Doctor Who

[HarMGM]

I like how there is a complete lack of the sonic driver in the picture. Maybe he's going to stop using it so much.

That might actually happen considering how big a fan Moffat has shown to be of the Davison era.

Edit: in other news, i just found this.

[El Pibe]

Can't agree with that. I think the 'lefty gay agenda' has been one of the good things about New Who.

Edit: the post this referred to appears to have been deleted!

[kensei]

Lots of season 8 spoilers starting to appear at Galifrey Base. My favourite:

Charles Dance as the Master (posing as Houdini)

[Professor Puzzles]

Oh man, I hope that's true.

[NEG]

Like the outfit, though not mad enough. Moffat did say he'd be mad.

Also sentimental since I've been watching pertwee the last few months. Honestly wouldn't mind something similar, though I'd also dislike them to make every new doctor like an old one. (second doctor - eleven doctor)

[Mr Cochese]

I hope the next Doctor is based on Tom Baker and they get Mackenzie Crook to do it.

[Sprite Machine]

Boom Town

I didn't remember much about this episode and, after watching it again, I realise why: not much actually happens. It must have been a cost-cutting episode, keeping the budget low to save money for the finale. It conveniently coincides with the Tardis needing to recharge its energy cells by parking over the now closed dimensional rift in Cardiff, where a Slitheen survivor is, also conveniently, planning a devastating explosion to get herself away from Earth. So, yes, it's another story set on Earth. This might not be so bad if Rose didn't start bragging about all the exotic planets they've been to on their untelevised travels.

[Picture: The rift is "accidentally" re-opened.]

Down-time isn't necessarily a bad thing. These episodes are often so fast-paced that you can miss out on the little things like characters having fairly long conversations about their lives. This episode is all about that, with the Doctor and Blon's dinner scene taking up the bulk of it. Rose and Mickey also have a frank discussion about her disappearing all the time and him not waiting around for her anymore, which further develops his character and is a good performance by Noel Clarke. This show needs more Mickey.

[Picture: Mickey drops in on the Tardis crew (now including Capt. Jack).]

Beyond that, the episode is fairly lighthearted. Although the farting is toned down, "Margaret" murdering her construction workers and critics is almost played for laughs, as is the chase from her office and the teleport gag. Don't get me wrong, I like the humour in Doctor Who, but here it's bordering on the silly. I liked how the Doctor finally realises that the words "Bad Wolf" have been following them around on their travels, but dismisses it as a coincidence, at which point the foreboding musics stops in its tracks and everything carries on as normal. Imagine if that was the actual reveal and it was never mentioned again - it would have been some epic trolling!

[Picture: Amongst other things, the dinner conversation revolves around the Doctor's right to take Blon to her death at the hands of her own people. If only there was some convenient way for the Doctor to not have to make that decision...]

Boom Town is a little bit boring, unfortunately. Russell T. Davies gets the characters right and the dialogue is natural and raises some interesting moral dilemmas, but there's not a lot more to it and these issues aren't resolved nor do they amount to anything. Still, given his big plots are usually full of holes, perhaps sticking to a story that's purely focused on the characters having some down time was a good choice. Things are going to get very strange from here on.

[Fireproofradiator]

Finally got round to listening to The Light at the End of the Tunnel, or the first twenty minutes at least.

Very bombastic so far, sound design-wise. Like Hitchhikers Guide but without DNA's catherine wheel dialogue. The theme music on this anniversary ep is rubbish too. BUT it has Tom, who is brilliant - sent shivers down my spine with his readings . Sylvester McCoy really suffers in comparison but I very much like Colin Baker so far - only heard bits of his BF stories up to now but will have to check out more of them based on this, I think. Peter Davison hasn't really appeared yet...

On Who/DNA stuff I also finally read the script for Shada last week. Gonna write a full piece on that when I get a chance cos it's a really interesting companion piece to Day of the Doctor.

[Death's Head]

I really enjoyed the recent 'novelisation' of Shada. Lots of lovely nods to both past and present Who.

