(715) Rise of the Cybermen

Rise of the Cybermen marks the return of the Zygons. Of course it doesn’t but if I have ended that sentence with Cybermen then you would have been thinking duh!!. This episode was originally aired in the 40^th anniversary year since they made their first appearance on the show. It’s fair to say that the Cybermen have often been the unwanted child of Doctor Who. Whilst everyone was obsessed with the Daleks, the Cybermen were often overlooked and it’s bizarre when you think of the stories that they appeared in during the Troughton era. Ok so there were a couple of dodgy stories, but on the whole they have been very good. This story also sees Graeme Harper return to the show making him the only writer/director from the classic era to have contributed to the new series.

John Lumic is the creator of the Cybermen in this story and like Davros he is in a wheelchair although this was due to an accident that Roger Lloyd-Pack had just before filming. It is a bit of serendipity.  The pre-title scene shows how he has the same scruples that Davros has.

Mickey’s poor treatment really shows why he wasn’t long for this show. The Doctor and Rose are giggling to themselves at the fact that Mickey has been pressing a button for 29 minutes longer than he needed to. The Doctor, Mickey and Rose arrive on a parallel world and within a minute I was starting to get irritated. The moment when Rose realises that her dad is alive she goes into selfish mode. Even though its not really her dad it doesn’t stop her at all and I just wish that she had run off into the distance and never come back. The Doctor says to her that Jackie and Pete might have their own Rose and they do but it’s a dog and that dog is less annoying than Rose the human.

There is a nice bit of continuity in this episode. The lorry that Mr Crane collects people up in is from International Electromatics which is the company that Tobias Vaughn was using a front in The Invasion.

Mickey’s exit starts when he goes to try and find his Nan who died in the real world. He goes off on his own little adventure when he is mistaken for Ricky. It’s quite fun when the two Noel Clarkes meet up. If you didn’t know what was going to happen when this happened then you really aren’t trying. Even I knew what was going to happen.

The design of the new Cybermen is very good. I like them because they look modern and the fact that they make a noise when they walk is something that should really have been done a long time ago. The big reveal is held off until the very end and it’s done in great style. I think that it’s one of the best build ups that the show has had since it returned. The Cybermen smashing through the glasses is a fantastic sight and Graeme Harper has done a great job in making the final few minutes of this episode some of the best since the show returned. The best thing about the design is the tear drop design on the eyes but I also like the voice and the blue light that appears when they talk.

This has been a really good episode with only Rose ruining it. The build up to the Cybermen making their first appearance in the episode is done well and the final few minutes are as I said before really good. I am looking to tomorrows episode because if it goes as well as todays then I think that this might be the best two parter since the show returned in 2005.

(714) The Girl in the Fireplace

The Girl in the Fireplace is a story that when I watched it back in 2006, I didn’t get because I missed the first few seconds of the episode. With today’s episode being Mickey’s first in the TARDIS there wasn’t the same set of scenes that there were when Adam joined. Whilst Rose might have been as keen about him joining as Adam, that seems to have been forgotten when this episode starts. I think that time travel suits Mickey because he takes to it rather well.

Moffat does his what is making a noise when the obvious source of the noise would have stopped. He did it in The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. The creepiness factor that was evident in that story is in this episode because the clockwork droids are very creepy. Steven turns up the grimness to 11 in this episode with the fact that the droids have been using the crew for body parts. There is a camera with an actual eye in it and there is a valve pumping that is a human heart.

Sophia Myles plays Madame De Pompadour who is the focus of the clockwork droids’ attention and it’s a good performance. The character of Madame De Pompadour is one that is rather good because she meets the Doctor at a young age and then becomes someone that falls in love with the Doctor and their relationship is one that is doomed to fail. It’s sad really because in such as short time they have grown quite close and when the Doctor discovers that she has died the scene where he reads the letter is very gloomy.

The Doctor crashing through the mirror on the horse is very impressive and this leaves the last ten minutes about the Doctor being stuck in Versailles and Rose and Mickey stuck on the ship. The Clockwork Droids are defeated by the mirror breaking and its an interesting change of tact for a Doctor Who episode. The Doctor is the sort of person who is always on the move and now (for a short period anyway) he has to settle down and he could have picked a lot worse.

The mystery about the ship is one of the things that I like about this episode. The droids are after Madame de Pompadour because they think that when she gets to a certain age then she will be right to fix the ship which is revealed to be named after her. The Doctor is right when he describes them and thick because it is quite a silly mistake to make and its one that could have been prevented. It does raise the question as to why the crew didn’t attempt to tell the droids this or programme them about this.

This has been a good episode that looks stunning and has some strong performances in it. Steven Moffat’s track record in the show continues to go well. The story is also well directed and the story does well in going from the space ship to Versailles very well and more importantly, I have found Rose to be less annoying that usual.

(713) School Reunion

This episode is famous for three things. The return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9 but perhaps just as importantly, Anthony Stewart Head appears and almost steals the show. When I watched this back in 2006 I was totally preoccupied with her return but fast forward nine years to today, I think that Anthony Stewart Head is probably the best thing in this episode. In time terms, its been 23 years since Elisabeth Sladen had been in Doctor Who but in marathon terms it been about four months.

The Doctor is a teacher and Rose is a dinner lady. Had she not gone off for adventures in time and space I could easily see her cleaning tables and dishing out chips. If Jamie Oliver were writing a Doctor Who story then elements of this would be his. Chips leading to something bad is the sort of thing that he would have come up with.

The thing that was going to determine whether Sarah Jane Smith’s return was how she was bought back and its done rather well. She’s back to do what she does best and that’s by being an investigative journalist. The look on the Doctor’s face when he first sees her is pretty much how every fan was feeling and that is just astonishment. The looks of astonishment continue when Sarah Jane stumbles across that TARDIS and then realises that the person she thought was just a teacher was in fact the Doctor.

The jealousy of Rose when she meets Sarah Jane does seem a bit of a step back for Rose after the progress made in the previous episode. I think that the jealousy isn’t quite as annoying as it was when Lynda was being friends with the Doctor but it’s still a character trait that is becoming annoying and the strop she throws when she thinks that the Doctor will forget about her only adds to the problem.

There is a nice little scene between the Doctor and Sarah Jane where the Doctor learns there are consequences about her travels with him. He also learns that she didn’t get dropped off in Croydon but in Aberdeen.

Back to the subject of Anthony Stewart Head. Everytime he is on screen I think that he is superb. His face to face seen with David Tennant is one of my favourite scenes in the entire episode. ASH plays the fine line between villain and pantomime villain. The Krillotaines are a good villain however with the return of Sarah Jane and K9 as well as Anthony Stewart Head, they kind of get lost in the shuffle which is perhaps the one things that the story gets wrong. It is interesting that when they are in human form they walk with their arms behind them. It’s also interesting that they are bits of other races and this is something that could have been looked at more.

I hate writing this but K9 sacrificing himself was a moment that made me like the character. I am still unmoved in my original opinion of the character but it was a lovely moment.

The goodbye scene between the Doctor and Sarah Jane is heart-breaking. It’s because of David Tennant and Elisabeth Sladen that it works and the fact that K9 is hiding behind the TARDIS as a surprise present is the perfect way to end the episode. When Sarah Jane is offered the chance to go back travelling in time and space, I wanted her to say yes but I always get disappointed when this doesn’t happen.  

This has been a lovely episode but it’s one that ultimately seems to purely serve fans who has watched the show for years. New fans might not have taken as much from it as fans like me but it’s another well written episode with some very good performances and it is nice to see Elisabeth Sladen back in Who again.

(712) Tooth and Claw

After being slightly disappointed with the previous episode back in 2006, I was relieved that this episode was as good as it turned out to be. Normally the idea of werewolf’s in Doctor Who would be something that would bore me to tears but for some reason this story worked really well. This episode starts the Torchwood arc off properly. The pre-title scene is one of the strongest that there has been since the show returned. The acrobatic monks sold this episode for me. It’s not the sort of thing that is seen in Doctor Who very often and yet I was just wowed by it. It’s not the only thing that I didn’t think I would see in Doctor Who and that is Ian Drury’s Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick playing loud and proud. This story starts off in the usual manner with the Doctor and Rose pretending to be other people but the Doctor pretending to be Jamie McCrimmon and Rose his timorous beastie.

One of the many successes that the story achieves is what it does with Queen Victoria. We see someone who is still suffering from the loss of her husband but has to maintain her composure of being head of state. It’s a very good performance from Pauline Collins who was in Doctor Who way back in 1967 in the Faceless Ones. Another of the successes is the werewolf design. A lot of time and effort went into the design and it’s a credit to The Mill (who do all the effects for the show) that it still stands up nearly a decade later. The whole look of the episode is beautiful and I could happily watch this episode again and again.

