The Angels Take Manhattan (2012)

The end here. After over two years, the Ponds have left us. The question that seemed to be in the air was ‘Will the Ponds be killed off?’. It seems impossible now that people can leave the Doctor with a simple goodbye. To my knowledge, only Martha has had a nice exit so I was wondering what sort of exit the Ponds would get. I must admit I was slightly annoyed that River Song was going to be returning as I felt that she had been overused in the previous series. So with that minor niggle I looked forward to this story which saw the return of what I think are the best monsters of the new era of Doctor Who. The Doctor, Amy and Rory appear to be on holiday in New York where the Doctor is reading a book which as we learn is written by his wife (still seems odd to be saying that) and its pretty soon before chaos takes centre stage.

The Angels are just as creepy as they always are. I found the child statues to be more creepy that the fully grown up ones. However what I found most amusing was the Statue of Liberty turning into an angry statue. To be honest it was obvious from the moment that I heard the title because it’s the most famous statue in the world and its in the right part of the world so it would have been silly not to include it. The reason why the Angels seem to have chosen New York was a little bit odd because quite frankly they have chosen any city in the world but the idea that they feed off the energy produced is quite a good one.   

Despite my issues with River Song I thought that Alex Kingston was rather good in this and seemed slightly toned down compared to previous adventures that she has been in. It didn’t distract you from the Ponds’ departure. There was still some amusing flurting between the Doctor and River but it was mild. I did like how its clear that River has been released from prison because she never killed the Doctor as the Doctor has wiped himself pretty much out of people’s memory. It means that everything that happened in the last series can been left there and everything that happens with River from now on is going to be a little less complicated.

Matt Smith was very good and dealt with the various moods that the Doctor had to be in very well.  It’s been a good set of stories for Smith and he dealt with the exit of Amy and Rory very well. In their departing story, both Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan made up for being in the background in previous stories. Yet again Darvill gets given the short straw and is the one that suffering continues with finding out that gets thrown back in time. The scene where he and Amy are going to jump off the roof was possibly the best that he and Karen Gillan have done. Gillan played Amy pretty much the same as she has done since her very first episode and its been one of the reasons why Amy has been so popular.
The way that Amy and Rory were written out of the show was the only way that they could have left. They were never going to leave the Doctor and it wouldn’t have made sense to kill them off so putting them in a situation where the Doctor ‘cant’ meet Amy or Rory again but they get to spend time and die together was the most satisfactory conclusion which might be easily compared to Rose’s exit. The scene where they leave is very unexpected and superbly dramatic. Rory disappearance by the angel was unexpected but Amy’s was different because it was nice how River was pretty much telling Amy to go but the Doctor was trying to talk her out of it which was never going to work.

The Angels of Manhattan was a perfect way to end this part of the series. I would happily argue that this was the best story of the series because it was creepy, action packed and managed to write two very popular characters in a way that did them justice and it was at the end of the episode that it would be interesting to see how Oswin (Jenna Louise Coleman) would compare long term against Amy. Roll on Christmas!!

Project: Nirvana (2012)

Project Nirvana is a stand-alone adventure that shows an adventure that occurred in the Black TARDIS with Lysandra and Sally. It’s not the first time that this has happened as we had a Jamie Companion Chronicle in 2010. It is a story that doesn’t have any direct links to the main range so if you don’t subscribe to the companion chronicle series then you wouldn’t be losing out. It’s a return of the Forge but not to the extent that we have been use to. The story takes place on a train which is operated by The Forge. It starts with Sally and Lysandra jumping from the TARDIS towards the train, this would have been a cool thing to see on TV. It’s not long before there was another Lysandra that gets thrown in, it’s an earlier version of her who as we learn from Morgan has a bit more emotion to her than what we have encountered before. When she is about to shoot Morgan she seems like she is sorry about having to do it. It shows that the relationship between Lysandra and Morgan in the future isn’t the most fun.

I liked the Nimrod mention from the other Lysandra. To me it helped make it more believeable that this was a C4/Forge train. We also find out that the Forge’s view of UNIT isn’t the best. The first part of this story moves along at a fairly fast pace which isn’t like most companion chronicle adventures which likes to take its time in telling the story. The train derailing is when it seemed to get going. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t boring before it happened but it’s where the main action of the play comes from.

