Totally Doctor Who – Doctor Who – Doctor Who Confidential – 14 Apr 2007

I really feel like I’ve got a Totally Doctor Who problem. Today there’s two copies each of two different recordings of yesterday’s episode.

I’d been thinking how much better the recent recordings have been. This would be because at this time, we’d just moved into our new house, so presumably the TV aerial was a lot better. The house we were in temporarily didn’t have a roof aerial so I was using an aerial indoors.

However, this particular recording looks as glitchy as hell. I don’t think it’s even worth trying to figure out what any trails are.

Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Liz Barker present a show celebrating the the latest adventures of the last living Time Lord. David Tennant pays Barney and Liz a visit. The Companion Academy cadets are put to the test on their first task Expect the Unexpected. And more exclusive behind the scenes access as the Doctor comes crashing down to earth in a lift shaft.

Recorded from BBC TWO on Saturday 14th April 2007 10:28

BBC Genome: BBC TWO Saturday 14th April 2007 10:30

Later that day, things are looking better, at the start of the recording at least, with a trail for Tracy Beaker. There’s also a trail for the Reggie Yates quiz show Get 100.

Totally Doctor Who

Media Centre Description: Barney Harwood and Liz Barker present a show celebrating the the latest adventures of the last living Time Lord. David Tennant pays Barney and Liz a visit. The Companion Academy cadets are put to the test on their first task Expect the Unexpected. And more exclusive behind the scenes access as the Doctor comes crashing down to earth in a lift shaft.

Recorded from CBBC Channel on Saturday 14th April 2007 18:28

BBC Genome: CBBC Channel Saturday 14th April 2007 18:30

After this CBBC closes down.

The next recording starts with the end of Match of the Day Live. It’s an FA Cup semi-final with Manchester United vs Watford. I suspect my sisters’ favourite team didn’t win this one.

There’s a new trail for Rush Hour. They’re really promoting this, and yet I don’t think I watched any of it.

And an advert for the Arctic Monkeys on Radio 1.

Then, assuming my aerial holds out, it’s Doctor Who – Gridlock. Not a story that tops many people’s lists of best stories, but it’s one I have some fondness for.

The opening sees a man and a woman (who look exactly like the couple in the famous painting American Gothic albeit he doesn’t have a pitchfork) in a vehicle of some kind, as they’re being attacked by something scary that we never see.

On the Tardis, the Doctor offers Martha a trip to another planet. She asks to go to his planet, and he’s unwilling to take her there, but can’t bring himself to tell her it’s gone. So he takes her to New New York, where he’d previously gone with Rose.

Cut to somewhere on the planet, and the Face of Boe is talking to a cat nun. They know the Doctor has arrived, and she has to find him “before it’s too late.” And she has a gun.

The place they’ve landed is a row of stalls selling drugs that can modify your mood. A woman buys Forgetting as she wants to forget her parents, because they’ve gone to the motorway. “They drove off.” “Yeah, but they might drive back.” “Everyone goes to the Motorway in the end. I’ve lost them.” “But they can’t have gone far, you could find them” says the Doctor, but the woman takes the drug and forgets. Martha isn’t impressed. “So that’s the human race five billion years in the future. Off their heads on chemicals.”

Suddenly, Martha is kidnapped by a couple. “I’m really, really sorry. We just need three, that’s all.” They bundle her away into their vehicle and head to the motorway. “This is Car 465 Diamond 6, we have three passengers, repeat, three. Request access to the Fast Lane.” ‘Access granted.’ “Oh, yes!”

Her kidnappers, Milo and Cheen, are very apologetic when they get to the motorway. They needed one more person because of the car sharing rules. Three people get access to the fast lane. They assure Martha it won’t take long. They just need to go ten miles, which should only take six years.

The Doctor finds the motorway. There’s a lot of traffic.