The pacing of this story is something that is pretty constant for most of the episode. Once the Doctor and Rose have got themselves well into story the pacing is nonstop and this term wouldn’t have been used during the classic era.

I like the bit where the Queen is implied to a werewolf and that the current Queen would also a werewolf. The final few minutes see the Doctor and Rose knighted by the Queen and banished from this world. The Queen’s final scene sees her create the Torchwood Institute. It’s a great end to the episode and after the light-hearted tone of New Earth, its nice that a more serious tone was bought back to the series.

This story is still just as wonderful as I thought back in 2006. It has pretty much everything that I could want from a Doctor Who story and it is definelty one of the strongest stories since the show returned and the best story of the Tenant era. It was well written by RTD and directed with energy by Euros Lyn. The next episode is one that I have been looking forward to for quite a while as it marks the return of a familiar face and a less interesting one.

(711) New Earth

It is perhaps the best thing to start the Tennant era with The Christmas Invasion because New Earth isn’t the strongest story of the series. I would be surprised if this story was in the top three at the end of the series. I have never been a huge fan of this story but I have never understood why until now. I think that it’s the comedy is misplaced. I have commented how RTD has done well with slipping in comedy in places that it shouldn’t work but on this occasion the comedy really doesn’t work and as a result I find the whole episode doesn’t work.

The comedy seems to come from Cassandra being in a different body. She starts off by being in Rose’s body leading to a bit where Rose kisses the Doctor and then she moves into the Doctor’s body and jumps a few more times. It is fun seeing David Tennant and Billie Piper play amusing versions of themselves. Cassandra/Rose referring to herself as a chav is still funny and seeing Tennant play a camper version of himself. The scene where the Doctor and Rose kiss is something that was clearly a big selling point because it featured in the trailer at the end of the Christmas Invasion but its not 1996 its 2006 because very little drama was raised as a result.

What’s quite amusing is that Adjoa Andoh plays Sister Jatt and goes on to play Martha Jones’ mother. The cat people seem nice and pleasant at first but they have a hidden secret. Their secret is that they have a huge lab with people infected and bred with every disease so that treatments can be found. The cat make up is very good and must have been expensive because only three of the cat people’s faces are seen, the rest are covered up. I think that more time could have been spent on what the cat people’s motives were and the Cassandra stuff could have been shelved.

The Face of Boe makes his second appearance and he’s dying. He doesn’t really add much to the story apart from telling the Doctor that they will meet a third and final time and he will reveal a secret. To be fair I don’t see much reason for why the Face of Boe would be there and why he would need to make another appearance in the show. He worked well in The End of the World but in this he doesn’t add anything to the story.

The Doctor saves the day in truly spectacular fashion by using every vaccine to cure everyone that has been infected. Also that’s not the final thing that happens. The final thing is when the Doctor does something nice an allows Cassandra (who has now got inside Chip) to go back in time and tell herself that she is beautiful. It’s a nice ending I suppose and it is pretty much the end for the character.

This isn’t as bad an episode as I thought. It’s not great by any means but I think that after the previous episode this wasn’t the right time to be trying this time of episode. I think that it’s one of the weakest episodes since The Long Game so that’s a good run of episodes that the show has been in. Watching the trailer for the next episode just makes me want to watch it now but I must be disciplined.

(710) The Christmas Invasion

So today I start the David Tennant era and I yesterday I said I wasn’t going to watch it but I cant think of a proper reason why not so instead of just watching it as an episode and then waiting until tomorrow to watch the opening episode. This is technically the first episode for David Tennant although its only eight minutes long and nearly two minutes of that is taken up with the reprise and the titles. It’s not fair really to rate this episode as it only serves a purpose in telling fans what happens between the regeneration and the TARDIS crash landing in the Christmas Invasion.

David Tennant in Christopher Eccleston’s costume is odd and its good that he doesn’t stay in it for long. I suppose that one thing this episode does is get through the inevitable ‘its not the Doctor thing’ although it does carry on to a certain extent in future episodes. It’s an interesting portion that doesn’t really add anything and if you hadn’t watched it at any point then you wouldn’t have missed anything.

Due to the success of the previous series, a new series was commissioned but also a Christmas Special was added to the list. This was only the second time in the shows history that it had aired on Christmas Day but this was designed as a Christmas Special and not just a throwaway episode in a twelve part Dalek epic. At the moment its late April and the sun is shining and the weather is warm so its slightly odd that I am watching an Christmas episode now. With the special being 15 minutes longer it means that there is more time to tell the story and the opening scene is quite good cause the TARDIS crash lands and Jackie does the first Doctor Who gag of the new era. The new Doctor spends most of this episode in bed which probably wasn’t how David Tennant thought he was going to start his time.

Penelope Wilton returns as Harriet Jones but this time as the PM that the Doctor talked about in World War Three. She’s doing the same joke of introducing herself but the joke is suppose to be funnier because she’s the most famous person in Britain. Even when she’s delivering a sombre Christmas Day speech she manages to slip in some gags. She asks about the royal family and after a pause she turns to the camera and says that they are on the roof. It’s quite impressive how RTD manages to put jokes in when it seems to be totally inappropriate.

The Robot Santa’s are a wonderful design as its just a bonkers idea but one that works and it works so well that RTD brings it back the following year. Another great thing that happens in this episode is the attacking Christmas Tree. Only in Doctor Who could an aggressive Christmas Tree feature in a Christmas Day episode. The main threat of the episode are the Sycorax who are a good looking monster. They show their credentials as villains but hypnotising a group of people to walk to the edge of high rise buildings and threaten to make them jump.

When the Sycorax ship arrives on Earth the way it is shot is very much similar to Independence Day when the ship is hovering over New York City. This is when the episode starts to take a step up because its when things start to go a bit wrong. It’s quite good how they manage to get the Doctor, Rose, Mickey and the TARDIS aboard the Sycorax ship. It’s also quite good how they manage to get the Doctor up and mobile and really into the story. His first scene when he is himself is great cause it starts his time in the show properly. Tennant has a great skill of balancing drama and comedy. I had always been unsure about Christopher Eccleston’s ability to do comedy but I overcame that but I have never been in doubt about Tennant’s comedy ability and he seems to be able to do both very well and its hard not to like the Doctor when he is doing comedy.

It’s nice to see the Doctor doing a bit of sword fighting. When he was doing the fighting I was reminded of the sword fighting that Jon Pertwee’s Doctor and the Master did in The Sea Devils. This was better because it was more dramatic. This fight sees the Doctor lose a hand (something which becomes handy in Torchwood and a future Doctor Who story) but RTD creates a new piece of Timelord mythology when in the first 15 hours of a regeneration cycle he can grow back his hand.

Torchwood gets started in this episode with Harriet Jones mentioning them. It is responsible for destroying the Sycorax ship and this is an important moment because it is when the Doctor angry and it sparks the end of the Harriet Jones regime. Torchwood is the story arc for this season and it makes much more sense than the Bad Wolf arc.

I love the scene where the Doctor is trying on clothes. The song is nice and sung well and it blends in well with the Christmas dinner. Everything seems to be back to normal now and the troubles of the Doctor regenerating is sorted. The final scene sees snow falling or ash as it turns out to be but its looks like snow so that definelty makes it a Christmas special. It’s a nice end to what has been a rather good Christmas special. It did what it needed to do and did it well. It starts the Tennant era off in fine style

(709) The Parting of the Ways

So this is the end for Christopher Eccleston. After just thirteen episodes, I have reached the end of the ninth chapter of my marathon. I think that this is an important episode for two reasons, it has to end the season off in the right way and it also has to give Eccleston the ending that he deserves. With the Daleks not appearing until the end of the previous episode it means that they hit the ground (or air) running from the very beginning and its great to watch.

The Rose I’m coming to get you line from the previous episode is rather cheesy in my opinion. It’s the only thing that Christopher Eccleston does wrong in the two episodes.

The effect of the rockets hurtling towards the TARDIS in a game of chicken is a great moment and shows that this wasn’t a cheap episode. The Dalek being exterminated inside the TARDIS isn’t something that gets the credit it deserves. People might moan on about the temporal grace thing but that’s nonsense anyway and it’s a great moment. A funny moment comes when the Anne Droid destroys a Dalek. It’s quite impressive that RTD managed to find time to put a gag in.

