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Fear Her!! Gaspode Interviews The Director of Tonight’s DOCTOR WHO!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
“Gaspode” brings back Euros Lyn, who directed both 2.7, “The Idiot’s Lantern,” and tonight’s 2.11, “Fear Her.” This is the second part of the interview that was posted the night “Lantern” hit SciFi:
Before we discuss ‘Fear Her,’ let’s talk about ‘Idiot’s Lantern for a moment. What kind of tone did you have in mind when you were shooting that episode, which is set in the fifties?
Euros Lyn: From the beginning, the central theme in episode seven is this battle against fascism. Even from early on, I think we’re supposed to be scared of Eddie the father. He’s probably quite violent, and from the first scene he’s in, we know he’s not a nice guy, and there’s always this simmering undercurrent that he could do some very unpleasant things if his temper was unleashed, so it kind of balances that darkness.
It’s a slightly subversive episode isn’t it, suggesting connecting television with loss of identity and so forth?
Lyn: I think so. It exists as a metaphor exactly the way you describe it, but within the episode, it also resonates as a warning of the dangers of fascism and the dangers of any totalitarian ideology, so you have Tommy as this incredibly hopeful character, who embraces new technology and wants to have the freedom to be friends with whoever he wants to be friends with and to love whoever he wants to love. This is a young character, who yearns for freedom, and his triumph at the end is that metaphoric vanquishing of fascism. I think it’s interesting, this idea that German was defeated at the end of the Second World War and Britain was living in a peaceful happy time, but in this episode, that darkness and danger exists within Britain, and I think that’s very pertinent for our age now. We live in a time where those forces, those fascistic ideologies are actually with us now, and we need to be vigilant that they never triumph.
But the post-war period was also still very difficult for Britain, hence the idea of a TV in every house having a great deal of resonance.
Lyn: The Doctor has this fantastic speech where he realizes that they’ve landed in 1953 and it’s the end of austerity and everybody is off the ration and the Technicolor, and they can look forward to a brighter, happier future. One of the wonderful things about this series is the aspiration and hope that drives every single story forward. Yes, it wasn’t an entirely cozy, happy simple time, where everybody lived in happy families, but what drives our heroes through this story is the hope for a better life and for freedom and love.
You’ve got a great guest cast in this episode, including Ron Cook, Maureen Lipman-
Lyn: It is a good piece of drama, with some fantastic performances. There are some really subtle, nuanced performances by all the cast, and but we’re also fortunate to have Andy Pryor as our casting director, who’s got the most amazing instincts I think one of the main skills for a casting director is to understand the nature of being human, and Andy is particularly attuned to that. He can understand the essence of a character and put his finger on the right actor for that part, so we’re very fortunate to have him.
Although ‘Idiot’s Lantern’ is a period piece to some extent, presumably you had to be careful with your research considering some of your viewers would still remember that period quite well.
Lyn: Absolutely, and we relied a lot on photographs. Jean Challis one of our actors who played Auntie Betty actually went to the Coronation as a young girl and stood cheering the queen as she passed by on the Strand. She could tell us what the weather was like, but unfortunately we couldn’t control that, but again, we wanted to be historically accurate, because it helps us tell the truth.
‘Fear Her’ is really a character piece, isn’t it?
Lyn: Yeah, there are very few visual FX in it. In any episode, the FX are there to tell the story. Maybe sometimes they’re exciting in themselves, but really, the visual FX are only exciting if they serve to tell the story, and Matthew Graham has written a very dramatic story, with very few FX, but the dramatic events he’s written are thrilling, so it works.
Was it tough to find a good young actor to play Chloe?
Lyn: In the past, when I was casting kids, I would go around to schools, so I and met literally hundreds of kids and whittled them down and arranged recalls where a few of them would come back in and eventually you work your way down to the one who can do it. But on this show, we didn’t have time to do that, so you kind of go through the agency kids, many of whom are very stage schooly; they’ve done stage musicals, which isn’t particularly useful for screen acting. But the way it worked this time was that Andy went out to some community drama groups in London, who had no film experience and saw some stage plays and invited some of the kids in, one of whom was Abby and I think she’s done pretty well. Because the child is possessed by the alien and as a result is desperate for love and for company, but her actions, which are honorably driven, lead to chaos and destruction, so she starts stealing kids from the street and she’s essentially a benign, benevolent character, doing things for the best of her intentions, but in actual fact, her actions are evil, so it’s a really tricky role.
