Series 10: Episode 1 - "The Pilot"

Earlier this evening saw the welcome return of Doctor Who to our TV screens after a prolonged absense, when the first episode of Series 10, "The Pilot", aired on BBC1 at 7.20pm.

This is the beginning of not only Peter Capaldi's final series as the Doctor, but Steven Moffat's final series as showrunner. We're also introduced to the new companion, Bill Potts, a "canteen lady" at a university, who has, for some reason unknown to her, somehow been called up for an interview with one of the university's most prestigious and popular professors, who just happens to be the Doctor, ably assisted by his rather strange companion, Nardole. After her interview at the Doctor's office, he becomes her "tutor".

Much of the episode focuses on Bill and her personal life (she may not be the first openly gay companion in the series - that honour goes to Captain Jack Harkness - but she is certainly the first gay, black, female companion). She starts a relationship with a student called Heather, but things immediately take a turn into the twilight zone when Heather shows Bill a weird puddle, which gives "wrong" reflections of the people who look into it.

The puddle is actually an alien "space oil" entity that eats/absorbs Heather and proceeds to chase after Bill in a watery form that mimicks Heather. First to Bill's flat, then to the Doctor's office, where Bill, the Doctor and Nardole are forced into the TARDIS, which jumps first to some kind of locked, guarded vault (which I reckon we'll see a lot more of later in Series 10). Then it's to the other side of the world, to Australia (where the Doctor has to explain about himself to Bill). The Heather-water thingy follows them there.

Next the TARDIS travels to a planet on the other side of the universe, twenty-three million years in the future. The Heather-entity finds them even there. The damned thing can time travel. It can go anywhere that the TARDIS can go. Finally, the TARDIS lands in the middle of one of the greatest space battles in all of time and space, between the Daleks and Movellans. The Heather-entity follows them there as well. Bill, against the wishes of the Doctor, decides to confront her pursuer, and realizing that the Heather-entity is only following her because of the promise that Heather had made to Bill that "she would never leave her", Bill releases Heather from the vow, and the entity just melts away and vanishes. It hadn't been following Bill to harm her, but to invite her to join it (unfortunately she would've ceased to exist as a human, just as Heather had). The TARDIS returns to the Doctor's office, where he tries to wipe Bill's memory, but she refuses to let him, and leaves, only to meet him waiting outside with the TARDIS, inviting her to join him.

Overall, I quite liked "The Pilot". It wasn't Earth-shatteringly brilliant, but it was a pretty decent story, and although quite subdued and relatively low-key, it served as a good introductory episode for the new companion. It was a nice "character" episode, and I thought that the whole introduction of Bill thing echoed strongly the very first episode of NuWho ("Rose") very nicely indeed. The entire exciting chase sequence later in the episode only lasted a few minutes, but was pretty effective, and I loved the very short "blink and you'll miss it" cameo of the Daleks vs the Movellans, giving us our first short glimpse of that famous war first mentioned way back in the Peter Davison era.

The short sequence with the Dalek blasting away (totally ineffectually) at the Heather-entity was quite chilling, with it just standing there ignoring the Dalek laser blasts as if they were nothing, and repeating "Exterminate!" every time the Dalek screeched it. It was a strong reminder that there are lifeforms out there far more powerful than even the Daleks. The Heather-entity assuming the Dalek's likeness makes me wonder what happened to the poor old Dalek. Did she destroy and absorb it, or did it crap itself and scarper? :) The scene where Bill touches the Heather-entity and it shows her all of time and space was also pretty well done. That was a tough one for Bill to turn down, but I reckon the dying and being absorbed thing kinda put her off a bit. :)

Anyway, a good start to Series 10. Roll on next week and the second episode, "Smile".

Series 9, Episode 11: "Heaven Sent"

Now THAT was a cracker! In my opinion, Heaven Sent, written by Steven Moffat, is a great follow-up to Face the Raven, is the best Doctor Who episode in a long, long time, and definitely by far the best episode of Series 9 so far.

It was dark, scary, moody, mindbending, intelligent - it's just how I love Doctor Who, and is the kind of episode that we've seen far too little of in recent years. With the exception of Chris Eccleston's excellent single season, Series 9 is the nearest that Doctor Who has come in tone (if not quite in quality) to the Tom Baker/Philip Hinchcliffe era, by far my favourite era in either Classic or New Doctor Who. I was glued to the screen for the entire forty-five minutes, although I'm not too sure if I like the whole "I am the hybrid" idea, at the episode's climax. If it pans out like that, it would be just a little too silly for my liking.

