Why has a quiet English seaside town been living the same day in 1991 over and over again?
1 Comment
Styre
on May 7, 2016 at 9:50 PM
BRAVE NEW TOWN
One of the many lessons one can learn from the long history of Doctor Who is that the series is at its best when it is changing. Nostalgia is always welcome, of course, but new characters must be introduced, new styles must be attempted, and old monsters must be rejuvenated. To take a random example, look at the Master: you could see the role deteriorating in the Ainley years (through no fault of the actor) from a dangerous maniac to a pantomime villain — but becoming immediately more interesting in “Survival” with new motives and methods. And so, too, with the Autons, used three times on television to increasingly redundant effect: while “Rose” is a successful pilot for many reasons, the Autons are there to recapture iconic images from the 1970s and therefore don’t seem intriguing at all.
Enter Jonathan Clements, author of some of the best plays from the first McGann “season” and the Unbound and UNIT miniseries. In “Brave New Town,” he approaches the Autons from a completely new direction: rather than documenting yet another Auton invasion, with faceless plastic robots stomping up and down the road shooting passersby, he gives them an entirely different side. These Autons are, of all things, Soviet spies, presumably constructed from a Nestene meteor shower in the former USSR — and their mission to infiltrate the West was put indefinitely on hold by the inconvenient matter of the collapse of the Iron Curtain. And so they’ve been living in limbo on a deserted island in the middle of the Aral Sea — and it’s only with the shrinking of that sea that their home has been discovered. The Auton society is fascinating: while they relive the same day over and over again, never stopping, they develop recognizable personalities, with true human relationships, building families from thin air. When the inevitable reactivation signal from the Nestene comes, it’s almost a distraction: once you know what’s going on, you want to spend more time with these people, to see how they’ve grown.
I think that’s the problem with Clements’ script: it’s too focused on the revelation. Not that this is a bad thing — Clements does an excellent job of building suspense, and seeding clues of the true nature of things — but I think he focused on the wrong thing. There’s so much going on beneath the surface in “Brave New Town,” from the growth of a society to subtle environmental commentary, that I wonder if the play wouldn’t be better served with the revelation coming quickly and more time spent quietly with the Autons. All credit to Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith, who keep things rolling with their remarkable chemistry: the scene with documents written “in foreign” is one of the most honestly affectionate Doctor/companion moments outside of the new series. I’m told that Derek Griffiths is famous — I have no idea who he is — and he’s certainly excellent here, injecting Jason with just the right mix of pathos. The sound design by ERS is excellent as always, while the score sounded remarkably similar to another — but unfortunately I can’t remember what! Certainly not a complaint, in any case, as its light atmosphere belies the initial suspense-oriented frame of the script and indicates where things will be going. Jason Haigh-Ellery’s direction is very solid: unlike many other plays in the McGann series, this one appreciates the script’s need for a slower pace.
Overall, “Brave New Town” is a strong success. It’s not astonishing, as Doctor Who goes — as mentioned above, the most interesting elements are sidelined for the less interesting ones, and it doesn’t feel as significant as it probably should — but it’s easily the strongest entry of the first three in McGann’s “season 2” and bodes well for the remainder of the series.
BRAVE NEW TOWN
One of the many lessons one can learn from the long history of Doctor Who is that the series is at its best when it is changing. Nostalgia is always welcome, of course, but new characters must be introduced, new styles must be attempted, and old monsters must be rejuvenated. To take a random example, look at the Master: you could see the role deteriorating in the Ainley years (through no fault of the actor) from a dangerous maniac to a pantomime villain — but becoming immediately more interesting in “Survival” with new motives and methods. And so, too, with the Autons, used three times on television to increasingly redundant effect: while “Rose” is a successful pilot for many reasons, the Autons are there to recapture iconic images from the 1970s and therefore don’t seem intriguing at all.
Enter Jonathan Clements, author of some of the best plays from the first McGann “season” and the Unbound and UNIT miniseries. In “Brave New Town,” he approaches the Autons from a completely new direction: rather than documenting yet another Auton invasion, with faceless plastic robots stomping up and down the road shooting passersby, he gives them an entirely different side. These Autons are, of all things, Soviet spies, presumably constructed from a Nestene meteor shower in the former USSR — and their mission to infiltrate the West was put indefinitely on hold by the inconvenient matter of the collapse of the Iron Curtain. And so they’ve been living in limbo on a deserted island in the middle of the Aral Sea — and it’s only with the shrinking of that sea that their home has been discovered. The Auton society is fascinating: while they relive the same day over and over again, never stopping, they develop recognizable personalities, with true human relationships, building families from thin air. When the inevitable reactivation signal from the Nestene comes, it’s almost a distraction: once you know what’s going on, you want to spend more time with these people, to see how they’ve grown.
I think that’s the problem with Clements’ script: it’s too focused on the revelation. Not that this is a bad thing — Clements does an excellent job of building suspense, and seeding clues of the true nature of things — but I think he focused on the wrong thing. There’s so much going on beneath the surface in “Brave New Town,” from the growth of a society to subtle environmental commentary, that I wonder if the play wouldn’t be better served with the revelation coming quickly and more time spent quietly with the Autons. All credit to Paul McGann and Sheridan Smith, who keep things rolling with their remarkable chemistry: the scene with documents written “in foreign” is one of the most honestly affectionate Doctor/companion moments outside of the new series. I’m told that Derek Griffiths is famous — I have no idea who he is — and he’s certainly excellent here, injecting Jason with just the right mix of pathos. The sound design by ERS is excellent as always, while the score sounded remarkably similar to another — but unfortunately I can’t remember what! Certainly not a complaint, in any case, as its light atmosphere belies the initial suspense-oriented frame of the script and indicates where things will be going. Jason Haigh-Ellery’s direction is very solid: unlike many other plays in the McGann series, this one appreciates the script’s need for a slower pace.
Overall, “Brave New Town” is a strong success. It’s not astonishing, as Doctor Who goes — as mentioned above, the most interesting elements are sidelined for the less interesting ones, and it doesn’t feel as significant as it probably should — but it’s easily the strongest entry of the first three in McGann’s “season 2” and bodes well for the remainder of the series.
Strongly recommended.
8/10