Didn’t you ever hear the warning about working with kids or animals?
Lyn: I think there are practical and logistic difficulties, like they’re only allowed to work nine hours a day and every hour they have to have a 15-20 minute break, so there are the rules, but there’s also their concentration. They can’t keep going in the way an adult can; well, sometimes they can actually, but also their experience is much less, so they’re discovering the disciplines of shooting for the first time, and that can be quite a challenge. We were very lucky with the little girl we had, because she’s playing somebody who’s affected by an alien presence, and she pitched it very well, and it’s a very strange experience to watch her, which is exactly right for the story.
Strange in what sense?
Lyn: How can I say it without giving too much away for the people who haven’t seen it yet? She’s kind of emotionally removed I guess and I think that’s perfect for the character in the story.
This may sound a bit politically incorrect, but were you at all worried about casting black actors to play a single mother and her child, without tapping into some unfortunate racial stereotypes, particularly as far as abuse and abandonment were concerned?
Lyn: It’s interesting, because in Britain there are far more white kids than there are black kids, so the choice of actors is greater with white kids, just because there are more of them and it’s actually more difficult to find in any minority, once you decide to cast from a minority group, it’s more difficult to cast. I think with Doctor Who, we’re in the business of mirroring life and we represent Britain on screen, so it’s very important to us that we have characters from across lots of different minority groups, and we wanted the lead character to be black, and I think the fact that she goes on quite a dark journey has no relevance to whether she’s black or white. That could have gone either way.
Did you find it was easier to use simple tricks to create the illusion of the drawings moving?
Lyn: The guy in the wardrobe, we never see him move, but he has a voice, he has a growl and the wardrobe doors are banging, so it’s the truism of what you don’t see is often scarier than what you do see. There’s a classic Who moment near the end of the episode where the dad escapes from the wardrobe and he’s rounding the top of the staircase, and all you can see is his shadow, because he’s back-lit by this red glow from the pit of hell where he’s come from, and his shadow grows at the top of the landing and just this sense of what’s about to come is far scarier than it would be had we ever seen him.
So you’ve already scared the hell out of kids by putting a monster under the bed in ‘Girl in the Fireplace,’ and now you’ve got a monster in the closet.
Lyn: I think one of the scariest moments is in episode two, where it’s not what we see but what we hear. It’s when Captain Reynolds is devoured by the werewolf and we can hear his limbs being torn apart one by one and then there’s blood-curdling death scream from him. That’s kind of worse than anything we see.
Looking back over your four episodes from season two, what are you happiest with?
Lyn: I think I’m really proud of some of the action sequences in episode two, especially. In Doctor Who, we’ve done emotion brilliantly and I think we’ve done some CG very well, but up until the end of the last series, some of the action sequences could have been better, so that’s something we wanted to improve, and I’m really proud that we’ve been able to do that. And I’m really proud that episode 11 even with a much lower budget is as great an episode of Doctor Who as an episode with a bigger canvas. So I suppose it’s those two extremes really.
8 p.m. Friday. SciFi.
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I believe is the correct thing to do
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Never thought I'd bother until the opportunity came up ;-)Bless you trans atlantic time difference and slight lack of interest in Doctor Who
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Sure, this initially looked like a good episode as it directly followed "Love and Monsters", but after reflecting on it I was a bit disappointed. While there were the good episodes like Impossible Planet/Satan Pit this season, after this episode I thought that this was turning into "just another TV show" as opposed to the greatness that is Doctor Who...but then came the two part finale (showing NEXT week) which I enjoyed immensely.
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wait till you see this week's episode! It even makes "Rose" look half decent. But fear not, the quality returns for the last two episodes and we finally get rid of Rose. Hopefully next season will be awesome because there's no stupid Rose love story and Tennant will be dosed up on depressants to stop him doing his Jim Carrey impression in every scene.
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It makes sense that they have the same director since they were both good ideas but not very well executed. I know someone who shouldn't get any more work...
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Overly sentimental and smug. And I want to throttle that little kid. Why does RTD insist that the other writers and directors make Docter Who so bloody happy and twee. At least Torchwood trys to be a bit dark.