Peter Capaldi has taken the role of the Doctor by the scruff of its neck and made it his own, and Clara/Jenna Coleman has grown into an excellent companion. I'll be sorry to see her go at the end of this series. Despite the multitude of rabid Clara haters I've seen online (fandom makes me sick at times - there are far too many total assholes out there claiming to be fans), I'm pretty sure that future critics and fans will look back on Clara Oswald as being one of the better companions in the history of either Doctor Who series.

There's been a certain amount of moaning and groaning on Facebook and elsewhere that, if we see many more episodes like Heaven Sent, "we'll lose the general audience". I disagree. Fans who have grown up with NuWho, TRUE fans, and not the "flyby brigade", who only watch it if there's nothing better on the other channels, will still stick to the show like glue. I do agree that there has to be a certain amount of balance between the lightness and humour vs the grimness and serious stories, to vary the pace in between the individual episodes, and give us an entire range of the spectrum between extreme the dark, scary stuff and the lightweight fluffy episodes. But this kind of story is so much more my idea of what Doctor Who should REALLY be like. Others may have their own ideas of what Doctor Who should be like, but Heaven Sent is mine.

However, I do concede that there has to be a balance. But the moaners who can't tolerate ANY heavy, serious episodes at all really get my goat up. They should just clear off and watch airhead sitcoms or soap operas, if all they want is non-stop, upbeat nonsense. We really do need these "deep" stories occasionally, to balance out the lighter, more dumbed down, all flash and no substance single episodes, that supposedly are aimed at the "general" audience and kids (who, these days, aren't as stupid as the marketers seem to think). Thankfully, with all the two-parters, Series 9 has seen only a couple of these single episodes, and even they were linked. A big improvement on previous years, in my opinion, and I hope that this trend in favour of two-parters continues.

The David Tennant and Matt Smith eras had FAR too many of those dumb single episodes, far too much old silliness, with the totally ridiculous romance nonsense between the Doctor and human female companions, other completely irrelevant, soap-opera-ish, non-Who-ish distractions, and simply too much bad writing. The Matt Smith era, in particular, was virtually unwatchable at times, despite the fact that he himself was an absolutely AMAZING Doctor. He carried the show most of the time, to be honest, and I continued watching it just for him. In my opinion, Capaldi's arrival, and the complete change in tone of the series, has revitalised Doctor Who, although there are still too many dodgy stories. But hell, that's always been true of Doctor Who. Lest the rose-tinted glasses crowd forget, the Classic series also had more than its fair share of total clunkers.

It's not 1966 any more, fer cryin' out loud. It's almost 2016, and modern audiences (including kids) are far more sophisticated than they were back in the 1960s and 1970s. And the show is no longer aired at 5.15pm in the evening, but a full three hours later, sometimes not ending until after the 9pm watershed. I can no longer understand the endless obsession with forcing the show into a shoebox where it has to appeal to five year-olds as well as fifty-five year olds. That approach just doesn't seem relevant any more.

In most cases, instead of more challenging stories, in recent years we've ended up with far too many middle-of-the-road, lightweight "fluff" single episodes aimed at keeping kids and general viewers who are not hardcore Doctor Who fans happy, what I refer to as the "Popcorn Who" audience. Personally, given Doctor Who's current late timeslot, and the fact that the typical modern audience is much more varied and sophisticated than it was forty or fifty years ago, I really think the series should be written accordingly today, and aimed at a similar audience to Steven Moffat's other excellent show, Sherlock.

I know those "popcorn" episodes are for keeping up the general audience figures, but too many of them and you lose the hardcore fans (like myself). They are just too bland and lightweight, and while I can take the odd one in between the more intelligent, serious episodes, string more than two or three of them together and I'll give up on that season as a lost cause. Thankfully Heaven Sent was way over at the other extreme, where I prefer my Doctor Who to be. I like my Doctor Who dark, scary and serious.

I'm hoping Hell Bent lives up to the quality of Heaven Sent (and that Moffat will be able to do it two episodes in a row, as this has been a weakness of his with two-parters). If it's even half as good, it'll be a decent series finale. And if it's on the same level of quality, we're in for one of the greatest series endings in modern Doctor Who.

Series 9, Episode 8: "The Zygon Inversion"

In less than an hour, at 8pm, The Zygon Inversion, the eighth episode of Doctor Who, Series 9, will air on BBC1, with the second half of what looks to be a very good two-parter, which had a very interesting start last week with The Zygon Invasion.

