Doctor Who: "The Unquiet Dead"

[fajrdrako]

rosiespark and I have been discussing series 1 Doctor Who episode by episode. I started off with Rose, she followed up with The End of the World, and now it's my turn again here with The Unquiet Dead.

I might as well confess at the outset that "The Unquiet Dead" is my least favourite of all the episodes of Doctor Who I have seen. I can't entirely put my finger on why, though I think there are four reasons - five, maybe - all of which can be summed up as "Mark Gatiss' writing style". The fact that he himself refers to "the morbid, ebony-black grotesqueness of the nineteenth century" is not a good sign for his approach. I'll try not to dwell on the negative, because watching this again, I still enjoyed myself - it doesn't annoy me, or bore me, or make me want to watch something else instead. I still love the Doctor and Rose in it. It's more that I find the other characters dull and the story fairly weak - not really funny, not really scary.

Breaking it down into aspects:

1. Charles Dickens. I was disappointed by the way Dickens was portrayed. Yes, I know it's my own fannishness coming through here. It isn't that Simon Callow isn't a good actor - I've loved him in other things. It's the concept: Dickens as being old and jaded; or Dickens as a skeptic, despite the evidence of his own eyes; Dickens as a foil to the Doctor. I'd like to see him as smarter, snappier, wittier.
   
   On the plus side, I did love it that the Doctor is a fan, and happy to say so. (Despite Martin Chuzzelwit.) His fannishness didn't come across with the sincerity I saw in David Tennant's performance of the Doctor facing Shakespeare in The Shakespeare Code, and he seemed a little too willing to criticize Dickens.... If I were an eight year old who didn't know anything about Dickens, I wouldn't have been left thinking highly of Dickens from this.
   
   My favourite of his lines: "What phantasmagoria is this?"



2. The Story. The plot doesn't entirely make sense to me, though it's intriguing. I'm not very fond of Mark Gatiss' understated writing style; his characters seem to me a little smaller than life.
   
   But there are some aspects of the story I do like. One is the continuity between this episode and Torchwood; the Rift goes right through Sneed's house - does that mean his house was right on the site of what later became Roald Dahl Plass, with the fountain and the Millennium Centre? I like that. But the story implies that it has been only the Gelth trying to get through the Rift for many, many years - perhaps they blocked the entryway? When the Gelth say, "Open the Rift!" I thought of Bilis - and Owen. And when the Doctor said, "The Rift is getting wider," I thought; "That line was stolen from Torchwood!" Though I suppose it's really the other way round.
   
   As far as I know, this is the only episode of Doctor Who with a psychic character, aside from the Doctor himself.
   
   The Gelth reminded me of the Family in "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood", except that they inhabit the living, while the Gelth favour corpses. Because of the gas. The gas connections weren't entirely convincing to me; but that's okay, it wouldn't be the only Doctor Who villains who didn't entirely make sense to me.



3. Interesting to see Eve Myles play Gwyneth. She doesn't remind me of Gwen Cooper, which is a sign of Eve Myles' grasp of characterization. At the same time, I don't find Gwyneth very interesting. I do like her private conversation with Rose about the butcher boy's bum, but there remains something limited about her - it doesn't seem to me that Gwyneth has much personality.
   
   I love it that she mentioned "bad wolf".



4. Again, I love it that the Gelth mentioned the Time War - a phrase calculated to trigger the Doctor's sense of concern and guilt. Did they know that? What, then, did they know of the Doctor? Were they using a psychic conduit trick, through Gwyneth, to know what phrase to use? Or were they in fact victims of the Time War, just not very nice ones?



5. There are many clues here to reinforce my belief that the Doctor is already very much in love with Rose, even if he doesn't know what to do about it - except feel guilty. Is there any other point at which he says she's beautiful?



6. I might add that I think Rose has a beautiful personality, but I thought she looked awful in that dress and bonnet. The boots were good. I loved the boots.



7. The voices of the Gelth sounded like the fairies in "Small Worlds" and the petal-aliens in "Fear Her". Are there no other ways to do group-personality aliens?



8. Interesting that Rose thinks the bodies of the dead should be respected, and the Doctor doesn't. Is it that he thinks the needs of the living outweigh the needs of the dead? This episode skirts on some life and death issues that are very interesting, but never quite comes to grips with the articulation of any of them. It isn't that this is beyond the scope of a kid's show, since other episodes do it well. It's more that this particular episodes hints at meanings and then backs off.



9. The best thing about this episode was its discussion of time. There are some terrific quotes. For example:

   Rose: Think about it, though. Christmas 1860 happens once, just once, and then it's finished. It's gone, it'll never happen again. Except for you. You can go back and see days that are dead and gone. A hundred thousand sunsets ago. No wonder you never stay still.

