“I don’t accept your reality.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Ah, the “Doctor-light” episode is here. These first started in 2007 (surely no coincidence that we saw the TARDIS landing there in the prologue) with the ever-divisive Love and Monsters (personal disclosure – I actually really like that one). I wonder whether LINDA clocked that TARDIS arrival?
Continue reading “Doctor Who: Season 2/15/41, Episode 4 – Lucky Day”“You’ve seen my life. I bring disaster, Kate, disaster.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
It seems like the new season of Doctor Who has barely started, but we’re already into the endgame with this jaw-dropping penultimate episode, the first of a big two-parter. A run of eight episodes is, sadly, pretty short to flesh out a new Doctor, particularly when he’s been virtually absent for two of those eight episodes – but Ncuti Gatwa has been as superb as I always knew he would be. This episode showed us more of that irrepressible joie de vivre, but coupled with the melancholy we’ve seen in the past, drawn from centuries of bad experiences which, rightly or wrongly, the Doctor considers himself responsible for.
Continue reading “Doctor Who: Season 14, Episode 7 – The Legend of Ruby Sunday”“You’ll be someone else. It doesn’t matter who. Cause every single one of you is fantastic.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
These specials have been an interesting side trip into the world of Doctor Who, giving us the second shortest-lived (onscreen) incarnation of the Doctor, reinvigorating the show while acknowledging everything that went before. It’s easy to imagine, after these, that we’ll still be watching Doctor Who in several years’ time. But the new question is – just how many?
Continue reading “Doctor Who: 2023 Special #3 – The Giggle”“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.
Continue reading “Doctor Who: 2023 Special #1 – The Star Beast”“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?
Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 13, Episode 5 – Flux: Chapter Five: Survivors of the Flux”“I always think I’m rid of them. Never am.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
Ever since we got our first good look at David Tennant in 2005’s The Christmas Invasion, the Doctor Who Christmas special has become a festive tradition. So you can imagine the apoplexy of some of the more… reactionary fans when the BBC announced that, for the first time in 13 years, there would be no new Doctor Who this Christmas (Ian Levine practically exploded, again).
Continue reading “Doctor Who: Season 11, Episode 11 / New Year special – Resolution”“Any living thing in this world, including my family and friends could turn into a Zygon and kill me. Any second now. It’s not paranoia when it’s real.”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
After all the existential sturm und drang of recent episodes, you might have wanted a very traditional Doctor Who story; something with blobby aliens trying to take over the world, faced down by our hero and his plucky band of associates. Something, in fact, like a 1970s UNIT story. Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 9, Episode 7 – The Zygon Invasion”
“Davros made the Daleks. But who made Davros?”
(SPOILER WARNING!)
After a divisive first season for Peter Capaldi’s abrasive, sometimes hard to like Twelfth Doctor, Doctor Who was back this week with a busy episode that was an obvious fan pleaser. Continuity references abounded, even outside a main plot that featured Davros, the Daleks, Missy and UNIT. Being a fan, I enjoyed it hugely. Trouble is, will the casual viewer even understand what all this is about? Continue reading “Doctor Who: Series 9, Episode 1 – The Magician’s Apprentice”
Simon’s Incoherent Blog 