(807) Kill the Moon

As titles go, Kill the Moon is certainly the most interesting. In an attempt to show Courtney that she’s special, the Doctor takes her to the Moon to be the first woman to walk there. This episode is where the Doctor and Clara’s relationship goes through a bit of a rough patch. Being set on the moon it means that this cant be filmed in a field in Cardiff. The filming for this episode took place in Lanzarote where the 1984 story Planet of Fire was filmed and I think a title that was suggested for it was Return to Sarn which was clearly a title designed to mislead. The TARDIS arrives on a shuttle which has a lot of nuclear bombs on it and its clear that things don’t go well in this episode. There is a wonderful base under siege vibe to this episode which if you are a regular reader of this blog, will know that this is my favourite type of story. Apart from the darkness and the isolation, the big success of this story are the spiders that scuttle around the place. The sight of one scuttling around in the dark is quite good and also the image of thousands of them scuttling across the moon is one that works and is one of the lasting image from the episode.

At one point the Doctor decides that he is leaving the fate of the moon to Clara and Lundvik (Hermione Norris) which does seem like a bold thing for the Doctor to do. I honestly cant see Matt Smith’s Doctor or David Tenannt’s Doctor doing this so this is another example if more were needed that Capaldi’s Doctor is a grumpier version of his previous incarnations.

When Captain Grumpy turns up at the end I think that he is going to be Sergeant Smug and pretty much tells Clara to calm down and be less angry. I thought that was quite a good move for him and he is still Captain Grumpy but at least there showed a glimmer of happy.

The big revelation is that the moon is an egg and its about to hatch. This has been a great cause of controversy because people think that it’s a stupid idea. I don’t agree with that simply because what Peter Harness has done is come up with a novel idea for something that is so much apart of the Earth. You see various stages of it at night time and ever since the episode aired, I have looked up and jokingly thought that the moon might have put a bit of weight on. It’s such a Doctor Who idea that I cant understand why people have a problem with this aspect of the story. There were bigger problems with this story. Most notably that of Hermione Norris. The problem is that her character isn’t very well served in this. Her character isn’t very imposing and just blends in with the others. Another problem is Courtney because she wants to be called special, then when they are on the moon and things go wrong she decides she wants to go back home and then when it looks like things are getting interesting again she wants to leave the TARDIS. Never has a character changed so much in one short episode. Thankfully she leaves at the end of this episode and is never seen again and good riddance as far as I am concerned. However the biggest concern that comes up in this episode is the relationship between Clara and the Doctor because we are in the seventh episode of the series and yet there is something that doesn’t quite right between them. I would have expected them to have bonded by now.

There comes a decision about whether to blow it up or let the thing hatch. There is this big deal about the Earth deciding what to do. In the end it’s a bit pointless because the Doctor comes and rescues Lundvik, Courtney & Clara and they arrive on earth just to see the moon hatch. Moments later it seems to hatch a new moon and things seem to be back to normal.

I like Kill The Moon, there are problems with it but ultimately the debut story from Peter Harness has written a story that is effectively in two parts because the first half is scary as anything that has been seen in new Who and the sort of thing that would have been seen in the Philip Hinchcliffe era which is always a good thing. He is returning to write for the new series of Doctor Who and hopefully he will improve on some of the flaws that happened in this episode and the good point suggest that he might just be able to do that.

(806) The Caretaker

If you use the numbering system that I have used in this marathon, then this story is the 250^th story of Doctor Who. The Caretaker is the midway point of the series and one that takes place at Coal Hill School. It’s nice having Coal Hill School feature in the show because after only having two appearances in the first 50 years, it seems to be featuring in the show more and more. Despite the positives of this story being co-written by Steven Moffat and Gareth Roberts there are things that I don’t like about this story. Sadly the biggest problem is that Danny Pink makes a return and I say sadly because this is where he well and truly becomes Mr Grump. He seems to develop a jealousy of the Doctor. There is a bit where he pulls one of the mine things that the Doctor has placed around the school and I think that anyone in their right mind wouldn’t touch them. When the Doctor gives him a ticking off I wanted the Doctor give him more than that. Pink has just turned into a whiney git all of a sudden.

The pre-title scene ends with the Doctor introducing himself as a caretaker so this is another. Most of the pre-title scene is filled with the Doctor and Clara going on many adventures and then Clara having to pick up her normal life with Danny. To be honest if I were Clara and I had the choice of travelling with the Doctor or spending time watching Coronation Street with Private Grumpy then it’s a no brainer really.  

This being a Gareth Roberts story there is more than an average amount of humour and one of the running gags is that the Doctor thinks that Danny Pink is a PE teacher and can’t retain the information in his head that he is in fact a maths teacher. There are plenty of good lines for the Doctor and like the previous story I cant figure out which lines are from Moffat and which ones are from Roberts. Also like the previous story I cant quite understand why it took two people to write this story.

Danny isn’t the only annoying person in this episode. The other is Courtney who is an annoying kid. She hangs around and is just an annoying person to have around. Maybe she is a relative of Danny’s. Speaking of Danny he really becomes an annoying arsehole because he gets really snotty when he is in the TARDIS thinking the Doctor is really pompous. Whenever the Doctor gets to be horrible to Danny I become a happy man. What can’t Danny be like Rory? Just a little bit. The worse crime that Danny commits in this story is by trying to turn Clara against the Doctor just because the Doctor seems like people Danny encountered in the army.

The monster threat of the story is in the form of the Skovox Blitzer which has become stranded on Earth and views everyone as a threat. The Doctor just wants to get it on Earth but he keeps getting distracted and stopped by humans. I could feel and understand the Doctor’s frustration because it just seemed to be either Danny or Courtney.

The final scene sees the police officer from earlier in the episode talking to Chris Addison (someone else from The Thick of It) who plays a character called Seb. He is someone who is working for Missy. Michelle Gomez makes a great cameo appearance in the episode. All she does is walk one way, look at Seb and then walk another way. This is something that exists purely to remind us about the story arc and also introduce Chris Addison into the arc. Seb uses several names to describe to the police officer where they are he uses names like the Promised Land, Nether sphere and Heaven.

When you take Danny and Courtney out of this story then I quite enjoyed this story. I thought that the monster threat was quite good and there was some good dialogue from whoever wrote the story. This time next week I will have finished this marathon and the ending is getting closer and closer which means I need to start think about what I am going to do with my evenings and days off.

(805) Time Heist

After being really let down with Listen, I was hoping that todays episode would be a return to form. My memories of this story is that it would be and it definelty proved to be. It felt more like a Doctor Who story than Listen. One thing that doesn’t quite come out of this story is why it took two people to write this story. Stephen Thompson who had previously written the weak The Curse of the Black Spot and the highly enjoyable Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. He co-wrote this story with Steven Moffat and to be honest its not clear why it took two people or who wrote what. The pre-title scene is where things start to pick up for me. Things look rather normal at first for the Doctor and Clara but by the end of the scene they find themselves with memory worms and two other people.

The set up for the episode is that the Doctor and Clara (along with Psi and Saibra) have to break into a bank. The thing that they are breaking into to get is the thing that they all want. Psi wanted to get his memories back. Saibra came for gene suppressant so she stops morphing into other people. That aspect did seem like it was borrowed from X-Men but it doesn’t bother me too much.

They are left aids by the Architect and it’s someone that the Doctor hates and the revelation that he is the Architect which turns out to be him. There’s nothing like a bit of self-loathing to sooth the soul is there? The teller is a good idea and it works because its an idea that forces people to actually empty their minds. The teller is being mistreated and its not until the end that it finds it’s partner and they are left to roam free. There is something quite obvious about the fact that the Architect but I didn’t mind it.

Keeley Hawes is the big name of the episode as plays Ms Delphox. She runs the bank and she looks very similar in style to Sarah Lancashire in Partners in Crime. Ms Delphox turns out to be a clone of Madame Karabraxos that is there to help with the administrative running of the bank. The bit where an old and dying Madame Karabraxos ringing the Doctor is a bit of an unnecessary part of the story. That was the only thing that really didn’t do the story any benefits. One of the reasons why this story works so well is that the direction is really good. Douglas Mackinnon has done a great job in making it feel at times like an Oceans Eleven movie. The way we learn what happens between being a Clara’s home and finding themselves on with Psi and Saibra seems a bit like the show Hustle.

