When it came to finally writing this post for my Film and Television blog, I was in two minds on how to go about discussing it. Do I focus on what made it work for me the first time round, or do I look at it from the mindset of the time period in which I wrote it in?
In the end, I decided on the latter. Back in 2005, my opinions were very weak and possessed little depth. For this reason, I am going to attempt to look at this episode from the perspective of a 22-year-old who wishes to pry deeper into its presence amongst Doctor Who's revival.
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Plot: The Doctor takes Rose back to her present time period, however he makes a slight miscalculation; dropping her off one year into her time stream. As Rose attempts to deal with the consequences that her yearly absence has caused for her ex-boyfriend - Mickey Smith - and estranged mother - Jackie Tyler - the Doctor investigates the remnants of an extraterrestrial ship which has crashed in central London and placed the planet on red alert.
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The show is now four episodes into its revival. The introduction trilogy has been put into place and now it is time for show runner - Russel T Davies - to get cracking with pushing the narrative forward.
Aliens of London takes Rose and the Doctor back to Miss Tyler's present time period. She's had a few mischievous adventures with this strange madman, but there comes a time (in this series at least) when every teenage girl must pop back and visit her mother.
But the break neck pacing of this revived series is not going to make things as simple as this. Less than one minute into the pre-title opening, The Doctor has already made a bit of a cock-up. At first, neither he nor Rose are any the wiser of the problem at hand, but then why would they? It's a situation which would go unnoticed to anyone in such a situation.
The Doctor is the first to recognize his blunder. An A4 flier fixed to the nearest wall grabs his attention. On the flier is an image of Rose Tyler. The words "can you help?" are written in bold red letters at the top of it. If they have only been gone for 12 hours (as the Doctor so confidently claims upon their immediate arrival) then why has his fellow companion been confirmed as a missing person? He knows why and before the audience even has time to figure out why, our leather jacket hero dashes off to grab Rose.
Rose enters her mothers flat. Without acting suspicious, she greets her mother in a cheery good morning manner. Jackie is horrified at her daughter's arrival. Why is she so shocked particularly when Roses brushes off her evening absence by declaring that she spent the night at a friends house?
Her mother hugs her for dear life; both shocked and overjoyed her only daughter is still alive. It is at this moment that we become aware of what is going on. Jackie's shock, the fliers begging for people to come forward with information. She's been gone longer than the 12 hour period that the Doctor so wrongly claimed.
Seconds later, the Doctor barges in to confirm our suspicions. His calculations were slightly amiss. They haven't been gone for 12 hours, but for 12 months. So much for a time machine that can travel anywhere in the Universe. Bloody useless if you ask me.
This flips the story into an entirely new direction. Just one minute into episode four and we are met with an entirely new story all together. This is not going to be a tale of Rose popping home for a chinwag with her oblivious mother. Rose's time spent with the Doctor is going to be made known. Her quick joy ride in a mysterious blue box with a madman are far from under the radar of her normal life.
Cut to title theme...
Next up we have the Doctor facing the consequences of his mistake head on. Rose's family have been dragged into his world. Jackie belongs to a different reality from that of the Doctor all together. If anything, she belongs to a storyline from Eastenders. This is where the Soap Opera genre is dragged further into Doctor Who more so than ever before.
Jackie Tyler is clearly furious with this man. She's not aware of who he is or what he does. After all, she doesn't belong in the science fiction genre. Despite her brief encounter with the Autons in episode one, Jackie probably doesn't even believe in aliens full stop (the Government probably made everyone think it was some sort of bizarre terrorist attack after all). So naturally, like any mother from today's society, she assumes he is a dangerous sex predator who snatched her child away in the middle of the night.
She accuses our hero of using the internet for stalking her pray. She even asks if he lured Rose in by pretending to be a doctor of some sort. Our hero - who's as clueless about the Soap Opera world as Jackie is toward the Science Fiction - fails to understand the meaning of her accusation. So he responds to her by cheerfully explaining that he is indeed a doctor.
The misunderstanding of two worlds (or genres in this case) has violent repercussions. The shell shocked and furious Jackie Tyler belts him across the face.
But this isn't the major plot of this story. In fact, the one year gap is merely a subplot in Aliens of London. The catalyst for the overall plot will not kick in until the following sequence. Yet regardless of this, such a subplot will end up becoming a recurring theme throughout Russel T Davies' tenure as show runner.
The domestic angle of the Doctor's companions will forever be a storyline which is habitually revisited throughout both this season and the following three that he produces. It is what separates the new era of Doctor Who from that of the classic. Davies is of the opinion that the out-of-this world nature of this series could quite easily alienate mainstream viewers. Seeing as this is a show which has a colossal budget, this sort of alienation is something which must be avoided at all costs. In conclusion, Davies decides that the audience require a set of tools in place to help them keep them connected with the characters.
