Top Five Big Damn Hero Moments: The Sixth Doctor (Doctor Who)

I know I already did the Sunday Who Review on, well, Sunday, but I'm tossing in an extra one this week. Based on the number of days I can reasonably expect to have time to watch movies between now and the Oscars, I have a good ballpark on how many I'll get to. However, my time is back-weighted more toward next month, so I'm going to drop in an early Sunday Who Review or Book of Rannells post here and there to free up more space for movie reviews closer to Oscar time (the pandemic has me leaning into my neurotic organizational tendencies, so just accept that this is how I need to work this.) So, without further ado, have an early Sunday Who Review!

Even though Six remains my least favorite Doctor, I’ve watched his seasons a few times now, and I’ve found things that I like about him. As such, I feel equipped to give him a genuine Big Damn Hero Moments that appreciates some choice victories of his (spoilers.)

 

Discovering Mester’s Plan (Series 21, Episode 26 – “The Twin Dilemma:  Episode 4”)

Two separate revelations here lead the Doctor to a disturbing truth. First, he realizes that Mester’s plan to bring two other planets into the same orbit as Jaconda, albeit at different points in the timestream, would result in both planets being pulled into the sun. This doesn’t make sense to him until he sees the Gastropod hatchery, where he discovers that the outer shells of the egg have been engineered to be tough enough to withstand an exploding sun. Because cleverness is about both learning things and making important inferences therein, he puts together Mester’s plan: use the force of the sun explosion to scatter the eggs throughout the galaxy, where the Gastropods can hatch and colonize every planet they land on.

 

Sabotaging the Rani’s TARDIS (Series 22, Episode 6 – “The Mark of the Rani:  Episode 2”)

When the Rani and the Master escape from Peri, the Doctor isn’t worried. Earlier in the episode, he tinkered with the acceleration in the Rani’s TARDIS, which prevents her from simply hopping to the other side of the village to evade the Doctor and then continuing her cruel experiments on the humans. Instead, as soon as her TARDIS takes off, speed builds rapidly and she and the Master are slingshotted to the other end of the galaxy. Bonus points for the resulting time spillage causing one of her baby dinosaur specimens to start aging at an incredible speed!

 

Sabotaging the Time Module (Series 22, Episode 9 – “The Two Doctors:  Episode 3”)

Clever Doctor! Chessene and the Sontarans have stolen an experimental time module, but in order to use it, it needs to be primed with Time Lord DNA (otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to withstand the time vortex.) With Jamie held at gunpoint, the Doctor does as he’s asked, but he leaves an extra little surprise for the baddies. Unbeknownst to them, he sabotages the module, rigging it so it’ll only work once – when Chessene inevitably insists on using Peri to test it – and then explode on the second try.

 

Escaping Drathro (Series 23, Episode 2 – “The Trial of a Time Lord:  Episode 2”)

Why look, here’s another time-honored “forced by the baddie to do their dirty work because you’re such a genius” moment. Drathro orders the Doctor to help its two assistants fix power fluctuations in the underground system. The Doctor sticks around just long enough to gain a little useful information, then slyly lays a trap for Drathro and the assistants. Keeping up a lively patter, he enlists all them of them to “help” him restore the system, when really, they’re creating a circuit that completes when he flips a switch, electrifying them so he can slip away.

 

Discovering Hallett (Series 23, Episode 10 – “The Trial of a Time Lord:  Episode 10”)

This particular move doesn’t accomplish much in the moment (although it does lead the Doctor to an important piece of information he’ll need for the main mystery of the story,) but I’m a sucker for Sherlock Holmes-style flexing, making deductions off of seemingly-minor observations. When one of the non-oxygen-breathing Mogarians starts to have a medical crisis, the Doctor is urged not to remove the Mogarian’s face plate, which protects him from the oxygen, but the Doctor knows better: this isn’t a Mogarian at all. Sure enough, he pries off the face plate and reveals a human inside the suit. How did he know this? In the ongoing framing device of the Doctor’s trial, he not-so-humbly rewinds the tape the highlight the important clue, that this “Mogarian” could be understood by everyone on board despite having his translator switched off.

Other Doctor Lives: Staged: Series 2, Episode 2 – “Long Time, No See” (2021)

I’m getting a better handle on the meta-ness of series 2, which is shaping up to be a lot of fun. While the humor is still much the same as it was in series 1, the plot ups the ante a bit, and I like where this is going (by necessity, I’m going to have to spoil a particular plot point from the last episode.)

Last week, David and Michael were discussing the possibility of going to America to film a stateside remake of Staged, but that got squashed when they learned that the American version planned to recast them with more bankable names. Now, their egos are bruised further when they discover that the rest of the cast is remaining mostly intact, and they debate whether to go full scorched-earth on Simon (David’s plan) or take a more diplomatic approach in the hopes of still being involved (Michael’s.)

