Who's afraid...

[shewhomust]

Somehow we manage to be technophiles without being early adopters; perhaps because once we have the measure of a toy, we like it too much to abandon it just because a newer toy is now available. But eventually our video recorder died, and we went out last week and replaced it with a hard disk recorder / dvd burner / player. We had a deadline: we needed to be able to record the last episode of Dr Who.

I was taken by surprise by how much I have enjoyed this series. I must have watched the programme regularly through the first two or three Doctors, but not since: whole Doctors went past without my catching a single episode. And I never saw Queer as Folk. So I was untouched by the pre-broadcast excitement. But from the first show I was hooked by the sheer entertainment value of the thing, by how funny it was. What follows is not written from the standpoint of any great expertise (I haven't even seen all the episodes yet, though I'm hoping samarcand is going to help me out here), but for what it's worth:

The plot was pretty perfunctory: it was there to hang all the other stuff on, but it really didn't stand up in its own right. In particular, it used a trick which always infuriates me when it appears in romantic comedies of the sort which star Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. I love those movies, but too many of them are constructed on the plot:

• they love each other


• but there is an obstacle


• lots of demonstrations of how they love each other but there is an obstacle


• oh, it's OK, it isn't an obstacle any more. Happy ending.

In this case, the reversal appeared at:

• We only have a short time to defeat the Daleks, and I will spend it creating the ultimate weapon / oh, no, in fact I cannot use the ultimate weapon

and

• It is absolutely essential that the Tardis not fall into the hands of the Daleks / doesn't matter, not a problem

There's also the question of why the Doctor - a Time Lord - is so damaged by absorbing the whatever it was that he had to regenerate, whereas Rose doesn't even have a headache (so resilient, these youngsters). Never mind, doesn't matter.

I'd better say, too, that I very much liked the fact that the Doctor can't use his ultimate deterrent, even though the disadvantage that it will wipe out all human life on Earth is somewhat reduced by the fact that the Daleks have already vapourised a couple of continents. Still, right decision.

Nor does it matter that the whole BadWolf motif is one big McGuffin: Rose has seeded it through time and space to draw the Doctor to the places and the times where he needed to be - and he has not been lured in by it at all, he has merely noted it in passing with a vague "Oh, I wonder what that's about?" But it gave a spurious unity to a very episodic series, and it gave us, the viewers, something to speculate about. I particularly liked vschanoes's remark that since Rose has taken to wearing a bright red hooded top, she must be Little Red Riding Hood, and the Doctor must therefore be the Big Bad Wolf - and I don't think it's entirely invalidated by the outcome.

And there was The Kiss - three kisses, no less, of which the one in vaseline-on-the-lense soft focus was the least fun. There has been speculation, obviously, about how much sexual activity is taking place on the Tardis; and obviously there is no right answer - this space has been deliberately left blank. So I will fill in my own preferred reading, which is "None - yet". Once all the relationships are consummated, cosy domesticity ensues, and the interesting tensions vanish.

I had my own fan moment when Rose, having piloted the Tardis to save the Doctor, exposed to the radiation of the inner core, emerges in a burst of radiation explaining "No longer am I the woman you knew! I am fire! And life incarnate! Now and forever..." - oh, no, that was someone else, wasn't it?

As for the transformation of the Doctor into Casanova - well, we shall see...

But if it were up to me, I'd still cast Miriam Margolyes as the Doctor.