The cliffhanger was very strange indeed as Morgan started to laugh as she was staring at the dead body. She knew it was wrong to do so but couldn’t help herself. Not quite sure the purpose of choosing this as the cliffhanger but it’s a minor quibble. It does however lead to something that happens to Morgan who seems to have something wrong with her. The point where its all revealed is done well. The Forge are planning on using Durluth to be cloned and dropped off into war zone so that people would fall under Durluth’s influence. As plans by the forge go, this was pretty tame and there wasn’t the sense of darkness or the grimness that we would normally get in a Project story but it was still a good part of the plot.

Both Maggie O’Neill and Amy Pemberton are very good in this escpecially Pemberton who I think stepped up a gear in this story. O’Neill tends to take the lead because her character is designed that way but it was nice that Amy got to do what she did. It was also nice to have Sylvester McCoy in this story even though it was for the same amount of time that he has been in most stories recently. Performances are what can make this type of story work or not and O’Neill and Pemberton carry this story and do well with what they are given.

It’s difficult to properly assess this story because it doesn’t seem fair to compare it to previous Project stories because it is structured differently. It also doesn’t seem fair to compare it to companion chronicles because it’s heart is really in the main range adventures. That said I do think it’s the best Companion Chronicle adventure of the seventh season so far as the story was more action packed that the previous stories.

Rating – 7/10

The Power of Three (2012)

The Power of Three is a very unusual story. Written by Chris Chibnall this story is about little black boxes that suddenly appear and do nothing. Absolutely nothing for about a year and it’s at this point I start to wonder what on earth is going on. Where is the story? When is it going to begin? It unusually seemed to be taking its time and considering the show is around 42-43 minutes long it’s quite a brave thing to do.  It allows Matt Smith to do a bit of comedy as he gets to paint a fence, mow the lawn and do something with a football. It’s quite amusing and we get the return of Rory’s dad who has been the revelation of this series. It’s a shame that Rory is leaving because I could quite happily watch him in every episode. His best bit is when after four days, the Doctor finds that Brian is still watching the cube and he says “Time flies when you have your thoughts!”. There is a serious side to the story which is where the cubes are coming from but it’s quite a while before we get to find out.

The cubes are coming from Shakri (played by Steven Berkoff) and his plan is to rid humans so that they wouldn’t be able to spread to other worlds. It’s this aspect that I feel could have done with a bit more screen time as it did feel slightly rushed. That said I must credit the make up because it was quite done as effectively as it could have been but that would be my only real critiscm of the story. The story sees the return of UNIT for the first time since Matt Smith became the Doctor and that was nice because it seems odd that there are earth stories where UNIT don’t feature. I like the fact that they put a tie in to Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart by putting in his daughter (who I never knew existed but that doesn’t matter). It feels like the beginnings of a new era of UNIT as this didn’t seem like just a passing thing. I must admit I didn’t see it coming. I knew that Jemma Redgrave’s character worked for UNIT but I never clocked that she would be Lethbridge-Stewart’s daughter. Redgrave was very good as Kate and worked well Matt Smith. She was believable as a sort of scientific advisor type person and hopefully she will appear again.

The cameo hasn’t been a feature too much during the Moffat era but we got not one but two cameos with Professor Brian Cox and Lord Alan Sugar both appearing in their own little bit. I chuckled when Sugar turned up because I can’t quite believe that he agreed to appear. I wasn’t as keen on Brian Cox as I don’t really like him but I suppose at least he was only on screen for a few seconds.

Amy and Rory have sort of been footnotes during the previous two or three episodes so it was nice that they got more involved in the adventure. Here the story is effectively told from their prospective. Both Rory and Amy talk about settling down which seems to be another attempt to lay down their departure path. Rory’s job as a nurse seems logical because he was working in a hospital way back in ‘The Eleventh Hour’ but with Amy it seemed odd that she writes for magazines. When she talks about what she has done she doesn’t mention that she’s done modelling which is what she was doing in ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ but that’s a minor quibble. Both Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan put in their best performances and never seem to be going through the motions which is sort of what they were doing in the previous stories. Matt Smith did well and seemed to be having fun with the more comedic side of the Doctor, he genuinely seems agitated at having to wait like humans do.

