City of Spires (2010)

Ever since I heard that there was going to be a Sixth Doctor and Jamie series of adventures I was unsure as what to expect. There had only been one adventure with the two of them and that was in the 1985 adventure ‘The Two Doctors’. This story would be written by a new writer. Simon Bovey is given a big responsibility of getting this series up and running. This is the first time that Frazer Hines has played Jamie McCrimmon in a full-cast drama since that 1985 story. Hines previously did ‘Helicon Prime’ (2007), ‘A Glorious Revolution’ (2009) and most recently The ‘Emperor of Eternity’ (2010). This story was more about the reunion of the Doctor and Jamie than anything else really which was what A Thousand Tiny Wings was about when the Seventh Doctor met Elizabeth Klein again. This story took a long time to get going. The story spends a lot of time doing very little. I’ll be honest, I have no real interest in the battle between the Highlanders and the Red Coats. It was good how they shoehorned in Rob Roy in this story for not particular reason. His involvement didn’t really seem to contribute anything to the story.

One of the things that I enjoyed about this story was the characters. The character of Major Heyward was particularly good. James Albrecht makes the character utterly unlikeable but not to the point that it became a bad joke. Georgia Moffett was the most noticeable name in the cast list (her name appears on the cover). She was perfectly good as Alice and the character was likeable and I thought the way she was with Jamie was a nice highlight of the story. I also thought that Frazer Hines was brilliant as Jamie/Black Donald. It was great how he was with the Doctor and it was like I thought he would be. Exactly the same but just forty years older. He had a great chemistry with Colin Baker and that will only get better in the other two stories. Colin Baker was also on very good form in this story. Trying to convince Jamie that they had at one time being travellers together was always going to be difficult but it does raise a mystery as to how Jamie doesn’t remember the events from ‘The Highlanders’? Since that was the only adventure that Jamie was left with after the Timelords had put him back on Earth.

The main thread of this series was set up at the end. It was set up when the Overlord said “Did SHE send you?” Another mystery was what was in the black water/oil and what was it for? Then there is the issue of the damage to the timeline in setting up a massive industrial city in 1860’s Scotland. It’s a shame that it all seemed to take place in the last 20 minutes as opposed to the other three and a half episodes. It does mean that there is a reason to stick with the other two episodes (like I wasn’t going to!). Ultimately though the main problem with this story is that it took way too long to get going. Had it not been for that final 20 minutes where pretty much everything was revealed, I would have found this a real disappointment.

Really looking forward to Wreck of the Titans.

The Time of Angels (2010)

The first two parter of the series sees the return of two familiar characters from the Tennant era. The first being River Song who appeared in the Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead two parter in 2008 and also the Weeping Angels who appeared in Blink back in 2007. Both were creations of Steven Moffat and as he is now sitting in the big chair its only right that he puts two of his best creations together. After all the furore of the new looking Daleks and Spitfires in Space, it was time for the series to see what a two-part story would be like.

The story centres about a ship called the Byzantium which crashed on the planet Alfava Metraxis. River Song has joined the Doctor and Amy where they are trying to find the Weeping Angel that was being hidden in the vault. There was some wonderful imagery. The four second clip that the Doctor, River and Amy were watching seemed to be eerie enough but soon when Amy was on her own every time she looked away the Angel moved and got to the stage where it came out of the screen. This was a brilliant moment in the series so far. Another great moment was the idea that the Weeping Angels were using the consciousness of dead soldiers to speak to the Doctor, in one part the Angel irritates the Doctor by saying that their doomed.

Matt Smith puts in another good performance. I did find him funny when he was trying to copy the sound of the TARDIS landing. It showed that Smith can do both funny and serious acting. His speech at the end was one that we had heard on the trailers for the entire series but in the context of this story it’s a fine speech. Karen Gillan was perhaps not as strong as she has been in previous episodes but she was still good. The moment with the Angel on the screen was a brilliant piece of acting from her. She also seemed to revel in the discomfort of the Doctor in a way that reminded me of Donna. Alex Kingston’s return was a welcome one. There was a lot of mystery in her two episodes back in 2008 and whilst I was hoping some of it would be clarified in this episode I am glad that they didn’t do much clarifying because it opens the way for her to return in the future. Then again we’ll have to wait and see what happens in the next episode. The character of River Song is a feisty one who isn’t afraid of embarrassing the Doctor in front of friends. Of the ‘minor’ characters I was particularly impressed with Father Octavian. He is a proper father but there was something about how was with the Doctor that really stood out for me. When the Doctor made a comment which wasn’t nice about the church and the Doctor said “No offence”, normally the person in question wouldn’t have time to react or be offended but Octavian did take offence and this makes him different from ‘minor’ characters in the past.

