10.31: Voyage of the Damned

In which aliens don’t manage to kill the Queen.

Broadcast: December 2007

Watched: September 2021

Or: the one where Kylie Minigue uses a forklift truck to push a head in a box off a cliff.

“Information: you are all going to die.”

First question: have they changed the theme music? Second question: have they nicked the idea of space Titanic from Douglas Adams? Third question: was it originally going to be the actual Titanic?

Anyway, not been looking forward to this, because I hold no candle for Kylie, and it’s a mystery with only one suspect, and I don’t like disaster movies, and most of the characters are dicks and the writer hasn’t noticed. But actually until the last act it’s great. It’s not a problem that the cast are all annoying (the jokes about earthonomics, the bit about spending all those credits trying to win a competition, “Marry... you?”), because you’re happy to watch them die. Much of that middle bit feels more like a computer game than a drama.

And it’s got loads of great stuff. The TARDIS auto-repair is very cool. The heavenly hosts are a good joke (though weirdly reminiscent of the weeping angels). Wilf! Funny to think they got Cribbins for a one scene cameo, and then he ends up a major character for two years. The joke about London evacuating is stupid, but the right kind of Doctor Who christmas stupid.

(Sidebar: bloody hell Chris Chibnall is a moron for losing the Christmas slot. What an arse.)

Even though I’m lukewarm on Kylie, it’s kind of amazing they got her to do this, and also hilarious they cast a nearly-40-year-old in a part clearly written for a 20 year old. The absolutely filthy look she gives Tennant on “You should see me in the mornings” is brilliant, though not as brilliant as the fact she needs to stand on a box to kiss him.

And, I love that this is an episode in which the Doctor makes a big speech about how he’s going to save all of them and then utterly fails to do so.

But... if that’s meant as a theme, it’s a bit undercooked. The Doctor does scream “I can do anything!” and then gets schooled on the fact he can’t by Mr Copper, but having arrogance as text and humbling as subtext still feels like a mismatch. In fact the whole thing goes off the rails in the last act. I’m not sure it’s humanly possible to care that Astrid dies. Some slow motion, overwrought screaming, oh who gives a crap. I’m also weirdly irritated it can’t just be a disaster movie, it has to be a threat to the entire Earth.

It’s big, it’s fun, it suggests Davies might be losing his handle on what the audience actually likes.

Other things:

• Geoffrey Palmer is amazing. Is this the longest gap between first and last Who appearances? Actually I know it isn’t, Jim and I had a conversation about it, but I can’t remember who’s longer.

• The Doctor addresses Russell Tovey, who screams like a girl, with a cheery, “Hello, sailor”. That whole sequence reminded me of the bit where President Bartlett talks a junior naval officer to his death during a hurricane early in the West Wing.

• I like the idea of cyborgs as a minority that faces prejudice and bigotry. 

• George Costigan is having the time of his life, even if he’s not Dennis Hopper. [Hopper was, weirdly, first choice.] His delivery of, “Where the ladies are very fond of... metal” is hilarious. Weirdly, Max is basically the same character as Rickson.

• The aliens that built the Titanic are aware of London Borough boundaries, for some reason.

• The Queen and her corgis make their second appearance in Doctor Who. [The first was Silver Nemesis, in 1988.]

• The bit with the ghost feels like an early draft of the end of the Library story, but obviously can’t be, different writers.

• The Verity Lambert tribute! Aww. [Doctor Who’s first ever producer gets an “in memoriam” notice in the end credis.]

• The season 4 trailer features the first appearance of Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who. Sadly, I don’t think we get to see Karen Gillan.