Rose as our point-of-view character is simply not enough for him. He wants domestic issues and themes to help bring all the events back into the living room. He's happy to show us out there worlds at the end of the universe, but he wants to make sure that every couple of weeks, we are brought right back home to present day London.
Essentially, Davies wants audiences to love Doctor Who, but he wants to play things safe by throwing in a bit of Eastenders and Coronation Street every now and then to keep things a little more grounded in human relationship department.
So how does he do this? By giving the Doctor's companions a family to worry about. This is how he thinks people will cling on to the show. It's almost as if he assumes that viewers wouldn't give a shit about Rose being trapped in a burning space station in the year five billion if she had nothing back home to hold on for. If he can give her a family who worries about her and who she can worry about in return, then this will supposedly make everyone care for her well being.
Firstly, I don't think that this is 100% accurate on Davies' behalf. Audiences don't only care about characters because of their domestic connections. If a character is well developed and likable, then audiences will form a connection. There are more ways to connect with a fictional character than simply on the basis that they have an ex-boyfriend and overly worried mum waiting for them back on planet earth.
Secondly, I think that this domestic angle can cause more problems than solutions. The domestic aspect grounds Davies' era of Doctor Who far too heavily in present day London. This is a show which can go anywhere during any time period. On top of this, the BBC have given them a massive budget to bring this semi-dead show back to life. They can go anywhere at anytime and tell a whole variety of unique and alien stories. Yet sadly, because Rose keeps popping back to sort out issues with Mickey Smith (her ex-boyfriend from episode one) and mother Jackie means that each series ends up spending a huge chunk of its time in contemporary Britain.
Anyhow, back to the story at large.
After the Doctor's date with a pissed off mother's palm. Rose and our time traveling Alien saunter off to the roof to have a banter filled natter about about the events that have just transpired. Rose doesn't seem to be all too phased about the one year gap, but then I guess she's seen enough in the past few adventures to make a one year hiatus no more life altering than missing a bus to work.
It is during this moment of banter when the Doctor finally tells Rose his age. Apparently he's 900 years old. Well there's a continuity screw up for you. The Doctor's age has changed numerous times during the shows history. One moment he's 400 years old, the next he's 700 and at one point - back during the shows 1980s run - he's older than 900. The main reason for this fluff up is mainly down to the fact that the show has had so many writers throughout its incredibly long run, that creative teams have simply forgot or not been made aware of such plot points. Of course, fans have decided to come up with the conclusion that the Doctor simply doesn't know his real age in earth terms. He's been traveling for so long that he just cant remember, so he fibs in order to give his companions some sort of clarification which will satisfy their curiosity. Despite the real reason being that the writers of the show buggered up its continuity, this is a theory which works quite splendidly, so I follow it myself.
The main plot of this episode kicks into gear during their rooftop banter sesh. A huge Alien spacecraft roars above their head (a bit of a coincidence, but what the heck, it's Doctor Who), smashing into the side of Big Ben and finally slamming into the River Thames.
Suddenly, it's farewell Soap Opera and hello Sci-Fi. Well, sort of.
The Doctor is ecstatic. A historical event with an extraterrestrial twist that he's there to witness first hand. He's over the moon. I guess he's probably fed up with saving the day and just wants to kick back to be the passive one for once. Of course, as things escalate, this will not be how things go down.
It is here that the episode quickly slips back in its Soap Opera mode. Instead of dashing off on another alien adventure, the Doctor pulls up a seat in Jackie's living room (who appears to have forgotten that this man kidnapped her daughter for a whole year and seems perfectly happy for him to make himself at home in her flat) to watch as the world's media swarm in on the crashed alien craft (it seems that BBC news have decided to whack up the dramatic element of their broadcasts by slapping a cheesy 1950s horror soundtrack to the background).
But of course, the Doctor can't help himself, and soon enough, he decides to take a quick trip to the hospital that are holding a body which has apparently been salvaged from the wreck.
As the Doctor investigates, Rose is left back at home with her whiny mother. This is where her ex-boy friend - Mickey Smith - arrives back on the scene. Mickey was last seen as a useless filler character who was only in the pilot episode to act as an anchor in Roses life, as well as someone who could successfully get eaten and cloned by a wheelie bin (but the less we talk about that, the better).
This time, however, Mickey's purpose in the story has changed somewhat. Seeing as he was the last person to be seen with her back during the events of episode one, the authorities (and Jackie Tyler) have accused him of being responsible for her abduction. Naturally, as time went on, everyone believed that Rose was dead, and that she was murdered at the hands of Mickey Smith.
