Critical Review of Doctor Who (Journey's end Series 4) 2008
Doctor Who is a British TV Sci-FI/Drama originally created in 1963 by Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert with William Hartnell as the Doctor, it was revived in 2005 by Russell T.Davis with Christopher Eccleston as the new incarnation of the Doctor. In 'Journey's End' the Doctor and previous companions from earlier seasons prepare to fight off the antagonist (Davros and the Daleks). In this episode the audience catches up with the past companions and sees the sudden development of Donna's character that is accelerated through events in the episode.
In the episode 'Journey's End' the Doctor's companions are consistently referred to as the children of time, one of the visual denotations of this link between characters is the consistent use of the colour blue in their costumes.
Within the Sci-fi genre blues (connotations of the colour blue include tranquility and calmness all things the character of the Doctor is written to stand for), purples and greens often signify space, in Doctor Who the colour blue is a direct link to both the T.A.R.D.I.S and the Doctor's sonic screwdriver further connecting the characters to the Doctor.
However Martha Jones' costume is completely black, through out the episode we as the audience see Martha going against what the Doctor believes in a follows by choosing a violent route to action. Therefore her costume cuts her off from any connections of the Doctor and what he stands for, in the western world particularly the colour black signifies death and morning which is what Martha's character was intended to bring. [website: FilmDirectingTips "12 colours and their meaning"]
Costumes have also been used as foreshadowing and to link two characters together.
Rose's character and the meta-crisis Doctor (MD), are both in similar styled clothes in the same colour. This foreshadows their similarities in terms of both of them being human and needing someone to be with, it pairs them together because their costumes are more aesthetically pleasing for the audience together and makes the Doctor seem an outcast towards them. Donna's costume although not identical to the Doctor's still has some likenesses such as the long brown trench coat and the fitted boot cut jeans. This costume however can be seen as implying the sudden development in Donna's character of becoming the 'Doctor-Donna'.
As well as this there are other costumes that denote ages of characters such as Jack Harkness' military coat which in itself signifies he has a military history however the style of it, in addition to the reveal that Jack can't die leaves the audience to question how old Jack Harkness actually is.
The mise en scene in terms of costume doesn't follow generic Sci-Fi conventions, there are no space suits or excessive uses of tech aside from the sonic screw driver however the settings do conform to Sci-Fi conventions in terms of having space ships and aliens in extraterrestrial worlds.
Body language and action within this episode alone subvert stereotypes of women (something classic in the Sci-Fi genre), aside from having an archetypal male lead there are 3 other women who show an equal amount of leadership. Martha's character denotes confrontation in her body language, she stands with good posture and an open body language.
High angle shots are used multiple times through out this episode as a connotation of impending danger.
One of the first times this occurs is when the T.A.R.D.I.S. is captured, the high angle (h/a)crane shot allows an establishing shot of the now dead T.A.R.D.I.S. as well as doubling up as a shot connoting the danger outside. It's an ever so slightly angled shot (apart of expressionism) that later becomes exaggerated to emphasise the landing of the T.A.R.D.I.S. and reestablishing the sense of danger for the Doctor and the companions.
(This is mirrored later by a shot of all the companions and the Doctor flying the T.A.R.D.I.S. together and has brought the narration full circle. And is finally used again at the end of the episode when the Doctor is alone, this repetitive use of camera angles denotes the Doctor's journey of moving from companion to companion however the final shot on his own is a visual representation of how alone he truly is.)
Another use of this shot is later in the episode where the T.A.R.D.I.S is being destroyed, this h/a of the Doctor connotes his vulnerability and helplessness, this is reinforcing what's being denoted by David Tennant visually.
One of the most iconic shots in the episode is the mid shot (ms) of Rose, the Doctor and the meta-crisis Doctor, each character is framed as part of the rule of third, this is not only visually pleasing for the audience but also connotes how torn Rose is between both of them.
Doctor Who follows classical Hollywood continuity editing,
the most common transition edit in this episode are jump cuts, they help to keep the pace of the episode steady and regular. Because of this when the Doctor wipes Donna's mind, it goes against traditional montage conventions and actually slows down this does two things; brings more attention to it as it stands out more and builds empathy from the audience to the character.
Because of the jump cuts it's easy to see other elements such as the 180 degree rule being followed (something particularly important in an episode where one actor is playing 2 characters and there is a higher chance of confusion for the audience, generally the Doctor stays on screen left and the meta-crisis Doctor stays on screen right). Shot reverse shots are also common with the episode and allow for full reaction shots of characters, something that is important in scenes such as the T.A.R.D.I.S. being dystroyed or Martha Jones revealing she has the osterhagen key.
One of the trademarks of Doctor Who is it has been renowned for having a very low budget and having to be 'creative' in how they make their effects, because of this a lot of their explosions and fires are done manually. They will do things such as have small explosions in a shot, fill the camera shot with it and that will then give the effect that a huge/devastating explosion has just occurred. [website: Doctor Who confidential] This lack of post production that is needed for things such as fires means that the budget can be put in other places.
Something that is renowned for Doctor Who is the 'regeneration' scenes this episode has a smaller version of the event and the effects don't need to go as extreme for this one, however this and other effects such as the Dalek's guns all follow genre conventions of Sci-Fi.
Sound within Doctor Who is one of the most iconic parts of the show. One of the shows most recognisable parts of sound it the T.A.R.D.I.S. taking off and landing.
The sound is originally done with a key on a broken piano string for take off, and is just played backwards with a lot more feedback on it for the landing.
The soundtrack with who especially in Tennant's era is a recorded orchestra, the music helps to guide the visual narrative and in cases such as Donna's mind wipe. In this case the use of silence between this track and the next adds emphasise and importance to what the Doctor is saying. This is also used later when the Doctor replies to Donna's mother with "Maybe you should tell her that once in a while" not only does it add importance but also signifies how important Donna is to him.
In terms of sound effects, the episode follows classic genre conventions of having space ships and guns etc. However one that stands out for the narrative is the heart beat effect from the Meta-Crisis Doctor, from previous episodes the heart beat comes in a beat of four which links to a Timelords heart beat as well as previous story plots.
Overall 'Joureny's end' is an episode of Doctor Who that will have preferred readings of having strong and independet female characters that are equal to the male lead/leads (Hall 1980), it has very little opportunity for an opposisitonal reading except possibly that the lead character is a male (a debate that is still ongoing as to whether the Doctor should be male or female).
Overall 'Joureny's end' is an episode of Doctor Who that will have preferred readings of having strong and independet female characters that are equal to the male lead/leads (Hall 1980), it has very little opportunity for an opposisitonal reading except possibly that the lead character is a male (a debate that is still ongoing as to whether the Doctor should be male or female).
Colour connotations: http://filmdirectingtips.com/archives/157Doctor Who confidential: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0128wwl
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