Little known fact: the first episode of Doctor Who (An Unearthly Child, the first of a four-episode story) was rebroadcast because the show premiered the day after President John F. Kennedy's assassination, dampening the debut.  It wasn't until the following seven-part story, The Daleks, that Doctor Who took off to become the institution is has turned into.  The original run of Doctor Who was 26 years (1963-1989), then a one-off backdoor pilot in 1996, and then a revived series starting in 2005 to today.  I suspect many Doctor Who fans are more familiar with 2005+ than with much relating to 1963-89.  I say this because I have had experiences where a Whovian can wax rhapsodic about River Song but have no idea who Romana is/was.*

One can quibble about The Day of The Doctor technically NOT being a 50th Anniversary Special since there have been two gaps in new episodes (seven and nine years respectively) but people keep saying, "50th Anniversary", so I am not going to launch a war on the subject.  Now with the special coming our way, I thought I would take a few minutes to look over what I expect to happen.

First, I think the title is all wrong.  The Day of The Doctor comes right after The Name of The Doctor, and I wonder why the production team would give such a similarly-sounding title to two consecutive stories.  Further, I have never understood the NuWho fixation on the Doctor's actual name being some universe-shattering secret.  I remember when the Doctor was just a renegade Time Lord, not really any different to other Time Lords save for the fact he ran away from Gallifrey.  Now he has turned into some quasi-divine being, one whose current incarnation finds bow ties 'cool' and name tags a unique creation.

I don't think the Doctor's actual name is all that important, and don't think it will be revealed here.  However, we do have a few odds and ends.



First, we have the introduction of John Hurt as The Doctor.  IF we accept this as accurate, we then have a skewing of the numerical system that was established nearly 50 years ago.  Since Patrick Troughton took the role in 1969, we have had an orderly series of Doctors (Troughton, the Second Doctor, being the second actor to take the role, Jon Pertwee the Third Doctor, and so forth).  With Paul McGann's one-off special he became the Eight Doctor, and NuWho has confirmed this.  Christopher Eccleston=Ninth, David Tennant=Tenth, Matt Smith=Eleventh.  John Hurt's presence screws all that up.  Why?

It is understood this Doctor came at the time of the Time War, placing him between Eight and Ninth (or as I call him, Doctor 8.5).  Was he the actual Ninth Doctor?  If so, then we shift each succeeding Doctor by one, making Smith the Twelfth Doctor.  Longtime Who Canon has established and confirmed Time Lords can regenerate twelve times, which would make Peter Capaldi the Thirteenth Doctor and thus, the last of the Last of the Time Lords.  We also have established that the Valeyard, a villain from the Trial of a Time Lord season, is the incarnation of the dark side of the Doctor, who came between the Twelfth and final regeneration.

Is Hurt the Valeyard?  If so, then it totally screws up with the chronology of time since how does The Valeyard, who comes after Capaldi's Doctor, get to destroy Gallifrey?

Oy, my head hurts!


In regards to the limit of regenerations, we can get around it by claiming that River Song (who is not a Time Lord) 'gave up her remaining regenerations' to the Doctor in River's Secret Part 2 (Let's Kill Hitler).  I know NuWho insists River (the Doctor's One True Love...make me gag) has Time Lord DNA by being conceived in the TARDIS.  Few people question the logic of this (if I was conceived in a car, would that make me a Ford?), but even if we go with this, we don't know how many 'regenerations' she has.  She's used up at least four regenerations prior to turning into what she is (and already the whole River Song storyline has been torn to tatters), so does this human have twelve regenerations like the Time Lords?  Does she have less?  Does she have more?

I am fascinated to learn how Hurt's Doctor 8.5 will be handled.  It may be a trick of the Valeyard, who can alter official history.  If I were to predict something, I would predict John Hurt is NOT a Doctor.


One thing I am concerned about is the lack of acknowledgement to all pre-2005 Doctors.  Again, we may be surprised, but so far only Tenth Doctor David Tennant and his Companion Rose Tyler have been officially recognized as returning.  In both the Tenth and Twentieth Anniversary Specials (The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors) there were logical reasons as to why the Doctors were taken out of their individual timestreams and thrown together.  We do have a logic of sorts in bringing the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors (they are within the Doctor's timeline), so we do have a reason that will bring other Doctors back (minus the cantankerous Eccleston and the reluctant Tom Baker).  The first Three Doctors have passed away (although actors can be hired to play them, as they did for The Five Doctors), so that isn't a hindrance.

Should The Day of The Doctor either not acknowledge or give a passing nod to all six living ex-Doctors the episode cannot be called a 50th Anniversary Special.  If it acknowledges only the eight years of NuWho or worse, be a celebration of Tennant & Smith only or primarily, it will be a slap in the face of all Whovians.    

I won't predict what will happen (rumors are all around).  I can only hope that The Day of The Doctor pay proper credit to all Eleven Doctors, not just Tennant and Smith.

Finally, will Capaldi appear?  I'm going to say no (though nothing says Smith won't start the regeneration process at the end of the episode).

One prediction I will make is that should Doctor 8.5 be defeated somehow, it will restore Gallifrey, allowing more Time Lords to be brought back to life. 

Despite myself, I am looking forward to The Day of The Doctor.  I think it may be a celebration of the Tennant/Smith Era, I think the Hurt Doctor is a false Doctor, Gallifrey will be restored (though that renders a whole lot of the Ninth Doctor's angst idiotic) and the regeneration will begin.

Until we see the episode, these are all guesses.  In some ways, I hope to be wrong.


* For the record, THIS is Romana I: a Time Lord who became the Doctor's Companion when the White Guardian placed her with the Doctor to assist him in finding the six segments of The Key to Time.  Not only was she a Time Lord, but in many ways was a much more intelligent Time Lord than the Doctor.


This is Romana II.  On the show, she left the Doctor in E-Space, and her fate was never answered. 

Could she still be alive? 

Romana and the Doctor's granddaughter Susan were the only people pre-River to pilot the TARDIS better than the Doctor...and both 'kept the brake on'. 

Stupid joke...

This is the first part of a trilogy.  This first essay will be detailing my views on the fans who attended The Day of The Doctor theatrical screening.  The second will be the actual review of the 50th Anniversary Special.  The third...well, Spoilers.

I had intended to watch The Day of The Doctor at home where I had recorded it on the DVR.  However, I was invited to go see the rebroadcast, for free, by one Bryan Majewski, and I decided I might as well go.  I met a few of his friends, all who were NuWhovians (fans of the 2005 revived series who had little to no knowledge of what came B.R.: Before Rose).  For them and many participating in the event, dressed as the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor (particularly with their fezzes, red bow ties, and sonic screwdrivers), they were highly excited to participate in this special occasion, but they are synonymous with something I simply don't understand. 

How can people celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of something of which the first Forty-Two years are either unknown or unimportant to them? 

For all the enthusiasm many NuWhovians had at The Day of The Doctor screening, there is something almost dismissive of what came between An Unearthly Child and Survival or Doctor Who: The Movie...unless it, like Eight Doctor Paul McGann's 'regeneration' in the webisode (and I would argue, non-Canonical) The Night of The Doctor, is actually related to NuWho. 



Yeah, Doctor Who is 50, but those stories were before OUR time, so they don't count...

As far as many NuWhovians are concerned, almost everything from 1963 to 1989 is something 'out there', something that exists but that little to no relevance to what they enjoy now.   Susan Foreman, Romana, Jamie McCrimmon, Omega, The Rani, The Black Guardian...these iconic Doctor Who characters and the stories they were in are unknown to those who insist they are Who fans.  That is already bad enough, but to add insult to injury, all those characters and stories have no impact on how the see the show they love (which given their importance is almost insulting to the history they insist they are celebrating).     

Before The Day of The Doctor began, I amused myself by going up to random fans and ask them what I consider to be basic Doctor Who trivia.  I selected people who were at least teens to early twenties, so I left out a cute little boy in a fez and bow tie.  I couldn't find it in my heart to pick on someone who probably had grown up exclusively on NuWho.

Before going into the theater, I just shouted to a guy in a tweed jacket, bow tie and fez, "Third Doctor?"  He didn't know.  I then shouted, "What the name of the Doctor's granddaughter?"

After a pause, he shouted, "Susan."  So far, so good.  "Susan WHAT?"  "I'm not good with names," he said.

Inside the theater, I went up to a couple: a girl in same outfit and her large male companion.  I asked them what other Time Lord had been a Companion.  She didn't know (I think she couldn't conceive of a Time Lord Companion), but to his credit he answered correctly: Romana.  He informed his friend she was with the Fourth Doctor for a while.

Having some confidence that perhaps my theory was wrong, I then asked for them to give me the Brigadier's full name.  She looked more confused, but he answered "Lethbridge Stewart".  I smiled and said, "Full Name", to which he answered hesitantly, "Lethbridge REGINALD Stewart?". 

Last question: complete the following catchphrases.  "Bow ties...""...are cool." 
"Hello...""...sweetie."
"Reverse the..."  Puzzled looks from both participants, and the female offered "...The Doctor's Wife?"

Think of The Children! Won't someone PLEASE Think of The Children?!

Next group, some old and new questions.  The name of The Doctor's granddaughter?  "We know, we know..." but they didn't.  "A Time Lord that was a Companion?"  An answer came quickly, "River Song", though the group began debating whether she was a Time Lord or merely "a Child of The TARDIS" (is it any wonder I always say River Song was 'conceived by the Power of the Holy TARDIS').  "Name The Doctor's first American Companion."  Puzzled looks.

Finally, the Three Quotes.  In their defense they got all three right, but the ONLY reason they got them right was because they had heard the quote in The Day of The Doctor.  If they hadn't heard it, it is highly doubtful they would have known it or attributed it to the right person.

Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to like Steven Moffat stories...

My point in all this is not to bash NuWhovians.  They are perfectly free to enjoy anything they wish.  I also am not so demanding that I would ask the metaphorical version of 'how many Time Lords can dance on the head of a pin?'  There are things that I don't know or remember about Classic Doctor Who.  I'm not going to ask esoteric questions delving into the minutiae of Who lore.  Even Classic Who fans may not know when the Sea Devil and Silurians joined forces or all the actors who played The Master or how often the Autons battled the Doctor.

What I DO ask constantly is how is it possible that people could celebrate something without knowing little to anything of what came before.  It is like celebrating Independence Day without knowing ANYTHING about the Second Continental Congress: who were the signers, what the Declaration says, why they did what they did.   There is this great ignorance on the part of many NuWhovians who don't know or worse, don't care about what came before Russell T Davies came to the scene.  It is important to know what came before, otherwise things as continuity fall part apart.

For Heaven's sake, we have the Brigadier's daughter Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave) as a character, taking her father's place in UNIT.  Here you have a character that harkens back to the Classic series but you have "fans" who not only cannot connect Kate Stewart with a true Doctor Who icon, but who for all the proclamations of Who fandom, can't answer a simple question like the Brigadier's full name. 

Frankly, you embarrass me...

For me, it is the same as saying you are a fan of Star Trek, but think that Zachary Quinto originated the role of Mr. Spock.  This may be why Classic Star Trek fans voted Star Trek Into Darkness the worst Star Trek films, not because it was badly made (it wasn't) but instead because it took one of the iconic Star Trek characters and plots and attempted to pass it off as 'original'.  The presentation of "John Harrison" was basically a slap at those who grew up watching either the Original Series or the Star Trek films.  Those who know nothing or little of the Original Series or the films may be impressed with Into Darkness, but those who know the history, especially the hard-core Trekkers, were infuriated.

Similarly, Classic Doctor Who fans cannot do anything but watch in horror as NuWho fans, filled with fezzes and sonic screwdrivers, overwhelm the fan base.  The stories Classic Who fans grew to love (The Aztecs, The Tomb of the Cybermen, Genesis of the Daleks, The Curse of Fenric) along with continuity from the Classic Series, is being obliterated in the rush to become more and more popular (and more and more convoluted).  In one plot point of The Day of The Doctor (the actual number of regenerations) we have the great issue of trashing continuity established in The Trial of A Time Lord season with the character of The Valeyard (whom I figure NuWhovians have never heard of).  This is a source of debate, but that is for another time.

Oh, Grow Up! BTW, are you two WOMEN?

Something established as Canon in 1986 has apparently been forgotten or simply trashed by one episode in 2013.  The Day of The Doctor renders long-established continuity irrelevant, or worse, runs the risk of not making any sense within NuWho itself, let alone the fifty year series as a whole.  Again and again for a series that for twenty-six years kept pretty solid continuity, the revived series not only muddles its own continuity but goes after long-established Who continuity to have some 'shocking twist' that is later forgotten or ignored (mostly because as I was told by one of Bryan's friends, "It's NOT suppose to make sense.  It's British!").

The NuWho fans, with their willful ignorance of what came before Eccleston came along, are more than ready and willing to NOT question whether the series as a whole makes sense.  Things that occurred immediately before The Day of The Doctor aren't remembered or thought through.  Simple information (past Companions, enemies, or established Canon in previous stories) is an irrelevant mystery to NuWhovians.  Those who say are Doctor Who fans must eventually make a decision: are they fans of NuWho, of only those stories that started with Rose, or are they fans of ALL Doctor Who, starting from An Unearthly Child to The Day of The Doctor.  If they are fans of NuWho only, then they cannot in sincerity celebrate a Fiftieth Anniversary.  They may celebrate the Eight Anniversary, but not the Fiftieth.

If they are fans of ALL Doctor Who, from William Hartnell to Matt Smith, then they have to learn more about the show's past and be willing to question when an event from a story in 2013 conflicts or contradicts in a major way with a story in 1983.      



A Poser, A Fraud, A Tool. NOT A WHOVIAN.

Answers to Basic Doctor Who Trivia:

The Doctor's Granddaughter: Susan Foreman
Time Lords who were Companions: Romana, with Susan Foreman, the Doctor's Granddaughter also acceptable.
The Brigadier's Full Name: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart
The Doctor's First American Companion: Perpugilliam 'Peri' Brown
The Complete Quote: "Reverse the...Polarity" or "Reverse the...Polarity of the Neutron Flow", used by Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor).
BONUS QUESTION:  Who was the Doctor's first Scottish Companion?

If you answered "Amy Pond", you're a NuWhovian.
If you answered, "Jamie McCrimmon", you're a Classic Whovian.

Perhaps Chris Hardwicke can answer all those questions easily, but his unquestioning promotion of NuWho and unwillingness to promote Classic Who or call out issues with NuWho makes him a dubious Ambassador to the Non-Whovian world.

This is the Second in a Trilogy regarding The Day of The Doctor.  Last time it was on the NuWho fans celebrating a 50th Anniversary while being continuously and almost stubbornly unaware of the first 40 years.  This entry is a formal review.  The third...well, Spoilers...

Let's start right off the bat by saying The Day of the Doctor is a remarkably stupid title for any Doctor Who episode, let alone what has been touted as the 50th Anniversary Special.  The title is so damn bloody close to the last Doctor Who story (The Name of the Doctor) that I constantly kept calling The Day of the DoctorThe Name of the Doctor.   Someone MUST have thought that the titles were simply too similar to not make people wonder, right?  Of course, this was before I learned that the Christmas Special is to be called...The TIME of The Doctor.

Name, Day, and Time.  All that's missing is Rank.

In any case, The Day of The Doctor purports to be the 50th Anniversary Special to one of the most wildly-successful science-fiction shows on today, which has gone from cult to mainstream to almost mania.  I have wondered whether Doctor Who's massive popularity has damned the show to being mere spectacle, all bright lights and rapid pacing to cover plot holes and continuity errors to please a group of rabid fans who know little to nothing about what came before the show's revival in 2005.  I'd argue that most fans celebrating The Day of The Doctor know only or almost exclusively nothing but Doctor Who episodes from Rose onwards, the Ninth through Eleventh Doctors being their primary points of reference.  I've already talked about that, but now in the second part of our trilogy, let us go over the actual episode itself.

The Day of The Doctor cannot be called a 50th Anniversary Special because there is so little within it to actually suggest that much came before it.  There are nods to the Original Series (starting from the opening credits, which are the original opening credits seen in 1963 sans the 3-D effects), but apart from a few (which I'll mention here and in the future) so much of The Day of The Doctor revolves around 2005 onwards: the Doctors in the special, the Time War that has been dominant in NuWho, Companions and characters that came after Rose.  Leaving aside the dearth of acknowledgements of anything Who-related pre-2005 The Day of The Doctor is a big, lavish, loud spectacle that does the unthinkable: celebrate not the show itself but the revived series' ability to basically 'hit the reset' and erase so much that came before that it would be more intellectually honest to have Tom Baker onwards just open his eyes and say, "It was all a dream..."

Clara (Jenna Coleman), now a teacher at Coal Hill School, receives a message that 'her doctor' has called.  She jumps on her motorbike and speeds towards a desolate place, where the TARDIS and The Doctor (Matt Smith) await.  No time to go gallivanting as the TARDIS is picked up by helicopter and transported to The National Gallery in London, where Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), UNIT's Head of Scientific Research (perhaps the 'scientific advisor'?) and her aide Osgood (Ingrid Oliver) inform the Doctor that he was appointed the Curator of the Undergallery by Queen Elizabeth...the First.

In the Undergallery the Doctor is presented a Gallifreyan painting (bigger on the inside than the outside), with two titles: Gallifrey Falls or No More.  This painting is of the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city during the Last Day of the Time War.

We now inside the painting to The Last Day of The Time War.  The War Council knows things are going badly, and a strange figure identified by the Daleks as The Doctor (John Hurt) blasts into the walls "No More".  The War Council discovers that there is one weapon of last resort missing: The Moment, a weapon so powerful that not only can swallow galaxies but has grown a conscience.

The Doctor (or War Doctor if you like) goes into the desert to set the Moment, but he not only cannot open it (bemoaning the lack of a big red button) but the conscience of The Moment takes shape in the form of Rose (Billie Piper), or more specifically Bad Wolf Rose.  She urges him to think of The Children before using The Moment, and she opens a time fissure to show him his future.  Through this fissure drops in...a fez.

After examining more of the Undergallery (including picking up a fez), the mystery of the paintings grow.  The glass has been broken from the inside of the paintings.  As part of the examination of the Undergallery, we see a portrait of Good Queen Bess with her husband, The Tenth Doctor. 

Now it's off to Merry Olde England 1562, where The Doctor (David Tennant) is courting Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I (Joanne Page) in a lovely picnic.  Things are going well, even to Her Majesty accepting the Doctor's marriage proposal.  The Doctor, however, knows that The Queen is NOT The Queen, but a Zygon.  Only, one small error...the Zygon is NOT the Monarch, but instead the horse he rode in on.

In the chaos and confusion of having Queen Elizabeth I and her Zygon double with him unable to fully find the fake from the real, a time fissure appears and in drops...a fez.  Now from the portal the Eleventh Doctor drops in the Tenth.

There's some banter, when from this comes The War Doctor, seeking the Doctor.  Now the three are arrested by Queen Elizabeth I and thrown into the Tower of London, thrilling Eleven but not pleasing either Ten or War.

Meanwhile, Clara is taken by Kate to the Black Archive, where the memory of every worker is wiped out at the end of their shift.  This explains why the TARDIS-proof Archive has photographs of all the Doctor's past Companions, including Clara.  Within the Archive is the Time Vortex Manipulator bequeathed to them by Captain Jack Harkness on his death (or at least one of them).  There's a dark twist for Clara, however, as Kate and Osgood are really Zygons about to take over the Earth.  Clara, however, gets the access code to the Manipulator (cleverly scratched on the walls of the Tower by the Eleventh Doctor all those centuries ago) and speeds to Elizabethan England.

The Doctors all attempt to a.) escape the Tower and b.) think of how the actions of the unacknowledged Doctor affects them.  In order for them to find a way out the War Doctor starts calculations on his sonic screwdriver, and the three discover that these calculations, which would take hundreds of years to complete, have been going on through all the other Doctor's sonics, completing at the time of the Eleventh.  However, all that for naught, as Clara comes in and informs them that the door had been open all that time.

Elizabeth, who we eventually discover is pretending to be a Zygon, tells them of the paintings, which is how the Zygons are freezing themselves until the appropriate time...2013 London.  Of course, we have to pause for Ten to marry Her Majesty, then off in the TARDIS to save the world.  In the Archive, the Zygons and the Humans are about to play chicken, Kate determined to blow up the city to save the world.  Fortunately, Eleven had called from the future to the present to get the Gallifrey Falls/No More painting into the Black Archive, and then the Doctors all burst through it and force the warring sides to peace.  The War Doctor, however, knows he must use The Moment.


He is joined, however, by Ten and Eleven, who decide they will share the burden of using The Moment to destroy the Daleks AND the Time Lords.  Clara is heartbroken that it's HER Doctor who kills The Children, but now he and the other two have decided to do the unthinkable: they will rewrite history and SAVE Gallifrey.

They race their TARDISes (TARDI?) to the besieged Gallifrey and when the War Council is told of their plans (to freeze Gallifrey and lock it in a statis cube to make it appear that the Daleks, who would be destroying themselves in the confusion and make the universe think Gallifrey was destroyed too), they tell the Doctors the calculations would take centuries.  However, not to fear, as all the incarnations of the Doctor appear to the Council to space their own TARDI and join forces.  All twelve, the Council thinks, until one of the Council says, "No.  All THIRTEEN" (and we get a quick glimpse of the upcoming Doctor). 

Plan successful the War/Tenth/Eleventh Doctors make their farewells.  The time streams are too confused to allow them to remember all of this, so the Ninth and Tenth Doctors won't remember saving Gallifrey and think instead they destroyed it.  (I digress to say that when the War Doctor says, "but at worse, we failed doing the right thing as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong", the only thing that came to mind was OneRepublic's Counting Stars: "I feel something so right doing the wrong thing/I feel something so wrong doing the right thing".)  Tenth also will not know his future death on Trenzalore, but for now things are good.  However, the Curator (Tom Baker) tells Eleven that people always get the title of the painting wrong.  The painting has two titles: No More or Gallifrey Falls, but he tells the Doctor that it's not two titles but one: Gallifrey Falls No More.   Gallifrey survives, and now the Doctor can search for it.


I know that the NuWho fans who were watching The Day of The Doctor in the theater were thrilled with everything about the episode (one of Bryan Majewski's friends who sat next to me used the word, 'brilliant' to describe how Gallifrey survived), but that was just something that felt wrong to me.  I was never a fan of The Time War and thought from the get-go that it was a mistake to erase Gallifrey when Doctor Who was rebooted.  Despite that, what motivated The Doctor was survivor's guilt, the hurt and rage within him to have to exterminate his own people to save the universes.  With this timey-wimey reboot (something writer Steven Moffat is simply too fond of) that is all erased, rendering a lot of post-RoseDoctor Who either nonsense or just a waste of time.  When those episodes are watched, we know that he is going through all this for nothing.

Again, he might just as well wake up and say, "it was all a dream".

However, let's move on from that (more on that another time) and move on to whether The Day of The Doctor worked.  It didn't, again because the stakes are now never going to matter.  If we are always going to resolve things by basically going back and altering history (even if it means contradicting or erasing what came before) what tension exists in any story, let alone this story?

I note that at least twice times things were basically reset to get the Doctor out of his predicament (when the Doctor makes the call to send Gallifrey Falls/No More to the Black Archive and when The Doctors all jump in to save Gallifrey).  This is an easy way to get out of the difficulties Moffat gets into but it diminishes the Doctor's greatest virtue: his ability to think his way out of situations. 


However, there are other things that fell flat.  A big problem is in the performances.  Page was simply unbearable as Elizabeth I, turning the Warrior Queen as nothing more than a breast-heaving fangirl, permanently infatuated with the Tenth Doctor (perhaps she was suppose to represent all those little girls who fantasize about Tennant, Smith, and to a lesser degree Christopher Eccleston sexually?  However, I would have thought the Osgood character, down to wearing a Fourth Doctor-type scarf, was parody enough).  I was also surprised to see Tennant give a bad performance.  There were times when he seemed not so much bored but frustrated, as if he couldn't make himself believe what he was saying. 

Take when he tells Liz that he knows she's a Zygon via a machine.  He presents it to her and says, "Ding."  "What's that?", she screeches (I'm serious, Page was embarrassing throughout The Day of The Doctor).  "A machine that goes 'ding'", he replies.  This is something that I imagine the Eleventh Doctor would say, not the more serious Tenth.  Yes, Tenth could be goofy, but not this goofy.  Similarly, when Tenth revisits his Big Speech about who he is from Voyage of The Damned, he stops his tense tone when he realizes he's talking to a real rabbit and not a Zygon.  It's thrown in there to please the fans, but it takes it all out of context: what was once a statement of courage and defiance now is a chance to either wink to the hard-core NuWho fanbase or just mock the Tenth Doctor.

I actually felt a touch sorry for Tennant, one of the better Doctors, who was veering close to parodying his Doctor to please those passionate for the dim-witted Eleventh.  While watching him, the phrase "Don't you think he looks tired?" popped into my head.

Not as bad as I felt for Billie Piper, whose Bad Wolf Rose is there just to basically be there.  For being a sentient doomsday machine she isn't taking much of this seriously.  Perhaps it is too tempting to ask at this juncture why a figure from his future would appear as opposed to someone from his past (say, Lalla Ward's Romana II or Carol Anne Ford's Susan Forman, the Doctor's granddaughter, both who are very much alive, but since that might confuse NuWho fans...).  Serving as the Clarence to the War Doctor's George Bailey, Piper has not much to do.  Frankly, any old Companion would have done.

Here perhaps is why I find it so hard to call The Day of The Doctor an actual 50th Anniversary Special.  All the Doctors and Companions: NuWho.  All the characters save the monsters: NuWho.  The guest character of Queen Elizabeth I: NuWho.  As I said, there are nods to the Original Series (certain lines and little hints), but on the whole nothing really connected The Day of The Doctor to anything from An Unearthly Child to Survival/Doctor Who: The Movie.

More things that I found generally displeasing were Murray Gold's score (I hated the cutesy and/or serious music blaring at us to virtually no end) and the visual effects.  Yes they were big and bold, but they were too reminiscent of Star Wars, almost as if they were showing off in the Last Day of The Time War just how much money they spent on it.

However, I'm not in the habit of thoroughly damning something if I find something good.  John Hurt was brilliant as The War Doctor, bringing a sense of pain and emotional weight to the role.  He also showed Tennant and Smith that sometimes taking and behaving seriously makes one a more authoritative figure.  Whenever he mocked his successors tendency to whip out their sonic screwdrivers or their silly catchphrases (Timey-Wimey?) Hurt showed not only the presence of intelligence (and how in the past, the Senior Doctor always knew better than those that followed...like a Dandy and a Clown), but in his regret and fear of the course he had to take made the Doctor a deeply wounded and conflicted character.