The Zygon Invasion was definitely a step up in pace from the previous four episodes, and on last week's showing, this story has the potential to become my second-favourite story of Series 9, behind the excellent series opening two-parter, The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar. There were some potentially interesting plot thingies laid down in The Zygon Invasion last week, so here's hoping The Zygon Inversion can follow through and deliver the goods tonight. I particularly liked the evil Zygon Clara, with Jenna Coleman getting her teeth into playing a nasty villain for a change, rather than her usual nice-girl companion role. With all the rumours floating around about Clara leaving the series, I'll be watching what happens to her with interest.

The CapaldiDoc seems to be in a pretty tight squeeze right at the end of last week's cliffhanger, but he'll save the day, of course. I'm also wondering how Kate Lethbridge-Stewart came through her encounter with the Zygon last week, although I strongly suspect it was her who survived (again, obvious really). The Zygons seem to be pretty vulnerable in those 5-10 seconds that they take to transform from their human form back into Zygon. That's five or ten seconds when any trained UNIT member with fast reflexes would fill said Zygon full of holes long before it would complete the transformation.

Anyway, roll on 8pm on BBC 1, and The Zygon Inversion.

Series 9, Episode 7 - "The Zygon Invasion"

The Zygon Invasion, the seventh episode of Doctor Who, Series 9, has just started on BBC1. It moves us into the second half of this series' block of stories, with the beginning of what looks to be a very good two-parter, finishing off next week with The Zygon Inversion.

Great start so far. The Doctor, Clara, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT face off against the Zygons. LOTS of Zygons. It's pretty much a sequel to the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, with a heckuva lot more Zygons. Of course, there's a lot of people getting killed and duplicated, and half the time, we don't know who the hell is whom. But at least we've found out now how Osgood can still be alive even though she was killed by Missy in the last series.

A bit obvious, really, when you think of it. :)

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived

This week’s episode of Doctor Who, The Woman Who Lived, which aired on BBC1 at 8.20pm last night, marks the half-way mark of Series 9. It's a direct follow-on from last week's episode, The Girl Who Died, and they form two self-contained stories in a prequel/sequel format, as opposed to the first two Series 9 stories, which were genuine two-part stories. The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived are two different stories, set in different time periods, but both featuring Maisie Williams playing the same character. It seems like Series 9 is being made up mostly of two-story blocks, which is okay by me, as I believe two-parters are inherently much stronger than single episodes.

The Girl Who Died was of interest to me mostly because it is written by Jamie Mathieson, the same guy who wrote Flatline and Mummy on the Orient Express, two of my favourite episodes from the last Series (I make a point of looking out for anything written by this guy now). The fact that the story featured Maisie Williams (playing Ashildr) helping the Doctor and Clara fight off an alien (the Mire - not exactly the greatest alien threat in the series' long history) attack on a Viking village meant that this had the potential to be a good one, and it certainly wasn't terrible. However The Girl Who Died was only a fair-to-middling story, far from earth-shatteringly brilliant. But compared to the extremely high quality of Jamie Mathieson's previous two stories, it was a bit of a let-down for me.

Last night's follow-up episode, The Woman Who Lived, written by Catherine Tregenna, was a stronger story, very well written, with some excellent characterisation and dialogue, and quite a bit of heavy and fascinating morality lens material. The story was also notable in that Clara didn't appear in it at all until right at the end, making it a Doctor/Ashildr adventure as opposed to a normal Doctor/Clara one. It was interesting on this level because of all the rumours surrounding Jenna Coleman's impending departure from the series, and there were more than a few rumours floating around hinting at Ashildr becoming the new companion, but that didn't happen. However, it’ll still be interesting to see if Maisie Williams’ character becomes a recurring one in Doctor Who, as she's definitely one of the more interesting characters that NuWho has produced in recent years.

I suppose after the incredible series-opening two-parter The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, it was bound to be difficult for the rest of the series to live up to the first adventure. But, that said, none of the other stories have been terrible so far. The Under the Lake/Before the Flood two-parter wasn't bad, very moody and atmospheric, and The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived certainly weren't bad stories either, but they certainly suffer by comparison with such a classic series opener. I mean, that story had the Daleks, Davros, AND Missy/The Master. It's certainly hard to top that, although the upcoming Zygons two-parter also promises to be a good one.

I think the problem with the past three stories is that they've been fairly strong character pieces, but the aliens seem to be a bit of an afterthought, in comparison to the first story's roster of classic villains. However, Peter Capaldi has really grown into the role of the Doctor, and the Doctor and Clara are an excellent team now. I consider them to be one of the better Doctor/Companion pairings of the New Series.

Here's looking forward to next week's episode, The Zygon Invasion, the first of a two-part Zygon adventure.

The Woman Who Lived

The Woman Who Lived (written by Catherine Tregenna), this week's episode of Doctor Who, will be starting shortly on BBC1, marking the half-way mark of Series 9.