Now he becomes more than just the idiot who made Rose's life boring. He is the man who had his own life destroyed by the Doctor. It is here that Davies chooses to explore a new angle to Doctor Who, and is what I believe to be one of the more successful plot points to the Soap Opera/Sci-Fi hybrid of the series. We look at how the Doctor's actions can have a colossal impact on the people who are left behind. The Doctor and his companion always saunter off at the end of each adventure without a care in the world, but of course, the natives of that adventure's time period have to live with the impact that the story has inflicted upon their worlds. Mickey has become the victim of Rose's decision to fly away in the Tardis. Naturally, he is furious at both Rose and the Doctor (this consequence theme will pop up once again during the series final. But there is a time and a place to discuss that, which isn't here).
This is a surprising turn of events. In the pilot episode, Mickey took on the role of the transient character. He appeared to have no real importance to this series apart from the fact that he was one of the things that was making Rose's life miserable. I was actually quite surprised when they didn't kill him off in episode one. By the time he had been cloned (again, lets not talk about that) his part in the episode was more or less over. He wasn't needed anymore. But now he's starting to take more of a center stage in the Soap Opera corner of New Who.
His life has been ruined. He wants answers. And for the first time, Rose sees what she has done. She made a mad decision to go off with a stranger with a magic box. She had been caught up in the madness of episode one's narrative, but never once stopped to realize what sort of complications her spontaneous choice might cause for others. Mickey is one of those very complications.
She has inadvertently ruined this young man's life. He has lived a year of hell. Not only did the girl who he was dating leave him for another man, but he had to face a herd of false accusations from a society that believed he was a murderer. One whole year, not knowing where Rose had gone and forever been blamed for a crime he never committed.
This is where Mickey's story begins. He will play a vital role in the domestic side of New Who for both this series and the second series. He will grow into a hero and even a secondary companion. He goes from the idiot who was gobbled up by a wheelie bin to a man who helps to save the world. Such a character growth shows just how talented Davies can be when it comes to initiating character development.
Yet it is still the early stages of such a character arc. Mickey is still in limbo. He's angry, confused, and still not fully aware of the world of the Doctor. It will take time for him to integrate himself into the science fiction side of the show, but this is where his transition begins.
Jackie, on the other hand, will not go through the same evolution process as Mickey. She will be apart of the show right up until Rose's character is written out, however she will never evolve too dramatically. She will have her own character arc, yet it will be far more passive than Mickey's. She does not become a secondary companion, and if anything, she mainly serves as the anchor to Rose's adventures with the Doctor. She remains forever at home. A passive character who Rose must keep checking up on.
So what about the main plot of this episode? A plot which currently sounds more secondary than it really is.
Well, the major plot does actually possess more screen time than I am making out. It just runs at a much slower pace. It starts off as a bog standard enough plot. An alien ship crashes in the river Thames and a recovered body is taken to a hospital. However there is more to it than this, as it turns out that there's a much more sinister side to it all.
In 10 Downing street, a group of Aliens have disguised themselves as Cabinet ministers. The main plot will spend a large chunk of its time unfolding within the corridors of power, making it out to sound like some sort of a satire. This is far from the case.
The way that a satire works is quite obvious. It is a humors, postmodern reflection of an event or problem which exists within society; be it contemporary or otherwise. What makes a satire a satire, however, is that it will provoke questions inside the minds of the viewer. It's sole purpose is to make people think more about a certain subject. It acts as a critique and an attack on what we often pay little attention to.
Aliens of London does not provoke such questions. Instead, it merely pokes fun at British politics. No questions are raised about our government or military and there are no critical attacks on contemporary power in anyway shape or form. In fact, it does less than that. The aliens-disguised-as-politicians and the use of 10 Downing Street are more a backdrop for the story. Much like how The Unquiet Dead was simply a story set in 19th Century Cardiff, this present day tale is about nasty aliens who are causing trouble in modern day London.
So what are these Alien-disguised-as-humans like then? Well, sadly they are much like the Mickey clone from episode one; an absolute sodding embarrassment to the show. The reason being that these aliens have a terrible habit of blowing off huge farts throughout the episode's entirety.
I can see why Davies may have decided to place farting aliens in this episode. The concept which this disaster stems from is actually rather interesting. In most stories where there are aliens disguised as humans, the viewer is made aware that they are not what they appear through some cliched manner. Often they will have glowing red eyes or razor sharp teeth. Davies may very well have been using the consistent farting as a new way of revealing that these characters were not human.
