(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.

(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.

(783) The Wedding of River Song

The final episode of the series has to do a lot and unlike previous series finale (namely those by RTD), it manages to achieve it. The episode starts off in totally bonkers style with a sight of London where people have hot air balloons attached to cars and pterodactyls are flying around the parks.Simon Callow returns as Charles Dickins. I thought that it was a nice return bearing in mind that it had been a very long time since The Unquiet Dead. What wasn’t so much of a welcome return was Matt Smith’s dodgy beard. Winston Churchill is living in Buckingham Palace and Malokeh from the SIlurians two parter. Churchill uses the Doctor as a soothsayer and the early part of this story is told in the form of a flashback.

The set with the skulls is a rather creepy set and the bit where Gantok (played by Mark Gatiss) is sucked into the skulls is a rather grim moment. It was one of those moment where I thought that people might complain it was too scary cause it was a bit scarier than normal.

Trenzalore is mentioned in this story and this is the start of the end for Matt Smith’s Doctor. The fall of the eleventh is also another phrase that I think pops up again and again so no sooner are we done with this story arc than another one starts.

This episode features a scene that still gets me emotional and it’s when the Doctor receives a phone call and is informed that the Brigadier had died. It was a short but sweet moment and I thought that it was the goodbye that the Brigadier deserved.

The scene where River shoots the Doctor is a good scene cause its done well by Matt Smith and Alex Kingston and just when the shooting is about to happens things go weird. As impressive as this scene was I couldn’t help but get past the slight continuity problem with Matt Smith’s hair and also the background looks slightly different than it did in The Impossible Planet.

Karen Gillan does appear in the story properly until the half way mark and Arthur Darvill appears a few minutes later. It’s weird that they aren’t husband and wife and don’t even have any idea about it. It doesn’t last long but once the story gets into the final stages they make up for this and their lack of involvement in the first half of the episode.

The action moves to Area 52 which is now one of the pyramids and the Silence appear and so does Madame Kovarian. It’s a great moment when they are out of the tanks that they are in. Kovarian finally gets her comeuppance when her eye drive patch electrocutes her thanks to Amy put it back over her eye after it fell off. It was nice that Amy had a bit of guilt because its not the sort of thing that a companion does and even though technically it didn’t happen at least it wasn’t forgotten straight away.

I love when it’s revealed that the Doctor that got killed in Utah wasn’t the real one but the Teselecta version. I suppose it was kind of obvious if you look at it with the benefit of hindsight but credit to Moffat for coming up with this ending. It was a clever way to get out of the fact that the Doctor has to die on a certain date.

The all important question is revealed at the end of the episode. It’s simply Doctor WHO? Despite this being the final episode of the season it doesn’t have that end of season feeling to it. I don’t know what’s going on but I have enjoyed this way more than I had done in the past. I remember in 2011, that I felt slightly disappointed with this episode thinking that things were left up in the air but on reflection I think that this episode worked really well. The second half of the series has been much better than the first. Only Closing Time didn’t quite hit the mark but even that story was still quite good. This season has been very dark and it was one that took a while to get going but the next series is one that I am looking forward to because its where things change in terms of line up and I think the darkness disappears for a while. Oh well tomorrow sees another Christmas story in the middle of summer.

(782) Closing Time

The penultimate episode of the series sees the return of James Corden as Craig. After the success of The Lodger it didn’t seem too much of a shock that he would be returning. The Cybermen make a return but it isn’t just a cameo appearance like in A Good Man Goes to War. The comedy between Smith and Corden which I liked in The Lodger is on show in this story and they both are having fun with it. Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill are reduced to cameo status with Amy now a model. I guess that whilst Smith was filming this, Darvill and Gillan were filming The Girl Who Waited.

The Doctor gets a job in a toy shop and presumably they had to either remove or clever shooting means that we don’t see all the Doctor Who merchandise. I did like the stuff in the shop because it meant that we got to see Lynda Baron. Baron makes her third appearance in Doctor Who after appearing in The Gunfighters (1966) and Enlightenment (1983). This performance is nice and warm and quite funny.

