Culture Shock 08.28.14: Something borrowed, something 'Who'

Peter Capaldi, left, is the Doctor and Jenna Coleman is Clara in the 2014
season of the BBC's "Doctor Who," airing on BBC America.

"Don't look in that mirror," the Doctor barks while still in the throes of post-regeneration delirium. "It's absolutely furious!"

The only constant in the universe is change, and "Doctor Who" (Saturday nights, BBC America) has seen plenty of that in its 50-plus years. This time, it's a biggie. Matt Smith's manic, absentminded professor is gone, but not forgotten. In his place is a more mature and cantankerous Time Lord portrayed with gusto by 56-year-old Scottish actor Peter Capaldi.

If Capaldi's visage is anything, it's furious. Showrunner Steven Moffat, now in his fourth year at the helm, turns that into an asset. Even Capaldi's eyebrows, which "Doctor Who" fans glimpsed to near universal delight in last year's 50th anniversary special, are potentially lethal weapons.

"They're attack eyebrows," the Doctor says after studying his new face. "You could take bottle tops off with these!"

One thing we know about the new Doctor: He has a gift for dialogue. His one-liners can kill.

The Doctor is always dangerous, but he usually plays the fool, lulling unwary opponents into a false sense of security. "My dear, no one could be as stupid as he seems," a villain once said of Tom Baker's Doctor, the iconic one with the endearingly ridiculous scarf. But Capaldi's Doctor seems ready to dispense with the pretense, and the scarf.

"I've moved on from that," he says. "It'd look stupid."

He's dangerous, and you should bloody well be terrified, especially if you're an old foe such as the Daleks or the Cybermen or, as in the season opener, "rubbish robots from the dawn of time."

But no one is more frightened than the Doctor's current traveling companion, Clara (Jenna Coleman), who is finally coming into her own as a character, even as the Doctor undergoes his most jarring regeneration since the show's classic era. Going from personable to prickly isn't an easy transition, as poor Colin Baker (the Sixth Doctor) learned. Although, in all fairness, poor scripts and tacky production during Six's tenure were the far bigger issues.

If anyone can make such a character compelling, it's Capaldi, whose Doctor has already displayed little flourishes reminiscent of Capaldi's wickedly brilliant Malcolm Tucker, the foul-mouthed political enforcer of "In the Loop" and "The Thick of It," only without the swearing.

The combination is something like another TV doctor: Hugh Laurie's Dr. Gregory House. In a preview for Capaldi's second episode, the Doctor even finds himself playing doctor to "a Dalek so damaged it's turned good. Morality as malfunction. How do I resist?"

But back to Capaldi's first outing, "Deep Breath." Moffat slows the pace and allows the story and characters to — forgive the pun — breathe. "Deep Breath" is a character study, a meditation on the nature of identity. That's a deep subject for a character who's had a dozen of them.

"Deep Breath" is structured around an ancient Greek thought experiment. Say your name is Theseus, and say you have a ship. Over time, the ship's planks become worn, and you replace them one by one until one day, finally, you've replaced them all. Is it the same ship you started with? Now say you saved all the worn planks and reassembled them. Now you have two ships. So, which is the true ship of Theseus?

The Greeks came up with many possible answers, and so does "Deep Breath." The Doctor's cyborg foes have rebuilt themselves so many times there's nothing of the originals left. For Clara, the question is whether the new Doctor is still the man she knew.

To ease the transition, Moffat brings back the Doctor's Victorian gang of Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint and Strax. The Doctor changes, but some things remain the same.

And sometimes one of those old, worn planks washes up ready to set sail again. An older, more temperamental Doctor gallivanting around time and space in a blue box with a schoolteacher who feels out of her depth? That seems familiar.

Culture Shock 08.02.12: The British are here, and they brought their telly with them

Even as the rest of the world descends upon Great Britain for the 2012 Olympics, The U.K.'s most visible export is reaching new heights of popularity in the United States.

Nowhere is that more obvious than this week's cover of America's most prominent entertainment magazine, Entertainment Weekly, which for the first time ever is given over to a British television show. And not just any British television show, but the long-running sci-fi series "Doctor Who," which is rapidly approaching its 50th anniversary.

Long a staple of British Saturday-evening viewing, "Doctor Who" has, in the past few years, grown beyond its American cult following to become mainstream viewing. It's BBC America's No. 1 show.

"Doctor Who" previously aired in America on Syfy, which seemed embarrassed by the show and didn't know what to do with it. Syfy also ran episodes a year after they aired in the U.K., and by then all the most tech-savvy "Doctor Who" fans had downloaded the series online.

BBC America, however, made "Doctor Who" the centerpiece of its schedule and began airing episodes the same day they aired in Britain.

That's faster turnaround in some cases than NBC can manage for its tape-delayed coverage of the London Olympics.

Then there's the personal touch. The cast of "Doctor Who" has become a regular fixture in the U.S., speaking to packed convention halls at San Diego's annual Comic-Con International.

