Category Archives: Doctor Who

Doctor Who

The Age of Steel

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I don’t know whether it’s just that my expectations had been set lower after last weeks disappointing episode, or that this weeks episode was an improvement, but I actually quite enjoyed The Age of Steel.

To some extent it was a pretty predictable battle against the Cybermen effort. After escaping the cliff-hanger from the end of the previous episode thanks to the power cell from the TARDIS, the gang split into three teams, one to go after the transmitter that is controlling all the humans, another to sneak into the cyber-conversion area, and the third to head for the central control.

To be honest it was largely a pretty conventional conclusion, with the Doctor facing Lumic – now converted to the cyber-controller, complete with headlamps for eyes. In a not unexpected move for the new series, you also feel some sympathy with the Cybermen, as with their emotional inhibitor chip disabled they start becoming horrified by what they have become.

Perhaps the only surprise is the departure of Mickey at the end of the episode, who elects to strand himself in the parallel universe. To some extent they don’t seemed to have made much of the changed dynamic having him on board has brought. Also it will be interesting to see how things work for the ‘back at home’ type scenes now the character is gone, as effectively it leaves only Rose’s Mum.

However, after the disappointment of the last couple of episodes, next week looks intriguing. The episode is called The Idiot’s Lantern, and is written by Mark Gatiss who wrote the excellent episode The Unquiet Dead last year. This time the story is set in 1953, around the time of the coronation, with something nasty lurking in the TV sets. Hopefully it will get the season back on track…

Doctor Who

Rise of the Cybermen

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After two storming episodes of Doctor Who I was expecting great things of the episode tonight, but to some extent they weren’t really met.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t think Rise of the Cybermen was dreadful, it’s just that the last few episodes have raised the bar rather, and it didn’t quite make it.

The episode kicked off with a pretty spectacular explosion in the TARDIS that sent it into the parallel universe, leaving the Doctor and his companions potentially stranded. Oddly enough for such a catastrophic explosion, the solution was found pretty quickly, with a window of 24 hours for the TARDIS to recharge giving an opportunity for Rose to go and meet her parents in this universe, leading to the encounter with the Cybermen.

This leads me on to one point about the show that has bothered me somewhat – unless we find out something to the contrary in next weeks episode, and I know this is me being really picky – these aren’t the Cybermen. In the parallel universe they are ‘upgraded’ humans created by a wheelchair bound genius who is sick and looking to extend his life, whereas in the original universe although they are again upgraded humanoid, they are not from Earth, but instead come from Mondas, as detailed in their first encounter with the Doctor in the Tenth Planet. Having said that, I could be jumping ahead, and in next weeks episode we find out that in this universe Lumic has salvaged Cybermen technology from the destruction of Mondas in 1986. Interestingly a similar example of things being different could have been used to provide a more interesting way to get back from this parallel universe by having the TARDIS unable to be repaired save for parts from a parallel version of itself stranded on Earth, although it’s been used before, for example in the book Blood Heat where similarly the seventh Doctor finds himself trapped in a parallel universe where his third incarnation had been killed during his battle with the Silurians. Without going in to too much detail, he can’t use his own TARDIS to leave, so instead departs in the parallel TARDIS left by the death of his parallel self – incidentally he does eventually regain his own TARDIS in a subsequent book.

This discussion of similar plot-lines does highlight one thing that struck me, which is the number of derivative plot elements that turned up in the episode tonight. Wheelchair bound nut-case looking to extend his life, and that of his race by augmenting them as emotionless creatures – remind you of Davros? Certainly the whole mind control thing has been done to death as well, for example in The Invasion where having allied themselves with a wealthy industrialist, the Cybermen install mind control equipment in electrical appliances. True it was given a bit of a more modern spin tonight, but it wasn’t really new.

The new Cybermen looked good, especially when they smashed their way into the house at the climax of the episode, however why show teases of them all the way through the episode when the episode title – Rise of the Cybermen – gives away who they are from the start. Teases like that only really work when, like in Earthshock for example where the Cybermen make a surprise appearance at the cliff-hanger ending.

Having said all of that, I still quite enjoyed the episode – and it will be interesting to see how it goes next week.

Doctor Who

Standing By for a Fan Backlash?

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Now after Doctor Who tonight, I’m half expecting a bit of a fan backlash. It happened for the same reason with the Paul McGann movie, as tonight the Doctor has somewhat of a romantic entanglement, indeed he is even willing to trap himself more than 3000 years in the past, leaving his two companions just as stranded in order to save the woman in question.

Having said that, the script writer for the episode tonight was Steven Moffat, who made a joke of the movie backlash in his Comic Relief Doctor Who Spoof, and did the same in an interview in Doctor Who Confidential tonight. Tonight he said that he was sure that there would be a number of Madame de Pompadour fans who would object to the canonicity of the episode because there was no documentary evidence of Madame de Pompadour ever having had an affair with an alien.