There isn’t a moment when the visual effects disappoint. The shots of the fleet surrounding the Gamestation and the millions of Daleks approaching it are some of the finest in Doctor Who history. This is the sort of thing that they would have killed for during the 60’s and 70’s but thanks to technology being cheaper its now achievable.

The Daleks are quite interesting in this story because they aren’t pure Daleks because they have human genes in them. They start talking about god of all Daleks and blasphemy which isn’t something that I would have expected the Daleks to go on about. The Oncoming Storm is the Doctor’s name on Skaro and it’s a great name and it fits the current Doctor. The Doctor shows no fear in front of the Daleks but has a harder time of doing this in front of the Dalek Emperor. This is the same Dalek Emperor (supposedly) that was seen way back in the 1967 story Evil of the Daleks. The Daleks are unstoppable and its difficult to see how they could be defeated. It’s the first time for an awfully long that they have come across like this. There’s a great scene where some Daleks pop up into Lynda’s view of space and with a chilling silence they smash the window and as a result kill her. It’s another impressive visual.

Rose has gone back to being annoying again. The jealous looks that she gives when Lynda is showing some signs of friendship towards the Doctor. It’s all about her and to show how annoying she has become I actually found Jackie to be perfectly normal. The scene with her, Jackie and Mickey show is one that is saved by Noel Clarke and Camille Coduri and almost ruined by Piper. Rose admits to Mickey that there is nothing on earth for her right in front of him. I think I have joined the Anti-Rose group because that was a horrible thing to say.

The Doctor does his best to try and protect Rose by fooling her into the TARDIS and sending it back to her time. It is perhaps the most selfless act that the Doctor has done ever. The hologram scene with the Doctor is a great scene because it’s the first goodbye really and it’s quite sad. Even a cynical person like me found it slightly moving. It’s when the Doctor changes which way he is looking which makes the scene work.

This episode sees the Doctor and Jack kiss in what would be Jack’s final scene with the Doctor and Rose. It’s interesting in 1996 when the Doctor kissed a woman and the furore it kicked up and in 2005 there didn’t seem to be much drama which is a good thing really. This was probably the case because its wasn’t sexual but just friendly. It’s typical that just when Jack stops being annoying that he leaves the series. Obviously going off to be in his own series but it would have been nice for him to travel with the Doctor a bit more.

Rose ends being the one that causes the Doctor to regenerate which is probably another reason why people dislike her. I think that it was a clever way to get into the regeneration scene and shows that the Doctor is willing to sacrifice his life for his companion. I haven’t gone soft again on Rose but to be fair to her it is perhaps the only good thing that she does in the whole two episodes. She has seen into the heart of the TARDIS which is a great idea and its achieved rather well.

The regeneration scene is rather good and quite sad. I think that I know when the show has worked when the regeneration has a moving effect on me. In just thirteen days, Christopher Eccleston has done what William Hartnell did back in 1963 and set the benchmark for what the Doctor should be like. In a recent interview, Eccleston says that he is in David Tennant, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi and I understand that because without his superb performances there wouldn’t have been future series. David Tennant’s first scene seems quite tame in comparison to other post regeneration debut scenes but we would have to wait until the Children in Need special to get a glimpse at what the Tenth Doctor would be like. For the record I am going to skip that and I will explain why in tomorrows entry.

One final thing about Bad Wolf. Why Bad Wolf? Why those two words, they could have been something far less subtle and as a result it would have made a bit more sense. Oh well, now I have finished the Eccleston era, I don’t have to worry about it. It’s weird to think that I am at the tenth Doctor era and at the beginning of April I was watching the Seventh Doctor and I will be ending it watching the Tenth Doctor. The Eccleston era has been a triumph and it shows that Doctor Who was ready for a 21^st Century audience

(708) Bad Wolf

It was perhaps inevitable that when I was watching this season that it was going to be over too quickly and as a result the Eccleston era would be over too quickly. There is a nice reprise from what happened in the god awful The Long Game. When the reprise is over there is a mad opening with the Doctor entering the Big Brother house with the theme tune and Davina McCall being a voice on Channel 44000. The Doctor is on Big Brother and Rose is on The Weakest Link with the Anne Droid (nice gag) and it’s the most interesting game of The Weakest Link ever. Whilst Captain Jack is with the robotic versions of Trinny and Susannah who at the time were famous for What Not To Wear (I had to look that up). When he is naked and says to them that their viewing figures just went up it made me wonder whether I was watching a Carry On sketch. I found this part of the episode to be rather boring. The actions on the Big Brother and Weakest Link sets are the more interesting.

Back in 2005 all the shows and personalities that appear in this story all seemed current but in 2015 apart from Big Brother (which has now moved channels) and Anne Robinson still on TV. Anyone watching the show now would wonder who on earth these people are. Anne Robinson is on TV although she is starting to look more like Cassandra from The End of the World and Davina McCall appears on The Million Pound Drop and some random ITV show but neither of them are now appearing on the show they were appearing on in 2005. As for Trinny and Susannah, I haven’t the foggiest what they are doing.

Torchwood gets its first mention in this episode.

This episode is called Bad Wolf and this is where Bad Wolf gets explained because of the countless references in the series. Ten years on and I still don’t understand what Bad Wolf is. People have tried to explain it to me but I still don’t get. The events of The Long Game have caused everything that we see in Bad Wolf. On this occasion, the Doctor has made things much worse than normal. The set used in The Long Game is the same one in this story and it’s a clever way of saving some money cause there is very little redressing required. The title of that episode is also used when describing what the people running the Bad Wolf Corporation have been doing. Russell T Davies might have some flaws but at this time of the show he seemed to know exactly what he was doing.

The Weakest Link bit was quite fun as it led to Rose (for a short time) being killed. The build-up in the final round between her and Rodrick is very dramatic. Something struck me and that is it doesn’t seem like the Anne Droid has much of manoeuvring and Rose could have ducked behind her platform and she would have been safe. It takes a while for Captain Jack to reveal that Rose is in fact alive. When Rose makes her appearance she isn’t quite to keen to befriend them. Rose has been left out of the action in this episode which makes a change really and a refreshing one because it means that the Doctor and Captain Jack can work as a team without Rose trying to flirt with him. Speaking of flirting, the Doctor has to tell Jack not to flirt with anyone who talks to him with the word hello being flirting by Jack standards.

When the story moves to Floor 500 we meet the controller who is a Dalek slave but until the very end of the episode it’s not clear that she’s a Dalek slave. For most of the episode she seems to be just a poor sole but she doesn’t have long in the episode as she’s exterminated in ruthless fashion. I found the two people that were keeping an eye on the TV shows to be rather bland and boring and a bit stupid really but they aren’t that important to the grand scheme of things so it doesn’t bother me too much.

The Dalek ships revelation that appears at the end of the episode is a fantastic sight as is the bigger number of Daleks that appear. This is where some of the siphoned money from Boom Town ended up and it was worth every penny. In Dalek there was just the one Dalek and so it’s nice to see more.

The defiant speech that the Doctor gives is a wonderful speech and another reason why Christopher Eccleston is such a good Doctor.  This was a an episode that managed to let Eccleston to have some comedy moments let do the serious stuff that he managed to show us his serious side.

Sadly this two parter suffers the same problem that Aliens of London and that is it has its cliffhanger before the credits roll. This is a shame because the whole episode has been a nice slow burner. On a more positive note, it didn’t ruin the story quite like Aliens of London did. Most people knew when it aired that this was his final story so they try and play with that by filling the trailer with other stuff and seeing if the viewer can spot if there are any clues about his exit. It has been a good set up episode with enough to keep my attention until the cliffhanger. I just hope that the next episode manages to give me the send off I think that Eccleston deserves. I think he does but as JNT said “The Memory Cheats”.

(707) Boom Town

Russell T Davies made a critical and important decision. He realised that a good portion of the budget for the show should be spent on the final two episodes and so sacrificed any special effects money from a single episode and sent it to the series finale. So this is the cheap episode. I use the term cheap loosely because no episode of Doctor Who is cheap and an argument could be made that there were less visual effects in the previous two parter but that’s for another blog.

There is a reminder of what happened in Aliens of London and World War Three which leads us into a nice pre-title scene showing that Annette Badland’s Slitheen somehow survived the blast on Downing Street. With this being a ‘cheap’ episode it means that it’s more of a character piece. What makes it different is that the character in question is the Slitheen. She starts the episode by killing someone and then just as she’s about to kill a nosey journalist she has a change of heart.

