What if the Doctor decided the end justified the means?
1 Comment
Styre
on May 7, 2016 at 8:58 PM
FULL FATHOM FIVE
The third Doctor Who Unbound release proved the most controversial due to its central question: what if the Doctor believed the end justified the means? Many immediately decried David Bishop’s script as “not real Doctor Who” — after all, this is the most unlike the character we’ve ever seen it. However, that’s the entire point of the Unbound series: unfortunately, most of the stories simply obsess over continuity questions without getting to the heart of what puts Doctor Who together. Full Fathom Five is a flawed production at best, but the argument it presents is absolutely crucial to the ongoing history of the series.
By dismissing the story based on the actions of the central character, one not only misses the point but fails to comprehend that the play is, in its way, a wholehearted endorsement of the “proper” Doctor. The importance of the play’s scale should not be discounted: this Doctor has been inactive for over twenty years, presumably having Pertwee-style Earth adventures, if any. While the previous story, Sympathy for the Devil, showed how much less productive the Brigadier’s methods were than the Doctor’s science in terms of achieving world peace and stability, it also showed that they worked: the alien menaces are not running rampant on that play’s Earth, even if the Earth itself is in a bad state. One can assume that a Doctor willing to employ such methods would keep the world in better shape, even given his lack of moral qualms. But Full Fathom Five demonstrates quite plainly that an amoral (and sometimes immoral) Doctor simply cannot survive. Though the seventh Doctor betrayed Ace’s trust in The Curse of Fenric, he had prepared her for the experience beforehand. Here, while the Doctor aims to keep Ruth from learning the secret of the DEEP, once she does he feels the need to kill her. This cannot work — nobody would willingly travel with a man this callous, and as such Ruth’s decision to kill the Doctor makes perfect sense. And this would happen no matter the situation: the job the Doctor has given himself is simply incompatible with an ends-justify-the-means philosophy. Full Fathom Five shows us what we have in the “real” Doctor and just how horrible it would be if the character was different; this is not a rip-roaring Doctor Who adventure but rather an inexorable march towards an inevitable end. Discounting the play on these grounds is, quite simply, foolish — it’s not Doctor Who and nobody ever said that it was.
David Collings is absolutely superb as the third Unbound Doctor. The story requires a hard-bitten, angry, and self-righteous Doctor, and Collings delivers in spades: he has a threatening voice that intimidates better than the voices of any of his on-screen counterparts. He also puts a great deal of subtlety into his role: at the beginning of the play he sounds quite Doctorish before beginning his degeneration into the threatening figure seen at the conclusion.
Unfortunately, Collings is the only convincing member of the cast. Siri O’Neal’s performance as Ruth switches between brilliant and excruciating: at the end of the play, she’s amazing, but her emotional scenes are overacted horribly and pain the ears. Ruth herself isn’t a particularly good character, either; she’s a cutout put in place so that the plot revelations can bounce off someone.
That’s the main problem with Full Fathom Five: the plot outside of the elements emphasizing the different Doctor is almost nonexistent. Not only is it a cliche, it’s not even explained: we barely learn anything about the purpose of the DEEP experiments and the characters aren’t fleshed out at all. General Flint is a perfect example of this: he’s a one-note military fanatic that only stops his mission in the DEEP to go off on silly rants about how he hates “bleeding-heart liberals.” Maybe these ludicrous one-note American characters are believable to UK listeners, but I just find myself laughing at them. Honestly, “cotton-pickin’”?! The late Ed Bishop’s performance as Flint is shaky, sounding as though he struggled with the material. At times he’s powerful and intimidating, but at others it sounds as though he has absolutely no idea what he’s saying and is reading straight off a script. I suppose Matthew Benson, Jeremy James, and Jack Galagher were in this, but even though I listened to the play an hour ago I don’t remember their characters or performances well enough to comment.
On the production front, things are solid as usual, with Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins providing all the mechanical and disgusting sound effects. The score was unimpressive, but I did like their attempt at an audio portrayal of a regeneration at the play’s conclusion — and the fade into the closing credits is brilliant. Jason Haigh-Ellery directs, and though he keeps the play moving at a good pace, I question his work with the actors: few of the performances convince (with Collings the huge exception) despite the talent of the cast.
Overall, Full Fathom Five has a wonderful central conceit and a great lead actor — but unfortunately everything else ranges from subpar to poor. It’s worth hearing just because someone had to make this story at some point, but I doubt whether it’s worth a repeat listen. Full Fathom Five is the biggest disappointment of the Unbound range — not for what it was, but for what it could have been.