Add to that the fact BBC America exists in the first place — an American television channel devoted to British television — and it's Paul Revere's worst nightmare.

The British aren't just coming, they're already here, neither by land nor by sea but by the air.

PBS has for decades relied on British television for many of its most acclaimed shows, but now it has certified hits in the form of two British imports, the BBC's "Sherlock" and ITV's "Downton Abbey," which netted 19 Emmy nominations between them, including Best Drama for the latter.

We've come a long way from late-night reruns of "Benny Hill" and "Are You Being Served?" No doubt much of this is a matter of necessity.

Cable and satellite services have more channels than they can fill with programming, and apparently there is actually a limit to how many hours of "Law & Order" marathons you can expect viewers to tolerate.

The U.K., meanwhile, is a reliable source of programming — much of it very good — in a language vaguely similar to the one most Americans speak.

And nowhere is the demand for programming more acute than online, where video-streaming services like Netflix and Hulu are looking for their own must-see TV.

Hulu, for instance, just picked up the exclusive U.S. rights to seasons 1, 2 and 3 of the blistering political satire "The Thick of It," which stars the brilliant Peter Capaldi as the prime minister's vicious enforcer Malcolm Tucker, who, as the late Jean Shepherd would say, works in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay.

Hulu will also stream the upcoming fourth season this fall, providing a welcome change from what passes for political TV in the U.S. — the sanctimonious, hackwork fantasies of Aaron Sorkin.

Netflix, for its part, has built an impressive library of British television for its on-demand offerings, from the geeky comedy "The IT Crowd," to the superb spy drama "MI-5" to classics like "Doctor Who" (new and original) and "Blackadder," and finally to sleeper gems like "The Last Detective" starring Peter Davison.

Still, as long as Matt Lauer doesn't know who Mr. Bean is, there is work for this British invasion yet to do.

British TV’s ‘Hex’ should leave viewers bewitched

This usually works the other way around. American producers find a clever British TV show, adapt it for the U.S. and spring it on an unknowing audience.

“The Office” and “Three’s Company” are two successful American shows based on series that aired originally in Britain.

“Amanda’s,” based on “Fawlty Towers,” is an unsuccessful one. Which is probably why no one remembers it.

But occasionally, an American show will have such an impact in Britain that it will spawn imitators there. Such is “Hex.”

When it first aired, “Hex” had a reputation as the British answer to “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Actually, its first season has more in common with “Charmed.” The more Buffyesque plots don’t kick in until the second season, which is currently airing on BBC America.

The show’s first 10 episodes — all six episodes of season 1 and the first four of season 2 — are now available on DVD. The three-disc box set lists for $49.95, with most retailers knocking at least $10 off that.

Set at an isolated boarding school that once belonged to a woman who more than dabbled in the occult, “Hex” follows a shy student named Cassie (Christina Cole), who discovers she has both supernatural powers and a mysterious link to the late lady of the house.

That would normally be enough for any teenager to cope with, but Cassie’s problems are just beginning. As soon as her powers start to manifest themselves, she attracts the attention of a mysterious stranger, who spends most of his time lurking in the mists just off the estate and doing his best impression of a tortured Jane Austen hero — except evil.

The stranger is Azazeal (Michael Fassbender), leader of a group of fallen angels. And fallen angels are always bad news.

Cassie’s only real friend is her roommate, Thelma (Jemima Rooper), who happens to have an unrequited crush on Cassie. This is doubly bad news for Thelma, who ends up dead by Azazeal’s hand by the end of the second episode.

Normally, I wouldn’t spoil a major character death like that in a review like this, but in this case, there is life after death. When Thelma shows up at her own funeral, it’s obvious: She is a ghost, and she isn’t going anywhere soon — even if Cassie is the only mortal who can see her.

So, it’s up to Cassie and her ghostly and even-more-frustrated-than-ever best friend to unravel the mystery of Cassie’s powers and figure out what Azazeal wants, besides wanting Cassie, which he makes clear at every opportunity. It’s fate, he says.

While “Hex” lacks the self-conscious, pop-culture humor of “Buffy,” it doesn’t wallow in the sheer goofiness that made “Charmed” often too painful to watch.

What it has that those two shows lack, however, is gorgeous cinematography. The producers of “Hex” take full advantage of their rural English setting, and every episode has the look and feel of a movie.

They’re also not afraid to take chances. The seventh episode introduces a new character, Ella Dee (Laura Pyper), a 500-year-old demon hunter with impeccable taste in Goth fashion, who sends the series in a totally new direction. If Ella and Buffy were to ever face off, my money would be on Ella.

Note to movie producers: Pyper is an excellent actress who needs more work.

Although the DVD box set ends four episodes into season 2, it nevertheless ends with a perfect cliffhanger, which will leave anyone hooked by the first 10 episodes eagerly awaiting the show’s final nine episodes.

It’s just a shame “Hex” ended after just two seasons.