Doctor Who Reviews – Page 10 – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

Doctor Who–Season 8, Episode 2–Into the Dalek

“Clara, be a pal and tell me – am I a good man?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

After last week’s flawed but mostly satisfying season opener, this week Doctor Who followed up with the return of the show’s arch villains in a story that was flawed but, for me, less satisfying. If you’ve read my reviews before, you know that if I don’t enjoy a story, I usually break down the reasons why. The trouble is that this time, I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why I felt that way.

Continue reading “Doctor Who–Season 8, Episode 2–Into the Dalek”

Doctor Who: Series 8, Episode 1–Deep Breath

“He is lost in the ruins of himself. We have to bring him home.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

The arrival of a new Doctor has always been a hotly anticipated event for us fans, but until recently the rest of humanity tended to just roll their eyes indulgently at the excitement of the nerds. Since the show’s resurrection in 2005 however, it’s been getting more and more popular; to the extent that last night, Peter Capaldi’s debut as the Twelfth Doctor was simultaneously broadcast in countries all over the world, while back here in Blighty, you could go and watch it on the big screen at one of 450 cinemas across the country. Those cinemagoers were also treated to a live Q&A session with Capaldi, Jenna Coleman and Steven Moffat, broadcast by satellite from the stage of the Odeon Leicester Square.

This isn’t just a cult TV show any more – it’s a cultural phenomenon. And so, there was a lot riding on this episode, which had to introduce a Doctor who, for the post-2005 audience, would seem radically different – because he was (gasp) old.

Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 8, Episode 1–Deep Breath”

Doctor Who–The Time of the Doctor

“Everyone gets stuck somewhere eventually, Clara. And everything ends.”

And so, Christmas Day 2013 saw the final end for Doctor number Eleven – or is it Twelve, or even Thirteen? That was one of the major questions Steven Moffat’s typically labyrinthine but mostly satisfying story had to address; along with the various unresolved plot threads that seemed to have been left hanging since he began his tenure as showrunner. He also had to retire the now-beloved Eleventh Doctor and introduce a new star .And on top of all that, he had to make it a Christmas episode, traditionally lighter and frothier than most.

Continue reading “Doctor Who–The Time of the Doctor”

Doctor Who–The Day of the Doctor

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be – be one.” – Marcus Aurelius

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Tricky things, anniversary shows. Although this was celebrating 50 years, technically there’s only been two previous attempts – The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors (no, I’m not counting Dimensions in Time). They have to be crowd-pleasers, they have to encompass the show’s ever-growing mythology, and yet they also have to be accessible to viewers who don’t necessarily have the extensive knowledge of the show’s past that us fanboys have. The Three Doctors works rather well in that regard, while The Five Doctors doesn’t. But what about Day of the Doctor?

Continue reading “Doctor Who–The Day of the Doctor”

The 50 Doctors

Clyde: “Is there a limit? I mean, how many times can you change?”
The Doctor: “507.”
– The Sarah Jane Adventures, Death of the Doctor

With the Twelfth Doctor nearly upon us, and an unexpected new Doctor revealed between 8 and 9, a lot of fanboys are very concerned. After all, it says in The Deadly Assassin that a Time Lord can only regenerate 12 times. Which is reiterated in Mawdryn Undead and The Five Doctors. Ah, but The Five Doctors also had President Borusa offering the Master “a whole new cycle” of regenerations. But recently, Steven Moffat seems to have confirmed that 12 is still the limit. Or perhaps not. Rule number one – Moffat lies.

Still, a Facebook conversation with young Mr Noel Storey recently prompted me to try and recall all the actors who’ve played the Doctor over the years. And it was more than 13. I actually came up with 31, off the top of my head. And then I checked the internet – and found there were quite a few more. And wouldn’t you know it, there’s actually, ooh, just about 50 of them. How convenient! So, in chronological order, without further ado, here’s… (drum roll)… THE 50 DOCTORS!

Continue reading “The 50 Doctors”

An Adventure in Space and Time

“CS Lewis meets HG Wells meets Father Christmas. That’s the Doctor.”

Well that was rather wonderful, wasn’t it? I’ve never previously thought of Mark Gatiss as a writer of moving character drama; sly wit, certainly, dry irony yes. OK, so he’s written a few Doctor Who episodes, but the best of those (The Crimson Horror) was determinedly tongue-in-cheek, much like his work on The League of Gentlemen.

Continue reading “An Adventure in Space and Time”

Doctor Who: The Enemy of the Web of the World of Fear

“People spend all their time making nice things and then other people come along and break them!”

I’ve been rather quiet on the blogging front of late – it’s been a lovely summer, and I’ve enjoyed being out in it rather than spending evenings tapping away on a keyboard. But if there’s one thing guaranteed to make me put fingers to keys once again, it’s a new episode of Doctor Who.

Or in this case, not entirely “new”. I started this blog way back in the dim and distant 2007 primarily to review Doctor Who, but I never thought I’d be in the position of reviewing episodes from 1967/68 that I – and everyone else born since then – had never been able to see before. Yet thanks to the sterling efforts of one Philip Morris (not the one who makes cigarettes), we can all now enjoy two stories long held to be classics – The Enemy of the World and The Web of Fear.

Continue reading “Doctor Who: The Enemy of the Web of the World of Fear”

Doctor Who: Series 7, Episode 14–The Name of the Doctor

“I’m Clara Oswald. I’m the Impossible Girl. I was born to save the Doctor.”

Steven Moffat loves to engage with the fans of Doctor Who. And he particularly loves to bait some of the more humourless fans whose presumed ownership of the show makes their gorges rise in anger at the thought of anyone doing something with it that they personally don’t like. He’s got form, provoking them with titles like Let’s Kill Hitler and The Doctor’s Wife (which turned out not to be literal), then having the Doctor seemingly actually get married – or did he?

Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 7, Episode 14–The Name of the Doctor”

Doctor Who: Series 7, Episode 13–Nightmare in Silver

“Hail to you, the Doctor – the saviour of the Cybermen!”

Having penned the instant classic The Doctor’s Wife, renowned author Neil Gaiman was back this week for a second stab at a very different kind of Doctor Who episode. Nightmare in Silver was an attempt at something more like a horror story, something which Neil can do very well – read Sandman issue 6 for a good example. And the Cybermen are good fodder for horror, as their 1967 story Tomb of the Cybermen shows.

There were more than a few deliberate echoes of that classic here; but even as a fan, I’m not sure Neil Gaiman really pulled off making this an effective horror tale. The mechanical horror of the Cybermen sat rather uneasily with his trademark quirky and whimsical imagination. Both aspects of the story were great, in isolation; together, I’m not sure they entirely gelled.

Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 7, Episode 13–Nightmare in Silver”

Doctor Who: Series 7, Episode 12–The Crimson Horror

“We must get to the bottom of this dark and queer business!”

In the late Victorian era, there was a peculiarly lurid, cheap and sensationalistic form of literature known as the ‘penny dreadful’. Capitalising on the recent upswing in literacy, these cheap, sordid tales (costing a mere penny, hence the name) were salacious, excessive, romanticised pulp fictions – so named because they were printed on the cheapest of pulp paper. The newly literate working class devoured this stuff with a passion.

Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 7, Episode 12–The Crimson Horror”