Doctor Who (2005) 11-02: The Ghost Monument (Quick Review)

Episode:

842

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Serial:

278

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Writer:

Chris Chibnall

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Air Date:

14-Oct-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got a quick review of The Ghost Monument for you. All opinions, no recap. Here's a bonus opinion right at the start: it's nice that they've given me a proper title to put at the top of my review this time so I didn't have to screencap the end credits instead.

This is the second episode of the season to be written by showrunner Chris Chibnall and it seems that I'm going to have to get used to seeing his name under the titles as he's written a good percentage of the episodes himself. I suppose that's nothing new though, as if you look at the writing credits for the stories filmed during Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat time in charge you'll see their names show up on half of them. It's a big change from the classic era though, where the job was sort of split between the producer and script editor, and neither of them were supposed to be writing episodes (but they sometimes did anyway).

There will be SPOILERS underneath, both for this episode and maybe earlier ones too.

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First thing I'm going to talk about is the opening title sequence, because it bothered to turn up this time and it came on right at the start of the episode. They made me wait a whole 35 seconds for the resolution of the cliffhanger because of this thing!

The music's the same as the ending theme from the last episode, but I don't hate it so much now. I'm not looking forward to three seasons of it, but maybe it'll continue to grow on me. Or maybe I'll have to learn to be quick with the mute button.

This is the first time we've seen the new opening visuals though and they're a definite departure from the 'Tardis flies through time vortex/storm/clock' imagery the series has had for the last few decades. For one thing there's no Tardis flying through it. The new sequence is similar to the howl-around swirliness from the first decade of the classic series, but with the symmetrical video effect replaced by semi-symmetrical milkshake explosions. It looks like someone's stuck a mirror down the middle of the screen, but the two halves are actually a little different, which adds to its trippy unnaturalness. It might not be my favourite Doctor Who intro but it's definitely a Doctor Who intro and I can't say it doesn't look great in this still screencap with that shiny new logo.

It's also the second opening titles sequence in a row to be designed by a fan who used to make Doctor Who YouTube videos. He's called Ben Pickles (aka John Smith VFX) and he did the Wholock crossover video before getting to work on the actual series doing things like the morph between the William Hartnell and David Bradley, and the time vortex in Twice Upon a Time.

The resolution to the cliffhanger turned out to be exactly what I was expecting, seeing as they showed a spaceship in the next time trailer, but there was twist I didn't see coming: they were saved by two ships! Also they got proper medical attention afterwards, which was cool. I'd hate for the Doctor to have to go through another season blind. There was also a perfectly sensible explanation for why our characters and the ships all materialised in exactly the same place... though not why they got there at the exact same time. Minutes either way and the Doctor and friends would've died in the vacuum of space. In fact, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy puts the odds of their rescue at 2 to the power of 267,709 against, so they were bloody lucky really.

By the way, I love this set they built for the two spaceships, with all of its exposed conduits and flat screen monitors. It seems like they must have built the set to shake because everything was properly rocking all over the place. Especially the chairs on Angstrom's ship, which were attached to the ceiling for sci-fi reasons.

It was also a bit of a coincidence maybe that Epzo decided to bring his ship down exactly where the others were walking, though I suppose they were all headed to the same place.

There's some beautiful compositing here, though I couldn't help but notice that the characters were all running away from the spaceship instead of out of its path. Did none of them ever watch Prometheus? To be fair there was a bit of a hill either side to discourage them straying from the path.

After the expensive action-packed intro the episode settled down for a lot of scenes of talking. There were a lot of questions being asked and exposition being given in this one, but it still somehow flew by for me. Which is impressive considering that the episodes this season are the length of a original Star Trek episode.

Plus I doubt the talk was all that cheap either, as it may have only had three guest characters, but most of them were sent out filming on location in South Africa.

I suppose I should've expected a lot of walking across scenery after that teaser trailer.

For one brief moment I thought those sunglasses the Doctor passed to Graham might be the sonic sunglasses back to troll fans, but then I realised that would make no sense as her pockets were empty when she landed in the train last episode. So I got a bit confused when she said that she'd borrowed them off either Audrey Hepburn or Pythagoras... until I checked the subtitles and realised she actually said they were like a pair she used to have. Not the same pair. Also I checked a few scenes for any obvious Stargate-style reflections of the film crew, but I couldn't spot any, so they did well there.

