scientist-corporation-plastinates-exceptional-woman-for-making-mannequins stories out there. Yet what makes PV original is how I combined the damsel-in-distress thriller with an old fashioned horror movie and held it together with help from eurospy flicks. Using different genres in different ways gave me my “original” concept.

Take current and future movies based on Marvel Comics characters. "Iron Man" has science fiction, "Thor" will have mythic fantasy and "Captain America" will be a war movie. All three superhero movies cross into different genres! As with "Iron Man", there is hope that the other two movies will make the familiar seem new.

Change is constant. Comics have changed, with even my beloved Comic-Con no longer really about comic books anymore. For better or worse, change is there. We can moan about it or keep going. With that in mind, I will write my next Pretty Vacant story!