I have to say as an opening episode it’s very good, it has a lot of drama and tension that we didn’t get in Victory of the Daleks. The Weeping Angels are perhaps the best creation of the new series and when the story concludes next week it has the potential to be one of the best stories of the season.

Survival (1989)

When Survival originally aired back in December 1989, not many people really cared for Doctor Who. Its heyday had long since gone, the BBC decided it was good enough to be pitted against the juggernaut that was Coronation Street and it’s a shame that not enough people were watching this story. For many years I perceived this as the perfect ending for a TV institution. This is a three part story which is how most of the Sylvester McCoy stories tended to be like. The story sees the Doctor return Ace to where she grew up in Perivale. People have been disappearing and it’s linked to a black cat that is moving around the town. The Master is behind the teleportation’s.

Ever since Ace boarded the TARDIS, the Doctor has seemed on a quest to try and get Ace to confront some of her personal demons. The house that she burnt down she visited in ‘The Curse of Fenric’ and also meeting her mother who she hates when she was a baby. In this the Doctor takes her back to the place where she grew up. I think it was a good idea to bring Ace back home because we get to see what she was like before she ended up in ‘Dragonfire’. Sophie Aldred puts in perhaps her best performance in this story because its how she connects with the Cheetah People especially Karra that shows that as well as being the cheeky Nitro9 loving maniac she can also be kind and sincere. Sylvester McCoy also puts in a great performance. His Doctor was just starting to make headway and was a far cry from ‘Time and the Rani’. There were flashes of genius from him and his “If we fight like animals, we’ll die like animals’ was a great line. There was also the moment where he is on the bike and he is heading for a collision and I thought that Jon Pertwee was back as this was a typically action packed moment.

The story sees the final appearance of Anthony Ainley as the Master in the TV series. Since his debut in the final Tom Baker stories I always thought of Ainley as a bit of a pantomime villain and a bit poorer that Roger Delgado. However in this story we got a Delgado performance from Ainley. The Master we have in this story is very different from any other time that we have seen him. This is because he seems to be possessed by the Cheetah People.

For all the dramatic moments there were some silly things that managed to slip through the net. The first is the casting of Hale and Pace (a comedy act quite famous in the 1980’s). They offer nothing in this story and seem to be there for Doctor Who to point out another big name in their show. At least when new Who gets a big name its in quite a substantial role. I also found the character of Midge to be particularly annoying. He just wasn’t believable when he was being possessed and that was a shame because the Master needed someone else to help carry the alien/human threat on a bit more. For six years this was the final bit of dialogue which is perhaps the saddest that I have ever heard in Doctor Who for quite some time.

"There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea's asleep, and the rivers dream. People made of smoke, and cities made of song. Somewhere there's danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea's getting cold! Come on, Ace — we’ve got work to do!"

As a final McCoy story it’s quite a fitting end. It’s far better than his first and shows that Doctor Who was starting to get back on its feet. The story fits perfectly the three part that it was given. Rona Munro has written a superb script that is perhaps one of the strongest of the McCoy era if not of the 1980’s. Alan Wareing should also get a big pat on the back because his directing was brilliant and showed how Doctor Who could do superb drama even in the 1980’s. The pace was always consistent and despite the flaws that I referred to earlier he did a good job. It would have nice to see how Doctor Who would have looked in the 90’s but soon Big Finish are producing the ‘lost’ season 27.

Victory of the Daleks (2010)

The third episode of this series sees the Doctor and Amy arrive during the Blitz to Winston Churchill’s underground bunker. This was at the request of Churchill in the preceding episode. The Doctor and Amy arrive a month after the call and Churchill hopes to win World War 2 with the ‘Ironsides’ who obviously are Daleks. This story was written by Mark Gatiss who chalks up his third story as a writer having written the 2005 story ‘The Unquiet Dead’ and the 2006 story ‘The Idiot’s Lantern’. This is the second time that the Doctor has visited Earth during the Blitz having visited there during the Ninth Doctor’s time in The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances.

