(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.

(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.

(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.

(781) The God Complex

Amazingly this is the 25^th episode for Matt Smith and in the way that I have counted the stories it is the 225^th story.

It really doesn’t take very long for the creepiness factor to star showing in this episode. Even before the titles place the shots of the different part of a hotel make it look like they are in the hotel from The Shining. Nick Hurran (director) loves this set and in particular the spiral staircase because he seems to use it at every opportunity.

The minotaur creature is the monster of the week and is so old it doesn’t know its name and the Doctor does a mercy killing which isn’t the sort oft thing that is seen in Doctor Who. Towards the end its revealed that they are actually on a spaceship and a distant relation of the Nimon (from The Horns of Nimon). I was never quite sure whether we should be feeling sorry for it or scared of it because I never felt convinced about it either way.

There is a nice picture of a Sontaran called Commander Halke and it lists his fear and that is simply Defeat. That is the theme of the story and its about fear and faith. There is a room in the hotel for everyone’s fear and there is even a room for the Doctor. That raises an interesting question as to what the Doctor fears. The Doctor goes into his room (obviously number 11), but we don’t see it and instead just hear the cloister bell. There is one room that have a group of giggling young teenage girls and a room with some weeping angels. There are pictures of a Judoon, Cat Nun from New Earth and I’m sure that fly thing from Planet of the Dead. Trying not to be fearful isn’t the easiest thing that you can do and yet this a great

David Walliams guest stars in this episode. Walliams is best known for Little Britain, swimming in the Thames for Comic Relief and most recently a judge on Britain’s Got Talent. He plays Gibbis who is from a planet that gets invaded and I chuckled when he talks about being a town planner and making a layout easier for an alien invasion.

The thing about this episode is that whilst the characters were good and the directing was quite good from Hurran. The actual plot wasn’t the greatest and the good idea of the plot isn’t really developed as well as it could have done.

The ‘departure’ of Amy and Rory is handled quite well. I am not quite sure what led this departure but the scene where they go their separate ways is quite nice but it was never going to be a permanent end because it’s a rather drama free scene and so it’s clear that it’s a similar attempt to create drama like when Tegan ‘left’ at the end of Time-Flight. This is a story that has its moments and is better than the stories in the first half of series but I don’t think that its quite as good as The Girl Who Waited. Next Up is the return of James Cordon.

(780) The Girl Who Waited

The Girl Who Waited is one of the strongest stories of the series in my opinion and easily the strongest story of this half of the series. When I saw this episode on September 10^th 2011, I came to the immediate conclusion that this was the best episode that Karen Gillan had been in. The Doctor doesn’t feature in the episode very much so this allows Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill to shine. I have commented on how Rory has felt like a spare part in recent episodes but this is corrected in this episode.

The Doctor and Rory are separated from Amy before the titles have even played. Even by Doctor Who standards this is quick and its slightly eye rolling because it does seem a bit silly. That is perhaps the only aspect of the episode that doesn’t work. The rest of it is light on special effects but heavy on character development. Amy is literally the girl who waited as her time stream is faster than the Doctor’s and Rory’s.

Rory has to search for Amy and after a while finds older Amy. I was really impressed with the older Amy. Older Amy has become quite the aggressive individual and Gillan does a good job in making older Amy seem very different from the Amy at the beginning of the episode, she doesn’t like the Doctor and has become bitter because of the 36 years she was on her own. One of the best scenes for Gillan is Younger Amy is talking to Older Amy and Younger Amy is trying to convince the older version to help change her history. This episode should really have been called Rory’s Choice because he is the one that makes the decision.

I never realised that Imelda Staunton played the voice of the Interface. It’s a shame that she didn’t get a physical role for the story but it’s the same thing as with Michael Sheen in The Doctor’s Wife. Even though he isn’t in the story that much, I thought that Matt Smith was still quite good and the Doctor deals with Amy’s anger quite well. It seemed the Doctor and Rory got on better in this episode than ever before.

This is the first story from Tom McRae since 2006’s Cyberman two-parter and I think that this is far better because it’s tighter in narrative terms and also doesn’t carry the burden of having a classic monster in it. McRae deals with the three strong characters really well and seems to thrive from the lack of supporting characters. The direction was also something that worked quite well and Nick Hurran used the sets quite well.

This was a superb episode that had some superb performances and this shows how good the show can be and bearing in mind that it’s a cheap episode it makes the story even more impressive. The NEXT TIME trailer reminds me that there is another great episode coming up. This is one of the best Matt Smith stories and the dark tone of the series continues but I must admit that I would like the serious tone of the series to subside a bit but not too much.

(779) Night Terrors

Night Terrors is another story written by Mark Gatiss who has a good track record in the series. To date I think he is the only person that has appeared and written an episode of Doctor Who. The story takes place on a housing estate which is enough to give anyone night terrors. The thing about this episode is that it feels very claustrophobic. The whole vibe of the episode is creepy and whilst it might seem like a cheap episode, the effectiveness of the episode is down largely to the low lighting.