The Girl Who Died was an okay story, although not earth-shatteringly brilliant. I suppose after the incredible series-opening two-parter, it was bound to be downhill the rest of the series. At least none of the other stories have been terrible so far. And the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Clara (Jenna Coleman) are really getting along well as a team now, and I consider them to be one of the better Doctor/Companion pairings of the New Series.

We were wondering whether or not Steven Moffat was giving us another two-parter. Well, he is and he isn't. The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived are two different stories, set in different time periods, but both featuring Maisie Williams playing the same Ashildr character. They are basically a prequel/sequel. It'll be interesting to see if Maisie's character will become a recurring one.

Coming Up Soon - The Girl Who Died

This week's episode of Doctor Who, The Girl Who Died, is starting in just over twenty minutes on BBC1. Almost half way through Series 9 already. It only seems like a week or two since it started!

The Girl Who Died is of interest to me because it is written by Jamie Mathieson, the same guy who wrote Flatline and Mummy on the Orient Express, two of my favourite episodes from the last Series. I make a point of looking out for anything written by this guy now. The fact that the story features Maisie Williams of Game of Thrones fame is good enough, but the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Clara (Jenna Coleman) get to fight some nasty aliens alongside Vikings. Yes, Vikings! Should be fun. :)

There's some confusion over whether or not this story is the first part of another two-parter. The title of next week's episode - The Woman Who Lived - definitely implies some connection. Time will tell. It always does. :)

ADDENDUM: So, it's a two-parter without actually being a two-parter. Two self-contained stories in a prequel/sequel format. Sneaky one, Moffat.

Before the Flood Starting Soon!

Only a few minutes left before the start of Before the Flood, the second part of last week's opener, Under the Lake. I can't believe we're at episode four of Season 9 already!

Under the Lake was a pretty good start, a nice homage to the classic Doctor Who "base under siege" theme. Hopefully Before the Flood won't let us down as a climax to the story. We all know that the Doctor/Peter Capaldi won't really get killed, but let's see you wriggle your way out of this one with good storytelling, not sonic sunglasses pseudononsense.

Come on guys, let's give us a first in NuWho - not one, but TWO good two-parters in a row!

Under the Lake Starting Soon!

Under the Lake, the third episode of of Series 9 of Doctor Who will be airing on BBC1 in about ten minutes, at 8.25pm. I know nothing about the story (I've been avoiding spoilers like the plague) other than what I've seen in the trailer, which looks suitably spooky.

Under the Lake has a lot to live up to, following on the heels of the cracking two-part opening story. I'm really looking forward to it, but after such a great start, I hope it's not a matter of "the only way is down". Here's hoping that Moffat & co. can keep the momentum going for the rest of Season 9.

ADDENDUM: Now THAT was a surprise. I was never expecting another two-parter right on the heels of the first one. It looks like Steven Moffat has been taking on board comments from fans wanting longer, better-developed stories, which has always been my main beef with the modern series. I definitely approve.

This was a nice, creepy one, another classic "base under siege" Doctor Who story. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman are on fine form as the Doctor and Clara, and, in my opinion, are really clicking together as a fine Doctor-companion team. Capaldi is becoming a very fine Doctor indeed, just as I knew he would.

Here's hoping that next week's Part Two is as good as the first one.

The Witch's Apprentice is On TV Tonight!

The Witch's Familiar, Part Two of the Doctor Who season opening double-parter, airs on BBC One at 7.45pm tonight. It'll be interesting to see how things turn out for Clara (Jenna Coleman) and Missy (Michelle Gomez), and how the complex relationship between the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Davros (Julian Bleach) may or may not have begun. And the Daleks. Oh, yes, let's not forget the Daleks! :)

Given how good Part One, The Magician's Apprentice was, I'm really looking forward to tonight's episode, while hoping that it lives up to the potential of the first one. In general, I greatly prefer two and three-parters to single episodes, as they are less rushed and give a lot more scope for story and character development. However, an unfortunate tendency of the Moffat-era two-parters is that they have great first parts, but slightly disappointing second parts, which almost always fail to live up to promise of the first episode.

Here's hoping that The Witch's Familiar does not fall into that trap, and turns out to be a cracker.

New Series 9 Episodes Listing

Saturday past gave us the first episode of the new Series 9 of Doctor Who, The Magician's Apprentice, and a cracking start it was too. Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman reprise their roles as the Doctor and companion Clara Oswald, and this first episode alone gave us a cracking story and a whole bunch of guest stars, including Missy (played by Michelle Gomez), Davros and Daleks. Lots of Daleks. How's that for a great start?

