The Next Doctor(s)

Yes, a mere four years have passed but now it's time to once again pick the next Doctor! Was it the enforced year-long gap by an apathetic BBC management that made Capaldi quit? Was it heartbreak over John Hurt's death? Perhaps showrunners and leads sign suicide pacts like David Tennant and RTD? Either way the First Fourteenth Thirteenth Twelfth Peter Capaldi bows out in less than twelve months time and his successor must be chosen to start filming.

So, who to take over the reins now that it's canonically established that a white male Time Lord can regenerate into a black female Time Lady and nobody in the show actually gives a damn? Yes, there's nothing to stop the minority groups playing the next Doctor (or even a disabled or midget actor, given the predictions in The Witch's Familiar) so let us pick our own choices freely.


1. Julian Rhind-Tutt

"You don't understand. I'm not a human being. I walk in eternity..."

Yeah, an old pitch of mine but he's older than the fresh-faced Ace Rimmer cute boy of Green Wing and Black Books and has since become known as playing repressed, bespectacled and vicious bureaucrats ever since. Could easily follow on from the older, darker Capaldi but be less of a miserable old bastard with a serious personality disorder and more someone who's company you'd actually enjoy.


2. Ruth Wilson

"Would you mind please standing aside while I shoot myself?"

A redhead who's mastered the "thousand yard stare" of all good Time Lords, her charisma is clear from the way she made a psychopathic serial killer in Luther the most noble and likeable of characters even though the rest of the cast weren't evil bastards. She can steal the screen from Idris Elba and Paul McGann simultaneously, and has a "I'm going to go for your neck" vibe that rivals Tom Baker. She'd no longer be the madman in a box, but the mad bit would never have been more accurate.


3. James Lance

"Go on then. Look me in the eye. Pull the trigger. End my life."

The punchable jerk's definitely got range, able to play stereotype bad boys, nerds, psychopaths, heroes, teachers and burned-out pansexual time-masters. There's no way of telling what his Doctor would be like, an unlikely but captivating central character who'd be harder to hate than easier to like. Plus, there'd be plenty of fun on youtube with his infamous "Are you comparing me to Sylvester fucking McCoy?" line from Teachers. Which even, in context (with the bloke from the Walking Dead claiming he was "Tom Baker" and Lance was "Sylvester McCoy" when he meant "Peter Davison), was genuinely hilarious.


4. Colin Salmon

"...and we all know the fate of alien spies..."

Well, he's been in Doctor Who and Blake's 7 and James Bond and even worked simultaneously with Steven Moffat, Dawn French and Peter Vaughn, so let's not deny he has the cahones for the job as well as a love for the sci-fi/fantasy genre. He's a Shakespearean actor and his specialty as charming but aloof characters up to something clever make him a good, if obvious choice.


5. Matt Smith

"GEROMINO, MUTHAFUKAS!!!"

Yeah, this is a cheat but apparently Smithy has been jonesing hard to return to the old police box. Is there any real problem with him resuming the role, especially as it's also canonical Time Lords can "revisit" old faces? Bar the awkward regeneration episode, it's no different to the new leases of life given by Big Finish. The public love him, are they really going to complain if he comes back?


6. Nina Sosanya

"Don't worship me - I'd make a very bad god. You wouldn't get a day off, for starters."

Pretty obvious, really. Good actress, lots of variety, been in the show before, was willing to play a transsexual castrato drug addict to get close to David Tennant. I mean, if they'll let Matt Lucas in...


7. Santiago Cabrera

"Sorry, but there's this thing... well, four things... well, four things and a lizard..."

A more conventional swashbuckling choice from a guy best known sword-fighting in historical dramas, but his portrayal of Aramis - a sad clown with secrets who'd rather be a healer than a fighter and willing to poke fun at every cliche he stumbles across - he'd be a safe bet for a younger, dashing David Tennant-esque style incarnation. Lots of planets have a Spain.


8. Tim Treloar

"I am not a good man. And I'm not a bad man. I am an idiot with a screwdriver and a box."

Well, he's made a positive impact as the recast Third Doctor, which surely means he could play the genuine article on TV without his Jon Pertwee impersonation. He's got the thumbs up from both Katy Manning and Tom Baker as being perfect for the part, and if they don't know what makes a good Doctor, then who does?