So after The Power of Three ended I must admit that it’s the second best story of the mini-series so far with Asylum still holding onto the top spot. It’s also the best Chris Chibnall script that he’s done. It’s a surprise that we have almost reached the end of the first run of this thirty-third series but I am pleased with the run of stories that we have had. Ok so some of them might have been flawed in some ways it hard to argue that they are terrible stories and the complex style of the previous series is fast becoming a distant memory. Good stuff.

Rating - 7/10

Just War (1999)

The final instalment of this Time Ring trilogy is perhaps the most downbeat Bernice Summerfield story so far. Written by Lance Parkin (Primeval) this story takes place in occupied Guernsey. Now any story that features Nazis isn’t going to be a laugh a minute. The story takes place during 1941 where Bernice is (yet again) stranded from Jason. The story is basically that the Nazis have technology which would help them win the war and Benny has to try and stop them. Well it was never going to be that simple otherwise it would be rubbish. This story features Maggie Stables who would go onto play the lovely Evelyn Smythe alongside the Sixth Doctor just a short time after this was released.

Whereas the stories that we have had from this series have varied in terms of tone but they have all remained pretty well light. This story is very dark. It’s very grim at times and almost uncomfortably so. The thought of the main character being beaten up is not one that I would say is suitable for children. It was a brave thing to have the lead character actually murder someone. I know he was a Nazi but even so it was not something that I was expecting to happen. This story doesn’t hold back its punches which is quite refreshing.

The performances in this are fantastic from top to bottom with Lisa Bowerman giving her best performance to date. She plays the scenes where she is being held captive by the Nazi’s particularly well and shows that even when not being an archaeologist the character of Benny is a strong one. This isn’t the sort of story where she can be normal everyday happy Benny but she has to play the broken character and it’s clear that by the end of the story she has some emotional scars which may never heal. This is also Stephen Fewell’s best story so far as he is given the best stuff to do since he was introduced to us. As the stories have been developing, so has the importance of Kane. In this story we get to see both sides of Jason’s character and Mark Gatiss’ performance is also very worthy of high praise. As Standardtenfuhrer Joachim Wolff, he is pretty recognisable but his character was very good and it’s the same with the other Nazi characters.  Maggie Stables is very good in this and the character of Ma Doras isn’t too far removed from that of Evelyn Smythe. It’s always nice to hear Stables as she has a wonderful voice for audio and it works really well here.

I like that it seems it is the events of ‘Just War’ that persuade Benny to never use the Time Ring. It’s certainly sound reasoning and the horrors of this adventure would put anyone off.  Out of the three stories in the trilogy it’s fair to say that this is the best and it’s also fair to say that this is the best Benny story so far but I suspect that the final story of this opening series will have a hard job to avoid it coming across as mediocre coming right after this thoroughly enjoyable adventure.

Rating – 8/10

Birthright (1999)

The fourth Benny play is the second in the Time Ring trilogy and usually the middle part of a trilogy is designed purely to be a holding pattern until we get to the payoff of the final installement. This marks another appearance from the Doctor Who world where the Doctor himself makes an appearance. Mr Colin Baker plays Mikhail Vladamir Popov and this story is set in the early 20^th century. I must say that despite this being made at the end of the last century, my mind cant help but feel that this story has a Jago and Litefoot feel to it. The story sees Jason and Bernice finding themselves in two different places. Benny is in 1909 London where is in the same time as John Lafayette and Jason is in the future on Antykhon.

The story spends a long time keeping Benny and Jason apart but the story spend a large portion of the story flipping the action between the two but what was quite good was how despite being in two different scenarios they did have something in common, both wanted the second time ring which was in the possession of Lafayette. I really couldn’t be interested less in Lafayette. I thought he worked well in Walking to Babylon but didn’t work as well in this. I found the Benny stuff to be slightly more enjoyable than Jason’s. The spring heeled Jack plot was quite fun and it helped move the story along until the Jason plot strand got more interesting. It was like a Jack the Ripper murder spree and wouldn’t have been out of place in a Jago and Litefoot story. There was a nice moment which would have worked well on TV but because of how grim it would have looked. The idea of a larder full of humans is not a nice thing.