I liked all of the companions in this episode, but then it was hard not to considering how weirdly reasonable and calm they were about the whole thing, to the point where the Doctor actually brought up how she appreciated them not going on about stranding them all in deep space. The series has only had three regular companions like this twice before, in the Hartnell era and the Davison era, and those teams were often split up to give everyone something to do (and the actors holidays). Here though the entire group stuck with each other, which makes sense as the story's all about teamwork, trust, caring about others and being stronger together.

Throughout the episode the group was only able to make progress because they worked as a team, with Graham asking the questions, the Doctor asking the other questions and solving all of their problems, and the others doing all of their own walking. The two racers who'd started with nothing and survived when 4000 others failed were fairly useless in the final stretch, but their accidental kindness when they saved the main cast from the vacuum of space paid off when the Doctor saved their lives on the planet later. I guess when the Doctor insisted they were stronger together what she really meant was that they were stronger with her, though I suppose she does work better with an audience.

Not that I'm complaining about the Doctor being hyper competent, especially when she's breaking out the Venusian aikido again. I'm not complaining about anything really as the Doctor was very Doctory, and the companions did what companions do, with a little extra time spent on their relationships with each other perhaps due to the unusually large group. Bradley Walsh as Graham was easily the stand out, though Ryan had his moments (like when he ran off screaming when his Call of Duty plan failed) and Yaz... well, she's likeable even when she's just there in the background doing nothing.

Incidentally, it's funny how playing Call of Duty seemed to have given Ryan fantastic aim with real weapons, but not the sense to stay close to cover. Plus I've played a few bot matches myself and even when I was in the zone and slaying enemies like I was the chosen one I still ended the day with at least a 1 in the 'deaths' column, so it's maybe not the best inspiration for a plan.

The episode reminded me a bit of the classic serial Enlightment, as they're both stories about a space race and they both take their damn time to reveal what's going on. They're very different stories overall, but I did like Ryan checking to see if he was eligible to win the race himself.

Turns out that writer Chris Chibnall had pulled a Bells of Saint John here as the title actually refers to the Tardis. I thought that reveal was handled really well because as soon as I started to make the connection, the Doctor also started getting very keen to see what the Ghost Monument was, and we both got the confirmation right afterwards. Also Yaz mentions here that there's a police box in Sheffield and I was curious, so I checked what it looks like and now I'm very glad they didn't go with that design for the Tardis. They made the right choice.

I'm surprised that Ilin here actually took the time to show the Doctor what the Ghost Monument looked like, partly because he's a dick, partly because as far as he's concerned they'll all be dead by tomorrow (because he's a dick). He did prevent the competitors from sabotaging or killing each other, but only to keep the competition going longer, and he was pissed off when they reached the finish line together and claimed it was a draw because... I dunno, they weren't taking it seriously enough? He wanted one of them to die? Everything about the race is incredibly vague, we don't even know if it's televised or not, so it's hard to really understand what Ilin's deal is. Except that he's a dick.

It turns out that he wasn't the one who made the planet cruel though. The inhabitants did that to themselves out of a real dislike for their evil overlords. Who also happened to be the folks oppressing Epzo's world... and who killed Graham's wife last episode! I'd wondered if the Stenza were going to come back when Tim mentioned that the guy's sister was still alive, and now it seems they're being set up as the main villains for this season.

When I saw the symbols scrawled across a floor of a gloomy research base on an a dead alien world my first thought was Doom, but it actually turned out to be a last message from the scientists giving a bit of exposition to fill curious visitors in on the backstory. So a bit like Doom 3 then, except they apparently felt like recording a log on a PDA just wasn't dramatic enough. I'm not sure that learning about what happened on Desolation helped our characters out at all, but I can understand why the Doctor was so eager to investigate. First, she's really curious, second, she believes that knowledge is power. For instance, knowing that robot powerpacks are really powerful gave her the power to take out all the SniperBots with a single button press (apparently her sonic screwdriver and the locator device were both EMP shielded).