The story sees the Doctor trying to convince Winston Churchill what the Daleks are really like and the truth comes out that created Professor Bracewell to convince Churchill to call the Doctor. The Daleks need the Doctor because the Daleks have found a Progenator which is a capsule that contains pure Dalek DNA. The Daleks that are pretending to be the servants can open it because they are not pure Daleks as they were created from Davros’s DNA. Once the Progenator is opened five new Daleks are created and in one of the most memorable scenes for quite sometime we have a new paradigm which were identified as Scientist, Stategist, Drone, Eternal and the Supreme which are larger than the old ones. The Daleks get away because they use the classic line of making the Doctor choose between letting Londoners die from the bombings or let the Daleks get away. Obviously he chooses to save the humans and the Daleks get away but probably not for long. There seems to be a bit more to the ‘crack’ story arc where there is the crack in the war behind the TARDIS as it dematerialises at the end. But the biggest was that Amy didn’t know of the Daleks despite everything that happened in The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End.

Essentially this story will be remembered for years to come for the new look Daleks. Since the show returned in 2005 they have been the standard Gold Daleks but Moffat has decided that they needed to be updated. I like the idea that they have different colours and also different names because it denotes a rank system. However the actual look of them is something I’m not so sure about. It’s fine unless they film from the back. The sight of the Daleks making tea and acting like servants to the humans reminds me of the 1967 story The Power of the Daleks.

Matt Smith is very good in his first encounter with the icon monsters. I liked how at times he seemed scared of them but always untrusting to what the Daleks true intentions were. I am still impressed with how he manages to do serious stuff along with comedy moments. Threatening the Daleks with a jammy dodger was very funny. Karen Gillan also put in a good performance in her first story with the Daleks. Like in the previous story she shows why she is there when she talks to Professor Bracewell. It was Bill Paterson that was the best of the guest cast. The character of Bracewell seems like a normal happy brit trying to do his bit to battle the Nazi’s and win the war. However when we learn that he is in fact a robot and Paterson plays both sides of the character very well. Ian McNeice is very good as Churchill. He looks the part and at times sounds like the former Prime Minister. I liked how Churchill tried a few times to try and get the TARDIS key off the Doctor but to no avail.

Its not the best Dalek story ever but its not the worst either. All the characters were well written and everything looked nice and big. The sight of Spitfires in space is not something you would see on a World War 2 drama but only in Doctor Who would this happen. It’s a nice 45 minutes with new Daleks and also Winston Churchill.

Inside the Spaceship (aka Edge of Destruction) (1964)

EPISODE 1 – THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION
Originally Broadcast on BBC – Saturday 8 February 1964

The Edge of Destruction is one of my favourites if not my favourite story ever. The cliffhanger from the previous episode had Ian, the Doctor and Susan in the console room before being thrown to the ground and a white light blinding the screen. After the a few moments everyone wakes up acting a bit strange. Barbara was the only one who wasn’t in the console room at the time so apart from a bit of forgetfulness she seems to be the best out of them all. A noticeable thing in the early stages is the lack of the humming that we have come to expect.

The early theory is that something or someone has got inside the TARDIS after they discover the doors are open. Considering we don’t hear or see anything it’s not a theory that works but the actors perform like they believe it. We have a moment where the TARDIS scanner is apparently showing them pictures of what is outside and we learn that the there was an adventure before ‘An Unearthly Child’ (this forms the story Qunnis released by Big Finish in 2010). Another strange thing that the TARDIS is doing is opening the doors and when someone moves towards them like Ian does a couple of times they then close.

William Hartnell is superb in this episode. I like how as Ian puts it he is playing the perfect butler just moments after accusing them of terrible things. He gives a solid performance though he is slightly undermined by the silly bandage around his head for a cut we don’t know how he got considering he wasn’t by the console when he fell. Ian is acting very strange, almost un-Ian like. The delivery of his lines is cold and dare I say it alien. After spending seven weeks in various versions of being a hero, William Russell gets to play a different part of his character and over the course of the episode goes through a wide ranging emotions and deals with it well. Susan is child like but given the weird circumstances that she finds herself in then it’s perfectly fine. That does change after about 12 minutes when she starts to act weirdly and is dressed in a black gown and it’s the best performance from Carole Ann Ford so far. They all have a pain at the back of their heads which is first noticed by Barbara. Barbara really shines in this episode because she stands up to the Doctor and is the one that tries to solve the puzzle. With Ian behaving oddly, it means she’s the sensible one. Barbara’s best scene was when she stands up to the Doctor after being accused and pointing out that the Doctor owes a lot to her and Ian. It’s one of the best scenes in the episode.