The Doctor plans to take Margaret Slitheen back home but she is going to be executed when she gets back and so it then becomes a question as to whether the Doctor can basically send someone to their death and it tests the Doctor’s morality. There is a great scene with all of them in the TARDIS about who is actually the monster and there is a great stare down between Margaret and the regulars and Margaret wins each time. When Margaret and the Doctor go out for a meal it’s a wonderfully tense part of the episode because Margaret thinks that just because she let one person live that means she is able to change. It’s a great performance from Badland and it’s a shame that she didn’t get more of the screen time in the Slitheen two-parter because she really is a very good actress and she more than holds her own against Christopher Eccleston.

Mickey joins the team which is making this seem like the Scooby gang. Mickey does seem to be more of a comedic Mickey. The relationship between Mickey and Rose is still boring and when they were having there scene by the bay I just wanted to be back with the Doctor and Margaret. I was so fed up with it they made ME hate Trisha Delaney. Mickey moans that Rose will always pick the Doctor over him and to be honest, with the amount of whinging he does, it’s not hard to see why she would make that decision. It’s a shame that Noel Clarke seems to have been reduced to this because he deserves better.

There is a lovely amount of comedy and there are too many to mention but for some reason the comedy works to the stories advantage and its one of the things that I like about it. However when it needs to stop, when things a bit bombastic then the comedy makes way for the drama and  the shift in tone happens in quite a seamless way.

Margaret is defeated by looking into the heart of the TARDIS and going back to being an egg and she gets have a second chance at life which is quite a clever way to get the Doctor out of a particular problem because he doesn’t let Margaret go and he doesn’t take her to her death and so the episode is ended in a satisfactory way. It’s been a fun episode an a largely unappreciated episode of the new series that lives within the constricts that has been imposed by the executive producer and writer of this very episode rather well. Now the finale has arrived and this is when things start to get ramped up and more importantly the beginning of the end of the Eccleston era.

(706) The Doctor Dances

Before I start todays review I just wanted to say something that I hadn’t spoken of in yesterday’s episode. The cliffhanger was really good and a better one than in Aliens of London. The people in the hospital walking towards the Doctor, Jack and Rose mirrors what’s happening to Nancy back at the house.  They solved the problem of the NEXT TIME trailer in a two parter. They held it over to after the credits finished which is now the norm. Being so bothered by the Jack/Rose romance that was beginning. I hadn’t commented on what the point of Jack was in the story and he is basically a con man thinking that the Doctor and Rose were going to make him an offer. He basically is the one that caused the problems that are happening in this story.

I remember that there seemed to be a bit of annoyance when the title for this episode was revealed. I think that people imagine that it was going to be a Doctor Who version of Strictly Come Dancing which was clearly never going to be the case. RTD might be mad but even he would do that sort of stunt in the tenth episode of the reboot. The cliffhanger being done in the pre-title scene is something that I like about the new series and the Doctor manages to save the day by just acting like a parent and telling them to ‘go to their room’.

Unlike World War Three, this episode actually delivers on what was set up in the previous episode. The spookiness continues in this episode. I love the scene where they are in Room 802 with the drawings and all the carnage. It’s the sort of room that appears in the found footage films which take place in abandoned hospitals. It’s lit perfectly and James Hawes keeps the shots tight to hide the arrival of the boy in the gasmask. The bit where the tape ran out and yet the boy still talks and the typewriter still typing when the kid isn’t sitting next to it are two great moments.

I like how the Doctor is annoyed at Jack because of what he was doing. It’s a nice contrast with the love in from Jack and Rose. There was a bit more innocence in the previous episode. Due to the change, there is less stuff to find annoying in this episode about Jack and so it doesn’t bother me so much that he becomes part of the TARDIS crew. There is a shot of the three of them coming towards the camera and to me it works and this is the moment that I think they work as a trio. The scene where Jack joins the TARDIS crew is a good one and one that I didn’t think I would like when I started watching the two episodes.

Billie Piper isn’t as annoying as she has been for several episodes. Her best scene comes when Rose is talking to Nancy about the future of the country. Nancy’s truth is revealed at one of the tenser moments of the episode. In the previous episode we learn that the boy was Nancy’s brother but in fact he is her son. I like how Nancy hugging her son is what saves the day and for the first time means that there weren’t any deaths in a Doctor Who story.

The nanobots from the previous episode actually have a purpose and that is they are the one that caused the gasmask on everyones faces. Ok I would really liked to have blamed Captain Jack but on this occasion it was the nanobots. They think that the boy is how all humans should look like and be like and that is why everyone else is walking around saying mummy. It’s a great idea from Moffat and as a result this two part story is one of the strongest of the series.

After a rough couple of episodes, it feels like the show is back on track with a story that didn’t wallow in family back story and despite my mis-givings about the romance between Rose and Jack in the previous episode I think that this adventure is one of the strongest stories so far.

(705) The Empty Child

At the moment I am ready the novel Illegal Aliens which was written by Mike Tucker & Robert Perry which oddly enough was going to form part of the 1990 series had that been made. That story takes place in November 1940 which is just before the events of todays episode. I liked watching todays episode thinking that the seventh Doctor had been walking around the streets of the same city just a short time before. This is the second two parter story and in my opinion the strongest of the three that occur during this series. The story was written by future showrunner Steven Moffat (at a time when people liked him). The Rose problem is still on show in today’s episode. Not only is she wearing a Union Jack top but is obsessed with the Doctor using some ‘alien tech’ and wanting to do a bit of Spock stuff which makes me wonder if she wishes she were in Star Trek.

There are some lovely visuals in this episode. The first is when Rose is hanging from a barrage balloon just as planes are about to come towards her when bombs are falling towards the ground. The effect of Doctor Constantine’s transformation towards the end of the episode is a fantasticly gruesome one and one that I thought at the time would get the show into trouble but it still looks fantastic.

John Barrowman’s first scene is an odd one. He is basically perving over Billie Piper’s bottom (which most would say isn’t a bad thing). But it’s not the greatest of starts for the future Face of Boe. He spends his first episode pretty much flirting with Rose which just gets in the way of the story. If it weren’t for this flirting then I wouldn’t have found him so annoying.

If there is one thing that Moffat can do really well then its spooky drama. The idea of a small boy with a gas mask just saying “Are You My Mommy?” is something that could only have come from the mind of Moffat. The scene where Nancy and the Doctor are inside the house and the boy in the gas mask is outside. It’s a very enjoyable scene and shows how you can have a great moment in the show without CGI or any special effects.

Something else he has done well in this episode is the creation of Nancy and the young kids that she ‘mothers’. Despite the horrible settings they found themselves in there is something nice about the family that she seems to find herself being the mother of. Her story is very sad but I think that Florence Hoath works well with Christopher Eccleston. The whole Doctor/Nancy relationship works much better than the Doctor/Rose relationship has been recently. At the moment I wish that Rose would be left in 1941 and Nancy would go travelling with the Doctor. The idea of someone from the Second World War travelling in time and space is a great one. Nancy lost her brother during one of the airraids and he died.

Richard Wilson guest stars in these two episodes and whilst he is more known to me (and most people) for playing Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom One Foot in the Grave (1990-2000). He is great in the scene he is in before he gets a new gas mask as a face.

Steven Moffat has written a cracking set up episode. Despite the relationship between Rose and Captain Jack, I have found what he has written to be entertaining and its still easy to see why he would go on to be the showrunner in 2010. James Hawes deserves a lot of praise for making the whole episode look like it was actually filmed in 1941. The pacing is constant and I never found myself being bored (only when Rose and Jack were on screen). The omens are good for the next episode.

I’ve just read something about an interview that Christopher Eccleston did to promote some ITV drama (spits on the floor). In it he says that he would have done the comedy differently which to me is an odd thing to say because I actually think watching it this time that his comedy is actually pitched just right.

(704) Fathers Day

The Doctor takes Rose to November 7, 1987 where Rose’s dad was killed and this is an episode which builds up the Tyler backstory in a way which yesterday I thought was going to be a problem. There have been episodes that I have feared in some shape or form and this is one of them.  Using a hit and run in primetime is quite a brave thing to do and to do it repeatedly is even braver.

The Doctor is the one that goes over his own timeline when Rose batters her eyelashes and jumps out in front of the other Rose and Doctor to stop her dad from being killed. Everything that happens in this episode is down to what he does. You would have thought that after all this time he would have known better but I guess everyone can be wrong. Pete Tyler is basically a Del Boy type person. To be honest a first I didn’t think the Doctor Who world really needs Rose’s dad but as the episode progresses he becomes more interesting and despite Rose’s best efforts, I quite like the character and I even found myself liking Jackie.