There's three main threats on Desolation engineered by the weapons developers: the flesh eating microbes in the water (the Chekhov's gun that was never fired), the SniperBots (who fired a lot but usually missed), and the evil telepathic floating rags designed to mock their victims (who died in a fire). Honestly, I think the weapon designers could've done better, but then they weren't exactly motivated to strive for excellence. Plus to be fair, those SniperBots might have been really accurate once their targets got to sniper rifle range.

And the evil cloth might have been vulnerable to knives and fire, but it did at least get an arc word out of the Doctor's mind. Seems 'The Timeless Child' is something that's coming up again as well.

To be honest, I found the ending to be kind of cheesy with the power of teamwork saving both of the racers, and all the companions cheering the Doctor up, but I can't say a bad word about the Doctor's reunion with her beautiful Ghost Monument. Except that they didn't give me a good shot of the front of it so I can't talk about all the changes! Those bastards.

They've actually altered the design quite a bit this time, but all you can really see here is that they've changed the background to the telephone door to black or dark blue, put the hinges on the right, and taken away the St. John Ambulance sticker. I love how the Tardis was stranded light years away from her Time Lord, but she still decided to change her look for her because she knew she'd find a way back. And it only took her two episodes! I was worried she'd be hunting it down across time and space for the entire season.

I also liked how she didn't even need to click her fingers to open the doors as the Tardis isn't going to keep her locked out. Man, Clara really didn't have a clue what she was dealing with when she tried to coerce the Doctor by threatening to destroy all of the keys back in Dark Water.

I remember when I first saw a leaked photo of the Doctor standing inside the new Tardis I didn't even realise that it was the Tardis. It was a cool looking wall cunningly combining hexagons and circles but there was a police box in front of it so that seemed to rule that idea out. But then I looked at the photo again and realised that the police box was actually embedded in the wall. So you have to walk right through the box and out the other side now, which is strange. It means that the Tardis now has two backs and five 'POLICE BOX' signs, and who even knows if those windows on either side are real or not.

Also I feel like we saw a glimpse of the soundstage outside through one of the gaps. They need to get their black curtains sorted out.

The Doctor did the classic "You've redecorated... I don't like it," bit here, except this is her own Tardis so she loves it.

Me, I'm less impressed by the new Tardis interior.

It's cool that a lot of fans like it, but I'm finding it hard to be impressed when they went from the giant multi-level control centre with its furniture, rotating time rotor column, and light show, back to an empty flat room with a console in the middle. The new design's a little bit 'HR Giger', a little bit 'Fortress of Solitude', and very much 'giant six-legged glowing dead spider', and I feel that if you can barely see the console or actors because of the massive crystal pillars everywhere then something's gone wrong.

I don't like the crystal time rotor either, partly because it looks dull, and partly because it blends into the pillars. Though I guess I have to respect the Tardis' ability to mimic a sonic screwdriver it hasn't seen yet.

I guess I just don't trust any console room that gives out custard creams to try to win the trust of young children. It's fortunate that Ryan's been banned from touching things after the invasion of Earth and that incident with the gun.

And once everyone was in the Tardis and had acknowledged that it was in fact bigger on the inside, it dematerialised straight to the end titles without even giving us a glimpse of Sheffield. Which makes this the first episode since The Husbands of River Song in 2015 not to have a single scene set on Earth.

The morals of the episode: help others who are in trouble, you're stronger together, you're even stronger if you get all the info before acting, guns are bad but explosions are good, eat custard creams.

Overall, I thought the episode was roughly as good as The Woman Who Fell to Earth and pretty decent as Doctor Who episodes go. They've been reconstructing Doctor Who bit by bit these last two episodes, by giving the Doctor back her identity, her screwdriver and now her Tardis, and things have finally gotten back to normality... maybe. In any case, this is the first episode since The Eaters of Light last July to end with everything okay. Well, except for poor Epzo and Angstrom who'll go on believing that their new friends died on that planet and be tormented by survivor's guilt every time they buy something with their obscene wealth.

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COMING SOON

Doctor Who will return with Rosa. That's Rosa with an 'a' not Rose with an 'e'.

Do you have any opinions or comments to share about The Ghost Monument? I really hope so, because there's a box below this post especially for that purpose. That's literally all it does.