Matt Smith has some good scenes in this episode. First comes when the Doctor is talking to Stormageddon. Another comes at the end when his time has run out and he gets set to embark on his journey to go to where we joined the Doctor in The Impossible Astronaut. There was a nice balance between happy and sad for Smith and he (yet again) deals with both things well. James Corden is yet again entertaining and any hatred that had built up since his last story seeing him on other stuff went away again. Damn Doctor Who for this.

If there is a problem with the story then it’s the use of the Cybermen. They have lost some of their menace in this episode and in fact the Cybermat (which makes a overdue return) is actually more sinister. I like how the Cybermat now has teeth. It looks scarier than it has ever done. I think that the Cybermat has been an under-utilised weapon for the Cybermen and it felt like it got more story time than the Cybermen. The Cybermen are a little bit underused in my opinion because there is a nice idea in there but it doesn’t really get time to breathe. It seems like the story was just going to be the Craig and Doctor show and then they realised that they needed to introduce a monster and the Cybermen but it does feel like a bit of a bolted on part of the story.

The final scene of the episode is where the eye patch lady and River Song meet and it’s where River Song is put in the Astronaut suit and at the bottom of the lake. She is the one that shoots the Doctor in that opening episode.  As an ending it’s rather good and sets the finale up rather well. I can’t say that this was as bad as I thought that it was going to be but I think that the inclusion of the Cybermen seemed to tip it towards not being as good.

(778) Let's Kill Hitler

Just 84 days had passed since the world learned that River Song was Amy and Rory’s daughter. Three years since River had made her debut, the answers were answered (sort of) but after an unprecedented mid-season break we finally get to see the second half of the series. The reason why I had preferred the series to air like it had done since 2005 from March/April onwards is that it was pretty much unopposed with only Britain’s Got Talent being the competition and often that would air at a different time. When you air a show in September then the competition comes in the form of The X-Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. I wondered whether this was an experiment like when the show was moved from Saturdays to twice weekly during the Peter Davison era. This was the first time that an episode of Doctor Who had aired in August since the first episode of The Leisure Hive on August 30, 1980. August is a dry month for Doctor Who with only 14 episode having aired in this month.

The title is a curious one because it suggests that Hitler is going to feature quite prominently in the story and he appears for a little while and then gets locked in a cupboard. So not only is Hitler not killed but he doesn’t even feature very much in the episode. The moment when the Doctor realises that he saved Hitler is the sort of thing that I would imagine that the Daily Mail would get its knickers in a twist over.

The episode starts with Amy and Rory creating a message in a crop field and Mel is introduced into the story and she gets the last line of the pre-title scene where she names the title. We get a lot of back story in this episode where we see Amelia, Young Mel and Young Rory. His is slightly odd because Amelia is best friends with her daughter. Mels doesn’t last very long and is soon replaced by River Song so River is the third incarnation of Melody. I like how River is now a psychopath and is determined to kill the Doctor. Alex Kingston gets to do something different with the character and I think that she is enjoying it.

The Doctor spends quite a while dying and there is a great scene where stills of Rose, Martha and Donna appear. The Doctor is told that he has 32 minutes to live and is also told that he can’t regenerate. This boxes the Doctor into quite the corner. He is saved by the woman that tried to kill him at the beginning of the episode. In doing this she uses all her regenerations which is why she doesn’t live when she does that thing in her debut story. Despite not being as involved in the story as he usually is, this was a good performance from Matt Smith. He has to tread a fine line between being a confident character yet somewhat restricted by his current predicament and he deals with that well.

The idea of people inside a body controlling it is a really good one and one that is used quite a lot in future stories. It effect of people changing their appearances is one that is a subtle but quite impressive visual wise. The people that operate the robots are people who think that they are doing the right things in killing those who commit horrible crimes. In reality they aren’t any better than those they are trying to destroy.