As always, the show brings a lot of COVID relatability to the proceedings. Michael and David’s obsession with the American remake is heightened in part because their own individual plans have fallen through due to shifting protocols and changing travel restrictions. I really feel for David when he announces in one scene that he’s made peace with everything and is “embracing chaos,” only to spiral out a few scenes later when the hits just keep coming. We also have one character noting that the uncertainty and lockdown aspect of the pandemic somehow feels worse the second time around, precisely because people thought they were on the cusp of getting back to “normal” only to have the rug pulled out from under them again.

Nina Sosanya appears again, this time as Actress Nina Sosanya Who Played “Jo” in Series 1 rather than the character Jo (I was ready for the extra meta this time, though, so I could roll with it.) I enjoy her interactions with Simon, who is his usual ambitious-but-ultimately-feckless self. Here, he clashes with David and Michael over who really created the series, with Simon staking his claim as the writer while David and Michael point to their extensive improvisation to argue that the show wouldn’t be what it is without them.

Par for the course, the best scenes are the ones involving Michael and David. The face-off with Simon is terrific (and features a well-executed bit of Zoom humor,) and they’re also stellar in their one-on-one scenes together. There’s just something about their chemistry as they commiserate over being unwanted by the Americans, attempt to weigh their options, and muse about what other career paths they might have taken. This episode features Michael in a bit more of the peacemaker role between David and Simon, which is a new angle – in the past, we’ve seen David acting more as the glue/pacifier (albeit badly,) but this time around, he’s the one who has to get talked down from the ledge.

This means some fun/funny scenes for David Tennant. He’s good at jumping between demeanors, going back and forth between incensed, petulant, and fake-cheerful with ease. I also love David delicately intimating that perhaps “professional footballer” is no longer on the table as a career for Michael, and apropos of nothing, my favorite line in the episode is his, “That seems a bit hypocritical of the Vikings!”

Sound of Metal (2019, R)

On my third Best Picture nominee, doing pretty well. This film has a lot going for it, but it also has a major demerit that makes it hard for me to like it as much as I otherwise might have. That being said, it’s a strong story well-told.

Ruben is a heavy metal drummer, touring across the country with his girlfriend/music partner Lou. Their plans are thrown for a loop when Ruben suddenly experiences a severe hearing loss. In the wake of such a major upheaval in his life, Lou worries about Ruben’s sobriety and reaches out to his sponsor, who finds a Deaf/hard-of-hearing rehab to get Ruben plugged into. Ruben is immediately focused on solutions, thinking about how he can scrape together the cash for Cochlear implants, and so he initially resists the community around him and the possibility of what it means to be Deaf.

Before anything else, we need to address this: from what I can tell, all the Deaf characters in this film are played by Deaf actors… with the exception of the two who got nominated for Oscars. I can pretty much understand Riz Ahmed as Ruben, since the whole point is that he’s playing someone who’s only just lost his hearing and is still very much in a hearing mindset. However, 1) that continues the Hollywood trend of mostly just wanting to explore disability as a crisis point, the moment of become disabled and the fallout therein. And 2), I hesitate to say that Ruben had to be played by a hearing actor. Given the fact that a Deaf person won Dancing with the Stars, who am I to say what a hard-of-hearing actor could’ve done in the role?

And regardless, you can’t argue an excuse for Paul Raci as Joe, a late-Deafened Vietnam vet who runs the rehab and serves as Ruben’s mentor. It’s nice that Raci is a CODA (a hearing Child Of Deaf Adults) who signs well, and I get that Joe is supposed to speak fluently and serve as kind of a go-between for Ruben in his early days in the program. But again, why couldn’t a hard-of-hearing or late-Deafened actor play this? There’s no reason, and it’s shady that a movie about exploring the richness and value of the Deaf community places hearing actors in both of the most prominent Deaf roles.

Okay, soap box moment accomplished, onto the rest of the movie. Even if the premise is kind of been-there-done-that as far as disability narratives are concerned, it’s a well-crafted story within that, and the film also scored a Best Original Screenplay nod. Ruben and Lou are both really well-drawn characters, and their flaws and personal damage come through loud and clear individually and in their relationship with one another; we see how they care for and protect one another, but also how they get in too deep with one another at times instead of focusing on their immediate problems. Ruben is a very likeable character who’s fairly screwed up and makes a lot of mistakes. It’s interesting to see how much he tries to deal with on his own, how much he resists letting people in and forges ahead as if he can make himself hear again through sheer force of will. Through his situation, we also see how isolating it can be to be without language access. In the early days of his experience, he’s alone on both the hearing and Deaf sides of the spectrum. Lou loves him and only wants to help him, but he has to constantly remind her to write down what she’s saying so he can understand her, and the bustling, vibrant Deaf recovery community is brimming with chatter in a language that he doesn’t know yet.

