Monthly Mini-Reviews: February - Ant-Man, Dickensian, Ghosts of Manhattan

Monthly Mini-Reviews is back - in a brand-new format! This month: shrinking superheroes, Dickensian fan-fiction and steampunk vigilantes...

Ant-Man 

Doctor Who: Step Back in Time - The Unquiet Dead

To celebrate Doctor Who's tenth anniversary, it's time to look back at the story that started it all. Well, for this fan anyway...

'What the Shakespeare?' 

*Disclaimer: As mentioned in several previous posts, 'The Unquiet Dead' is a very important Doctor Who for me so this review shall be shamelessly personal*

I have a very vivid memory of 9th April 2005, ten years ago this very day. It was a Saturday evening and I was settled in front of the TV, happy to be finally about to catch an episode of this new sci-fi series that I had managed to miss so far. Whizz forward 45 minutes, and I was even happier - it was fair to say this Doctor Who had captured my attention. In no small part due to the episode I had chosen to watch first.

'The Unquiet Dead' is the first in the distinguished line of the so-called 'celebrity historicals', a subgenre of new Doctor Who that includes 'Vincent and the Doctor,' and last year's 'Robot of Sherwood' (sort of) - and I think it's one of the best, delivering an enjoyable snapshot of its guest star. Simon Callow plays 'ol' Charlie boy' to a T (a role he's returned to in the Whoniverse in 'The Wedding of River Song'). His Scrooge-like awakening might be swiftly-handled but it is well done, particularly the Tiny Tim-quoting final line. It might not be as deep a character study as the aforementioned Vincent but it is probably the best episode for taking a famous author on an adventure just like their own fictions.
As such, the usual stars of a Doctor Who episode - its monsters - might not be as good as many others but the Gelth deserve something for being the first controversial creation of the revived series (the visceral sound of the Gelth snapping their victim's necks is not something I think the BBC would allow now). Importantly, this episode told us that Doctor Who could still scare the Dickens out of us.

As with every Doctor Who, it's the Doctor who makes the episode and Christopher Eccleston's number Nine is at his best here. Going from cheeky and charming to commanding and stubborn in a flash - just look at the seance scene where he goes from quipping one moment ('I love a happy medium!') to outlying his alien nature, by allowing the Gelth to inhabit human corpses, the next. Also of note is the chemistry he and Billie Piper share here. Much is made of that between Tennant and Piper but the still-grieving Ninth Doctor is positively bursting with love for Rose, just as she has burgeoning feelings for him. In short, this episode has both salient parts of the show in check - the love and the monsters.

In retrospect, this was the perfect Doctor Who for me to catch first - I love a bit of Victoriana and you can't beat a good ghost story - but those interests actually came later. What struck me at the time about 'The Unquiet Dead' was just the power of the show. The time travel, the monsters, the adventure and the amazing, eccentric man at its heart. This episode isn't one you often see on best episodes lists, even on lists of the best episodes of this series, but it's always been special to me. It might not be up there with the absolute classics but it contains all the elements that make Doctor Who great. The best evidence for that is the fact that I am writing these words at all, all these years later, now a seasoned Doctor Who fan - something for which I have this episode to thank.

And so, as Charles Dickens almost observed, God bless 'The Unquiet Dead', everyone!

Ghost town - The Ninth Doctor and Rose find Victorian Cardiff swarming with spectres.

Top Five Fictional Female Villains

Last week, there was a shocking reveal at the end of the penultimate episode of this year's run of Doctor Who. It turned out that - oh, it's been a whole week now, I can say it - the mad Marry Poppins-esque Missy who has been terrorising the Doctor is in fact... the Master!
So to coincide with the return of the Doctor's greatest adversary in a very different form, I thought it time to look at the most despicable women from the halls of fiction, an illustrious category that the Master now belongs to. In no particular order, I give you the most terrible, terrifying and iconic female villains.

Morgan Le Fay
Appeared in: The legends of King Arthur

I'm something of an enthusiast of the legend of King Arthur. I don't claim to be an out-and-out expert but I appreciate the tales as something like the founding fathers of British storytelling and always enjoy dipping into the wealth of interpretations of the stories (although I was never that fussed about the popular BBC series Merlin, oddly enough). The legends, of course, have brave heroes in King Arthur and Merlin but also have a great villain in Arthur's half-sister, Morgan Le Fey (sometimes called Morgana) who acts as the main antagonist in most modern versions. Lusting after the throne of Camelot, Morgana will stop at nothing to end Arthur's reign, including using her own son, Mordred, to kill his uncle (and sometimes father) in battle. She's been hounding King Arthur in various forms over roughly a thousand years - you don't get much more of a determined villain than that.

Irene Adler
Appeared in: 'A Scandal in Bohemia' by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and numerous film and TV adaptations and literary pastiches.