As much as I detest Smith I found that his scenes on Gallifrey with Coleman, when he isn't flapping his hands, when there is no music, when he is allowed to take things seriously, you actually get a good performance out of him.  When he discusses the pain of his past act with a distressed Clara, it was deeply moving and touching.  In fact, when things get past the whiz-bang of the lights and the loud music, when things are allowed to be taken seriously and settled down, we find that not only are the actors good but the scenario can be emotionally rewarding.  Seeing Tennant, Smith, and Hurt about to blow up Gallifrey, no sounds apart from their voices, makes things feel tense. 

For me, as someone who is more geared towards Classic Who than NuWho, who has become disillusioned with Doctor Who (in particular with the Smith/Moffat Era), The Day of The Doctor didn't celebrate 50 years of a television series.  It didn't even really celebrate the eight years its current regeneration has been on.  The Zygon subplot wasn't all that necessary to the overall story of rebooting the Time War (and I wondered why Elizabeth I didn't just wipe out the Zygons rather than allow them to keep going into the paintings).  The Day of the Doctor was a noting of the two most recent (and popular) Doctors, who shared a story.  That's all.  For all the history of Doctor Who, The Day of the Doctor really didn't think much of it.

I think that if I were fair The Day of The Doctor would really rank at 4/10 because in many ways it's better than some of the awful Classic Who stories (The Ark, The Gunfighters, Timelash).  However, I knock one point down for it failing to be an actual anniversary special.  What The Day of The Doctor was the 'handy-dandy big shiny reset button' writ large. 



3/10

Next Episode: The Time of The Doctor

SERIOUSLY...THE TIME OF THE DOCTORAFTER THE NAME OF THE DOCTOR AND THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR?  So long as Capaldi's debut story isn't The Tea Time of The Doctor or The Afternoon Nap of The Doctor or even The Doctor of The Doctor...

With The Day of The Doctor now officially reviewed, I have exactly 100 Doctor Who stories, Classic and NuWho, that I have written about.  With that in mind, I decided it would be good to pause and look over the Best of the Best.  Of course, I'll also have the Worst of the Worst, but for now, let's take a look at what we've done and select the Eleven Best Doctor Who stories so far.

Now, first some ground rules.   This is not a Best or Worst Doctor Who Stories of All Time.  The stories covered are as follows: all Classic Doctor Who stories released on DVD in the United States from the First Doctor adventure An Unearthly Child to the Third Doctor story Terror of the Autons with the exception of The Tenth Planet (which was released too late for consideration) as well as the Fourth Doctor story The Sunmakers.  This list also includes all NuWho stories from the Ninth Doctor story Rose down to the Tenth Doctor adventure The Idiot's Lantern, as well as all Eleventh Doctor story from The Eleventh Hour to The Day of The Doctor.  Therefore, do not look for anything past the Third Doctor or most of the Tenth Doctor Era.  They just haven't been reviewed yet.

As for the reason I selected eleven rather than ten, while it's tempting to say it's one for each Doctor, the truth is that eleven stories so far have earned a perfect 10/10.  I didn't want to leave one out, so I opted for Eleven.  Other than that, I think we're ready.  Therefore, without further ado, the Top Eleven Doctor Who Stories so far, starting at Number 11. I recommend reading this while listening to something like New Order's Blue Monday (one of the greatest songs ever written) or perhaps something from my favorite DJ, Andy Hunter (personal recommendations: On Automatic, Hold On, or Sandstorm Calling). 

Num. 11 The Ice Warriors (2nd Doctor) Writer: Brian Hayles

The Ice Warriors have not been in many Doctor Who stories.  The time period between their last appearance in The Monster of Peladon and their return in Cold War was thirty-nine years.  However, they could have had a better debut story.  While The Ice Warriors is a long story (at six episodes, about two and a half hours long), it never slacks off in pacing.  The villains are intimidating with their slow serpent-like speech, and each cliffhanger works to build the tension of how our characters will get out of things.   

The Ice Warriors does what good Doctor Who has excelled at: it creates a memorable villain, it gives the characters dangerous situations, and most importantly, it keeps the violence to as little as possible and no overt violence from the title character.  The Doctor has to think his way out of things, and here, the triumph of intellect makes it all the more pleasant.

Num. 10 The Unquiet Dead (9th Doctor) Writer: Mark Gatiss

Sometimes a simply great performance pushes an individual story higher.  The best example I can think of is Simon Callow as Charles Dickens in The Unquiet Dead.  Callow owns the role of the great writer, but what made The Unquiet Dead work (among other things) was that Dickens wasn't just there to lend color.  Dickens, instead, was a central and important character to solve the mystery of The Gelth, who go from almost innocent to malevolent within the hour.  The images of the reanimated dead and the Christmas setting of Victorian Cardiff (why Cardiff, I wonder) also work well.

Finally, I think this is where Christopher Eccleston had some levity to his interpretation of a darker Doctor.  As the lone survivor of The Time War, who had to destroy Gallifrey to save the universe, he could be rather morose.  However, here the Ninth was allowed some enthusiasm for Charles Dickens, and Billie Piper's Rose Tyler had that mix of empathy, vulnerability, enthusiasm and strength that started her out as a Great Companion. 

Sadly, The Unquiet Dead is the only NuWho story to make the list (and as sidenote, I imagine some of my acquaintances will be livid about this ranking).

Num. 9 The Evil of The Daleks (2nd Doctor) Writer: David Whitaker

It is simply horrifying that perhaps the greatest Dalek story in Doctor Who has only one surviving episode.  Yet it is a testament to the power of The Evil of the Daleks that despite this, it has rarely failed to rank among the Greatest Doctor Who stories of All Time (and certainly here on this list, it won't go missing). 

The Evil of the Daleks gives us great moments of sheer tension (will the Doctor be forced to help the Daleks?) and destruction.  In the final episode, as the insane scientist/collaborator Maxible continues his mad quest for Dalek domination, the chaotic disintegration of the Dalek order (a virtual civil war with the Dalek Emperor thrown into confusion himself) instigated by the Doctor must have been a wild and brilliant 'final end' to the Daleks.  Of course, they would return, but as it stands, the story itself holds up brilliantly, and perhaps in the due course of time a full animated reconstruction will come about.

Num. 8 The Mind Robber (2nd Doctor) Writer: Peter Ling

The Mind Robber is without doubt the most surreal Doctor Who story in both the Classic and NuWho.  Its first episode is filled with simply bizarre moments where the TARDIS and the crew are eventually swept into the Land of Fiction ruled over by The Master of Fiction.  Even at its most bizarre there is a logic that goes with it. 

You get literary characters, you get a somewhat mad world where anything is possible (see Jamie change faces!)  Even this twist of basically having TWO Jamies work within the simply way-out plot of The Mind Robber, and the fact that Doctor Who took this offbeat turn AND MADE IT WORK elevates this adventure to among simply the most inventive, creative, and brilliant stories in the Canon.  Sadly, they didn't take many more chances like they did with The Mind Robber, which is a real shame given the overall premise of the show itself (the being who can travel in time AND space).

Num. 7 The Seeds of Death (2nd Doctor) Writer: Brian Hayles

Like The Godfather Part II is a better film than the already brilliant The Godfather, so The Seeds of Death is a better story than the Ice Warriors' eponymous debut.  We get a clever story involving the high dependence on technology and how it can be ruthlessly used by these evil forces of the Ice Warriors.  We also get simply thrilling moments (such as the cliffhanger when Zoe is without a doubt going to get killed by the Ice Warriors), and throw in some beautiful looking cinematography and it isn't hard to imagine that The Seeds of Death could work as a feature film.

The pacing was great, the story never flagged.  This is especially noteworthy in that The Seeds of Death is a six-part adventures, and those tend to feel stretched out.  However, The Seeds of Death kept building and building on what had come before, and the Ice Warriors felt more menacing and dangerous than in The Ice Warriors.  The Seeds of Death moved quickly, making each turn more intense. 

Num. 6 Doctor Who and The Silurians (3rd Doctor) Writer: Malcolm Hulke

This is the only Doctor Who story to feature "Doctor Who" in the title.  While NuWho has had stories that had "The Doctor" as part of the title (The Doctor's Wife, The Doctor's Daughter, The Day/Time/Name of The Doctor), none used the 'Who' except for Doctor Who & The Silurians.  From what I understand, that was a production error.  Still, whether Doctor Who & The Silurians or just The Silurians, only the second Third Doctor story, astonishes in its intelligence and subliminal messages.

In this the debut story for the Silurians, we get an intelligent allegory about preemptive war, the fear of 'the other', and how both sides can have elements that want to destroy rather than understand 'the enemy'.  Doctor Who & The Silurians was meant, I understand, as allegory for the Cold War, but more than that, the struggle between the worldviews of The Doctor and his best friend the Brigadier comes into sharp contrast.  What I really respected in The Silurians was that the Brigadier was not painted as evil, which would have been easy given his actions.  Instead, it was motivated by a sense of protection, but it doesn't stop the Doctor from calling it murder. 

Num. 5 The Time Meddler (1st Doctor) Writer: Dennis Spooner

In many ways, The Time Meddler is a lighter story, but interesting in that rather than attempting to change history, the Doctor is attempting to keep history as is.  The Time Meddler is the first time we see another of the Doctor's own people (though the term Time Lord had not been invented yet), and it also has a villain that is less malevolent and more childishly reckless than anything else.  The Meddling Monk did not mean to create chaos, but he wasn't above doing so if it amused him.

This is another story where the pacing pushes forward, where bits of humor are allowed to enter (as when the Doctor tells an incredulous Steven Taylor when the latter refuses to believe the Viking headgear they found is genuine, 'What do you think it is, a space helmet for a cow?), brilliant and shocking cliffhangers (The Monk's got a TARDIS!) and which has one of the best endings in all Doctor Who: the three leads virtually becoming a constellation, heading off to new adventures.  A clever balance of comedy, drama, adventure, and a great turn by Peter Butterworth as one of the All Time Great Villains, The Meddling Monk: part clown, part menace, all excellent.

Num. 4 Inferno (3rd Doctor) Writer: Doug Houghton

"Do you hear that?  That's the sound of the Earth screaming out its rage!"  The Third Doctor era was not afraid of tackling current issues in the guise of science-fiction, and Inferno looked at the uncontrolled use of natural resources and their potential impact on humanity.  However, Inferno gave the team both in front of and behind the camera a chance to create an alternate world where among the shocking things was the fact that The Doctor DIDN'T save the day.

The first Doctor Who story to use the parallel universe plot, the Doctor is caught up in a world where those he knows and loves are not themselves.  Inferno allowed the regular cast (Nicholas Courtney's the Brigadier, Caroline John's Liz Shaw, and John Levene's Sergeant Benton) a chance to play frightening versions of themselves.  We get two versions of the same story going on at almost the same time, heightening the tension of whether the Doctor can do anything to prevent both worlds from collapsing.  However, in the end we see that the Doctor and the Brigadier, friends to the end, are allowed a moment of levity to bring down the tension this six-part story created over all that time.

Num. 3 The Aztecs (1st Doctor) Writer: John Lucarotti

"You can't rewrite history.  Not One Line!" How one longs for a time when such a thing was possible, rather than have the constant 'rebooting' that NuWho specializes in.   The Aztecs, the first historical Doctor Who still surviving, is a four-part breathless exercise in intelligence about the morality of imposing one set of values over another merely because one group sees the other's actions as evil or immoral.

There is simply so much brilliance in The Aztecs.  The best decision in The Aztecs is to make Jacqueline Hill's Barbara Wright the central character. As the history teacher, she would know more about Aztec culture than the others, but she also represents the Western idea that the European (or later on, the American) view that she could improve on their society.  Rather than use her influence to bring about slow change, Barbara decides human sacrifices must go in one fell swoop, endangering them all.  Apart from the questions of culture clash, we get some simply extraordinary sets and costumes, the likes of which we would not see again on Doctor Who.  Even with all the budget NuWho has, sometimes the surroundings look like they are from a studio.  The Aztecs looks stunningly authentic.  We even get a little romance on the show.  Long before Ten and Rose, we had One and Cameca.

Num. 2 Spearhead From Space (3rd Doctor) Writer: Robert Holmes

There is something to be said about economy on Doctor Who.  Spearhead From Space, the debut story for the Third Doctor, is I think the greatest debut story of any Doctor (sorry, Peter Capaldi).  It is the first Doctor Who story to be filmed in color, and literally filmed (as opposed to television recording, due to a strike).

Here we get a story by the great Robert Holmes, who is the best Doctor Who writer ever (not sorry, Steven Moffat).  As the Doctor struggles to recover from his latest regeneration, we get the invasion of the Autons (who curiously would be the first monsters in the revived Doctor Who).  The parallel stories of the Doctor's recovery and the invasion come to a head in the terrifying Episode Four.  It was actually quite economical: we don't see much in terms of when the plastic Autons come to life.  However, as they start marching through the city, killing civilians where they stand, I found it, even at my age, quite chilling.  If I had been a child, this would have had me completely behind the sofa.

And now, the Best Doctor Who story of the 100 stories reviewed so far is...

Num. 1 The Tomb of the Cybermen (2nd Doctor) Writers: Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis

The Cybermen have been hit and miss throughout Doctor Who's history, but when they are good they are frightening beyond anything imaginable.  The Tomb of the Cybermen, I think, is there finest hour.  Drawing from The Mummy, we get a revived group determined to use those foolish enough to attempt to control the Cybermen themselves. 

The Tomb of the Cybermen has moments of tension and suspense but it also has a few moments of comedy.  It moves rapidly, never letting up on the thrills of these dangerous foes are placing on the Doctor and those dumb enough to ignore his warnings.  I think what really stands out in Tomb of the Cybermen (apart from the acting, the story, the pacing, and even the sets) is that it takes the Cybermen seriously as a threat.  Sometimes the villains, even the great ones like The Master or the Daleks, can look silly if not downright stupid.  The Cybermen have not escaped this, but in Tomb of the Cybermen, they are the villains to fear. 

Now, of course, we must turn to the Eleven Worst Doctor Who stories so far.  As for the continuation, we have three Doctors to balance. 

The next Third Doctor story is The Mind of Evil in the Classic Who series.
The next Tenth Doctor story is The Impossible Planet Parts I & II (The Impossible Planet/The SatanPit) in the Revived Who series.
The next Eleventh Doctor story is The Time of The Doctor, which will usher in the Peter Capalid Era, but as to whether he will be the 12th, 13th, or maybe even 1.2 Doctor, that remains to be seen. 




The End of Episode One of The Mind Robber

Simply the most beautiful shot in the entirety of Doctor Who...

With The Day of The Doctor now officially reviewed, I have exactly 100 Doctor Who stories, Classic and NuWho, that I have written about.  With that in mind, I decided it would be good to pause and look over the Best of the Best.  Having done that, it is now time to turn our sad eyes to the cacophony of disasters that masquerade as 'quality television.  That's right, time to look at the Worst of the Worst, the Eleven Worst Doctor Who stories so far.

Now, first some ground rules.   This is not a Best or Worst Doctor Who Stories of All Time.  The stories covered are as follows: all Classic Doctor Who stories released on DVD in the United States from the First Doctor adventure An Unearthly Child to the Third Doctor story Terror of the Autons with the exception of The Tenth Planet (which was released too late for consideration) as well as the Fourth Doctor story The Sunmakers.  This list also includes all NuWho stories from the Ninth Doctor story Rose down to the Tenth Doctor adventure The Idiot's Lantern, as well as all Eleventh Doctor story from The Eleventh Hour to The Day of The Doctor.  Therefore, do not look for anything past the Third Doctor or most of the Tenth Doctor Era.  They just haven't been reviewed yet.

As for the reason I selected eleven rather than ten, while it's tempting to say it's one for each Doctor, the truth is that eleven stories so far have earned a perfect 10/10.  I didn't want to leave one out, so I opted for Eleven.  Therefore, we should then give equal time and look at our Bottom Ten. 

Other than that, I think we're ready.  Therefore, without further ado, the Bottom Eleven Doctor Who Stories so far, starting at Number 11.  I recommend reading this while listening to something like New Order's Blue Monday (one of the greatest songs ever written) or perhaps something from my favorite DJ, Andy Hunter (personal recommendations: On Automatic, Hold On, or Sandstorm Calling). 

Num. 11 The Vampires of Venice (11th Doctor) Writer: Toby Whithouse

I had started out as a fan of Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor.  I even named my fantasy football team BowTiesAreCool.  There were a few off stories before The Vampires of Venice, but it wasn't until the fifth Eleventh Doctor story that I started to become disenchanted with Smith.  That disenchantment eventually grew to an almost pathological hatred for how much of an idiot the Eleventh Doctor was and my antipathy towards almost everything related to Matt Smith, Steven Moffat, and especially River Song (whom I first encountered in The Time of Angels Parts I & II) can really stem from this story.

First, they are NOT vampires.  Second, Smith's Doctor here really started becoming too stupid to believe.  He seemed unaware of what a bachelor party was or why a scantly-clad woman was doing in the box.  Then we get the aftereffects of Amy Pond's attempted rape of the Doctor (seriously, she all but tried to rape him, a most disturbing sight apart from River Song naked).  When an understandably upset Rory confronts the Doctor, asking if he kissed her back, he replies, "No, I kissed her mouth," apparently unaware that 'back' had another meaning apart from body parts.  The jokes about 'the Doctor's being bigger than (Rory's)' were not so much risqué but stupid, the story both predictable and repetitive of School Reunion (written by...Toby Whithouse!), and frankly, I did something I hadn't done while watching Doctor Who in a long time.

I rolled my eyes at the whole thing.

Num. 10 The Web Planet (1st Doctor) Writer: Bill Strutton

I kept thinking that it was almost a contest to see just who could come up with more and more stupid aliens while watching The Web Planet.  At a shocking SIX episodes, a story too long by at least four episodes kept going down, down, and down, to where things were becoming too ridiculous to tolerate.

Apart from the fact that some of the plot points were similar to previous Doctor Who stories (and this when the show was still relatively new), we get some simply sad moments.  The most notorious moment in The Web Planet is when the Zarbi, the ant-like creatures threatening the moth-like Menoptra, crashes into the camera with such force that it not only jerks the camera violently (and visibly) but also makes an audible crash.  The creatures were so unbearably silly: the Menoptra with their whisper-like delivery, the chirping Zarbi, and then the ringleader who communicates by what First Doctor William Hartnell referred to in character as a 'hair dryer thing'.  We can't expect to take something seriously if the cast doesn't; then again, nothing could make The Web Planet a serious effort. 

It's painful to watch. 

Num. 9 Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (11th Doctor) Writer: Stephen Thompson

That big friendly button.  More than anything else, that 'big friendly button' damns Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS to being a lazy, even insulting Doctor Who story.  There is so much wrong within it I cannot imagine how anyone could think well of it.  The Doctor threatening to blow up people, then laughing it off as if nothing.  A human so stupid he was convinced he was a robot (let alone this playing little in the overall plot).  The Doctor forcing the 'cyborg's' brothers to basically play nice.  And those are the more simple parts of this disaster. 

You throw in this History of the Time War book within the TARDIS' library.  In it, Clara reads the Doctor's name.  This big galaxy-shattering secret, we are basically told, is available to anyone with a library card who can check out The History of the Time War.  The reasons for 'the Impossible Girl' are also kind of left hanging.  How ever will we get out of this?  Answer: the Big Friendly Button, which is indicative of the thinking behind Doctor Who now and the overall intelligence of the average NuWhovian.  You just reset everything and all is forgotten, problem fixed: Clara remembers nothing, things are now as they were before we started.  Now that we have a reset with The Day of the Doctor, how then does The History of the Time War book change?  Are we to believe we have a reset within a reset?

Num. 8 The Dominators (2nd Doctor) Writer: Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln (under alias Norman Ashby)

If memory serves correct, Doctor Who was on the verge of cancellation during the end of the Patrick Troughton era.  Given such stories as The Space Pirates and The Dominators, it's not surprising.  The Dominators is the best example one has on what NOT to do, which was to attempt to make a ready-made toy from a Doctor Who monster.  The Quarks, far from being the new Daleks, were a disaster.  They weren't menacing.  They were almost cuddly, and the high-pitched chirping they made didn't help.  That, as well as the fact that a child (who could easily fit inside a Quark) could outrun them, and whose heads were far too spiky to serve as good playthings.  Really, the Dominators themselves must have been incredibly stupid to rely on these cuddly little things to conquer the planet's inhabitants, even if they were the perfectly-named Dulcians.

The Dominators was meant to serve as allegory about the pacifism of the hippies, but the Dulcians, with their curtain-as-clothes flowing about them, and the Dominators, with shoulder pads that Joan Crawford would have beaten other children for, were equally stupid. Even the writers were embarrassed by it all, Lincoln bemoaning the fact that the superior The Web of Fear was mostly missing, but all five episodes of The Dominators was still around.*   The Dominators was such a disaster that even the production company knew it, cutting the planned six-part story down by one episode.  In a good turn, the extra episode freed up to create the utterly surreal opening to The Mind Robber, so at least one good thing came from it all.

Sadly, from here on down it's all Eleven Doctor stories. 

Num. 7 The Snowmen (11th Doctor) Writer: Steven Moffat

It isn't the fact that The Snowmen leaves more questions than answers.  That I could live with.  It is the fact that The Snowmen does treat the audience like they were imbeciles and basically makes The Doctor a guest star on his own show (among other aspects) that makes this a horrid episode.

Let's go over some of the really bad things.  The same-sex bestiality of Silurian Madame Vastra and Jenny takes center stage.  They I think were in The Snowmen more than Matt Smith was (and since when was he ever friends with the likes of THEM?).  Moreover, the Doctor tended to defer to them.  The Sontaran Strax, who had been killed off in River's Secret Part I (A Good Man Goes to War) now not only reappears sans explanation (and no, webisodes do not count, not being Canon) but has forever made the once-mighty Sontarans into a source of bad comedy.  The villain of The Great Intelligence doesn't really live up to his name, and unless he intends to turn the whole earth into ice I don't see how snowmen will be much threat in the Amazon. 

Finally, what resolves this great crisis?  Is it something the Doctor thinks up?  Perish the thought, what kind of program do you think this is? Doctor Who?  No, it's TEARS, the tears of a clown...or rather, the magical nanny/bar-wench Clara that turn into acid rain that melts The Snowmen. 

Whoever wrote this really is a stupid man...

Num. 6 River's Secret Parts I & II (A Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler): 11th Doctor Writer: Steven Moffat

I consider A Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler one story which I have titled River's Secret Parts I & II.  I think it's a pretty accurate description given that River Song had at this point in Doctor Who had become the de facto star of the show, with the Doctor being a minor character there to serve her purposes (especially her perverse psychosexual appetites).  We get not one but TWO Doctor Who stories that center around this narcissistic, vain, gleefully murderous creature whom we kept getting told is "the great love of the Doctor's life".

Given the Doctor has travelled with Romana, Jo Grant, Sarah Jane Smith, and Leela of the Seveteem (among others), I find the idea that he could be attracted to someone as needy, intellectually inferior, and manipulative (not to mention, as unattractive) as River Song highly dubious.

A Good Man Goes to War is a horrid thing.  We get introduced to the same-sex bestiality of Silurian Madame Vastra and Jenny (who frankly, went unnoticed by me: I didn't even mention them in my review).  The Doctor is pulling a 'Coalition of the Willing' to help rescue Amy Pond, someone who frankly isn't worth rescuing.  Amy is such a terrible person: Rory, the man who genuinely loves her (God knows why), who has waited an eternity for her, basically gets told off when he meets HIS daughter.  Oh, no, she's going to be called Melody POND, not Melody Williams.  Why should Rory's daughter carry HIS name?

We then get the Big Reveal: River Song is Amy and Rory's DAUGHTER.  SHE is Melody Pond.  Isn't it obvious: Melody=Song, Pond=River.  Makes (no) sense to me.


As if all this is not nonsense enough, we get more appalling treats in Let's Kill Hitler.  Amy and Rory's lifelong friend Mels, who is always in some sort of trouble with the law, kidnaps the three of them and orders them to whisk her off to Nazi Germany to 'kill Hitler'.  No reason, she just felt like it.  Let's leave aside the fact that a.) Hitler plays no part in Let's Kill Hitler and b.) there really is no point to this particular episode other than to showcase Alex Kingston, we get the most amazingly dunderheaded moment in Doctor Who history: Mels, human, regenerates into, you guessed it, The Legendary Legend of Legendness, River Song!

Humans cannot regenerate.  This whole 'yes she can because she was conceived by the Power of the Holy TARDIS' nonsense should tell any thinking person the sheer stupidity of it all.  Then again, we're dealing with people who still yearn for the TARDIS to land in front of 221 B Baker Street, so the fans aren't great intellects.  Finally, if we accept that indeed, River Song CAN regenerate because Steven Moffat says she can...I mean, because her parents did the bump and grind in the TARDIS, it leaves the plot thread from Day of the Moon Part II (Day of the Moon) unanswered. 

How does a little girl who 'regenerated' in 1969/70 manage to grow up with people not born for another ten years in another continent altogether?

Num. 5 Cold War (11th Doctor) Writer: Mark Gatiss

Never were Classic Doctor Who monsters so bastardized, bowdlerized, and simply dumbed down than the Ice Warriors were in Cold War.  Here, instead of the menacing but slightly lumbering creatures, they were turned into these vaguely-Alien types who were searching for Ripley to kill. 

Cold War had all the trapping of the dismal state of Doctor Who today: an idiot Doctor, a rushed pace that allows for little to no actual story to get in, plot points that make no sense (who was taking pictures inside a secret Soviet sub anyway), a monster that demanded our sympathy because he was 'the last of his kind' (echoing the more superior Ninth Doctor story Dalek) and a simply unforgiveable deus ex machina that resolved everything without the Doctor having to do anything.  As someone who loves the Ice Warriors, and who was thrilled to see them return, I finished Cold War in shaking fury at what Gatiss (self-proclaimed genius and second-rate Mycroft Holmes) had done to them.  I'm an honest man: I think well of both The Unquiet Dead and The Idiot's Lantern, but Cold War was simply sickening.  I would say Mark Gatiss should be horse-whipped for what he did, but I worry he might enjoy it.

Num. 4 The God Complex (11th Doctor) Writer: Toby Whithouse

Really, what does anyone remember of The God Complex?  I remember things, but not for 'the right reasons'.  

I remember how The God Complex went out of its way to make Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor a barely functioning idiot.  Here is where I first fully noticed his penchant for referring to Amy and Rory as "The Ponds".  He, if I understand things, does not know that most women take their husband's last name upon marriage.  Granted, this is not always the case, but I don't know a case where the Husband takes the Wife's name.  NuWhovians who don't question things insist the Doctor called them "The Ponds" because he thought Amy was the more dominant of the two. 