The state of temporal grace is said to be a lie after years of people bickering about it. Gunfire was never seen in the TARDIS until Attack of the Cybermen and from that point onwards the whole idea about whether the TARDIS does have temporal grace thing is a rule that some people stick to religiously and others aren’t that bothered by it. I personally think that like most stuff in Doctor Who its not to be taken too seriously and will be used at the whim of the writer/producer.

Ok its clear that River kills the Doctor but there is a bit more given in a rather lengthy speech given by Robot Amy. River kills the Doctor on the orders of the movement known as the silence and Academy of the Question. I love the idea that there is an academy for the Question which is something that is built up and won’t get answered for quite a while. Silence is a movement and Silence will fall when the question is asked.

This was another episode that was better than I had thought of in the past. Ok some of it is a bit contrived but I enjoyed it and looking at what episodes are yet to come I can honestly say that all the good episodes are still to come. After a shaky start the show is back on good form.

(777) A Good Man Goes to War

Back in 2011 the series was split into two halves with the first half airing between 23 April and June 4 with the second half airing between August 27 and October 1. I never quite understood what the point of this was but here we are with the mid-season finale. A Good Man Goes to War is a great name for an episode and with us all knowing that this would be the last episode until the end of August we knew that it would be a biggie and that is definelty what we got.

The Cybermen make a cameo appearance in the pre-title scene with the Doctor and Rory. It’s fun seeing Rory stand up to the Cybermen and I like the ship that we see the Cybermen on. Judoon also make a cameo later on for some strange reason. No sooner hve they appeared than they leave making sure the headless monks (who really are headless) away from the asteroid.

The Doctor is going around meeting people collecting debts. Neve McIntosh returns to the show but as Vastra. She is the master and her servant is called Jenny. What’s quite fun about this bit is that it implies that Vastra has killed Jack the Ripper. The next familiar race is Strax. He makes a return and starts off as a nurse which is a punishment. The devaluement of the Sontarans and Silurian’s hasn’t reached rock bottom yet but its starting to slide.

The Doctor doesn’t appear until the 19^th minute which is quite a brave thing to do bearing in mind he is so important to the story. To be honest things were happening so quickly that I didn’t clock that he hadn’t appeared until the moment that he appeared. Matt Smith gives a very good performance in this episode and there was a wide range of emotions and he deals with them well. Karen Gillan also does well and gives one of her best performances which bearing in mind how good she has been since her first episode it shows how good I think she was.

The thing about this episode is that its implied that things are going to go spectacularly wrong and then things start to be going too well. Towards the end things the inevitable happens and things go downhill. Melody (the new baby) turns out to be a flesh avatar and this is the point that Amy’s strong connection with the Doctor starts to break down a little.

The baby is being used as a weapon and its until the end that River joins the action and we learn that the baby is Melody and is Amy and Rory’s daughter. It’s a this stage that I wondered whether Steven Moffat had gone off at the deep end and totally lost his mind. However watching it now I just found myself thinking that it all works rather well.

The Doctor will be back in LETS KILL HITLER is one of the last things to appear on screen. It’s an interesting title for a Doctor Who but more about that tomorrow. As for todays episode it was a lot more fun than I remember watching. I think back to 2011 and was so desperate for answers not more questions that I think that I was disappointed with how very little got addressed but more got answered than I thought and the cliffhanger is good enough. This half of the series has been very mixed with only The Doctor’s Wife being better than this. The Curse of the Black Spot and the Rebel Flesh two parter have been notable disappointments but I think that the stronger stories of the series are yet to come. There may be something to salvage this series.

