Tuesday 27 February 2007
I’ve been paying a good deal of attention to the revival of Doctor Who and its various spinoffs. It hasn’t all been brilliant - some has been downright terrible, in fact - but I keep on watching just to see how it develops. I guess I look at it as kind of a controlled study: seeing what happens to the show under different production teams (it’s been through lots, over its almost thirty seasons), what happens when they go for a completely different tone and audience (as with Torchwood, its supposedly more “adult” spinoff), and how they face other challenges along their way. So here are some of my impressions so far, drawn from the big jumbled stack in my brain.
Part one: the TV series proper. Spoilers ahoy!
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Sunday 14 May 2006
Russell T. Davies is the man the BBC turned to to kick-start and produce the new Doctor Who series. From the start, everyone involved in the program showered him with praise, calling him “brilliant” and “a genius” and “the best TV writer in Britain today”. But his Who episodes have been generally the weaker ones. I think of him as a bit like (former Who script editor) Douglas Adams - bursting with neat ideas but seemingly unable to string them together into a coherent, satisfying plot.
So, here’s the first edition of the Oh No Not Another Russell T. Davies Episode Drinking Game. Contains spoilers, of course. Suggestions welcome.
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Saturday 6 May 2006
On the way to meet up with my SO and a friend in Kensington, I lost my way and ran across the great Bob Snider, who was busking on Baldwin St. I snagged a copy of his CD, and he asked if there was any kind of song I wanted to hear.
On the subway I’d been revamping my plans for a series of podcast radio plays set in a mysterious, Kensington-like neighbourhood. “Anything about the neighbourhood, or the city?” I said.
“I got one,” he said, and launched into “The Street Takes You In”, a haunting, cautionary song about, well, the street. And then he sang one he’d recently completed, which I understand is called “Plum” — an altogether happier tune. (“Let’s invent a game for two where I play me and you play you / and the object is to figure out what all the rules are for. / Pin the tail on the monkey in the middle / Top Banana, second fiddle. / Loser is the one caught keeping score.”) Both wonderful. :D
Also, I got my copy of the latest Spacing magazine in the mail… looks awesome (and it’s part of the reason I was thinking about the radio plays).
So many things to think about lately. I want to take piano lessons and set up a decent little home studio, and there’s all those other musical projects I want to tackle too. So impatient.
Oh, and Christopher Eccleston may be the next Number Six. O.o (I can see it now. Number Two, secretly a disgruntled Doctor Who fan, demanding “Why did you resign?”)
Monday 28 March 2005
With all the ruckus surrounding the return of Doctor Who, I got to thinking about that theme music.
The classic rendition, of course, is by the late Delia Derbyshire - now spoken of in hushed tones by electronic music and science fiction geeks - recorded in pre-synthesizer days using test-tone oscillators and splicing tape. Built up note by note, its phrases are all individually shaped, each note with a unique timbre and tuning - like that gorgeous detuned note right at the beginning: wooo-waaa...
(For the full story, see Mark Ayre’s history of the theme.)
You just don’t get that kind of richness and character playing a typical synthesizer, not without a comparable amount of hair-pulling and sweat. Having a keyboard with all the notes right there at your fingertips, properly in tune and identical from one to the next, makes the playing easier, but not shaping the nuances of the sound. Peter Howell did manage a gripping remake of the theme for the 1980 series (according to legend, using every piece of equipment in the Radiophonic Workshop to do it), but it was all downhill from there.
For the new series, according to composer Murray Gold, the production team had originally intended to use the original arrangement - but it didn’t “sit right” with the new titles and the general feel of the new show. So they opted for something of a remix, using Derbyshire’s melody but a new orchestral backing. From the snippets I’ve heard, it’s certainly a step up from the late-‘80s versions, but still…
When I read that I started to think: surely, with today’s instruments, you could pull off a unique version that’s just as nuanced and hopefully as thrilling as the original, if you were willing to put the time into perfecting it. But no one has, that I’ve yet heard. I know Orbital gave it a half-decent shot, but dammitall, their version was a straight 4/4 dance number which - I’m sorry - is just not right. *twitch*
So I’ve started it as an occasional project: creating a better cover version. I’ll post it if it comes to fruition, but it may take a while to stew.