Perhaps, but if is so why does he call Rory's father Brian William "Brian Pond" in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (forcing Rory's dad to tell the Doctor, 'I am NOT a Pond').  Am I suppose to believe that Amy is so dominant that she made her father-in-law change HIS name too?  I think not, and the nasty habit of the NuWhovians to call them "the Ponds" rather than "the Williamses" came from this.  The God Complex clearly shows the Doctor to be stupid.  There is no way around it.

Even worse, The God Complex kills off the best chance at a REAL Companion (Amara Kara's Muslim medical student Rita) because she cannot face her greatest fear.  And what is her greatest fear, that fear that will kill her?  Her father's disapproval.  Frankly, this seems to heap insult to injury.  I wish they had killed off Amy and Rory (again) and the Doctor take on Rita as a Companion.  She made better Companion material than either of 'the Ponds'. 




Num. 3 The Curse of the Black Spot (11th Doctor) Writer: Stephen Thompson

Oh, look, a cheap knock-off of Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl.  How clever.  Is it its derivative nature that curses The Curse of the Black Spot?  Is it the fact that Rory Dies Again (the beginning of Rory as Kenny to where it quickly devolved into a pathetic joke)?   Is it the fact that the Doctor is still an idiot who appears unaware of his surroundings?  Maybe its super-speed pacing that never allows for any character development of anyone, leads or guests. How about the fact that the Siren shares similarities to The Empty Child Parts I & II (The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances)?

Well, it's all that and so much more.  The story is boring and nonsensical.  Attempts at both humor and heartfelt fall so totally flat.  Frankly, The Curse of The Black Spot was a waste of everyone's time and talent, to where I simply cannot recall anything other than contempt for it. 

Num. 2 Nightmare in Silver (11th Doctor) Writer: Neil Gaiman

At least this much is true about Nightmare in Silver: it lived up to its title.  Just as I was furious at the disaster Cold War made of the Ice Warriors, Nightmare in Silver not only made a disaster of the Cybermen, but it couldn't even keep continuity WITHIN ITS OWN EPISODE.

These are suppose to be upgraded Cybermen, capable of super-speed.  That super-speed is used exactly once, to spirit away one of the two most annoying child actors to disgrace the screen.  It is wrong when you are actually rooting for the Cybermen to kill off children, but these two were so horrible (both in terms of performance and character) that getting rid of them would have been an act of mercy.  It also gets to where Matt Smith's Idiot Doctor remains Idiot even while under the Cyber-Controller's control.  Seriously, "Mr. Clever"?  That's something Smith's Doctor would say, NOT the Cyber-Controller.

Rushing through this fiasco we get things that don't make sense (why doesn't the secret Emperor just order the destruction of this amusement park in the beginning? why are there troops patrolling a planet long thought abandoned?) and that are a cheat to the audience (when would we have known that Porridge looked like the Emperor's coins when we were never shown the coins or when the figures looked nothing like him?). 

It's hard to get any lower than The Doctor, once the figure of strength, courage, and intellectual prowess, jumping up and down screaming about his 'Golden Ticket'. 

However, despite their worst efforts, Doctor Who has found something more appallingly bad than Nightmare in Silver. 

The Worst Doctor Who Story So Far Is...

Num. 1 Closing Time (11th Doctor) Writer: Gareth Roberts

I simply despised every single moment of Closing Time, starting with the always hideous and thoroughly untalented James Corden as roly-poly Craig Owens (Tony Award be damned).  If I truly believe the Doctor was making this 'Farewell Tour', why would he, someone who can travel through all time and space, out of all the beings he's known, visit THIS fat lunkhead?

It just isn't the return of a simply annoying character that makes Closing Time so hideous.  It's the nadir of the "The Doctor is thoroughly stupid" mentality.  He finds name tags fascinating, especially since they carry the name of "The Doctor".  His name tag says "The Doctor".  THIS is considered clever. 

Closing Time also undercuts the premise it attempts to hold up.  Everyone around roly-poly Craig Owens' life tells him he's too stupid to take care of his illegitimate son, and he's determined to prove everyone wrong.  How does he do this?  By taking his baby to confront Cybermen AND by handing his child to a perfect stranger as he runs off to join the Doctor. 

Nothing stupid there.

We get more grotesque and sickening moments with the Doctor in Closing Time.  The Doctor 'talks baby' (did Roberts steal this idea from Baby Geniuses?).  The bastard Alfie, according to The Doctor, calls himself 'Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All', though we never fully learn WHY a baby would adopt such a stupid name.  We get the Doctor suggesting that he is in love with roly-poly Craig Owens, and more 'people think we're homosexual lovers, isn't that FUNNY' business that would have been pretty dumb in the 1970s, let alone today where same-sex marriage is becoming more commonplace. 

However, what truly makes Closing Time the WORST Doctor Who story so far is five little words:


How I hated Closing Time, the Worst Doctor Who story so far.

Now we're on our way to the Next 100. 

The next Classic Who story is the Third Doctor story The Mind of Evil.
The next NuWho story is the Tenth Doctor two-part story The Impossible Planet Parts I & II (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit).
The next Eleventh Doctor story is The Time of the Doctor.

May I find some true pearls and quickly dump the pits.

* Since the DVD release of The Dominators, four of the five missing episodes of The Web of Fear were rediscovered, and thus we can have a restoration of both the story...and  Haisman and Lincoln's reputations. 

Before The Time of The Doctor premieres (and once reviewed, I would be up to 101 Doctor Who stories), I thought I'd have my rankings of all the Doctor Who stories I have reviewed.  Again, to set the ground rules: this is for all Classic Doctor Who released on DVD in the United States from the First Doctor story An Unearthly Child to the Third Doctor story Terror of the Autons except for the First Doctor story The Tenth Planet.  Also included in the rankings are the Fourth Doctor story The Sun Makers and all NuWho stories from the Ninth Doctor story Rose up to the Tenth Doctor story The Idiot's Lantern, and all Eleventh Doctor stories from The Eleventh Hour to The Day of The Doctor.

How I arrived at this list is as follows.  Every story earned a score between 1 and 10, 10 being a masterpiece, 1 being an absolute disaster.  Once they were scored, they were compared to other stories with similar scores and then determined which was 'better'.  This determination came from such things as overall story, acting, cinematography, etc.  There was also the Would I Rather Rule, as in "Would I rather watch Story A or Story B?"  If I preferred watching one over the other, it went higher. 

The listing includes both the score and the Doctor the stories featured.  Example: The Tomb of the Cybermen (10/2), means the story got a score of 10 and it was a Second Doctor story.

With that, let us move on.  In order from 1 to 100...

Num. 1: Simply the Best So Far

1. The Tomb of the Cybemen (10/2)
2. Spearhead From Space (10/3)
3. The Aztecs (10/1)
4. Inferno (10/3)
5. The Time Meddler (10/1)
6. Doctor Who & The Silurians (10/3)
7. The Seeds of Death (10/2)
8. The Mind Robber (10/2)
9. The Evil of the Daleks (10/2)
10. The Unquiet Dead (10/9)
11. The Ice Warriors (10/2)
12. Inside the Spaceship (aka The Edge of Destruction) (9/1)
13. The Ambassadors of Death (9/3)
14. The Romans (9/1)
15. The Dalek Invasion of Earth (9/1)
16. The End of the World (9/9)
17. The Invasion (9/2)
18. Terror of the Autons (9/3)
19. The War Games (9/2)
20. The Daleks (8/1)
21. The Sun Makers (8/4)
22. The Celestial Toymaker (8/1)
23. The Web of Fear (8/2)
24. Dalek (8/9)
25. Father's Day (8/9)
26. The Rescue (8/1)

    Num. 27: The Highest-Ranked Eleventh Doctor Story

27. Cold Blood Parts I & II (The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood) (8/11) 
28. Amy's Choice (8/11)
29. New Earth (8/10)
30. Rose (8/9)
31. Night Terrors (8/11)
32. The Krotons (8/2)
33. The Eleventh Hour (8/11)
34. An Unearthly Child (7/1)
35. The Daleks' Master Plan (7/1)
36. The Enemy of the World (7/2)
37. The Doctor's Wife (7/11)
38. The Underwater Menace (7/2)
39. School Reunion (7/10)
40. Marco Polo (7/1)
41. The Idiot's Lantern (7/10)
42. The Girl Who Waited (7/11)
43. The Sensorites (7/1)
44. Galaxy 4 (7/1)
45. The Wheel in Space (7/2)
46. The Empty Child Parts I & II (The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances) (6/9)
47. The Crusade (6/1)
48. The Christmas Invasion (6/10)
49. The Reign of Terror (6/1) 
50. Bad Wolf Parts I & II (Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways) (6/9) 

    Num. 50: Stuck in the Middle

51. Planet of Giants (6/1)
52. The Keys of Marinus (6/1)
53. The Faceless Ones (6/2)
54. The Chase (6/1)
55. Vincent & The Doctor (6/11)
56. The Abominable Snowmen (6/2)
57. Victory of the Daleks (6/11)
58. Aliens of London Parts I & II (Aliens of London/World War III) (6/9)
59. Day of the Moon Parts I & II (The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon) (6/11)
60. The Big Bang Parts I & II (The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang) (6/11)
61. Tooth & Claw (5/10)
62. The War Machines (5/1)
63. Rise of the Cybermen Parts I & II (Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel) (5/10)
64. The Time of Angels Parts I & II (The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone) (5/11)
65. A Christmas Carol (5/11)
66. The Moonbase (4/2)
67. The Rings of Akhaten (4/11)
68. The Space Museum (4/1)

    Num. 69: The Most Wildly Overrated Doctor Who Story

69. The Girl in the Fireplace (4/10)
70. The Gangers Parts I & II (The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People) (4/11)
71. The Doctor, The Widow, and the Wardrobe (4/11)
72. The Beast Below (4/11)
73. Boom Town (4/9)
74. Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (4/11)
75. The Long Game (4/9)
76. The Ark (3/1)
77. Hide (3/11)
78. The Crimson Horror (3/11)
79. The Day of The Doctor (3/10-11)
80. The Space Pirates (3/2)
81. The Power of Three (3/11)
82. The Name of The Doctor (3/11)
83. The Angels Take Manhattan (3/11)
84. The Wedding of River Song (3/11)
85. A Town Called Mercy (3/11)
86. The Lodger (3/11)
87. The Gunfighters (2/1)
88. The Bells of Saint John (2/11)
89. Asylum of the Daleks (2/11)
90. The Vampires of Venice (2/11)
91. The Web Planet (2/1)
92. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (2/11)
93. The Dominators (2/2)
94. The Snowmen (2/11)
95. River's Secret Parts I & II (A Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler) (2/11)
96. Cold War (2/11)
97. The God Complex (1/11)
98. The Curse of the Black Spot (1/11)
99. Nightmare in Silver (1/11)
100. Closing Time (1/11)

Num. 100: Grotesque in Every Way

Too low?  Too high?  Did I make a mistake in ranking one story over another?  Let me know.  We have so many more stories to go, from the Third Doctor story The Mind of Evil to the Tenth Doctor story The Impossible Planet Parts I & II (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit) to the Eleventh Doctor story The Time of The Doctor.  I know there will be duds in the future, but there are also good stories too. 

Let us begin...

With The Time of The Doctor, at least two things are certain.  One, this 'trilogy' (The Name/Day/Time of The Doctor), or as I call it, 'the lazy way to title stories' has finally come to an end.  Two, Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor is No More. 

Put this under the 'thank God for small favors' department. 

The Time of The Doctor is simply not just a mess, not even a disaster.  It's a chaotic, insulting and crushing end to simply the worst Doctor in the series' history, one that even he did not deserve.

A message is being sent throughout space from a mysterious planet.  This planet is surrounded by all sorts of aliens, and the Doctor (Matt Smith), with the aid of a Cyberman head he calls 'Handles' (Kayvan Novak) attempts to find out what the planet and the message is.  There is a quarantine on the planet which even the TARDIS cannot break through.  Wouldn't you know it, at this exact time Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman...I still use the 'Louise') is in need of a boyfriend for Christmas, having invented one to her family.

Side note: I thought only closeted lesbians were in need of 'inventing boyfriends' to their families.  Not that, if the dialogue is to be believed, the Doctor has 'invented a boyfriend' himself, though I think he means android, at least I think that's what he meant.  Hard to say given the same-sex bestiality of Madame Vastra and Jenny.  In any case, I digress.

When he arrives, Clara rushes into the TARDIS to see the Doctor completely naked!  Why is he naked?  Because he's going to Church.  Why does he seem oblivious to the fact that he is complete nude in front of anyone, let alone a woman?  Well, in a nutshell, it's because the Eleventh Doctor is either a total idiot or clinically insane, not a quirky insane, but in a 'posing a danger to himself and others' insane.  The Doctor and Clara hop between her family (who are at the very least puzzled as to why Clara's 'boyfriend' is to them completely naked but to Clara fully dressed) and the TARDIS. Handles now identifies this planet.

It is Gallifrey, The Doctor's lost world.

The Doctor refuses to accept it is Gallifrey (despite having set as his goal in The Day of The Doctor to search for his home world, a mere month ago).   Now they encounter the Papal Mainframe, the first ship that arrived on 'Gallifrey' and which put the quarantine and can get them through it.  Tasha Lem (Orla Brady), the Mother Superious, beckons them enter (which does require them to appear nude, though we are spared more actual nudity).



He really didn't need to reveal all...

Tasha Lem, carrying on a River Song-like flirtation that actually is creepier than anything Song and Eleven ever got up to, informs him that this mysterious message brings fear due to no one knowing what it actually is.  Not as much fear as Clara has when encountering the Silence for the first time.  Tasha sends Clara and the Doctor down to the planet, where a town exists.  There be dangers on the surface, like Weeping Angels that temporary threaten them, that is until he magically gets the TARDIS to sweep them away (and we learn, the Doctor is naked again, this time it's his bald head that's exposed.  He got bored one day and shaved it off.  Rational thing to do, right?).

The signal comes from a clock tower on this planet in this town. Here, no one can tell a lie due to a truth field, here in this town called Christmas.  Yes, Virginia, the town is called 'Christmas'.   The clock tower reveals all: the crack in time we first encountered in The Eleventh Hour and which reveal a shocking secret.  The message in Gallifreyan is decoded.  The Message is "Doctor Who?"  Sadly, Handles analysis broadcasts the Question to every ship waiting out above this mysterious planet.  He also learns the name of the planet with the town called Christmas.

It is Trenzalore, where he is destined to die.  Moreover, should he reveal his name (and given the truth field, he has no choice), the Time Lords will emerge and the Time War begin again.

Decisions, decisions.

The kick is good...

The Doctor sends Clara to the TARDIS, ostensibly to help but to try to send her to Earth and safety.  She, however, will not be denied, and hangs on to the TARDIS as it begins to dematerialize.  With him refusing to speak his name, the Doctor now will protect Christmas and Shan declares that 'silence will fall'. 

All sorts of aliens manage to get through: Sontarans, Weeping Angels, even a wooden Cybermen, a wooden Cyberman who unleashes fire.  The Doctor defeats them all as he grows older.  After a 300 year wait on Trenzalore, Clara and the TARDIS finally get back to Christmas.  The Doctor takes Clara up to the clock tower to see the brief Christmas sunrise but Wilson, I mean Handles, finally breaks down.  We also learn that rather than being the Eleventh Doctor, he is actually the Thirteenth.  The 'War Doctor' was Regeneration Number 9, and whom we once thought the Tenth actually was the Eleventh AND Twelfth, his quasi-regeneration in Journey's End Parts I and II (The Stolen Earth/Journey's End) counting.  Hence, he who was once the Eleventh is now (by Moffian fiat) the Thirteenth and final Doctor, having come to the end of his regeneration cycle and thus doomed to die permanently. 

In what must have been yet another confab with Tasha Lem, we learn that those aboard, like the Silence and even Tasha are actually dead and basically Daleks in drag.  Despite Tasha saying that she is dead, Tasha somehow pushes the Dalek within her back long enough to kill the other Daleks and allow the Doctor and Clara a chance to escape.

And finish cooking the Christmas turkey they put in the TARDIS console. 

Despite his promise to never send her away again, the bird literally ends up holding the bird when he dumps her back at her parents...again! 

Guess Clara doesn't get the hint that the Doctor is just not that into her.

Now there is all-out war on Trenzalore where all the Doctor's enemies battle it out in Christmas, with only the Daleks left rolling to fight the Church of the Mainframe.   Clara is at home with her family at Christmas, moping over the Doctor (as all women are apt to do).  Fortunately, the TARDIS materializes and she whisks herself off yet again, to see Tasha Lem piloting the TARDIS!

In the Battle of Christmas, Clara beholds a decrepit Doctor, sitting in front of the crack.  The Daleks demand he emerge, and he shuffles up the clock tower, deciding to sacrifice himself and meet his final end.  Clara, however, goes to the crack in the wall, pleading with the Time Lords to spare him, telling them his name is "The Doctor".  From the sky the crack emerges and sends out regenerative energy, which allows him to have such power that he literally blows up the Dalek mothership with the regeneration energy.

The Doctor, now restored to his younger self, bids farewell to both Clara and a vision of Amy Pond (Karen Gillan), and then a quick facelift.  The new Doctor (Peter Capaldi) comments about how he doesn't like his kidneys colors before asking an incredulous Clara one question: "Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"    

Geronimus Idiotus...

The Time of The Doctor is the perfect embodiment of what the Matt Smith/Steven Moffat Era has been to Doctor Who: a massive pile of shit.  The Time of The Doctor is the After Earth of Doctor Who: a hopelessly idiotic vanity project that fails spectacularly to achieve anything good but is an embarrassment to all involved. 

The best example of how The Time of The Doctor is a vanity project for writer/showrunner Steven Moffat is when Tasha Lem informs the Doctor of the breakaway sect that "engineered a psychopath to kill you".  His reply?  "Totally married her.  I'd never have made it here alive without River Song".  Song has been extremely divisive: some think her as this great Doctor Who icon, some see her as a monstrous character.  I fall squarely in the latter, detesting her ever since I saw her, not in Forest in the Library Parts I & II (Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead) but in The Time of Angels Parts I & II (The Time of Angels/Flesh and Bone).  With little bit of dialogue, Moffat sticks it to the River-haters by having the Doctor credit her with being vital to his life.  He even manages to go one more, by throwing in Tasha Lem, a River Song clone in all but name.

Tasha and River are cut from the same cloth, so much so that even the most casual Doctor Who viewer cannot miss the parallels between them.  Both carry this oddly flirtatious, almost brazenly sexual banter with the Doctor.  Both basically attempt to have sex with the Doctor (and the Doctor appearing both pleased and a bit frightened, like a virgin in Reno).  Both apparently can fly the TARDIS, something once reserved exclusively for Time Lords (The Doctor, his granddaughter, Romana, and the Doctor's Time Lord enemies like the Meddling Monk, the Master, and the Rani).  We can even thrown in the fact that technically, both are dead.

However, having seen The Time of The Doctor twice now, I am astonished that, even given the low IQ of the NuWhovian, the ridiculous plot holes and questions The Time of The Doctor has are not questioned by them. 

Trenzalore has an impenetrable shield...that the Weeping Angels could get through.  The Doctor picks up a Cyberman head that acts like a cross between the Angels in Voyage of the Damned and K-9 exactly why?  He couldn't find information the old-fashioned way...Wikipedia?  WHY is there a town called Christmas where apparently it always snows and people dress like they all came from Scandinavia?

I'm bald now.  Baldness Is Cool...

When Clara sensibly asks how can a town be called Christmas, the Doctor rapidly replies, "How an island be called Easter?"

I'll field that question.  Easter Island, or Rapa Nui as the inhabitants call it, was sighted by Europeans on Easter morning 1722 and thus christened 'Easter Island'.  The ball is in your court, Moff. 

Again and again Moffat shows either his contempt or his shockingly lack of coherent storytelling by putting things in that make no sense in the first place, then never bothering to answer things. 

Tasha Lem can fly the TARDIS?  How?  The Daleks have taken over the Papal Mainframe and are masquerading as Tasha Lem or the Silence.  How then can the Dalek-as-Silence continue to have the power to make people forget?  Moreover, is Tasha actually dead or alive? 

The answer to that one must be that Tasha Lem, River Song substitute, is alive OR dead depending on Moffat's whim.  If she is dead, and the Dalek inside her controlling her, how can a dead person come back to life to kill off the other Daleks and save the Doctor and Clara?  How does a dead person be conscious of the fact that, as she put it, "The Dalek inside me is waking".

I confess to bursting out laughing at this particular line.  "The Dalek inside me is waking."  I thought I'd heard all sorts of idiotic things on Doctor Who these past few years: "Bow ties/fezzes/Stetsons are cool", "Hello sweetie", "Spoilers", "I blew'em up with love", but "The Dalek inside me is waking" certainly ranks up there with being astonishing in its idiocy.

Moffat tries to get the emotions going with characters like Barnable (Jack Hollington), this 'adorable' little boy from Christmas who looks up to The Doctor, or with Handles, the head of a Cyberman.  However, we can't feel for these characters because there is no actual connection between the Doctor and anyone else apart from Clara.  Throwing in an 'adorable' little boy does not equate having a relationship between the two of them that we can feel anything for or about.  Given Barnacle and the Doctor were never shown building a lifelong relationship or indicating anything other than misguided hero worship I as a viewer couldn't care less about little Barnacle.

Even worse is Handles (typical idiotic nickname).  Despite Murray Gold's score trying desperately to pull at my heartstrings, I cannot bring myself to cry over a metal head finally wearing down.  At least with Castaway's Wilson (the most obvious inspiration), there was a connection between Tom Hanks and the volleyball through Hanks' interaction with it.  Try, try, try, anyone crying over Handles (and I imagine quite a few NuWhovians did), I found the whole thing dragging. 

As a side note, shouldn't Murray Gold just retire and give the music to someone else? 

Moffat also throws things in for the spectacle of the thing, but never bothers to answer the questions he poses.  I've already mentioned some things that don't make sense, but let's throw in some more.  The subplot with the Oswalds is irrelevant to The Time of The Doctor.  Let's leave aside how derivative this whole thing is of Bad Wolf Parts I & II (Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways), right down to how the Doctor tricked Rose...I mean, Clara...into going in the TARDIS and back to Earth only to have her rescue him.  Let's also leave aside how Clara pleading with the Time Lords to save the Doctor is reminiscent to Martha's "I DO believe in Doctors, I DO, I DO!" business in Vengeance of the Master Part III (The Last of the Time Lords).

What true purpose did the Oswalds play in the story?  They popped in at the beginning to showcase bad comedy, and then near the end to do what, exactly?  Given the Oswalds, unlike the Tylers, the Moffs-Nobles, or even the Ponds/Williamses, were never part of Doctor Who, why bother throwing them in now?

What The Time of The Doctor really was was a showcase to show off Matt Smith, who gives yet another overdone, overblown performance.  He couldn't resist one final monologue at the end when he defeats the Daleks ("I blew'em up with regeneration"), and there was Smith, hamming it up with gusto and lousy make-up.  He was so relishing the chance to get a spectacular send-off that poor Peter Capaldi got the shortest regeneration in the show's history (NuWho AND Classic).  Just a quick face change and voila, a new Doctor.  Whether he is now the Twelfth, Thirteenth, or even Fourteenth Doctor (thanks to another lousy deus ex machina that played like parody...the trapped Time Lords sending new regenerative powers to the Doctor after he declared Canon the "War Doctor" and the abortive Tennant regeneration being two previous regenerations) remains to be seen, but no matter how you cut it Capaldi's regeneration scene was a slap in the face to which to welcome him.


What is highly amusing to me is how NuWhovians, who did contortions that a Chinese acrobat would look at in envy, attempted to say how Smith was still the Eleventh Doctor with elaborate counting systems or that the "War Doctor" was not a real regeneration because he called himself the "War Doctor" rather than just plain Doctor; when Moffat said Smith was still the Eleventh they said the same thing. NuWhovians would also go on about how the Doctor could go past the Twelve Regeneration Rule established in The Deadly Assassin by harping about how River "gave up her remaining regenerations to the Doctor".  Now they meekly go back to their online forums to deny what they had been repeating as Scripture only a month ago in order to fit into Moffat's own nutty bastardization  of the Doctor Who world.  After enduring NuWhovian nonsense about how we, who argued that Smith couldn't be the Eleventh Doctor given the events of The Day of The Doctor (I won't even get into that quasi-regeneration business with Tennant), were all wrong, were all stupid, were all incapable of understanding the genius of "The Moff" (and by extension, theirs), now contradict themselves to keep the logical inconsistency Doctor Who stories have become.

In short, the fact that they cannot or will not grasp how nothing in this so-called The (Blank) of The Doctor trilogy makes sense on any level says more about a.) how utterly demolished Doctor Who has become under 'The Moff' and b.) how utterly inept and witless NuWho fans truly are.          

Wooden Cyberman: an oxymoron. Time of The Doctor: from a moron.

Let's be frank: The Time of The Doctor is nonsense from beginning to end.  Naked Doctors?  Why?  Wooden Cybermen?  Who came up with that idea?  Did the Cybemen think that a version of themselves made out of wood, complete with FLAME THROWER, made any sense?  Besides, weren't all the Cybermen destroyed in Nightmare in Silver?  Is a wooden Cyberman really a Cyberman, given Cybermen are humans who have been technically modified?  If Smith is the actual Thirteenth, where oh where did the Valeyard, the amalgamation of the Doctor's dark side who comes between the Twelfth and final regeneration go?

Oh, yes, that's from the Classic Era, and no NuWhovian (or Moffat) really care about THAT!  How is something between An Unearthly Child and Survival relevant to Doctor Who anyway? 

Brady is basically doing an Alex Kingston as River Song impersonation and the script doesn't give her anything to hold onto.  In terms desirous and enraged by the Doctor, there is no sense in why she does anything: why she admires his nude body, why she rages against his keeping Christmas safe.  Coleman continues to play Clara as a typical NuWho female Companion, one forever pining after the Doctor.  While it's good to know she went from nanny to English teacher I can't for the life of me figure out why Coleman struggles to make Clara interesting.  Smith by now has become so entrenched with his 'Doctor As Idiot' that it's not really even worth commenting on how bad he was.  The make-up and walking stick, which I figure was there in part to make his Doctor more 'distinguished' merely served to point out how weak his Doctor eventually devolved to.  No make-up in the world makes up for teaching children 'The Drunk Giraffe'.

The Time of The Doctor is a big, loud, overblown piece of trash, appealing only to people who can't be bothered to look past the pretty colors and naked bodies to see that it holds no logic within itself, let alone with its The (Blank) of The Doctor alleged trilogy, and let alone within the eight years NuWho has been on.

If Peter Capaldi is not allowed to make The Doctor a more serious, stable, rational, and intelligent hero, if he continues down the road Smith and Moffat created, then without a doubt The Time of The Doctor is up. 

