Doctor Who Reviews – Page 3 – Simon’s Incoherent Blog

Doctor Who: 2023 Special #1 – The Star Beast

“Why did this face come back? To say goodbye?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Now that was more like it.

Don’t get me wrong, I know showrunners are all a matter of taste, and some people really loved Chris Chibnall’s run on Doctor Who. Even I had episodes that I really loved, and moments that stirred my feelings. But generally, for me, it was often clumsy, and incoherent (☹) and too satisfied with cramming in spectacle when character-driven stories would have worked better. And Steven Moffat (who I did enjoy while others didn’t) had his failings too – chiefly that his delight in timey-wimey puzzles often overshadowed his characters, and sometimes drowned the emotional beats of stories.

Happy 60th birthday Doctor Who!

“It all started out as a mild curiosity in the junkyard, and now it’s turned out to be quite a great spirit of adventure…”

And so, on the 23^rd of November, the TV show that has been such a huge part of my life – and of so many of my friends – turned 60. Now, I’ll grant you, ‘60’ seems somewhat less momentous than ‘50’ (despite being a bigger number), but the celebration of what’s now one of the BBC’s tentpole brands was far from diminished.

Doctor Who: Destination Skaro (Children in Need)

“I was never here!”

The smorgasbord of Doctor Who laid on for its 60^th birthday continued last night with a 5 minute skit on the BBC’s annual charity telethon, Children in Need. Monsieur BBC, with these Who specials you are really spoiling us!

Doctor Who at 60 – and me at 54!

“Time is memory, and memory is time.”

When I was a kid, Doctor Who seemed like a really old show. It started before I was born, six whole years before in fact. And to a kid, six years is an eternity.

I first got into it very, very young. Literally the earliest memory I have is of my mother sitting the three-year-old me in front of the big, rented colour TV in our Durham suburban home, presumably in an attempt to get some time off from me, and my being enthralled by what I now know to be Planet of the Daleks episode 4 (it was the bit where Jon Pertwee and Bernard Horsfall shove a Dalek into a lake).

Doctor Who – The Power of the Doctor

“Will someone tell me what the hell is going on here?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

When we Doctor Who fans were kids, we liked to write stories about our hero. Because we were ten year olds with no real grasp of how storytelling worked, we’d just chuck in everything we liked about the show. So, however many Doctors there were at that point would team up with UNIT to fight the Master, the Daleks, the Cybermen and whichever other monster we happened to like. What were the villains trying to achieve? Didn’t matter, just as long as they were there. The results were great fun – if you’re ten.

Doctor Who: Series 14, Episode 00 – Eve of the Daleks

“We’ve gone back in time. Dalek incoming. Two people in this building about to die unless we stop it.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Star Trek has done it. The X Files has done it. Person of Interest has done it. Heck, even Doctor Who has done it before (Heaven Sent). But for the non-nerds in the hungover New Year’s Day audience, Dan Lewis spelled it out in a way that pretty much everyone should know – “It’s Groundhog Day”.

Doctor Who: Series 13, Episode 6 – Flux: Chapter Six: The Vanquishers

“There’s a balance to the universe. It exists that way for a reason.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Well. Let me get this out of the way right at the beginning, because I’m struggling to contain myself from saying it. That was the biggest load of overcomplicated, incoherent, unmitigated garbage I’ve ever seen masquerading as the resolution for a story. Frenetic running around in place of explanations, with so many deus ex machinas cropping up out of the blue that I’m actually looking forward to the return of RTD who usually sticks to just one a season.

Doctor Who: Series 13, Episode 5 – Flux: Chapter Five: Survivors of the Flux

“This is Division, Doctor. Welcome back.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

Worried that we’ve reached the penultimate episode of Doctor Who: Flux and you still don’t have a clue what’s going on? Baffled by the multifarious plot strands stretching all through history? Beginning to suspect that Chris Chibnall has even less of a plan than the Brexiters?

Doctor Who: Series 13, Episode 4 – Flux: Chapter Four: Village of the Angels

“A Weeping Angel needs my help?”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

On paper, Village of the Angels has all the requirements for a classic episode of Doctor Who. A small village setting, isolated, cut off and besieged by the most terrifying monsters the recreated show has to offer. A historical mystery explained by means of twisty-turny, timey-wimey paradoxes. The TARDIS crew separated and in jeopardy, with the Doctor staging a last-ditch attempt to fend off the baddies, sonic screwdriver in hand.

Doctor Who: Series 13, Episode 3 – Flux: Chapter Three: Once, Upon Time

“Time is playing games with us all.”

(SPOILER WARNING!)

OK, let’s see if I’ve got this straight. There’s a planet, called Time. And all the time in the universe comes from there. And upsetting the Mouri, the priests who run it, can destroy time itself, and that’s what’s happening. Have I got this right? Uhh… ok.