(772) Day of the Moon

As I mentioned in The Big Bang review, Moffat has a problem ending big epic two-parters. Whilst this isn’t the same as The Big Bang, its fair to say that this episode doesn’t suffer from the same problems but it certainly comes close. Doctor Who’s stateside holiday takes a decidedly grim and unexpected twist in this episode. The episode immediately starts with Amy running in the middle of the desert and is seemingly killed. Quite a grim start to the episode, things get grimmer when Rory seems to suffer the same fate. River seems to be jumping off a unbuilt floor and is going to fall to her death but I like how after a while the TARDIS appears and she dives into the TARDIS and seemingly into the infamous swimming pool. For Amy and Rory their fate is revealed because the perfect prison that has been built for the Doctor and Amy and Rory are alive and the TARDIS has been placed inside the prison but is invisible.

Action moves to a creepy abandoned children’s home. It’s very creepy indeed and one this is where some of the best stuff in the episode happens. When Amy is looking at all the silences hanging from the ceiling I thought that it was a great moment. Another great moment comes when Amy sees a woman called the Eye Patch Lady and she opens a slot in a door and then disappears. It’s unclear whether this is relevant to this part of the story but obviously as the series progresses it becomes more interesting.

The big scene comes when the Doctor has moment with the silence which leads to the death of the silence. The use of the moon landing is teased throughout these two episodes and the moment when it actually happens comes at the peak of the episode. When everyone is watching the moon landing they can suddenly see the silence which leads to their deaths. It’s quite a way of getting out of the current situation and does lead to a great shootout with River showing that she’s more than a match for the Doctor.

Nixon asks the Doctor if he will be remembered which is quite an amusing question and when the Doctor says “say hello to David Frost” that also made me chuckle. Milligan has portrayed Nixon as a bit of a comedy character in this episode which is a bit odd but after a while I got use to it and whilst it was clear that Nixon wasn’t the greatest person in the world. In the context of this story he was someone that the Doctor could trust

The final shot in the TARDIS is of the scanner checking to see if Amy is pregnant and it doesn’t make a decision. I’ll be honest and say I don’t really care about this and the only reason its getting a mention is that at least later on it becomes relevant but at the moment I just can’t get worked up about whether she’s pregnant or not.

The final shot of the episode is arguably the most intriguing because it’s the girl from the astronauts costume and she regenerates. There are too many loose ends in this story which are left frustratingly open. The opening story of the season should have a gentle open to the story arc and it feels like they have just gone overboard with it. It’s a good two parter but I think that they have started to high and the rest of the series will be poorer as a result.

(771) The Impossible Astronaut

This is where the Matt Smith era really starts to get dark. Unlike David Tennant’s first series, Matt Smith enjoyed quite a lot of success in his debut year and so there was some renewed excitement when the trailers started to air showing what looked like an awesome series. The trailer showed that the Doctor was going stateside for the first time since 1996 and unusually, the series was going to start with a two-parter. This was the first time that a series had started with a two-parter since Attack of the Cybermen in 1985. If this didn’t make it clear that they were aiming for epic this series then nothing would.

Amy and Rory start the episode in what seems like a normal life, River Song is in prison and they have been invited to a meeting with the Doctor. It’s an interesting sort of prison where River can seemingly leave at any time. In the real world that’s not a prison but that not important at the moment.

The Doctor mentions that Amy has put on a couple of pounds which seems like a horrible dig but comes on to take on significant importance.

The Silence makes it debut in this episode. It’s first appearance is far away and is a silhouette. It’s not until the 25^th minute before one appears in the oval office of the White House. The design of the Silecne is rather well done although it has similarities to the Slenderman. The cool thing about the Silence though is that the moment anyone sees them and looks away they forget.

The first big scene happens quite early on in the episode when Amy, River and Rory witness the Doctor being shot by someone in a spacesuit. We don’t see who it is even though the Doctor knows who it is. There is a nice sense of us not being in on the plan. No one could know that the Doctor would be killed so early on in the first episode of a brand new series. This shock only lasted a few minutes when he wanders out of the toilets.