There was one line that the Doctor said which back in 2014 went unnoticed and was like a beacon today. I went for minimalism but came out with magician is a line which at the time didn’t seem to have much relevance but bearing in mind that the first episode of series 35 is called The Magicians Apprentice, it seems that this line has more relevance now.

This was a much better episode than Listen but that’s not much of a compliment. What is a compliment is that it’s a story that is well written and well directed and also the performances are fun to watch and this episode shows that Listen was just a blip. With there just twelve episodes in the series it means that we are near the half way point of the series and so far it has been a good opening series for Capaldi.

(804) Listen

Listen is a story that I felt in 2014 was the weakest of the series. This could be another example of poor episodes changing and watching it in this marathon would make me appreciate it and think that I was wrong when the episode first aired but I am sad to say that this didn’t happen for todays episode and its one of those rare instances where a story has actually gone down in my previous estimation.

Apparently other people seem to rate it quite highly. They talk about how clever it is and this is the scariest Steven Moffat script and the best episode in years. To be honest, that is all hogwash as I would go so far to say that it’s one of the worst stories of the new series.

I was prepared to give it a try but after about eight minutes I found myself giving up. From this moment on I was just waiting for the end of the episode to come because then it would be over. The pre-title scene is just the Doctor and it’s a very talkie scene which is unusual for most new series stories. That is the most entertaining part of the episode. I think this is the episode where my dislike for Danny Pink starts. Clara and Danny go on a date and it goes wrong quite quickly and to be honest this is all quite boring.

The Doctor and Clara end up in a children’s home in the 1990’s where Clara meets a young Danny and then goes into the future and meets a distance relative of Danny. The young Danny was quite entertaining but sadly that portion of the story didn’t last too long and then we were back to all the less interesting stuff. There are moments which are clearly designed to be the big scary moments but I am so disconnected from this story that they just looked like mildly entertaining scraps of drama.

I honestly thought that things would change watching this episode but nothing has. It might be too clever for me but I found the story to be a bit boring and there is very little chance of me deciding to watch this again outside of a marathon like this one. It’s not a bad story because of Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi but it’s the story in general that didn’t connect with me and I can accept that I am not smart enough to appreciate it but that’s just the way it is.

(803) Robot of Sherwood

I have just realised that this season has followed previous seasons by the first three episodes featuring a modern day story, a futuristic story and a historical story. The Doctor decides to let Clara decide where they go next and that is never a good idea really because its never really interesting. Clara wants to meet Robin Hood despite the Doctor pointing out he doesn’t exist. This is addressed during the course of the episode where he is real but ends up as fiction. This is a nice twist and Mark Gatiss manages to weave enough interesting things into the story to make it watchable. There is a good bit where a bow hits the TARDIS with the Doctor standing right next to it.

It’s quite funny how the Doctor seems to be jealous of Robin Hood. This shows a different side to Capaldi’s Doctor and a more comedic side which wasn’t going to show itself in the previous story. This being a Mark Gatiss story, there are going to be some moments that you wouldn’t get with any other writer and most notably comes when The Doctor is having a sword/spoon fight with Robin Hood.

Ben Miller is the big name star and plays the Sheriff of Nottingham. To be honest I think that Miller is wasted in this role because it doesn’t come across as a convincing villain. It’s like he is trying to channel Alan Rickman’s version of the Sheriff in Prince of Thieves.

The story takes quite a long time to get interesting. It takes about a quarter of an hour before the episode settles down and that’s a strange thing for a Mark Gatiss script because his stories normally get going from the very beginning. It doesn’t get interesting until the Sheriff’s army are revealed to be robots and when their helmets are pulled back their faces are quite good.

There was supposed to be a beheading scene where Robin beheads the Sheriff revealing that he is a robot but due to real life events where people had been beheaded by ISIS meant that the BBC decided to cut this scene which I sort of agree with because it shows good judgement from the BBC and that was one less thing for the Daily Mail to have a go at the BBC. The death of the Sheriff happens when he falls into the vat of gold and all is left is a shot of his gold coloured hand.

There is a picture of Patrick Troughton when he played Robin Hood back in 1953. It was a nice blink and you’ll miss moment.

I cant quite put my finger on the reason why this story didn’t work but it is definelty the weakest story so far. What makes the situation slightly worrying is that Listen is coming up next and that is a story that I haven’t rated too highly on previous watches. Maybe things might change but I doubt it. The end is starting to get closer and closer and part of me feels like the remaining 10 episodes/days will feel like 10 months.  

(802) Into the Dalek

It could be argued that classic monsters are bought into help a new Doctor in their first season. It’s happened with each Doctor so far and so its happened with Capaldi’s Doctor. However instead of a normal Dalek story we get one that is quite inventive. Phil Ford returns to writing for Who after co-writing The Waters of Mars. This time is he co-writing with Steven Moffat and I wonder when he will be allowed to write a story on his own. The Doctor’s story gets started from the very beginning before the title plays and at that point he doesn’t have Clara with him so it’s a nice to see him going solo even if its just for a short while. The scene ends with the Doctor being asked to inside a Dalek and the Dalek saying Doctor which immediately raised a question as to how the Dalek new that the Doctor was standing in front of him. Then the title plays and the action moves back to Coal Hill School. That is an interesting shift in tone and one that works quite well but after a while I wanted the story to go back to the Dalek.

One of the things that doesn’t quite work in this series is the character of Danny Pink (played by Samuel Anderson). Sadly the character is annoying but that is more down to the writing that Anderson himself. Thankfully he starts off less annoying and seems rather amusing.

The Doctor asks Clara if he is a good man and she doesn’t know how to reply. I think that this one of the many good moments that take place in this episode. She doesn’t answer until the end when Clara says that he tries and that is enough which is probably a diplomatic way of saying that he could do better. The Doctor then says that Clara is his carer and she cares so that he doesn’t have to. This is another clear sign that this Doctor is less smiley than before. There is a bit where everyone thinks that the Doctor is saving one of the soldiers when in fact he was just trying to find where he gets dumped. This isn’t the sort of thing that other Doctors would have done or at least would have been a bit warmer about it.

The Doctor and Clara get miniaturised and its very similar to the film Innerspace which is gets referenced to during this episode. For me this is when the episode really starts to get enjoyable because we get to see inside a Dalek. The Dalek is suffering from a radiation leak and that is what the Doctor has to try and fix it and it happens but the clever thing is what happens next because the Dalek goes on a killer rampage and tells the other Daleks where it is and the Doctor is stuck inside the Dalek and cant do anything.

There is another appearance from Missy although Michelle Gomez isn’t credited at the end. She appears when Gretchen is killed by the Antibodies inside the Dalek. It’s a little scene that doesn’t have much impact on the overall story arc but works well for this episode.

As a Dalek story it was very inventive and there were some visually impressive moments and Ben Wheatley continues to show what a great director he is. Two episodes in and the series has settled down a bit with both Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman getting use to the new relationship and the next episode is one that I have had mixed feelings since I saw it last year.

(801) Deep Breath

So now I embark on the final stage of my marathon. Two weeks tonight I will be wondering what to do with my Saturday nights. At least I will be safe in the knowledge that I only have about six or seven weeks to wait until the new series. By the time this episode had aired, Peter Capaldi had been Doctor for 241 days which is longer than Christopher Eccleston had been which is a weird stat for me. This was another Doctor Who episode that was aired at the cinema however unlike the 50^th Anniversary special, I decided not to spend the money on the trip to the cinema. At the end of the episode I was sort of glad that I hadn’t paid £12 or whatever it was for the ticket.

The subject of age is something that was raised when Peter Capaldi was named as the Doctor. Capaldi is the same age (roughly) as William Hartnell when he became the Doctor and some people said they would stop watching Doctor Who because the Doctor was old. Well all I can say to that is good. If you’re the sort of person who stops watching a show because someone is too old then you can quite frankly p**s off and go and watch Eastenders or something equally brain numbing. Capaldi is young enough to be the Doctor and shows it in this episode.

The first shot of the episode was rather tame compared to previous first shots of new Doctor stories. The first shot is of a T-Rex in London. It might seem like the T-Rex would in the story for a while but lasts about twenty minutes after it from a distant burns into flames.

