Tooth and Claw

🙏🏼6/10 = OKAY!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

Ten and Rose in the Scottish Highlands, a real castle setting, a scary werewolf, warrior monks, and Queen Victoria—what could possibly go wrong here?

First of all, the cold open scene of Tooth and Claw is arguably the most awkward in all of New Who. It’s action-packed and cool on a conceptual level, but the editing and stunt work in this fight scene are so horrible. Why did RTD think these warrior monks were a good idea?

RTD writes here an atmospheric ghost story and period piece, mostly relying on the Scottish setting, the presence of the Queen, and the idea of werewolves. The slow build-up of tension and the otherwise palpable atmosphere are constantly undercut with ill-placed humour.

After the fairly lengthy buildup, Tooth and Claw turns to a standard fare but fast-paced chase sequence. The werewolf slaughters people left and right, and every kill is ruined by the weird editing choices. There are some more story-building moments in between chases, but very little of it matters.

This is yet another attempt at taking a classic literary monster and giving it a Doctor Who twist. Big Finish already did this with stories such as Loups-Garoux, and they gave it much more thought, as here there's not enough time to develop things properly.

David Tennant still comes across as smug, and the annoyingly giggling and teenage-y relationship between him and Billie Piper annoys me. Tennant is beginning to show some of his quirky and fun qualities, as well as his alien intelligence and habit of taking effective charge of any situation, though, and Rose is also fending well for herself.

The lovely Pauline Collins makes a memorable turn as Queen Victoria. Classic Who fans will recognise her as the very same Pauline Collins who played Samantha Briggs (one of the best examples of a companion who never was) in the 1967 story The Faceless Ones. Collins makes the Queen a well-rounded and likeable character, but also a badass queen.

The recognisable Ian Hanmore always makes for an effective villain, and I also enjoy Derek Riddell here as a man who is visibly torn between loyalties.

There are some good jokes here: the “I’m attached to my thumb” line or the gag where the Doctor speaks Scottish and Rose tries to mimic him, only to fail miserably. Then there are the cringeworthy lines, such as the running gag of Rose trying to get the Queen to say, “We are not amused.”

The werewolf transformation scene is tense and horrifying, to be honest. Sadly, the werewolf itself is a pretty clunky CGI creation, which removes a lot of its efficiency.

The biggest takeaway here is the final scene, with Queen Victoria banishing the Doctor and Rose from the Empire for all eternity after knighting them and then setting up Torchwood to make sure that they never return, therefore laying the foundation for the Torchwood spinoff. Not to mention the suggestion that this werewolf encounter is the reason that the British Royal Family suffers from haemophilia, essentially making them werewolves.

Tooth and Claw is that new series beast – a celebrity historical. What’s a little odd is that, after having a Victorian celebrity historical for the first series, RTD chose to do another Victorian celebrity historical for the second series. Having Queen Victoria has the main guest star is a departure from the other celebrity historicals beloved by the new series as she isn’t a writer (Dickens, Shakespeare, Christie) although a mystery surrounding the real life figure is woven into the story just as on those other three occasions.

We often think of the Doctor consorting with royalty on a regular basis due to the number of throwaway lines thrown into the scripts, but in terms of actual adventures they are relatively sparse, even with the addition of the audios, comic strips and books. So the appearance of Queen Victoria, arguably the most famous British monarch, is quite significant.

Pauline Collins is magnificent in the role. Her steely determination and no nonsense attitude are believable and this doesn’t seem like an attempt to ‘modernise’ her as a character (like is done with Shakespeare, for example). It seems in keeping with a woman who has lost her beloved husband, has been on the throne for many, many years (with many more to come) and is constantly aware of the desire from some parties for her assassination. The fact that the Doctor and Rose’s antics appall her is an interesting slant on the main guest star of a story, who isn’t the villain. This sort of character usually grows to respect the TARDIS crew and enjoy their company. There’s often a hint that maybe the character could step aboard the TARDIS now that their eyes have been open to a new world. Figures such as Dickens, Mary Shelley or Reinette all enjoy their adventures with the Doctor. Victoria sees it merely as a window to a horrific world she doesn’t want as part of her empire. It is a world and a life her subjects must be protected from at all costs. The deflation of the Doctor and Rose at the close of the story when she banishes them is unusual for Doctor Who, a series which usually sees the Doctor and companions shaking hands and brushing away gratitude as they whizz of to their next adventure.

In hindsight, of course, this was laying groundwork for the ultimate separation of the Doctor and Rose in Doomsday. This also explains the horrendous smugness which pervades the Doctor and Rose’s relationship throughout this story. I remember at the time of broadcast, Series 2 was getting a lot of criticism for how unlikeable the Doctor and Rose were becoming, particularly in their smug attitude to the people and dangers they were encountering. It’s on show in The Idiot’s Lantern and The Impossible Planet. It’s dealt with more effectively in School Reunion when Rose meets Sarah Jane Smith and has to deal with the fact that she isn’t the first companion.

Tooth and Claw is a story where they are almost insufferable, and Queen Victoria’s reaction to them is very understandable. The problem is that they present an exclusive clique with in-jokes and sly glances which, I feel, alienate the viewer. It’s not just the guest characters who are excluded from their little club, but the audience as well. I don’t think anything was accidental in the RTD era and this relationship was seen to have consequences, but I think this story takes it a step too far and because the Doctor and Rose don’t engage with the other characters much, it is very hard for the audience to care for the other characters, or for that matter, the Doctor and Rose.