The idea to use Richard Nixon is something that perhaps couldn’t be avoided so he is used to the advantage of the story. Stuart Milligan plays Nixon and I thought that it wasn’t that bad an impression. I cant help but think about the character he plays in Jonathan Creek but that aside I thought that it was a good performance from him.

I like how the control room of the Silence is the same as the one seen in The Lodger. I don’t know whether we are supposed to put two and two together but that episode aired quite soon before this one so people would still remember it.

This story has an end of series finale feel to it which is why this episode feels so different to pervious opening episodes. The episode ends with Amy (who has been on a weird mind trip) shoot at the astronaut who turns out to be a young girl. The mystery doesn’t end here because the question remains as to who the girl is and why did she kill the Doctor.

This was a very good opening episode. The good form that the show had during the previous series has continued with this episode. The setting has helped make this story seem more epic than it would have done had it happened in London or Cardiff. It gives it a truly international experience and I just hope that things continue.

(769) The Big Bang

The final episode of Matt Smith’s first season comes to an end with a story that has a lot to achieve. The pre-title scene starts with Young Amy who goes to visit the Pandorica which is now at a museum and the scene ends with Amy in the Pandorica and says “This is where it gets complicated!”. That is the understatement of the episode. The thing about RTD finales is that they had too much sentimentality whereas Moffat’s problem is that he sets things up well in the first part but kind of backs himself into a corner.

Things continue to get complicated when the Doctor suddenly appears in front of Rory. It doesn’t make sense at the time and later on it fills in the blanks but then things start even more complicated where its clear that Moffat doesn’t really have any care about how people get to certain places in certain times. I will be honest and say that I don’t fully understand most of what is going on but to be honest I don’t mind that because the whole episode roars along

There is something quite nice about the fact that Rory guarded the Pandorica which at this point has Amy in it.

The stone looking Dalek is quite a good design. After the massive alliance of monsters, its curious that only the Dalek makes it into this episode. It would have been nice if the Sontarans or Cybermen had made it.

History being erased and time is running out are two phrases used countless times. It almost seems like it is being mentioned every couple of seconds which indicates that at times Moffat was running out of things to say and used these lines to get out of situations.

The Doctor thinks that he has died in the Pandorica when the big bang happens but instead he wakes up in the TARDIS in a rather interesting way because things start to play backwards. One of the backwards scenes is the bit in the Weeping Angels two-parter where he is talking to Amy and the camera is really close and it reveals that there are two Doctors there. The best scene from the Doctor is when he is talking to Young Amy where he talks about how he stole the TARDIS and it’s a superb performance from Matt Smith and he has been largely very good in this series. I have commented that he has showed that the show could survive without David Tennant.

The end of the episode sees River says that the next time they meet is when everything ends which is a rather interesting way of leaving River’s return at the front of our minds. Another interesting thing happens at the end when the Doctor mentions that Silence and that is when The Silence becomes an actual thing.

This is an episode that I think will work for some and not work for others. I think that Moffat just about gets away with it but now the honeymoon period is over for both Steven Moffat and Matt Smith. Overall I think that the two parter is one that starts off really well and ends with craziness. One thing is for sure, it is a finale that doesn’t reduce itself to emotional stuff to fill a third of the episode. Yes there are emotional scenes but it’s not too much. Now onto the next Christmas Special.

(768) The Pandorica Opens

How would a Steven Moffat series finale work? We have had four from the RTD era and they have generally featured a story that ended in the second episode at the forty-minute mark and then there was a lot of sentimentality. The crack in the wall storyline reaches its conclusion and after being impressed with how the show and the different feel that Steven Moffat has come up with, I wanted to see how Moffat would deal with the finale. You could tell from the pre-title scene what he was going to do and it’s as definelty different from what RTD did.

The episode starts with Vincent Van Gogh making a cameo appearance and has painted something which is then owned by Winston Churchill who phones River Song in 5145 who then escapes and bumps into Liz Ten. The painting is then revealed to be the TARDIS blowing up. The thing is that it takes seven minutes for this be revealed and that long before the titles play.