   And despite my rude comments about Mark Gatiss a while back, I think that is a beautifully written passage, both for content and wording: a hundred thousand sunsets. It says a lot about Rose, and he intelligence and insight, not to mention her sense of beauty. It also conveys something about the Doctor himself; his sense of priorities, the way they dovetail with hers.
   
   I wonder, though: "You can go back and see days that are dead and gone." I assume he can't go back to the same day over and over - no Groundhog Day here? Or can he? Captain Jack implies he has gone back to Volcano Day and the Blitz more than once - is he carefully trying to avoid himself all the time, or is the timeline more complicated than that?



10. Other good aspects about that scene: the Doctor says, "Give the man a medal. Earth. Naples. December 24th, 1860." But it turns out it isn't. Presumably the controls on the TARDIS aren't very accurate. Or is the TARDIS lying to him? I like the notion that the TARDIS sees and finds its own trouble spots, and might have spotted the problem with the Rift and the Gelth from afar. Or maybe the TARDIS was trying to keep them out of trouble - it was clear that the Doctor hadn't a clue what was happening in Naples on Christmas Eve, 1860, but it seems to me that around that time Garibaldi was advancing on the city with his armies of liberation. The TARDIS might have been trying to keep them out of a war zone. - Oh, I just noticed: Garibaldi and those soldiers were actually in an early draft of this story. Heh.



11. And the following phrase strikes me as utterly romantic:

    Rose: ...It's Christmas.
    The Doctor: All yours.

    Which, in keeping with the overt tone of the show, is said lightly, but really has depths and layers: he's making a gift to her of time and space. Or, in fact, this time and this space, in all its unique specialness which she articulates so perfectly. And then the punchline, after her speech:

    The Doctor: Not a bad life.
    Rose: Better with two.

    ...And I can't help thinking, what perfect articulation of romance, or Romance with a capital R, worthy of the greatest of poets and writers, and delivered subtly and casually in a somewhat macabre horror story written so as not to bore the 8 year olds.
    
    This is echoed by the heroic dialogue later on:

    Rose: But we'll go down fighting, yeah?
    The Doctor: You bet.
    Rose: Together.
    The Doctor: Yeah. I'm glad I met you.
    Rose: Me too.

    It's anyone's guess as to the levels of self-awareness there, at least on Rose's part.



12. I love it that the Doctor calls Rose "Barbarella". But does he worry about what she wears in other episodes? Do fashion choices only matter in connection with the past, not the future? Personally I wish he'd dressed in some elegant fashion of 1860 because he's look terrific, but I like the way Nine dressed anyway. No complaints about that jumper from me.

Comments

Re: regeneration

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

perhaps because of the reactive response to a scattered fanbase, we're getting something rather incoherent.

Well, that's it. I wish I knew what to make of it.

I liked "42" a lot more than you did. Not that I thought it was brilliant - it didn't really live up to its own plot - but I liked a lot of things about it, and I liked the way Martha actually seemed to matter to the Doctor in it. Definitely not my least favourite of season 3. Oddly, if you discount "The Last of the Time Lords", my least favourite episode of series 1, 2, and 3 is probably "The Idiot's Lantern", with "The Unquiet Dead" a close second.

Why do any fans think the Doctor had any choice about what he regenerated as? I thought it was canon that he didn't have any control over it - hence the fact that he didn't know (when he was Nine) what his ears would be like, or didn't know (when he became Ten) what colour his hair would be. I read a quote from an early Doctor about each regeneration being a gamble. What it all means with regard to Time Lord genetics I don't know, but I don't see that he has any control over apparent age, or style, or colouring... Though he does seem to consistently be humanoid and European/British in appearance. He can control what he wears, of course, and I'm mad over the U-Boat Captain look, not so fond of Ten's cute pinstripe dorkiness.

That "I used to have so much mercy" seen is a good example of "falling flat" for me, and to a certain extent the extermination of the Rachnoss scene, although that was improved a bit by the cinematography. But it wasn't coming from the acting. Nine was truly the Oncoming Storm.

He was. I was going to defend the 'mercy' scene and the Racnoss scene, both of what I loved, but I have to agree with your conclusion - that neither had the spine-tingling power behind them of the Eccleston moments.

