Imagine a giant, demented kitchen bin trying to sex the Doctor up
- Publication: The Times
- Date: 2012-09-08
- Author:
- Page:
- Language: English
It makes sense to have Doctor Who back in the autumn —rather than the spring, as used to be the case. With his tweeds and his bow-tie, and his curiosity, and his sudden, black rages about people being stupid, Matt Smith's Doctor is the greatest supply teacher you never had.
"Mr Pocock has sadly fractured his collarbone while riding a banana-boat in Mykonos. So for the autumn term, your new teacher is — Mr The Doctor!"
Here he is — all jazz hands and fez. The first lesson is how to manipulate time; the blackboard warps and becomes space. You can imagine him getting vexed about the intractability of the naughty cybermen —now mysteriously sitting in the back row, in regulation grey shorts — and throwing chalk at them. "It's your own space time you're wasting!", etc, etc.
In the opening episode of the new series, the Doctor is back against the angriest cruet-set of all time: the Daleks.
Kidnapped, and put in front of the Dalek Council — imagine an ampitheatre full of furious, screaming, homicidal Henry Hoovers, having a nervo — the Doctor is subject to a strange request:
"HELP US!" the Daleks say. Well scream. There's not much room for subtlety of delivery with Dalek dialogue. Imagine a Dalek love scene. It would be like two council bin lorries reversing towards each other, while shrieking " I have secret inside-feelings for you!"
Anyway: HELP US!"
The Daleks are scared. The Asylum of the Daleks has been breached, and they are afraid of what's inside: it's where all the truly evil, insane Daleks are kept. As the . Daleks described it to the Doctor —"THEY ARE FULL OF HATRED! SO MUCH HATRED!" — I momentarily flashed on the aftershow of the British Comedy Awards; just after the second lot of really cheap jokes come out. I reckon it would be like that.
So the Dalek Council sends the Doctor down to the Asylum to mend the security breach — lest the universe flood with the really bad Daleks. But the Doctor's not just dealing with really mad Daleks. Nuh-uh. There's a new kind of Dalek, too: they look human — until a tiny plunger bursts out of their foreheads, and they exterminate you.
At one point, the Doctor is in a room full of skeletal corpses, all with plungers bursting from their foreheads, and attempting to kill him. If you thought you were too old to be scared of the Daleks, this worked as a very effective piece of regression. I felt borderline irresponsible as a parent for letting my children watch it.
But it wasn't just these new zombie Daleks that we met on Saturday. We also got to meet the Doctor's 47th assistant, Oswin*, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman. When the casting for the Doctor's new assistant seas announced, back in spring, there were those who were disappointed.
"Oh," they said. "The sexy titty winky-faced one from Emmerdale, who will apparently. be 'feisty' This is not much of a change from the leggy ginger kissy-faced former model, who was also playing "feisty". This makes me feel nostalgic for when the companion was Catherine Tate, who was pushing 45, thought the Doctor was a dandy-boy gimboid, and got tetchy when she had to run, because she wasn't wearing the "right kind" of bra. It seems even a super-humane 900-year-old Time Lord has a soft-spot for the kind of woman who really annoys other women. Sigh."
However! In the first episode, it turned out that Oswin was not the sexy titty winky-faced one from Emmerdale, after all. She only thought she was. In actuality, she was a genius human trapped inside the body of a Dalek.
But the Doctor did not know this, and neither did we. For the first 30 minutes, the Doctor had communicated with Oswin by telecom only. When the Doctor finally - came face-to-face with her, the scene was not of him responding to a cracking rack, a pair of heels and a mini-dress — but a very upset plunger, instead.
"I. AM. HUMAN!" the Dalek wailed. It looked like the worst first date ever.
Obviously, at a later point in the series, we'll see Oswin again, not as a Dalek, which will require nifty plotting, given that she totally seemed to die in a massive explosion at the end of episode one. The Doctor clearly springs her from her Dalek shell, in some way. Personally, I'm_ a bit sad about this. The comedy/pathos potential for the Doctor's new assistant to be a Dalek who thinks it's the sexy one from Emmerdale is massive. Imagine some giant demented, screaming Brabantia kitchen bin leaning against the consple of the Tardis, trying to sex the Doctor up with one mad eye.
"DO. YOU. LIKE. MY. NEW. TOP?" "You're not wearing a new top. You've just strapped two saucepan lids over your ...bosom area."
"BOO. HOO. BOO. HOO. YOU. THINK. I'M. FAT!"
"Sigh. God I miss Bernard Cribbins."
It's so good to welcome back one of the best storytelling kits ever invented.
- Asking on Twitter how many companions the Doctor has had caused my timeline to melt for an entire afternoon. Answers ranged from "eight" to "sixty one", and included comments like "Does K9 count?", "Does it count as a new companion each time Rory dies and gets resurrected?", and "Depends if he shagged Kylie."
It also involved the pleasing revelation that Gareth Jenkins — the kid who went on Jim'll Fix It in 1985, and was made the new Doctor for eight minutes in a special mini-episode — is now a big cheese in Save the Children UK. Awwww.
Caption: TAKING THE PLUNGE The Doctor (Matt Smith) faces the Daleks
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- APA 6th ed.: (2012-09-08). Imagine a giant, demented kitchen bin trying to sex the Doctor up. The Times .
- MLA 7th ed.: "Imagine a giant, demented kitchen bin trying to sex the Doctor up." The Times [add city] 2012-09-08. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: "Imagine a giant, demented kitchen bin trying to sex the Doctor up." The Times, edition, sec., 2012-09-08
- Turabian: "Imagine a giant, demented kitchen bin trying to sex the Doctor up." The Times, 2012-09-08, section, edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Imagine a giant, demented kitchen bin trying to sex the Doctor up | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Imagine_a_giant,_demented_kitchen_bin_trying_to_sex_the_Doctor_up | work=The Times | pages= | date=2012-09-08 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=26 April 2024 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Imagine a giant, demented kitchen bin trying to sex the Doctor up | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Imagine_a_giant,_demented_kitchen_bin_trying_to_sex_the_Doctor_up | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=26 April 2024}}</ref>
