The Idiot’s Lantern

📝5/10 = MIXED!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time! This time: the dangers of television! 

The Idiot’s Lantern transports us back to the early 50s, sometime before the coronation of Queen Elisabeth, in the infancy of commercial television sets. It’s the story of the Connolly family, led by the abusive Eddie Connolly, and an alien trying to invade Earth by possessing people through television.

The depiction of 50s family values and abusive fathers feels a bit heavy-handed. That being said, it does recieve a good payoff when Rita decides to essentially throw Eddie out and send Tommy away with the Doctor—well, until the very end, that is, where Rose persuades Tommy not to give up on his prick of a father.

The latter half of the episode is more focused on the alien invasion part, which isn’t anything too special but cleverly mixed with the breakthrough of television as an entire nation watches the Coronation. The climax at the TV tower, with the Doctor climbing to save the day, is a pretty exciting sequence.

I have to admit that seeing the Doctor and Rose in period-accurate get-ups and driving around on a Vespa is pretty cool. The return of the smugness between them is less so. I love how Ten puts Eddie in place by reacting to his bullying (a moment partly ruined by the fact that Rose tries to do the same). What annoys me is how leisurely the Doctor begins investigating before Rose loses her face, after which he goes on a furious rampage to save the day.

The supporting cast is one of the more unlikeable in New Who: I don’t sympathise with the Connolly family at all, even if the father is a major prick and one of the most unlikeable characters in Doctor Who history. Tommy is an annoying kid, but at least he makes for a good ally in the climax as Rose is incarcerated. The only supporting character I like is Mr. Magpie, as played by Ron Cook.

The Wire is a creepy villain. The nice lady speaking with her victims through the TV set is an effective idea, and Maureen Lipman’s performance perfects it. However, the “hungry!” catchphrase feels like too much of an attempt to make the wire stand out more and makes her less nuanced later on. The faceless people created by the Wire also make for quite creepy zombies.

Euros Lyn is a great director, so I don’t know why exactly he wanted to use so many Dutch angles in this episode. They are in every other shot, it feels like. Also, the simple suburban setting doesn’t really make this period piece justice.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

• Is Gatiss trying to remake his VNA novel Nightshade with this one? Both stories feature TV programs and big research/TV stations as major plot elements.
• The Wire has a similar function and design as both the Library Robot in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead and the Ambulance in Boom.

Another episode I consider legitimately offensive. And on top of that, it's f**king mid.

To put it bluntly, The Idiot's Lantern is not very good. It's a standard sci-fi story around televisions gone haywire - in hindsight the Giggle really is able to do what this episode was going for with it's focus on the first television broadcast much more efficiently. Idiot's Lantern and the woman in the TV are just plain annoying, though. That family that is the focus of the story is almost as unbearable as Maureen Lipman. I think Lipman is a fine actor, too, rather that she just was given a thankless role and had poor direction. It feels like the story taking place in the 50s was trivial and could have happened in any decade with television.

There's not much more to say on this episode. I often just skip it as it can be so loud and a bit of a nuisance with its noise. The dad is also really hard to watch. To this episode's credit, it is probably because it is a realistic take on how fascism grows in people - but the handling of this material is very clumsy and I feel as though the script needed a rewrite, while the actors needed better direction all around. Even the Doctor and Rose don't leave much of an impression on me here. Rose losing her face and the Doctor losing his mind in response should be a much bigger moment on the level of the Human Nature two-parter, and instead it kind of feels like a bit of a nothing moment. I should feel some catharsis at the Doctor standing up the the Dad and the Wire - instead of feeling nothing.

Weirdly enough, unlike others I don't hate this ending. Sure, the dad is a monster, but he is still Tommy's dad, and I don't hate the idea of Tommy being open to the idea of his dad reconciling with the family or redeeming himself potentially in the future. That's up to the man's victims whether that path is open and whether they want to continue a relationship with their, hopefully now former abuser - but it is their decision. Tommy being allowed to make it is his choice and I am not against the idea. It feels like an idea often unexplored in fiction (or at least not one done maturely all too often) so I don't hate that idea. Again, though, the execution feels quite lacking.

The first half of this story is much better than my memory (or fan wisdom) would have had me believe. The Doctor and Rose as detectives making house calls is a treat - its the first time that I feel their chemistry is quite as good as reputation would have you believe. It feels like Billie and David have at this point had a chance to truly get to know each other and get comfortable with each other's performances after being thrown into portraying a loving relationship between characters who already know each other deeply.

The show's defence of the mother and child who are victims of a horrible husband / father is pure Doctor Who. It feels inspiring as they are exactly the kind of voiceless people The Doctor was invented to defend. I also love the setting and costumes for Rose and The Doctor. When I was a young boy I remember being quite taken with Rose's pink dress and matching headband...!

The visual of missing faces and the concept behind the villain work well. However, The Wire unfortunately becomes relentlessly one note once her “HUNGRY” dialogue begins, randomly switching away from her established eloquent way of speaking. Once she enters this mode the episode veers into a black hole of forgettable-ness.