The dolls are very good and one of the things that works for this story is how they manage to come across as so dangerous even though they don’t have facial expressions but it’s the giggling that makes it seem more crazy than it could have been.

If you think about it the story has a small number of characters. Apart from the regulars the story features just five characters and one appears at the beginning and the end and the old lady spends slightly more time in the story. Really its just the boy and the dad feature in the story and I thought that the boy was actually quite good and its not often that young kids in Doctor Who are anything other than annoying but Jamie Oram did very well as George. Daniel Mays is an actor that I have never really rated highly however in this I thought he was really good and believable as the dad.

When Purcell is turned into a Doll right on screen I thought that this was a great moment and was quite a grim moment to air on BBC One on a Saturday night. Purcell is such an unlikeable character that when he does meet his unfortunate ending then it’s hard to feel sorry for him and instead you end up thinking that it could happen to a nicer bloke. When the change happens to Amy then it’s different because she has been good in this episode.

I really liked this episode but to be honest I haven’t written much because I spent so long enjoying what I was watching. This was a very good episode that had good writing and good directing. This might be Mark Gatiss’ best story that he has come up with and I do love The Unquiet Dead. The next episode looks like they its going to be another corker. There were questions about whether this episode was right to be shown at this stage of the season but I think that it was perfect.

(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.

(776) The Almost People

The first bit with the Ganger Doctor is quite funny causes there are several incarnations that are being mixed up. The two Doctors together is fun and fun isn’t a word that I would have used over the course of these two episodes. This episode is stronger than the opening one largely because I know what’s going on and the tension that is built from it is something that instantly makes the story better than the first part.

There is a ‘us vs them’ mentality from the very beginning which for some reason didn’t work in the previous episode yet her does. The performances are also better in this episode. Smith seems to be having fun playing the two versions of himself and its clear that he has confidence in himself to be able to pull this off. Gillan is better and does well with the trying to decide which is the real Doctor and which is the Ganger. Darvill has a better episode as he gets used well for the first time in several episodes.

When Jenny turns into the big bug thing towards the end that was the point that I thought it had got as best as it could. To be honest there was no way I thought that the story could pick up despite wanting it to. It’s almost like Graham was waiting until this episode to let the good stuff appear on screen. The direction is something that has hasn’t been mentioned until now or the setting and both worked well especially the setting. I thought that the story had a base under siege vibe to it and normally that would be enough for me to rate the story highly but on this occasion the setting couldn’t save the story 100%.

There is a nice bit through this episode where Amy thinks that one of the Doctors is her Doctor and the other is a ganger but towards the end  it turns out that the one she had preferred was in fact the ganger. This showed her that you should never judge a book by it cover. It hink that more of this could have been put into the story but sadly it was reduced to a side plot which I felt was a wasted opportunity.

At the end of the episode Amy goes into labour and we learn the shocking fact that she isn’t the real Amy and she turns into the plastic seen in this story and she wakes up in a pod with the scary eye patch lady looking at her. This sets up the mid-season finale up quite well (more about that tomorrow). This episode is much better than the first but I still think that it’s a disappointing two parter.

(775) The Rebel Flesh

The Rebel Flesh is the first part of a two parter that I have never really liked that much. So it wont my a long review. This story was written by Matthew Graham who previously wrote Fear Her and whilst that was a mildly interesting story, there was something about this story that just doesn’t work quite well. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive on a planet which has a monastery type place and some acid surrounding it. There are people working there and they have dopplegangers (or just gangers) that after a storm start to turn on everyone. That is pretty much the plot for these two episodes and that is why I found this episode rather boring in 2011 and find it equally boring today.

The only thing of interest that happens in this story is that Rory is starting to stand on his own too feet. He doesn’t just do what Amy tells him to do and its good to see the look on Amy’s face when this happens. Actually the cliffhanger is quite interesting as it shows that the Doctor has become a ganger. I do genuinely believe that things will pick up because there were good signs in the final ten minutes of the episode but it would have been nice had the good stuff started earlier in the episode.

I don’t know if it’s the heat but there is something about some of the episodes that aren’t working on me in the way that the previous series did. I don’t think that it’s the fault of the regulars because Smith is just getting better and better and Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvil are also on good form. I just think that some of the stories have been a bit weak.

(774) The Doctor's Wife

After being disappointed with the previous story, it was nice to know that there was a really good story coming up. The title is a bit misleading because when the title was revealed it was implied that it would be someone that the Doctor meets and marries but in reality the wife is the TARDIS and this is a marriage that has been going on since 1963 and its only know that the relationship is thrusted into the centre of the story. In the past when the word Doctor has been included in the story then people have been slightly put on the defensive but on this occasion the worries were unfounded.