Before he dies of the fumes (still burning things to power flying cars?) he’s given a lift by another couple. She’s human, he’s a cat called Brannigan (played by Ardal O’Hanlon). They’ve been driving for 12 years.

The Doctor needs to find who took Martha. Luckily Brannigan knows two ladies, one of whom is a car spotter. They identify the car Martha is in.

The Doctor wants Brannigan to take him down to the fast lane, but he refuses, because something happens to cars that use the fast lane, although they can’t say what. The Doctor asks what if there’s nothing outside the motorway? The Police don’t answer calls, all the traffic broadcasts are recorded, nobody can get off the motorway, what if there’s no one to help. Then the radio starts broadcasting a hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross”, and everyone starts singing along with it. It’s clearly a shared moment. I found this surprisingly moving. But the subtitles slightly ruin the moment by ending with “ORCHESTRA PLAYS SCHMALTZY OUTRO”.

The Doctor has to find Martha, so he starts jumping down from car to car, meeting a lot of interesting looking people. They had some fun with this section.

Down at the bottom of the traffic, they can hear strange noises. They’re called by another car behind them who want them to move up, but they can’t. “We only have permission to go down. We need the Brooklyn Flyover.” “It’s closed. Go back up.” “We’ll just go round.” “Don’t you understand? They’re closed, they’re always closed. We’re stuck down here! And there’s something else out there, in the fog. Can’t you hear it?” Then we hear these people over the radio as something destroys their vehicle.

The Doctor reaches a car in the bottom layer, but he can’t drive down because the automated system would prevent it.

The Doctor wonders what’s below. He can hear the noises. He clears some of the fumes to get a better look, and recognises what’s down there. “Macra”. An awful lot of older Who fans rather enjoyed this, the Macra coming from a lost Patrick Troughton story. “The Macra used to be the scourge of this galaxy. Gas – they fed off gas, the filthier the better. They built an empire with Human slaves, mining gas for food.” “They don’t exactly look like empire-builders to me.” “Well, that was billions of years ago. They must’ve devolved down the years and now they’re just beasts. But they’re still hungry and my friend’s down there.”

Suddenly, there’s another visitor to the vehicle. It’s the cat nun, whom the Doctor recognises as Novice Hame. And she needs The Doctor, taking him away via teleport.

She transports him above ground, into the Senate building. Where everyone is dead. “A new chemical, a new mood. They called it Bliss. Everyone tried it. They couldn’t stop. A virus mutated inside the compound and became airborne. Everything perished, even the virus in the end. It killed the world in seven minutes flat. There was just enough time to close down the walkways and the flyovers, sealing off the Undercity. Those people on the Motorway aren’t lost, Doctor. They were saved.”

She takes him to The Face of Boe. “He protected me from the virus by shrouding me in his smoke. But with no one to maintain it, the City’s power died. The Undercity would have fallen into the sea. So he saved them. The Face of Boe wired himself into the mainframe. He’s giving his life force just to keep things running.”

Back on the fast lane, Martha’s vehicle is trying to escape the Macra, but they can’t fly up because the rest of the traffic lanes are full.

The Doctor tries to reconfigure the power systems, but it doesn’t work, then the Face of Boe gives his last energy to get it working and open the upper doors. The drivers see sunlight for the first time in years.

The Doctor takes over the traffic broadcasts, and tells everyone they can fly up, out of the undercity.

But it’s taken a great toll on the Face of Boe.

Now the Face of Boe is actually dying, he delivers his last message, to the Doctor. “I am the last of my kind… ..as you are the last of yours, Doctor. That’s why we have to survive. Both of us. But know this, Time Lord. YOU are not alone.”

Walking back to the Tardis, Martha stops, and refuses to go on until the Doctor is honest about his home. So he tells her about Gallifrey, and about the Time War with the Daleks.

Click below to watch the episode on iPlayer.

Media Centre Description: The Doctor takes Martha to New Earth, in the far future, only to find that an entire city has become a deadly trap.