In the spirit of avoiding spoilers, I'll leave a more detailed analysis of the story until a later date. I'll say only that it was the first episode of a two-parter (unusual in itself, as two-parters are almost always season-enders - I don't recall any season ever beginning with one), and to say that I'm REALLY looking forward to Part Two is putting it mildly. I hope that it lives up to the first episode, as these two-parters have an unfortunate tendency to start off brilliant in the first episode, but fade away disappointingly in the second.

I've been going out of my way to avoid seeing any spoilers on the internet, on TV or in magazines, which can be incredibly hard to do, especially when you spend as much time online and read as many magazines each month (including Doctor Who Magazine) as I do. I've been trying to come to the new series knowing absolutely nothing in advance, for maximum impact and surprise. Until I saw it on television, I knew absolutely nothing about the first episode, other than it had the Doctor, Clara, Missy, Davros and the Daleks. I don't want to know the storylines or synopses in advance. So I'm trying to avoid anything like that like the plague.

Anyway, here's a listing of the episode titles for Series 9, with zero spoilers.

Episodes:

• 01. The Magician's Apprentice
• 02. The Witch's Familiar
• 03. Under the Lake
• 04. Before the Flood
• 05. The Girl Who Died
• 06. The Woman Who Lived
• 07. The Zygon Invasion
• 08. The Zygon Inversion
• 09. Sleep No More
• 10. Face the Raven
• 11. Heaven Sent
• 12. Hell Bent

Roll on Saturday and The Witch's Familiar!

Series 9 Starts Today!

I'm looking forward to the rest of this evening, just sitting here, eagerly awaiting the start of The Magician's Apprentice, the very first episode of the new Series 9 of Doctor Who, which begins very shortly, at 7:40pm, on BBC1.

Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman return as the Doctor and Clara, and I won't give away much, other than to say that this one features both the Daleks AND Missy/The Master, and the Doctor goes missing, leaving Clara forced to do the almost unthinkable - team up with Missy to find him! So it should be pretty interesting, to say the least.

Roll on 7:40! :)

Series 8 DVD Box Set (Part One)

I've just recently gotten my hands on the Series 8 DVD Box Set of the new Doctor Who, and I'm about to give it the once over. I'll be posting my opinions here, quick, general impressions first, followed by more in depth thoughts on each episode as I watch them.

I've only ever seen these episodes once, back in 2014, when they originally aired on BBC One here in the UK. I recall being quite impressed with the performances of Peter Capaldi in his first season as the Doctor, and companion Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman. I also remember liking most of the the twelve stories (although some more than others), with the exception of The Caretaker, which I didn't see at all first time around for some reason or another. It'll be interesting to watch The Caretaker for the very first time, and. I wonder if my opinions of any of the other eleven episodes will change on viewing them second time around.

I'll be making comments on individual episodes in a follow-up post, but here is a listing of the total contents of the box set.

Episodes:

• 01. Deep Breath
• 02. Into the Dalek
• 03. Robot of Sherwood
• 04. Listen
• 05. Time Heist
• 06. The Caretaker
• 07. Kill the Moon
• 08. Mummy on the Orient Express
• 09. Flatline
• 10. In the Forest of the Night
• 11. Dark Water
• 12. Death in Heaven

Special Features:

There are two long featurettes, and a number of shorter ones. Obviously, I haven't seen any of these before, so at least that's some more new material for me to watch. Starting off with the two longer featurettes, followed by the other shorter featurettes :

Doctor Who - The Ultimate Timelord
Doctor Who - The Ultimate Companion
Inside the New Tardis
Casting Peter Capaldi
Writing the New Series
What Is Doctor Who?
Why Watch Season 8?
Music video of Foxes performing Don't Stop Me Now

There are five discs in all, which should provide a lot of good viewing for several evenings at least. Further comments will be coming soon, as I actually watch the contents.

Plaything of Sutekh #4 Is Now Available

As a follow-up to my last post, I'm now happy to report that Plaything of Sutekh #4 is now available, after what seems like an eternity since the last issue. :)

As the details on the Plaything of Sutekh blog state, the new issue features articles on:-

• Pacifism in Doctor Who - a look at how The Daleks and The Dominators gave turning the other cheek the thumbs down.
• The Ark vs The Ark in Space - David Rolinson looks at the similarities between these two stories.
• RTD & Religion - Sean Alexander examines a key aspect of the series under Russell T's tenure.
• E-Space - Jez Strickley spies a dystopian slant in this Season 18 trilogy.
• Secret Who - we look at two underrated stories The Claws of Axos and The Time Monster
• Changing Times - a look back at Peter Capaldi's first season.
• Doc Top Ten - one writer looks at his favourite Who comic strips.
• Gateway Drug - Stephen Wood confesses how it all started with him and Who…

For those who aren't familiar with it, Plaything of Sutekh is a professionally produced, traditional A5 print Doctor Who fanzine - yes, a real paper zine, not an electronic download, a website or a blog. It is brought to you by Richard Farrell, John Connors and their Merry crew - Richard also edits the very excellent Gerry Anderson fanzine Andersonic. Both zines are among the best fanzines currently available, especially considering that the traditional print fanzine is an endangered species in the increasingly electronic and online modern era.