FULL FATHOM FIVE
The third Doctor Who Unbound release proved the most controversial due to its central question: what if the Doctor believed the end justified the means? Many immediately decried David Bishop’s script as “not real Doctor Who” — after all, this is the most unlike the character we’ve ever seen it. However, that’s the entire point of the Unbound series: unfortunately, most of the stories simply obsess over continuity questions without getting to the heart of what puts Doctor Who together. Full Fathom Five is a flawed production at best, but the argument it presents is absolutely crucial to the ongoing history of the series.
By dismissing the story based on the actions of the central character, one not only misses the point but fails to comprehend that the play is, in its way, a wholehearted endorsement of the “proper” Doctor. The importance of the play’s scale should not be discounted: this Doctor has been inactive for over twenty years, presumably having Pertwee-style Earth adventures, if any. While the previous story, Sympathy for the Devil, showed how much less productive the Brigadier’s methods were than the Doctor’s science in terms of achieving world peace and stability, it also showed that they worked: the alien menaces are not running rampant on that play’s Earth, even if the Earth itself is in a bad state. One can assume that a Doctor willing to employ such methods would keep the world in better shape, even given his lack of moral qualms. But Full Fathom Five demonstrates quite plainly that an amoral (and sometimes immoral) Doctor simply cannot survive. Though the seventh Doctor betrayed Ace’s trust in The Curse of Fenric, he had prepared her for the experience beforehand. Here, while the Doctor aims to keep Ruth from learning the secret of the DEEP, once she does he feels the need to kill her. This cannot work — nobody would willingly travel with a man this callous, and as such Ruth’s decision to kill the Doctor makes perfect sense. And this would happen no matter the situation: the job the Doctor has given himself is simply incompatible with an ends-justify-the-means philosophy. Full Fathom Five shows us what we have in the “real” Doctor and just how horrible it would be if the character was different; this is not a rip-roaring Doctor Who adventure but rather an inexorable march towards an inevitable end. Discounting the play on these grounds is, quite simply, foolish — it’s not Doctor Who and nobody ever said that it was.
David Collings is absolutely superb as the third Unbound Doctor. The story requires a hard-bitten, angry, and self-righteous Doctor, and Collings delivers in spades: he has a threatening voice that intimidates better than the voices of any of his on-screen counterparts. He also puts a great deal of subtlety into his role: at the beginning of the play he sounds quite Doctorish before beginning his degeneration into the threatening figure seen at the conclusion.
Unfortunately, Collings is the only convincing member of the cast. Siri O’Neal’s performance as Ruth switches between brilliant and excruciating: at the end of the play, she’s amazing, but her emotional scenes are overacted horribly and pain the ears. Ruth herself isn’t a particularly good character, either; she’s a cutout put in place so that the plot revelations can bounce off someone.
That’s the main problem with Full Fathom Five: the plot outside of the elements emphasizing the different Doctor is almost nonexistent. Not only is it a cliche, it’s not even explained: we barely learn anything about the purpose of the DEEP experiments and the characters aren’t fleshed out at all. General Flint is a perfect example of this: he’s a one-note military fanatic that only stops his mission in the DEEP to go off on silly rants about how he hates “bleeding-heart liberals.” Maybe these ludicrous one-note American characters are believable to UK listeners, but I just find myself laughing at them. Honestly, “cotton-pickin’”?! The late Ed Bishop’s performance as Flint is shaky, sounding as though he struggled with the material. At times he’s powerful and intimidating, but at others it sounds as though he has absolutely no idea what he’s saying and is reading straight off a script. I suppose Matthew Benson, Jeremy James, and Jack Galagher were in this, but even though I listened to the play an hour ago I don’t remember their characters or performances well enough to comment.
On the production front, things are solid as usual, with Andy Hardwick and Gareth Jenkins providing all the mechanical and disgusting sound effects. The score was unimpressive, but I did like their attempt at an audio portrayal of a regeneration at the play’s conclusion — and the fade into the closing credits is brilliant. Jason Haigh-Ellery directs, and though he keeps the play moving at a good pace, I question his work with the actors: few of the performances convince (with Collings the huge exception) despite the talent of the cast.
Overall, Full Fathom Five has a wonderful central conceit and a great lead actor — but unfortunately everything else ranges from subpar to poor. It’s worth hearing just because someone had to make this story at some point, but I doubt whether it’s worth a repeat listen. Full Fathom Five is the biggest disappointment of the Unbound range — not for what it was, but for what it could have been.
4/10