Capaldi’s first proper scene is rather good cause it gets all the mad bonkers stuff out of the way quite quickly. It was quite funny cause he gets Clara and Strax confused and calls Clara the ‘not me one’. I immediately liked Capaldi’s Doctor as it wasn’t the crazy sort that we have become use to since 2005. There was a moment where the Doctor seemed to abandon Clara and I thought that this isn’t something that Smith’s Doctor would have done. His best scene comes with his final scene with the Half-Face Man and there is a nice question as to whether the Half Face Man jumped two his death or did the Doctor push him. It nice that we don’t get a definitive answer about this. Jenna Coleman gives another solid performance although it is still frustrating that we have another companion who witnesses a regeneration and still doesn’t believe that the new Doctor is their Doctor. It was what Rose did in The Christmas Invasion. Matt Smith makes a surprising cameo in this episode and it was a clever move of Moffat to keep us guessing about that. It was a nice moment because it meant we got one final solid speech from Smith and it was basically the Doctor telling Clara to help the new Doctor. This is the closest that Steven Moffat has got to being RTD in the slushy scenes department.

There is a new theme tune and a new title sequence and they are two things that I wasn’t 100% keen on at first but it has grown on me. There is a minor tweak to the console room with roundels being put on the walls (sort of). There is a nice joke about having round things before but not knowing where they went.

I find it amusing how the Doctor assumes that everyone who doesn’t talk Scottish isn’t talking normal. He seems to definelty be a Scottish Doctor and there is a nice bit where he seems to make reference to the Scottish Referendum which was still about a month away when this was transmitted in August 2014.

This still being a Doctor Who episode, it had to actually have a plot and the one that Steven Moffat went with didn’t have an in your face narrative but a slow and inventive one. They are after human parts

The visual effects used to create the clockwork heads is very good and almost looks real. The Clockwork  men are a reused creation from a previous Steven Moffat story (The Girl in the Fireplace) which I thought was a nice nod and an unexpected one.

There is a nice cameo from the widow of Elisabeth Sladen. He plays a tramp and I thought it was a lovely moment and one that Elisabeth Sladen would have liked very much. There is a bit where Vastra and Jenny kiss and there were complaints saying that the BBC had a blatant gay agenda which made me chuckle. One is a human and the other is a lizard so the blatant gay agenda is a bit stupid really.

The bit where the Impossible Girl ad is placed in the newspaper is the start of the Missy storyarc. Its good that Clara thinks that it’s the Doctor but its not. There is talk from one of the clockwork people about the promised land which is a term I think that is used a few times in the series. The final scene of the episode sees the appearance of Missy played by Michelle Gomez and as Missy she refers to her boyfriend implying the Doctor. Missy is a very good and I knew when I watched it (weird that it was last year) and knew she would be a good addition to the cast.

Ben Wheatley directs his first Doctor Who and does a very good job. He manages to make the whole story move along at the sort of pace it needs to at different times. Wheatley is a movie director that somehow has been lured to Doctor Who and his abilities as a good director have allowed this story to have a different feel and I enjoyed the directing immensely.

Despite being glad that I didn’t pay £12, I did enjoy this episode very much. The longer running time was something that allowed things to settle down and for Capaldi to show us just how good of a Doctor he could be. He isn’t going to be the happy cheery running around Doctor like Matt Smith or David Tennant but his Doctor is very similar to Colin Baker and I think that it’s the Timothy Dalton/Daniel Craig thing because Dalton’s Bond is very serious and the films are tough which is what Craig’s Bond and films are like but Dalton wasn’t appreciated at the time and I think that Colin Baker’s Doctor wasn’t appreciated at the time and Capaldi should be able to show that you can have a slightly grumpy Doctor but the trick will be towing the fine line between grumpy and downright bleak. It’s never wise to judge the state of things after one episode but this era of the show is already showing signs of promise.

(800) The Time of the Doctor

So today is the final story for Matt Smith as the Doctor (although not his final appearance). Another thing that is worth noticing is that this is the 800^th episode of Doctor Who. The 700^th episode was Aliens of London and its amazing to think how much the show has changed since then. This story is the final part of the Doctor trilogy and it was always going to be difficult to match what was seen in Day of the Doctor and what I think Steven Moffat has done is to not try but to forget about that story so that this story gets the chance to say goodbye to Matt Smith. Matt Smith up until this day had been Doctor for 1,454 days which is 14 days short of David Tennant and is now the fourth longest serving Doctor in terms of days served and seventh in terms of episodes.

The Doctor starts the episode with a Cyberman head called Handles and it has a different voice to a normal Cyberman. When handles dies later on in the episode its quite a sad moment. I cant quite believe that I find it sad that a head has died. There is a moment where Matt Smith reveals that his hair is in fact a wig and this was because he had to have a buzz cut (shrugs shoulders) for a film he was doing and I didn’t realise this at the time but he isn’t the only one wearing a wig because Karen Gillan wears a wig because she had to shave her head because of being in Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Silence make a returns as do the Weeping Angels and of course there is a final appearance of the crack in the wall. It’s like Matt Smith’s greatest hits which is probably what Smith deserves. The Silence aren’t the Silence that we have seen because now they appear to be religious members of the silence which I don’t understand personally but what the hell. The Weeping Angels get to have their moment to shine and it was short but sweet. There is a wooden Cyberman that appears. I like the look of it but sadly because its impractical it doesn’t last very long in the story but from a visual point of view, it was a success.

The Doctor arrives in a town called Christmas on Trenzalore. The Doctor remains on Trenzalore to defend it from the aliens that are orbiting it. He cant leave without sacrificing Gallifrey and he cant leave because they will destroy the planet and the Timelords chance to come back. The Doctor becomes really old and this is where the Doctor defeats the Daleks but it is also where he is forced to regenerate.

This story deals with the small issue of regenerations because due to the War Doctor and the Doctor using a regeneration back in Journeys end, this is the final Doctor. However Steven Moffat being the smart cookie that he is uses the crack in the wall as a way of basically breaking the rules that have been around since The Deadly Assassin. Even though it was a throwaway line by Robert Holmes, it has become an unbreakable rule until now and I love that it must have annoyed a lot of people. The Timelords using the crack to reset his regenerations and I like that one story after they returned they are interfering.

The final scene is really nice and isn’t overly sentimental like Tennant’s was. Smith’s final speech to Clara about change coming is a good one and it’s the latest in a long line of good speeches from Smith because Smith has a way that makes you forget everything that is going on around him and just focus on him. Its one of the things that I will miss about Matt Smith. Jenna Coleman is quite good in this episode but for large portions of this story she seems to be on her own or at least without the Doctor. On a separate note, Sheila Reid returns to Doctor Who after previously appearing in Vengeance on Varos back in 1985.

It was a surprise that Amy Pond came back for a cameo. For some reason Karen Gillan sounds different and when she says raggedy man she doesn’t sound Scottish. It could be argued that because its in his head, she wouldn’t sound the same but I just think it would have been nice if she had sounded more Scottish which isn’t a line I think has been written in a blog review before.

Some people were quite surprised that the actual regeneration was so short. There is no rule that it has to be long but it was still good that they went with something different because people would probably have complained that the regeneration effect was repetitive. Peter Capaldi’s brief moment in the episode is perhaps a little less bonkers than Matt Smith’s first few moments back in 2010. I think that there was a clearer indication of what Capaldi’s Doctor would be like which wasn’t the case when Matt Smith first appeared.

I don’t think that this story was one that was heavy on a plot and just seemed to try and tie up all the loose ends that Steven Moffat had started during the Matt Smith era. I think that Smith’s era has been a good one and whilst there have been a few bumps along the way (Curse of the Black Spot for example), this era of the show has been a consistently good one and one that is partly down to Matt Smith and partly (perhaps more) down to Steven Moffat. As I embark on the final part of this marathon, I do so knowing that there are some good stories coming up and also a good Doctor coming up.