What Would Pertwee Say?

1/10


Next Episode: Deep Breath

I lost count of Who I Am, but focus on the fez.

Steven Moffat never had a 'Master Plan' for Doctor Who.

A 'master plan' suggest that something will be long, but that it's been worked out, step by step, and that at its conclusion you can follow the clues to the same conclusion presented.

That isn't Doctor Who.

Moffat's three years as showrunner on Doctor Who show that he doesn't just make things up as he goes along.  He just makes things up.

If there were a 'master plan', there would be cohesion, continuity, and consistency in Doctor Who.  There just isn't, no matter how hard the Moffia (his fans, those who think every word he writes either for Doctor Who or Sherlock is holy writ) insists.


A fool will always find a greater fool to admire him...

Weeping Angels die if they look upon each other (Blink).
Weeping Angels DON'T die if they look upon each other (The Time of Angels).
Weeping Angels die AGAIN if they look upon each other (The Time of The Doctor).

Little Amelia is left waiting for The Doctor all night, and he doesn't come back until many years later (The Eleventh Hour).

Little Amelia is left waiting for The Doctor all night, but he does come back in the morning to tell her of all the adventures she will have (The Angels Take Manhattan).

And I won't even get into the Many Deaths of Rory What's-His-Name (Williams?  Pond?  Pond-Williams?  Williams-Pond?).

When you can't even keep a character's last name straight, you can't claim a 'master plan'. 

It isn't just that Doctor Who under Moffat has had no sense of continuity within the three seasons he's been in charge.  However, that isn't to say that isn't one of the major problems Doctor Who has.  Story threads that are given are never answered.  It's been two episodes since The Name of The Doctor and I'm STILL waiting to find out exactly HOW the Doctor and Clara got out of his timestream in Trenzalore and get back to Merry Olde England in The Day of The Doctor.   I have a sense that such questions will never be answered, because all Moffat Era stories (not just ones penned by him, but by his minions) rush through things without seeing a need to answer points of logic.

Take the end of The Crimson Horror.  Here, we see the two annoying children present Clara with evidence of her past adventures as perhaps the Doctor's first part-time Companion (has she ever really travelled in the TARDIS in two consecutive stories, I wonder).  Among the bits she is shown is a photograph of herself aboard the Soviet submarine from Cold War.  When I saw that, all I could ask was, 'who was taking pictures inside what I thought was a secret submarine?'  I don't think stories are meant to provoke such questions.

The photograph thing is also something I wondered about while watching The Day of The Doctor.  Just how did UNIT get pictures of people they neither worked with or who were technically both not yet born and already dead by the time the Zygons were making their play for Earth?

If that is perhaps being nitpicky, let us briefly look over how Doctor Who casually either ignores or flat-out erases Canon from both the Classic and even NuWho Eras.  In The Trial of a Time Lord season, we were introduced to the villain of The Valeyard, the amalgamation of the Doctor's dark side that comes between his twelfth and final regeneration.  That being the case, the Valeyard should have been somewhere in the last season once The Time of The Doctor established that Smith is technically the Thirteenth Doctor.  However, that did not happen. 

I'm sure a convoluted answer can be provided how something introduced in Canon in 1986 was ignored in 2013.  However, the easiest answer is almost always the best, so here it is: NuWho fans who know nothing of anything that came before Rose simply hadn't heard of the Valeyard so it was easy to ignore and dismiss pre-Rose Canon for their benefit.



Kind of a drag...

In regards to NuWho, it is amazing how things change from one producer to another.  When David Tennant's Tenth Doctor had an abortive regeneration in Journey's End Parts I & II (The Stolen Earth/Journey's End), we were told by Russell T Davies that it was not, repeat, NOT an actual regeneration.  Now, with Davies' successor Steven Moffat, we are told that it WAS an actual regeneration.  Even worse, with the introduction of John Hurt's 'War Doctor', the entire numbering that had been pretty much undisturbed since 1966 was thrown completely out of whack.  Still, despite what really is an exercise in nonsense is dismissed by the Moffia.  When we were told Ninth was still Ninth, Tenth still Tenth, and Eleventh still Eleventh the Moffia went through all sorts of contortions to show how Hurt's 'War Doctor' was not an actual regeneration (despite all evidence to the contrary). 

Now that Moffat has reversed course, enshrining it in The Time of The Doctor, the Moffia now say that Matt Smith is somehow bizarrely still The Eleventh Doctor but the Thirteenth Form of the Doctor (as The Nerdist put it). 

As a side note, The Nerdist is basically a whore for Moffat.  Chris Hardwick has metaphorically rimmed Moffat so often he ought to have 'Moffat's Bitch' tattooed on his forehead.  The Nerdist, which insists is the repository of all things nerd/geek-related, knows which side of its bread is buttered, and it will never contradict any proclamations 'The Moff' makes regardless of how contradictory or illogical it may be. 

Yet I digress.  Doctor Who now, if we go step by step, story by story, is a collection of illogical bombast where every episode sets fans crying.  I truly am amazed how much time NuWhovians spend crying over Doctor Who episodes.  It's getting to where a single Doctor Who story causes more tears than Schindler's List, Casablanca, and It's A Wonderful Life combined.  Honestly, the only time I remember coming close to crying at a Doctor Who story was at the final episode of Planet of the Spiders, but at least then we had two things that are missing from NuWho: genuine acting and stillness to which to appreciate it.  No sappy/loud Murray Gold music needed to play for Elisabeth Sladen and Jon Pertwee, just solid acting and great dialogue.  It must be the quietest regeneration in all of Doctor Who, and I think still the best precisely because it was so still, so soft. 

You know, Jon Pertwee always HATED silly costumes, feeling they diminished the Doctor's authority. Then again, what would Jon Pertwee know about being The Doctor?

As I look at the Matt Smith Era, I am filled with such a sense of disappointment.  I started out liking Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, but by The Vampires of Venice my enthusiasm began to waver.  Once we got into Doctor Who as River Song & Friends with Special Guest The Doctor, things started sliding downhill.  Now, with his tenure as the Eleventh/Thirteenth Doctor at an end, I find that the stories have been abysmal.  Part of the problem is the writing.  Moffat is blessed with having the Moffia.

Moffat never needs to provide answers.  He knows that the Moffia will either never ask questions or will repeat like robots any answer 'The Moff' gives, no matter how illogical or ridiculous.  If confronted The Moff and his Minions will dismiss it all with a 'they are too stupid to understand the intricacies of it all' rather than actually answer the objections. 

The stories, particularly this last season, have been lousy.  The average score for the Eleventh/Thirteenth Doctor has been a dismal 3.  By comparison, only three Classic Who stories so far (The Gunfighters, The Web Planet, and The Dominators) have scored lower.  The fact that only three Classic Who stories earned a lower score than an average Eleventh/Thirteenth Doctor story says something about where the series is at.

I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry.

A part of the problem in the Smith Era has also been Smith himself.  His interpretation has been described as 'child-like'.  I take objection to that description.  The Eleventh/Thirteenth Doctor is actually an idiot.  His era has been built on little catchphrases ("XYZ are cool", "Geronimo!") and randomly bizarre behavior.  He appears nude for no reason.  He uses his handy-dandy sonic screwdriver to where it becomes a virtual magic wand.  He waves his hands more than he does his handy-dandy sonic screwdriver and does some really nutty things, like insist Santa Claus is real and named 'Geoff'. 

Smith has become highly popular, especially in America, but that popularity I think stems from the fact that he has turned the Doctor from a heroic figure people of all ages can rely on to save the day to a gibbering nutjob who hops up and down screaming about his 'Golden Ticket'.  A successful lead character has to have a sense of authority.  This is why Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes or Patrick Stewart's Jean-Luc Picard have been successful.  They can be odd, goofy, even comic, but they still have a sense of gravity to them.  Smith quickly threw that out the window with his take on the Doctor as this bumbling half-wit who did the worst thing possible...defer to other characters.

Take River Song.  When she 'landed' the TARDIS without the familiar whooshing sound, she remarked that the TARDIS wasn't suppose to do that, that he 'left the parking brake on'.  Never mind that all other TARDISes we've seen in the show's history (the Meddling Monk, the Master, the Rani) all made that whooshing sound.  Never mind that people who could operate the TARDIS better than the Doctor (his granddaughter Susan Foreman or the Time Lord Companion Romana, whom I discovered some 'Whovians have never heard of) kept that whooshing sound.  By this little bit of dialogue, Moffat and Smith diminish the Doctor.  Worse, the Doctor, rather than reply that River is wrong, merely says that he likes that sound, showing that River is right and the Doctor, the lead character, is wrong.

It isn't just with River that he cedes power.  The new main character has been the same-sex bestiality of Silurian Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint.  Since when do others rescue the Doctor? 

For myself, I am so glad Matt Smith is going.  He was in no way my favorite Doctor.  I truly don't have a favorite Doctor.  My view has always been that of the Brigadier, "Wonderful fellow.  All of them".

All of them...except Matt Smith.

Finally, if Peter Capaldi (the Twelfth/Fourteenth/First Doctor of a New Regeneration Cycle) is not allowed to make the Doctor the daring and dashing wise man, if he is made to basically do Matt Smith's Doctor, Doctor Who may please NuWhovians/the Moffia who are easily pleased, but both Classic Whovians and average run-of-the-mill viewers will reject the show and it may continue to make money but the quality, the intelligence of some truly great stories from the past, will be forever gone. 

Doctor Who will appeal only to those like the person I sat next to at the Day of The Doctor screening, who said, "It's not suppose to make sense.  It's British!"

CLEAN UP THIS MESS, MOFFAT!!!

STORY 056: THE MIND OF EVIL

The tricks of the mind are nothing new to The Doctor.  In The Mind Robber the whole story was built around how one being, The Master of Fiction, manipulated the space travelers to build up his universe.  In The Mind of Evil, we see another Master attempting world conquest by appealing to humanity's desire to 'improve' the mind.  The Mind of Evil does a wonderful job of integrating the Master into the story to where we believe it is possible to have him behind the machinations and not just a convenient villain to use, and while I quibble at a few aspects on the whole I was surprisingly pleased how well The Mind of Evil worked both visually and storywise.

The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) and his Companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning) go to Strangmoor Prison to see the Keller Process.  Through a machine, criminals can have all their negative impulses removed, making them docile but functional members of society.  Barnham (Neil McCarthy) is the latest criminal to undergo the Keller Process.  This time, some things remain the same: the prisoners are in an uproar whenever the Keller Machine is used.  Some things, however, are different: under the eye of Professor Kettering (Simon Lack) the Keller Process creates a particularly painful reaction to Barnham.  The Doctor is fiercely opposed to the Process and insists the machine be destroyed.  Needless to say, he is ignored, even after two people end up dead near the machine, including Kettering, who died by drowning in a dry room.

In a seemingly unrelated story, UNIT Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney) has his hands full with a World Peace Conference.  The Chinese delegate's security detail, headed by Captain Chin Lee (Pik-Sem Lim) comes to the Brigadier with various complaints.  The Chinese delegate's room has been robbed, despite round-the-clock surveillance from UNIT.  However, she herself has stolen the papers, under some form of mind control.  The Chinese delegate now turns up dead, and despite his objections the Doctor is forced back to UNIT HQ by Captain Yates (Richard Franklin), with Jo staying behind.  The Doctor puts things together when he learns that a Chinese girl (Captain Lee) is missing, because a 'Chinese girl' had assisted the mysterious Professor Keller in installing the machine.



Professor Keller unmasks himself (literally).  It is The Master (Roger Delgado), plotting a wild scheme for world domination.  UNIT has been placed in charge of destroying The Thunderbolt, a missile so dangerous it has been universally banned and will be destroyed.  He will take it and use it for blackmail, and failing that, launch it at the Peace Conference and start a world war.  The Master takes advantage of a situation at Strangmoor: a riot where the next person up for the Keller Process, Mailer (William Marlowe) attempts an escape but only manages to take over the prison, taking Jo as a hostage.

The Master offers Mailer a chance to escape with a fortune if he helps him use the prisoners as a private army to seize the Thunderbolt and use it against his enemies, especially the Doctor.  The prison changes hands repeatedly: Jo manages to start a counter-revolution and the guards briefly retake Strangmoor until the Master leads the counter-counter-revolution.  The Doctor is now forced to help the Master, especially since the Keller Machine (which contains a parasite that uses a person's greatest fear to kill them) is growing out of control.  It soon takes a life of its own, moving at will and apparently killing at will too.

The Brigadier learns the Thunderbolt has been taken and mistakenly believes the Master took it to Strangmoor.  Leading a daring raid, he retakes the prison (saving the Doctor and Jo in the process) but discovers through Captain Yates, who was taken prisoner, that it is being stored in a warehouse not far.  The Doctor makes a bargain with the Master: the missile in exchange for the dematerialization unit he took from the Master's TARDIS in their last encounter.  The Master agrees.  Barnham is brought along with the machine because he no longer has evil impulses and thus the machine has no power over him.  However, in the chaos of the confrontation between the Master and the Doctor the machine, the Thunderbolt, and Barnham are all destroyed.

Worse still, the Master has managed to recover his dematerializing unit, while the Doctor is still stuck on Earth in his forced exile on orders of the Time Lords.

The Mind of Evil is a rarity in that it is one of a handful of non-Dalek stories where at six episodes, it does not feel stretched out.  In fact, every ending works, leading to a more and more exciting conclusion.  Even the fact that we had few settings (Strangmoor dominated the story) and that the Peace Conference was basically forgotten by Episode Three does not hamper The Mind of Evil one bit.

Screenwriter Doug Houghton had some brilliant ideas within the story.  Chief among them was to keep the Doctor, the Master, and Jo basically separated for almost half of the story.  It allows for the Doctor to solve this mystery of who is behind the Keller Process and the attacks at the delegates, for the Master's scheme to be exposed, and for Jo to take a more proactive stance.

Certainly Katy Manning is in top for in The Mind of Evil.  She is not the sweet-but-dim Companion she was in danger of becoming.  Instead, she comes across as a kind person (she is hit especially hard by Barnham's death) but we also see that she is unafraid.  Without the Doctor to help her in any way, she uses her wits and inner strength to literally kick-start the short-lived retaking of Strangmoor from Mailer and his lot.  What we see in Jo Grant is a girl who is strong, brave, and endearing. 

It is also a great showcase for Courtney, who is allowed a bit of humor when in Episode Five he goes for a Cockney accent when masquerading as a lorry driver.  Courtney and Pertwee work so well together, allowing for great humor to lighten up a series of killings.  When the Doctor is taken to see the Chinese delegate, someone mentions the delegate speaks a specific Chinese language.  Referring to the ethnic group, the Doctor says, "So he's Hokkien," the Doctor states.  "No, he's Chinese," the Brigadier replies.  As usual, the Brigadier missed the point of the Doctor's comment, making him both a bit thickheaded but endearing.

Courtney and Pertwee show how great a duo they make when in a tense opening to Episode Six, we find it is the Brigadier who saves the Doctor from Mailer's gun.  "Thank you very much, Brigadier," the Doctor says, then adds snappishly, "but do you think for once you can come BEFORE the nick of time?"  The unflappable Brigadier merely looks on and says, "Good to see you again, Doctor."  Here we see how strong and deep their relationship is.

As for the Doctor and the Master, we get a master class in performing.  Pertwee gives the Doctor a full range of emotions: he is light when arriving at the prison, serious when he sees what he believes to be wrong, terror when the machine attacks him, respect when speaking to the Chinese, and a whiff of anger when he realizes the Master can get away while he can't.  Delgado makes the Master a calm, cool, elegant figure, a worthy adversary to the Doctor.  However, we are allowed to see under the veneer of suave calm there is a deeply frightened figure. 



Nothing captures this more than when we are shown the Master's greatest fear.  Each person who has come under the power of the Keller Machine dies by what they fear the most.  For one, it was rats, and another, water.  The Doctor is almost killed when he relives the horror of an exploding world (flashbacks to Inferno).  As for the Master?  His greatest horror is The Doctor Laughing Triumphantly over him. 

Director Timothy Combe has some simply brilliant moments in Mind of Evil.  Granted, the special effects on Classic Doctor Who were never the most avant-garde or lavish, but Combe did wonders with what he had.  The Keller Machine's power of disorientation is done with distorted images and twisted camera work.  There is a beautiful transition from the Doctor to the Master in Episode Four that is astonishing.  Dudley Simpson's score is in turns chilling and exciting.

If there were anything to quibble over it is that yes, some of the special effects are noticeably bad.  The Thunderbolt's appearance is so patently blue/green screen it doesn't even match.  The 'Dragon' that appears in Episode Three is similarly laughable, so much so that its appearance is cut down considerably so as to not draw attention to how fake it is. 

I would also argue that the whole 'parasite inside the machine' bit never worked for me.  It didn't go anywhere and I would have preferred that the Keller Machine just be the Master's own creation that spun wildly out of his control. 

Finally, it should be mentioned that the restoration work on The Mind of Evil is simply brilliant.  The Mind of Evil was virtually lost, and while filmed in color only black-and-white copies existed.  However, the colorization process was worth the wait and release delay, as I was completely unaware that it was not the original print I was watching, but instead a painstaking restoration.  The story simply never looked better.

Minus a few hiccups The Mind of Evil gives one a worthy villain, an exciting series of episodes, and some fine bits of acting and action.  Combining this with great music and camera work we find that in the final analysis, this is indeed a beautiful Mind. 

Honestly, Jo, who'd think I'D "talk Baby" or 'Horse', let alone hop up and down screaming about a 'Golden Ticket'?

9/10

Next Story: The Claws of Axos

The two part The Impossible Planet Parts I & II (The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit) introduce a new alien species, the Ood, and to my memory this is the first NuWho story where the aliens are actually memorable.  We've had monsters and villains in NuWho (The Lady Cassandra comes quickly to mind), but in many respects the Ood are different.  The Ood are not just one of the best NuWho aliens/monsters to originate with the revived series.  The Impossible Planet Parts I & II is also the first great story of David Tennant's tenure, a breathless, fast-paced story that reminds me of Classic Doctor Who at its most inventive.  It has the requisite terror aspects, incredible performances from both regular and guest stars, and tension that isn't relieved until the end.  The Impossible Planet Parts I & II surprised me at how much I got into the story.  It's been several years since I've seen it, and at least for this one bright shining moment I found myself doing something I have not done in a long time: love NuWho and think that it truly has achieved par with some of the best stories of the Classic Era. 

The Doctor (David Tennant) and his Companion Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) arrive on a mysterious space station.  It is a sanctuary station, one manned by the Ood, a slave race that does so willingly.  The humans here are a motley crew, but one which wants to discover the secret of the world they are in.  The planet  is K37 Gem5 or Krop Tor, The Bitter Pill.  What makes this such an 'impossible' world is that the planet is suspended within a black hole.  Instead of being taken within the black hole, Krop Tor maintains itself there.  The kind of power to hold itself in place without being swallowed by it apparently is so great it would take the power of six to the power of six every six seconds.  As they deal with the crew: acting Captain Zachary Flane (Shaun Parkes), Ethics Commander Danny Bartock (Ronny Jhutti), archaeologist Toby Zed (Will Thorp), science officer Ida Scott (Claire Rushbrook), Security Head Mr. Jefferson (Danny Webb), and Mechanical Trainee Scooti Manista (MyAnna Buring), the Doctor and Rose realize they are now trapped there, the TARDIS having been swallowed up by the planet into the pits.

Oddly, the TARDIS going down is the least of their worries.  The Ood, a docile group who communicate via orbs that allow them to speak, soon begin muttering very frightening things.  "The Beast and his armies shall rise from the Pit to make war against God."  Toby is soon possessed by a mysterious entity, and the Ood soon go from docile to dangerous.  They tell the horrified Doctor and crew that the one who has taken them goes by many names: Abbadon, Krop Tor, Satan or Lucifer, the King of Despair, The Deathless Prince, The Bringer of Night, the Devil.  The Ood have now gone mad and are besieging the base.  Under the possession of this force, Toby kills Scooti, and perhaps literally all Hell is breaking loose.

Marks of The Beast

With everything devolving into chaos it now is up to the Doctor and Rose to work separately to save themselves and everyone.  The Doctor and Scott had gone down to the depths of the planet prior to the Ood uprising and found the Pit, which has now opened.  Rose, left behind and temporarily cut off from the Doctor, takes charge.  The Captain, however, has authorized Strategy Nine: total evacuation of the planet and escape via a field that comes from the black hole which can hold gravity and not be dragged down.  The Beast, the being that has taken over the Ood, wants to break free from his imprisonment, and the Doctor now believes that the Beast is an ancient being who has spread evil across time, and has entered into myths and legends of all faiths (such as the Arkiphets, the Church of the Tin Vagabond, Christianity, and Neo-Judaism among others). 

Rose believes that the Doctor would have urged them to not give into despair but to think their way out of their situation.  With the Captain, besieged but still in control of the power, he guides Rose, Mr. Jefferson, Toby and Danny away from the rampaging Ood, though Mr. Jefferson falls behind protecting them and dies when the Captain is forced to cut his oxygen off to save the others.  Unbeknown to them all, Toby is still possessed by the Beast, and he escapes with the others.  Rose is determined to wait for the Doctor to return, but Strategy Nine won't allow anyone to stay behind, so the crew grab her and force her to the rocket. 

Scott, contemplating her own impending death, helps the Doctor go down to the Pit, where he meets the monsters.  He realizes that the Beast wants to escape but that now it is only the body that remains.  The mind of the Beast is now free, and if the Doctor tries to destroy the body he risks killing everyone.  Despite this, the Doctor does strike at the Beast, knowing that if there is one thing he believes in, it's Rose Tyler.  The body is destroyed, but a horrified crew discover that Toby is still possessed, and he now is going to use the ship to escape as Krop Tor is slowly going into the black hole.  The Doctor, who now has found the TARDIS, gives Rose hope, and with that she quickly manages to fling Toby/Beast into space, and with Scott rescued the Doctor now helps the rocket escape the black hole's pull.  Sadly, the Ood cannot be rescued, but Captain Flane recognizes their sacrifice by noting in the record each Ood's death, with honors, along with Toby's.


The Impossible Planet Parts I & II astonished me in its inventiveness, its fast pace, its terror quality, and in how good everything was.  Let's start with the two lead performances.  From the moment Tennant and Piper appear, literally laughing at the thought of danger, we see the rapport they have as Doctor and Companion.  Tennant is allowed to make great speeches about what The Beast is, and his declarations of "Brilliant!" are not words of praise but astonishment, which an attribute that can be applied to Tennant himself in the two-part story.  He moves so easily from calm to manic, courageous to thoughtful, that he runs through so many emotions without missing a beat.  Piper's Rose can be a bit clingy, but here at least we see that the stakes are terribly, terribly high and her fierce loyalty to the Doctor is not done out of erotic love but of genuine affection for her friend. 

The guest stars all fill their roles so well you'd think the odds of one of them stumbling would take, but none of them go wrong.  Thorp's Toby Zed (curiously, Zed is the non-American way of pronouncing the letter 'Z', so could there be something there?) goes from frightened to frightening with ease, where one feels sympathy and horror in quick succession.  Seeing his final end made me a little sad, given that Toby was another victim of the Beast.   Parkes' Captain was all business, and he did command the screen whenever he was on.  Webb's Mr. Jefferson was also excellent as the strong security chief, Jhutti's Danny lent lightness and/or fear when needed.  While Buring had a smaller role her final moments of terror sent chills down the spine, and Rushbrook's Ida Scott served as a great candidate for Companion if things had turned out differently.  She went from inquisitive to resigned so well. 

I can't find one performance that was bad or off, and this is not just credit to the individual actors but also to James Strong's apt directing, which kept things moving but which allowed for moments of rest when required.  The pacing was incredible, where the story flowed fantastically without feeling rushed or padded, and there are some beautiful visual moments (such as when in Part II the Doctor is suspended in total darkness, just him in the center). 


I think there is also something subliminal, perhaps accidentally so but still visually striking. Whenever we see the Doctor and Scott walking around in the dark with their space suits, is it me or do they look like Death, skulls moving about?  It adds another element in the 'chilling' aspect of The Impossible Planet I & II, which appears to borrow heavily from Aliens in not just the space station but in the story of having to do battle with a monster that devours all.  The story also appears to echo Dante's Inferno from The Divine Comedy, where in the lowest level of Hell Satan is bound rather than serving as Ruler of the Underworld (though if memory serves correct Shaitan, the Islamic term for Satan, was frozen rather than chained). 

Matt Jones' screenplay uses the motifs of Judeo-Christian theology (the idea itself of the Devil, the subtle quoting of Scripture when the possessed Ood say "We are the Legion of the Beast", the opening moments where the Doctor and Rose are greeted with a 'Welcome to Hell' written on the walls) and trusts his audience to understand what he is referring to.  Moreover, the idea of religion and faith is treated with respect.  The Doctor is not presented as an atheist or a believer of a specific theology.  Rather, when the Doctor states the various faiths that exist in the universe (which does raise the question of how Christianity spread throughout the universe or what Neo-Judaism looks like), he is stating a fact.  He does not pass judgment, he does not ridicule faith itself (in fact, he asks Scott if she has any particular faith, and she says she was brought up Neo-Classic Congregational.  These elements make things familiar without being specific, as if this world could exist. 

The score for The Impossible Planet I & II works so well (deliberately creepy with the elongated violin notes, mournful when at Scott's farewell to the Doctor there is a solitary violin) and the visual effects also work excellently. 

If I were to have any caveats about The Impossible Planet I & II is that we are constantly told how something is 'impossible'.  I counted at least eight uses of 'impossible' in the two episodes.  It was soon becoming silly how nearly everything was 'impossible'. 

As a side note, what I find bizarre is the Matt Jones has never written another Doctor Who story after The Impossible Planet Parts I & II.  While he wrote one Torchwood story (Dead Man Walking), Jones has yet to write again for the Doctor.  Given a.) how good this two-part story was, and b.) how awful repeat Who writers like Toby Whithouse, Gareth Roberts, and yes, Steven Moffat have been, I can find no reason why Jones has not returned for more adventures.

The Impossible Planet Parts I & II left me breathless, excited, totally involved in the story.  It had a fantastic performance by David Tennant, who held our attention and commanded the screen as The Doctor.  It had an equally great performance by Billie Piper as Rose Tyler, who reminded us of why so many fell in love with her as a Companion, mixing strength with compassion.  The guest stars are brilliant.  The story moved and felt epic, worthy of a two-parter.  I truly can't find fault in it. At least in this case, I give the Devil his due.