9. David Harewood - (very briefly) Bookies' Favorite!!

"Sometimes we humanoids have to hide our true feelings for one another. Now shut up, Adric."

After being shafted with the least-challenging roes of Rairf Kcut and Josh Naismith, this could be Davo's chance to play to the more cheeky wild-card he is in real life rather than a stoic, serious bloke in a suit. He could easily be a Sixth Doctor style boisterous and insufferable genius. Or not. Who's to say?


10. Sarah Smart

"My word, Jamie, yes, that is a big one..."

She's done the show before, worked with Peter Davison, Paul McGann and Matt Smith and can easily go from psycho-feminiza-lesbian to terrified-mouse-victim in the blink of an eye, and perfect for a sort of Troughtonesque pixie bollocks to keep you guessing.


11. Shaun Parkes

"Fancy-pants." "Scarecrow."

Because he's awesome in everything, and been sidekick to David Tennant and mentor to Matt Smith as well as beating the crap out of Dennis Waterman to fight satanists. Booyah.


12. Esse Davis

"You know, Susan, sometimes I think your old grandfather's going ever-so-slightly round the bend!"

With her jaw-dropping charisma, fantastic acting range and ability to make anything - even Game of Thrones - fun to watch, she's the most natural choice for a trouble-making time traveler since Rick and Morty. There is no way she could fail.


13. Patterson Joseph

"Am I having a midlife crisis?!?"

Coz I couldn't think of thirteen totally original choices.

And Mark "Sparacus" Goucher wants:

Ben Wishaw

...viva la difference.

Someone who can only be described as a failed attempt at cloning Matt Smith, with near-identical hair, eyes, voice, chin and acting style who's current caught between voicing a CGI bear and being treated like crap by James Bond in movies so bad only sparacus himself could have written them. That said, you couldn't ask for a "safer bet" for the next Doctor and one guaranteed to cause no surprise or alarm.

The Emperor had this to say earlier today:

It's time for some imaginative thinking on who should replace Capaldi. And by “imaginative thinking” I mean “choosing a man who’s anal virginity I’d gladly destroy”. I'd suggest Ben Whishaw. He is a serious actor not a lightweight. He played Paddington Bear. Who did Capaldi play in Paddington Bear, huh? Just some nosey neighbor who couldn’t cop off with the evil broodmare with ovaries. Ben Wishaw is superior in all respects! I bet he doesn’t even need lubricant! I don’t care if the producers think that it would put Doctor Who into a creative rut! I want Wishaw’s salty goodness and Adam as the assistant, even though he's a bedridden cripple who's given up on acting! I deserve this dream team after years of trolling - AND I HAVE A DEGREE!

 

RIP John Hurt

"Death is the one certainty we have - why take it away?"

- the War Doctor, Legion of the Lost

Well, the late 2010s celebrity purge has claimed its first Doctor and it's fair to say everyone was surprised it wasn't Tom Baker (who, of course, was totally psyched up for it). Losing John Hurt, a fine actor who was that guy in V for Vendetta, 1984, The Elephant Man and of course Spaceballs is a hard blow, especially as he was ricocheting off the walls with awesome in the Big Finish Time War series.

Alas, it seems that particular book - the metatextual analysis of "the Wilderness Years" - over.

And it had a nice cover, too.

Jonathan Creek: Darker and Grittier

A quick response to finally seeing the latest JC special, Demons Roost.

Now, there's no denying that this once great black comedy mystery show jumped the shark a while ago, then systematically hunted down the shark's friends and families and jumped over them, then put them all in a big tank somewhere, put a trampoline over it and have been bouncing up and down ever since.

She found unsolvable crimes for her book, and he solved them!

He appeared on her husband's crime-watch show to explain unsolvable crimes!

He only got involved to solve the unsolvable crimes she couldn't work out on her own blog!

She married him and now they hang around a cliched village full of eccentrics doing sod all.

Personally I rate The Coonskin Cap as the point things went all wrong, but the next series or two more or less managed to retain a good level or so. Then came the specials where David Renwick pours a whole season of impossible twists into hour-long episodes revolving around an ancient mystery that isn't actually that mysterious. I guessed every single solution and trick this time which the exception of the "weak force" bit and the ultimate revelation of who the villain was, though I got the motivation right.