Issue 4 is 36 pages, fully illustrated with colour covers and black & white interiors. It only costs a mere £2.20, which also includes free postage within the UK (check the blog for postage outside the UK).

To find out more details or order the zine, either go to the Plaything of Sutekh blog, or simply send a Paypal payment directly to playthingofsutekh@mail.com - with your address in the 'notes' section. You can also pay by cheque, please email for the payee details.

Issue 3 is also still in print. All self-respecting Doctor Who fans should run along sharpish to the Plaything of Sutekh blog and buy these two issues before they're sold out.

Christmas Special 2014 - "Last Christmas"

This year's Doctor Who Christmas Special wasn't too bad at all, particularly given my initial fears and misgivings. I feared the worst. When I first heard the title and saw the trailer with Santa Claus in it, I rolled my eyes and groaned in despair. I mean, a Christmas Special with the title of Last Christmas (strains of Wham! playing in the background)? And Santa, Rudolph and the rest of the gang flying around, delivering pressies? Please, not another piece of silly, irrelevant, soppy old Christmas nonsense! Oh God, spare us!

So I tuned into BBC One at 6:15pm on Christmas Day not expecting anything special, to be perfectly honest. Surprisingly, it wasn't too bad at all. Thankfully there was a reasonably intelligent story, which wasn't particularly fluffy or seasonal (despite the presence of Santa). It was even pretty dark and ominous in parts. Hell, there was even a (relatively) logical reason for the presence of Santa in the story. The aliens were pretty good, but derivative, right out of the film Alien. But Moffat managed to work a decent "facehugger" reference into the script as an acknowledgement of the original source, accompanied by a pretty funny scarcastic joking comment by Capaldi.

After all the rumours and the speculation about Jenna Coleman leaving the series ("will she or won't she?"), it was nice to find out that Clara will definitely be back as the Doctor's companion. Is it just me, or has there been a lot of Clara-hating going around in fandom circles? I know that she has taken a lot of criticism from fans, but I think that Clara has come into her own during Season 8, after an initial beginning as more of a plot device than a real character. In my opinion, she fits in better now with Peter Capaldi than she ever did with Matt Smith. I regard Jenna Coleman as a good actress, so I'm glad that she's staying with the show.

Overall, it worked out to be a reasonably good Christmas Special for 2014. Sure, it wasn't a mind-blowing entry in the annals of best Doctor Who episodes of all time, but it was definitely worth wasting an hour on.

Season Eight - Brief Overall Impressions

Now that Season 8 has ended with the two-part climax of Dark Water/Death in Heaven, what were my overall impressions?

Overall, it was a pretty decent season, the best we've had for several years now, and a good start for Peter Capaldi in his role as the Doctor. And Clara was written much better for Season 8 than Season 7, as I found her role in the Impossible Girl arc to be a bit of a plot device, reducing her effectiveness in the overall series plotline, despite Jenna Coleman's obvious talent as an actress and likability as a character. Season 8 sees her character written much more strongly, as a proper companion, not a mere plot device, with a bit of a tragic love affair thing thrown in between her and Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson).

We had a fairly decent debut/regeneration story (Deep Breath), a couple of light, fluff/filler stories (Robot of Sherwood, The Caretaker), one kinda lame episode (In the Forest of the Night), three fairly good but not amazing episodes (Into the Dalek, Kill the Moon and Death in Heaven), and five very good-to-excellent episodes (Listen, Time Heist, Mummy on the Orient Express, Flatline and Dark Water).

That's a pretty fine batting average in my book. Only one dodgy episode out of twelve (and even that one wasn't exactly awful), five very good episodes, and the rest at least fairly decent, watchable stories. The final two-parter was marred slightly by the fact that the first part, Dark Water, was considerably better than the second, Death in Heaven, which let the ending of that story down a bit. But that was only by comparison, because Dark Water was so good, and Death in Heaven was still pretty decent by any reckoning.

All that I can say is that I wish every season of Doctor Who was as high in quality as Season 8. Let's see if Moffat and his crew can keep it up.