Recorded from BBC ONE on Saturday 14th April 2007 19:38

BBC Genome: BBC ONE Saturday 14th April 2007 19:40

That’s a late start for Doctor Who due to the football.

After this, there’s a trail for Sea of Souls and the recording stops. Probably because I’m recording the next programme on another channel.

Even with the abrupt end of the previous recording, I still managed to miss the first minute or so of the next programme, Doctor Who Confidential – Are We There Yet?

I think Richard Clark is a first-time Doctor Who director. “I apologise in advance for how wet you’re going to get.”

Phil Collinson: “Russell talked to me about this episode quite a long time ago. I just thought it was a fantastic idea. Because, as ever, I love how topical Russell continually tries to be.”

David Tennant: “It’s all very grimy and…bleak, and fairly nasty.”

Russell T Davies talks about the Doctor’s motivations at the start of the episode. “The Doctor feels a great responsibility for Martha. He’s brought her here, kind of showing off a little bit. Showing off a universe to her. The first thing that happens, she gets kidnapped by some dodgy looking characters. Obviously he feels responsible for that. And he spends the rest of the episode trying to get her back. The moment she goes missing, he feels to blame.”

Freema Agyeman on her relationship with the Doctor: “She feels like she is getting closer in his relationship. The next thing she will be seeing his home planet and moving in!”

The story has a huge scope, with the thousands of cars in the motorway, but because all the interior scenes were shot in the same small set, albeit redressed for each different car, Russell calls it one of their smallest shoots.

Mike Crowley talks about creating the smog.

We see Ardal O’Hanlon having his makeup applied.

Visual Effects supervisor Barney Curnow talks about the problems of getting a kitten to make the right expressions so they can animate it to say “Mama”.

Art Director Arwel Wyn Jones talks about the challenges of realising what’s written on the page. “Russell knows when he’s writing these things. Sometimes they go, “I’ll write it to see if we can do it”, I’m positive they do. That gives us a challenge. It’s always nice to be able to actually achieve what is written.”

Travis Oliver who plays Milo: “We never actually see the creatures, we are stuck in the car. Trying to imagine these giant crabs trying to attack the car wasn’t such a big deal because our characters never see them. We are hear the sounds, we are pushed by them. We get that sort of sense of them which is much easier to do than being presented with a green screen and saying, “There is a 60-foot crab, look scared.” That would have been difficult.”

Lenora Crichlow (misspelled in caption): “It’s so much fun. Today has been complete and utter screaming your head off. Action. Usually TV has to be so small and subtle, all in the eyes, and all that malarkey. Today, we’ve been like, “Argh!” Tonsil and nostril shots. Lovely!”

They talk a bit about the return of The Face of Boe (and it annoys me that the subtitles spell it “Bo” throughout. Mind you, they also mispell “2000 AD” as “2018” so I suspect there’s a little bit of automation going on here.) Watching these now, and knowing how the stories pan out, I find it really interesting that Confidential spends a surprising amount of time focusing on the small bits of foreshadowing in the actual show. It’s almost using these shows to reinforce the importance of all these set-ups that could seem quite unimportant in the actual show. As if the documentary is being used to reinforce the ongoing narrative. I think that’s really interesting.

Click below for the episode on iPlayer.

Media Centre Description: Behind-the-scenes look at Doctor Who. There’s a report from the green screen studios to witness how some of this series’ most complicated action sequences were shot. Set in New New York, far in the future with endless space-age motorways and plentiful CGI , the filming of Gridlock was a big challenge for all involved. Plus, how guest star Ardal O’Hanlon was transformed into his character Brannigan and chats with David Tennant, Freema Agyeman and head writer Russell T Davies.

Recorded from BBC THREE on Saturday 14th April 2007 20:25

BBC Genome: BBC THREE Saturday 14th April 2007 20:25

The recording ends right after the programme does, so it looks like this might have been edited.