Re: The Idiotic Lantern (spoilers)


The Bronze wrote:

Well, this is a surprise. I'm a great Mark Gatiss fan, I loved 'The
Unquiet Dead', I adore The League of Gentlemen, and I always find
myself nodding in agreement when I read his comments in interviews -
but I found 'The Idiot's Lantern' quite terrible, without a doubt the
worst episode since the series came back. It pains me to say it, but
there it is - I much prefer 'The Long Game' or 'Boom Town' to this
awful story.
And the worst of it is, it's the central concept that sucks.

Creeped me out, actually. I'm not such a fan of Gatiss - The Unquiet
Dead was far too pastiche-y for my tastes, with all its
oh-how-jolly-Victorian-sir-well-I-declare-if-I-were-to-speak-any-plummier-my-mouth-would-turn-purple
nonsense - and I found this much more likeable.

I'm usually inclined to 'just go with' fantasy concepts, as long as
they're mounted in the right way. 'Faceless' people worked just fine in

Sapphire and Steel, for instance, but that was because the whole show
was wacko. You can get away with the idea in a surreal or dreamlike
context; but in TIL, we are seriously asked to believe that an alien
intelligence can suck the faces off real people, leaving a blank,
skin-covered surface, and these people then live on for days or weeks,
without mouths or noses, and without their brains dying from oxygen
starvation. And why do the faces disappear? A face has nothing to do
with 'life essence' or 'soul' or whatever it is the alien is 'eating' -

the face is just a collection of bumps and hairs and protruberances,
with a few holes and a couple of eyes. Then there's all the extra skin
created to smooth over the missing bits. Why would an alien that ate
faces (silly idea, but assuming that's what's happening) bother to grow

skin back over the missing bits? To compound the silliness, everyone
gets their face back at the end, zap! The awfulness of this central
idea makes my teeth hurt...

Hmm. Dunno about this. Doctor Who has always been a space-based fantasy
show masquerading thinly as science fiction, and has come up with a
plethora of scientifically stupid ideas. Keeper of Traken: a place so
good that evil itself shrivels up and dies. The Pirate Planet: a planet
gets hollowed out, without affecting its gravitational pull. And many
more. I thought the visual was so creepy that it worked - they're
experimenting with the format, with this being nearer to a straight
horror story early on, and that's a good thing if you ask me.

Then there's the Doctor. This week I finally have to admit that he can
get on my nerves. There have been brief moments here and there in the
new series where Tennant has overreached, and uttered the occasional
cringeworthy line, but the stories have generally been good enough for
me to turn a blind eye. Here though, I found him arrogant, especially
in the scene at the Connelly's house: we the viewer know that Mr
Connelly is a bully and a martinet who's nasty to his wife and son; but

the Doctor and Rose march in and begin their character assassination
with barely a hint as to his nature.

I didn't read it this way. I saw it as a bit more of the Doc and Rose
just having a bit of a larf with the housework crack - pompous old git,
they think, take him down a peg or two - while getting him out of the
way (they'd seen him hush Tommy earlier). As it turns out he's hiding
some pretty crucial info, it then gets more genuinely angry. Worked for
me.

There was a shrill quality to the
way the two of them humiliated the man, which felt like it was
freighted with more personal bitterness from the writer than there was
room for in the script. Another bad moment came when the Doctor
responded to Connelly's shouting with AN EVEN BIGGER SHOUT! It's rarely

an effective ploy to try to outshout a bigmouth - you just end up
sounding desperate, and silly. The way to rattle Connelly would have
been to get in his face, adopt a low voice, and scare the jumped up
little prick with your unsettling calm (preferably while saying
something extremely cutting!) I actually laughed AT the Doctor when he
yelled in Connelly's face, because he looked so silly - and I don't
like to feel that way about him.

Yes, I thought doing it quieter may have been a better choice, but it
still works fine. Not going to get too worked up about it though - it's
only a single line!

There were numerous other flaws: what the hell is the Doctor on about
when he claims to think London is actually New York? This from a man
who's spent so much time on Earth these last two years.

Ah yes. That brief joke in the first sixty seconds of the story ruined
the whole thing.

The climax was
a load of cobblers, and the climb up the aerial mast was scored so
annoyingly I could not have cared less about the fate of Mr Magpie -
I just wanted the bleedin' scene to end so the music would stop (having

said that, much of the quieter stuff elsewhere was very effective).

Didn't notice the music, but I'm in agreement with the finale - it
rather fell apart at the end, a quality it shares with The Unquiet
Dead.

As for the 'go after your dad' bit - after the two of them tore him
to pieces in his sitting room, it's a bit rich (not to mention
presumptious) for Rose to weigh in with a moral imperative. If the boy
really does feel that his dad is a total ***, why on Earth would he

accept such a suggestion, and by what right does Rose feel empowered to

make it?

Well, she's just come through a pretty traumatic episode with her own
dad, which was how I read her sentimentality here. I dunno - as someone
who hasn't spoken to my own father for several years I suppose this
should have really annoyed me, but I thought it was fine. There's
enough in the script to suggest he's not a *bad* man as such, just
someone who's lost his way and ended up somewhere pretty nasty -
especially as he becomes more desperate due to the telly-based stuff.
As recompense he's got himself kicked out of the house. His son takes
pity on him. Seems fair enough.

Oh, and the quiff was horrible.

I liked it.

I suppose it was inevitable that an episode would come along that
completely sucked. I just didn't expect it on Gatiss's watch.

Come on, it didn't completely suck. I've just watched it again over
breakfast and it stood up very well to a second viewing. It had some
disturbing visuals and some decent jokes, as well as some genuinely
moving scenes. I was glad to see Gatiss getting out of that Victoriana
period he seems to love hamming up so much, and felt his work was much
more genuinely frightening this time. Doctor Who fans seem to fetishise
Victorian stories for reasons I've never really understood, but this
one had a much harder edge and worked far better than TUD - although it
did unravel at the conclusion.

.

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