(799) The Day of the Doctor

The Day of the Doctor had a lot to live up to. When the show has celebrated a milestone it has had mixed results. The 10^th Anniversary ‘special’ The Three Doctors was an enjoyable and well performed story. The 20^th Anniversary was perhaps less successful although it did have its moments. Since then we have lost the chance to celebrate the 30^th and 40^th Anniversaries so this is quite a big moment. I was amazed when it was announced that it would screened at the cinema and I was over the moon when I was able to get a title at my local cinema. It was a great experience because there wasn’t an empty seat and the number of people that had dressed up was quite high and it was a great place to watch the 50^th Anniversary special. There was a nice little video that featured Strax and warned on cinema etiquette. Anyone a fan of Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode’s Film Review will be aware of the Code of Conduct and such videos aren’t necessary. But it was fun to see and also

Like the 20^th Anniversary Special, there was something that got in the way and on this occasion it was the fact that Christopher Eccleston didn’t want to appear in the special and so a War Doctor had to be found and John Hurt was the one chosen. John Hurt was the Doctor during the Time War and is the one that pressed the button on ‘The Moment’ that ended the Time War and wiped out the Timelords. Hurt is great as the Doctor and treats the role with a nice sense of sarcasm. He has a nice time of making certain mannerisms of the Tennant and Smiths Doctors and the Sandshoes and Chin nicknames were spot on. His story was only going to be for this story and the fact he regenerates at the end is just Moffat’s attempt to tidy up the continuity line problem that Eccleston caused. I might make a controversial statement but I just don’t consider Hurt’s Doctor as canon. Due to Hurt’s Doctor, it means that Eccleston is the tenth Doctor, Tennant was the eleventh Doctor and Smith would be the thirteenth but as I don’t count Hurt as a canon Doctor it means that Eccleston, Tennant and Smith are Doctors 8, 9 and 10 respectively.

When his Doctor meets Smith and Tennant’s Doctors it’s a funny moment because they are able to do comedy and seriousness in equal measure and they disappoint. Tennant’s first appearance in the role since 2010 is curious because it was like only a few months had passed and not three years. He looks slightly older but when Tennant is talking and running around its like its 2010 and not 2013. Billie Piper makes her first appearance since The End of Time Part Two and its not Rose that she is playing but an imaginary version. Whilst I have grown weary of her during this marathon, I thought that she did well with what she is given and bearing in mind that she only interacts with John Hurt’s Doctor she manages to make it look like she is actually doing something.

Matt Smith is also good and shares the limelight well and yet doesn’t lose face during the course of the story. He must have had a lot of pressure in not dropping the ball and he manages not to. Jenna Coleman also manages to not get lost in the shuffle which isn’t an easy things to do. The fact that there aren’t 20 companions to have to work with is something that helps Coleman standout.

The start of the episode is impressive because it’s a nice bit of the original theme and it then blends into colour and we learn that Ian Chesterton is the chairman of the governors of Coal Hill School and Clara is now a teacher there. The headteacher is W Coburn which is a reference to Waris Hussein who directed the very first story and Anthony Coburn who wrote that story. There are plenty of nods to the continuity of the show and I think that they were done in such a way that newer fans wouldn’t be confused by it and long time fans like myself would get them.

There are many great moments that occur during this story. The first good bit comes when Clara drives a bike into the TARDIS and the camera follows it in one single edit. The TARDIS bursting through the wall and knocking out a whole load of Daleks is another great moment.

Zygons make their first appearance since 1975’s Terror of the Zygons. I don’t quite know why they haven’t made a return until now but the wait has been worth it. They lost their planet in the first days of the Time War and want Earth as their new home. The transformation of human to Zygon is so much better than in 1975.

The first meeting between Tennant and Smith is very good and its always interesting to see multiple Doctors. They interact with each other very well and the nice bit of jealousy is something that is used at the right times and in the right way. The long running gag about not liking the new TARDIS console is something that was obviously going to be used and if there were a game of bingo then this would be crossed off the list.

The idea that all three Doctors have come up with an idea to hide Gallifrey and destroy the Daleks in the process is such an epic idea and one that could have only worked in a big bonkers special like this. When this start it leads to all twelve incarnations and their TARDIS’s come to save the day. Well actually thirteen because Peter Capaldi makes a very special cameo with just his eyes. That was totally unexpected and a nice treat for the fans. That wasn’t the only treat for the fans because the shock appearance of Tom Baker was one that everyone in the cinema gasped at. It probably p****d off the other Doctors but to be honest I don’t care cause it’s a great scene and it sort of makes up for the fact that Baker didn’t appear in The Five Doctors.

The final shot is of the Doctor walking out of the TARDIS and all the incarnations standing in a nice arrow line with Hartnell’s Doctor standing at the back was the perfect way of ending the special and it sets up a nice story arc about the Doctor finding Gallifrey. There was an awful lot of expectation riding on this story and I had very high expectations and part of me was expecting this to disappoint but I cant tell you how much I enjoyed this story. It was the story I wanted it to be and was well worth the jacked up price that the Cinema charged. This is the eighth story to get rated in the 8’s and becomes the second best story with 8.25. This is only the fourth story of the new era to get in the 8’s and overtakes Blink as the best story. I think that Steven Moffat should be applauded for doing this story and Marcus Wilson (producer) says that this story was a love letter to the fans and that’s the truth because it had loads of elements from the shows past and unlike The Five Doctors, it does it in a way that works and juggles a lot of balls and doesn’t drop a ball. On a related note, two weeks today is when the marathon comes to an end and this will probably be the last true classic story of the run but a lot can happen in two weeks.

(798) The Name of the Doctor

We are now down to the final three episodes of the Matt Smith era and it’s the beginning of the Doctor trilogy which incorporates the 50^th Anniversary Special and the Christmas Special. This is the 42^nd episode for Matt Smith and is now tied with Sylvester McCoy in terms of episodes. The problem when episode names are revealed is that fans (myself including) of jumping to conclusions. When it was revealed that this episode would be called The Name of the Doctor, people would assume that we learn what the Doctor’s name is. Of course things would never be that simple.

The episode starts off fantastically because it starts off with the First Doctor stealing the TARDIS (with Susan). Then we see the remaining Doctors and there is some clever editing used to put Jenna Coleman in with already recorded footage of the previous Doctors. It’s a sign of how good technology has become that this can be achieved and achieved well.

I don’t quite know why, but its good to see River Song again. It’s her first appearance since The Wedding of River Song and it felt like enough time had passed since that story. This is at the time of writing her last appearance in the show and the final scene for her was quite nice and it was good that her last word was her catchphrase.

Trenzalore is a word that has been mentioned occasionally throughout the last year and it becomes quite important to the story which I liked. Trenzalore is a place that a time traveller should never find themselves in. This is where the Doctor is buried. I like the build up to us seeing inside the tomb which is the console room and a bright white light where the console was. I love that look of the TARDIS because it shows the console room in the worst way imaginable.

The mystery about Clara is also revealed. The Clara seen in Asylum of the Daleks and The Snowmen are splintered versions of Clara. It’s a nice idea from Steven Moffat and it’s the ultimate sacrifice from Clara for the Doctor. It has been another good episode for Jenna Coleman who gets a lot to do and does it rather well.

The Whisper Men are a good creation and very effective in the story. It’s good to have Richard E Grant back because he is clearly loving playing the Great Intelligence. The Great Intelligence wants to go into the Doctor’s timeline and change every aspect of the Doctor’s timeline which is quite a bold idea. I think that they could be a monster in their own way without needing the Great Intelligence being in the story.

The final scene is fantastic and sees John Hurt introduced as The Doctor. This is a great moment because the Doctor finds Clara and it’s at this point we see the back of John Hurt and the Doctor reveals that this person is the Doctor who ‘broke the promise’ and is the Doctor’s secret. When he turns around and the caption appears INTRODUCING JOHN HURT AS THE DOCTOR. This was at a time when Peter Capaldi hadn’t been announced as the Doctor yet but Matt Smith’s departure had been announced so there was a possibility that John Hurt could be the Doctor.

This was a great ending to a series that has been very good. Even when we include the Amy/Rory part to the series, I have to say that the quality of stories has been better and the whole tone of the series has been better because it’s wallowing in darkness. This story does two things and does them quite well. The first thing is that is ends the series in the best way possible and also it leads up to the 50^th Anniversary. I am looking forward to tomorrows episode and the end seems to be getting closer.

(797) Nightmare in Silver

If you want to make the Cybermen scary then there is only one person that could make this happen in Neil Gaiman. After his wonderful story The Doctor’s Wife, it was fingers crossed than inevitability that he would write for the show again. It doesn’t take long for Gaiman’s magic to work and for him to achieve his objective. The way that the Cybermen are introduced into the story is quite good because its literally unveiled and that forms the end of the pre-title scene. The Cybermen were awesome in this because they look and sound slightly different to what they did in their last story. The fact that they can walk faster than two miles an hour means that they have a new threat because it wasn’t too difficult to outrun a Cyberman. They way they look and move is very good because it seems more mechanical than before even though in previous stories their walk was ok. Gaiman has introduced Cybermites which is a nice introduction. They are small and very difficult to spot unless the camera focused in on them.