There are two familiar names in the supporting cast in this episode. The first being Suranne Jones who is perhaps best known for the ITV drama Scott and Bailey (2011-2014) and Coronation Street (1997-2004) and also played Mona Lisa in The Sarah Jane Adventures (2009). The other name is Michael Sheen who has been in Frost/Nixon (2008), The Twilight Movies and The Damned United (2009). Sadly we don’t get to see Sheen but just hear him as he is the voice of House.

Neil Gaiman is the writer of this episode and to be honest I haven’t read his work before but people seemed to be quite excited by this so it was always going to be interested to see what he would come with. Well by the time the titles played we knew because it was a pre-title scene full of action and ends with the sole of the TARDIS going inside Idris. Gaiman really has come up with a treat and is someone who clearly understands the show and what the show can deal with and whereas I wasn’t a fan of his before I am definelty one now even though I still haven’t actually read anything of his.

It is a great performance from Jones and proves that just because you have been in a soap, doesn’t mean that you aren’t a good actress. The good/bad ratio is still in favour of the bad but Jones is the exception to the rule. I am guessing that some work had to go on Sheen’s voice but the character of House is very good and even though its just a voice, he has the power to move a TARDIS. He wants to use the TARDIS to get some energy because he’s been using the TARDIS that have been lured to absorb the energy. It’s quite a good idea for a creature.

The Doctor is lured onto the asteroid thinking that there are other timelords when in fact there aren’t. The Doctor wants them to be there so he can bring them back and it’s a good moment when the Doctor realises that he has been tricked.

Amy and Rory are separated from the Doctor after a while and spend the rest of the episode running around the TARDIS. This is the first time since the show came back in 2005 that we have seen anything other than the console room. Even if the episode was rubbish, then the saving grace of it would be that we saw more of the TARDIS. This is a great part of the episode where doors shut and Amy and Rory are separated. Rory ends up getting a raw deal because at one point he appears dishevelled and this is where Arthur Darvill really shines.

There is a line where the Idris says (as the TARDIS) that she hasn’t always taken the Doctor where he wanted to go but where he needed to go. This totally changes things when watching other stories because when watching early Doctor stories then it would be cool to think that it wasn’t poor handling on the Doctor’s part but just the TARDIS taken him where he needed to go. I like how the Doctor builds a new TARDIS out of the remains of the junkyard.

For anyone who has watched Doctor Who since the Tom Baker era will know that there is more than one console room and this point is bought to our attention again as the Eccleston/Tennant console room is bought back and this is a wonderful moment although its too brief and soon the action moves back to the new console room. Then there is a lovely scene where the Doctor is crying about the TARDIS leaving Idris and this is one of the strongest moments of the Matt Smith era so far. It still baffles me why people would be so down on Smith even after this episode but that’s for another discussion.

This has been a brilliant story and I have loved it as much as I did in 2011. As a rating, this episode got 8.02 which currently places it in 5^th place and only the seventh story to get in the 8’s and that gives Matt Smith his second top 10 story. Sadly the NEXT TIME trailer shows what is coming and its another two parter but one that I haven’t thought too highly of. At the moment the series is coming off as a bit inconsistent which is troubling.

(773) The Curse of the Black Spot

Today is quite a special day because it was announced that Big Finish are doing more stories using characters from the new series. The Judoon, the Weeping Angels and River Song are going to be used.

I haven’t mentioned it for a while but I have been watching these episode on Netflix and I have noticed that especially in the previous two episodes there was a little addition before the titles played and it is Amy talking about her story with the Doctor and then the titles play. I’ve checked the DVD just in case it was my poor memory but it’s not on there. Anyway to todays episode and its not one of my favourites. I think that the swing from seriousness of the previous two episodes to the light hearted tone of this episode was too great. The story sees the Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive on a ship where the crew are being terrorised by a siren-like creature. To be honest that’s the most that I am prepared to write about the story because to be honest I just haven’t got the enthusiasm to write much about it.

So I am going to write about the performances. The performances from Smith, Gillan and Darvill are all quite good but I thought that Darvill suffered because he was the one the got the black spot and that was about as exciting as his day got. Smith seems to be having fun playing pirates and Gillan is also having fun following him. Hugh Bonneville plays Henry Avery and is perhaps the biggest name in the episode as he has been in stuff like Downton Abbey, Twenty Twelve and W1A. He is a good on screen presence and brings a nice vibe to the story but to be honest even Hugh Bonneville cant rescue this story. Lily Cole is a name that got a lot of attention because she’s a model and apparently that’s a big reason for casting her. Her character is one that starts off as a baddie but is soon revealed to be a nurse helping everyone who is ill on the ship and she makes them better.

I wasn’t a fan of the episode in 2011 and four years later I still haven’t been won over by it. With everything going on it was a shame that I didn’t take much more from it. It’s definelty the weakest story of the Matt Smith era with The Beast Below slightly better but only because the novelty of the new team of Matt Smith and Karen Gillan. Here there isn’t anything that I can take from it. Thankfully when the episode ended and I saw the NEXT TIME trailer it reminded me that one of my favourite Matt Smith stories coming up next.

(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.