There is a running gag where Pete is trying to hit on his daughter and only Rose (and the viewers) know why this is a terrible idea. They do a good job of trying to skirt around the issue but it’s not long before Pete knows the truth and so does Jackie which makes for a rather amusing face-off between the three. Pete ends up knowing that he needs to die in order to save the day. It’s not so much an alien threat episode but it’s more of a family bonding episode with the Doctor as the guest character.

After about 10 minutes of doing very little it seemed like this episode was going to be worse than I had feared but thankfully things do start to pick up. The episode only gets going when the reapers start to appear. On a visual note, the reapers are really good and the VFX team work wonders making them look as natural as they can. They appear when there are damages in the timeline and they ‘sterilise the wound’. It’s a great idea from Paul Cornell and helps save the episode.

There is a bit where the Doctor is taken by the reaper and this means that he is out of sight and this gives the Tyler’s the centre stage and I have to admit it that I found the final few minutes to be engaging TV. I might be a bit of a heartless sod but I just couldn’t get emotional about what was happening but even I am not that heartless to think that it was a good piece of drama.

This is an episode which has a lot that I could do without but the performances from Shaun Dingwall and Camille Coduri along with Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper help make this at worst an average episode. From my original memory of this series, this was the weakest story so in effect this should be the end of the weak episode and the quality should start going up until the finale. Tomorrow’s episode sees the first story from the Grand Moff and also what I think (and hope) will be the best of the two parters in this series. The NEXT TIME trailer made me wish I could just watch the next episode now even with the knowledge that Captain Jack is about to enter the show.

(703) The Long Game

I have a friend who really has a dislike for Rose Tyler and for the past ten years I have never really understood this but yesterday’s episode and todays episode have started to make me understand his point of view. This is the second (and final) episode to feature Adam and this is an episode that really kick starts the whole Bad Wolf story arc. The setting for todays episode is the same one that gets used in the series finale and the events in this episode shape what happens in those episodes. Rose gets to show off to her new boyfriend by pretending to be cleverer than she normally is. Even this scene is annoying me and it’s only the first few minutes. There are plenty of things that are annoying me about Rose and Adam. Rose decides to make the wonderful idea of giving Adam her phone and he uses it to ring home (like an annoying ET) and also the TARDIS key. When Adam isn’t around then Rose is less annoying but only just.

Before he was Scotty in the new Star Trek movies, Simon Pegg was slumming it in this episode as the Editor. He is quite good as the white hair and eyebrows gives an impressive visual for a baddie. Although the Editor is not actually the boss. It’s a rather reigned in performance from the ones that Pegg gives in movies and tv shows that he has appeared in. It’s quite funny that Pegg appears in this episode and yet it would be nearly a decade before Nick Frost would make his appearance.

The performances from Christine Adams (Cathica) and Anna Maxwell-Martin (Suki) are quite good. Suki comes across as a shy nice girl at first but then shows her true self before being ‘killed’ by the monster with the longest name in Doctor Who history. Cathica does save the day but on a couple of occasions she moans that she should be promoted and even when the transferring the heat up towards floor 500 she says she should have been promoted even though she would have ended up like Suki. It’s a mentality that I just don’t understand.

The monster with the longest name in Doctor Who history is called the Mighty Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassic Maxarodenfoe. As a creature it’s rather good design and even after the last decade, the effects are still impressive. Even the brain port thing is rather good and even though there are some ropey moments its still good by todays standards. I would have like more of it but that’s the downside of the forty-five minute format.

The final scene sees Adam get his comeuppance when he gets dumped at home and told that if he shows that hole in the head thing of his he will get dissected (sadly not in the literal sense). I haven’t been this glad to see the back of someone in the show before. Even with Dodo and Adric I felt that there was something to like about them and so their departures weren’t 100% happy ones. This episode wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be when I woke up this morning. It’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination and it only exists to serve the purpose of setting up the final two episodes. I don’t think that the next episode is going to go down well because its another episode which what Rose wants is the most important thing. The Tyler family backstory really starts in this episode. Sigh!!

(702) Dalek

Today’s episode sees the return of the Daleks who in episode terms appeared 33 episodes ago but in time terms it was 17 years since Remembrance of the Daleks. This is also the first Dalek story (remarkably) since Death to the Daleks that doesn’t feature Davros. I remember back in 2004 when there was talk about the Daleks not featuring in the new series and there was something in the Sun paper about them appearing in Times Square. Of course this nowadays seems like publicity for the show. I don’t know how real it was that there weren’t going to be in the show but the thought of them not being in the new series seemed horrible. This story was written by Robert Shearman who wrote the 2003 Big Finish play Jubilee and it’s clear that some of the elements from that story have made it into this episode.

A Cyberman’s head make an appearance in the pre-title scene and it’s almost a nostalgic moment. It’s a nice pre-title scene as it’s the only quiet scene in the entire episode. This is an episode that doesn’t have any scenes outside. There is one shot of a helicopter but apart from that there is nothing.

Despite the episode being called Dalek the build up to its first appearance is quite good. The first thing it does is scream as its being tortured. It’s first encounter with the Doctor is one of the best scenes of the series. The Doctor in a dark room with just the eyes glowing when it talks. It’s quite impressive how one Dalek causes so much mayhem and gets to the Doctor.

Henry Van Statten is some who has all the money you could want but doesn’t really have much intelligence. Corey Johnson is very effective as a villain and he is utterly unlikeable. When he realises that he is out of his depth then he loses all of his power and menace. Christopher Eccleston is superb in this episode. It’s episodes like this one that shows why he is such a good actor. The scene where the Doctor is talking to the Dalek just after its killed all the soldiers is a great one because the Doctor is telling the Dalek that it should die and its replies by saying that he would have made a good Dalek. The flirting between Rose and Adam is just annoying. They have a scene together and its excruciatingly bad and I couldn’t wait for it to be over. In fact Rose is the biggest problem with this episode. She decides to befriend the Dalek because she feels sorry for it. If she had not put her hand on its casing then everyone that gets exterminated by it wouldn’t have died. The look on their faces when the Dalek rises into the air is fantastic because they were so smug and I have found them so irritating that I wanted the Dalek to exterminate them. For me this is the first time that Rose has put a foot wrong this series. When she points out to the Doctor that he is pointing a gun at her and seems to think that he is worse than the Dalek at the moment is a frustrating scene.

The death of Simmons is quite horrific. The sucker arm has never been useful until now and its used in quite a clever way. The effect of the Dalek coming back to life is quite good and I love the design of the Dalek. My favourite livery is the white and gold design but this is a good version as well. Nicholas Briggs is so fixed in my mind as the voice of the Daleks that it has always seemed odd when I have heard the stories before this one which weren’t voiced by him. There is a technical bit about the Daleks which is new as well and it’s the noise that it makes when its moving or its head is moving. This effect has made its way into the Big Finish audio. The effect of its middle section swivelling to shoot on both sides of it looks a little bit ropey by todays standards and the shot of the bullets stopping in front of the Daleks does seem very much borrowed from The Matrix (1999) film.

The episode doesn’t end on a particularly good note because for some reason. Adam ends up boarding the TARDIS. Just what the show needs is an annoying buerk in the TARDIS. To be honest its been a frustrating 45 minutes. Its good to have a Dalek back but I just found the whole Adam/Rose dynamic so boring and sadly there is going to be more of this. In rating terms, this is the lowest rated episode but it’s purely because of Rose and Adam. The rest of the episode is rather entertaining and Joe Ahearne directs the episode superbly and Robert Shearman’s only contribution is just as good as anything that appears in this season.

(701) World War Three

The NEXT TIME trailer at the end of the previous episode still bothers me because it basically tells people not to bother watching because you know that the Doctor is OK. The Doctor gets out of his predicament (which we knew he would because of the NEXT TIME trailer) before the titles play. I think that it’s a good way that he gets out of it because he saves himself and as a result saves Rose, Harriet Jones, Jackie and Mickey.

There is one scene between Green and General Asquith which is really strange because its not something that seems to belong in a Doctor Who story.  

Green: I need to be naked

General: Rejoice in it. Your body is magnificent!

The list of people rolling up to Downing Street is still amusing as there are some that make sense but Andrew Marr’s second appearance ends with him introducing Sylvia Dillane who is Chairman of the North Sea Boat Club. Russell T Davies sprinkles little jokes throughout the episode and the humour is well place which isn’t something that I would have expected to be writing about a Doctor Who episode.

The Doctor starts mentioning that he knows the name Harriet Jones. It’s not until the end that he reveals who she would go on to be. When I watched this back in 2005, I remember thinking that it would be good to have her back in the show against. The Doctor starts to appreciate Mickey. When he calls him Mickey the Idiot towards the end of the episode its almost done with affection. I think that the Ninth Doctor and Mickey have a rather frosty relationship even at its best but Mickey has a better relationship with the tenth Doctor.