10/10

Next Story: Love & Monsters

When the revived Doctor Who came in 2005, I was like so many NuWhovians are today.  EVERY episode was BRILLIANT, every story was EPIC, everything was THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME.  OMG Rose Tyler is the GREATEST COMPANION OF ALL TIME!!  OMG Christopher Eccleston is the GREATEST DOCTOR OF ALL TIME!  OMG David Tennant is the GREATEST DOCTOR OF ALL TIME!!  OMG! Lady Cassandra is BACK! OMG!!! Sarah Jane Smith is BACK!!  WOW...The Doctor met Madame De Pompadour!!!

DOCTOR WHO IS THE GREATEST TELEVISION PROGRAM OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!

Then came Love & Monsters, and I was violently awakened from my Doctor Who slumber.  For me, Love & Monsters marked a demarcation line.  After this episode, I became more cynical, more ambivalent, more suspicious, towards this sci-fi program.  I realized that I could no longer give Doctor Who a free pass just because I was a fan.  Love & Monsters is more than appallingly bad.  Love & Monsters is a flat-out insult to Doctor Who fans, and ever since I have looked on NuWho with a jaundiced eye.

I had not seen Love & Monsters since it premiered, and looking back at it the memory of Love & Monsters is actually worse than the episode itself.  That doesn't mean Love & Monsters will ever be reevaluated: it is still a simply inexcusably bad episode.  However, it is not as horrifying the second time round as it is the first time.  Still, Love & Monsters will never an episode which a non-Who watching person should ever see as their first Doctor Who story. 

Told primarily through the video recording of Elton (Marc Warren), we hear of Elton's fascination with The Doctor (Tennant), whom he has crossed paths with on many occasions.  He was there when the Autons attacked, when the Slitheen arrived, and when the Sycorax threatened the world. He also has an earlier encounter with Tenth, but more on that later.  Online, he manages to contact Ursula Blake (Shirley Henderson) who is also a believer in The Doctor ("Doctor What?", Elton asks, showing that Steven Moffat didn't write this episode).  Soon Elton and Ursula meet other believers: the quiet Mr. Skinner (Simon Greenall), the chatty Bliss (Kathryn Drysdale) and the endearing Bridget (Moya Brady).  They begin at first to try to find the mystery of The Doctor, but soon LINDA (London Investigating N Detective Agency) starts becoming a bit of a social club and soon all but forget looking for The Doctor.  They bring snacks, Bridget shares about how she comes to London to find her drug-addicted daughter, Mr. Skinner begins reading from his unfinished novel, and soon they all form a garage band of sorts (Elton, despite his name, is a big Electric Light Orchestra fan).

       
The fun and games (not to mention their rendition of Don't Bring Me Down) comes to a brutal halt with the arrival of Mr. Kennedy (Peter Kay).  This mysterious figure, all draped in black and who cannot touch or be touched due to a skin condition he says, tells them he will bring them back to their mission.  They soon begin to do hard work, following every lead that comes their way.  Among those is the beginning of Love & Monsters: Elton's encounter with the Doctor and his Companion.  After a quick investigation, we find this Companion has a name, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) and her mother, Jackie (Camille Coduri).  The ever-tarty Jackie takes a shine to Elton, even going so far as to attempt to seduce him and getting him through subterfuge to get his shirt off.  As Elton contemplates a romp, Jackie calls it off after receiving a call from Rose, which puts her out of a romantic mood.  Elton by now has decided to give up these espionage ways and start a platonic friendship with Jackie, but she finds a photo of Rose and the TARDIS in his jacket, and promptly throws him out.

By this time LINDA has been reduced to three members.  Bliss and Bridget have disappeared and the others don't really question or follow-up on their friends.  Elton, backed up by Ursula, tell Kennedy to get lost and begin to leave.  Kennedy manages to hold Mr. Skinner back, saying he has news on Bridget (with whom Skinner has fallen in love).  However, we find he disappears when Ursula and Elton return almost immediately to get her phone.  Here, we discover that Mr. Kennedy is really a monster, literally.  He is an Abzorbaloff, a monster who absorbs other creatures.  He has absorbed the other members of LINDA, and managed to absorb Ursula due to his touch.  The Abzorbaloff goes after Elton, but he is saved by the Doctor and Rose, who have tracked him down so Rose can give Elton a right dressing down for having upset Jackie.  The Abzorbaloff threatens Elton, but Ursula, Mr. Skinner, Bridget, and Bliss (all of whom are still within the Abzorbaloff) pull together to pull him apart.  Still, it is too late for them save Ursula, who through the Doctor's 'magic wand' (Elton's words, not mine), is able to restore her somewhat.

As for Elton's first memory of the Doctor, it seems that the Doctor had chased down some creature to Elton's home, but was too late to save Elton's mother.  Still, Elton quotes Steven King, "Salvation and damnation are the same thing," and at least Elton and Ursula are together.  They even have a bit of a love life...or as much of a love life a man can have with a woman who is basically a large piece of cement.

Talk about giving head...



Insert Where?

Doctor Who has had some real clunkers in its fabled history. Starting from the First Doctor story The Web Planetright on through the Second Doctor story The Dominators or The Fifth Doctor's Time-Flight and the Sixth Doctor's Timelash,  it would be fair to say that every Doctor has had at least one bad story (though Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor has more than his fair share).  However, I have seen the Doctor Who episode so atrocious, so hideous, so repulsive, that it killed the series for me. 

How HORRIBLE was Love & Monsters?  It was so bad...HOW BAD WAS IT?...It was so bad I refused to watch the succeeding episode Fear Herbecause the trailer came out at the end of it, and I wanted NOTHING to do with anything connected with Love & Monsters. 

How HORRIBLE was Love & Monsters?  It was so bad...HOW BAD WAS IT?...that after stumbling through Doomsday Parts 1 & 2 (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday) I flat-out REFUSED to watch Doctor Who.

That's correct.  I QUIT watching Doctor Who.  It wasn't until The Waters of Mars that I returned, and that was only because I knew David Tennant was leaving the series.  I missed the Master, all of Martha Jones and Donna Noble, and the 'meta-crisis' Doctor, all because I was so utterly disgusted by Love & Monsters that I could no longer give my time to something so flat-out hideous.

It isn't even the oral sex thing that damns Love & Monsters (though frankly that doesn't help).  It as if Davies wanted to deliberately insult Doctor Who fans, not just with this story, but with the whole LINDA concept.  The members all seem to be rather lonely, a group of misfits who find little outside their fixation on The Doctor to fill their lives.  Even the things they do have seem rather sad (did Davies think Bridget looking for her drug-addicted daughter shouldn't have a resolution).  All I could think of was that poor Bridget's daughter was out there, homeless, high, with little hope of ever recovering and no chance of they ever reuniting.  Is it me, or am I the only one who finds that cruel?  Putting these people and have them come to grisly ends is so, so wrong. 



However, the story itself is idiotic and illogical on so many levels.  Who exactly is Elton relating this story to?  It looks like he is putting this video online, so we have to ask who exactly is his target audience?  Furthermore, why is he talking at all, and why does he interrupt his video with his dancing to Mr. Blue Sky...twice?  With Elton telling us about his encounter with the Doctor and Rose, the story starts off well, but as soon as we cut to Elton telling us the story, all the menace is lost.  Instead, we get treated to Doctor Who doing a Benny Hill skit with the Doctor, Rose, and a monster running around.  I really was waiting for Yakety Sax to start playing as they ran across the various doors.

I also question why Kennedy would so easily take power over LINDA.  No one objected to him bullying his way and taking the fun out of things, no off-sight meetings where they talk about how unhappy they are with him there, and no sense where any of them asks whatever happened to the missing members.  You'd think they would have each other's e-mails or phone numbers, but apparently they didn't.  We also get the rather horrifying sight of Jackie so nakedly trying to get at a man she barely knows (though in fairness, even though Warren and Coduri are the same age, he looks much younger, so at least it is no longer as sick as I originally thought when I thought he was somewhere between Rose and Jackie's age).  Throw in the flat-out insulting bit of Rose dressing down Elton when he's about to be devoured by the Abzarbaloff.  Is she stupid or just so whiny that she misses the point of all this?  Even the Abzorbaloff looked at her with a puzzled expression, as if he himself couldn't believe the Companion could be so daft.

Finally, the entire "Oh, I saw your Mommy get killed thing" is so appalling on so many levels.  How does Elton forget his mother getting killed, and why is the Tenth Doctor involved?  Was Rose with him in all this?  Given that Nine regenerated to Ten with Rose with him, and there hasn't been evidence she has left him for any period of time, where does Mrs. Pope's death fit within their adventures?  Come to think of it, Elton shouldn't be obsessed with the Doctor.  Elton should try to kill him.  The Doctor has been inadvertently responsible for his mother's death, his friends death, and his love interest's death.  Given all that, why does Elton LIKE the Doctor?

A big hurdle for Love & Monsters was that the monster was created by a nine-year-old boy.  William Grantham (no relation to Downton Abbey's Lord Grantham) won the Blue Peter"Design a Doctor Who Monster" Contest.  The obvious question is, "Why?"  How bad could the other entries have been if the winner turned out to be so horrendous?  It doesn't seem fair to beat up on a child, but the entire decision to hand over a major part of a Doctor Who story to a child seems like a daft decision.  It certainly opens up the production to charges that, "it's so easy even a child could do it", which in this case, a child did.  Grantham stated that he envisioned the Abzorbaloff to be the size of a double-decker bus.  I would have hoped it would have been envisioned to be...well, interesting.  The Abzorbaloff (I always wonder whether he should have had a Russian accent) has only the vaguest reason for being an antagonist, and a pretty weak one too. 

The performances were almost all bad.  I thought well of Warren, but apart from him everyone else was either awful (Kay) or slumming it (Tennant, Piper).  The comedy fell flat, the drama was overwrought, the horror was not, and in short Love & Monsters is an ugly mess all around in every manner. 

Love & Monsters was a deeply troubling and traumatizing episode, and not just for the 'love life' bit Elton threw in at the end.  Put it down to my hopelessly naïve nature, but the first thing I wondered when Elton said that was, "How could they have a love life?"  It took a while, and then I thought, "Eww...".  Russell T Davies may deny it all he wants, but the inclusion of an oral sex joke in a children/family show is the lowest point in Doctor Who history.

In the final analysis, the actual memory I have of Love & Monsters is uglier than the actual episode itself.  Time has healed the horrifying, traumatic experience I had with this episode.  I can look back at it without actually vomiting (as I did the first time, which was my exact reaction when I saw Hayden Christensen at the end of Return of the Jedi).  However, while the passing of the years has softened the actual viewing experience of Love & Monsters, the story itself remains a sad and sorry embarrassment to all concerned.  I would rather watch River Song in a ménage a trois with the Eleventh Doctor and Madame Vastra (which I figure many Whovians would LOVE to see) than watch Love & Monsters. 

I survived Love & Monsters, and thank God I NEVER have to watch it again... 

I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry... Well, you should be!

0/10

Next Episode: Fear Her

Before Greeks bearing gifts is the old saying.  What then when it is aliens who come and present offerings? The Claws of Axos does away with the ugly alien (mostly) by presenting a group of beautiful golden beings.  It doesn't do away with The Master, but at least here, despite having escaped The Doctor and UNIT's clutches, his presence does at least have a note of logic to it (which sadly would not always be the case in future Master stories). 

A strange vessel is headed to Earth.  The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) has to convince Minister Chinn (Peter Bathurst) that it might not be hostile, the idea of firing first and asking questions later so angering him.  The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) is caught in between: fearing that the ship is hostile but knowing the Doctor's got a pretty good track record on these sort of things.  The ship proves its worth when rockets Chinn orders fired fail, putting the Earth in danger.

The ship lands near a power plant, and while the landing and 'crew' don't appear to pose any real threat, a hobo that had been taken into the ship prior to UNIT and Chinn's arrival might disprove that idea.  Inside, however, we get strange goings-on: the American UNIT delegate Filer (Paul Grist), who has a mutual affection for the Doctor's Companion Jo Grant (Katy Manning), goes into the ship but is spared, being examined to have high intelligence that could serve useful.  When UNIT, the Doctor, and Chinn go in, the ship finds that the Doctor is alien too.

We also get another surprise.  Being held aboard the ship is none other than The Master (Roger Delgado).  This, however, is not know at the onset. 

The Axons offer UNIT a gift in exchange for taking some of Earth's energy supply to fly off: Axonite, a 'thinking molecule' that can reproduce anything.  It could end world hunger by increasing the size of animals among other things.  Chinn, always seeking a UK advantage, wants exclusive rights but the Axons want it spread worldwide.  The Doctor, however, is not convinced that this is all purely benevolent.


His theories and suspicions are proven correct.  While the other scientists are thrilled with Axonite, he finds that the ship, the beings within it, and the Axonite itself is all part of one giant entity.  When he tested the Axonite to see if it would do wonders, he accidentally triggered Axos' plan: to spread itself over the whole world and drain the life force of everything (and everyone) on Earth.  For Axos to succeed it needed 72 hours to spread everywhere, but the Doctor's test brought a controlled released over that part of England.

Meanwhile, the Master (who traded his services in exchange for his life), attempts a long game: he will get his revenge on the Doctor while also dump Axos and make his escape in the Doctor's TARDIS (given that Axos is holding his for insurance against such duplicity).  However, the Master is caught trying to use the power plants energy to power the TARDIS (oddly, I think the Doctor was planning this to get out of his forced exile) but he holds one ace up his sleeve: he is the only one who can stop the explosion Axos is going to unleash in the power plant, but it does mean destroying Axos itself, where the Doctor has been taken prisoner.  The Master gives the Brigadier a choice: save the Doctor and Jo or save the world?

The Doctor and Jo do manage to escape, and the Doctor learns that Axos wants to use his knowledge of time travel to now go and devour through space AND time.  It is here that the Doctor appears to join forces with The Master, telling him they could escape Earth together.  The Master helps him make the repairs to the TARDIS, and they materialize inside Axos.  Here, the Doctor tells them he will join both TARDI but instead traps Axos in a time loop.  The Master escapes to his own TARDIS in the chaos, and while the Doctor manages to free himself from the time loop he finds that his escape is short-lived: the Time Lords have programmed the TARDIS to always return to 20th Century Earth to his great frustration.

"It seems I'm some type of galactic yo-yo," the Doctor retorts to a clearly-pleased Jo and Brig.

I can't say that The Claws of Axos is my favorite Third Doctor story so far, but I can say that despite some obvious limitations it is lifted by some of Pertwee's best moments as the Third Doctor. 


A big problem was both the sets and the effects.  In regards to the former they made me think of all things, an Ed Wood movie.  When I saw the Doctor struggle against the actual claws of Axos I could only think of poor Bela Lugosi trying so hard (and failing so spectacularly) to convince anyone that the monster in Bride of the Monster was real.  Just as Lugosi clearly was moving the tentacles himself, so anyone caught in 'the claws of Axos' appeared to be operating them (or that there were people flailing their arms to attempt to simulate movement).  Even what was suppose to be offices looked a little fake, and the actual Axos itself, while a good try, looked like a set.

The special effects similarly have not worn well.  The opening shot of the ship sailing towards Earth looks so rubbish and the actual aliens when unmasked looked like spaghetti come to life.  It is clear also when Axonite grows a frog that it is just an image being expanded or shrunk based on the plot's necessity. 

However, credit should be given where it's due, and Michael Ferguson's direction did manage to do great things with the story and the budget limitations.  Certain montages are creepy in their psychedelic weirdness, and when the hobo's body melted, what we saw was quite effective overall.  Ferguson also brought great performances out of everyone. 

Pertwee's performance in The Claws of Axos is I think the best so far of his tenure.  Pertwee was so convincing in Episodes Three and Four that I was never sure if he was playing a long game himself to deceive the Master and Axos (even if it meant misleading Jo and UNIT) or if he really did want to take advantage of the situation to try and escape his exile.  Pertwee managed to make us believe that he would work with the Master, that he might want to leave UNIT, and that maybe he was doing it all to save Earth. 

Manning also shows that Jo was fiercely loyal to the Doctor, and while the subplot of Filer and Grant maybe wasn't as explored as it might have been, both Manning and Grist communicated that they were interested in each other.  Comic relief of sorts was provided by Bathurst, who as Chinn (I imagine a pun on his weight and his double chin) clearly made the minister a total idiot.

Here is where Bob Baker and Dave Martin's screenplay allows for great subtle humor to show up.  In Episode Two Chinn communicates with his superior.  "Minister, will you scramble or shall I, sir?" he says.  The voice on the other line says, "Just your report, Chinn.  I'm sure that will be quite garbled enough."  Chinn does not get the meaning behind the message.  As we go through The Claws of Axos, we see he (and government officials in general) are shown as dunderheads. 

Delgado is equally brilliant as the Master, that mixture of menace and charm working to full effect.  In some ways, his naivete of joining forces with the Doctor and believing that perhaps they could escape is almost sweet.  However, when he threatened the Brigadier to either save the world or save the Doctor, there is a coldness to him that says it might be logical, but it wouldn't pain him to see his nemesis killed.     

We also see Courtney's Brigadier to hold his own, his frustration with bureaucratic blundering clear, and also his hesitancy to allow the Master to try to destroy Axos with the Doctor and Jo within.  The Brigadier genuinely struggles with this, albeit briefly, but for a man who blew up the Silurians without batting an eye this moment is an evolution for him.  He's not the singularly military mind at all, but one who is weighing the costs of his decisions.  I'd say that the Doctor too is taking some notes from the Brig, for he suspects something sinister in something that appears so benign.

The Claws of Axos suffers from some weak-looking sets and effects, but it moves fast and has great performances.  I think that if it had been a six-part story, it would have been disastrous. However, at four it works well, has witty moments, and have a few twists and turns that make it if not as good as it could have been, certainly a story worth clutching.   

The very best of enemies

9/10 

Next Story: Colony in Space

Fear Her has earned a reputation of being not just perhaps the worst NuWho story of all time (in the most recent poll, it ranked 192 out of 200, the lowest revived series episode in the rankings) but perhaps one of the worst Doctor Who stories of all time (Classic and NuWho).  I was so appalled by Love & Monsters that I deliberately skipped Fear Her and ended my Doctor Who watching days with Doomsday Parts 1 & 2 (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday), not watching again until at least Waters of Mars.  It is only now, in my efforts to watch every Doctor Who available, that I plunge into the one episode I deliberately skipped.  After watching Fear Her, I concur with the general opinion that it is pretty bad.  Well, perhaps not bad, but terribly weak, trying to find its way in what appears to be a good idea and then getting lost in its call for sentimentality and silliness.

The Doctor (David Tennant) takes Rose (Billie Piper) to London 2012, the opening day of the Olympic Games.  However, there is something evil afoot.  In a neighborhood where the torch will run past, children have been disappearing.  The old neighbor Maeve (Edna Dore) is concerned, but most of the neighborhood isn't too concerned with all this.  About the only parent who doesn't register concern is Trish (Nina Sosanya), who has worries of her own.  Her daughter Chloe (Abisola Agbaje) doesn't want to go outside, doesn't want to do anything other than draw.  She draws the children that have disappeared, which also come to life.  I believe Trish knows that the pictures come to life, because I think one of the pictures she has (that of her late father) has on occasion come to life.


The Doctor and Rose soon trace the disappearances to Chloe, whom we learn has an alien within her, the Isolus.  This is a lonely demon, part of a large group that were separated.  In order to make up for the Isolus' loneliness, she had made Chloe (whom it sensed was lonely too) draw her companions.  However, just as the Doctor is needed most, Chloe draws the Doctor and TARDIS, trapping both in the drawings.  It is now up to Rose to save the day (and apparently the Olympics).  She does so by finding the hottest place around (a filled pothole) that has the Isolus' tiny spaceship.  With the torch coming past, Rose is able to release the Isolus from Chloe and free her and everyone trapped in the pictures.  This includes all those at the Olympic stadium, which the Isolus trapped in a picture.

However, where is the Doctor?  It is at this point that we see that a man with a trenchcoat picks up the Olympic torch and races to the Games.  Now, with things restored, the Doctor and Rose look at the stars.  Rose dreams of perpetual travels with the Doctor, but he senses a storm coming.

After watching Fear Her I don't think it was a horrible episode.  It tries, it tries so terribly, terribly hard to be sentimental and thrilling, but there are so many things wrong with it that it all ends up failing badly.

First, the resolution to this crisis is so quick and silly that it boggles the mind how anyone thought it would resonate.  Oh, look, all the 'villain' needed was just a touch of love.  "Feel the love" I think Rose says as she throws the Isolus' ship into the incoming Olympic torch, and with that, the Isolus is able to leave Chloe.  There was no tension, no excitement, no sense of this having taken up our time.  It all seems too pat, to quick, for us to care.

Second, some of the performances were pretty bad.   I don't know if one can blame Abgaje for being terrible in this story (this as far as I know is her only acting job).  However, as bad as Matthew Graham's script is, Abgaje came across as whiny and obnoxious, someone I couldn't care for.  Same goes for her mother, who was weak and at times slightly dumb (she had one thing to do: watch that Chloe not draw, and she leaves her alone twice!).  Going back to Chloe for a moment, from what I understand the little girl favors her abusive father.

I also wonder whether having a major plot point be the brutal father was a good idea. 



Third, Fear Her has moments that are just embarrassing for all concerned.  Having The Doctor pop up and carry the torch may have been a nice patriotic touch but it only makes Tennant (and the Doctor) look foolish.  Really, what was the point of all that?  I also think that this whole 'love is the answer' bit is silly and trite, having no real reason and making it all a quick resolution

Despite all this, I kept thinking that somewhere in all this there WAS a potential for a good story.  The ideas behind it weren't all that bad, but the execution just didn't pan out.

Looking back at Fear Her, I don't think there was ever a real threat.  Even when we were given something of a threat (the evil father coming back to life), it appeared to be there only to stretch out the story.  I found Fear Her to be instantly forgettable, boring, and not worth our time.  Yes, it's bad.  Not horrible, just bad.

You've been a bad, bad girl... 

1/10

Next Story: Doomsday Parts I & II (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday)

Despite constant pleas from her fans, Dame Agatha Christie never had her two most famous characters, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, meet, let alone work together in a story.  Her reason was quite simple: she said she didn't think either would enjoy it.  When asked why she never had a Poirot/Marple crossover, she replied in her autobiography, "Why should they?". 

"Hercule Poirot, the complete egoist, would not like being taught his business by an elderly spinster lady," she added. Poirot was a professional detective, Marple an amateur one, so they would never truly fit in each other's worlds.

These words should be something Wholockians, who dream of having the TARDIS land in front of 221 B Baker Street and have the Doctor and Sherlock Holmes meet/work together, consider every time they fantasize about a Doctor Who/Sherlock crossover.  

Despite this, the characters did meet in a way.  Dame Margaret Rutherford, who had played Miss Marple in a series of successful films, made a cameo in an adaptation of The ABC Murders with Tony Randall as Poirot.  Even in this quick scene, I think neither really enjoyed their brief encounter.  It wasn't until 1990, during the Agatha Christie centennial celebrations, that Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple finally formally met.  The two actors best known as Poirot and Marple, David Suchet and Joan Hickson, met as the character, and by all accounts got on splendidly.

I mention all this because the two-part season/series finale Doomsday Parts I & II (Army of Ghosts/Doomsday), has two most famous Doctor Who monsters (the Daleks and the Cybermen) finally face off each other after nearly fifty years.   When one thinks longs and hard about this, while this might have pleased NuWho (and I imagine, some Classic fans), for me it was a bit of a wash (not to mention leaving some curious continuity issues), and if it weren't for some of the performances, Doomsday I & II wouldn't have worked. 

The Doctor (David Tennant) and his Companion, Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) come to Earth to see Rose's mum, Jackie (Camille Coduri).  Jackie is delighted that her family reunion will be bigger, seeing as how Jackie's father is coming too.  That surprises Rose, since her grandfather is dead.  Nonetheless, something shows up.  Jackie is convinced it is her late father, and this phenomena is not strange.   Even the soap opera EastEnders gets in on the act, where we see a storyline involving the ghosts in the pub on television.  "Ghosts" have been appearing for two months now throughout the world, in specific intervals.  The Doctor is not convinced of 'the ghosts' and decides to trap one.

Meanwhile, at the infamous Torchwood, they have been conducting nefarious experiments to bring something from another realm to our world, and the Doctor traces the ghosts there.  Torchwood Director Yvonne Hartman (Tracy-Ann Oberman) is thrilled to see the Doctor, because now the TARDIS, like all alien technology, can be hers.  "If it's alien, it's ours," she declares.  In Torchwood you also have a strange sphere which does nothing.  We learn that it is a Void ship, which can travel between dimensions.  Jackie, having been mistaken for Rose, is taken with the Doctor, while Rose attempts to investigate on her own.  For once, the psychic paper does not work, but it does lead her to the Void Ship and to, improbable as it sounds, to Mickey (Noel Clarke) whom we last saw in the alternate world fighting Cybermen.  The Cybermen have escaped from their world and Mickey has now gone after them, with a few more surprises in store.


Oh, but this is just the beginning, for not only have the ghosts really turned out to be the Alternate World Cybermen, but that Void Ship has finally been activated.  Just when the Cybermen will all delete and reprogram humans on this world, out of the Void ship come beings that only Rose would recognize...the DALEKS!  That's right, the Daleks vs. the Cybermen in an epic battle royale for galactic domination. 

The Daleks are protecting the Genesis Ark, which is related to the Time Lords and the Time War.  The Cybermen, who prefer homogeny, are at first too busy converting people to really care, but soon both parties investigate the other.  In a Mexican standoff with a horrified Doctor looking on, the Daleks and Cybermen take each others measurements.  The Cybermen propose an alliance, which the Daleks (who recognize them while the Cybermen do not), immediately reject.  "This is not war.  This is pest control," the Daleks inform them.  When the Cybermen tell the Daleks if they can possibly defeat them with four Daleks, they reply that they can defeat the Cybermen with ONE Dalek.

Doesn't seem much of a fair fight, then, does it?

The humans fighting the Cybermen in the alternate world, including Pete Tyler (Shaun Dingwell), now come to fight the Cybermen with the Daleks thrown in for good measure.  The Doctor tells them that he was at the Fall of Arcadia, which he will come to terms with somehow (sooner than we imagine).    We learn what the Genesis Ark is: it's a prison ship holding millions of Daleks.  How?  Well, like all Time Lord technology, it's bigger on the inside.  A terrified Jackie, having escaped Cyber-altering (which her counterpart didn't) finds Alternate World Pete and it all becomes confusing for them.  Yvette has been altered, but not enough for her to realize that she still can stop the Cybermen.  The Doctor sends them all through the Void to the alternate world, but Rose won't leave him.  However, as the Daleks and Cybermen are killing each other and humans all over the place, the Doctor and Rose manage to send the Cybermen into the void. 

