My verdict on Doctor Who Live,
I'm finally convinced of Steven Moffat's genius because his stage show takes every one of RTD's lame, overblown "nods" to the Classic era and kicks them into oblivion.
Although a celebration of the creatures of Nu-Who the whole concept is taken directly from the Jon Pertwee story "Carnival of Monsters" and the character Vorgenson ( played by Nigel Planer ) turned out to be the son of the showman Vorg from the Pertwee story.
One of the first things he said was "Welcome to my carnival of monsters!" and later he referred to a "Dalek Masterplan"..............such lines probably went over the heads of the majority of the audience but as a Classic fan I appreciated them.
As for the action.................bloody amazing. I was sat at an angle to the stage on the 3rd row back of the lowest tiered section and was roughly 30 feet away from the stage at the same height.
Many of the creatures emerged from the back of the arena and walked down either sides of the floor seating to the stage and from my position I was less then 10 feet away from the following as they came past,
An Ood
A couple of these were the first creatures out and helped introduce Vorgenson. Their balls glowed. ( As in their communicator thing
)
Judoon Officer
Arrived with 2 helmeted ones and he stomped down the aisle and kept pausing to "scan" the crowd with a gadget he was holding including the section where I was sitting so I was literally looking straight at one for a few seconds. He joined up with his lackeys and they proceeded to "catalog" the entire floor section which caused a few kids to get a bit scared. They also attempted to arrest Vorgenson.
3 Cybermen
There were 6 in total and no words can adequately describe how awesome they look at close range. There was a plant on the front row using a camera who got dragged onto the stage by a Cyberman and "deleted".........the number of scared kids and cameras that suddenly disappeared was hilarious. One smartass girl behind me attempted to calm her brother down by saying "It's not real, they're only actors"
2 Vampires
CO may have made a figure of the male one but the 4 in this show are female and VERY nice they were too!
2 Clockwork Robots
The lights went off for a few seconds and then the ticking of their workings started up. The lights came back on and there were 2 directly in front of me and 2 across the other side of the arena. They made their way to the stage and did a bit of robotic dancing which was pretty funny.
2 Scarecrows
Saw quite a lot of these as aside from their main appearance they were going up and down the floor seating during the interval and scaring people at random.......they kept looking for people sat on the end who were looking the other way and standing there until the person looked round. Several people got a bit of a suprise!
3 Silurians emerged from a trapdoor in the stage and looked way better than their TV appearance because,
1.The masks stayed on
2.The people in the costumes were clearly pro dancers because they moved a lot more gracefully.
There was a shootout between Liz 10 and the Smilers/Winders which covered a large area of the arena.....her aim was about as effective as UNIT Trooper though.
Moffat's greatest creations got an awesome little scene. There were only 2 Weeping Angels but they took out 4 police officers who had been dispatched to check out a "disturbance" in the arena.
Interspersed with all this were several montages on a big screen accompanied by music from the live orchestra.
There were mostly clips from the last series or monster only clips from the RTD years but the best one showed all the regenerations in the show's history though it was nearly spoiled for me by the cheering that accompanied Eccleston's regeneration into HIM..........actually it didn't spoil things because I was booing for the duration of his mug being on the screen ( about 20-30 seconds ).
There was also plenty of new footage of Matt Smith as the Doctor interacting with Vorgenson and a couple of times he enlisted the help of the audience and we had to shout "Geronimo!" at an increasingly loud volume
As for the finale.............Vorgenson was revealed to be the latest in a long line of people manipulated by the Daleks as part of a scheme to lure the Doctor into a trap.
Did they show up?
Oh yes...........all freaking 5 of the new ones
Much has been said about the new designs and color schemes and most of it total garbage. I would advise any detractors to shut the hell up unless they've seen how imposing they look in person and how well the bright colors work with various lights and pyro reflecting off them.
Nothing will replace the grey & black "Genesis" Daleks as my favorite but in a show like this they'd look boring.
Nick Briggs was doing all the voices so they sounded perfect and just when it couldn't get any better the Cybermen reappeared at the back of the stage and attacked the Daleks!
There were lasers flashing, various explosions and jets of flame, a Cyberman went down with masses of sparks coming from his chest and then it happened..........the white Dalek TOOK OFF and flew around which caused the place to go nuts!
I bought a programme and a t-shirt with the Dalek "To Victory!" image on it which were pricey but are good quality.
What really made the event for was me the way it was tied into the canon without overdoing the references to the past and without making it seem less important....considering Moffat once dismissed everything pre Davison I never saw it coming and I love suprises like that.
My main issue with Nu-Who has always been the writing and 1000mph pacing but the creatures work perfectly in a show like this and it was well worth the money.
Good job RTD didn't think of it otherwise it'd have had Cybermen performing the hits of the Village People and Captain Jack singing show tunes