The Doctor gets attacked by the Cybermites and there is a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on with both versions of the Doctor seemingly having control over the body. This meant that we got to see another great performance from Matt Smith and he plays both versions rather well and there was a seamless transition between the two which isn’t an easy thing to do. Jenna Coleman has a good time in this episode and gets to act like a boss whilst the Doctor is dealing with the Cybermen. There is a lovely bit inside the Doctors head where the Cyber version of the Doctor talks to the normal Doctor and the whole visual effects used was another highlight.

I must admit that I didn’t find the kids as annoying as I thought I would. The girl was slightly annoying at first but as the episode played out things changed and by the end of the episode I almost (almost) wanted the kids to stay. I don’t know whether that’s because of Gaiman or the child actors but something happened and they were quite good. Now had this been an RTD story then they would have been hair pulling annoying and there would be sentimental slosh running through the story.

The barracks is the same set that was used in The Doctor’s Daughter. It’s not the most interesting thing that’s ever been written but I spotted it and thought it should be included. The whole setting for the story was quite good and it seemed like some of the names were Gaiman having fun which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This was a very enjoyable story and I was impressed with how the episode looked and this is definelty the best Cyberman story that there has been since 2005. After being slightly disappointed with several Cybermen stories in recent years, its nice that we have such a good story and hopefully Gaiman gets to write another Cyberman story in the future.

(796) The Crimson Horror

Yorkshire 1893. Not somewhere that the show has visited often and the pre-title scene ends with an image of the Doctor appearing in someone’s eye. If I am being honest, I thought that this story didn’t quite fit into the range of stories that there have been in this half of the series. This is probably the weakest story of this half of the series and the weakest since A Town Called Mercy in terms of ratings.

This story sees the return of Jenn, Madame Vasta and Strax which in the past is something that wouldn’t have been a good thing just two years ago but since I have been watching these episodes a day at a time, I have grown to like this group. They start the episode and its 14 minutes before the Doctor makes an appearance and a further 3 minutes before Clara appears. The Doctor’s first appearance is rather strange because he is covered in some weird red make up.  Clara first appears via a flashback and a gobby Australian is mentioned and I thought that was a nice nod to Tegan if somewhat unexpected.

Dame Diana Rigg guest stars in this episode and her daughter is also in the episode and actually plays her daughter in the episode as Ada. Rachael Sterling plays Ada as a poor downtrodden young woman and Diana Rigg plays the character of Mrs Gillyflower as a rather unpleasant and at times vile old woman. Gillyflower’s secret has a bloodsucking leech attached to her. The actual leech thing is a bit silly looking and its one of those things that are better left to the imagination.

It’s a story that was ok but I don’t think that it is the best Mark Gatiss script. There are some good moments and I thought that the performances from Diana Rigg and Matt Smith were fun to watch but there was something that didn’t quite work for me. Another that I did like was the directing because it looked very grim and dark and helped added to the style of the episode.

I found the most interesting part when Clara returns home and sees a picture of her from 1974 (Hide) and 1983 (Cold War). It’s good that people who travel with the Doctor and there being physical evidence of their travels. What slightly ruins it is that those annoying kids are blackmailing her into travelling with the Doctor which leads into the penultimate episode of the series. The NEXT TIME trailer is one to get excited about because it features running Cybermen and what I think is the best Cyberman story of the new series.

(795) Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

This is a story which tries to make up for the disappointing Invasion of Time which was the last story that took place in the TARDIS. That story suffered partly from the fact that it was hastily put together and so looks nothing like the control room and as a result it looks like it was filmed in an abandoned hospital (which of course it was). The pre-title scene is quite good because it continues to play the TARDIS as a living thing and for some reason she doesn’t like Clara so in an attempt to get them to bond, the Doctor lets Clara fly on basic mode. The Doctor fiddles with the TARDIS which is never a good thing.

The supporting characters are a salvage crew who just happen to scoop it up and are totally unlikeable although the Doctor does his best to bring them down a peg or two. Sadly Gregor Van Baalen (Ashley Walters) needs to be taken down several more pegs. Tricky (Jahvel Hall) is supposed to be a robot but later on in the episode its revealed that he is human and Gregor told him he was a robot to provide entertainment which I thought that was a bit of an odd thing to introduce especially when events are then forgotten about because of timey-wimey stuff.

The Doctor initiates the self destruction option on the TARDIS and that gives the drama a new sense of tension because the story has to feel like its moving at a quick speed. Of course this is a trick that the Doctor uses to get the Brothers Dim to help him find Clara but it was amusing when after he stops the countdown things continue to get worse when he discovers that its about to blow up.

The beauty of this story is that we see inside the TARDIS in ways that haven’t seen for a very long time. We saw corridors and the old console room in The Doctors Wife but we haven’t seen much more than that and the thing about this story is that all the rooms and corridors look like they are part of the same place (something Invasion of Time didn’t achieve).We get to see that there is a book about the Time War in a lovely looking library. Clara discovers the Doctors name which is something that becomes significant later on. I think when this story aired we knew the final episode of the season would be called The Name of the Doctor so this was the build up to that episode. We also get to see the eye of Harmony and it looks very different to how it did in the 1996 TV Movie. Another room looks like its outside and this isn’t anything new because in several Big Finish plays there are stories which features rooms that seem like small counties. This is a room to stop the Doctor and Clara getting into the next room this doesn’t work and after a bit of jumping they get into the next room. This feels like a computer game with the character having to achieve something to advance. There is a great bit where they enter the heart of the TARDIS and it’s a great room with good effects used to create an explosion stopped in time.

The weird looking creatures are called Time Zombies and one is actually Clara. They weren’t the main focus of the story but they were used enough to make them seem entertaining. There is a lovely bit where we hear sound clips from other stories such as An Unearthly Child, Colony in Space, Robots of Death, Rose, Smith and Jones, The Beast Below and The Doctors Wife.

This was a highly enjoyable episode that gave me the type of story that I wish they did more of and that is a story set entirely inside the TARDIS. At this moment, this story is the 31^st best story of Doctor Who but the first is a story that has been there for all but one story of this story and that is Inside the Spaceship which is a story that takes place inside the TARDIS. The NEXT TIME trailer shows that there is a story which may slightly ruin the good form that this half of the series that has created.

(794) Hide

Hide is the shortest worded Doctor Who story ever. This is another of those stories that I have never really felt to warmly about in the past but having re-evaluated The Rings of Akhaten, it was perfectly plausible that my opinion would change for this story and to be honest I can say that things have changed in certain ways and largely its due to the performances which are all quite good.

This is the second story in a row that has a helpless feel to it and by that I mean that there is no way that help can save the day and its down to the Doctor to save the day but unlike Cold War, he does use the TARDIS quite a lot.

Dougary Scott guest stars in the episode as Alec Palmer. Perhaps his most famous role was in Mission Impossible 2. I think that his performance was the best of everyone and the strongest out of the supporting characters. Palmer is someone who has issues but Scott plays him as someone who feels that he can accomplish something in this massive house. Jessica Raine also appears in this episode, later in the year she would played Verity Lambert in the superb An Adventure in Space and Time. She does that wounded soul who can talk to others rather well but it’s a rather underwhelming character that only really shines when she has scenes with Scott. There is a nice bit where Emma Grayling is wearing something from Metablis III (although Smith does pronounce it wrong). I don’t think that it really adds anything to the story but it’s a nice bit of fun for the longtime fans.

When the Doctor goes into the pocket world then that is a great moment for Matt Smith who has been on fine form in this series. When he admits that he is frightened I found myself really impressed with his performance

I like how we don’t see much of the monster in the pocket world. When we get to see a good portion of it there still isn’t much seen which is sort of the best way. It’s not always necessary to see the monster but the thing that I liked most of all about the monster was that it turned out it was one of the good ones.

This was a good episode although on reflection I think that I enjoyed The Rings of Akhaten more. Just a little bit more but it was still an enjoyable episode that was quite cheap but still felt like a Doctor Who episode. There aren’t many more episode left in the Matt Smith era and its weird that just as he’s about to leave he really gets in his stride. The NEXT TIME trailer shows that things are going to get interesting cause its going to show the TARDIS in ways it hasn’t been seen since The Invasion of Time.