However, she loses her grip and is sucked into the Parallel World.  Somehow the Doctor appears to her, where she informs him that Jackie and Pete are going to give her a brother (I'd rather not know) and that she loves him.  The Doctor loses the temporal power before he can answer, and now he is alone, except for the Bride who suddenly without reason appears in the TARDIS.


I imagine NuWhovians hit all the emotional buttons that Doctor Who 2.0 appears to play like master musicians.  I bet they squealed when the Daleks appeared at the end of Army of Ghosts, and cried their eyes out at Rose's farewell.  I don't blame them: NuWhovians have probably never seen any Dalek stories prior to Dalek, and probably believed that the genesis of the Cybermen was in Rise of the Cybermen Parts 1 & 2, not say something like The Tenth Planet.  Therefore, those pesky little questions of continuity wouldn't be asked by the lemmings NuWho fans have become.

Questions like, "If these Cybermen are from an Alternate Universe, how do the Daleks recognize them?"

Questions like, "If travelling from one Parallel World to Another was so difficult for the Doctor, how has become almost routine for the humans?"  (Was this just a way to throw Clarke into the mix)?

Questions like, "How is it possible for Jackie Tyler, who is at least 38 (by the most generous standard if she had been 19 when Rose was born, with Rose being 19 now), to be pregnant?" (It should be pointed out she was 45 at the time Doomsday Parts 1 & 2 was made). 

In short, Doomsday Parts 1 & 2, after a lot of reflection, didn't hold up for a wide variety of reasons.  I would put the biggest reason that the Daleks were...unnecessary.  The whole story would have worked just fine with just the Cybermen travelling from their world to ours, without having the Daleks anywhere in there.  I actually, again after a lot of thought, thought Doomsday would have been more thrilling if we had made them the exclusive villain.

Russell T Davies, in his script, probably thought having the two face off would thrill fans, and I know many who were.  However, for the casual viewer or one who had never come across either, the whole thing came off as laughable.  How do I know this?  Because I saw it for myself.  I had talked my very reluctant non-Doctor Who fan Fidel Gomez, Jr. (who may or may not be dead) into watching this 'epic confrontation' after the disaster of Love & Monsters.  When he heard the Dalek tell the Cybermen they could defeat them with ONE Dalek, Fidel burst out laughing.

He simply couldn't take any of it seriously afterwards. 

Even if it had been a tense moment (after two viewings, it still isn't for me), the actual battle between them was such a ridiculous thing.  The Daleks made mincemeat out of the Cybermen, and what is the point of having an 'epic confrontation' between two legendary villains if one is going to be a pushover?  I think Davies favors the Daleks and gave them all the power, cheating us out of what could have been a great confrontation.  Honestly, I don't understand why so many fans think this is good, because the Cybermen weren't all that impressive.

All that 'jumping through parallel worlds' seems equally silly, giving people an easy way in and out of things.


However, credit has to be given where it is due, and the final scene between Rose and the Doctor was beautifully directed and acted.  If Davies did anything right, it was to give NuWhovians what they love: a great excuse to cry their eyes out at a science-fiction show.  I honestly think that there was less crying at Schindler's List or a September 11th memorial than there apparently is in an average Doctor Who 2.0 episode, but that's for another time.

For most of Doomsday Parts 1 & 2, Piper's Rose came off as a bit whiny and clingy, but her final scene with Tennant is indeed quite moving.  Those who were worried that former pop star Piper couldn't deliver the goods have been proven wrong.  She and Tennant made an excellent team, and I can see why NuWhovians both rank Rose as one of the Greatest Companions and why they are so enamored of Rose & The Doctor. 

I don't share their views, but I can understand it. 

Tennant is in top form here.  He is authoritative, whimsical (the 3-D shades not looking as idiotic as they could have), and his genuine sadness at it all show why even Classic Who fans (most of them anyway) think well of Tennant. 

The other cast did well as well.  Coduri's innocence at having her 'father' return and her horror at being pursued, nearly altered by the Cybermen were excellent.  When she and Dingwell reunite, I thought THAT was more emotional than Rose & The Doctor's farewell.  Still not a fan of Clarke or Mickey (for too long he was a wimp, and now he's all action-star), but it wasn't bad.

This episode is important for another reason; as far as I can make out, the first time the Doctor says, "Allon-sy", which would become his catchphrase (for good or ill).   

Ultimately, the acting did Doomsday Parts 1 & 2 immense favors, because for me the story doesn't hold.  I admit that because I don't cry at Doctor Who, and don't get emotional at a character's good-bye, I don't have this passion this two-part story demands I feel.  I look to things like acting, plot, story, character development.  I am not easily impressed by flashing lights and big guest stars.

I can't shake off the idea that the Cybermen/Dalek confrontation was both a waste and rather uneventful, even boring.  I didn't get excited by having them meet.  Actually, I wish they hadn't.  In a curious turn, Doomsday Parts 1 & 2 upon first watching, earned an 8, then I found myself thinking that was too high, so down a point it went.  Then I kept thinking, "that Dalek/Cybermen thing just didn't work for me", and thought 7 was too generous. 

In the end Doomsday Parts 1 & 2 was good, not great, and despite its best efforts I hope we never get two villains fighting it out if the results are going to be as weak as this.




6/10

Next Episode: The Runaway Bride

Don't Fear the Reaper...

This isn't some esoteric question about the goings-on of Steven Moffat's mind.  This is a serious, straightforward question because Mr. Moffat, like many writers, has a particular motif that he keeps hitting on over and over.

In Moffat's case, it is death, or rather the absence or denial of it.  The Moffat Method of "killing" off characters only to have them come back to life (usually in some bizarre way that even within the confines of the show doesn't make sense) is so familiar and so cliché that it is among the easiest things of his oeuvre to parody.  I'm always amazed someone hasn't come up with a comedy routine where Rory Williams (or Pond, however you know him as) from Doctor Who gets bumped off and comes back again and again in more and more outlandish ways, ending with Rory explaining his umpteenth return with "It was thanks to timey-wimey".

Rory Williams (who has earned comparisons to Kenny from South Park, difference being that South Park is a comedy which is not meant to be taken seriously or literally and is basically reset every episode) is the nadir of Moffat's necrophobia, as it among other things made death a waste of time.  Why would one feel for a character's end when you know he is coming back, usually in ways that were never or vaguely explained.  The "Let's Kill Rory" bit became tiresome and then into a sad commentary on the dearth (or death) of ideas on the show.  How many times has Rory actually died?  My Rory Death Count stands at 7.  That's seven times that I counted Rory die in an episode only to come back.  Yet I digress.

This question, which has been nipping at me for some time, has come to my full attention with His Last Vow, Sherlock's season three closer.  Now, while I haven't seen His Last Vow yet, I know enough thanks to the grapevine to be absolutely horrified by how Sherlockians can prattle on endlessly about how 'brilliant' both Sherlock and Steven Moffat can be when anyone with the IQ of a turkey baster can see the whole thing is idiotic to the core of its own dark, twisted soul.



Let's use our Wayback Machine to go to The Reichenbach Fall, Sherlock's season two finale.  Here, Andrew Scott's Jim Moriarty and Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock Holmes appear to both die: Moriarty shoots himself in the mouth and Sherlock jumps off a roof.  Not having seen The Empty Hearse I am not discussing Sherlock's resurrection (which at least is keeping within Canon, though whether Sherlock pulls off a logical explanation remains to be seen). 

While it would be tempting at this juncture to discuss how with Sherlock's character Moffat again shows his inability to actually kill anyone off permanently, I think the greater revelation is that of Moriarty (a character who frankly I'm tiring of, thanks in no small part to Scott's wildly camp and grandiose performance which makes Blofeld from Diamonds of Forever seem almost Machiavellian-like).   In The Reichenbach Fall, Moriarty literally pulls the trigger on any chance of making a return appearance. 


In our world, when you have a character blow his brains out, with blood spilling out all over, that pretty much means said character is dead.  Not just merely dead, but most sincerely dead.   Oh, but on anything Steven Moffat is in charge of, Death is NOT The Only Answer.  In fact, Death never becomes real.  It can be wiped away with a handy-dandy sonic screwdriver or some bizarre plot twist that NuWhovians or Sherlockians can't be bothered to explain.  For them, it is all about the emotion Sherlock or Doctor Who releases, rarely about the logic behind any of it.

If they really wanted Logic on Doctor Who, they would have started complaining when Rory kept getting killed off repeatedly to get an emotional reaction.  Instead, most NuWhovians think Rory, like bow ties, is cool or awesome or even bad-ass BECAUSE he keeps coming back, damn the logic.

Yet again though, I'm wandering off topic.  This is an examination of how Steven Moffat may fear death so much that he is using his writing and producing from metaphorically stopping it from ever happening.  Let us look at the evidence.  The following is a catalogue of Steven Moffat's work on both Doctor Who and Sherlock as either writer (in red) or producer (in green), with particular emphasis on how said episode treats death and resurrection.

The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances: "Just this once, everyone LIVES!"  The Doctor, thanks to some space medicine, is able to bring back to life everyone who had died as a result of its misapplication.

The Girl in the Fireplace: the exception to the rule, where Madame De Pompadour HAD to die, pretty much because even Steven Moffat can't rewrite actual history.  However, De Pompadour did survive somewhat, as the spaceship did bear her name, granting her a certain form of immortality. 

Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways: a rare non-Moffat penned resurrection, as Captain Jack Harkness, killed by the Daleks, is brought back to not just life, but eternal life thanks to Rose's absorbing of the TARDIS core.  However, Captain Jack was Moffat's creation. 

Blink:  characters important to solving the mystery of the Weeping Angels 'die' (basically disappear) in their own time period only to emerge alive in the past, making them dead and not dead at the same time.

Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead:  River Song, a character who knows the Doctor intimately (read whatever you like in that) but whom the Doctor doesn't know since this is his first time with her and her last time with him (again, read that any way you like), sacrifices herself to save him.  Fortunately, he uploads her into the data core, where she can remain alive (in a form) forever.

The Beast Below: the Doctor is willing and ready to kill the Space Whale (or at least leave it brain-dead) until Amy, seeing parallels between the Space Whale and the Doctor, prevents its death and finds it is willing to continue living for the sake of Spaceship UK.

The Time of Angels/Flesh & Bone: the soldier-priests killed by the Weeping Angels can communicate 'beyond the grave' so to speak.



Amy's Choice: Rory's first dead is found to be not real, as he is actually still alive in 'the real world'.

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood: Rory Dies Again!  Shot by a Silurian as he, Amy, and the Doctor are about to flee, Rory not only dies but is erased from all history. 

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang: Rory (in Auton form) is alive and well (sort of), not only having lived but having lived for thousands of years as "The Last Centurion". With Amy's memories restored, so is Rory and thus, he is alive again.

The Impossible Astronaut/The Day of the Moon: The Doctor is killed by the shores of Lake Silencio, only to come back almost immediately after, fully alive and apparently unaware of who or why he died.  Given it's a 'fixed point in time', there's nothing he can do about and therefore he must die by the shores of Gitche Gumee...I mean, Lake Silencio.  Rory himself is shot, only to have it all be a fake-out to get him and Amy to Area 51.

The Curse of the Black Spot: Rory Dies Again...Again!  Killed by the Siren, we find that in reality he was just spirited away to a medical spaceship where he will be revived.

The Doctor's Wife: Rory appears to have died when Amy comes across his body, but we find that it was all an illusion by the villain, House.

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People: Amy, we discover, has been a doppelganger or Ganger, and while her double is disintegrated we find that she is alive and about to give birth on Demon's Run. 

A Good Man Goes to War/Let's Kill Hitler:  Strax, a Silurian whom the Doctor calls in a favor from, is killed on Demon's Run.  Mels, the childhood friend of Amy and Rory, "regenerates" into River Song in her current phase and "gives up her remaining regenerations" to stop the Doctor from dying. 

The Wedding of River Song: The Doctor, we find in the end, despite it being a 'fixed point in time' and seeing the Doctor begin to regenerate, is in the end alive, as he got a machine to take his place.  In this manner, the events of The Impossible Planet/Day of the Moon have been retconned.   

The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe: Reg Arwell, the RAF pilot killed over the English Channel, is returned alive and well to his family thanks to the Doctor using the Widow as a 'mothership' to return to her own time and world.

Asylum of the Daleks: Jenna-Louise Coleman, advertised as the Doctor's next Companion, is found to be actually dead, having been killed when her ship crashed onto the titled world.  Oswin, however, believes herself to be fully alive and thanks to our knowledge of her future role, we are aware that she is somehow alive. 

The Angels Take Manhattan: Rory dies at least three times in this episode thanks to the Weeping Angels and his jumping off a roof (and like Sherlock, survives the plunge).  Even though Amy and Rory have gravestones marking their deaths, they get to live in another time.

How did I get here?

The Snowmen: The Silurian Strax, last seen killed in A Good Man Goes to War, is found alive, manservant to the same-sex bestiality of Silurian Madame Vastra and her human chambermaid Jenny Flint.  A prequel, The Battle of Demon's Run: Two Days Later, was filmed to explain his resurrection.  Adding to the (non)death count, Clara Oswald (governess/bar-wench), dies when she plunges to her death, but Clara (or a version of her) stands literally over her own grave.

Hide: The Witch of the Well, who people believe is a ghost, is in reality a time-traveler trapped in a pocket universe.  The Doctor brings her back to our world (i.e. he brings a ghost back to life).

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS: the molten zombies, who are in reality the salvage company brothers, are restored to full life.

The Name of the Doctor: The Doctor goes to his own grave where we find that Clara is one person split into millions of versions of herself when she enters the Doctor's time-stream, thus allowing her to live and die endless times throughout history.  Further, River Song, who now has returned to a hologram form after spending all her time being active, is still stubbornly alive.

The Day of the Doctor: The Time War, where the Time Lords were all wiped off, is now erased from reality, as three Doctors (Tennant, Smith, and John Hurt as a hereto unknown incarnation dubbed "the War Doctor") is avoided thanks to them interfering with a 'fixed point in time'.  Thus, all those dead Time Lords are saved (where, however, remains to be seen). 

The Time of the Doctor: the Doctor, who is on his final regeneration thanks to a questionable counting system, finds a whole new set of regenerations (i.e. an endless number of resurrection) granted to him by the Time Lords, still trapped behind the cracks in time (themselves being resurrected).  After living to a ripe old age, the Doctor is able to regenerate (and avoid that 12-regeneration limit placed in Canon since The Deadly Assassin in 1976 and reaffirmed in other episodes), return to his usual youthful appearance before regenerating. 

And these are just the ones I could find without going into the minutia of Doctor Who episodes, which I'm sure others can do and find more not-dead people lurking about. 

Now a quick jaunt through Moffat's other wildly popular show, Sherlock.

Not for long. Note there are no Birth and/or Death Dates...

A Scandal in Belgravia: Irene Adler's Dead!  Sherlock Holmes identifies her decapitated body in the morgue.  Irene Adler's NOT Dead!  She keeps reaching out to Holmes, asking him to dinner.  Irene Adler's Dead...Again!  Mycroft tells John Watson she was executed in Pakistan.  Irene Adler's NOT Dead...Again!  Sherlock, unbeknownst to both Mycroft (THE British Government) and Watson (the man so close to him people think their lovers) rescues Irene from beheading (as a side note, what is it with Moffat and cutting women's heads off).

The Reichenbach Fall: Sherlock Holmes and Jim Moriarty are both dead by the end, the former by having leaped off a building, the latter with a bullet to his head.  In the end, we find Sherlock Holmes very much alive.

His Last Vow: the final shot is that of Moriarty, apparently back from the dead, asking the world, "Did you miss me?"

Eventually, something's got to give. Why should we as a viewer care or invest emotional interest (which is what Doctor Who and Sherlock are descending to: an appeal to emotion rather than intellect), when we know that somehow, in some way, said character's death will be reversed?

Despite logic we haven't hit a point of diminishing returns with Moffat's writing and producing because fans of 'The Moff' will not question all this.  However, at some point he will either have to kill off a character permanently and never bring them back in any way (highly unlikely) or we won't really care that a character has died because he/she will return alive and well, as if nothing ever happened (with the Moffia, equally unlikely).

Unlike Joss Whedon or George R.R. Martin (the other two in a famous joke about their penchant for killing off beloved characters), Moffat never resists pulling a bait-and-switch with dead people.  Whedon and Martin's dead characters stay dead (or at least Martin's do; the Marvel Universe's Agent Coulson being a glaring exception and frankly I am not well-versed in the Whedon-verse to know the intricacies of his mind).

For myself, I again am left wondering why Steven Moffat keeps killing characters off only to bring them back in irrational ways.  There HAS to be something within Moffat that has him coming back to this scenario again and again.  It could be that he, in a deeply psychological manner, is subconsciously so terrified of death (or worse, of being forgotten) that he wants to metaphorically avoid that by having characters cheat or defeat death.

Or, going for the easier answer, he's just a generally lousy writer/showrunner who backs himself into corners and pulls the 'they're not really dead' bit to get out of the boxes he finds himself in because he isn't clever or smart enough to find any other way out. 

This is the third in my Day of The Doctor trilogy.  The first covered my impressions of the fanbase that watched TDOTD screening.  The second is the formal review of the episode.  This one is a question session, where I ask things of you, who may be smarter than me, to help me figure things out I did not quite get about the episode.

As I rewatched DOTD, I could not help notice some things that struck me as a bit peculiar, almost odd (or Ood, if you prefer).  With tongue slightly in cheek, I thought it would be nice to ask some questions and point out some things that to me, didn't make sense or contradicted both Classic and NuWho (and perhaps, even contradicted DOTD itself).  I hope that this 'investigation' is taken with the humor it is intended to have, and that any questions about plot holes or continuity errors or other such matters can be answered by readers. 
I realize this is a very long article (unnecessarily so, perhaps).  To skip over important points, check out the selections in green.

I think a good title for this story should be The Two and a Half Doctors.  What do you think?

Moffat, if you are willing, take this cup from me...

We start with The Name of the Doctor, where Eleven remembers the figure before him in his time-stream as one of his other selves (of which we the viewer know nothing about).  Before fainting, Clara however, doesn't recognize him even though she's been popping in and out of his time-stream and seeing his other selves.  How could she not realize that John Hurt wasn't the Doctor?  Who else would be running around the Doctor's time-stream?

In The Night of The Doctor, we see Paul McGann's Eight Doctor for the first time since his one-off television movie.  Night of The Doctor, if accepted as Canon (which I don't, Canon to me being only what is broadcast on television, not webisodes or audio adventures, though I won't belabor the point), contradicts the NuWhovian idea that The Name/Day/Time of The Doctor is a trilogy based on the titles. NOTD has the same title structure as Name/Day/Time, (Blank of The Doctor) so how does a trilogy have four parts?

The Eight Doctor says he was not and hasn't been part of the Time War.  Does this mean that fighting was optional?  Also, for someone who hasn't been fighting in the Time War, Eight is 'looking a bit tired, don't you think'?

The Sisters of Karn tell Eight that he was found dead.  How does the Sisterhood manage to bring back the dead (unless we have yet another example of Moffat's 'dead-but-not-dead' writing style)?

The Day of the Doctor begins with Clara as a teacher at Coal Hill School, where the very first Doctor Who story An Unearthly Child begins.  We ended the last episode of Doctor Who, The Name of The Doctor, inside the Doctor's time-stream in his tomb on Trenzalore.  How did both Eleven and Clara manage to leave the time-stream and get back to Earth?  Or is this taking place within his time-stream?  Is this all just a dream?  Where did Madam Vastra/Jenny/Strax go?  How did they end up back to Victorian-era London?  The Doctor must have dropped them off, but again, how did Eleven and Clara get out of the time-stream and Trenzalore altogether?


The sign at the school reads that the Chairman of the school's governing board is a certain I. Chesterton.  If it is THE Ian Chesterton who served as the First Doctor's first Companion (along with fellow teacher Barbara Wright and the Doctor's granddaughter Susan Foreman), should he really be working at his age?  The most generous estimation of Ian's age when he began would be around mid-30s, so that would mean he's somewhere between 83-85 if indeed it is the same Sir Ian.  If we go by William Russell's actual age, Ian Chesterton is still tottering around at 89!

Is it odd that while Clara is working at the same school the Doctor's granddaughter Susan was when they came to Twentieth Century Earth and where his first Companion Ian is still tottering about, the Doctor apparently a.) never tells Clara about Ian or b.) never bothers to visit or even look in on Ian when both are in proximity to each other?  The Doctor's a bit of a dick!

Clara started out as a nanny (in contemporary and Victorian times...so much for that 'Moffat is a sexist pig' nonsense).  Now she is a teacher?  How did she get hired?  What are her credentials?  Did she use psychic papers to verify certification? 

Has the TARDIS lost its ability to dematerialize?  The Doctor never starts or even bother to attempt to release the TARDIS from the helicopter's clutches.  In fact, the Doctor looks genuinely confused as to how he is managing to fly.  I'll grant the Eleven is by far the most stupid of all the Doctors, but would he not even attempt dematerialization in order to escape this bizarre abduction?

No, Osgood, I wasn't talking about NHS Doctors....

Why does Kate Stewart's phone have the ringtone of a parking brake?
Why does Osgood have Kate Stewart's phone at all?

Is Osgood calling Kate Stewart "Ma'am" or "Mom"?

The spotting of the TARDIS must have been completely by chance, given that the helicopter was not aware anyone was inside.  Therefore, how long would it have taken to send a helicopter to pick the TARDIS up?  Did some random person just call up and say, "Hey, I was driving down an empty road and happened to notice an old police box just standing by the side of the road?"

"We had no idea you were still in there," Kate tells Eleven.  Why weren't they aware? Why weren't any UNIT agents monitoring the TARDIS prior to it being picked up to see if anyone came around to it?  If they were, they would have known that at least Clara was inside and thus putting her at great risk.  UNIT didn't bother informing Kate of this, even though it is more than likely that the helicopter would have spotted a lone motorbike speeding into the TARDIS (since the area around was flat).   Yet the TARDIS must have been under some form of observation since, after all, it would have taken time to get the helicopter, get authorization from Kate, and fly the helicopter to the TARDIS' location. 

Eleven nearly falls out of TARDIS, so I guess it doesn't have some protective force field.  In The Beast Below Amy is able to float in deep space and breathe without difficulty, and in The Time of Angels River Song was able to float to the TARDIS from another spaceship altogether.  Still, the Doctor is left hanging on for dear life.  (OK, on this one, he probably has to set the mechanism for it, but why wouldn't the Doctor just take the phone call inside the TARDIS rather than hang precariously on the ledge).

Clara is kind of a bitch by just standing there, admiring the view rather than help the Doctor who is clearly inches from falling to his death. 

***I was the only person who cheered in The Day of The Doctor screening when John Hurt's name appeared.  Not a continuity error/plot hole, but just a mention nonetheless***.

New Meaning to 'Degenerate Art'...

The Protocols came from Queen Elizabeth I, so I guess Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II doesn't have to be informed of anything really.

We are shown Elizabeth I's credentials: a painting called either Gallifrey Falls or No More.  Gallifrey Falls/No More came to Her Majesty exactly...how?  Who painted it? When was it painted?  When did it become part of Her Majesty's collection?  Why is THIS Gloriana's credentials?  She's the Bloody Queen...why does she need to prove anything to him?  Hasn't the Doctor ever heard the phrase "royal command performance"?

Why would one of the titles be No More?  The graffiti the "War Doctor" (or as I call him, Doctor 8.5) put up wouldn't have been visible in a painting that large, so where did that particular title come from?

"Elizabeth told us where to find it and its significance" (Kate Stewart).  So Liz I knows about Time War?  Why would she have knowledge about that? 

The Fall of Arcadia (Gallifrey's second-largest city) is very Star Wars-like visually, isn't it? 

The Daleks stop killing in battle that they are winning because the Doctor is detected?  No wonder they keep losing!

The TARDIS bursts through a solid wall rather than dematerialize?  I didn't know the TARDIS was now a battering ram.



After the Doctor steals The Moment, the last unused weapon of the Omega arsenal, he takes it to an undisclosed location (probably where they hid Dick Cheney).  Where exactly is Doctor 8.5?  In a hereto unknown Gallifreyan desert? 

The Doctor steals a Doomsday Device he doesn't know how to operate?  How would he know it wouldn't just kill him by mistake?

Doctor 8.5 is in the middle of an isolated desert where anyone coming would be visible for miles around, so why does he think someone could sneak up on him without him noticing?

The Moment's conscience (aka Bad Wolf) is right: why DID the Doctor park the TARDIS so far away?  Why take that long desert walk, dragging the Doomsday Device with him when the TARDIS could have easily landed him inside this hut hidden deep within some isolated desert?

**Just a side note.  Sorry, Billie Piper, but you were hideous in The Day of the Doctor.  You gave a bad performance and were shockingly unattractive.  If it's any comfort, I would say exactly the same about David Tennant**.

Why is the Interface Conscience in the shape of Rose?  Doctor 8.5 wouldn't know what Rose Tyler looks like or frankly care.  If the Conscience knows all about all the Doctors past present future, how did she get the form the War Doctor would recognize wrong?

The War Doctor has been fighting this war for a very long time, yet he's apparently never been injured because he hasn't regenerated since the events of The Night of The Doctor (the second part of a four-part trilogy).

Bad Wolf/The Moment Conscience, to prevent the War Doctor from using the Doomsday Device, resorts to using the Gallifreyan version of this...


Bad Wolf opens windows in time and knows all about the Doctors past/present/future, but is unaware of the fez or Eleven's fez fetish.

Back to the National Portrait Gallery in London.  Why is Gallifrey Falls/No More proof Elizabeth I is writing to Doctor?  Wouldn't the age of paper and Her Majesty's seal be enough to prove it was from Good Queen Bess? 

Given how in The Shakespeare Code, Elizabeth I referred to The Doctor as "my mortal enemy", it is surprising that in Gloriana's wrath and rage she never once decided to destroy anything connected with her 'husband'.  How fickle is woman...

Her Majesty names The Doctor (or rather, the Tenth Doctor) as Curator of The Undergallery.  Undergallery of What?  She can't be referring to the National Portrait Gallery, as that was founded in 1856, a mere 253 years after Elizabeth I's death. 

All those years with UNIT as their Scientific Advisor and never once did UNIT inform the Doctor of either the Undergallery or that he was the Undertaker to Gallery!

"Should any disturbance occur within (the Undergallery's) walls, it is my wish that you be summoned," (Elizabeth I).  The guy can travel through all time and space--how exactly will UNIT or any non-Time Lord 'summon' him?  Bat-Signal?  The Time Lords have the ability to recall their errant renegade, but how will UNIT do so?  Come to think of it, how will Elizabethans, Georgians, Regency-Era, Victorians, or Second Elizabethans be able to 'summon' the Doctor?  Torchwood wasn't formed until the Victorian Age, and UNIT wasn't created until the 1960s, so how would anyone prior to those 'summon' the Doctor?  Also, how could one compel the Doctor to accept such a summons if he didn't want to go?