The outside of 10 Downing Street does pass for the real thing until they do a long shot which shows that its not quite the real Downing Street which does slightly take me out of the story but at least they have tried to make it look like Downing Street instead of just filming it in just a studio.

Jackie has a go at the Doctor for thinking this is fun life for him and that he’s dragging her daughter into it and I like how later on he replies by saying that it’s not fun or glamorous. The Doctor has had a battering from Jackie in these two episodes but I think that by the end of the episode their relationship is ok, not perfect but better than it was at the beginning of the previous episode.

I forgot that the Doctor offers Mickey the chance to come on board the TARDIS. He turns the offer down but boards it in the next series. When the Doctor pretends he doesn’t want Mickey to come on board to spare Mickey’s blushes, Rose doesn’t put up much of a fight which I find surprising. It’s a scene that is the proper goodbye that Rose should have had in the first episode and its more memorable because of Christopher Eccleston and Noel Clarke who

The episode ends on a rather downbeat note with Rose walking out on her mother and boyfriend. Even the music is downbeat so its hard to feel anything positive when the credits start to roll. The first two parter of this new series isn’t the greatest. Even if I base it on its own merits instead of comparing it to other two parters it is still lacking something. There are things to like in these two episodes but it doesn’t quite have enough to be classed as an early classic. These two episodes as well as the opening episode have been directed by Keith Boak who hasn’t returned to the series since and on the basis of these two episodes its not hard to see why because they aren’t directed with particular pace or excitement. They are nuts and bolts episodes and that’s not necessarily a bad thing but it just doesn’t work in this two parter.

The next episode sees the return of the Daleks and whereas the previous NEXT TIME I didn’t like it, that isn’t the case for this trailer because it shows that the Daleks are back and in a different way to what we have seen in the past. Tomorrow cant come quick enough.

(700) Aliens of London

The thing about the new era of Doctor Who is that the stories are mostly single episodes with the exception being the occasional two parter. So with single episode stories being the norm, it means that the two parters pick up a new meaning and excitement. Today is the shows 700^th episode and the show has changed since the 600^th episode which was the first episode of The Kings Demons. Wow there is very little the same apart from the fact there is the Doctor and the TARDIS.

The Doctor takes Rose back to the council estate that she lives on thinking that it’s only been twelve hours since the events of the opening episode. The first few minutes with this idea is quite fun but the good news is broken when the Doctor realises that it’s been twelve months and not twelve hours and Jackie has a shocked look on her face. The Doctor is quite funny when he breaks this news to Jackie and Rose. The advantage of having 90 minutes is that there is time for a slower build up and it means that there is time for family domestics. Russell T Davies wanted the family dynamic thrown into the episode to be an anchor for Rose, giving her a reason to return to Earth.

The term companion sounds dirty in this episode when the Doctor announces to the police that he Rose is his companion and the policeman asks if it’s a sexual relationship. I think that this pretty much retires the term as well as assistant. Friend is the term I will be using from now on to describe future people who travel in the TARDIS.

This is another episode that shows the new series means business in terms of what we see on screen. The effect of the alien ship crashing into Big Ben is one of the most memorable ones from this season. The shot of the ship crashing into the Thames is also well done and I saw Doctor Who Confidential (remember that) and it showed how this was achieved and it’s a simple yet effective visual effect.

This episode sees Naoko Mori play Doctor Sato and it’s a character that she would play in the Torchwood spin-off. Again watching this back in 2005, there was no way anyone watching would have known that she would go on to be in the Torchwood spin off but it’s a good performance from her.

Joseph Green who has the job title of Minister on the Monitoring of Sugar Standards in exported confectionery which is the best job in politics (if it existed of course). This is a bit of RTD having some fun with less than minor details. Green becomes Prime Minister because of the un-named PM (supposed to be Tony Blair). I think that he is an effective baddie. The other Slitheens are all good as baddies but its Green that is the standout character. Penelope Wilton makes her first appearance as Harriet Jones. Wilton is a superb actress and she brings a nice warmth to the show and stumbles into the adventures. I think its funny that she introduces herself to everyone and holds her ID card. It just makes me like the character even more.

UNIT make their first appearance since Battlefield and I like how the Doctor stumbles into a room where they are all resting and waits for them to pick up their guns and point them at him. Moments later he acting in charge calling in the shots although he doesn’t know its UNIT. Despite the slow reaction time with the soldiers and the Doctor, UNIT don’t come across as the bumbling outfit that they use to come across. I think that I miss that.

There are a couple of cameo appearances. Firstly there is Andrew Marr who is currently appearing in his own political talk show on Sunday mornings on the BBC and Matt Baker who was in Blue Peter on this episode but now is the co-host of the One Show. This is the sort of stunt casting that I like as its relevant to the story and they are not too important to the story.

If there is something that has always troubled me about the Slitheen then it’s the breaking wind that regularly happens. It’s a fun idea that they are squeezing themselves inside human skins and the effect of then unzipping from their foreheads is one of the things I like about the Slitheen but it’s just the farting which seemed a bit childish.

The cliffhanger has a nice build-up of a few minutes where in three different areas, the Slitheen are finally revealed and it’s he right point for them to do this and the final shot is of the Doctor and the other members of UNIT being electrocuted. The NEXT TIME trailer is put in a rather stupid place because within seconds of the cliffhanger, the Doctor is shown to be perfectly fine and running around. I think that it was Steven Moffat that pointed this silliness. It’s a shame that this was done because it just takes out the immediate threat that they spent 45 minutes build up to. I think that this is an important lesson that RTD, Julie Gardner and Mal Young have learnt. This is more of a build-up episode because 45 minutes is spent setting up the characters and the setting. If this were the classic era then this would have two episodes into a four parter and in those stories it is in the third episode where the story starts to build up. There was a bit better pacing in this episode and as a result it seemed like a slightly stronger episode as a result.

(699) The Unquiet Dead

So after going into the future in the previous episode, its times to go into the past. I think that there is one thing that the BBC do well and that is period drama and they showed in The Talons of Weng Chiang that they can do it well and in 2005 this was still very much the case. The pre-title sequence is a rather scary and amusing scene. An old woman is dead but comes to life and there is a little bit of comedy from the undertaker who is trying to close the coffin but is being stopped by the newly resurrected woman. The old woman coming towards the camera is something that is still impressive no matter how many times I have seen it in the last 10 years.

Mr Sneed (Alan David) is a rather amusing character and with the subject of death being at the heart of the episode, the humour is needed. David plays the character really well and its hard to dislike him even he has put chloroform over Rose. Eve Myles appears in this episode as Gwyeth and watching back then no one could have known just how much of a part of the Doctor Who world Eve Myles would become. I like the character of Gwyenth and think that she was the best of the supporting characters.

Charles Dickens is the first historical character to feature in Doctor Who. Dickens is played by Simon Callow and it’s incredible to think that someone of Callow’s calibre being in the show. Especially when there was no guarantee that the show would be welcomed back. It’s a great performance from Callow from start to finish. He brings a new side of the writer that I don’t think I had seen before. He is rather sorry for himself and by the end of it he has become a new man. When the Doctor tells him how his books will be received it’s almost too much for him. The fact he gets to end the episode is a nice touch as far I was concerned.

I love the scene where the Doctor realises that he is riding in Charles Dickens’ carriage. He is pretty much tripping over his words. Things get a bit awkward when the Doctor tells him to shut up. They make up a few moments later where the Doctor seems to try and make Dickens feel a bit better about himself.

Rose and Gwyneth form a nice friendship. It’s Gwyneth who uses her ‘special gift’ to bring the first significant mention of Bad Wolf. It’s fun when Gwyneth is describing what she can see in Rose’s head about modern day London and it’s her reaction to how people are dressed really shocks her. The Bad Wolf mention is what really effects Gwyneth and it’s from this moment that her part of the story really becomes relevant.

A monster/creature living in gas form is something that could have only worked in the new series. It would have been a rather poor CSO had it been done before 2005. The effect of the girl that appears in the séance is one of the highlights of this visual effect. The Gelth come across as first as a race that have fallen on hard times and want to use the dead bodies as vehicles which causes some conflict between Rose and the Doctor. Although as was inevitable, they start to turn of the Doctor and the other when they get into the human bodies. There’s a bit where all the dead are trying to get through the cage door in a way that reminds me of countless scenes in The Walking Dead. I like how its Charles Dickens and Gwyneth are the ones that save the day. Gwyneth gives her life to stop the Gelth.