The action takes the Doctor to Stonehenge. I can’t believe it’s taken this long for the show to film at Stonehenge and its used in a rather creative way.

There are many cool things that appear in this episode such as a headless Cyberman. Amy and the Doctor are attacked by a roaming hand and Amy is attacked by its head which has tentacles and splits down the middle to reveal a quite horrific skull before clattering at Amy’s face trying to bite it off. This episode feature an alliance of the Daleks, Cybermen, Teriltptil’s (The Visitation), Slitheen’s, Chelonian, Judoon, Nestene, Drahvin (Galaxy 4), Sycorax, Haemo-goth, Zygon, Atraxi, the weird monster from Love and Monsters & Draconian (Frontier in Space). The sight of them standing in front of the Doctor when he is sitting in the Pandorica is one of the highlights of the episode. It’s only at this point that you get an impression of the vastness of the problem that is happening in the story. There is no other reason why the Daleks and Cybermen would even entertain the same space.

The return of Rory is rather funny because the Doctor knows its Rory and yet doesn’t put two and two together for quite a while. At first there is no real explanation given as to why he has ended up as a Roman and saves Amy. The fact that he is in fact an Auton is something that I didn’t expect and that all the Romans. The reunion between Rory and Amy is rather sweet and if this had been Mickey and Rose then things would have been slushy and rather frustrating whereas due to the performances from Arthur Darvil and Karen Gillan, it is anything but annoying and when Rory shoots Amy is so

The Pandorica is according to River Song for the “Most feared thing in all creation”. The design of the Pandorica is spectacular and the thing about this episode is that the revelation is the story. The build up is done rather well and I remember speculating even at the time as to what it was. The revelation that it was a creative decision to imprison the Doctor is a brilliant idea. The idea is that the Doctor is the most dangerous thing in creation is clearly a stupid idea and

The scene where the Doctor is yelling at all the spaceships that are racing around above the Stonehenge. He gives a great speech about stopping each and everyone of them at some point and then seem to frighten them off. This is clearly just delaying the inevitable and the episode ends with the Doctor being locked in the Pandorica and things clearly going wrong straight away. It’s a great way to end the episode and it’s a great cliffhanger and hopefully things will continue to be just as good in the final episode of the series.

(761) Flesh and Stone

I was thinking before watching this episode that I would like there to be more Angel stories. But at the moment we have to enjoy what we have. The opening episode set things up nicely but the thing about this story is that it follows the trends of previous two parters and that is the second half is not as strong as the opening episode. The cliffhanger (without Graham Norton) was resolved quite cleverly when they were basically standing upside down from where they were. In the early part of the episode where they are in the tunnel there is some nice editing to help them move whilst they can’t be seen to move. Another good editing moment comes when they are surrounding the Doctor in the control room and he is looking at either side of him.

I like how Amy is slowly and subtly being turned into stone. She started counting down from 10 and saying numbers in the middle of conversations. She gets into the situation where she has to close her eyes to stop the angel inside her killing her. I thought that this was quite a clever moment. She is well used in this episode because even though she can’t open her eyes, she has to navigate the woods whilst trying to avoids the angels. This is clever writing from Steven Moffat (wonder how much longer I will be writing this).

The sight of angels in the forest are really good. This is the episode where you see them moving for the first time and I really liked it. There is something just as creepy about them moving than if we don’t see them moving. The way that they are defeated could be argued to be a bit of a cheat because they get sucked into the crack through consuming all the energy and gravity letting them down. Personally I thought that was quite a good idea and the only practical way that they could be defeated.

There is a nice bit where the Doctor goes off and the Doctor seems to come back but he appears to be wearing his jacket even though he lost it in the control room. At this time it would appear to be a continuity error but it becomes quite important at the end of the series.

