Doctor Who Series 2 Episode 7 - The Idiot's Lantern - Review

Starring: David Tennant, Billie Piper, Maureen Lipman & Rory Jennings

Written By: Mark Gatiss

Directed By: Euros Lyn

With the two-part reintroduction of the Cybermen done and dusted, and following an emotional farewell to Mickey, we kick off the second half of the series by reining things in with a trip to the 1950s. Now with just the Doctor and Rose in the TARDIS, Mark Gatiss returns to pen the episode, having written Series 1's 'The Unquiet Dead'. I absolutely loved 'The Unquiet Dead' so lets see if Gatiss' second episode can live up to the high quality of his first.

While trying to visit one of Elvis Presley's shows in New York, the TARDIS instead brings the Doctor and Rose to London, 1953, where celebrations are being prepared for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. However, an unusually large amount of local houses have television sets, which in 1953, were a rare and expensive commodity. The source of these television sets appears to be local merchant, Mr. Magpie, selling TV sets at a remarkably cheap price. But why would a regular merchant be so keen on getting as many people as possible around the TV in time for the coronation?

Perhaps more than any other episode this series, 'The Idiot's Lantern' has an incredibly distinctive look and feel about it. I really love the look of this episode and the authentic 50s streets that the production team created. If you can still find it, the 'Doctor Who: Confidential' for this episode is a really worthwhile watch, giving you a sense of just how much work was behind breathing life to the streets of 50s London. The house, the colourful street parties, the bunting, the dresses, the cars … it's all really immersive. Take away the domestics and the Wire and there's a lovely old-fashioned celebratory feel to this episode. Director Euros Lyn even includes plenty of stylistic nods to the time, especially the noticeable use of Dutch tilts - a common feature of the noir cinema popular in the 40s and 50s. Its a backdrop that the Doctor and Rose settle into well, and the way they interact with their surroundings now that it's just the two of them again, feels like the kind of thing they tried and failed at in 'Tooth & Claw'. It works here because their cocky arrogance is gone and instead they just feel like they're having fun.

At least that's the case when the Doctor and Rose share the screen, because once Rose departs about mid-way through... something weird happens to the Doctor. He gradually becomes more and more shouty, to the point where he's bawling right up in peoples' faces, spitting out lines and chucking his weight around. I think the intent was supposed to be that he's at risk of losing Rose for good, and that makes him angry and dangerous. But the way David Tennant just ends up screaming at everyone doesn't make him scary … he's just loud. He does have a couple of good moments, such as his crowd-pleasing explosion of anger towards Eddie Connolly, or the nice friendship he forms with Tommy (Rory Jennings is brilliant by the way), but on the whole, it still feels massively overacted.

Speaking of overacting - this is a complaint that is similarly aimed at Maureen Lipman's performance as the Wire. I've seen so many people complain about the Wire, but I've got to confess that I absolutely love her. Yes, Lipman goes over-the-top and hams it up, but I can just tell that she's having so much fun in the role and thoroughly relishing such a ruthless, cackling character. Since broadcast, her much-repeated cry of "Feed me!" has become something of an iconic line in our house. I also think the concept for the Wire, a familiar BBC-sounding presenter sucking peoples' faces into the TV screen, is a nice play on the myths and fears of the time. It's a very 'Doctor Who' thing to do, to transform the tales of not sitting too close to the screen, or that television rots your brains, into an alien menace.

But there's another side to 'The Idiot's Lantern' besides the coronation and the Wire - there's also the domestic side of things. Mark Gatiss dedicates some time to the Connolly family and the emotional domestic abuse Rita and Tommy endure at the hands of the "man of the house", Eddie Connolly. I like the idea of Eddie essentially being a pathetic man who likes to loudly vent his anger and frustrations out on his family, like many abusive husbands tend to do, and I think Jamie Foreman's a talented enough actor to pull it off. But at times, Eddie comes across as more silly than he does intimidating. It's a bit like the problem the Doctor suffers: he doesn't come across as threatening, he's just loud. It is a nice arc for Rita and Tommy to go on, finding the strength to overcome the emotional abuse they've endured and kick Eddie out. That is at least until the ending, which is frankly weird. As Eddie walks away with his suitcase, Rose for some reason sends Tommy after him, pretty much undoing the good work that's been done. Especially to audiences that have endured emotional abuse at the hands of a family member, I imagine this ending must come across as odd and pretty tone-deaf.

This is the thing that always baffles me with 'The Idiot's Lantern' - it never seems able to settle on an overall tone. It's an episode with a surprising amount going on: the coronation celebrations, the Connolly family, the Wire, people with missing faces, the police investigations surrounding it etc. But this results in the episode bouncing between light-hearted fluff, complete seriousness, domestic affairs, a homage to film noir, a horror piece, action set-pieces and more. While its not impossible to balance all this, with just forty-five minutes to cram it all in, it leaves the episode feeling strange and as though its not entirely sure what it wants to be. Certain scenes viewed in isolation make for wonderful viewing, but as a sequence of narrative events, it leaves you feeling unsatisfied.

'The Idiot's Lantern' is a tale of two halves. It has some things that I really love, such as the choice of 50s setting and (even though I'm in the minority here) Maureen Lipman's rendition of the Wire. But the amount of ground it tries to cover and the let's say mixed results of the Connolly family drama could've been done better. It unfortunately doesn't live up to Gatiss' previous historical episode, but at the same time I'm not quite prepared to call this an outright bad instalment to the series. If anything, I'm pretty ambivalent towards it.

The Idiot's Lantern

5/10