"Into the Dalek" - Some Thoughts

Into the Dalek, the second episode of Season 8, is definitely a stronger story than Deep Breath. It's also less light-hearted, definitely more serious, with less humour. The new Doctor has ironed out most of the regeneration craziness (although a few quirks still remain), and Peter Capaldi is settling nicely into the role, confirming my initial impressions that he will make a very good Doctor.

Clara is better written this episode, back to her brave, feisty self, especially in the scenes where she's helping to reawaken the Dalek's memory banks, while the troopers try to hold off the "antibodies". She's definitely interacting much better with the new Doctor, with no more of that ridiculous out-of-character nonsense that we had from her in Deep Breath. It also looks like there's an interesting relationship brewing between her and Danny Pink. There also seemed to be a bit of an interesting "soldier" sub-plot going on with both Clara/Danny and the Doctor/Journey Blue in this story. I dunno what the new Doctor has against soldiers. He's certainly fought alongside enough of them in his time. :)

Obviously the really big thing with this episode is that it is a Dalek story. It's only the Capaldi Doctor's second story, and he's already encountered the blobby little terrors, his most dangerous enemies. One would think that Moffat is doing a re-run of the First Doctor, William Hartnell, as they also featured in HIS second story. After all, Peter Capaldi is the new "first" Doctor, in this new cycle of incarnations, so maybe this was a conscious decision by Moffat.

The story itself is well-plotted and exciting although the whole premise of a "good" Dalek isn't a totally new one. Also, the Fantastic Voyage journey through the internals of a Dalek has also been done before in Doctor Who, both in the classic and the new series. And it has also been done many, many times before in other sci-fi series and films. But none of them ever had antibodies like those nasty little Dalek mofos.

But more than anything, Into the Dalek in some scenes reminded me so much of the classic Christopher Ecclestone story Dalek, particularly during the Doctor/Dalek interaction scenes, that parts of it seemed to be just lifted from the earlier story and rehashed in this one. A tribute? Yes, maybe. But a bit more originality might also have been appreciated (by me, anyway).

"Deep Breath" - Some Quick Thoughts

Deep Breath is, at its core, a fairly typical regeneration debut story. The story itself wasn't bad, but wasn't exactly anything special either. But a regeneration story has the primary function of successfully introducing the new Doctor to the audience. This is the single most important thing we needed from Deep Breath, to break in Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor, and, as such, the episode did an excellent job of it. Everything else is secondary, in my opinion, although there were definitely both plus and minus points.

As I've said, the story was nothing exceptional, not exactly setting the world on fire for me. However, there were some nice scenes in it. The character set-pieces and interaction were generally excellent (with the exception of one thing). There were also quite a few nice bits of humour in among all the sad bits, and I also really liked seeing Lady Vastra, Jenny and Strax again. I enjoy these characters a lot, and I think that Strax is absolutely hilarious.

On the negative side, the plot itself was definitely a bit thin, there were at least a couple of glaring plot and character inconsistencies, particularly Clara's aggressively negative overreaction to the new, older Doctor, which was TOTALLY out of character. Any other companion, yes, it might've actually been more realistic, but not the Impossible Girl. She's met them all. And even if, as some people argue, she has no memories of her other lives (which I disagree with), her reaction was STILL over-the-top and totally out of character.

Hey, she's already pretty familiar with regeneration and different Doctors, she's even been in an adventure with three different Doctors (Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt), in The Day of the Doctor 50th Anniversary Special, and having already met (and liked) an older Doctor (Hurt), her overly-negative reaction to Capaldi because he is "old" is totally unrealistic and out-of-character.

The shame is that Jenna Coleman is a pretty good actress, and Clara, as a companion, is quite likeable. But Steven Moffat didn't come up with the writing goods for her on this occasion, writing her not as herself, but reducing her to some kind of a one-dimensional cypher, a dig at and representation of fans who can't handle regeneration and the replacing of "their" Doctor with a new one. In her defense, I have to say that this is NOT Jenna Coleman's fault, and the young lady can only deal with the scripts she's been given.

Another major plot flaw was actually one of the nicest scenes in the entire episode, the phone call from the Matt Smith Doctor on Trenzalore to Clara, said call obviously being made before or during the events of The Time of the Doctor. It's all very poignant, heart-tugging and well-acted, until you actually stop and think about it, and you realize that it simply couldn't have happened. It was was a major continuity flub and sloppy writing by Moffat. Nice, emotional, tear-jerking writing, but sloppy and wrong, wrong, WRONG.