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Was def. the weakest episode of last season. However, the lamest moment of last season wasn't actually in a show. The writer of "The Idiot's Lantern" put in a line where the Doctor looks at the broadcast tower, grimaces a bit and says "Hmm...I fell off one of those things once." It was a direct nod to the passing of Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, and would have been a great moment for fans. It never happened because Russell Davies struck the line out because he has this issue with alluding to the old show except, of course, when he doesn't (Daleks, Cybermen, Sarah Jane Smith). Oh well.
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...and "Idiot's Lantern" = parable on fascism? Rubbish. This is as silly a statement as James Cameron hemming and hawing about T2 being a moral about nuclear war because he felt he had to after T2 beat Boyz in the Hood at the MTV Movie Awards.
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Horrendous!!! Boring!!! I thought Tennant shat pure gold, but this one is bad, bad, bad! The only thing good is when the Doctor arrives and leaves...like removing a splinter, when you have it and know it is almost out, then the relief as it is out and the hole is filled by antibodies and the like, because it is over.
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At least Love & Monsters got a more energetic response than this one, even if you hated it or not.
This was just dull, and silly. Minus a few points for that way foreboding final scene that was oh so subtle in its delivery :) -
While I don't really like "Fear Her," it gets an extra half-star from me for at least trying to be a DOCTOR WHO episode instead of basking in its own self-indulgence like "Love & Monsters" did. (And no, let's not rehash all that mess again, shall we?)
"Fear Her" is especially disappointing because writer Matthew Graham does such an incredible job on his series LIFE ON MARS. Unfortunately, Graham's Scribble Monster and animated kid's drawing of the Doctor end up being cheesy to watch, and for such a key role, could the producers have found a worse child actress than Abisola Agbaje? I certainly don't think so...
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I remember really fearing for the finale after this episode. I did enjoy seeing the TARDIS have to re-park, and its always nice to see that children are dissapearing, but after that it just kinda sucked. Not as irritatingly horrible as Love & Monsters, but at least as dull and lifeless. With Sci-fi close to finishing out Season 2, will they be airing the new Christmas Special around Christmas this year, or am I going to be celebrating the birth of Jesus with a torrent? Anyone?
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So should I not buy the DVD set because I thought this season was supposed to be good but it sounds like it sucks.
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...the Doctor Who method for getting rid of the vengeful ghost of an abusive parent. Altogether now: 'Kookaburruh sits on the old gum tree. Merry merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburrah laugh. Kookaburrah gay your life must be!' Repeat if neccessary or call the police.
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so i JUST started watching both seasons these past two weeks and I just can't get over how many Zombie-like foes the Doctor comes up against...it seems every enemy he faces is a slow moving mass of people hell bent on turning you into one of them or killing you (the plastic people, the cybermen, the diseased-ridden humans, the Daleks, the gas masked people, the Gelf, the Ood, etc)...don't get me wrong...I love the Doctor and Zombies...and there's nothing I find more creepy than a group of people slowly coming after you for blood....it's just something I've noticed
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While watching, "The Lost Room" miniseries. The promo shows the Tardis materializing with the door against a wall or something, trapping the Doctor inside, so he then has to re-position the Tardis to get out. It gives away nothing about what the episode is about, so it’ no surprise to me that this week is going to suck too. A pity, the writers could use a lesson in consistency. Budget, Smudget, they just got lazy.
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The Series 2 DVD set is definitely worth picking up, if only for "The Christmas Invasion" and the 5-minute prelude set directly after "The Parting of the Ways," "School Reunion," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "The Age of Steel," "The Impossible Planet," "The Satan Pit," "Army of Ghosts," "Doomsday," the DOCTOR WHO CONFIDENTIAL documentaries (even if they are cut down), and the outtakes. I think that justifies picking up the set, especially if you get it for 30% off on Amazon.com.
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Speaking of references to the 4th Doctor's plunge from the Pharaos tower, the TVM had a reference to that with a passing comment when the 8th Doctor said he didn't like heights. But you are right, that cut line would have worked in that episode.
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Well, according to the programming guide on my TiVo. 8-10pm. With a marathon of season 2 episodes starting earlier at 8am - 3pm.
