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| Dr Who | | (And That 'Difficult' Second Epidode) | | 01 May 2005 | | The so-called "difficult" second album is a well-known phenomenon in the music world. A band spends years refining the songs that go to make-up their debut LP; and then find themselves with just months to write a second album that matches or betters it. They rarely succeed, and more often than not, the pressures of time and expectation take their toll. In contrast, the writers of a television show have no such excuse, so why was the second episode of the new series of Dr Who so bad?
After all, the writer and producer must know as well as us that the second episode matters nearly as much as the first - a good first episode will persuade the average viewer to watch the second; but a good second episode will hook him for the entire season.
Thus, after a storming first episode - witty, dramatic, faithful to the 'Dr Who' universe, and yet modern too, we couldn't wait for the second.
The omens, however, soon started to look poor. First came the news that Christopher Eccleston (an actor we have loved since Our Friends In The North) would not be doing a second series. If your leading actor isn't committed, how can you expect your audience to be, we wondered?
Then we caught a preview that signaled it to be 'end of the world' themed episode - a plotline forever destined to be stuck between the sheer beauty of J. Michael Straczynski's remarkable conclusion* to Babylon 5 - The Deconstruction of Falling Stars - and the glorious absurdity of The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.
So, it was with some trepidation that we finally sat down in front of our television, and sure-enough our low expectations were not disappointed. A weak, logic-free plot, with a cardboard-cutout (well, okay, skin-cutout) baddie, whose motivations we didn't really understand (where there any?), and a pathetic race-against-time (but isn't he supposed to be a timelord?) 'climax' that frankly insulted our intelligence. We decided on the spot that we would not be watching again... which is a pity, because we accidentally caught the fourth episode, and it was quite good.
* Yes - we know it was shown at the end of Season 4, but at the time there was doubt about whether a fifth season would be commissioned, and Straczynski was desperate to ensure that this episode above all others got made. |
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The point is we are all connected... through love... through loneliness... through one lamentable lapse in judgment!
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