Colin Baker’s accent struggles at times to not go into pantomime mode. It’s always good to hear Colin Baker and putting his accent to one side I thought that Baker’s performance was perfectly fine. The plot revelation that Popov’s daughter had been murdered helped me believe in his character and made his importance in the story that much more important though it was slightly odd when he seemed to disappear from the story for a while. It was good that Stephen Fewell got a nice slice of the action even if it wasn’t in the part of the story that came out better on audio. I am starting to like the character of Kane more and more.

There is another story where there is no definitive ending for Benny and Jason though we know that there will be a resolution to this trilogy so it’s not so much of an issue for me. Birthright did what it needed to do and did it well. Birthright is an enjoyable adventure that continues the journey of this opening series well. As a middle story it serves its purpose rather well and for me it was Baker’s inclusion that helped elevate this above mediocre. It still seems odd put a 26^th Century character in a early 20^th Century setting but its to Lisa Bowerman’s credit that she makes it work and it helps provide a nice feel to these stories.

Rating – 7/10

A Town Called Mercy (2012)

Whereas Dinosaurs on a Spaceship seemed to try and eradicate the memory of the awfulness of Invasion of the Dinosaurs (well the dinosaurs aspect anyway), A Town Called Mercy is designed to try and make people forget The Gunfighters which was a William Hartnell story which tried to do what they did in ATCM but in a tiny studio on a flimsy BBC budget. The story sees the Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in Mercy where the locals are being terrorised by a cyborg which when I first saw it I thought that it looked like Kryten from Red Dwarf.

The thing about this story is that there are moments of action but there are several moments where it feels like a fair amount of padding has been put in. You look at it and think ok so we know that the Cyborg is after Kahler Jex and he is going to be handed over in some form and so this is realised quite early on so we have scenes where people just talk. The performances of certain people were particularly strong. I thought that Adrian Scarborough (Kahler-Jex) was very good because he starts off as the likeable Doctor who the townsfolk have become friendly with to someone who is considered some sort of medical butcher. The idea that the main threat has been created and has turned on its creator is quite a nice idea. Credit should go to Andrew Brooke who plays the Gunslinger. The make-up is very impressive despite my comparison to Kryten but it’s his performance that stands out to me as I thought that it was a nice mix between Cyborg and alien. The character starts out as the main threat but then over the course of the episode becomes a victim and by the end we are meant to sympathise with him. I thought that the ending was perhaps the most satisfactory way of ending the episode as the death of both the Gunslinger and Kahler Jex would have ended the episode of a sour note.

I did think that Amy and Rory were rather poorly served here as they didn’t really get much to do. There is a feeling that they are just in the stories to make sense to their departure. It’s a shame really as they deserve better. Matt Smith was rather good as we got to see a different side to the Doctor where he actually shouted which is not something we see from the Doctor very often. He also actually points a gun at Kahler-Jex and I did think there was a moment where it was unclear whether he would go through with it. It’s another example of the Doctor becoming less passive because in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship the fact he effectively sent Solomon off in his spaceship to get hit by the missiles.

It would be amiss of me not to mention the location work as it is what I think is the best thing about this story. They went to Almeria, Spain and used the same sets that were used for films such as A Fistful of Dollars. It’s one of the things that I like about this era of Doctor Who where they don’t just try and film it in Cardiff with a few CGI shots of a country to fool you into thinking that is where the story was filmed (like in Daleks in Manhattan for example). Every second is used to showcase this wonderful set and it’s perhaps one of the best location shoots in the new era of the show.

Due to how much I enjoyed the previous two stories, I would have to say that ATCM is the weakest offering so far. It has some good things about it but it’s the bits in between that let the story down. It’s certainly the weakest of the Toby Whithouse scripts.

Rating – 6/10

Walking to Babylon (1998)

Walking to Babylon is a story that is closer to a Doctor Who story than we have had so far. Like the previous stories, this is adapted from a novel and as I have never read the books I cant really compare. This is the second story to feature Jason Kane who visits his ex-wife with someone who is called The People. The story starts off quite differently from what I would expect, we have a couple of minutes where Bernice and Jason have a nice scene where Jason seems to be trying to be nice to Benny and Benny falls for it until she realises something funny is going on. It was a nice scene because it shows that there is still something between them. The story talks place in ancient Babylon where Bernice has 48 hours to bring back her husband and close down the time path before the people use a bomb to destroy it. Now it seems quite a straight forward adventure and that is why there is an awful lot of Bernice not finding Jason. Time was always going to run down and every so often the countdown was mentioned every so often so as to remind us that there is a time issue in this story. There is more to the story as we have John Lafayette who has come from the early 20^th century and is played brilliantly by Barnaby Edwards. At first I thought that it was a slightly odd thing to include in a story but somehow it works and I think the story would have suffered without its inclusion.