[Sprite Machine]

Bad Wolf / The Parting of the Ways

(Blog has pictures)

Much of this series has been better than I remember it from the first time around. However, with 'Bad Wolf', this is not the case. It is exactly as bad as I remember it. Perhaps worse in some ways, as the Big Brother / Weakest Link game show stuff is no longer current or modern, so these scenes have dated. It's hard to imagine a future where they're inexplicably brought back along with android versions of hosts who were briefly popular.

[Picture: It's all fun and games until people start getting disintegrated. "You are the weakest link - goodbye!"]

Speaking of androids, 'Anne Droid' is a terrible pun. Much of the humour misses the mark here, particularly Jack Harkness standing around in the buff, literally pulling a gun out of his arse. It tries to be satirical about reality TV (ha-ha, contestants are killed!) but it's really broad satire with none of the bite. I dare say it was done better in the Colin Baker story, 'Vengeance on Varos'. What I will say in its favour is that the comical game shows set certain expectations which are then blasted away when the Daleks turn up, and you realise that this is not such a daft throwaway story after all. That is at least an effective twist (or would have been at the time, assuming you didn't watch the preview).

[Picture: The Dalek fleet approaches Satellite Five and Earth. Decent visual effects.]

'The Parting of the Ways' is an improvement in that it ditches most of the game show stuff and focuses on a siege against the Dalek invasion. However, as is so often the case, a lone Dalek is more threatening than an army of them. They've been overused already within the first season! How do you deal with a threat this big? You have to invent a weapon that's even bigger. The deus ex machina involves Rose becoming an all-powerful god (the Bad Wolf) and literally thinking the Daleks out of existence. Every single one, wiped out, erased, and Captain Jack brought back to life (but nobody else who died, oddly). One has to wonder, if Tardis hearts have the ability to do that, even at the expense of a life, why didn't the Time Lords use this power before? I really hate that sort of thing; it's a thoroughly unsatisfying ending.

[Picture: Bad Wolf Rose thinks the Daleks out of existence, but what's more impressive is that she also makes herself not a chav.]

The "Bad Wolf" foreshadowing throughout this series has been more subtle than, say, massive cracks appearing at the end of every episode, but the message it was supposed to convey is... questionable. If you had total control over time and space and could send messages back through time to your past self, why would you choose a message that merely describes what you will temporarily call yourself in the future? It's not instructional or useful. I guess the fact that it worked anyway means that she knew it would work, which is why she did it... a self-fulfilling prophecy? You could go a bit mad trying to wrap your head around it. Once again, I have to feel sorry for Mickey, who Rose treats very badly in this episode. He needs to let her go, for both their sakes.

[Picture: The Dalek Emperor. Somehow survived being destroyed many times in the past and rebuilt his Dalek army over hundreds of years. It shoulda been Davros, though.]

But it's the ninth Doctor's time to go now. Draining the vortex energy from Rose (with a kiss, *roll eyes*) is too much for his cells to take and he dies, forcing a spectacular regeneration... and a confused companion. I suppose I should comment generally on Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor, which I enjoyed more this time around. What I didn't like so much was how weirdly unpredictable he could be, but I think that impression was formed from this episode, which demonstrates what I mean. When he's talking to the Daleks and their emperor, he goes from cheery smiles to angry shouting at the drop of a hat. It's sort of what he does in the Dalek episode, but more 'zany' this time and makes him come across as unhinged.

[Picture: Melodramatic goodbye messages, it all started here, unfortunately.]

On the whole, however, it's clear to me now that this style of Doctor is based on past performances from several different actors. Eccleston's portrayal is more cheery in general, but I get the sense that it's a cover for the feelings of guilt he has over what he's done in the past. He's often frustrated with humans ("another stupid ape!") but at the same time utterly fascinated by them and admires their tenacity. He can be fierce and threatening, but when it comes down to it, he will not kill or become another monster himself. He's clearly incredibly clever but likes to have fun and thrives on sharing that fun with others. More than any of the other Doctors, I suppose, he is a lonely wanderer.

[Picture: Flashy.]

It's a shame Christopher Eccleston didn't want to come back, even for the anniversary, but he had his chance to shine and now it's time for David Tennant to give us a different interpretation...

