Nu-Who: Season 4 (An Overview)

(This article was originally written prior to the broadcast of the Season 4 finale, "Journey's End")

So, Season 4 of Doctor Who. I've gone on record before how much of a Who fan I am. It's probably even more important to me than Trek or Bond or pretty much anything else. I've spent a lot of time over the past seven years writing fan fiction for various incarnations of the Timelord website (address above) and am currently engaged in what we at the site are calling Season 5. You see, following the end of Season 1 (that is Season 1 of Nu-Who, the one with Ecclescake in, not the Billy Hartnell years) we did our own series called Season 2: New Gallifrey which was masterminded by a member of our group. The notion was that we would do a thirteen episode series in much the same format as the actual TV series, so there would be a rough arc over the course of the season (in our case, it was the resurrection of Gallifrey).

It worked well enough; I contributed episodes 2 and 3 (the snappily titled "2046" and "The Architecture Of Morality", still one of my all time fave titles I've ever come up with). So we did another season, still starring Eccles, because one of the conceits of our series was that he didn't regenerate at the end of "The Parting Of The Ways" and it was in fact this plot point that I seized upon when I myself masterminded Season 3: The Fray.

I supposed that the Doctor's continued survival had such a detrimental effect on the multiverse that the entire thing was falling apart. I ended up writing five of the thirteen installments for this one, although that was not really the plan. What happened was that my season opener (as with the TV series, which has always had RTD writing the first episode and then the finale, the 'mastermind' behind each season has done the same, although we don't generally bother with the episodes RTD would write in between so we give more spots to other writers) got a little too big.

My average story for the site is about 8000-10000 words long. "State Of Flux", Episode 1 of The Fray was something like 30000 words. A little bit more effort and it could have been a novel. And my two-part season finale, "A Shrine To Futility" and "The Wellspring Of Regret" both bottomed out at about 15000 words each. So "State Of Flux" was cut down into three separate parts and formed the 'feature length' opening story and took up the first three episodes.

I still think my work on The Fray, which saw the death of Rose Tyler, the Doctor's regeneration (we decided to keep Tennant, but saddle him with a slightly more composed, less manic persona) and the introduction of Heather Jones, a companion I created, as well as the return of Robbie Bainbridge, a companion I had originally envisaged for my series of 5th Doctor stories and a new version of the Master from a parallel universe (this was of course long before the TV series resurrected the Master, interestingly, James, who created New Gallifrey had a Master in his finale for "New Gallifrey" who was, like the John Simm version for the telly, resurrected to fight in the Time War).

Then we did "Shadows In Time", for which I contributed the middle 'returning monsters' two parter which saw the return of the Sontarans and the Rutans, "Storm Front" and "Foul Moon". They were a hard slog to write - I actually thought that I might have written Doctor Who out of my system with The Fray. But then immediately afterward, I came up with the idea for a further season which would see New Gallifrey engaged in a civil war.

The idea got changed around massively until it became a story about the Cybermen invading New Gallifrey and I somehow ended up masterminding it with one of the other members of the site, who wrote the opener and finale and I took three episodes in the middle, a two parter("Blood & Steel" and "Tempus Fugitives") which sees the actual invasion of Gallifrey and which I'm writing now and "Broken Kingdom" which... well, that one's a bit fuzzy at the minute.

And already I've concocted Season 6: Rapture Of The Daleks (TBC) which will see the death of Heather. I'm writing a big three part finale for this one and leaving the opener for James to handle, seeing as how the idea to do a Dalek arc was his idea. I might just destroy New Gallifrey while I am at it.

The reason I'm going through all this is to point out the divergent route we've taken from normal TV continuity. Essentially, we started with what was in Season 1 and then, using that as our foundation, built up something that's entirely different. Sure, we've had our similarities. The TV show brought back Sarah Jane, we brought back Romana and Susan. My whole outline for The Fray shares a certain level of DNA with the story that is on telly now, dealing with the breakdown of the barriers between universes (the main difference is that I used it as a plot McGuffin and RTD used it so he could get Billie Piper back) but by and large, we've gone down a much more complex and mature route, most likely due to the fact that we aren't broadcast on national telly on a Saturday evening and our audience is composed largely of confirmed Doctor Who fans.

But Season 4 of the TV show has, interesting, been possibly the most child-friendly season so far. Sure, we've had the darkness of some stories like 'Planet Of The Ood' and Steven Moffat, despite a shaky first part to his two parter managed to pull of his usual genius, but the overall feeling for the season has been daft runaround. Even the Pompeii episode didn't hit as hard as it could have. And coming off the blinding run of stories since "42" (with particular mention for the darkest TV Who has ever really gotten with the Master trilogy) it's a bit of a let down.

The Christmas special was all well and good - we like a daft runaround at Christmas, so we get high concept, the Titanic, Kylie and big shonky effects sequences. You don't want to challenge the viewer too much when they're soporific after the turkey. At the time, I reckoned "Voyage Of The Damned" was the best Christmas special so far, but, like a lot of Hollywood blockbusters, they lose an awful lot on the second time around (conversely, "The Runaway Bride" has grown in my estimation - I really didn't think much of it after the first viewing).

So, while it's true that since Moffat's two parter the series has regained it's footing (and it's no easy task, given that the remaining scripts have all been by RTD, a variable writer at best - "Aliens Of London/World War 3" is possibly the worst episode of Nu-Who so far while episodes like "Turn Back", "Utopia" and "Gridlock" show that despite all his flaws, and there are many, he can still produce some of the best Doctor Who since Hinchcliffe's day) even if the finale so far has the feeling of scoffing an entire cheesecake in one sitting, one smothered in cream and strawberries - it's damn tasty while you're eating it but once it's finished, you start to feel a little queasy because it was so bloody rich.

Of course, there's always a danger in judging a story before you've seen the end, especially with RTD - "The Parting Of The Ways", peculiarly beloved of fans, is a damp squib after "Bad Wolf" and the ending of "Last Of The Time Lords" is - subtly telegraphed or not - an abomination (I'm talking here about the Doctor's miraculous rejuvenation, which belongs in fantasy like Peter Pan, not rational science fiction, rather than the quite brilliant death of the Master and Martha's coming to term with who she is).

RTD has a habit of copping out ("The Parting Of The Ways" obliterates much of the Earth, only for it never to be remarked upon again, "Doomsday" features a huge all out war between the Cybermen and the Daleks in present day London only for it to be dismissed as hallucinogens in the water or something. The existence of aliens is still not confirmed, despite the events of "World War 3", "The Christmas Invasion", "Voyage Of The Damned", "Army Of Ghosts/Doomsday", "Smith & Jones" and "Partners In Crime", just to name a few examples off the top of my head. The Master trilogy has a big huge reset button built into it - as soon as we see the Paradox Machine we know that's what it's there for - and the only thing that stops it becoming a huge waste of time, akin to the Doctor falling out of the shower and proclaiming to Martha that it was all a dream is that our principal characters remember it and are changed by the experience, meaning that it still has some emotional weight). So "Journey's End", due to be broadcast next Saturday, will doubtless paper over the cracks and everyone will conveniently forget that Earth was once zapped halfway across the universe, invaded by Daleks and generally put through the wringer.

Does it matter?

In the long term, yes, yes it does. In the long term it's essentially shock tactic storytelling, pretending to blow things up and kill people just to make an impact. In the short term, well, it makes for exciting TV, doesn't it?

Mark Ritchie