I did like this episode although I must confess that I haven’t enjoyed it’s as much as I have done in the past. Three episodes in and the reboot still feels like it’s in a honeymoon period. It’s a story that is written with a nice mixture of humour and gothic and there will be more Gatiss scripts but I don’t think that it will have the visual loveliness that this one has. I am looking forward to the next episode because it’s the first two parter of the new era.

(698) The End of the World

So after the initial buzz of the reboot, now we get to the meat of the new series which is whether it could stand up with new stories and new monsters. It’s interesting that the Doctor is basically turning into a galactic taxi driver, asking Rose where she wants to go. The Doctor ends up taking Rose to the day that the Earth dies. Literally the end of the world. The Doctor isn’t quite the cheeriest person to go on a trip with. The Doctor delivers a nice bit of exposition where he talks about how there is a trust that has kept the continents of Earth and now the money has run out its being left to blow up. Rose brings up a nice point that the continents drift and being five billion years in the future then surely they should have moves, she even mentions that she saw something on Newsround Extra.

This episode introduces the Psychic Paper which is a great creation from Russell T Davies as it becomes the new series version of the Sonic Screwdriver. I think the problems that people have with the screwdriver is the same problem that I have with the Paper. It’s just too convenient for my liking. It’s amusing at first but after five years of seeing it, the prop becomes too simple a plot device. This is an episode which introduces Rose to aliens and in a way introduces new fans to the sort of aliens that they are This episode sees the first appearance of The Face of Boe which having watched the show since it returned I know now that this is in fact Captain Jack Harkness if you believe that nonsense. I can remember being disappointed with the Moxx of Balhoon because when I first saw the picture of this creature I thought that it would be the new series version of Sil but in fact he’s a bit of a disappointment.

The visual effect of Cassandra is something that is astonishing. In fact this entire episode is very astonishing. The engine room set is particularly impressive because its looks so vast. Zoe Wanamaker is the voice and makes the character work. It’s hard to like her but that’s why she is such an effective villain. There is a question of who bought the spiders on board and its obvious that it was Cassandra. That was rather disappointing from Russell T Davies. Another that doesn’t quite work is the rather clichéd fact that a switch that would save raise the shields just before the Earth burns is at the end of a very long path with a lot of propellers. I heard that this film has more visual effects than the film Gladiator. It’s clear that this was a very expensive episode and it needed to be to pull it off. I loved all the external shots and also the effect of the earth blowing up looked stunning.

The phone call that Rose and her mom has is quite nice and I don’t find Jackie as annoying even though she’s only in it for less than a minute. Rose becomes a proper companion in this episode when she gets put in danger.

This episode feature the first mention of Bad Wolf which is the first series story arc. It’s a sort of blink and you’ll miss mention but it’s there. This episode starts the backstory for the Doctor. We learn in this episode that he is the last of his race and that there was a Time war. The moment when Eve calls the Doctor a Timelord seems to motivate him quite a lot which was a nice moment. The moment when the Doctor announces this is a fantastic scene and it’s delivered superbly by Christopher Eccleston. It’s a huge bombshell and I can remember thinking that its perhaps the biggest change in the show for quite sometime. I remember actually thinking that this does back the show into a corner which it was going to find difficult to get out of.

The music in this episode is rather interesting. We have Tainted Love by Soft Cell (or a different version of it) and Toxic by Britney Spears. When I first started watching Doctor Who, I never ever thought that I would hear Britney bloody Spears in Doctor Who. It’s a sign of the times perhaps.

Christopher Eccleston is again very good in this episode. He seems to be having fun when watching Rose meet all the aliens for the first time and when Jabe dies it changes the Doctor and he becomes rather more aggressive. He manages to get Cassandra back and allows Cassandra to die. “Everything has its time and everything dies” is a line that I wouldn’t have expected from the Doctor but it ties in with the new more hardline Doctor which has become the norm now but wouldn’t have worked in the 1980’s. After being sidelined to an extent in the previous episode, this is where Eccleston gets to show us his Doctor and its great to see.

This has been a good episode but it doesn’t quite have the energy that the opening episode had but again this episode did what it needed to do and introduce a new audience to what the show is about. Now the enxt episode is going back into the past and I think it will be another example to new fans about what the show can do.

(697) Rose

If I am being honest, then I am really excited that I have reached this part of the marathon. I am sad that I have left the classic era but there is something fun about watching episodes that I have watched within the last decade. In fact today’s episode aired 10 years and three weeks ago. The debut episode of the Russell T Davies era was one that I was as excited as I had ever been about Doctor Who. The trailers had aired on BBC TV and there had even been billboards that I had passed everyday going to and from work. There was even a bit of hullabaloo about the episode leaking online just days before it was transmitted but I was a good boy and didn’t take a sneak peak. I can also remember in those days being obsessed with any pictures taken of what was going on. One final thing I remember is that Graham Norton’s voice appeared during Rose’s first encounter with the Auton’s.

There is a lot to talk about so I might miss some of the things so let’s start from the beginning. The theme tune is fantastic and I think it’s one my favourites of the new era. It’s a rare instance of this episode being named after a companion and nowadays having no pre-title sequence. When the episode starts it is in space and zooms into Rose’s bedroom. The episode is designed to be seen from Rose’s point of view. The first couple of minutes are designed to show how dull her life is but it takes about five minutes for it to become interesting when she meets the Autons and then is saved by the Doctor. I think that Christopher Eccleston’s first appearance is good and in keeping with the new run style that modern day Who has adopted.

I like Christopher Eccleston’s performance. When you consider the shows he has worked on in the years before and after then its amazing that he wanted to play the role even its for its for just one series. What is impressive is that it comes across naturally and he does the comedy just as well as the serious stuff. There is a bit where Ecceleston is talking about the earth spinning and he says it in such a way which shows that his Doctor is just as good as those that have come before it. Ok let’s address the costume because it’s the first time in a long time that the costume hasn’t been the talking point of the Doctor. Not since the Tom Baker costume has a costume been less noticeable. Even ten years later it’s still a costume that looks good.

Another thing I should address is the new TARDIS console. It’s breath-taking and there is no other way of describing it. It takes 26 minutes for the TARDIS console room to appear and the first time Rose sees it is the first time we see and the camera moves around like we are in awe of what we have seen. The fact that its so big means that its possible to film scenes in the TARDIS from whatever angle possible. It’s so good now that when you walk through the TARDIS doors that you go straight through to the console room and the doors match. That was a major consistency problem during the classic era where the doors inside the TARDIS console room are huge and yet the outside the doors are tiny.  It’s also nice now that when we are outside

This episode marks the first appearance of the Auton’s since 1971’s Terror of the Autons. It’s quite a good choice of RTD’s to use the Autons because they are a good enough villain that long-time fans will appreciate and mannequins are something that new fans can see the potential for menace. The Autons breaking through the shop windows is something that they wanted to do in Spearhead from Space but were unable to do for budgetary reasons. Now we get to see what it would have looked like and it didn’t disappoint. It’s rather odd and cool to see the child Autons walking around and also Autons in wedding dresses. It perhaps isn’t the greatest use of the Autons in this story but they served a purpose and it would be nice to see them back in Doctor Who again.

The scene with the Doctor and Rose walking is quite good because it establishes them as friends. I like how Rose is willing to go along with what the Doctor tells her. Although it’s a friendship that hasn’t quite formed. This is highlighted in the scene by the London eye where Rose is rather miffed that the Doctor doesn’t seem bothered about Mickey. Rose asks the Doctor why he sounds like he from the north and the Doctor reply’s with that plenty of planets have a north. I thought that this was a fun line.

Some of the dialogue that appears in this episode is rather more grown up compared to what would have been said in the classic era. The use of the term breast implants and Shunt off seems rather brave to stick in a drama that appears at 7pm on a Saturday night.

The London Eye is an iconic part of London and is used in this episode as part of the story. It’s not the first time that a part of London will be used in a Doctor Who adventure but I think its quite clever. The location filming of the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament are lovely and it’s a bonus of the new series that the cameras used have improved in quality enough for things to look this good. Even though some of the scenes in this episode are filmed in a studio, it doesn’t feel like that and the quality of the picture doesn’t change at any point.