The final result, however, is a bloody mess. When someone farts, it is far from common to establish them as an alien. So instead, what we have is an unusual scene where a group of supposed members of Parliament are blowing off bum burbs whilst laughing hysterically at their bodily functions. It is not until they finally unzip their human suits that we are made aware that they are not of this world.
This could have ended up becoming a real problem for the show at this point in history. Remember, the BBC were still trying to build up an audience base for this high budget prime time show. People were still warming to the idea of a 21st Century Doctor Who series and would still be making their minds up about whether or not it was for their liking. So to have a scene, just four episodes in, where a group of authority members are wobbling around and ass gassing like a bunch of four year old kids after a take away could have quite easily tarnished peoples idea of what this program was going to be like in the long run. The whole concept of farting aliens came across as horribly childish and is probably one of the worst decisions that Davies ever made as head runner of this show.
Next up comes another episode clanger. This time, in the form of the alien body that was uncovered from the ship wreck. Ok, so it turns out that the crash was a hoax, carried out by the farting aliens mentioned above. Nice enough twist, but what they used for the hoax was a tad odd.
These trumping aliens chose to take a pig, cut it up and stitch it back together so that it was more humanoid in design. The farty aliens then dress the upstanding pig in a tiny blue spacesuit and then strap it into the spacecraft before crashing it into the Thames.
This means that not only do we have a scene containing a group of overweight politicians who skip around the Cabinet room - joyously laughing at their own bodily functions - but we have a scene with a pig in a spacesuit running down a hospital corridor before getting shot in the head.
When I look back on these moments, I wonder how this show managed to become as popular as it did when we had ridiculous moments like this. It looks utterly ridiculous, especially from someone as talented as Russell T Davies.
Such poor choices really do damage this episode considerably, yet there are some great moments that deserve credit. One particular example would be the episode's closing moments.
Seeing as this story had both an alien plot and a domestic subplot filling up the screen time, Davies decided to split it into a two parter. I never knew this when I saw the first episode for the first time, so the cliffhanger at the very end of Episode four took me rather by surprise.
When I started watching the new era of Doctor Who, I felt as though there was something big missing. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but there was a huge difference between these 21st Century episodes and the few classic episodes which I had witnessed during my childhood. I could see that part of that difference was in the pacing and the budget, yet there was something else. What was it?
Ah of course, it was the lack of cliffhangers. As I mentioned in earlier posts, classic Who use to tell its stories over a much longer period. Each episode would be 25 minutes long and stories would be told over numerous weeks. This meant that the end of each episode would leave viewers on a cliffhanger.
Aliens of London sets up the cliffhanger perfectly. The Doctor, Rose and Jackie are all separated from one another, yet each of them have found themselves in mortal danger. The farting aliens take off their disguises in front of our leading characters, revealing their true forms for the first time (they turn out to be a bunch of daft looking aliens with baby faces, but what the heck, it's still nice to finally see what they look like). As these giant monsters go in to slaughter each one of them, the theme music cuts in and the episode ends.
Absolutely brilliant. Audiences are left hanging on the edge of their seats. How will they get out of that one? Will they all survive, or is Russell about to shock us all with a sudden death? These were the thoughts which could have left audiences gasping for next week's episode like a crack addict in a nunnery. Sadly, that tension is pissed all over when they decided to show a clip for the next episode only seconds later.
So ok, we knew that they weren't going to die and we knew that each one of them would find a way out before the title theme for next week's episode even had a chance to kick in. I know that the question is suppose to be "how will they get out of that one?" as oppossed to "will they get out alive?" but I still wanted to spend a week doubting it.
I wanted to be able to go to school the following Monday, wondering if these characters would be ok the following week. I wanted to worry about their well being. The show was still in the early stages of its reinvention. We didn't know what direction it was going in, who was the most important character, and what might happen before the series was finally over. This was the perfect time for a two part cliffhanger to fill us with doubt. Maybe one of them would die. It was too early to know for sure.
All that doubt was snatched away in a matter of seconds, all because that stupid next time trailer revealed that the Doctor, Rose and Jackie would be very much alive and well in the next episode.
So is Aliens of London any good? Well yes and no. It's interesting to see a story told at a different pace from the previous three weeks. I also kind of like the domestic side to it (I eventually grow tired of this in later episodes, but for now it is fresh and fun). The twist surrounding the alien hoax was also engrossing enough for my liking. Yet the flatulent aliens and the bonkers space pig really does soil the potential of this episode for me. It was silly, distracting and takes me out of the story entirely.
But seeing as this is a two parter, I cannot make a conclusion of the episode as a whole until I arrive at the end of the next one. So I will refrain from delivering my overall opinions until my next post.
So until then, farewell...
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