Least favourite episodes and regeneration

[nina-ds.livejournal.com]

When deciding this (as with deciding favourites), it's usually a balance. My reaction to 42 is that it's just so...blah. OTOH, the two that reside very close to it (this year's Dalek 2-parter, Fear Her, and LOTL) both have many more things going for them...but then they also have just horrifically cringe-making moments that undermine them! FH and The Idiot's Lantern are really far too similar, IMO, particularly to be so close together. TIL is a bit on the shrill side, but also has some stylish camerawork and Maureen Lippmann and is probably a more original take (the child scribbles idea has been done before, and better, in things like Paperhouse and even Foster's Home for Imaginary Friend!), but I think that the guest stars, as you say, are stronger in FH. Rose and Ten actually had a spark of chemistry, Rose was kickass on her own, and the asphalt guy was cute. But then there was all the Olympic stuff, and it made me squirm.

Why do any fans think the Doctor had any choice about what he regenerated as? I thought it was canon that he didn't have any control over it

The Doctor is usually shown to regenerate under duress, which is said to explain his lack of control - Yana seemed to have moderate control over who he became as Saxon (I do think Simm and Jacobi have a familial resemblance), and Romana was shown "trying on" different looks in an Old School episode I recently saw. Evidently, RTD said something about the Doctor imprinting on Rose to explain the London Estuary accent instead of his natural Scottish accent (because he didn't want the new Doctors to be "a tour of the regions"). I do think it may be a hindrance to Tennant. Not to mention, I prefer the more Northerly accents! So a lot of fans latched onto that idea to say that Ten was Rose's "dream Doctor".

I'm mad over the U-Boat Captain look, not so fond of Ten's cute pinstripe dorkiness

Heh, yeah, well I loved that jacket when it was on Jürgen Prochnow in Das Boot, so I'll agree with you there! I don't mind Ten's look so much except for two things - the Chucks which everyone swoons over (because they are the most uncomfortable shoes I have ever had on my feet, and I think wearing uncomfortable shoes is stupid, whether they're overpriced trainers or stiletto-heeled sandals - I feel better in pointe shoes!); and the tightness of the suit. That's just never worked for me; it doesn't look sexy, it doesn't look cute, it looks ill-fitting. But I did like the stripped-down look of Nine because I've always found the eccentricities of the Doctor's wardrobe somewhat...silly.

For me, Nine truly inhabits the name "Oncoming Storm"; to me, alas, Ten's more the Oncoming Tantrum. (Someone else has used "Oncoming Drizzle" - which unfortunately reminds me of the Racnoss scene (Rachnoss? I keep wanting to use the aRACHnid spelling...).

Re: Least favourite episodes and regeneration

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

FH and The Idiot's Lantern are really far too similar, IMO, particularly to be so close together.

I don't see the similarity - tone? No, plot, now I think of it - both have people disappearing from a London street, neighbours getting together, a celebration at the end, an evil father and a mother who stands up to him - is that what you were thinking of? I'd never thought of them as alike before. I quite like "Fear Her" - I like the Doctor in "Fear Her" - and I'm not sure there's anything at all I like about "The Idiot's Lantern", which I think is my least favourite episode of all (excluding TLOTTL, which doesn't count since it's on a scale all its own). It might be tied with "The Unquiet Dead" as least favourite, but "The Unquiet Dead" has the advantage of Nine and some very, very nice Nine/Rose moments and dialogue.

It was easier to overlook the Olympic nonsense in "Fear Her" than the unmitigated goofiness of "The Idiot's Lantern". I did, however, find the very ending of "The Idiot's Lantern" interesting - the way the Doctor encourages Tommy to make friends with his father now that the balance of power has changed. I didn't expect that. I liked Tommy, and would like to revisit him at a later date.

I also prefer the more northerly accents - or, rather, the different accents, I don't think I care where they come from, and in many cases wouldn't know to hear them anyway. But I think David Tennant's natural voice is utterly beautiful and I wish he was able to use it as the Doctor. Why should all the Doctors sound the same? Why not give them different accents? Even if we're sticking to the UK, there are plenty of accents to choose among - but I don't see any reason for the Doctor to not change his accent along with his face every time. Not to mention his age and ethnicity.

The Doctor's suit is ill-fitting: it seems that this is trendy. (have our fashions gone from baggy, saggy clothes to overtight clothes?) I thought Ten looked much better in "The Christmas Invasion" before he changed his clothes, but they never asked me.... he has an interestingly distinct look, and it isn't actually embarrassing, but it doesn't particularly appeal.

Ten's more the Oncoming Tantrum

What a wonderful line! I love it! I think I would have said Oncoming Sulks, but... yes.

I keep putting an 'h' in Racnoss too, and I hadn't figured out the reason, but I think you're right, it's the idea of arachnids. It also looks a little more alien to my eyes.