Putting aside the potential complaints, what did I think of the episode? After the high point last week, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect this week. Whilst Moffat produced one of the best regarded episodes of the last season with the Empty Child, there had already been a bit of lowering of expectations in pre-season interviews from Moffat, him saying to expect something a bit different. Certainly, placed as it was between the return of Sarah Jane Smith, and the equally eagerly awaited return of the Cybermen, it wasn’t an episode that attracted that much attention.

Something different is what we got. The story opens in the court of Louis XV of France with the court being chased by strange robotic creatures, their faces hidden behind masks. However, the camera moves to a woman who is staring expectantly at a fireplace, saying that she is expecting a visit from the Doctor, who has promised to protect her. Following the opening credits, we then see the Doctor and his companions land on a deserted spaceship 3000 years, and millions of miles away from the first scene.

As the time travellers explore the spaceship, we then start to see the connection, as they discover an identical fireplace looking rather out of place in the ship, more than that, the Doctor is even able to have a conversation with a young girl, who can be seen in the fireplace, hence the title of the episode, The Girl in the Fireplace.

As an episode, it again explored the themes of the Doctor’s loneliness that were explored last week in School Reunion, but in a different way. As the time travellers discover other portals in addition to the fireplace, the Doctor makes regular appearances in the woman’s life, as it transpires that she is Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV of France. However quite why the maintenance robots have gone to the trouble of creating the portals, and are so specific in their requirement to kidnap Madame de Pompadour is a mystery, the solution to which is not revealed until the final scene.

The trigger to the relationship between the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour comes midway through the episode. In an earlier encounter, she has been decidedly forward, grabbing the Doctor for a passionate embrace – but at that point, she still only knows him as the man from the fireplace. However in order to try and find out what the robots want, the Doctor mind links with Madame de Pompadour, however in doing so, she then finds out a lot more about the Doctor – referring to him as ‘my lonely Doctor’ – and the two make a connection.

This ultimately leads to the the Doctor being willing to trap himself in the past, and leave his companions and the TARDIS on the spaceship in order to save her, leading to a touching and tragic conclusion, where again the Doctor is treated as a real character with real emotion – much more than the character was ever allowed to show in the past.

For very different reasons to last week, we thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Again Steven Moffat has produced a brilliant episode, mixing an original idea, good plot, with great writing. The bizarre idea of the clockwork robots opening portals into the past isn’t forgotten, and although it primarily is a vehicle to bring the Doctor into the life of Madame de Pompadour over a number of time periods, with the neat and believable conclusion to the mystery, certainly doesn’t feel like it is purely a plot device. Also the relationship between the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour is well handled, with the knowledge she gains about the Doctor – which of course we as the audience are left to guess – being the thing that brings them together. Certainly, having watched this mornings ‘classic’ episode on UK Gold, the comparison of ‘classic’ Doctor Who in decline, with the new series becomes more and more stark with every episode. Finally Doctor Who seems to be becoming a series that can compete with some of the best TV sci-fi from across the pond, whilst still retaining the elements that made it unique in the first place.

Hopefully the series will be able to keep up the pace with next weeks much anticipated Rise of the Cybermen.

Doctor Who

A Reunion that Worked?

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It has to be said, that in the past, reunion episodes of Doctor Who have never exactly worked. Usually, in an effort to bring back in an old face, the plot has suffered somewhat, and although it is usually fun to see old characters, they generally aren’t the best episodes. Like many fans of the series, I have really been looking forward to tonight’s episode featuring the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, since as was said in the edition of Doctor Who Confidential that followed the show when Sarah Jane originally left, at the end of The Hand of Fear neither her nor the Doctor wanted her to go. At the conclusion of that story, the Doctor is summoned back to Gallifrey, and is not allowed to take Sarah Jane with him. As a result he returns her to Croydon (although we find out in School Reunion that again he missed the mark, and left her in Aberdeen) and heads off to Gallifrey, and one of the main plot threads tonight was how she actually coped.

The episode starts off straight into the action, with a student apparently eaten by the headmaster of a school, you then cut to a classroom, where the new teacher turns out to be the Doctor. It transpires that both Rose and the Doctor are working undercover looking in to strange goings on at the school, having been alerted by Mickey. Following a large amount of UFO activity in the area, large numbers of the staff of the school had mysteriously fallen ill, and were quickly replaced with a new team. After the appearance of the new team suddenly the results at the school have improved considerably, prompting suspicion that all is not well.

It seems that it is not only the Doctor who is suspicious, as on his second day, Sarah Jane, apparently writing an article about the headmaster appears. The Doctor introduces himself as John Smith – the pseudonym that the Doctor often uses – to which Sarah Jane replies that she once knew a man who used that name, but doesn’t recognise him.

Recognition comes later that night when both Sarah Jane and the Doctor are snooping around the school. Frightened by noises from the headmasters office, Sarah Jane goes running through the school, and finds the TARDIS hidden in a store room. Stunned she leaves the room and finds the Doctor stood outside.

After the very few references to the old shows that there have been, this was absolutely the opposite, with the show littered with references and obscure in jokes. For example, having shown the Doctor the non-working K-9, she says that she couldn’t fix him because spare parts were as hard to find as parts for a Mini Metro – a reference to the car she drove back in the one off K-9 and Company – although in School Reunion she has a somewhat more practical (for a robot dog at least) estate car.

