Following on from the media frenzy over whether Matt Smith could halve the budget deficit- duh, I mean replace David Tennant, another television icon of the Noughties who was shamelessly fought over this week (albeit in a more specifically political context) was Gene Hunt, of 'Life on Mars' and 'Ashes to Ashes' fame. Labour's decision to use David Cameron's face on Gene Hunt's body, with a slogan 'Don't Let David Cameron take us back to the Eighties',backfired spectacularly and led to a mirror Conservative campaign saying 'Fire Up the Quattro, it's time for change.'
Gene Hunt ranks amongst one of the greatest popular television characters of the last five years. In his original 'Life on Mars' appearances, he was a perfect foil for John Simm's thoughtful and ultra PC character, Sam Tyler. In his first episodes, he was simply an unaccommodating policeman of another age, who had some brilliant lines along the way. Unfortunately, the BBC asked that he be resurrected for another series, and thus 'Ashes to Ashes' was born. In its fascination with Hunt and the recent past, subsequent episodes of the sequel series have seen Glenister's character sometimes become a parody of himself.
If that isn't a thundering metaphor for the whole 2010 election, I don't know what is.
Monday 5 April 2010
Leave our icons alone...
It seems that in the wake of 'The Eleventh Hour', the first episode in a new run of BBC One's flagship Doctor Who, one thing that has really got the online forums buzzing is the appearance of Karen Gillan, who plays new companion Amy Pond, in a miniskirt. For anyone who didn't see it, the character of Amy was a kissogram and a policewoman's outfit was merely one of her many guises. Golly, it was a very short miniskirt though wasn't it?
I'm sure Matt Smith and Karen Gillan have already become immune to such criticism, but you do get the feeling that sometimes they just can't win. This follows nearly a year of speculation that Smith was far too young to play a character who is, we are often told, 900 years old. When news of his casting was announced, everyone seemed to scratch their heads and complain that they had never heard of him. It's a strange celebrity world we live in now; after all, when you think about it, the only reason he was 'unknown' was because he was just acting to, you know, earn money and wasn't a celebrity. Look him up on IMDB or Wikipedia and you find the Eleventh Doctor popping up in all sorts of (often quite well-received) theatre productions. No, really.
The reviews I have read of Smith's first episode have been mostly positive; there's almost a sense of relief that he has worked out the choice for The Doctor and that he is proving a worthy successor to Tennant. This implies that David Tennant is in fact lying in state at Westminster Abbey and was up there with the Queen, or the Archbishop of Canterbury in terms of his national importance.
David Tennant was a good lead for the show. But since his departure was announced, there's been a tendency to remember him through rose-tinted glasses. For a show that, at its best, appeals to all age groups, some episodes were genuinely bad. The Kylie Minogue/Titanic effort sticks out in my mind, as well as one with Agatha Christie and a giant wasp. Tennant's Doctor was compared to the Messiah/Superman a number of times, characters such as Mickey and the often wooden Martha Jones were brought back again...and again...and again. Plus, when the time came for David Tennant to leave, we were treated to a lot of Russell T Davies's portentous dialogue about how he was going to 'die'. Unfortunately, the media squawking about Matt Smith meant we all knew that really, he was just going to increase in height and grow floppier hair. Many of the best David Tennant stories were written by new showrunner Steven Moffett anyway. In the rush to compare Smith to Tennant, it's also been omitted that Christopher Eccleston had a stab at the role. Remember him?
So, dare I say that this version of the BBC's national treasure might manage to be better than its predecessor? Saturday's episode was a brilliant little hour of television. The opening sequence where the Doctor sits in Amy's kitchen and eats fishfingers and custard was straight out of a storybook, the monsters were genuinely scary but perhaps most thrillingly of all, none of it took place in London or Cardiff.
I'm sure Matt Smith and Karen Gillan have already become immune to such criticism, but you do get the feeling that sometimes they just can't win. This follows nearly a year of speculation that Smith was far too young to play a character who is, we are often told, 900 years old. When news of his casting was announced, everyone seemed to scratch their heads and complain that they had never heard of him. It's a strange celebrity world we live in now; after all, when you think about it, the only reason he was 'unknown' was because he was just acting to, you know, earn money and wasn't a celebrity. Look him up on IMDB or Wikipedia and you find the Eleventh Doctor popping up in all sorts of (often quite well-received) theatre productions. No, really.
The reviews I have read of Smith's first episode have been mostly positive; there's almost a sense of relief that he has worked out the choice for The Doctor and that he is proving a worthy successor to Tennant. This implies that David Tennant is in fact lying in state at Westminster Abbey and was up there with the Queen, or the Archbishop of Canterbury in terms of his national importance.
David Tennant was a good lead for the show. But since his departure was announced, there's been a tendency to remember him through rose-tinted glasses. For a show that, at its best, appeals to all age groups, some episodes were genuinely bad. The Kylie Minogue/Titanic effort sticks out in my mind, as well as one with Agatha Christie and a giant wasp. Tennant's Doctor was compared to the Messiah/Superman a number of times, characters such as Mickey and the often wooden Martha Jones were brought back again...and again...and again. Plus, when the time came for David Tennant to leave, we were treated to a lot of Russell T Davies's portentous dialogue about how he was going to 'die'. Unfortunately, the media squawking about Matt Smith meant we all knew that really, he was just going to increase in height and grow floppier hair. Many of the best David Tennant stories were written by new showrunner Steven Moffett anyway. In the rush to compare Smith to Tennant, it's also been omitted that Christopher Eccleston had a stab at the role. Remember him?
So, dare I say that this version of the BBC's national treasure might manage to be better than its predecessor? Saturday's episode was a brilliant little hour of television. The opening sequence where the Doctor sits in Amy's kitchen and eats fishfingers and custard was straight out of a storybook, the monsters were genuinely scary but perhaps most thrillingly of all, none of it took place in London or Cardiff.
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