I thought that the death of Octavian was a shame because it was a nice performance from Iain Glen. River Song is revealed by Octavian to have killed a good man. This starts a mystery about the identity of the victim. I thought that Alex Kingston was good in this episode.

The ending of this episode caused a bit of controversy because weird people got their knickers into a twist that Amy was acting inappropriately towards the Doctor. To be honest I thought that this was all a bit of hogwash as there has been snogging between Doctors and Companions and it all seemed to be something about nothing.

Amy’s Date was mentioned earlier in the episode and the full date was revealed before the very end and the date is June 26, 2010 which is when the final episode of the series was broadcast. This was good at the time because it made it seem that something big was going to happen on this date because a date hadn’t been put into a story so much like this.

I don’t think that this episode has quite the punch that the previous episode did but there were things in it that I found it entertaining. The series is moving along quite nicely and apart from The Beast Below, this series has shown that it could survive without David Tennant.

(760) The Time of Angels

Having been a fan of The Weeping Angels when they made the debut back in 2007, it was great news when it was revealed that they would be appearing in the new series. Blink was a superb story and is most likely to remain at the number four spot of top rate stories. This story also sees the return of River Song who when we last saw her was quite happy in her ‘heaven’. Due to the complex timeline for her this is obviously before that story for her. The pre-title scene is totally mad but its great. It centres largely around River Song and how she escapes from the ship that she’s on. She has managed to engrave on a stone box that would be read 12,000 years later by the Doctor and the Doctor arrives just at the time that River gets ejected out of the ship.

I love the idea of an army of religious people. The church in the 51^st as the Doctor says has moved on and thankfully the characters aren’t frustratingly preachy. Octavian is the Bishop and is well played by Iain Glen. He does act like he’s in charge but is willing to trust the Doctor and listen to what he says.

The Weeping Angels seen in Blink were scavengers and that means that the weeping angels in this story are much stronger and much more dangerous. One of the new advances in the character since Blink comes during the scene where The Doctor, River and Amy are watching the Angel on the screen on a four second loop and there is the moment where it is coming out of the screen and is going to attack Amy. This is a great little scene causes it basically says that an image of an angel becomes an angel. That is why you will never see a Weeping Angel selfie. Another development of the Weeping Angels is that statues that people think are the Aplans are in fact the Weeping Angels evolving because they were dying before the Byzantium crashed.

Amy asks the Doctor if River Song is his wife and obviously we know that they do get married. Amy does get stuck in the traditional companion role in this story which isn’t a bad thing but she slowly becomes stone after dealing with the Weeping Angel.

The sets used as the caves are really good because they are claustrophobic and dimly lit and I am reminded of how brightly lit things were during the classic era. The whole caves section is a mixture of actual caves and CGI and they work well together.

The build up to the cliffhanger is good and infamous. The Angels are about to circle the Doctor and the others and the Doctor is going to shoot a gun into the engines of the Byzantium which even I know isn’t a good thing to do. The episode ends with the explosion happening and watching it now I am able to enjoy it for what it is. Sadly in 2010 this was spoilt by Graham Norton inserting himself in Doctor Who yet again. After his unexpected appearance in the Rose episode back in 2005, this was far more obvious of a problem with TV itself as there is a desperation on the part of the TV channels to point out what’s coming up next and in the case of this episode it’s a desperation to tell us what’s coming up next while the current programme is on and the appearance of the Graham Norton indent appearing while Smith is pointing the gun in the air. This does ruin the ending somewhat and since then I don’t recall that this has happened.

This is a good episode. I think that the ganging up between Amy and River is somewhat annoying but apart from that it’s a very well written and well directed and things look good for the next episode.

(747) Forest of the Dead

I can’t believe that I didn’t mention that Silence in the Library was broadcast seven years ago yesterday.