We get to see a bit more of the TARDIS in this story as we get to see the sleeping quarters. Admittedly its only the lounge and the sunbeds but it still good to see more than the console room. On the back of designing the Daleks, Raymond Cusick does a great job of creating the extended TARDIS sets with next to no money. So the sunbeds do look a bit out of place but it’s better and less silly than it could have done.

The scene with Susan and the scissors is one of the scenes that got Verity Lambert into trouble and it’s easy to see why. Not only is it because scissors are an easily obtained item but also it’s a superbly acted scene between William Russell and Carole Ann Ford. Richard Martin can’t really do anything special like he did in ‘The Daleks’ but he still manages to create a great episode and does have some moments of brilliance especially with the clock and Barbara’s watch melting.

What I like about this episode is how the relationship between all four characters breaks down in a spectacular way. There has always been friction between Ian and Barbara and the Doctor but Susan has always been there to calm things down but when she starts to side with her grandfather. The Doctor accuses Ian and Barbara of tampering the ship.

The final minute of the episode is fantastic. The music along with Hartnell wandering from room to room checking of Ian and Barbara before going over to the console and before he gets chance to do anything a pair of hands appear from behind him and we don’t see who it is. Now we are still to believe that someone or something has got into the TARDIS but as I don’t buy that I knew that the hands must have been Ian’s and that works as a much better cliffhanger because we have two of the series regulars who as a viewer we are suppose to like are now at each others throats. This was a great cliffhanger.

As an episode it was atmospheric and almost like a play with only two real sets and just the four regulars. One of the reasons why I love these two episodes is that there is great character development and we get to see different sides of the characters than what we had seen in the previous 11 weeks.

EPISODE 2 – THE BRINK OF DISASTER
Originally Broadcast on BBC – Saturday 15 February 1964

The previous episode saw the Doctor being grabbed around his neck, its resolved with Ian falling to the ground. This episode is about what is causing the problems. The Doctor is still not trusting Ian and Barbara and threatens to throw them off his ship. The friction added with the mystery about what is causing the weird atmosphere is one of the best things in the story.

Barbara is the one that is continuing to be the one that is trying to work things out.  She thinks that they have been given nothing but clues and put things together. Jacqueline Hill puts in another solid performance and maintains her dignity and is wonderful in the show. When Susan enters the console room she’s quite mysterious but then reverts back to her normal self. It’s great to see Carole Ann Ford get something else to do apart from shriek. She can get away with due to the plot. It’s probably going to be her best story in her time on the show. William Russell spends a large portion of the story trying to recover from falling on the floor after nearly strangling the Doctor. Russell makes way so that Jacqueline Hill and William Hartnell can shine and even with what he does its still good. William Hartnell is on fine form in this episode. The scene where the console room has plunged into the darkness and the camera focuses/zooms in on William Hartnell and his speech is one of the best moments in Doctor Who. It’s a brilliant speech and whilst I don’t understand exactly what he was saying, it was done in such a way that it wasn’t what he said but more how he said it that was why it worked.

The fault locator shows that everything is wrong. This means that the fault locator is absolutely no use whatsoever. The Doctor soon realises that something is wrong though there is the impending sense that he cant do anything about it. Soon the realisation that that the TARDIS is trying to give them clues, leads the to the Doctor not liking the idea with that notion. The idea that the TARDIS is a living thing might be perfectly normal now but back then it was something quite original. The realisation that they only have 10 minutes to survive is something that works only because of Barbara and the Doctor’s reaction. There is a nice moment between the Doctor and Ian where they are acting like comrades instead of two people pecking at each other. The dialogue is snappy and it switches from one person to another in this part of the story.

The problems have come from the fast return switch which hasn’t released itself. I like the idea that the reason for all the problems was due to a switch. What slightly ruins it is the fact that FAST RETURN is written in felt tip on the console. Now with 2013 CGI that could easily rectified but in 1964 it probably wasn’t as easy but it’s something that provides material in books and documentaries on the story.  When the problem has been resolved things go back to normal. The humming is a welcome return as is the light. It’s good to light things properly but 50 minutes of near darkness it’s good that light has been bought back to Doctor Who. Nice bit of exposition by the Doctor when he explains what happened to Susan.