The dive into the Deaf community, hearing actors aside, is lovely. So many touchstones of that culture are present: the vital importance of schools, little things like flashing the lights or banging the table to get someone’s attention, accessibility tools like transcription software or telecommunications, Deaf games (I remember playing Elephant in college during interpreting classes,) and the debate over Cochlear implants, along with a depiction of what implants are really like and how they work. We also get heavily into the medical vs. cultural models of Deafness.

I will say that Riz Ahmed does an excellent job as Ruben, and I get why he’s up for Best Leading Actor. I appreciate that the character work is front and center at least as much as the whole “playing Deaf” aspect, with Ahmed depicting Ruben’s tumultuous inner life really well. He does well with his ASL, and his progression of signing is realistic for someone in Ruben’s situation. Personally, I’m less convinced of Paul Raci’s Best Supporting Actor nomination. Not that he isn’t good, but I feel like his nomination is more reflective of the “playing Deaf” thing, and I’m still admittedly salty about his casting. Most of the Deaf characters played by Deaf actors have much smaller, less-defined roles, but I did recognize Lauren Ridloff as a teacher at the Deaf school. She broke onto the scene a few years ago in the Broadway revival of Children of a Lesser God, and I’m super pumped to see her as Marvel’s first superhero with a disability when Eternals comes out.

Warnings

Language, smoking, drug/drinking references, sexual references, and strong thematic elements (including references to suicide and self-harm.)

Doctor Who: Series 5, Episode 10 – “Vincent and the Doctor” (2010)

I know I’ve brought up this episode on multiple occasions, and it remains one of my absolute favorite Eleventh Doctor stories. It’s just such a beautiful story about connection and friendship, about anguish and loneliness, about genius and legacy, and about the way one man saw the world.

On a trip to the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, the Eleventh Doctor notices something in a Vincent van Gogh painting that shouldn’t be there: an alien face. He and Amy hop back in time to meet the legendary painter to find a strange, solitary man despised and mocked in his day. Our heroes ingratiate themselves with Vincent to unravel the mystery they found in his painting, but along the way, they also try to bring a spark of joy to his troubled life.

(Before we get too far into things, I do feel obligated to mention that the episode deals directly with van Gogh’s mental-health issues, and from what I can gather online, the actor Tony Curran is neurotypical. So, while both the writing and the performance here display plenty of sensitivity, it’s still worth noting as yet another in a long line of actors without disabilities playing disabled characters.)

It was probably about five years after seeing this episode that I got a chance to visit MoMA and see the actual Starry Night, and it really does something to you. One of the things that “Vincent and the Doctor” does so well is capture the feeling of van Gogh’s work. It’s everywhere in the episode – the beautifully-rendered sets and costumes that bring the subjects of his paintings to life, Vincent’s manic-but-heartfelt monologues about his painting, and the climactic ode from the museum tour guide played by Bill Nighy. I like the idea of team TARDIS chasing a mystery across time after discovering a clue in a painting anyway, and all kinds of elements in this story come together to take full advantage of that premise.

Another thing I really love is that, at its core, this is a story about kindness. Often, the celebrity historicals feature, well, celebrities, and the Doctor and their companions join us in fawning over them, even if they’re not yet as famous as they’re going to be someday (William Shakespeare) or if they’re at a low moment in their career or life (Agatha Christie.) But with Vincent, he’s famous only to the Doctor and Amy when they meet him. While he’s notorious around town, it’s purely as a madman who paints rubbish, and he’s carrying on a lonely life thinking that no one could love his paintings but him. The Doctor and Amy needs his help to find their alien of the week, but they also take the time while they’re there to form a connection with Vincent and offer him some hope and friendship. As a bonus, this theme dovetails nicely into some things that are going on with the Doctor and Amy at the time.

Our heroes are all kinds of delightful here. Amy is just effortlessly kind and considerate with Vincent, connecting with him on a deep level and going the extra mile to brighten up his life. Meanwhile, the Doctor careens between his ADHD-puppy-ish silliness and his old-eyes wisdom/empathy. He also drops quirky one-liners like they’re going out of style and demonstrates an incredibly-low tolerance for things happening in real time, in the right order.

Additionally, much is owed to Tony Curran’s performance as Vincent. I’ve since gotten to know Curran’s work in a variety of genre projects, most notably his role as Datak on Defiance, but this was the first time I saw him, and obviously, he left a big impression. He’s so good here that when he pops up again a few episodes later, used to set up something related to the season-arc mystery, the scene almost feels like it’s intruding on something that was already perfect as is.