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That is probably a hard question to answer without knowing more about you. Did you buy series 1? Were you a fan of old Who? If you like either, I would ask what you like and could then have a better idea about how you'd feal about Series 2. Is buying the DVD the only way you'll ever watch the episodes? Do you care about the extras(Confidential is sometimes as entertaining as the show)? If you plan on watching the 3rd series, there are almost certainly things in the 2nd that will play into future stories. On the other hand, if you wait it out, I'm guessing you'll find savings in multi-season box sets in the future. You don't seem to be in any rush to buy now, otherwise you'd already own the set. The longer you wait, the more bang you'll get for your buck, and the more Who you'll be able to watch in a row if you get into it.I liked the first new series better than the 2nd, but not by much. I don't think Tennant was as good at working with bad material, so when Series 2 was bad, it was really bad. Additionally, Rose is much less likable in the 2nd Series, and in many cases downright irritated me with repeatedly selfish actions with little reguard of consequences. I still wonder if this was a concious effort to lessen fans attatchment to her, a result of Piper losing interest in the show, or just coincidence. Most old Who fans enjoyed seeing the return of Sarah Jane and K-9, and overall that episode had a positive reaction. Mickey was good pretty much whenever he appeared in Series 2. Impossible Planet is pretty universally liked, with the 2nd part being well liked too, but not as much. The re-imagined parallel universe Cybermen are worth a look with another 2 part episode. There were certainly good parts of those episodes, even if they don't quite seem to live up to the potential. The 2 part season finale worked shockingly well, when it could have been a disaster. Probably best of all is "Girl in the Fireplace", which, if you aren't going to watch Who any other way, is probably enough to justify the DVD set. A good story, some interesting sci-fi type issues, good performances, and some interesting design work with the robots. The two major clunkers "Love & Monsters" and "Fear Her" are probably worth seeing once in your life, even if it is just to see how bad it could get, and to see what everyone else is talking about. Much to my amazement, there are some people that don't consider "Love and Monsters" to be total shit, you could wind up being one of "those people". There are some very good episodes and some very bad episodes in this season. I think the fact that the finale worked well causes some people to praise this season more than last, which had a less than stellar finale, imo, but was more fun to watch.
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For a few stunned moments after it finished words failed me; glad then that I recalled Lex Luthor's wonderful delivery of the one word that summed up this effort. If you thought Love & monsters opened one up to ridicule from one's non-Whovian friends this one took the biscuit.SpyGuy covers the major points but someone else said it felt almost like a lost X-Files episode. It had the feeling it was meant to play as an unsettling look into supernatural goings on in suburbia, but had to play as normal detective story for mainstream BBC 1.*So* in with stupid "I'll draw the world and it'll be my friend" out-there idea tacked onto make it Dr Who-worthy and you had a show trying to deal with abusive fathers and single parent families and... and... a murderous squiggle?!
As a certain ambitious, ruthless, murderous, business man and scientist once said... "WRONG!" -
I really enjoyed the first season. I mean I have to say there were times where I didn't think it hit me emotionally, but I enjoyed it. And I have to say I got really pissed at Rose at times. The way she treated Mickey and particuraly her mother was horrible, but in the next episode she would kind of redeem herself. I just heard that the second season was a lot more creative and emotionally powerful. I'm going to pick it up mainly because I gave the first season a chance, but some of the negative comments here just got me confused.
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Putting up two of the worst episodes of the new run back-to-back is going to get people talking, it isn't indicative of the whole season though.
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so hang in there. Love & Monsters is not only the worst Doctor Who episode of ALL TIME, but a strong contender for the worst piece of television I have ever seen. Fear Her is better, but not by much. The soap opera production design doesn't really help. It just looks overly cheap and the script is very silly, especially all the Olympics stuff. Keep your fingers crossed for next year...
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is still far superior than modern american sci-fi.
Enterprise, BSG, Firefly? -
So Im not sure what you're talking about
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yarly
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dear oh dear or is it just me??? =0.
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makes up for Love and Monsters, and Fear Her, twice over. L&M was definitely the worse of the two, I think, but Fear Her was not far behind in the race for Worst.Billie seems to have checked out, and just showing up out of contractual obligation--she had ONE good moment: the hand-holding scene with Dr in the Tardis--that was the Rose we all liked to see.Tennant is just not as good as Eccleston (or this season is so much more poorly written--or both, I suppose). He was good in the first ep, and in The Girl in The Fireplace, but is otherwise mostly annoying rather than likeable. His ONE good moment in Fear Her: "Ball bearings you can eat!!"
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While not as strong as last season's "The Parting of the Ways," "Doomsday" ends Series Two on a high note, if only because of what happens to Rose.
