The Doctor: David Tennant
Rose Tyler: Billie Piper
Chloe Webber: Abisola Agbaje
Maeve: Edna Doré
Trish Webber: Nina Sosanya
Tom's Dad: Tim Faraday
Neighbour: Erica Eirlan
Policeman: Stephen Marzella
Driver: Richard Nicholls
Kel: Abdul Salis
Announcer: Huw Edwards
Synopsis:
When the TARDIS lands in 2012, The Doctor plans to show Rose the London
Olympics... but they discover that children on a housing estate are
vanishing into thin air...
In preparation for the budget-busting finale, Doctor Who provides the
obligatory "filler" episode; a simple story with minimal locations and
special-effects. Fear Her is written by new Who writer Matthew Graham,
co-creator of the BBC's recent time-travel hit drama Life On Mars.
Unfortunately, this pedigree doesn't translate into a quality episode, with
Graham struggling to pull the plot together into a coherent and plausible
whole.
The premise is very reminiscent of various Twilight Zone episodes, whereby a
seemingly innocent child hides a supernatural power that affects the world
around them. Here, lonely Chloe Webber (Abisola Agbaje) is able make things
disappear by drawing them, only to see them magically appear as "living
pictures" on her paper. It's a decent enough basis for a mystery episode,
and Fear Her has its moments, but it's ultimately a little bland and
uninvolving.
The 2012 London Olympics are omnipresent throughout the show -- the Olympic
Torch itself due to pass by the housing estate (Dame Kelly Holmes Close,
tee-hee) -- but the manner in which the Olympic angle is belated used to
solve the dilemma is quite irksome. At its heart, this is a simple story and
should have been content to focus on its main theme (of a girl possessed by
an alien child with good intentions, but unreasonable actions). Instead,
Fear Her shoehorns in a resolution that provokes one of the unintentionally
ridiculous moments on Doctor Who this year, and almost destroys the whole
show.
David Tennant (right) is nearing the end of his first year as The Doctor, and is
still playing a one-note character full of enthusiasm and misplaced envy of
the human race. It's about time The Doctor's hard edge and cynical side,
semi-present last year with Christopher Eccleston, was returned. As it
stands, Tennant is struggling to make the persistently chipper attitude
anything more than mildly watchable. The Doctor should be a mix of
conflicting styles and emotions, always keeping the audience on their toes,
but we've had none of that this year.
Billie Piper quickly becomes tiresome and predictable as Rose. Her
character and relationship with The Doctor is really stagnating now, and
it's coming as something of a relief that Piper is set to be replaced for
the third series. The show really does need an injection of new companion
blood - worryingly, this is coming after just 25 episodes. The writers
should take heed and ensure the next companion has more shades to their
character than just naive do-gooder.
The supporting cast for Fear Her are fine, but nobody really stands out.
Abisola Agbaje is fairly good as Chloe, particularly in a spooky
Exorcist-lite scene between her and The Doctor. Nina Sosanya is criminally
wasted as mother Trish Webber, while other actors play neighbours pushed
into the background for expositional purposes.
Visual effects are minimal, beyond a few animated sequences of "living
drawings" and a quite unlikely "scribble creature". The production design is
quite limp, just a standard red-brick street of houses and quite weak
attempts to replicate the excitement and fervor of a capital city awaiting
an Olympic Opening Ceremony.
Overall, Fear Her is a bit of a mess. The general idea is sound, and the
alien explanation interesting (yet convoluted), but the final resolution is
just completely mishandled and unintentionally hilarious. The plot lashes
about, content to downplay any threat with some weak "comedy dup" interludes
with The Doctor and Rose ("keep 'em peeled"). There are a few moments that
work - the possession scene, the "monster in the cupboard", and the
occasionally on-target gag ("fingers on lips!"), but not enough to rescue a
meandering and tonally awkward story.
NEXT WEEK: The end is near. The Doctor and Rose discover Torchwood...
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Series 1 Boxset:
Synopsis:
When the TARDIS lands in 2012, The Doctor plans to show Rose the London
Olympics... but they discover that children on a housing estate are
vanishing into thin air...