(793) Cold War

Todays episode is one that I have been waiting for for quite some time. Amazingly its been 417 episodes since the Ice Warriors last appeared. They last graced the TV screen was on 39 years before todays episode aired or 14,231 days. Steven Moffat was reluctant to bring the Ice Warriors back because he thought that it would give people ammunition when they argue about the rubbish monsters. If anyone could reinvent the Ice Warriors then it would be Mark Gatiss. I’ll save any tension by saying that this is the best story that Mark Gatiss has written.

The Ice Warrior makes his first appearance (of sorts) in the pre-title scene and it happens to a little oink who quite frankly deserved to be throttled by the Ice Warrior. When the titles have finished you start seeing a little bit more of it and I quite liked that because normally we wouldn’t see much of anything. Skaldak is the lone Ice Warrior and the advantage of the Ice Warriors not being around for quite a long time is that it means that Mark Gatiss can do what he likes really and this leads to a great scene where Clara is standing in front of the Skaldak and its revealed that he has left its suit. The way that is moves around the submarine in the darkness picking people off one by one is a great dramatic moment.

There is a nice base under siege feel to the story because it is set on a submarine. Also the fact that the TARDIS disappears means that the Doctor cant do anything quick and clever but has to deal with things there and then. This is quite a refreshing thing as the show tends to have the Doctor jump into the TARDIS to make a quick location jump so here there wasn’t any of that here. In fact after the TARDIS leaves then we don’t see it again. For some reason its relocated to the North Pole.

Casting David Warner in this story was fantastic because he has appeared in numerous Big Finish stories over the years and it felt like he got the thing that he was deserving and that was a part in a TV Doctor Who. Every time he talks it is very entertaining. I was glad that they didn’t go for an overly emotional moment by killing his character off and as a result he was able to be marvellous from start to finish.

A key moment comes when we see what is under the Ice Warrior helmet and it’s a great visual effect. I know that some weren’t so keen on it but I actually thought that it looked quite good and one of the many good things about this story. The Ice Warriors (or just Warrior in this case) was well used and I think that the story could only have worked with just one because it means that we get to see a desperate Ice Warrior.

The performances from Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman were very good but I don’t think that Coleman was a strong as she has been in previous episodes. The relationship between the two is really strong and I am almost forgetting how strong Smith and Gillan were even with Darvill thrown into the mix. This is the third good story in a row and this second half of the season is shaping up to be stronger than the first which I was sort of expecting but still sort of surprised by it. It’s weird to think now that there are just seven episodes left in the Matt Smith era.  

(792) The Rings of Akhaten

The Rings of Akhaten is a story that I have never rated very highly. I felt that it was slightly boring but I was hoping that this story would improve but bearing in mind that there have been several stories recently that I had hoped would improve upon watching it today. The pre-title scene is basically Clara Oswald, the conception years. The Rings of Akhaten is written by Neil Cross who was asked to write this story because of the success of a future story. This is a story that was largely filmed in a studio and the story was good enough to maintain my interest

One of the things that I liked about this story is the singing. This is some of Murray Gold’s finest work since Journeys End back in 2008. Another good thing about the story is that the idea people pay with stuff that means something to them. There was aspects of this plot that I thought were better thought out that I had given it credit for.

Akhaten is a parasite that required memories, stories and items of sentimental value. The plot is centred around the Queen of Years who is about to be sacrificed to Akhaten. I thought that Emilia Jones did a good job as Queen Merry. I thought that this story saw another great performance from Matt Smith. His best scene came when he was talking to Akhaten. I think that this scene should show any open minded fan who wasn’t convinced about Smith why he is a good actor to play the Doctor. It was a great little speech which was helped by Queen Merry singing that lovely little song. This was also the best performance from Jenna Coleman so far. She pushed herself into the story and tried to do the right thing without any sense of her thinking she knows better. This is what Rose would have done and possibly Martha but the Moffat companions are able to be better than that.

There has always been an argument that the Sonic Screwdriver became a convenient tool and I notice it got used a lot more in this episode than usual. I can’t make my mind up whether it’s a problem in this episode but it is definelty more noticeable than in the past.

The NEXT TIME trailer shows (sort of) the return of a classic monster in one of my favourite stories of the series from what I can remember. Speaking of what I can remember, this story has definelty improved from what I can remember in 2013. I don’t think that it’s the best story of series but neither is it the worst. There are some stories during this marathon have improved watching it in this manner but this hasn’t really happened since the Patrick Troughton era so its nice that this has happened with this story.

(791) The Bells of Saint John

There are just 23 days left in my marathon and so I will still be finishing on Thursday August 6^th and its weird now to start thinking about what I will do with my evenings when this is finished. In this stage of Doctor Who, I have now reached the 50^th Anniversary year and the mid-way point of the 33^rd series of Doctor Who. The opening story of this half of the series is one that deals with a very modern technology and that is social media and technology. The story deals with Wi-Fi and that’s a good threat. Wi-Fi is everywhere and we have become so use to it that it could easily take over us.

One of the most interesting moments come when the TARDIS lands on a plane that is about to crash into London and the Doctor has to try and land it. For bonkers moments it certainly up there. Another of the most interesting moments and arguably the best is when the Doctor uses a bike to ride up the top of the Shard.

This story sees the third different version of Clara for Jenna Coleman to play. This however is the version that she sticks with. I don’t quite buy the nanny situation that she starts the story in because it seems like a rather convenient thing and is perhaps the only aspect of the episode that didn’t quite work. During the first conversation between the Doctor and Clara we learn that there is a woman that gave Clara the TARDIS phone number (thinking it was a internet helpline number) and at the time this doesn’t mean anything but would go on to mean that it was the Master/Missy. It’s weird that such a insignificant moment doesn’t get mentioned until towards the end of Peter Capaldi’s first series.

Celia Imrie is one of the big names of this episode where she is playing the sort of role that Sarah Lancashire played in Partners in Crime. I quite liked the character as there were moments when I found her unlikeable. When she is back to normal she starts talking like a child and that suggest that she has been under the control of the Great Intelligence for quite a long time. Richard E Grant makes a surprise return as it seems that he has become the voice of the Great Intelligence taking over from Ian McKellen.

The big scene between the Doctor and Miss Kizlet comes quite late in the episode and was quite good as the Doctor made Miss Kizlet think that she was talking to the Doctor but it the robotic version of him. That was a nice twist which I had forgotten about and to be honest I had forgotten most of this episode when it aired in 2013 so it was nice to see this episode again. The Bells of Saint John was a nice episode that starts the Clara Oswald aspect of the series well. The title is a bit misleading really cause it has very little to do with the story. The Great Intelligence being part of the story arc is something that is a good idea from Steven Moffat and I am looking forward to the second half of the series and the build up to the Anniversary continues.

(790) The Snowmen

I have now arrived at the eighth Christmas Special of the new era and one thing is clear and it’s that the Moffat Christmas Specials feel more Christmassy than the RTD ones. We get a new title sequence which is rather good and sees Matt Smith’s face in the credits. That is the first time since Sylvester McCoy’s era that a face has appeared. We also get a new TARDIS console room and I quite like it. There is a small glimpse in the middle of the story but its not until towards the end that we get to see it in all its splendour.

In this story we get not one but two big names in this Christmas Special. The first is Gandalf. Ian McKellen is one of the big names in the world at the moment and obviously famous recently for the Hobbit and Lord of the Ring films and he does the voice of the Great Intelligence. I think that McKellen probably deserved a better role than just being a voice. It’s becoming a regular theme for casting big names and giving them less than ideal character. Someone that this doesn’t apply to is Richard E Grant who ironically played the Doctor in Scream of the Shalka. His first scene ends with him watching over a group of workers being killed by Snowmen and it’s a great opening bit. He was superbly cast and played it brilliantly.