The reaction of Barbara after the Doctor says that they owe her their lives is superb as Barbara seems emotional drained after what has happened. I like the scene where the Doctor tries to make up with Barbara. It is a nice moment as it repairs the damage that was done over the course of the story and by the end they have made up and it seems that the who team has made up and is stronger than the one that debuted thirteen episodes.

The cliffhanger is quite interesting. Susan and Barbara are outside and show the Doctor and Ian via the scanner of a rather large footprint. The mystery of what caused the footprint is the big selling point for ‘The Roof of the World’. It’s a good cliffhanger and reminds me of the cliffhanger for An Unearthly Child where it’s not clear who or what caused the shadow. 

As an episode it was really good and everyone was on fine form. The scene with Hartnell in darkness is a great scene and as a two part adventure, it served a purpose and it wasn’t just to give the production of Marco Polo a two week breather, it was to change and solidify the relationship of the TARDIS crew an it does it in a wonderful way.

 

The Beast Below (2010)

The story is one of those that takes a while to sink in and once it does you get to see the brilliance of it. The first story for Amy in space takes place on a colony ship that left Earth after it was devastated by solar flares and it contains the whole of the United Kingdom. The Doctor’s interest is started when there is a girl crying. The Doctor suspects something is not quite right and his concerns are confirmed when he does the simple test of putting a glass of water on the floor and noticing that there are no ripples which there would be if the engines were working. There are booths with faces that start as nice and then turn to frown before turning again to angry.

There is a figure which hides behind a mask called Liz 10 who turns out to be Queen Elizabeth X. She uses the mask to walk around and not be noticed. Quite how she thought she would do this is never really examined in any great detail. People who are in the voting booths have the chance to protest or forget what they have seen and know. Amy is put in one of these booths and chooses to forget.

The ship is moving however due to the fact there are no signs of the engines working there is a mystery to solve and find out what’s going on. The Starwhale is helping the ship move to find another but he is being effectively tortured by some people on this spaceship. The fools!! Seriously though this is quite a big plot point because they were all accomplices to this horrible treatment and they choose to obey the Queen but the Queen chooses to forget and this continues the cycle of misery for the Spacewhale. This forces the Doctor to faces his biggest dilemma so far. He could either leave the whale to live in pain and torment or kill it and allow the humans to survive. Thankfully it falls to Amy to work it all out and forces Liz 10 to press the Abdicate button and nothing happens because the Whale is a willing carrier. This brief moment of defiance to the Doctor solidifies her part in the history of Doctor Who. Quite unusually for a story at the beginning of the series we have a lead into the next episode. Winston Churchill (British Prime Minister from May 1940 to July 1945) calls the Doctor. In the shot of Churchill there is a shadowy figure of a Dalek. The Doctor is oblivious of the Dalek but is going to visit Churchill.

One of the final shots of the Colony ship shows a crack in it like we saw in Young Amy’s wall. The ‘silence will fall’ storyline is continuing just a little bit in this story. I am really trying to work out where this is going but at least it’s got my attention.

Matt Smith is getting on very well in this story. As his first proper story as the Doctor it’s nice to see what his Doctor is like without the drama of regeneration. He buzzes around the story with a certain freshness and I found the moment when he got angry with Amy and threatened to take her back home showed that he is still a very serious character. Karen Gillan steals the show in this story as she is the one who works out what is going on and makes the connection between the Doctor and the Starwhale. Of the guest cast the biggest name is Sophie Okonedo (Liz 10). It was weird seeing her as a cockney Royal. Almost a bit too weird that it became distracting. After a while got toned down and her role in the story is what will be remembered. She is quite an established actress having just recently played Winnie Mandela. She also starred in 2003 play Scream of the Shalka.

This is another fine episode from Steven Moffat. His tenure as ‘Showrunner’ has started off well. Knowing what is set to come I think that this could be the best series since the show returned. The show looks fresh and there is a different feel to the whole series that is needed when we have a new Doctor.

The Mark of the Rani (1985)

The Mark of the Rani is the second story from Colin Baker’s first series. This 45 minute format seems normal these days but back in 1985 it must have seemed quite strange. The advantage to a 45 minute story compared to 25 is that you can structure it better and it gives the writer a better chance to tell a good story. In this story we don’t just get one Timelord but three. This story sees the return of the Master which is quite special as he was seen to burn to death in Planet of Fire. But there is the debut of the Rani. The Rani is a renegade Timelord like the Master who has been banished from Gallifrey for her experiments which is something that is bugging the Rani. What is the Mark of the Rani? Well it’s simply a medium size red dot on the side of the neck. A sort of calling card. Nothing more, it’s not a plot driver or anything important so the title does seem a bit silly.