EDIT: As for my favourite ninth Doctor episodes, I would have to go with 'The End of the World', 'Dalek' and 'The Empty Child' / 'The Doctor Dances'... which were pretty much my faves the first time around too. However, this series is very inter-connected, with references to all past episodes sprinkled throughout (the Cardiff rift, Rose's dad, the Face of Boe, Satellite Five, Slitheen, etc.). It's not so easy to exclude a poor episode without missing something important. Well played, Russell T. Well played.

[Davros sock drawer]

Enjoyed all your Nu Who write ups so far Sprite, fair assessments all.

[kensei]

Bad Wolf was a bit of a cop out, but I never thought the argument that Rose could have spelled it out more was much cop - it was made clear she couldn't really handle the power she was welding.

Plus the heart of the TARDIS was setup in Boom Town - and the Doctor says he didn't really know how powerful it was or what it would do. The question is why he hasn't done it since - though maybe the forced regent covers it.

9s regeneration is probably the best of the lot too - just the right pitch between sad and excited - "You were fantastic. Absolutely Fantastic. And do you know what...? So was I!". Cue flashy lights

[Harsin]

The Parting of the Ways is one of the RTD episodes I actually like. It's interesting some of the parallels with Matt Smith's exit episode. Both have the Doctor using deception to send his companion away from danger, it's done much better in PotW, Rose's frustration at being trapped back in her own time is done very well and the goodbye hologram moment is really nice. The regenerations feel similar as well, I prefer Eccleston's goodbye as although Matt Smith's contains some nice moments, it's ludicrously drawn out and undermined by coming straight after another big regeneration moment.

The Daleks are really evil bastards in this episode, going out of their way to search out and murder people for no other reason than they're nasty space twats and there's a real sense of peril. RTD would undermine the Daleks by inflating their numbers each subsequent appearance until it was meaningless. But in this episode it's refreshing, there's a distinct lack of danger in the current version where apparently the Doctor can hold off the combined forces of the entire universe's monsters and blow up Dalek ships with anime regeneration cannons.

I never liked the ease of the resolution, I won't call it a deus ex machina as there's more prep to it than most of RTD's laughable resolutions. How the hell did the Timelords ever lose the Time War when they just had to peek under the floorboards of the Tardis and suddenly be able to wipe a fleet out of existence, all at the low low price of one regeneration? I used to fanwank it away by imaging that the Time War was such a crazy unimaginable event, with weapons we couldn't even conceive of, that Rose's dissolve the Daleks trick would have been the equivalent of hand grenade in the conflict. Then Moffatt turned the Time War into Call of Duty in space and welp.

[Sprite Machine]

The Christmas Invasion

(Blog has pictures)

Following on from his recent regeneration, the Tardis lands back on Earth on Christmas eve, but the Doctor's residual regeneration energy has attracted some unwanted attention, and he's in no fit state to fend it off.

[Picture: Residual timey wimey energy escapes into outer space while the Doctor recovers.]

When I first watched The Christmas Invasion, I didn't like it at all. I found it far too simplistic and boring. I had hoped the invasion would be a clever cover for something else, hoped the Sycorax would be more interesting than just a bunch of space warriors, wished the resolution would have involved more than just a one-on-one fight to the death, and generally found the "big global threat" angle to be tiresome.

[Picture: The Sycorax leader uses his "blood control" party trick.]

In retrospect, I found more to enjoy this time. What we have here is an episode where the Doctor isn't around and we see how the people of Earth deal with that. We see how threatening a race of aliens can be when the Doctor isn't there to call their bluff. And we see just what a cocky and confident man the Doctor actually is. He ridicules the Sycorax, he shows up their technology for what it really is, and he wins a fight in his pyjamas using a satsuma. Brilliant!

[Picture: The Doctor's severed hand falls to Earth before a new one regenerates in its place. Someone ought to find that, it might be important.]