The last series of Jonathan Creek - despite the novel first episode which blatantly a dig at Sherlock where a Benedict Cumberbatch wannabe spectacularly fails to solve a mystery that we, the audience have already seen explained to us at the time - was beyond dire. Rather than the basic premise, where impossible crimes are solved by an antisocial savant genius, are now slightly odd childhood memories that require an ageing neurotic house husband to explain in between complaining about everything and JC has gone from a reluctant savant to Alan Davies being pissed off about the fact he lives in a big country house with Sarah Alexander willing to have sex with him every hour god sends.

Characterization has gone through the window once again with JC now yearning to solve crimes but now being completely and utterly crap at it (his own words, with even old cases coming back to haunt him) while his adventure-loving wife is now a paranoid shut-in who has absolutely no affection for her husband at all. She's also made a moron, unable to recognize the name Alfred Hitchcock or the word antimony despite her first appearance having her an avid theatre-goer with a family in the entertainment industry, plus running a diary company where things like toxic metal poisoning might be an ongoing concern.

We are also told that JC has a long-lost brother who inspired him to become a magician and his parents were ashamed of this life choice - which totally contradicts the story told in House of Monkeys where he was an only child with two eccentric parents too busy exploring the Amazon to fuss about JC's life choices.

And since this is a direct sequel to the House of Monkeys, that's a bit stupid. Mind you, that tale involved a cunning Moriarty-esque sociopath and animal rights liberationist achieve the perfect crime by tricking a guy into killing himself with a samurai sword via hallucinogenic sticky envelopes. Such a criminal wanting vengeance would no doubt be a careful tale of subtle manipulation and traps.

No, it turns out he's a skin-head with a knife who runs into places and stabs anyone in a duffel coat.

And oddly enough he is after Jonathan despite the fact that Maddy, Annette Crosbie and co, plus a police investigation were also to blame. Why the evil bloke runs to the windmill Jonathan hasn't lived in for a decade on the off-chance that a delivery van might have his new address is boggling.

Anyway, the plot of Demons Roost would be entertaining if it was half an hour short and not so blatantly obvious and with "mysteries" that a child could work out or completely ridiculous.

- man with stroke unable to communicate tries to talk to his daughter about vital matter
- said man does so by looking at her mobile phone, then the open living room door again and again
- keeps doing this, faster and faster, until he has another fatal stroke

OMG, what was his last desperate message?!?

Well, according to JC he was looking not at the the open door but the movie poster on the door (of which only the letter Y could be seen) and trying to tell us a minor character was an imposter.

Phone... y... get it?

No. That's up there with "Oh no, my dad's accidentally cut his head off with a chainsaw, I better hide his severed head to trick my mum that he's been murdered by supernatural forces, that might make his loss a little easier to bare since she's such a rationalist skeptic" in idocy.

But my main issue... and it's a very big issue... is the nigh-traditional bit where the bad guy attacks Jonathan and his latest bird. In days gone past this has been either played for pathos on the attacker's past, comedy from Jonathan getting beaten up, or Jonathan using magic skills to save the day.

I remember Maddy's last episode where Jonathan uses a card trick to blind a psycho and save the day.

This time Jonathan uses an animatronic puppet to beat the psycho up, knocks him into a furnace, douses him with gasoline, then gets his wife to light a match and set fire to the guy. Then he closes a hatch on the guy and leaves him to burn. The next scene has them totally fine with this and talking about something else.

Jonathan Creek cold-bloodedly murdered a guy in a truly horrible manner.

He doesn't even feel bad about it!

And you're his next victim...

And then he has the temerity to lord it over another character who has similarly killed a serial killer to prevent him killing again. At no point is this hypocrisy highlighted, no "it was him or us" discussion, not even having to go to court to discuss the possible ramifications. No, the episode is way more focused on comedy scarecrows to deal with the fact that JC and his missus have now murdered someone and got off scott free.

Having lost the interesting characters and interesting mysteries, Renwick has finally removed the even vague impediment that his regulars not be killers!


If there's another series, perhaps it will now be JC trying to get away with murders instead of solving them.

Frankly, if he starts with the production team, all the better.

The husband and wife who slay together, stay together.