MattDoc says to Clara that "the time is getting close", and "it's going to be a real whopper" (he's obviously referring to an "upcoming regeneration"). But remember back to what happened at the end of The Time of the Doctor. The whole crux of the story was that the Doctor was coming to the end of his final incarnation. There weren't going to BE any more regenerations. As far as MattDoc was concerned, for pretty much the ENTIRE episode, he'd run out of regenerations, and he was going to die. That was the whole point of the story. Which is what would've happened if Clara hadn't begged the Time Lords to save him, as they did right at the end, by popping up at the last minute and giving the Doctor a new cycle of regenerations. So Matt Smith's Doctor couldn't have made that phone call. He didn't know he was going to regenerate before it actually happened. Very sloppy continuity mess-up on Moffat's part.

Those were my two main gripes, and the rest I can live with. However, one thing I couldn't complain about was Peter Capaldi's performance as the new Doctor, which was excellent, top notch. I think he's going to be an excellent Doctor. For that reason alone, I'll give Deep Breath a B instead of the C that I thought the fairly average story by itself actually deserved.

Series 8 Starts Today!

We're into the early hours of Saturday morning right now, and the big event that every Doctor Who fan on the planet has been waiting for happens later this evening, when the first episode of Season 8 debuts on BBC1 at 7.50pm.

This first episode is the first of twelve, and is a 75-minute feature-length episode titled Deep Breath. I know absolutely nothing about it, as I've been very stringent about avoiding spoilers on the new season, other than the titles of the episodes, and that the last two episodes of the season are the two-part Season Finale.

The Season 8 Episode Listing is as follows:

1. Deep Breath
2. Into the Dalek
3. Robot of Sherwood
4. Listen
5. Time Heist
6. The Caretaker
7. Kill the Moon
8. Mummy on the Orient Express
9. Flatline
10. In the Forest of the Night
11. Dark Water
12. Death in Heaven

I've been eagerly awaiting the first full appearance of the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, as he steps into the role he has inherited from the absolutely amazing Matt Smith. Peter Capaldi has some pretty big shoes to fill there, but I reckon he'll make a darned good Doctor. He's a very experienced actor, who has been around the acting business for many, many years. And the BBC have never failed yet to pick a good one to fill the new Doctor's role.

Something which I think bodes well for the show, in my opinion, is that he was also a big fan of the classic series when he was a kid, in particular the first four Doctors, up until the middle of Tom Baker's run on the show. All of which pretty much mirrors exactly my own childhood journey with Doctor Who. This love and respect of the classic series might serve him well as he slips into the role of the new Doctor.

Anyway, I'm actually really looking forward to this new, older, grumpier, darker Doctor, and to seeing how Peter Capaldi works with the current companion, Clara (played by Jenna Coleman). Roll on this evening, 7.50pm!

50 Years in Space & Time (Part 4)

In my last post, I discussed the Doctor Who contents of the 50th Anniversary editions of both the Radio Times and the TV Times, and both magazines have pulled out all the stops for the 50th Anniversary. But when it comes to the magazines, nothing beats Doctor Who Magazine.

The November 50th Anniversary edition of Doctor Who Magazine is an extra-special bumper 116-page souvenir special issue, and comes inside a lovely hard-card "envelope", with lots of nice stuff both on back and front. The magazine itself is full of tasty anniversary articles and interviews, including:

• A massive preview of the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor
• Ghosts in the Machine, a behind the scenes feature on the prestigious An Adventure in Space and Time drama
• An Unearthly Beginning, featuring never-before-seen drafts of An Unearthly Child
• The Wonder of Who - what is the secret of Doctor Who's appeal?
• Who Was Anthony Coburn? Part 1
• The Fact of Fiction - The Five Doctors a detailed examination of the 20th Anniversary adventure
• The Watcher's Guide to Anniversaries
• The Watcher's 50th Anniversary Quiz
• Interviews with Matt Smith and David Tennant, Jenna-Louise Coleman (on how Clara coped with three Doctors) and Mary Peach (Enemy of the World)
• Reviews of Enemy of the World, The Web of Fear, The Complete Seventh Series, and various new releases on the books and audio drama front
• A nice comic strip John Smith and the Common Men
• Plus all the usual regular stuff that DWM gives us each and every month.

There are also some nice extras inside, in addition to the magazine. There's a very nice twelve-card series of collectable art cards featuring all twelve Doctors (Peter Capaldi is in there as well). And we've also got a special mini-magazine, a gorgeous little A5 1960s-themed "mini issue" of Doctor Who Magazine (dated November 1964. Only 2d!), with a really nice "Dalek on Westminster Bridge" cover.

This November 50th Anniversary issue of DWM is a real cracker, one of the best, ever. I'd advise all Doctor Who fans to snap up a copy while they still can.

To Be Continued...