Technically, Conan Doyle's original character from the Sherlock Holmes canon was not a true villain - Holmes was against her in the case but her only crime is a dalliance with a European royal in her youth. In most adaptations, however, her character is extrapolated to become a proper criminal. Much like Catwoman is to Batman, she and Holmes tend to work on opposite sides of the law but nevertheless harbour an affection for each other, sometimes this is unspoken, sometimes it is a fully-fledged love affair. This version of the character has been explored recently in both Sherlock and the Robert Downey Jr films but in Elementary, the character was taken further. The presumed dead ex-love of Sherlock, Irene turned out to be a female Moriarty in disguise. Changing a male master criminal into a woman - I'm sorry, Moffat, I think someone beat you to the punch.

The Other Mother
Appeared in: Coraline by Neil Gaiman.

Neil Gaiman's Other Mother from his exquisitely creepy children's novel Coraline is less of a villain in the femme fatale mould of Morgana and Irene and more of a walking nightmare. A creature from a realm of her own devising, like a spider in its web, the Other Mother lures children into her lair to feast on their souls. To entice the children, rather than use a house made of sweets, she acts as a loving parent... just one with buttons for eyes. The Other Mother is an utterly terrifying creation, playing off the inherent childhood fear of adults you trust to look after you turning out to do the opposite. As well as the simply intrinsically scary image of people with buttons for eyes. something which resides firmly in the uncanny valley.

Miss Havisham
Appeared in: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

As a creation of Dickens, the claim that Miss Havisham is a cast-iron villain is a less clear one than with others on this list. The woman has a sympathetic backstory and eventually repents her wickedness, but she is still the greatest thorn in Pip's side as he tries to woo the love of his life, the icy Estella. Having been jilted at the altar, the ageing bride-to-never-be forever wears her ragged wedding dress and plans to use her adopted daughter, Estella, to break the hearts of men everywhere like her's was broken. Miss Havisham is someone whose own debilitating heartbreak and thirst for revenge has blinded her to how her actions affect others. Firstly, not only does she torment Pip merely to wallow in his pain but, more importantly, she raised Estella to be nothing more than her foot soldier, to go and act out her wish to destroy all men for her. 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned', indeed.

Dolores Umbridge 
Appeared in: the Harry Potter novels by JK Rowling and its film series, played by Imelda Staunton

The most despicable character in the Harry Potter series. Yes, Voldemort killed Harry's parents. Yes, Bellatrix Lestrange killed Sirius Black but neither of them wore such an alarming shade of pink.
Outwardly twee, Professor Umbridge harbours a deep lust for power and a sadistic streak as great as the Dark Lord's own, shown in the gruesome punishments she dishes out in detention and her placement at the head of the Ministry of Magic's witch-hunt (sorry, muggle-hunt). From her prissy, condescending nature to her more despotic tendencies, Umbridge is unlikeable to the core. In fact, Umbridge is so repulsive you can hardly stand to look at her photograph. That's why I've put her last, so you don't have to look at her for too long. And that's the truth because, as Umbridge herself likes to brand people with, I must not tell lies...


'Death in Heaven', the Doctor Who finale, is on tonight at 8.00 pm on BBC One.

Happy birthday, Doctor Who!

Happy birthday to Who, Happy birthday to Who, Happy birthday Doctor Who-oo, Happy birthday to Who!

(cue one of those things that squawk when you blow it)

Yes, it's 23rd November 2011 meaning its been 48 years to the day since Doctor Who first appeared on the nation's - and later the world's - screens with an adventure titled 'The Unearthly Child'; two school teachers follow their unusual pupil home to discover she lives in a Police Box in a junkyard...
The first episode is wonderfully eerie with its hazy black and white look and William Hartnell is positively chilling as the Doctor. Far removed from his predecessors such as Tennant's chirpy Doctor and Smith's bumbler, Hartnell here (he later mellowed into a sweet old gent) is a cold standoffish figure, locking the two teachers inside his TARDIS so they won't tell his secret. And off they go into time and space.

It's hard for us now, so familiar with the concept, to think how ground-breaking and gripping that episode must have been - a Police Box as a spaceship! And it's bigger on the inside! And it travels in time! For those like Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat who saw this as young children, the sheer originality of the show captured their imaginations and hasn't let them go their whole lives.

I, however, was born a mere 30 years to late to see this episode live so my first Doctor Who memory was on a Saturday evening on 9th April 2005; of the TARDIS arriving in Victorian Cardiff meeting Dickens and ghosts...

I remember knowing what Doctor Who was before it came back - my dad had watched it through the first three Doctors (Troughton was his favourite) - but I had never seen any. I know I was annoyed when I accidentally missed the first couple of episodes; 'Rose' - my family switched over in time just to see Rose run into the TARDIS at the end - and 'The End of the World' so I made sure I watched the next one.

Needless to say, I loved it. I was instantly hooked on Who and haven't looked back since.

Gatiss' Victorian horror is still one of my all-time favourites - partially due to the fact he's one of my favourite writers (if you haven't already go check out his Lucifer Box novel series) and my love of Victorian-set fiction. To my 12-year old self, it was just the best; a friendly alien who cavorts about the universe in a bigger-on-the-inside phonebox and meets ghosts, big green monsters and metal pepperpots - how could I not love it!

Here's to the next 48 years!