PS- David Tennant: the Animated Years

As you all know, no doubt, David Tennant also starred in two animated stories, so here, for the sake of completeness is my take on them...

The Infinite Quest

Of all the 20th Century Doctor Who stories to take inspiration from, I would have thought that The Keys of Marinus would be rather low on the list. Yet here we are, with the Doctor journeying to various locations in the search for a cluster of McGuffins. The plot is somewhat shallow, but the locations, at least show a bit more imagination than those in Terry Nation’s scattershot story. Characters change motivation with alarming speed and the dialogue, although it aspires to the wittiness of the best Doctor Who scripts, seems forced. The fact that this was broadcast as a part of the Totally Doctor Who childrens programme shows in such things as the literal space-pirates, which somewhat annoy me.

The Infinite Quest was originally broadcast as 13 parts, each part lasting about 3½ minutes. This gives the omnibus edition a rather choppy feel, which doesn’t help the flow of the narrative. This isn’t helped by the direction- Gary Russell seems to devote all his attention to the big set pieces, but has little idea of how to construct a story visually. There are some awesome visuals on display- the insect like drilling robots, the Mantasphid hive. Unfortunately, the character animation is very static, with the characters having only two or three expressions each. This is a pity, as David Tennant and Freema Agyeman put their all into their roles. Despite the presence of actors such as Anthony Head, Stephen Grief and Liza Tarbuck, the supporting characters are too thinly written and indifferently directed to make much of an impact. This is especially true of the main villain, Balthazar, who, in the hands of Anthony Head, should have been far more memorable.

The Infinite Quest is passable, undemanding entertainment, but contains little of real substance.

Dreamland

The obvious thing to be said about Dreamland is that the animation is- basic. There are myriads of amateurs who could make an animated film of greater quality on their computer with a bit of freeware, so it is disappointing that this is what a monolithic corporation like the BBC is happy with in 2009. Happily, the other aspects of the story are much better. Phil Ford provides a very entertaining script with an engaging plot and some nice dialogue. I am surprised that Roswell has never been dealt with by Doctor Who and Ford manages to mix the atmosphere of The X-Files and 50s B-movies, together with UFO conspiracies (there is a nice new take on the Men in Black) to make a uniquely Doctor Who mixture.

Although the animation is basic, the backgrounds are very well rendered and Gary Russell does a far better job as director than he did with The Infinite Quest. The episodes are 6 minutes in length, with a 12 minute opener, which gives it a more natural flow than its predecessor. Again, there is a starry cast. David Warner is, naturally, fantastic as Lord Azlok and we have good turns from Stuart Milligan, Nicholas Rowe and Lisa Bowerman. In the minor but important role of Night Eagle, we have Clarke Peters (Lester Freamon on The Wire) which was the most exciting bit of casting for me since Derek Jacobi. If there is one flaw in the script, it is that the companion roles- Cassie and Jimmy- are less well defined than usual. However, with only 45 minutes to play with, there probably wasn’t time and the engaging performances by Tim Howar and Georgia Moffett help in rectifying this. David Tennant is great, as he invariably is.

Dreamland is tremendous fun- so much so that you forget the dated character animation and just sit back and enjoy the story.