Jenna Coleman makes her second appearance in Doctor Who although its as Clara. Coleman is rather good as she seems quite confident in the role so soon after joining. In this story she has to play two different version of the character and does it quite well. Oddly she dies and its only when she dies that we know that she is called Clara Oswin Oswald who was born on November 23^rd. As much as I have enjoyed the character of Clara/Oswin, I would like a companion to be introduced to Doctor Who that didn’t have some backstory

There are great visual in this story. The first is obviously the killer Snowmen who look quite scary and not the sort of Snowmen that you would want to stick a carrot in the middle of its face. The next is when Clara climbs the staircase and sees the TARDIS on the clouds. Another was the Ice Nanny

Ok I have been whinging about how the Strax/Jenny and Madame Vastra gang and how its terrible but watching this story I found myself liking it and in particular Strax. I thought that Dan Starkey played the role perfectly and there was a nice vibe from the character. Strax’s interaction with the Doctor was highly amusing because they were quite dysfunctional.

There is a funny moment where the Doctor is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes and its funny because of Steven Moffat’s involvement with the current BBC version of Sherlock. There is another funny (not ha ha funny) bit where the Doctor pretty much sets up the events of what will happen in The Web of Fear. He has a lunch box with markings of the underground and the Great Intelligence says he doesn’t recognise the markings and the Doctor tells him that is it strategic weakness

I liked this story a lot more than I thought I would. It was a Christmas special that was more about the characters than the actual story. Despite this it’s still a better Christmas story than the previous one and somehow I think its better than Smith’s first Christmas Special. Even though there will be less than twelve hours between todays episode and tomorrows, when the shows aired there was three months before Clara would return properly. The show is now entering its 50^th year and the build up to the Anniversary special starts now.

(789) The Angels Take Manhattan

Today is the end of the first half of the 33^rd series of Doctor Who. Matt Smith has now been Doctor for 1,002 days and this is also his 33^rd episode as the Doctor which means that he is tied with Colin Baker. This is the fifth story of 2012 and this will be the second lowest number of episodes that have aired in Doctor Who ever. Only 2009 broadcast less episodes where four episodes aired, there is one more to come but this is arguably the most important because it writes out Amy Pond and Rory Williams.

The pre-title scene is very good cause it shows the Private Detective encountering his older self and being surrounded by Angels and the last show is of the Statue of Liberty looking really cross. The Doctor, Amy and Rory start off in Central Park and are reading a book that turns out to be written by River Song. One of the successes that happens in this story is that there is a new use for the Angels. It now seems that any Angels can touch you and you go back in time. Even baby statues are able to have the same effect and the idea that the Angels run/own a hotel that they use to keep transporting people to the past is something that Moffat doesn’t get enough credit for.

The last time the show went to Manhattan, it was Cardiff but with a few CGI shot of old Manhattan. This time they go to the trouble of going over there and filming all the familiar landmarks. True, a lot of it is still filmed in this country but you cant fake Times Square and due to the quite creative cinematography that is used, for most of the story I can believe that they are in New York.

Karen Gillan has become the longest serving companion of the new era, having overtaken Billie Piper a few episodes ago. Arthur Darvill is tied with Mary Tamm and Caroline John on 26 episodes. It would be quite easy to argue that Gillan has been the best companion of the new series and certainly has had better stories than Rose.

I thought that both Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill were on fine form in this story and the scene where they are standing on top of the building about to jump was a lovely moment between the two. It’s great how Moffat tries to throw a curve in the story because when we think that Rory and Amy have survived it’s a great moment that doesn’t last long because the Angel takes Rory right in the graveyard. Amy’s final scene as she is about to leave the Doctor is really quite sad and a much better goodbye than Rose’s first goodbye in Doomsday. It was sad but not slushy and when the episode ends I kind of wished that there was more of those two. They have been a huge part of the Matt Smith era but I suppose the old adage is true and that is leave people wanting more.

As a story it was very good and said goodbye to two very well liked and well performed characters. The story itself didn’t really do a lot for the character or River Song as everything that happened in The Wedding of River Song pretty much meant that the character had run its course. Beside that this story served its purpose as a mid season finale. It’s weird to think that it would be another six months before the series would return (apart from the Christmas Special). This half of the season has been very impressive and I hope that the second half will be just as impressive.

(788) The Power of Three

Todays episode sees Matt Smith become the fifth longest serving Doctor in terms of days as when this episode was transmitted on September 22^nd 2012, it was his 995^th day as the Doctor and now he is 336 days behind William Hartnell. In episode terms, Matt Smith is only 1 episode behind Colin Baker. This is the second story of the series from Chris Chibnall, having written Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Whilst these two stories have a good portion of comedy, this story is his best effort even including stories such as 42 from 2007. I haven’t mentioned this even though this is the fourth episode of the series, but the title sequence has changed and now the Doctor Who logo has relation to the story and so todays is cubes. I like this idea as it brings a newness to each story.

The story centres at first around cubes which appear in vast quantities and people tpically take them home and have selfies. So much time passes that people just accept them and they are then treated as safe. Of course things start to pick up and the cubes become more active but even that isn’t quick and it continues to move at a rather slow place.

Brian Cox makes a cameo and this is the return of the celebrity cameo which hasn’t been a factor in episods for quite a while. Alan Sugar from The Apprentice also makes a cameo and I liked this one because I am a fan of the show. However the biggest name that appears in this story is Steven Berkoff who plays Shakri. It’s quite impressive that someone who has appeared in Rambo: First Blood Part 2, Octopussy and Beverly Hills Cop has appeared in Doctor Who. The Shakri was to stop humanity from going off into space.

This episode marks the return of UNIT and also the introduction of Kate Stewart who is the Brigadiers daughter. It’s never referred to until later on and she dropped the Lethbridge part because she didn’t want any special treatment. I like the character because it’s a nice tribute the Nicholas Courtney. Jemma Redgrave was perfect casting in the rle and its been done so well that she became the first character from the new series to be used by Big Finish which for most of its run has only been allowed to use classic series characters.

The fact that Amy and Rory seem to leave with the Doctor means that their lives on Earth keep on being put on pause and this builds up their exit because we are suppose to get use to the idea that they are going to leave the Doctor. There is still time during this episode for them to have several adventures with the Doctor.

The story is quite good and there is a bit at the end where Brian tells Amy and Rory to go travelling with the Doctor and Brian unknowingly sends them to their death but obviously at this time in 2012 we don’t know that. The NEXT TIME trailer fantastically shows the return of the Weeping Angels and sadly the return of River Song. This story has been a joy to watch. I like how the story has taken place over a year and the pacing of the story has been something that worked in the stories favour and by the end of the episode I actually thought that it was one of the strongest stories of the series so far.

(787) A Town Called Mercy

A Western is another thing that Doctor Who has done in the past that didn’t work out quite well. Yesterdays episode was Dinosaurs and todays is the western which was attempted in 1966’s The Gunfighters. In 1966 they filmed in a TV studio in London, this story was filmed in ‘Mini-Hollywood’ in Spain and its incredible just how much location filming can make a story come alive. I honestly believe that if they could have found the budget to film outside then it would have worked. The western town that was used in Red Dwarf 6 would have helped but sadly we have to wait until this story for a Western story to be done right.

The pre-title scene is shorter than usual running at just over a minute. It pretty much sets the tone of the episode and this is another story from Toby Whithouse and another one that has some interesting characters. The gunslinger is rather good although he does a little bit like Kryten at times. The idea that he is someone seeking revenge is good. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive at Mercy where a psychotic cyborg is watching over the town and the cyborg is after Kahler-Jex. At first Kahler-Jex is seen as an innocent person but quite quickly its revealed that he is infect a bad person. There is a nice moral question in this story and its whether the Doctor sacrifices Jex to save the residents of Mercy. There is a lot of not wanting to give Jex up despite all the bad things he has done so it’s a little surprising when Jex ends up killing himself. It seems like a 180 degree personality turn. It all gets wrapped up neatly at the end because the gunslinger (cyborg) is made the Marshall and looks over the town.

The central performances were good and whilst it still feels slightly odd to have Gillan and Darvill in the story, their presence feels put into the story than it did in Asylum of the Daleks. Smith’s performances continue to be good and his scenes with Jex are very good and the highlights of the episode.

This is a story with a good plot and some good location filming. I thought that despite it being filmed in Spain, it feels like we are in the mid-west. Despite this the story didn’t grab me in the way that I thought it would. It’s certainly not bad but I don’t know if I am not in the mood for today’s episode or what but something hasn’t worked on me in the same way that it did when it was transmitted in September 2012.