It’s fair to say that things go a bit mad in this episode. It goes mad from the very beginning. Donna starts the episode in some sort of psychiatric hospital. The jumping from one location to another which is a simple narrative tool is used in quite a creative way because Donna notices that things are moving quite quickly. Within the space of a few minutes, she has gone from being a patient, to falling in love, marrying and then having kids. It’s a great performance from Catherine Tate. For anyone who doubted whether she would be any good during this series should watch this episode.

The girl who seems to be at the centre of the story is also rather good. She is CAL and is the computer. It’s very rare that a young person is anything other than annoying but I thought that even though she doesn’t really interact with anyone apart from Dr Moon and her dad she still manages to give a good performance. There is a woman in black vibe with Donna as a woman dressed in black with a veil over her face is hanging around Donna and it turns out to be what is left of Miss Evangelista. This is a different Miss Evangelista from the previous episode and I thought that she was rather good.

There is an argument that could be made about whether the skeleton heads in the costumes are a bit phoney. I am of the opinion that they are quite good because there are a few moments where the skeleton heads seem really creepy and I think that Euros Lyn has done a good job in these two episodes making these things work rather well.

This is the first story to feature River Song and yet in her timeline it’s her final story because she ends up giving her life instead of the Doctors. She ends up in the same world that Donna found herself in at the beginning of the episode. I suspect that once I have finished this marathon I will have to watch all the River stories in chronological form to see if it makes sense. I don’t think it will.

This has been an enjoyable two parter and I have liked this a lot more than I was expecting to and a lot more than I did in 2008. I have been impressed with the performances of David Tennant and Catherine Tate and this is a good story for Alex Kingston. The next two episodes are two very strong episodes so at this stage of the series I have to say that it has improved greatly in my opinion.

(746) Silence in the Libraray

Today’s episode is a notable one because it’s the 37^th episode for David Tennant and he now ties with Sylvester McCoy. He is still some distance away from his father-in-law who is on 69 episodes. This is also notable for being the story which introduces Alex Kingston as River Song into the Doctor Who universe. Little did any of us know in 2008 just how much of an influence that this character would have. This story was written by Steven Moffat and just days before this transmitted on BBC1, it was announced that Moffat would replace RTD as Head Writer on the show in 2010.

This story is highly regarded by most Doctor Who fans and when I watched it in 2008, I failed to see why it was so highly regarded. I liked it but I didn’t love it. I had the same attitude to Human Nature and the Family of Blood and look how things change in that regard.

A library that is a planet is such a wonderful idea. It is just called The Library. I think that the library set is rather good and its nice that its used a lot. The whole planet is visually beautiful and it’s a wonderful world that has been created and this helps the enjoyment of the story.

There are aspects of this story that are typically Moffat. The idea that Shadows can kill is something that is wonderfully dark and yet not too terrifying for kids. Something that kills with darkness is a simple yet cheap way of creating drama. It’s a bit like the weeping angels. The threat of the week (or fortnight) is the Vashta Nerada who are a carnivorous creature living in the shadow. There are a couple of instances where shadows seem to cross over but the beauty of TV is that you can pretty much choose to ignore or at bend the rules.

This is the first time that the Doctor has met River Song but for River there have been many adventures. There is a nice bit where the mystery of River Song starts and the Doctor wants the answers but whenever the Doctor asks any questions he gets the response of SPOILERS. The thing about Alex Kingston’s performance is that she gets perform without having the weight of past knowledge on her shoulders. From now on she will be performing knowing about previous adventures she has been in and the rather complicated timeline will take its toll. Now she is free to play the character as if it’s a one off.

Miss Evangalista is treated as the idiot of the group and so she is the first to meet her demise. It’s good that everyone feels bad that they weren’t nicer to her. The idea that she can carry on talking for a short period of time even when she’s a skeleton.

The revelation that Donna has become one of the info statues is quite a good way to end the episode. This has been a good episode and I have found myself liking it more than I remember. I don’t know whether this will still be the case come the end of the next episode but at the moment I have every reason to believe that I will be like everyone and think that this story is just as good as Human Nature/Family of Blood.