Hot Picks
|
|
|
Doctor Who - The Curse of Fatal Death
UK 1999
produced by Sue Vertue, Richard Curtis (executive) for BBC
directed by John Henderson
starring Rowan Atkinson, Richard E.Grant, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Joanna Lumley, Julia Sawalha, Jonathan Pryce, Roy Skelton (voice), Dave Chapman (voice)
written by Steven Moffat, Daleks created by Terry Nation, music by Mark Ayres
TV-show Doctor Who, The Master, Daleks, Children in Need, Doctor Who Children in Need Specials
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
|
Doctor Who (Rowan Atkinson) meets his arch enemy the Master (Jonathan
Pryce) on a far-out planet where its now extinct inhabitants communicated
merely by farts to tell him he will retire from saving the universe to
marry his companion Emma (Julia Sawalha). The Master however has not given
up his plans to have his revenge on the Doctor - which is harder said than
done though because the Doctor has foreseen all of the Master's deadly
traps and ultimately sends the Master to the sewers out of which it takes
312 years to climb - repeatedly -, and the Master only manages to reappear
again and again within minutes (yet ages older) thanks to his time
machine. Ultimately though, he teams up with the Daleks, the Doctors
other, robot-like arch enemies, and the only ones who can cope with the
stench of the Master because they have no noses. And before you know it,
the Doctor and Emma are taken captive and the Master, rejuvinated by Dalek
technology, installs a new and improved drive into their spaceship ... and
yet the Doctor learns that the Daleks only want to use and kill the Master
- which he tells the Master in the fart language of the planet where they
have met (the only language the Daleks can't grasp because they've got no
noses). Ultimately, the Master frees the Doctor, but the Doctor is killed
by the Daleks - and regenerates (as Richard E.Grant). Apparently though,
the Dalek ship was damaged in the fight, and when trying to repair it, the
Doctor is killed and regenerates twice (as Jim Broadbent, then as Hugh
Grant) - before being hit by an all-powerful energy beam that kills even
him for good. Seeing their arch enemy death, both the Daleks and the
Master vow to stop being evil ... when by a cosmic miracle, the Doctor
regenerates again - as a woman (Joanna Lumley). And as a woman, she feels
much more attracted to the Master than boring Emma ... A very
well-written and to-the-point Doctor Who-parody that somehow
manages to include plenty of bathroom humour without becoming just silly
and gross, and which despite its very un-serious story manages to take the
series it spoofs including all of its narrative rules and limitations
seriously - without overdoing it though and boring the audience with a
disguised analysis of the series. Interestingly enough, the writer of
this one, Steven Moffat, has later become a staff writer on the relaunched
Doctor Who TV-series.
|