Three episodes in and the series is slowly starting to feel like it did in 2010. The dark tone from the previous series has well and truly gone and the humour is starting to get more involved in the stories. Without the silence and River and the heaviness the show is getting its mojo back and its weird to think that there are just two episodes before the Christmas Special. Two more episodes before Jenna Coleman joins the show properly and the Amy and Rory era is coming to an end.

(786) Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

The last time that Dinosaurs featured in Doctor Who, it wasn’t the greatest of experiences. Invasion of the Dinosaurs was a good story but was let down by the rather poor dinosaurs. So it was with great curiosity that Dinosaurs made a return to modern Who. There is a ship heading towards earth where the Doctor has six hours stopping a ship from being destroyed. That’s the whole point of the episode but there is a whole thing about Solomon taking Queen Nefertiti that seemed to get bolted on at the end which didn’t really make much sense.

Mark Williams joins the show as Brian Williams (Rory’s Dad) and is the best casting since Bernard Cribbins was cast as Wilfred Mott. Everytime he talks I find it funny and I love the bit where he is sitting on the edge of the TARDIS looking at the earth.

First thing to say about the story is that the Dinosaurs are much better than the 1974 version. That should go without saying. There is a mixture of CGI and physical props and its difficult to tell the difference. I suppose that computer graphics have improved enough in the intervening 38 years and I think that if Barry Letts had been arrived in 2012 then he would have liked these dinosaurs in his story because Invasion of the Dinosaurs would be rated differently by fans.

Robert Webb and David Mitchell are a comedy duo and voice the two Robots. At first I found the robots to be annoying but over the course of the episode, they seem to be quite funny and I wish that they were allowed to be more in the story because they are actually quite funny people and if you are going to have a comedy double act then you should at least let them show their talents.

David Bradley plays Solomon who is a rather unlikeable person but shortly after this he would play William Hartnell in An Adventure in Space and Time. Solomon wanted refuge on the Silurians ship, killed the Silurians to get the cargo and then got outsmarted by the Silurians in death so he is stuck on the ship. The interation between Solomon and the Doctor is quite good and its easy (ish) to dislike Solomon because he really has no remorse for killing the Silurians.

I thought this was an ok story but the mixed tone meant that I couldn’t really get involved in the story and thought that after the great start to the series, this one was always going to struggle to match it. I didn’t have quite the same problem with Amy and Rory that I did in the previous story. The NEXT TIME trailer reminds me that a good story is coming up and this series so far does seem to be slightly better than the previous one. It is definelty more lighter in tone than the previous one.

(785) Asylum of the Daleks

Everyone was told that Jenna Coleman would be joining the show however no one expected her to join in this episode. It was something that was hidden from most of the internet and the TV guides. I think that more attention was given that the show was returning and so were the Daleks. Today is the 974th day for Matt Smith as Doctor and he overtaken Sylvester McCoy, Patrick Troughton and Peter Davison and is just fifteen days away from overtaking Colin Baker and become the fifth longest serving Doctor.

This is a season that is split over two years. The first run of episodes is five episodes long and finished at the end of September 2012. There is a Christmas Special and then the series resumes at the end of March where the show has traditionally being. This is the Amy/Rory part of the season although it is memorable for the introduction of Oswin Oswald.

The episode opens with a huge building that looks like a Dalek and it’s revealed to be Skaro and this is the first time we visit Skaro since 1979’s Destiny of the Daleks. The Doctor is lured to meet someone who has a eye stalk coming out of their head. When Amy and Rory appear they are on the brink of divorcing and both Amy and Rory suffer the same fate. They soon find themselves in the Parliament of the Daleks which I think is a wonderful idea. An even better idea is that the Daleks want the Doctor to help them instead of exterminating the Doctor. They want the Doctor to turn off the force field surrounding the Asylum so they can destroy it.

The Daleks in the Parliament are the pre-2010 Daleks but there are also a few of the 2010 versions which shows that they are slowly being wiped out of the shows history. One of the reasons I was looking forward to this episode was that it would feature all the different versions of the Daleks going right back to the 1963 version. My favourite is also in this story as it’s the 1988 Gold and White livery.  There is a room called intensive care and it features Daleks from Spiridon (Planet of the Daleks), Kembel (Daleks Master Plan), Aridius (The Chase), Vulcan (Power of the Daleks), Exxilon (Death to the Daleks). They are Daleks that survived an encounter from the Doctor.

This episode is a lot lighter in tone than the previous series but that doesn’t mean that the story doesn’t have creepy moments. The first being all the skeletons that have become Daleks. The next being rusty Daleks moving around which is helped by the low lighting. Dalek stories should always have this level of creepiness and one of the most creative Dalek stories of the new era.  

There is a nice mystery about Oswin because she seems to know everything and all the schematics of the underground Asylum. The revelation that she is actually a Dalek is one that I didn’t see coming although its rather clever. It was a great performance from Jenna Coleman (or Jenna Louise Coleman as she’s credited at this time). She takes the unexpectedness of her debut and shows us how good she can be. I remember thinking that it’s a shame that she wont appear until the Christmas Special because she has been so good. It seems like Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are halfway out of the door because they don’t seem entirely there in terms of their performances. There is definelty something different about them but it feels like they are slowly being phased out.

Nicholas Briggs does a good job in making the Dalek sound more human and he is the only one who could do it bearing in mind he’s being doing it for over a decade.

Amy and Rory’s situation isn’t explained until towards the end when it’s revealed that Amy can’t have kids because of whatever happened at Demons Run. The scene where they discuss this is one of the few good moments involving these two during this part of the series.

This episode did what it should do and that is start the series with a bang. It is also the best use of the Daleks for quite sometime. I think that when people are hating on Steven Moffat, they clearly conveniently forget stories like this. Ok so there is a horrible reminder of his Dalek mistake but he shows that this was a blip and the story is a great one. The NEXT TIME trailer shows Dinosaurs (which on previous experience doesn’t generate warm confidence) and also the First Doctor (sort of!).

(784) The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe

The Seventh Christmas Special of the new series marks the first time since Matt Smith became the Doctor that Karen Gillan’s name wasn’t featured in the title sequence. Instead it was Claire Skinner who gets the co-star credit. The episode starts with a bang and the Doctor flying towards the earth whilst trying to put on a spacesuit. This suggests to me that Steven Moffat sometimes doesn’t care about the laws of space.

Claire Skinner plays a widower called Madge who loses her husband in the war and is trying to protect her children from the news. I thought that it was a lovely performance from Skinner and thought that she bought something different to the story. Alexander Armstrong makes a physical appearance in Doctor Who after voicing Mr Smith in the Sarah Jane Adventure and in the Journeys End/Stolen Earth two-parter in 2008. He doesn’t feature too much in the story but when he does then he is rather good and I liked how they got reunited in the end and that it was Madge that unknowingly got him back home alive. Madge opens the TARDIS with a hair pin and this works and the Doctor makes a joke that 900 years of time-travel seems less secure. I would expect this got a lot of Doctor Who fans in a lather as it writes off nearly 50 years of history. I remember in The Sensorites (1964) that it was mentioned that the TARDIS lock has millions of combinations and the wrong turn could melt the lock so it seems that in the intervening years that the lock was changed.

It takes about 20 minutes for the story to get going. It doesn’t really begin until Cyril goes into the box and ends up on a snowy world. The world is rather impressive and looks lovely. Even in early July it still looks like a nice place to visit and is very Christmassy. The look of the entire episode was quite nice and showed that a decent amount of money was spent on making it look nice.

If there is one aspect of this story that is a bit disappointing then it’s the inclusion of Bill Bailey and Anabella Weir who are underused. Now sooner had they arrived then they had to leave and it seemed to me to be of a waster because you could have given these roles to less known actors. The performances from Matt Smith and Caroline Skinner were good and they worked well together and the dynamic was different. Normally when I write this I would say that Madge has potential as a future companion but on this occasion that isn’t the case because the usefulness of the character wouldn’t work in a normal circumstance.

Amy & Rory don’t appear until the end of the episode. The Doctor arrives at her door two years after the previous story. It’s a nice reunion and ends with the Doctor wiping away a tear which I suppose is something different for the Doctor to do at Christmas. I have liked the fact that Amy and Rory didn’t feature until the very end because it meant that the show got to have a different feel to it. I thought that the episode wasn’t the greatest Christmas Special but I have enjoyed it more than I did back in 2011. The thing is that the next series is one of change and one that for the first time since the Tom Baker era would take place over two years.