The guest cast are all perfectly fine, but their characters seem underdeveloped. Sir Robert, Lady Isobel and Father Angelo are the main speaking parts aside from Victoria but they are all relatively 2 dimensional. Father Angelo, in particular, is a fairly ineffective villain and is dispatched partway through the story once his plot usefulness has been expended. Many of the other characters, such as the many servants in the house, are merely werewolf fodder but their deaths have little impact as we are not asked to care for them. There is a brief scene between Rose and a frightened maid which echoes the similar scene between Rose and Gwyneth in The Unquiet Dead, but once this meeting has lead to Rose being captured and chained up with the rest of the household, this minor character slips back into the background until a rather odd decision to have her quietly smirking at the knighthood ceremony as if she is joining in the Doctor and Rose’s amusement at the situation. It doesn’t work because, after their brief scene together, Rose shows no further specific concern for the maid. The non-speaking monks are another poor addition as they look like the local Cardiff Martial Arts club drafted in only to do the opening fight scene and then stand around for the rest of the episode doing very little. It’s also unfortunate that the fight scene, so applauded in the Confidential documentary, looks an awful lot like one of the old BBC idents with various styles of dancing due to the bright red costumes the monks are wearing.

The accompanying Doctor Who Confidential is called Fear Factor and it talks about how Tooth and Claw has a number of scary tropes. My issue with the story is that I just don’t find it very scary. The monks are weird rather than menacing and although the initial transformation from human Host to werewolf is quite terrifying and difficult to watch, the actual werewolf just doesn’t work for me. As a CGI creation, it is quite impressive, but it never feels as if it is actually in the scenes with the rest of the cast. It feels detached from the actors and therefore the threat is reduced.

I’m also a bit underwhelmed by the finale where the werewolf is basically defeated by magic. Now, as I’ve said before in this marathon, I have no problem, usually, with Doctor Who as fantasy. It has always been far more science fantasy than science fiction. Moffat’s take on the series is as a fairytale and I quite like that slant on the series. Maybe its because I find the rest of Tooth and Claw so underwhelming that I don’t like the solution of using the moon to basically magic the werewolf away. It probably doesn’t help that previous to this scene it alternates between characters talking (usually the Doctor working things out on his own) and then characters running down corridors. The action (running down corridors) stops when they reach the observatory and the macguffin of the Koh-i-Noor diamond allows the story to just kind of, stop.

Historically we obviously have the presence of Queen Victoria along with the Koh-i-Noor diamond, a famous jewel (note how Rose has clearly heard of it). The Doctor mentions the number of assassination attempts on Victoria’s life which precede this story and the end of the story mentions the condition Victoria developed, thought to be haemophilia. She was the first of her family line to develop it and it was indeed passed on to some of her children. Explaining this away as the result of the possible werewolf bite is a clever little addition. There is also the less amusing inclusion of Rose’s attempt to make Victoria say ‘We are not amused’ which contributes to the unlikeable in-jokeyness and isn’t even, modern historians would seem to believe, a phrase which is even attributable to Victoria; more of an urban legend.

Overall, Tooth and Claw has always underwhelmed, both on first broadcast, subsequent rewatches and again for this review. Other stories I have reasssessed, but not this one. A combination of a lacklustre threat and a faintly unlikeable TARDIS team means this one doesn’t sit well with me and were it not for the presence of Pauline Collins as Queen Victoria would probably be even less enjoyable.

Such a fun episode to watch with a friend honestly such a mood lifter

I am not a fan of Tooth and Claw. It is a nutty episode full of monks, the Queen, and our first hints of Torchwood. All of this would probably be at least a little more acceptable if Rose wasn't peak unbearable here with Ten. Maybe we hadn't quite figured it out but it feels like they are joking around in a situation where it just isn't warranted because it is the queen and it's supposed to be funny.

I think we were still finding our tone here as Tooth and Claw feels a little too goofy and messy for the sake of the episode. The tone of this adventure, the ridiculousness of the plot, none of it feels like it fits well with the general climate of the RTD era. It's an acceptable episode, but only just so and with a lot of stronger Ten/Rose episodes out there, this one really falls to the wayside to me, especially given how forgettable it is. Definitely one I prefer skipping on rewatches, barely worth watching once in my eyes were it not the foundations of Torchwood.

And the award for most tenuous ending to a Doctor Who story goes to...! So Prince Albert got the Koh-i-Noor diamond specially cut so that it could be popped on the floor in front of a seemingly broken telescope that would harness the light of the moon on the presumption that a werewolf would attack Queen Victoria in that location at some point in years to come. It was a premeditated trap... Sorry Russell, I don't buy it!

Other than that this is a pretty solid story. The Matrix-esque monk very well and the CGI has held up nicely. Pauline Collins is fabulous as the Queen and its a delight hearing Tennant switch between his Scottish and English accents. The amazing Euros Lynn does a good job on this one, though the shaky cam werewolf perspective shots do now look a little dated. So far its not been an amazing start for the 10th Doctor's reign but the selling points are all down to the fantastic characters.

Oh. And have we just seeded in the second ever Doctor Who spin off...?