McGillop receives a call from the future.  First use of timey-wimey to get out of things.



The Tenth Doctor MUST have posed for this portrait, but when? Where would he have sat for this? Why would he pose for this portrait in the first place?  Portraits, even now, take days to make, and it isn't like the Elizabethan Court wouldn't notice some strange figure at Her Majesty's side.

It is England, 1562.  Elizabeth I would have been 29 years old and Gloriana would have been on the throne for a mere four years, with the security of her throne still on shaky ground.

Given her lifelong passion for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, it is strange that she accepted the Doctor's proposal so quickly.  Also, Elizabeth I would drag out marriage negotiations for years and would be very hesitant to take action on many fronts, so her whirlwind romance with Ten is completely out of character for Good Queen Bess.

"You nearly took my head off.  It's normally me who does that."  In reality, Elizabeth wasn't fond of executions and was quite moderate of them (especially compared to her half-sister Queen Mary I).  In fact, she agonized over the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots and was always troubled by that act of regicide.

"I have wars to plan".  Again, Elizabeth I was a reluctant warrior, fighting only when there were no other alternative.  She was by no means a belligerent in matters of war.

What's that?  I'm NOT King?! The Doctor said I WAS!

"I'm going to be King".  So says Ten upon learning that Elizabeth I has accepted his marriage proposal.  I don't think that's how monarchical succession occurs.  Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha didn't become King when he married Queen Victoria.  In fact, Parliament, the public, and even Vicky herself didn't think Albert should take much of a role in government affairs at first.  When HRH the Duke of Edinburgh (formerly Prince Philip of Greece and/or Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten) married Heiress Presumptive Princess Elizabeth, he didn't become King Phillip upon her Ascension to the Throne as Queen Elizabeth II.  At the most, The Doctor would have become a Prince Consort (though again I leave that question up to constitutional scholars).  Therefore, where'd he get the idea that he was going to be King of Anything?

.

The Undergallery is where Elizabeth I "kept all art deemed too dangerous for public consumption."  Given that the idea of 'public art' did not exist in Elizabethan times this is quite forward-looking for the Monarch.  Art was held in private collections of aristocracy and wealthy merchants, with the only 'public art' being that found in churches.  Given the Dissolution of the Monasteries during the reign of her father Henry VIII it is curious that Elizabeth would have thought art would be seen by the common man.  Furthermore, how would Elizabeth go about collecting said 'dangerous art'.  Where would this 'dangerous art' come from?  How would she find it? 

The Doctor's Con-Fez-Sions

Among the articles in the Undergallery is a fez.  Why is a fez considered 'dangerous art'?  Furthermore, that fez is remarkably well-preserved given that the fez is only 451 years old.

When the time fissure appears in the Undergallery, Eleven has vague memories of it, but not of saving Gallifrey itself.  The Doctor has quite a selective memory.

In the Undergallery Kate Stewart says that nothing's out of place and nothing's got out.  Didn't she just tell us that 'figures' got out of the paintings?

Wouldn't Eleven remember his interactions with Elizabeth I?  Given the timeframe Day of the Doctor must take place prior to Shakespeare Code.

Exactly how many time fissures are there?  Eleven throws fez that goes to 8.5 but again his memory of all this is a bit sketchy.

Oddly, while the Tenth Doctor quickly realizes the guy with the big chin and fez is a future version of himself, Doctor 8.5 doesn't and mistakes both of them for Companions. 

Curiously, the fez apparently can travel in one direction, but fez and 8.5 can travel in both.  HOWEVER, when opportunity comes to escape when fissure between Elizabethan and Elizabethan eras occur, no one thinks of going through it to escape Good Queen Bess' guards.

Lo, how the mighty have fallen...

In Undergallery the Zygon Osgood knows of her prettier sister, but exactly how does she come upon this information?  The Zygon doesn't actually touch Osgood.  Getting ahead of myself, while the Zygon Osgood knew the thoughts of Osgood, the Zygon Elizabeth I didn't know about the knife Liz kept for her protection.

The Black Archive is located in the Tower of London.  Given that the Three Doctors who are there 451 years earlier carved the Activation Code of the Vortex Manipulator, how was it that no one in over four and a half centuries ever came across this mysterious writing?  Furthermore, isn't it strange that no one in 451 years found the Activation Code scratched on the walls but that in less than an hour McGillop's Zygon clone managed to find it.

Kate Stewart says that everyone has their memory wiped when leaving the Black Archive.  Kate therefore must be the exception, otherwise how would she know both about the memory wiping and what the Black Archive was?  There HAS to be someone/something that would allow someone with their memory wiped to be able to enter B.A., right? 

Among the Black Archive photos is one of Kamelion, a Fifth Doctor Companion.  Kamelion appeared in two stories, the first during King John's reign, the second on another planet altogether.  How exactly Kamelion came to the attention of UNIT remains unknown given he never worked for UNIT, existed before even Elizabeth I's reign, and never came back to Earth. 

The Vortex Manipulator was bequeathed by Captain Jack Harkness, so he knew of Black Archive and thus, didn't have his memory swiped?



Clara was given the Activation Code to the Vortex Manipulator and nothing else.  Therefore, how did Clara find the exact time and place where the Two and a Half Doctors are?  She's never used the Vortex Manipulator and at most she knows only the year (1562) and location (the Tower of London).  She doesn't know either the exact location of the Doctors or the date, so how does she manage to use the Vortex Manipulator and find the Doctors with the greatest of ease?

Back on Gallifrey, the children are burning.  You'd think Gallifreyans would have sent their children to safety during Time War.  The British sent their kids away from the bombing, but somehow the Gallifreyans never thought to do the same.  Therefore, Time Lords are dumber than the British.

The Eleventh Doctor tells Ten "Spoilers" (one of River Song's many catchphrases) when Ten asks Doctor where he was going.  However, why would Ten react so angrily to "Spoilers" when he probably would have heard this line just once since Ten's first meeting with River was her last meeting with him?

"It's the same screwdriver", says Bad Wolf to explain how doing calculations would be going on after 8.5 started them.  Is this the same screwdriver that was destroyed in the Tenth Doctor story Smith & Jones and the Eleventh Doctor story The Eleventh Hour? Obviously it cannot be the same screwdriver (and DOTD establishes 'same software, different hardware', paralleling 'different faces, same Doctor), but unless the calculations weren't uploaded unto the TARDIS how would the calculations keep going on devices that had been destroyed (and this isn't counting the Fifth Doctor story The Visitation, where the sonic was destroyed). 

Why is the door to their prison unlocked or no guards at the door?  Elizabeth says to see how Doctors got out of this, so does this mean Liz just let Clara wander around?


When Osgood comes across Kate Stewart, she calls out, "Kate!  Goodness you're not actually dead."  Therefore we find that Osgood is not Kate Stewart's daughter, otherwise why call her "Kate" at this point?

How did Zygons get a hold of both Stasis Cube and Time Lord art?  Why is Elizabeth not just wiping out Zygons rather than allow them to invade her realm?  Why not mention all this when Liz appoints Doctor as Undertaker?  Why doesn't Elizabeth just allow the Zygons to enter the paintings and then destroy them rather than keep them around even though she knows of their insane invasion plans?

So the Zygons themselves can't tell the difference between the copies and the humans, otherwise they would know Elizabeth was NOT a Zygon.

Is the Doctor a bigamist?  He's married to Queen Elizabeth I and married to River Song, but is it at the same time? 

When War, Ten, and Eleven all enter the TARDIS, the TARDIS console changes twice. 8.5 comments that "Three of us from different time zones.  It's trying to compensate." Oddly enough, when the Second and Third Doctors in The Three Doctors and when the First and Fifth Doctors in The Five Doctors shared the same TARDIS console, there was no 'compensation' in the TARDIS structure.

Even by Black Archive standards, wouldn't the Guard at B.A. be puzzled as to how there are now TWO Kate Stewarts and Company?  Do the memory wipes work THAT fast?  If they do, why isn't Kate Stewart's memory swiped?

Next to the Brigadier's picture on the board who is next to him?  It looks like either Nyssa or Peri, but it can't be either because the former is a Traken who was left on Terminus (and visited Earth only three times, and only once in what can be called 'contemporary times').  Peri was last seen living as Queen to King Yrcanos in Mindwarp, so when did she or Nyssa get interviewed by UNIT?

Since Doctors 8.5, 10, and 11 don't have Gallifrey Falls/No More in front of them, how'd they get into the painting?

If the humans and Zygons don't know who is who, how do they set terms for negotiating?

Companions All...

Among the photos Clara admires of past Companions we have a bevy of beauties.  Let's examine some:

Susan Foreman: the Doctor's Granddaughter.  She was last seen in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, living on a Dalek-ravaged Earth in the far future with her husband.  As a Time Lord herself (she was the only Companion to immediately recognize Gallifrey in The Five Doctors, and was the figure running off with the First Doctor in The Name of the Doctor),  it is unknown whether she too perished in the Time War.  However, given she left the Doctor before UNIT's formation, how would they know of Susan?

Possibly thanks to two other Companions, schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.  Given how Ian and Clara are known to UNIT, it is strange that UNIT wouldn't mind having TWO Companions work in the same vicinity. However, Ian and Barbara left the Doctor again prior to UNIT's creation.

Two more figures are Able Seaman Ben Jackson and Swinging Sixties girl Polly.  Doctor Who established that Ben Jackson and Polly (nicknamed "Duchess" by the Cockney sailor) were returned to Earth by the Second Doctor on the same day they left with the First Doctor.  For all intents and purposes, neither Ben Jackson or Polly really 'disappeared' (compared to Rose Tyler, who went missing for a whole year).  Therefore, why and how would UNIT (which once again wasn't created until AFTER Ben and Polly left the Doctor) know of either of them?  

The biggest question involves the last photo.  It has a picture of Captain Mike Yates and Security Officer Sara Kingdom apparently together.  Captain Yates would be known to UNIT, as he worked for UNIT and the Third Doctor.  HOWEVER, while it is good that Sara Kingdom has firmly been established as a Companion (a point of fierce debate within Whovian circles), she was with the First Doctor in one story only (The Daleks' Master Plan) and technically was both not born and already dead by this time.  Therefore, a.) when did Sara Kingdom and Mike Yates meet, and b.) how did UNIT know about Sara Kingdom (let alone managed to get a photograph of her and Captain Yates together)? 

"You know the sound the TARDIS makes?  That wheezing, groaning?" Bad Wolf Rose tells 8.5.  You mean this sound...


You mean, people derive hope from the sound of a parking brake?

What happens when people hear the parking brakes of the TARDISes of The Master, or The Rani, or The War Chief, or even The Meddling Monk...all of whom apparently 'leave the parking brakes on'?

The Time War is time-locked, so while I can accept that perhaps Bad Wolf could let them in, one wonders why she didn't just take them to the start of the Time War and stop all this nonsense before we got started.  I guess certain 'fixed points in time' are 'time-locked'...unless the plot requires them not to be. 

Given how Doctor 8.5 left his TARDIS far from the hut in the desert, how'd he get back?  I guess Bad Wolf spirited him away back to the time-locked Last Day of the Time War, but if she could do that without either the time fissures or Gallifrey Falls/No More, it does seem a waste to go through all those hoops, then doesn't it? 

Ten hears the name "Bad Wolf" but then the matter gets dropped immediately afterwards.  Eleven has no reaction to it.

Not being overtly familiar with the events of The End of Time, how does sealing Gallifrey up in stasis affect the Tenth Doctor's stopping of the High Council from bringing Gallifrey to Earth's atmosphere?

The Two and a Half Doctors come up with a plan to freeze all of Gallifrey, like in a painting, to save it and have the Daleks (who really never seem to ever die out: anyone know how many times they themselves have been 'exterminated') destroy themselves.  Is it me, or is freezing Gallifrey (and the CHILDREN!  Won't someone PLEASE think of THE CHILDREN?!) just as bad as letting them burn, unless they mean like when one plays 'Freeze' and they are basically 'frozen' in an instant rather than literally frozen, so I can let that slide.


So how did Doctors 8.5, 10, and/or 11 contact the First Eight Doctors, plus Nine and Twelfth to have them all coordinate this Master Plan to save Gallifrey?  Did they cross their own time-streams to reach out to The First Doctor and tell him, "OK, here's the deal: Gallifrey is about to be destroyed, so we, the Future Yous, are here to tell you to start calculating the figures to save Gallifrey from total destruction.  Also, you have to keep the calculations going throughout all your regenerations and even though they won't be finished in your First regeneration, or your Second, or Third...or really they won't be finished until your Twelfth and Final regeneration, we'll give you the exact time and place to meet all of your versions to lock in together and coordinate all our TARDI simultaneously."

Wouldn't the Ninth Doctor, cantankerous as ever and still overwhelmed with guilt, be a little dubious to see his future selves (A Dandy and a Clown) tell him this tale?  Wouldn't Twelfth, for whom this is long in his past, know that Gallifrey is still out there? 

With Peter Capaldi's Doctor being declared the Thirteenth, wouldn't that basically invalidate The Time of The Doctor where Eleven declared himself the Thirteenth and Final Regeneration? With this calculation, the so-called War Doctor really is the Ninth, which pushes Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor to the Tenth, Tennant to Eleven, Smith to Twelve, and Capaldi to Thirteenth and Final regeneration.  However, in TOTD Smith declares that Tennant's abortive regeneration was indeed an actual regeneration where he could keep his prior appearance (which must have come as a surprise to all previous Doctors when/if they were told).  If Tennant is TWO regenerations, shouldn't there have been TWO Tennant Doctors flying about in space? 

Curiously, the Zygons in The Day of The Doctor pretty much disappeared after they went into the Black Archive.  It does seem a bit of a waste to not use the Memory Swipes to defeat the Zygons, but we never do learn the end results of their negotiations, do we?

Oddly, while Gallifrey Falls/No More is still in the Undergallery, it doesn't make much sense now does it?  After all, Gallifrey is frozen, so then how did Arcadia fall?  I also wonder exactly how Gallifrey Falls/No More get to Earth?

So we won't remember this either?

"Time streams are out of sync.  You can't retain it." The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors tell the War Doctor that, so their time-streams are too confused for him or his future regeneration until Eleven to remember anything of their meeting (up to and including saving Gallifrey).  Oddly, when the Second and Third Doctors met for the second time in The Five Doctors, they had perfect recall of their last meeting in The Three Doctors.  Shouldn't the 'confused time-streams' have prevented them from remembering their prior meeting as well?

The War Doctor's regeneration is unique in Doctor Who history in that it is the only regeneration NOT caused by either imminent death or Time Lord interference (as was the case with the Second and Sixth Doctors).  It just sort of...happens.  There is also no guarantee that The War Doctor will regenerate into what had been previously known as the Ninth Doctor (back when it was thought McGann had regenerated into Eccleston).  Yes, there is a suggestion that Hurt will turn into Eccleston (the ears comment) but on the whole, given we've already been introduced to a hereto unknown version of the Doctor, what's to guarantee there really weren't more between Hurt and Eccleston?

In The Name of The Doctor, the Doctor arrives in his tomb on Trenzalore (which Eleven tells Ten about, which is OK since he won't remember it), but in Time of the Doctor the Doctor doesn't actually die.  On the contrary, he gets a whole new set of regenerations thanks to Time Lord pixie dust.   Therefore, doesn't TOTD already contradict both NOTD and DOTD?


Elizabeth I had appointed The Doctor as Undertaker of the Gallery...I mean, Curator of the Undergallery.  Clara heard all this earlier.  However, she now tells him that the Curator is looking for Eleven.  IF this Curator is an older version of the Doctor (more than likely the Fourth Doctor, maybe the Watcher), then really what is a Time Lord's retirement plan?

**As a side note, I think this is less about honoring the past and present by having the Fourth and Eleventh Doctor meet and more to coddle Tom Baker's ego and possessiveness towards the part of the Doctor.  Baker had turned down flat a request to appear in The Five Doctors and agreed to appear in the 30th Anniversary Dimensions in Time (part of the Children in Need special) with the proviso that he be featured alone and not share scenes with former Doctors or Companions.  Baker's appearance in The Day of the Doctor is unique in that he is the only Classic Who Doctor to have any role in the 50th Anniversary Special, even if technically he isn't playing the Fourth Doctor.  His appearance does beg the question, if they could squeeze in Tom Baker for a cameo, what was to prevent Peter Davison, Colin Baker, or Sylvester McCoy from doing likewise?  Only reason I can think of is that it would have irritated/infuriated Tom Baker, who in the Twentieth Anniversary events similarly refused to share the stage with his predecessors/successors.  Time has softened Baker somewhat, but apparently not enough.  Then again, this is just speculation on my part.** 

With all the Doctors joining for a brief scene, it does look nice, but again it's puzzling why they just stood around together, looking at what appeared to be Gallifrey.

I'm with Stupid.

Well, there it is: a jolly jaunt through The Day of The Doctor, which is being hailed as one of if not the Greatest Doctor Who story of All Time.  Having seen the story twice, I think it is not a 50th Anniversary Special.  It's not even an 8th Anniversary Special.  It is a celebration of Steven Moffat's vision of Doctor Who, a celebration of Matt Smith's Era and David Tennant's fandom. 

I gave it a grade of 3/10 and in retrospect, that might be too high. 

Again, all this was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but if people can be nice enough to give explanations to certain points without being mean or abusive, I'd appreciate it very much.

All I ask is that explanations not resort to 'timey-wimey'...

NO, NO, NO!

There has been a push since at least the 1980s to make The Doctor in Doctor Who a woman.  More recently the push has been to cast a non-white actor, primarily but not exclusively a black actor. 

I would like to share my views on the casting possibilities of both a female and non-white Doctor.

In regards to the first, I oppose the casting of a woman as The Doctor.  I am sure that accusations of 'sexism' will be hurled in my direction.  WHY can't the Doctor be a woman?

Well, primarily because if we go by Canon, Time Lords and/or Gallifreyans (they are not the same thing) are not hermaphrodites.  Plain and simple, Time Lords have two genders: male and female.   They don't have dual genders within one body.  Time Lords when they have regenerated (such as The Master or Borusa, and I imagine both Romana and The Rani) have always regenerated as the gender they were prior to their regeneration.  For those who argue 'why can't the Doctor be a woman?', I would ask, "Why SHOULD the Doctor be a woman?"

Yes, in The Doctor's Wife the Eleventh Doctor says that a Time Lord called The Corsair had regenerated as both male and female.  However, two points on that.  That may not be literally true: it might have been either a joke or, to quote NuWhovians favorite line, "The Doctor Lies".   Second and more important, we never saw this actual regeneration, so can we say that it actually counts?

I know that today, this concept of 'cisgender' exists.  For those not in the know, to be 'cisgender' is to believe that you are the gender you were born into (if you were born male, you believe you are male, and the same for female).  Given the breath of sexual identification that has blossomed to the point of parody (I think one can be bigender, meaning that one can see themselves as both male and female, maybe even at the same time, depending on how he/she feels), I can see how calls to make a hereto male character into a female have grown.  However, this isn't a reason to cast a woman in a male role.

Casting against type isn't new.  The most recent version of The Tempest had Dame Helen Mirren play a female Prospero (which I didn't care for).  However, on the whole certain parts are male and certain parts are female, and to say that one gender cannot be excluded despite the intentions of the author(s) is not sexism. 

Why stop with The Doctor? Why can't a man play Eliza Dolittle and a man Henry (or Henrietta) Higgins (which would make Higgins' song Why Can't A Woman Be More Like A Man? very bizarre indeed), or a woman play Don Quixote?  I don't hear calls for a soprano to take on The Impossible Dream or a boy to belt out Castle on a Cloud.  Why not cast the part of Cossette as a boy?  Simply put, because this was not the intention of either Victor Hugo or Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil.  Similarly, as much as women may dislike this, the part of The Doctor was written for a man, not a woman. 

What really would be the point of a female Doctor?  Is it to show that 'all are created equal'?  Is it to somehow avenge sexism/misogyny (and yes, Doctor Who is in certain ways, still struggling to be equal with regards to women all these decades later).  What could justify casting a woman as The Doctor apart from a sense of 'fairness'? 

There is nothing in Canon (apart from one throwaway line) to justify or even rationalize casting a woman as The Doctor.  Some Time Lords are men, some Time Lords are women, just like in real life.  As much as I loath Steven Moffat, in this situation it is a case of a broken clock being right twice a day.  While he is sexist both behind the camera (there has been no female writer on Doctor Who since he took over and only one or two female directors) and what he puts in front of it (his female characters, particularly River Song, are fixated on the Doctor sexually or in some other ways dependent on him), he is right: casting a female Doctor would be as logical as casting a man as The Queen. 

If people want to fight sexism on Doctor Who, they should put focus on the lack of female input behind the camera (which is where the real female problem on Who lies) rather on a token of having a Doctor with a vagina. 

One last point on the idea of a female Doctor.  What would having a bigender Doctor really mean?  Imagine if you will, a female Time Lord who regenerates while giving birth into a male Time Lord.  Would the child be born at all (since, despite all the cis/bigender people, men still cannot give birth)?  Yes, it might seem all so silly to think on such minutiae, and I would say that that scenario is a bit absurd, but having a female Doctor (or Time Lords that can switch genders) opens the floodgates to these questions. 

In a nutshell, having a female Doctor is illogical and serves no purpose apart from having women feel 'included', in a 'it's our turn' way.  I don't think it would be right or rational to have a Queen Lear or Wilma Loman (Death of a Salesperson, anyone?).  I support fairness and equal treatment, I abhor the lack of female writers/director on television in general, but fairness cannot trump logic.



Now, on the other hand, the question of a non-white Doctor is one that merits much more study.  I find no reason why the Doctor cannot regenerate into a non-white male.  I repeat 'non-white' because unlike those who call for a black Doctor, I think the search should be expanded.  Why not an Indian Doctor, an Arab Doctor, a Jewish Doctor, an Asian Doctor, a Hispanic Doctor?

There is nothing in Canon to prevent the Doctor regenerating into another race altogether.  I do support casting a non-white Doctor BUT there is a proviso with that. 

Again, what would be the purpose of a non-white Doctor?  Is it again merely to satisfy a sense of 'fairness', of 'it's our turn', or is it because that particular non-white actor is the best one around?  If one is going to cast a black actor as The Doctor MERELY to HAVE a black Doctor, that would be tokenism and that would be unfair to everyone involved: actor and fan.  It should be the quality of an actor's talent, what he can bring to the role, that should be the deciding factor.  If one found a good non-white actor to play the part, then he should be cast. 

She'd put the "Lady" in "Time Lady"...

I for one think that casting Lupita Nyong'o or Shohreh Aghdashloo as the new Romana would be a brilliant idea (note that I cast women, not men, in the role of Romana).  Both have the elegance, the grace, and most importantly the acting talent to bring Romana to life.  We'd all be lucky to have them (or other British actresses of Indian, Arab, or Asian descent) as the legendary Time Lord.  Similarly, to have an Idris Elba or David Oyelowo as The Doctor would be great because they have the actual acting talent and could bring something to the role.

Each actor cast as The Doctor has brought a different interpretation to the part.  Tom Baker referred to the part of The Doctor as 'actor-proof', meaning that any actor with talent can make the part his own (Matt Smith proving the glaring exception).  I see no reason why a non-white actor could not do the same.

However, if casting a non-white actor is done in some effort to 'level the playing field', then I think again it would be unfair to everyone.  I'm Hispanic, and I never felt that I couldn't admire The Doctor because he didn't have a face like mine.  It's THE DOCTOR who is a hero to children of all races, and they (as well as the audience) really doesn't care what his skin is like, so long as he can BE The Doctor.

I don't think that can happen with a woman as The Doctor.  In that respect, a female Doctor really goes against continuity and common sense.  I repeat: Time Lords Are Not Hermaphrodites or Bigender, which is what you would turn The Doctor into if you cast a woman in the role. 


To sum up, I fully support the casting of a non-white male as The Doctor.
I oppose the casting of a woman as The Doctor.

It's not a question of 'fairness'.  It's a question of logic. 

The Following is a Parody of The Nerdist's review for Deep Breath, the new Doctor Who episode premiering on August 23 on BBC America and in selected cinemas at midnight.


By: NOT Kyle Anderson

With Peter Capaldi taking over as the 12th Doctor (give or take a few), Whovians may be fearful that Capaldi and Steven Moffat's darker take on the beloved Time Lord may alienate fans (no pun intended).  Deep Breath, however, makes it obvious that The Moff may be tweaking the franchise, but with some beloved returning characters (who really need their own spin-off) and one of the best Companions of All Time (who comes so close to being among the greats like Rose Tyler and River Song and some old lady called Smith or something back before anyone actually watched the show), the fifty-year old show is as new as when it first premiered.  In fact, Doctor Who now is more exciting, more intelligent, more brilliant than at any time in its half-century.  Past Doctor Who writers like Robert Holmes, Terrance Dicks or Douglas Adams and past producers like Verity Lambert or Philip Hinchcliffe could only look on in envy as Doctor Who writer/showrunner Steven Moffat outdoes them all yet again!

The Moff is Our Hero, Our Leader, This Generation's Greatest Writer, and soon to rank up there with Shakespeare and Dickens, and goes past others like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who technically created Sherlock Holmes but could never turn him into the brilliant creation Moffat has) or Dame Agatha Christie (whom nobody remembers, until Moffat comes up with Marple and casts Sienna Miller as the feisty, flirty Jane Marple rather than the old spinster we got stuck with).

The Doctor (Capaldi), still in the throes of regenerational confusion, lands in Victorian London with Clara (Jenna Coleman) the Impossible Girl, who now fears that the Doctor may not be the man she knew all his lives.  His regeneration confuses the brilliant Paternoster Gang: Silurian Madame Vastra (Neve Macintosh), her human wife Jenny Flint (Catrin Stewart), and their manservant, Sontaran Strax (Dan Starkey).  This new figure isn't the Doctor, but Clara is still Clara.  It takes some work to temporarily confuse the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, but Madam Vastra soon sees that it IS the Doctor (the giant dinosaur in London being her big clue, and this dinosaur outdoes not only Dinosaurs on a Spaceship but a previous little-seen or remembered Doctor Who story called Invasion of the Dinosaurs, which might mercifully be one of those lost stories that perhaps should remain lost). 

So, with the confused Doctor temporarily out of commission, it's up to the beloved Paternoster Gang (along with a very reluctant Clara) to attempt to both help the Doctor through his regeneration crisis and to see about that big dinosaur walking around London.  However, there's evil afoot, as a strange half-faced man is walking around, bringing death in his wake, including to the poor dinosaur (insert tear for that creature).  The Doctor, now looking like a hobo (obviously echoing a not-well-remembered character on the show nicknamed The Cosmic Hobo) and Clara eventually find each other through the Victorian version of Facebook: the newspaper ad.