Jackie sadly comes across rather annoyingly. She comes across as your rather typical council flat mom just after a quick money. At no point during this episode did I like her very much and when she was about to be wiped out by wedding dress Autons, I didn’t worry about her. Noel Clarke is sadly saddled with a character that is a bit wet really. In recent years the character of Mickey grows up by in this episode it’s rather frustrating. The worst bit comes after his incident with the bin. He gets this weird make up to make him look different. It’s just

Clive is played by Mark Benton and I could watch Benton in pretty much anything. He plays someone who has been studying the Doctor and comes across as some sort of conspiracy theorist. The idea that the Doctor leads a trail of is a clever one because he would leave a mark and in this age of things being logged it is inevitable that you could put things together. Sadly he gets shot in the face by an Auton which seems somewhat unnecessary and right in front of his son and wife with no follow up on how they are. It is perhaps the downside of a story taking place in just forty-five minutes that this sort of thing couldn’t be addressed but I think that had this happened twenty-years earlier then it would have formed part of the story.

There are things that don’t work so well. The series of pictures that Clive shows Rose don’t look convincing. The worst one is the one of the Doctor in Texas 1963. Another thing that doesn’t work is the effect of Mickey being pulled into the bin. It looks a bit dodgy.

The episode has a NEXT TIME bit at the end of the episode which is something that is a 21^st century thing which in the absence of a cliffhanger is the thing used to lure people into the next episode. It’s a nice little teaser but considering I am watching it in 24 hours time it doesn’t have quite the impact that it did in 2005. As an opening episode it did what it needed to do and I think satisfied the long-time fans and draw new people into the show. I thought that there was plenty to like and thought that the performance of Christopher Ecceleston and Billie Piper were good and now the introductory episode is over it means that the show can get back to being the classic show it is but with better special effects

(696) The TV Movie

The TV Movie was the first Doctor Who that I actually watched when it was transmitted for the first time. After still being relatively new to the fandom, I could feel what long time fans had felt but hadn’t had the feeling for seven years. The tagline for this story was “He’s Back and its about Time” which if I were being cynical then I would say was a rather lazy tagline. The episode starts off with the voice over of the new Doctor explaining about the Master being exterminated by the Daleks. I think that they should have used McCoy’s voice for this as McGann’s voice should have appeared when he make’s his first appearance.

The question of who the longest serving Doctor was is a question that has two answers. Based on how long they had on screen then Tom Baker is the longest with 2,275 days as Doctor but from regeneration to regeneration it is Sylvester McCoy because he was Doctor for 9 years or 3,185 days. This TV Movie was intended as a backdoor pilot and could have led to a full series had it worked on American TV.

There is another question of whether the story was right to have McCoy appear for the first 15 or so minutes is one that I have changed my opinion of in recent years. Before 2005 I thought it was a good idea because it was good in the name of continuity however in recent years I have changed my mind because Eccleston’s time started fine without a regeneration. McGann is basically playing catch up with only about an hour as the Doctor in an 85 minute TV drama. I think when he walks through the warped glass is the first time that I think he comes across as the Doctor. Paul McGann does a good job of playing the Doctor and brings his own style to the role. It’s only via Big Finish that we know how good he would have been had the series worked. Despite only having an hour to play the role there is something to warm to about the character and within minutes I had forgotten about Sylvester McCoy and accepted that he was the Doctor.

The story sees the Master force the Doctor to land his TARDIS in San Francisco on December 31^st 1999. The first few minutes sees the Doctor in the TARDIS minus Ace. In one way it would have been nice to have something about Ace’s departure but time constraints (and others) prevent this from happening. The TARDIS set is truly breath-taking. It’s the first time that it has looked like it should. Every time I listen to a Paul McGann Big Finish adventure, this is the TARDIS console room I think of. In terms of the plot basically the Doctor has to find the TARDIS before midnight on January 1^st 2000 and that’s basically it. To be honest I wasn’t really focusing on the story because I was just mesmerised with what I was seeing on screen.

There was a bit with the gang shooting at Chang Lee which I think got cut out of the transmitted version. It was years before I saw this as part of the TV Movie. Chang Lee is a character which doesn’t come across very well which isn’t really the fault of Yee Jee Tso. He does his best with what is basically an artful dodger type role. Adric for the last 1990’s. By the end of the movie, he is less annoying and it’s easy to see how he and Grace could have been companions. He gets convinced by the Master that the Doctor is the enemy and just works out that it’s a lie just before he is killed by the Master before being bought back to life by the TARDIS.

I think that it’s a shame that the Doctor got gunned down. It makes it too ‘real’ in my opinion. The Doctor should be forced to regenerate by some heroic act of kindness not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I thought that Sylvester McCoy was just as good as he had been during his original time. His final moment before his actual regeneration is going AAAARRRGGGHHH on the operating table. It’s a damn sight better than Carrot Juice, Carrot Juice, Carrot Juice. The regeneration scene is very good and one of the more impressive regeneration scenes that the show has had. Even 19 years later it’s still visually impressive.

Eric Roberts get the daunting task of playing the Master but he doesn’t come across as believable as a paramedic called Bruce. The Master undergoes his own regeneration when he starts off as a snake and then gets itself stuck down Roberts’ throat and becomes the Master. The Master seems just as aggressive as he was in Survival. First he kill’s Bruce’s wife by snapping her neck and then adopts a black leather coat and shades. I do think that Roberts is more believable as the Master. I don’t find myself comparing his performance with Anthony Ainley or Roger Delgado’s versions. It’s not the greatest version of the Master buts it good on its own merits.

The only thing that Roberts does wrong as the Master is when he comes down the stairs in the TARDIS in the campest scene ever to feature the Master. Even Anthony Ainley wouldn’t have done this or done it in a camper fashion.  

It takes 50 minutes for the new Doctor and the new Master to be but it’s quite understated. I thought the scene in the back of the ambulance with them and Grace was quite fun and horrific when we see goo dripping from the Master mouth after he ‘spits’ on Grace. I like how that scene happens and its’ not until Grace and the Doctor enter the TARDIS before this becomes relevant. This is how the Master starts to take control. The final battle between the two of them is very good and it short but sweet. I don’t know how sincere the Doctor is when he holds his hand out to help the Master. The Master ends up by being sucked into the Eye of Harmony. It’s never explained how he ended up being in the Time War after this story (or certainly not in any form I’ve heard).

Daphne Ashbrook becomes one of the companions in this story but ironically is the one that is responsible for the Doctors regeneration. The surgery scene that she is involved in is quite an intense and dramatic scene. I feel sorry for her because Grace clearly seems like a good Doctor and is just unlucky to have someone like the Doctor on her operating table. She is also quite a smart person which immediately shows an improvement on pre-Ace companions. The snog that Grace has with the Doctor caused quite a stir I remember back in 1996 but nowadays its common place. She could easily have become a companion as I mentioned earlier and the goodbye scene between her and the Doctor (and another kiss) is sad and shows how well Grace has worked in a ridiculously short amount of time.

There are nice nods to the past such as the double hearts x-ray from Spearhead from Space (1970) and the John Smith name used throughout the show’s original time. Another nod is the key of the TARDIS which was used during the Pertwee era. It’s nice that they went to the trouble of doing this because its not getting in the way of the story but nice for long-time fans. This story also sees the return of the Sonic Screwdriver which hasn’t been seen since The Visitation.

There is only one aspect that really doesn’t work in this story is the business at the Institute of Technological Advancement and Research. It’s only purpose was to allow the Doctor to get the beryllium part for his TARDIS. I just find myself somewhat disinterested with it but thankfully it doesn’t have much time in the story.

The direction of this story is superb and is consistent with the quality that you would expect from any kind of US drama. Geoffrey Sax manages to keep the action scenes entertaining and the quieter scenes worth watching until the next action scene came along. Sax brings his own style to the show and seems to have fun with it. He brings a filmic quality to and that is something the show hadn’t had before.

This is the first story had lots of money behind it. It cost around $5 million dollars. $300,000 came from the BBC, Fox provided $2.5 million whereas Universal and BBC Worldwide came up with the rest. This was the first time that it looked like the show was getting the money spent on it that it deserved and proved to Michael Grade that if he had put his hand in his pocket once or twice then this is what he would have got for his money. I think that this level of luxury was helped because its easier to produce on US TV but I think that something just as good could have been achieved on British TV.

Jon Pertwee died just days before this was transmitted on UK television and there was an on screen tribute to him and I think that this would have been something he would have approved of. On one hand I am very disappointed that this TV Movie didn’t lead to a TV series because who knows what would have happened but then we wouldn’t have had the run of adventures that we have had and I suppose now I will find out whether the new series is any good. The only episode of Doctor Who to air in the 1990’s is a very impressive and enjoyable adventure. Yes there are something that don’t quite work but I have never watched this story and been bored by what I saw. If anything I have become even more impressed with Paul McGann’s Doctor and will now go and listen to one of his many Big Finish plays to enjoy. Onto the Eccleston era and a certain Rose Tyler.