But not to be fooled by his jovial Arthur Dentian ways, his darker side comes through as well. His "no second chances" to the fallen Sycorax leader is particularly harsh, and his reaction to what Harriet Jones does at the end suggests his positive opinions of humanity can change. Earth is beginning to step out into the Universe. This is the first time Torchwood has had some (off-screen) involvement in events, and the Doctor is not very happy about it. Don't worry, Doc, nobody else likes Torchwood either.

[Picture: Torchwood fires its destructo-beam at the Sycorax ship. The Doctor is not impressed.]

For a Christmas episode, it's not overly Christmassy. I suppose that's to its advantage in some ways, as future Christmas specials have all tried to "capture the magic of Christmas" at any cost, often to their detriment. The Christmas Invasion tries to be a big "event" type story, and goes too far with it. A third of the population being mind-controlled should have had far more devastating effects on the world than what we saw. Wouldn't cars crash into each other? Wouldn't some aeroplanes start falling out of the sky? Doctor Who needs to stop doing global disasters and then shrugging them off as if it's nothing. Oh, and Mickey hacking into the government network on his modem and laptop again? Come off it!

[Picture: This is about as Christmassy as it gets. A remote controlled Christmas tree attacks Rose, Jackie and Mickey. Oh dear.]

One part disaster, one part comedy, The Christmas Invasion is the sort of surreal concoction that only Doctor Who can pull off. I can't say I totally enjoyed it, but it was okay, and funnier than I remember.

[Nick R]

Are you going to add Torchwood viewings to your blog, Sprite?

(I'll forgive you if you don't. I wouldn't wish a second viewing of Cyberwoman or Miracle Day on anyone...)

[merman]

Watching Tenant on Watch this morning, loved The Girl In The Fireplace even more now - especially for Rennette's line "The Doctor is worth all the monsters"

[Sprite Machine]

Are you going to add Torchwood viewings to your blog, Sprite?

(I'll forgive you if you don't. I wouldn't wish a second viewing of Cyberwoman or Miracle Day on anyone...)

I'll probably watch it but not blog it.

[SqueakyG]

The Amazon.co.uk preorder page for Capaldi's series 8 is already up. Currently #22 in the blu-ray sales chart

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Complete-Series-Blu-ray/dp/B00I3JRCCO/ref=zg_bs_383380011_21

The "reviews" are pretty interesting...

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars "Would you like a Lemon Sherbert...?" 3 Feb 2014

By Danny Davies

SPOILERS!!

Overall, they done this great. Peter Capaldi does some really good pointing, especially at lamps, walls and dogs. However, I wish they'd rein in the gargling, especially when he's gargling at a Dalek or a Cybermen or a The Myrka. It takes me out of the show when he pauses mid speech, grabs a carton of Um Bongo, takes a swig, then gargles the rest of the speech, and especially when a bit of Um Bongo lands on someone's face. I don'y know what Moffat was thinking of then. Maybe he ran out of printer ink so cut down the word count...

Anyway, pretty decent. Especially when Clara falls over that robotic hen (voiced by Moira Stewart).

However. One star off because Moffat got loads wrong. ANd because it turns out Gallifrey was hidden behind a BT Van on Tottenham High Road. And because of that weird song about chops...

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing service!! 2 Feb 2014

By daniel james clark

SPOILERS CONTAINED!!
I bought this today at 16:30 and it arrived yesterday at 09:22 via Tardis shipping.
Box was a little warped though.
As for the series, I can confirm it was the best series yet!
The episode where you find out that Murder She Wrote was the Doctors mum was genius!
Wasn't sure about Moffett's choice on eradicating the Daleks, Cybermen and the Master entirely from the Doctor's history as if they had never even existed in the finale. Feels a bit Cliche.. Think they should give Moffett the boot now.
Otherwise Incredible.

1 Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

22 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars "Capaldi was my Doctor" 29 Jan 2014

By B. Baier

I can't believe I found this in the bargain bin in the K-Wal antique department. The manager obviously has no respect for 21st century physical video media. Not only are these collectible--they also work during sunspots. Can't say that about Amazonflix, can you? I was going to brag about my find on the forums, but thanks to the new patch for Google's Custom Time, I'm able to retroactively rate this gem of classic Who programming from the first 60 years in a less anachronistic manner.

