9b.1: Scream of the Shalka

In which we meet the second ninth Doctor (of three).

Oh, Doctor Who’s coming back to television, that’s exciting. Oddly enough I have absolutely no memory of finding this out or being remotely excited about it. I wonder why.

Anyway. Before that happens we’ve just got time for:

Scream of the Shalka

Released: November-December 2003

Watched: June 2021

I think this sort of highlights Paul Cornell’s genius but also maybe his limits. His 90s Who work is all *brilliant* obviously, but it’s also largely primarily about, er, Doctor Who. Even Human Nature is about playing with and inverting the tropes of Doctor Who, it’s not using Doctor Who to tell a story about something bigger. 

I think maybe that’s kind of what Shalka is? It’s attempting to be forward looking – the new set up of a Doctor sent on missions, with the mysterious robot version of the Master to talk to – but it can’t quite let go of the past. It still assumes that Doctor Who is fundamentally sleepy English villages and UNIT and a posh guy in a frock coat. It’s trying to make old Who palatable for the 21st century, it’s not trying to make Who *rooted* in that new century. It doesn’t have RTD’s willingness to chuck everything out and start all over again. Maybe that was only possible with *the* relaunch? I dunno.

Considering all that, and the fact the animation is pretty ghastly, it’s really good. It actually drew me in, and made me want to see what happened next, which I hadn’t expected. It’s a trad sort of story but on a bigger scale – the Doctor saves the sleepy village halfway through episode one, but then the threat is much bigger; UNIT are global and actually work for the UN. And after ramping the story up and up and up, the final confrontation involves the Doctor singing Cabaret at an alien queen. 

Also, the shorter episodes means you can do a six parter without losing energy. It does still assume a Doctor Who made up of six parters, though.

The thing that’s most impressive about it is the cast, I think. Grant is really not bothering – I have no idea if he would make a decent Doctor because he doesn’t even pretend to try, here. But Sophie Okenedo, Derek Jacobi, Jim Norton, Craig Kelly, who having been Vince in Queer as Folk is one of those people who it feels weird hasn’t been in any other Doctor Who...

Oddly it feels like it might be an influence on RTD and, especially, Moffat, as stuff from this also creeps into the new show. Alison’s qualification to become a companion is basically the same as Martha’s – she’s the one who isn’t scared and wants to fight. Her homebody doctor boyfriend is proto-Rory. Derek Jacobi plays the Master, and what we hear of his backstory is basically Missy in the vault. The Secretary General is almost a character, and the Doctor noisily hates soldiers even while working with UNIT. Also, there’s a bit with the Doctor falling through a wormhole messing about with a phone, which is basically stolen wholesale for Library. 

I very much doubt either Moffat or RTD watched this story after 2003, it just feels like bits of it might have lodged in their brains.

Other things: 

• “I’m a homeless person myself”, the only bit of this story I could remember, is just as gross as it was at the time. Ditto the way the Doctor blows up his companion’s house and then it’s never mentioned again (oooh! that 

• happens to Martha’s flat too!). [And, since I wrote these notes, Dan’s!]

• Funny how the Shalka are meant to be on most uninhabited worlds and are... never mentioned again, even in any spin off stuff that I’m aware of.

• In the last episode UNIT start bombing civilians and it just... isn’t talked about? Very 2003, that. 

• There’s quite a nice joke about what worms call wormholes. There’s a line about how Britain doesn’t use the Euro “yet”. Sniff.

Aaaaaaand… that’s it for the wilderness years thread. The next story I watched was Rose.