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Doctor Who: The Curse of Fatal Death A Comic Relief two-part skit, this seemed for a while as if it might be the last of the BBC's Doctor Who and so gained a certain canonicity. It has a workable idea, in that the Doctor's regenerations get out of hands and he runs through five bodies in one story - which might have made an interesting, starry transitional serial - and catches some of the show's quirks without being too obvious about corridor-running or cardboard sets. Some of the chat might even have passed muster under Douglas Adams, though there's too much about the Master [Jonathan Pryce] falling into sewers, the Doctor communicating through fart-language and Pryce sporting Dalek bumps that look like breasts. The Doctors are Rowan Atkinson, who does his usual sarky talk but might just about pass as a real stab at the role, Richard E. Grant, who would return in the slightly more canonical Scream of the Shalka limited animation, Jim Broadbent, who plays it shy [and is the only serious prospect in this batch - though he observes in the making-of that the Doctors are getting younger and more handsome while he's going the other way], Hugh Grant, who barely makes an impression, and Joanna Lumley, who has weak material but looks rather super in the costume. Julia Sawalha is the cute but chubby companion, and some Daleks don't do much. It's not that funny and not that transgressive, trading on affection
for the show rather than going for cheap laughs. It's also, like most
things done for charity, not as well thought-through as it might be.
On the video release are three other Who skits from
BBC comedy programs: a previously-unaired [and no wonder] French and
Saunders thing with George Layton as the Doctor and the double-act as
annoying Silurian extras, something from Victoria Wood with Broadbent
again as the Doctor and a Lenny Henry skit in which he is a new regeneration
and meets Cybermen made up as Margaret and Dennis Thatcher. Missing
is Spike Milligan's Pakistani Dalek sketch, perhaps on the grounds that
it was too funny [and offensive] to be included. First published in this form here. Visit Kim's Official Website at www.johnnyalucard.com
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