"Capaldi was my Doctor" is what my grandmother always told me after introducing me to the show. She made sure I was caught up on the old episodes before starting in on the UKBC's new season. It took almost a whole week, but my Compression chip had been a little wonky; my pediatrician had to replace it before I could inload my next school term.

I always liked the way this season turned out, even with a certain female companion being a major deus ex machina; It's not who you think it is. I guess I shouldn't say much more. I'd hate to influence anything and know that I created a whole other timeline where the TARDIS didn't get a new paint job.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Does it need saying? 2 Feb 2014

By The Girl Who Did Not Wait

I ordered this product 51 years ago, in 1963. I'm slightly appalled that the delivery itself took 51 whole years, but I guess that was because it was stuck frozen in time, like a painting. Peter Capaldi makes a magnificent Doctor, echoing the Doctors of the past, and the future. (Luckily I was able to watch all future episodes during my trip to Raxacorixofallapitorius with Cpt Jack Harkness. But back to this season! Clara is turning into a very good companion, and I can only applaud Capaldi on his brilliant taste in boots. The Doc in the Docs, that has to be a winner. I shall not divulge any plot details *hint K9 makes a swift return as K98, and Omega is seen lurking behind the swimming pool*.
To all who haven't seen this series, good luck, and to all that have, onwards!

[Sprite Machine]

New Earth

(Blog has pictures)

New series, new Doctor, new adventure, New New York on New Earth. The theme is "new", but this is a familiar follow-up to season 1's first out-of-this-world adventure, and sees the return of some old faces (literally). The Face of Boe, nearing the end of his life, is being treated in the hospital, where a previously splattered Cassandra, the last "pure" human, has been hiding out in secret when, surprise surprise, the Doctor and Rose turn up. It's a mini-reunion!

[Picture: New New York hospital on New Earth.]

There are two-and-a-half plotlines to follow here. Firstly, The Face of Boe having an important message for the Doctor, which ends up with a teasing "I'll tell you next time" non-ending. Secondly, the hospital itself is suspiciously good at curing diseases because they've been secretly breeding vats of human test subjects and infecting them with every known disease, culminating in a sort of zombie horde roaming the hospital trying to hug everyone to death. Finally, we have brain-swapping shenanigans as Cassandra takes over Rose's body, then the Doctor's, and finally her assistant clone Chip. This is a bit silly but it means Billie Piper gets to stretch her acting muscle a bit and she's actually quite good. David Tennant briefly acting like a woman in a man's body is also pretty funny, and finally the closing scene where Cassandra in Chip's body meets her past human self before (s)he dies is rather sweet and well handled.

[Picture: The Face of Boe was going to tell the Doctor that he is "not alone", but this was moved back to a later episode.]

The human test subjects are the main attraction, though, and a chance for the Doctor to get on his high horse and chastise the nurses for their cruelty, even if it meant curing millions more. The episode takes a very simplistic approach to medicine, never really explaining the benefit of giving thousands of humans every disease at once, nor how this would actually help with finding cures, which incidentally are all nice colourful concoctions that can be either be injected or tipped over your head or just rubbed on you. No future disease needs any other type of treatment. Colourful liquid is the full extent of it, apparently. And despite being artificially-grown and living in capsules all their lives, these new humans seem absolutely fine and perfectly functional.

[Picture: NuWho has a tendency to depict aliens as humoid animals. The Sisterhood of Plenitude are cats, because... why not?]

I could criticise much of the plot, but actually I still rather enjoyed New Earth. It's a nice enough self-contained adventure set on a far-off alien planet and has a good amount of humour and a sweet ending. David Tennant has taken immediately to the role, but already he's got that cocky style that will begin to grate over time, and he already does his "I'm sorry" routine twice in this episode!

[Space Gibbon]

It always irked me that the Doctor would think that mixing every medicine in the hospital together in a big vat would automatically cure everything. It's pretty much the same logic that leads idiots to mix all their cleaning supplies in a bucket, releasing chlorine and other gases that make them pass out and die.

[NEG]

I'm sorry, so sorry.