The relationship between the Doctor and Peri is still at its bickering stage thankfully all but gone from their Big Finish adventures. They don’t bicker quite so much in this story as they do in others but there is sadly enough to make the Doctor/Companion relationship seem strange. The story is set in Killingworth in the 19th Century. A meeting of some of the greatest minds of that time are meeting there but something strange is going on. The behaviour of the men of this village has changed. It turns out to be the Rani. There is a chemical which can only be obtained from the human brain. This chemical is for her experiments on another planet. When the chemical is removed from the brain it prevents the humans from sleeping thus making them aggressive. The Rani intends on using the chemical to help her experiments less aggressive. The Master simply wants to use the Earth to take over the universe (same old same old).

Something that gets commented on is the scarecrow that the Doctor and Peri encounter in the field was apparently the Master though if it were, why wasn’t more attention drawn to it.

Pip & Jane Baker (writers) have done very well writing some good characters and also giving them something constructive to say. I found the character of Luke to be very weak however. I just didn’t care when he got turned into a tree. The site of a tree trying to hug Peri was quite funny. The other supporting actors included Terence Alexander as Lord Ravensworth. He was very good as believeable as the Lord. Gawn Grainger was also very good as George Stevenson and was quite a surprise. Anthony Ainley puts in a usually good performance as the Master. This performance is actually better than others because he has someone that he can sparred verbally against who isnt the Doctor. Kate O’Mara is very good in this story as the Rani, she comes across as a cleverer Timelord than the Master and have some good lines. It seems quite amazing that they managed to persuade Kate O’Mara to come into Doctor Who. Especially at a time when people were starting to give up on the show. The Kudos the show had dematerialised at this point. Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant put in very good performances. Their relationship aside they both are well used in this story though.

The cliffhanger from Episode 1 is quite good. The Doctor is tied down with no sign of help. Except there are a group of workers who seemingly stop to help but then put the Doctor on some tracks to a pit shaft. The resolution of this cliffhanger is somewhat disappointing as there are clips in the reprise that weren’t in the cliffhanger. George Stevenson comes in to save the day. He hadn’t even appeared in the story so his introduction to the story was somewhat strange. I also found that the dinosaurs in the Rani’s TARDIS were very unconvincing. It wasn’t that they looked bad but it was just directed badly. Almost as if the director went out of his way to try and show the BBC what he had to work with.

I know that Mark of the Rani isn’t that well liked by most fans but I found it to be quite charming. It’s a nice pseudo historical story and the story has a nice strong group of characters.

The Eleventh Hour (2010)

After all the hype and waiting. We finally get a Doctor Who series and also our first proper look at the Eleventh Doctor. A lot has been made of Matt Smith’s age, outfit, hair and everything else but now we get to see what his version of the Doctor is like compared to previous Doctors’. We also get to finally meet Amy Pond and also perhaps just as importantly what the TARDIS interior will be like. Never before has Doctor Who undergone such as radical revamp since the show started in 2005, perhaps this revamp is comparable to the 1980 revamp under the John Nathan Turner era. Hopefully this new revamp will be more successful. The story takes place almost immediately after the End of Time which saw the TARDIS get wrecked.

The scene between the Doctor and young Amy was very funny with him trying different types of food and not liking any of them. Best bits were when the Doctor said “Your Scottish, Fry Something”. Don’t know how that will endear him to Scottish viewers. Another funny bit was when the Doctor flung the plate of toast out of the house. His final choice of food would have made chef Heston Blumenthal proud, Fish Fingers and Custard. I’m a fan of both but not together Matt! But this summarises what we can expect from the Matt Smith/Steven Moffat era is a mix of humour and drama with the balance tipped in drama’s favour.

The ‘B-Plot’ of the story is that the Doctor crash lands at a young Amy’s house (where her granny is away). He finds that there is a crack in Amy’s room and on the other side of the wall is a prison and it announces that Prisoner Zero has escaped. Prisoner Zero has escaped into Amy’s house that can only be seen in the corner of the eye. When the Doctor arrives back at the same house its 12 years later and Amy is now a Kiss-o-gram who in this story is dressed as a policewoman and for a while thinks the Doctor to be a burglar and pretends to be a policewoman. It does beg the question “How come if she had done all the drawings, does she not recognise the Doctor when he is wearing exactly the same clothes?”

