Tonight, I was lucky enough to see an advance screening of the new Doctor Who season premiere, due to open on television on the Easter weekend. The reason for this was in celebration of the new partnership between BBC Wales and my university, Glyndwr University in Wrexham, as the former has re-opened its Wrexham office within the university’s new custom-built Creative Industries Building.
Expectations were obviously high for the showing; Stephen Moffat’s establishment as lead Who writer and overseer produced a strong season last year, and I, for one, was hopeful that he wouldn’t suffer the same fate as Russell T. Davies and see a weakening of the ideas as time went on.
Happily, the show didn’t disappoint.
The opening sequence was fast, darting from scene to scene, reminding us exactly who, forgive the pun, the Doctor is. The camera-work seemed more confident, the cuts nice, and the dialogue snappy. This wasn’t anything that went away during the rest of the show, either.
The production values seemed a lot nicer in general this season, and what we saw of the effects so far looked great too. Every season we appear to be moving further away from the days when the effects stood out as noticeable, which is a strong bonus. In sci-fi, unless it’s an outright parody such as Red Dwarf, the effects shouldn’t be noticeable, as such; they should just be part of the story. Thankfully, the new effects fit that bill exactly.
The acting was of a similar calibre to last season, but with a definite feel of familiarity. The actors are obviously more comfortable in their roles, and it really showed, giving us more meaningful dynamics between the characters, even in small, throwaway quips.
Speaking of the quips, the dialogue tended a little more to the one-liner than I might have expected. In most shows, and even in previous episodes of Doctor Who, I might have complained about this, but the truth was that they worked. The one-liners were fun, well-placed, and delivered with a generally good standard of comic timing; more crucially though, throwaway might have been too harsh a term. They were definitely all in service of character.
I won’t say anything, of course, about the plot specifics. But it was fun and ingenious; the introduction of the villain, the use of the characters, and the pacing were all exactly right. It can be tough to pace one half of a twin episode, especially balancing plot building, character work and action; but Moffat managed it elegantly. Perhaps most crucially, though, for the first of a pair, it raised more questions than it answered, and left on a sizeable cliffhanger.
So in short, the Doctor and his his support cast are back, in more style than before. The season premiere was fun, well-paced and better acted. The story was strong, and left me feeling disappointed I’ll have to wait another three weeks to see it conclude.
If that’s not the mark of a worthwhile show, I don’t know what is. I’m looking forward to the new season more than ever!