[HarMGM]

It always irked me that the Doctor would think that mixing every medicine in the hospital together in a big vat would automatically cure everything. It's pretty much the same logic that leads idiots to mix all their cleaning supplies in a bucket, releasing chlorine and other gases that make them pass out and die.

Not to mention fire-alarm sprinklers are a pretty crap way to introduce medicine into a patiënts system.

[Harsin]

It always annoyed me that RTD would come up with some ludicrous date for his future stories, like the year eleventy billion and one or whatever, and then sum total of advancement in that time is we have better hospitals and flying cars.

[Sprite Machine]

I suppose it would be interesting to see a future that is so advanced that it's beyond comprehension, but it's either: a) unlikely to happen on a TV budget, or b) would be too boring to actually watch (people existing as thoughts in cyberspace, maybe?).

On the other hand, it's conceivable that galactic civilisation would rise and fall like it does in Mass Effect every ten thousand years or whatever, so when they're in the year 5 billion, we're actually seeing humanity's five-hundred-thousandth attempt at flying cars and cat hospitals.

[AceAceBaby]

It always annoyed me that RTD would come up with some ludicrous date for his future stories, like the year eleventy billion and one or whatever, and then sum total of advancement in that time is we have better hospitals and flying cars.

At the absolute end of time itself; the chain link fence and mid 1970's military truck were still going strong.

[Space Gibbon]

In the year one million and a half, humankind is enslaved by giraffe.

[Made of Ghosts]

It always annoyed me that RTD would come up with some ludicrous date for his future stories, like the year eleventy billion and one or whatever, and then sum total of advancement in that time is we have better hospitals and flying cars.

I guess it's a symptom of RTD approaching it as a family show first and foremost rather than sci fi, thus consistency and logic between episodes is less important than making kids go "wow, the year three hundred trillion!"

For the record I think it's better that way, but I have to admit some of those ridiculously big numbers bugged me too.

[Sprite Machine]

Tooth and Claw

(Blog has pictures)

If the theme for this season is "Torchwood", it's not very subtle about it. By the end of the episode, Queen Victoria quite explicitly explains how she will set up the Torchwood Institute to protect Britain from its unholy enemies, and we know how that's going to turn out. Given what she goes through in this story, I can't blame her!

[Picture: The wolf is fairly well realised but the CGI is showing its age.]

The werewolf, of course, is not really a werewolf - it's an alien entity that has survived within human bodies and been passed down through different hosts for hundreds of years, turning them into werewolves. Okay, so it is really a werewolf.

[Picture: Doctor Who's fight scenes have come a long way since the old days, when the credits would include a "fight arranger" as if they were hired to stir up an argument outside a pub.]

The Doctor, being the Doctor, thinks it's "beautiful", but he has to protect the humans too, so cue lots of running around the old Torchwood mansion, with various men bravely electing to stay behind and buy them time to escape (and then getting ripped to shreds). Bullets cannot stop the monster, so it's books that save the day - knowledge is power, kids! The Doctor puts the pieces together and uncovers the secret of the old house and the power of the moon. Or something.

[Picture: The Doctor puts on his glasses. It's time for some serious thinking. Alternatively, he wants a job as a teacher.]

It's a pretty good episode on the whole. It's not overly scary, but it has a scary tone and some good action. The wolf is not entirely convincing, but it's kept hidden a lot of the time, to good effect. The characters are really well played, particularly Queen Vic herself and Sir Robert. It's also nice to hear David Tennant using his native accent for a while. The writing is sharp, with some good humour amongst the terror. The pacing is good, it's never dull, and the Tenth Doctor and Rose seem to work well together.

[Picture: The Doctor gives his name as James McCrimmon, a reference to his former travelling companion, Jamie.]

If you're going to do a "Doctor Who Meets Famous Person From History" story, then make it stylish, interesting, fun, scary and... well, Doctor Who-ish. This one hits the spot.

[Delargey]

I thought 'tooth and claw' is hailed as an example of bad Who?

[Harsin]

I haven't watched it since it's original showing, but the main thing I remember was that Rose and the Doctor came off as obnoxious space tourist twats in it.