What is really excellent about this episode is that unlike every other one of these reunion stories, the characters actually go through emotions, and really develop. In the case of Sarah Jane she finally gets closure over her time with the Doctor. After years spent waiting for him to come back, and thinking he was dead, she is offered the chance to go travelling again, but turns him down and finally gets a chance to say good-bye – indeed when he tries to make a fairly flippant ‘see you around’ type comment, she insists. Also, after being broken for much of the episode, and sacrificing himself to save the Doctor, K-9 is rebuilt and restored to his former glory as a parting gift.

Perhaps the most interesting changes are in the Doctor and Rose. For Rose, the realisation is brought crashing home that there have been many companions before her, and like Sarah Jane, one day she may be left behind. This also brings one of the few moments where you see the Doctor talk about himself, where he says that ultimately he is alone. Whilst his companions could stay with him for their whole life, as a time lord ultimately he can never stay with a companion for his whole life because he will outlive them all.

Unrelated to those, there was also an interesting moment with the Doctor, which reminded me of a comment made in a review of Tooth and Claw, that maybe there is a big series changing plot twist coming. It comes in the finale of the story, when the chief baddie, superbly played by Anthony Stewart Head, who has previously predicted that the Doctor will join him, faces the Doctor again, with the Time Lord having discovered the plan. Here the Doctor is offered ultimate power, and the chance to turn back time and save the Time Lords, and for a moment he looks really tempted. But it is Sarah Jane who persuades him that it is wrong.

From beginning to end I thought it was an excellent episode, probably the best of the new series so far. On the one hand you got closure for the character of Sarah Jane, but alongside that you got an excellent bad guy in the form of Anthony Stewart Head (hopefully he’ll have made a lucky escape from the explosion in the school to return again), and a decent plot and acting from the rest of the cast. I could list off the great moments and one liners for pages more, but I won’t. However as several of the reviewers at Behind The Sofa says, this was probably the first episode of the new series to really give the grown up fans the kind of feeling they got when they saw some of the original stories for the first time. Which perhaps makes the most ironic thing about it all, is that the episode was also the first in the whole new run to be written by someone who had not written any Doctor Who before, and confesses to not being much of a fan – Toby Whithouse.

Doctor Who

Tooth and Claw

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Last night we watched the second of the new series of Doctor Who, Tooth and Claw, which finds the Doctor and Rose trapped in a Scottish mansion with Queen Victoria, and being stalked by a werewolf.

Overall I thought this was a much better episode than the rather lacklustre season opener last week, starting off with an attention grabbing pre-credit sequence as martial-art trained monks take over the house and put the occupants of the house into the cellar, together with something in a cage. In the best tension building style, you don’t actually see what is in the cage, only the terrified reactions of the other people.

The arrival of the Doctor and Rose is another one of the TARDIS navigation mistakes where having aimed for Sheffield in 1979, the Doctor overshoots slightly in both time and space, and ends up on a bleak Scottish moor in 1879. Worse than that he walks straight into a group of jumpy soilders who are escorting Queen Victoria by road to Balmoral after the route of her train has been blocked.

Of course the take-over of the house, and the blocked railway are connected, with the creature in the cage being a werewolf, and the monks planning to use the werewolf to take over the throne.

In essence this is a reworking of a classic horror story plot, with the cast trapped in the house with the monster. However there are some nice touches. For example David Tennant does a great bit of acting as the Doctor putting on a Scottish accent. Whilst he maintains the accent at the beginning, once the monster appears he forgets his accent and drops back to the Londonish accent he has used before. Bear in mind that Scottish is David Tennant’s native accent. There is also a nice intertwining of history and fiction, with Queen Victoria travelling with the famous Koh-i-Noor diamond which Prince Albert had cut by almost 42% of it’s original size to increase it’s brilliance, but was dissatisfied with the result. In this episode the reason for the cutting was said to be so that the diamond could be used as part of a trap for the werewolf, where the cut and it’s increased brilliance were vital.

The central monster was impressive, especially compared to the last appearance of a werewolf in the show back in 1988. Here techniques similar to the way that Gollum in Lord of the Rings was realised in the recent films were used, with actors taking the part of the monster being digitally replaced with the werewolf.

There were also a number of elements to keep the fans happy. Firstly the Doctor introduces himself as Doctor James McCrimmon, a reference to previous companion Jamie. At the conclusion of the story we also get to see the beginnings of Torchwood, the secret organisation referred to first in the Christmas special, and now it seems formed by Queen Victoria in response to the events in this episode, for which she entirely blames the Doctor. Rather than the usual happy ending where everybody is grateful, instead Queen Victoria banishes the Doctor and Rose warning them never to return.

Certainly it was a very enjoyable episode, and perhaps would have been better as a season opener than New Earth last week. However next week we have the much anticipated School Reunion, for which there is the prequel TARDISODE sequence and trailer already available from the Doctor Who web site. Can’t wait…