They meet at a restaurant where they discover to their shock that THEY are the soup of the day.  Soon, they have to face-off against a half-face man.  As this Doctor would say, "Strike the last part".  Fortunately for the Doctor and Clara, in comes the Paternoster Gang to the rescue as they fight off the Half-Faced Man and his Droid Army intent on supplying themselves with new parts.  The Doctor and the Half-Faced Man then go off in the Half-Faced Man's beautiful balloon, where the Half-Faced Man continues talking about going to "the Promised Land".  Despite his best efforts, the Doctor cannot bring the Half-Faced Man to life, but despite crying over a character we never got to know we see that the Doctor now is on a quest.  It's not find Gallifrey (which is still out there, somewhere), but to repair the mistakes of his past.

Clara, despite herself, is still not convinced that the Doctor is HER Doctor, until a familiar voice comes back to guide her to the light.  It's none other than The Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith himself), temporarily restored from his old age in the brilliant The Time of The Doctor (the greatest, saddest, and most brilliant story in Doctor Who history until Deep Breath took its place, which is natural since The Day of The Doctor had been the most brilliant story in Doctor Who until The Time of The Doctor took its place, and before that The Name of The Doctor had been the greatest Doctor Who story of all time.  In fact, we've had nothing but brilliant stories going all the way back to Rose, and no Who from the pre-Rose days would ever compare to something as brilliant as Love & Monsters or Fear Her). 

Smith's Doctor is there to comfort Clara and to reassure her (and us) that Capaldi IS The Doctor, and with that, we are off on more brilliant adventures.  We even get little bits about how the season is going to go, with the Half-Faced Man truly in Heaven, there to greet him is Missy (who is an instant Doctor Who icon).  Who could she be?  River Song (she did call the Doctor her boyfriend)?  An alternate version of Clara (she IS the Impossible Girl)? 

Oh, we'll just have to wait and see.  Moffat you brilliant dick...




Adding Smith, even if it was only for a brief cameo, is a brilliant send-off for the best Doctor (not counting David Tennant and maybe that old guy whose cameo in The Day of The Doctor excited everyone, because that ex-Doctor is the only one still with us from the original, though inferior, version of Doctor Who. He's a bit like that old Smith woman: the only pre-Rose Companion any of us actually remember, albeit vaguely).  It gives us a heart-touching final farewell to someone who will become as important to childhood as Winnie-the-Pooh or Peter Pan.  Just hearing Smith's voice gives us Whovians who have loved Smith's eternal child-like Doctor a chance to cry one more time.  Seeing him just got to me emotionally, and I know all true Whovians shed tears at seeing that face (and chin) one last time, a grand moment that will be remembered for all time.  Moffat really knows how to hit us emotionally while still making us laugh at the same time.  It may not be Smith coming back in full form (which might upset some Whovians) but Moffat in his genius gives us the viewer comfort that things will be OK, like the Good Shepherd of Doctor Who that the Moff is. 

There are so many inside jokes that zing by us so quickly you'd need a second watch to catch them all (even though all real Whovians will watch this again and again rather than the stodgy old stories like The Aztecs or Tomb of the Cybermen).  "You know I speak Dinosaur!" Capaldi's Doctor bellows at one point.  Who DOESN'T remember the genius of Smith's Doctor "talking Horse"?  Vastra's "Well then, here we go again," echoes to the late-and-much-missed Brigadier's line where we got Tom Baker (the only Classic Who Doctor that any of us know, remember, or care about). 


This is also a good time to look on Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint, perhaps the greatest secondary characters Doctor Who has ever created (apart from Captain Jack, of course).  These two show without a doubt that Steven Moffat is not a sexist or homophobe.  Far from it.  He's given us the greatest female characters in television history.  There's River Song.  There's Irene Adler from Sherlock.  Now, he's given us a kick-ass same-sex interspecies love story with two females who not only can take care of themselves but care about each other.  Vastra and Jenny are more than the John Watson and Sherlock Holmes of Doctor Who (and who are neck-and-neck with the brilliant take on those characters on another Moffat show with the always brilliant Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman).  They are the embodiment of all the best of Moffat's writing about women.

They are strong.  They are unafraid of their sexuality.  They are intelligent.  They are what all little girls aspire to be.  Fangirls need look no further for heroes than Vastra and Jenny, and soon they will be called the Cumberbatch and Freeman of Doctor Who.  They might also have their own show, which Deep Breath could serve as an excellent pilot for.  Imagine the possibilities: while the Doctor is off somewhere, the Paternoster Gang is out there, solving crimes and deep mysteries with Strax providing much-needed comic relief.  The Doctor could drop in on them once in a while, and who knows: maybe one day they'll be a massive Vastra/Doctor Who/Sherlock crossover.

Oh, my fanboy heart leaps at seeing Macintosh, Capaldi, and Cumberbatch in one gigantic epic episode of three shows!  Think of it: The Doctor takes Madame Vastra and Jenny to 21st-Century London, where our favorite same-sex bestiality couple meet their spiritual (if not physical) descendants, and together the Victorian Holmes and Watson meet their Internet-age counterparts and join forces to defeat the newly-resurrected Jim Moriarty (or his twin...my own theory) while Strax continues to bumble and stumble his way around poor Molly and Inspector Lestrade's workspace, attempting to figure out this even crazier world.

If Moffat disliked women so much as his jealous, bitter, dumb enemies keep saying, why would he give these television icons the power of ESP?



Dan Starkey's Strax continues to make the Sontarans the joke their creator, Robert Holmes, always intended them to be.  Ever since they debuted in The Sontaran Strategem (at least their official debut, their unofficial one being a little-remembered Third Doctor story called The Time Warrior), which I should point out was written by a WOMAN (thus forever closing the book on that whole 'Moffat is a sexist' nonsense that smears the good name of our Dear Leader), the Sontarans were always suppose to be silly.  Robert Holmes could never get the Sontarans to be as dumb as he wanted them to, probably because he didn't have the writing skills of The Moff.  However, thanks to Moffat, Holmes' great dream of making his allegedly war-obsessed aliens into the comic relief has come true. 

Starkey's Strax continues to be the lovable dimwit he was created to be (just like Smith's Doctor was suppose to be dimwitted as per a fan letter in Doctor Who Magazine).  It is amazing that despite all these years working for Madame Vastra and her human wife, he still doesn't get the concepts of clothes and hair, but who cares: The Paternoster Gang is BACK!  We even get a quick shout-out to the Paternoster Irregulars.  Seriously, Conan Doyle obviously stole from The Moff, because only Steven Moffat in his brilliance could have come up with something so clever, so funny, so heartwarming, so heartbreaking, and so epic all in one feature-length long story. 

There might be a few things that perhaps may confuse some of the lesser intellects who can't comprehend Moffat's intricately complex plot, like who sent the newspaper message that the Doctor and Clara happened to find knowing that the other would not only find it but think it came from the other. However, because Moffat's plots are always so brilliant and always tie in together brilliantly in the end, all those questions will be answered in the season finale because the always brilliant Moffat will connect everything into this massively epic story that will be studied for its incredibly tight storytelling. 

We get little nods to that thanks to a reference to Clara's first adventure with 'her' Doctor, The Bells of Saint John, when we're reminded of the tech helpline telling Clara to call a certain number.  We might have forgotten about that mystery, but the genius of Moffat's genius so ingeniously ties things from past stories to present stories and to future stories in that wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey way that only someone of Steven Moffat's genius could. 

Mark my words: once we discover who Missy is (my theory: a character from The Doctor's past, like something called a "Romana" or some other vague character whom we never really learned anything about during her brief time on Doctor Who), we Whovians will not only realize how brilliant Steven Moffat is, but see that he gave us clues that everybody missed!  It will be so obvious only those nitpickers who complain about things like coherence will grumble. 

Next week, the Doctor and Clara face off against his greatest foe, but with a brilliant twist that only The Moff can give us. 

THE Kyle Anderson: As Objective and Impartial as MSNBC and FOX News.

I must present a confession.  I did not watched the leaked version of Deep Breath, but somehow the first five scripts for Doctor Who's eight season fell into my lap.  The temptation was simply too great, but to my credit I read only three of them: Deep Breath, Into the Dalek, and Robots of Sherwood.  As such, Deep Breath, the first story with Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor (or perhaps Doctor 1.2), was already familiar to me.

Reading the script, I pictured that it would be more a Vastra & Company episode than a proper Doctor Who story, and that the comedic aspects Steven Moffat was thrusting upon us would dominate.  As it so happens, Deep Breath sticks close to that, but while there are some solid moments to be found this is, while not the worst debut story, a pretty weak one.

It is Victorian London, an a dinosaur is spotted by Parliament.  It's up to Silurian Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh), her wife, the human Cockney Jenny Flint (Catrin Stewart), and her manservant the Sontaran Strax (Dan Starkey) to figure out what it's doing here.

Oh, yes, and somehow some guy inside a blue police box is involved, though he's a secondary character in this episode.

That character might be The Doctor (Capaldi), accompanied by his human Companion Clara (Jenna Coleman, long having dropped 'Louise' from her name). Clara is having a hard time accepting this older-looking man as The Doctor, at one point asking the all-wise star of the show (which would be Vastra) how they could change him back to 'her' Doctor.  In any case, the Doctor is having a hard time with his newest regeneration, but when he escapes in his nightshirt to find the dinosaur has apparently spontaneously combusted, he now has a focus.

That focus being to find out what killed the dinosaur, whether there have been other murders like this, and finding some clothes.  Clara, for her part, still upset about the change (no, not THE change in women's life, but the change from pretty Smith to wrinkled old Capaldi) finds an ad which mentions the 'Impossible Girl', leading her to Mancini's Family Restaurant.  Here, she and the Doctor meet, though each thinks the other sent the message.



At Mancini's, the food is always fresh, because to their horror, THEY are the main course.  This restaurant is really a lair to entrap unsuspecting humans so that the Clockwork Mice...I mean, Clockwork Men and Women can harvest their organs.  Their leader, the Half-Faced Man (Peter Ferdinando), wants to reach The Promised Land, but he cannot get there because his ship has been damaged for millennia.  At one point, the Doctor appears to have left Clara, with her only chance of survival being to hold her breath.

Mercifully, the Doctor and the Half-Faced Man battle it out on the latter's balloon made out of human skin, while the Paternoster Gang with special guest star Clara Oswald fight the Clockwork Mice.  The Half-Faced Man meets a sorry end, speared by the tower in Parliament (though whether he fell or was pushed is up for debate).  The Doctor appears to disappear but he does return for Clara, who gets a call from The Doctor (Matt Smith, in a cameo), where he reassures her that the old guy IS the Doctor.  With that, Rose and the Doctor go off for chips in London...I mean, Clara and the Doctor go off for chips in Glasgow.

At the end, though, the Half-Faced Man DOES arrive in Paradise, where Missy (Michelle Gomez), who claims the Doctor is her 'boyfriend', awaits the Half-Faced Man. 

What's good about Deep Breath?  Well, what's good is that it wasn't as disastrous as it read.  A great deal of the credit goes to director Ben Wheatley, who brought a nice look to the episode.  Any episode that makes the normally plain-looking Jenny into quite a beautiful-looking woman deserves some praise.  It wasn't until we caught Jenny 'posing' for Vastra that we saw Jenny with her hair down, and Stewart looks beautiful there.

We also have to compliment Capaldi, who has the potential to be a fantastic Doctor.  I say 'has the potential' because of Matt Smith and Steven Moffat.  Smith grew to be the worst Doctor of All Time: a blithering idiot who rarely commanded respect and authority but instead looked like he was trying to figure out how a door works.  Deep Breath in many ways reads like a Matt Smith-type script, with too many bad comedy moments (hearing a comic sound effect when Vastra manages to render the Doctor unconscious was just idiotic, plain and simple). The fluttery nature of the Doctor was Smith-like, and everything involving the Paternoster Gang (in particular the increasingly irritating Strax) was also Moffat's attempt to throw in what he thinks is comedy (and/or worse, what he think Doctor Who fans want).


Take for example when the Paternoster Gang comes to the rescue (the second time they serve as a form of deus ex machina).  You have what is suppose to be a very dramatic, even exciting moment as these two master assassins descend to the lair by means of cloth wrapped around them.  All well ad good I suppose, but then what could have been an effect moment is ruined by having Strax crash down right behind them.  It's as if Moffat simply can't trust the audience to have a moment that would require drama or action without giving them a 'light, comic' moment.

I hated Vastra's 'carriage alarm' business, which wasn't funny or clever or smart.  I hated the idea of having Strax still not understand the idea of 'clothes' or hitting Clara with the newspaper (though the thing with the water wasn't too bad.  Still dumb, but not dreadful). 

Moffat spends far too much time with the Paternoster Gang in unnecessary things.  The entire scene with Strax examining Clara (and naturally getting things wrong) should have been cut because it added nothing to either character development or plot.  Curiously, while Moffat kept this bit (I figure to justify showing Deep Breath as a film of sorts in theaters), he cut the 'spontaneous combustion' investigation and shifted to the 'restaurant' business. 

I wondered why in all this time the police never bothered to investigate the disappearance that must have been noted by family and friends of those who were last seen either going to or entering Mancini's.  This had been going on for several years, yet am I suppose to believe every person who went into Mancini's had no friends or relations to worry about should they just disappear?  This is a plot point that, like many in Moffat's oeuvre, is conveniently forgotten when needed. 

The focus on the Paternoster Gang is perhaps the biggest detriment to Deep Breath.  Having Jenny declare that she is in love with a lizard (confirming my long-held belief that same-sex bestiality is something that shouldn't be featured on a family show) doesn't help, nor does the idea that VASTRA, all-wise and all-knowing, knows what regeneration is (despite never seeing it herself) but CLARA doesn't.  Clara has, if Doctor Who is to be believed, interacted with ALL the Doctors, and has met Doctors who are much older-looking than Capaldi's version.  In fact, it was CLARA who told the First Doctor which TARDIS to take (even if that does contradict a previous Doctor Who story where the TARDIS said it had chosen the Doctor). 

If anything Clara should be the one to best understand the concept.  In the times a Companion straddled two Doctors, the Companions took quite easily to the idea of change.  Able Seaman Ben Jackson and Polly, who were the first to experience the Doctor's regeneration, struggled a bit but didn't struggle with the concept and quickly saw Patrick Troughton as THE Doctor.  Sarah Jane Smith went from Jon Pertwee to Tom Baker and not once ever thought of wanting the 'old one' back.  When Adric, Tegan Jovanka, and Nyssa saw the Fourth Doctor become the Fifth, they never struggled.  Even Rose, who saw the first NuWho regeneration, immediately accepted the Tenth as the Doctor.

Given all that, why does Clara appear so unaware of what was going on?  It makes her look shallow, and perhaps that was the intent, but it still is not logical.

Then again, since when was Doctor Who interested in things like continuity?



The issue about Smith's cameo is troubling for two reasons.  First, it has the negative effect of treating the audience as weaklings and imbeciles, either unable or unwilling to accept a concept that, after four actors, they should already know and accept by now.  It's a sad commentary that fans apparently need help in coping with a change in cast.  In all the fifty-one years of Doctor Who, neither fans or Companions ever had to be basically hand-held in accepting one actor as The Doctor over the other.  Tennant never barged in on Smith, nor did Tom Baker ever have to pop up to help those Doctor Who fans accept Peter Davison.

Are Doctor Who fans THAT emotionally and intellectually weak?

Second and more insidious to me, Smith's appearance has the effect of stomping over what is suppose to be his successor's first story.  How can you have a real showcase for one actor when you got the guy you replaced to basically pop in and say, 'Hey, remember me?'  This was suppose to be Capaldi's moment, so why does Smith have to rear his big chin into the proceedings?    There was no need to have Smith appear in Deep Breath apart than to placate HIS fans, not Doctor Who fans, not the same thing.

Still, Capaldi's Doctor, though at times relegated to being more Smith-like than anything, manages to show that he can do good things.  When he challenges the Half-Faced Man it does give us hints that perhaps he will be a darker (read, better) version of The Doctor.  It's too soon to say whether Capaldi can be a good Doctor, but so far the hope is still there.  Sadly, the same can't be said for Coleman.  Apart from having something odd about her left eye which kept my attention whenever she was on screen, Clara is still dim, weak, and devoid of real personality. 

As for the Paternoster Gang, I do wish they would all just go.  I'm tired of constantly hearing about how Jenny and Vastra are 'married' (again, WHO would perform the ceremony).  I'm tired of Strax's bumbling (you'd think the 'he's too stupid to figure things out' routine would have died by now). 

Even worse, Deep Breath with Gomez's wild and over-the-top Missy (a mix of River Song and Madame Kovarian), we are going to have to endure more season-long arcs that are a drag on the show.  Rather than a simple series of adventures, we're going to be dragged through more 'Bad Wolf' and 'Cracks in Time' and 'Impossible Girl' stories where every episode seems like one long prequel to nothing.  It's a bit like what a critic wrote about the 1963 Cleopatra: at six hours it might have been a movie, but at its current version its a series of coming attractions for something that will never come.

Finally, Murray Gold has got to be fired.  Plain and simple.  While the new opening sequence was visually impressive, the new theme is too screechy for my taste (almost like hearing a group of cats being tortured) and attempting 'funny' music or 'crying-inducing' music just drowns the story with unnecessary baggage.

Deep Breath has about only one real positive in it, and that is Peter Capaldi, who is better than his material.  In almost every other aspect, from the Vastra & Company spin-off in all but name, to the actual story itself and the 'Missy' subplot that will eventually take center stage, I think we don't have to hold our breath that this season will be a major improvement over last.

Sadly, in this episode, we don't even need the Doctor all that much.  With that, Deep Breath shows just how irrelevant the Doctor has become on Doctor Who.     



4/10

Next Episode: Into the Dalek

"Am I a good man?"

This is what the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) asks his part-time Companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) in Into the Dalek, to which Clara answers that she doesn't know.  This episode has some great visuals, a strong performance by Capaldi, and at least an interesting premise.  It is unfortunate that in many ways, it evokes other stories, better stories, and that there is a certain repetitiveness to Into the Dalek.  There are also questions of logic which we'll get to in a bit but for now, it is good to see Doctor Who really trying to be darker and grittier.  Note I said 'trying'...

The Doctor rescues Journey Blue (Zawe Ashton), about to be killed by an onslaught of Daleks.  Her brother is already dead, and the Doctor thinks he should be thanked, not criticized.  Journey takes the Doctor to her ship, a medical ship that holds a particular patient: a Dalek!  Not only is this Dalek a patient, but now the crew wants the Doctor as a doctor to enter the Dalek to see why the Dalek is...good.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Clara meets Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson), a former soldier who has created the Coal Hill Cadets, a bit like a Junior ROTC Program for the same school where over 50 years ago, the very first Doctor Who story began.  (A side note: Coal Hill School may be the ONLY acknowledgment of Classic Who the current show will recognize).  There is a suggestion of a past for our dear Mr. Pink, as he sheds a tear when he is asked by students whether he ever killed someone outside war (which makes me wonder if British schools are more lax about hiring than American schools, but I digress).  It appears that Clara and Pinkie find something more than rapport, though Clara is not particularly fond of soldiers.  Never mind, for the Doctor comes to Clara, still carrying the coffee he went for three weeks ago and takes her to the ship, so he can be his 'carer' (as in, she cares so he doesn't have to).


We now, thanks to a molecular nanoscaler, take the Doctor, Clara, Blue, and a few guards and shrink them to allow them to go "into the Dalek", whom the Doctor nicknames "Rusty" to see what ails him.  As they go into the heart of darkness, they see that Rusty is in a bit of shock, having seen 'beauty' in the form of the birth of a star, and finding that no matter how often the Daleks exterminate, resistance to life is futile.  The Doctor, thanks to his handy-dandy sonic screwdriver, fixes the radiation leak which is causing it to go good, but wouldn't you know it: that repair restores it to being a regular Dalek, evil, determined to kill.  Worse, it allows the Dalek fleet to come storming onto the ship.

The Doctor is angry at himself for believing such a thing as a good Dalek was possible, and Clara is angry that he's about to let them all die.  So angry she slaps him, hard.  However, the Doctor thinks there might be a way out: to unlock Rusty's suppressed memories and perhaps get it to return to seeing the beauty of life.  The Doctor's plan involves linking his mind to that of Rusty's, and let it see the glories of the universe.  However, the Dalek doesn't just see that.  He sees the Doctor's hatred for the Daleks, and from the Doctor Rusty learns that all Daleks must be destroyed.  Rusty then goes after the invading Dalek army and defeats them, in the end Rusty tells the Doctor, "I am not a good Dalek.  You are a good Dalek."  Journey wants to join the Doctor but he rejects her, telling her he doesn't like soldiers.  Clara is popped in to having been gone 30 seconds, and she comes out of the cupboard wearing a new outfit and going off with Danny Pink for drinks.

Is it me, or was Into the Dalek a bit of a hodgepodge of other stories?  I don't mean the most obvious influence on Steven Moffat and Phil Ford's screenplay (incidentally the first time there's been joint screenwriters on NuWho since The Waters of Mars, which was also co-written by Ford, that time with then-producer Russell T Davies): Isaac Asimov's Fantastic Voyage.  I mean other Doctor Who stories.  The imagery of a group of Daleks storming a base reminded me of Resurrection of the Daleks, when the Daleks force their way in.  However, in particular I suggest that Into the Dalek looks a bit like a remake of the Ninth Doctor story Dalek. 

Beat for beat, it's pretty much a repeat, or at least a rehash, of what we've seen before: the 'dark/angry' Doctor encounters a debilitated Dalek, it has human emotions, once awakened it goes on a murderous rampage, and find that the Doctor and the Daleks are if not moral equivalents at least mirror opposites.  Even in the concluding thoughts they seem to be the same: in Dalek, the title character tells the Doctor, "YOU would have made a good Dalek", in Into the Dalek, the title character tells the Doctor, "YOU are a good Dalek".

I leave it up to you whether or not hitting on the same theme (the Doctor harbors murderous rage equal to his archnemesis) shows a show that is slowly running out of ideas (which in its first twenty-six years, it didn't), but in retrospect I wonder whether going over territory already seen is indicative that Doctor Who is now in danger of repeating itself (knowingly or not). 

I cry just a little...

There are also other elements in Into the Dalek that are signs of concern, that this episode was more about adding to a season-long arc rather than a standalone episode.  In what should have been an extremely tense moment, one of shock and horror and sadness, we get thrown into a jolting reminder that we're stuck with another 'teaser' bit about how the season will end.    Gretchen (Laura Dos Santos), a tough soldier about to be killed by the Dalek's antibodies, suddenly finds herself in a cozy tearoom with Missy (Michelle Gomez, and in a side note, with people surnamed Dos Santos and Gomez, Doctor Who may actually have more Hispanics on British television than most American shows.  When was the last time a Latino popped up in The Big Bang Theory?).  Seeing her cheery/nutty Mary Poppins character asking if she'd like some tea may have struck Moffat as genius, but its only effect on me was to take me out of the scene altogether, robbing me of both pathos and tension.

It also is yet another sad example of a running Moffat motif: his inability to kill characters permanently.  I had speculated about this before, but Into the Dalek is yet more proof that The Moff is hopelessly repetitive and frankly a bad writer (Emmy be damned).   What could have been a great and tragic moment turned into a 'what?' moment.

Same goes for Danny Pink's debut.  Oh, a war veteran haunted by the past...what a concept.  Perhaps Ford and Moffat thought that having two soldiers in these parallel worlds, a girl named Blue and a man named Pink, was sly and witty commentary about gender roles: the tough warrior Blue and the tearful ex-warrior Pink (though my mind puts more blame on the latter).  Something about this set-up rubs me the wrong way.  In the same way Sherlockians go into knots trying to make the Richard Brook/Jim Moriarty scenario sensible as part of some bizarre master-plan, I find myself trying to look deeply into this Girl Blue/Boy Pink business.  I cannot shake the idea that there is something more than meets the eye in this Girl Blue/Boy Pink set-up (or it might be that Moffat is simply so full of crap and devoid of ideas he thought this was all shockingly clever).  However, given that he's an ex-soldier, and the Doctor doesn't like soldiers (except for Security Agent Sara Kingdom in The Daleks Master Plan, or UNIT and especially the Brigadier, who was basically his best friend), will there be difficulties ahead as the Doctor/Clara/Danny triangle begins to set in?

Whattaya think?

Another question/comment: will people ever learn to shoot at a Dalek's eyestalk?  Seriously, after fighting Daleks all this time, why doesn't anyone aim for the eye? 

One last question before we go into what did work in Into the Dalek.  What purpose did Clara serve?  I know it was to be the Doctor's 'conscience', which is all well and good, but why did the Doctor feel the need to pick her for this journey?  Couldn't he have popped in to select any other Companion, like Sarah Jane or Rose Tyler or Nyssa, and have them work with him?  Well, perhaps because at this point Clara is the only one who sees the Doctor when she sees his face, but I never got this part-time Companion business where the Doctor picks up Clara, they go for an adventure, then he drops her off home as if nothing ever happened. 

Eye see you...

Now, as for the things that did work in Into the Dalek.  Capaldi, in his first full story away from his predecessor, does go into a darker version, one that isn't as strict about life.  A soldier finds himself surrounded by the Dalek antibodies, and the Doctor throws him something and tells him to swallow it.  He does, but the antibodies still destroy the soldier.  Everyone is shocked and angry.  When the others condemn him when antibodies kill another soldier, he counters by saying, "He was dead already. I was saving us!"  When he finds that the Dalek has tapped into his dark ideas of the Daleks and his hatred for them, Capaldi makes the shock of the Doctor's plan going awry real and almost tragic.  It looks like Peter Capaldi was indeed a good choice for the role, his coldness and more dare I say ruthless nature being extremely strong.

The script also at least has a token acknowledgement that it is a bit of a rip-off.  When the Doctor sees the molecular nanoscaler, he quips, "Fantastic idea for a movie, terrible idea for a proctologist (emphasis mine)". 

Perhaps I'm grasping at straws, but I hope that Journey Blue will come back and will be a full-time Companion.  It would not only be good to have a Companion from the FUTURE (I know Earth Girls are Easy, but do we always have to have them with the Doctor?) but she seems strong, capable, intelligent, and eager...qualities that most NuWho Companions have been lacking.

I'm talking to YOU, River Song!

Into the Dalek had rated a little higher initially, but then as I thought on it other aspects (the repetitive nature of the story, the Missy cameo) all started to push the story down.  Still, on the whole it was much better than I read, and executed much better than I had hoped. 

And as for the question of whether the Doctor is a good man, Clara is unsure, but at least knows he is trying to be one.  Given how she has seen the Doctors in action, how could she have any doubts?

6/10

Next Episode: Robot of Sherwood