And David Tennant is as good as Christopher Eccleston (at least the readers of DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE seem to think so in their Favorite Doctors poll), but he does need better material. Tennant really shines when written properly -- "The Christmas Invasion," "Tooth and Claw," "School Reunion," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit," and "Doomsday" -- but too often the scripts (or the directors) call for unnecessarily hyperactive and jokey. On the flip side, though, I certainly couldn't see Eccleston's Doctor pull off "The Girl in the Fireplace," especially the scenes involving Reinette. Eccleston mugged and grinned a bit too much for the camera, in my opinion, almost as if he was trying to one-up Tom Baker. Hopefully, the scripts for Series Three will play to Tennant's strengths more now that the writers have had a year to nail down his Doctor's persona.
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They've delayed The Satan Pit for two weeks now to show Christmas shows. Christmas is on a Monday which means it will probably be delayed for three weeks.
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Does anyone know if Sci-Fi will air it in a timely fashion now that they've caught up with the rest of the world?
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Glad to hear good stuff is coming up!As for Tennant, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, since I DID like him at first, and he still has his moments. I suspect you are correct: the writing is to blame here. I guess my overall disappointment is that he started so well, and it has become hit and miss, now. I don't recall any such instabilities with Eccelston's Who--but there again, could be writing as much as anything.My favorite character in season 1 was Rose, and I loved the way Billie Piper brought a wide-eyed wonder, curiousity, and willingness to trust the Dr. into the role. I thought she was pitch-perfect.This season, and again it may be the writing alone, but not only has her character gotten cocky and arrogant at times, Billie Piper just hasn't brought the sparkle to the role as before. The hand-hold moments in Fear Her were about it.looking forward to the finale, though, and thanks for the assurance that it is a good one, sir. Cheers
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Unfortunately, my money's on them holding it off to air with Series 3 in September 2007, just as they did with "The Christmas Invasion" and Series 2.
One bit of good news, though, is that Sciffy is rerunning "The Christmas Invasion" ON CHRISTMAS DAY (!) at 3:00 p.m. EST. Even better, they've slotted 90 minutes for it, so it shouldn't be chopped up to make room for all the commercials.
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i'd write them if i knew there was interest.
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This week's episode: very sad, especially when the guy met his son in the nursing home. Torchwood is still the Beeb's best weekly show despite moments of indulgence. And its better than Robin Hood
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Yeah I wanted to see a few more reviews (or even just good ol' plain *views*!) on Torchwood.I myself have enjoyed it, but seemingly in spite of its attempt to hobble itself with its "crack team does something cool against a below-par scifi enemy with a few really nice moments of characterisation tacked on". Hmm, sounds like some episodes of Dr Who series 2!Anyway, one of the problems with Torchwood is the majority of episodes at the start of the run were given over to Freak O' The Week formula. It was something they stuck to dogedly at the expense of brilliant episodes like the one we were treated to last night. A limited budget, action sequences that were stilted and poor directorial flourishes (how many helicopter shots can we fit in of Cardif bay!) cripple its ability to pull off a believable British Sci-fi threat in suburbia.
However the shows that worked best for me were the very first episode Everything Changes, They Keep Killing Suzie, Cyberwoman and Out Of Time. These episodes had us just looking at a team with its foibles and problems, getting on with their mundane jobs. Lots of character building. I think they needed more of these type of episodes towards the start. I mean, who would've missed the "Sex Alien" which was a clichéd and horribly childish attempt to scream from the rooftops "we're an adult show!" and had it replaced with We Keep Killing Suzie.
It feels they're only now giving the writers room to expand the characters, which is surely the wrong way round; this show needed more story arcs like Suzie's early on in the run to make us care about them and far less The Hills Have Eyes rip offs! Nevertheless I'll keep watching it in the hope for a few more quality shows (and especially any written by Cath Tregenna). -
Terrible as was the episode before it. Love the last two of the season. Great duel with old Doctor Who foes.
Torchwood. Just ok so far. -
I wonder if anyone asked him about that unresolved internet rumor...
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Due to scheduling luck I've managed to somehow catch every repeat of this brilliant episode that the BBC have put on. Aside from making me wonder how many times the BBC can get away repeating it in one week I'm actually quite happy. Got a friend to watch tonight's so here's hoping he'll come away liking it. Oh and anyone else notice the formula that really worked well this week? Capt. Jack, Gwen and Own being split up and dealing with their own little love/motherly moments with these time travellers. Also liking Yanto going all Rain Man in the store when they're shopping. I just wish they'd had as strong episodes as this early on in the run.
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