The thing that surprised me was how good Matt Smith was like. I instantly liked him and found his Doctor to be a toned down version of Tennant’s Doctor which is a compliment. I think that the Doctor is someone who can do comedy and drama in a way which is believable and Smith does this brilliantly. The comedy wasn’t over the top but was needed at times. I also found Karen Gillan to be very good as well as Amy. She is like Martha in terms that she doesn’t go gooey eyed over the Doctor and does stand up to him at moments, not many companions would hit the Doctor with a cricket bat (despite Tegan maybe wanting to). I think that as the series goes on she will be a brilliant companion as possibly the best of the new series. There was a surprising moment when Patrick Moore makes a guest appearance. That wasn’t expected and instantly made that scene seem different. There was also Nina Wadia (Eastenders) and also Annette Crosbie (One Foot in the Grave) who both give very understated but equally enjoyable performances.

I thought the best moment in the entire episode was when the Atraxi was looking at flashbacks of all the monsters that the Doctors have faced and then for only the second time since the show returned in 2005 we had all the Doctors appear and then Smith walks through the screen and proclaims “I’m the Doctor!”. I don’t know whether they will be making a return to the show after that brief glimpse on the screen in the TARDIS where there was a line that seemed to match the crack in Amy’s room.

There were things that I didn’t like so much. I don’t like the theme tune, it may grow on me but on first listen I couldn’t really believe it was a Doctor Who theme. In every version of the theme tune the essence of the tune is always there. Not in this one however but as I say it may grow on me in a few more listens and a few more stories. Another thing was the Atraxi’s spaceship. It just looked cheap and I instantly disliked it. As much as I try not to compare Doctors’. I find myself thinking that his Doctor is good. You can’t really make a proper judgement based on one appearance. But on first impressions we have a Doctor who is very different to Tennant’s Doctor and fresh.

We might have to warm up the phrase ‘David Who?’

Spearhead From Space (1970)

On January 1st 1970, Jon Pertwee became the third actor to play the Doctor. He didn’t actually have a regeneration sequence as he hadn’t been cast when Patrick Troughton’s final story (The War Games) finished airing in June 1969. This was the first story to be filmed entirely outside and that is what gives Spearhead from Space its unique feel. It’s also the first Doctor Who on TV to be filmed in colour. All this was the most radical revamp the series had ever known at this point perhaps on par with the Steven Moffat/Matt Smith era. The story spends a long time building up our first proper glimpse of the third Doctor. For someone watching in 1970, this would have been a major build up but for me having watched other Pertwee stories before this its nothing special.

The story revolves around a recent spate of meteorite showers that have bombarded the Earth. But what seems like a natural (if slightly increased) occurrence. It turns out that it is in fact the Nestene’s arriving. However all we get to see for most of the story are shop dummies thus creating a generation of children terrified of dummies which appear in every clothes shop in the country. The scene where the Autons come crashing through the shop windows and killing everyone on the high street (which was used in the 2005 episode Rose) has become an favourite piece because it uses our fear of every day objects coming alive and killing us. It then a race to try and prevent the Autons from executing their plan.

There are problems with this story. The shot of the TARDIS landing and then the close up are so different in terms of quality that it’s painful to watch. The fact that they had to film entirely on location helps in terms of making the quality of the picture stay the same. The cliffhanger for episode 2 was a bit poor. Almost like it wasn’t expected and it felt abrupt. The Nestene Consciousness is also rather disappointing. Also when the Doctor wants the machine to come on and it doesn’t it takes an awful long time for Liz to realise it’s because a wire has come out. That was quite a weak reason for the delay in it not working. I know it was 1970 but they could have come up with a better reason.

These are minor quibbles with what is otherwise a good story. Its 21 minutes before we get the trademark of the Pertwee era. A chase sequence with the music helping to make this feel like a totally different Doctor Who. Jon Pertwee would become synonymous with this sort of sequence and that’s what makes his stand out from any other actor to play the role. Caroline John starts her four story stint in good form. She is the scientist who doesn’t believe anything about monsters and aliens but by the end she almost seems reformed. John and Pertwee’s relationship starts to blossom almost immediately and that is good to see. Nicholas Courtney puts in a good performance and shows why he has become such a fan favourite.

The final line is quite nice as it does that thing of saying ‘I’m the Doctor’ but gives it a human twist

Smith…Dr John Smith