The previous stories have featured former Doctor Who stars and Walking to Babylon is no different with Elisabeth Sladen. Sladen plays Ninan-ashtammu and whilst I think that Sladen is a wonderful actress who is much missed I found it difficult to get past Sarah Jane Smith. I liked the character but found that my attention was somewhat diverted. I thought that Lisa Bowerman thrives in this story as she isn’t having to play teacher. As she was just being Bernice it meant I got to find out what sort of character she is and I think it’s a good one.  I thought that it was nice that Stephen Fewell got slightly more to do in this than in the previous story. He was quite comedic at times but I thought that the character was quite a solid one. I know that Kane appears a lot more in future Benny stories and I’m glad as I think that Fewell does well with the role.

I liked the uncertain ending. It was very dramatic and does make the desire to listen to the next story even more strong than it was before. As the first in the Time Ring trilogy its an interesting start to the series of adventures. Walking to Babylon is the strongest Bernice story that I have listened to so far and I must say that I am impressed with how the series is developing. The story was steady and precise in its storytelling and there were characters that were interesting and the whole feel of the story is an enjoyable one.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (2012)

For only the second time in Doctor Who history we have Dinosaurs in a story title. The last time wasn’t  particularly great. Invasion of the Dinosaurs was let down by the dinosaurs which were quite frankly terrible. I was confident from the moment that I heard the title that the dinosaurs were going to be 100% better. The title pretty much tells you what need to know because there is a spaceship and there are some dinosaurs on it. However it turns out that there is slightly more to it than that as it turns out the ship is in fact a Silurian Ark. I didn’t see that coming. The Doctor has just six hours to try and get the spaceship/ark to not head towards Earth which sets up a nice pace to the episode.

I thought that it was good how this was completely different from Asylum of the Daleks. There was a danger that the comedy in this episode was going to overwhelm it but the tone of the episode was just right as when it was needed, the seriousness took centre stage and the action kicked in. My favourite line was when the Doctor says “How do you start a Triceratops?” It’s not a line that never got said in Jurrasic Park. The dinosaurs were superb and were realised very well which even on a budget like Doctor Who. It never looked dodgy or like it a CGI creation and that might have something to do that it wasn’t the low light that was used. It helped add to the feel of the story and made the dinosaurs look even more effective.

For me the best performance of the episode was from David Bradley who played Solomon. I thought that as the bad guy he did it very well and its almost a shame that he gets killed off at the end because it would be nice to see more of him though the great thing about Doctor Who is that there is room for him to return. The moment he really became a great baddie was when we discovered that all the Silurians has gone and not in a nice way. Other performances which I enjoyed included Mark Williams who played Rory’s dad Brian. He was absolutely spot on in his performance and I totally bought the fact that they were suppose to be father and son. He seemed to take the news that he was on a spaceship in exactly the same style that Rory did. I thought that the characters of Queen Nefertiti and Riddell were well played by Riann Steele and Rupert Graves respectively. I felt that they kind of got forgotten at times and Nefertiti only really came into relevance when Solomon took her onto his ship. The fact they were going to end up together was quite obvious. There was another surprise in casting when comedy duo David Mitchell and Robert Webb were the voices of the Robots. I really liked the robots as they were very funny and seemed to somehow suit Solomon’s Del-Boy like way of running a business.

I really liked this episode and felt that it continued the nice feel to this seventh/thirty-third series of Doctor Who and it seems that the complex storytelling style of the previous series is firmly a distant memory. It was action packed with a nice balance of seriousness and comedy with a nice group of characters where some worked better than others but there wasn’t any dead weight. Whilst it might not have been dark like in Asylum but it was good in different ways and after seeing the trailer for A Town Called Mercy I think this first half of the series is going to be great.

Beyond the Sun (1998)

The second Bernice Summerfield is very different to Oh No It Isn’t. Whereas Oh No It Isn’t felt at times like a pantomime, this felt very much like a more grown up adventure. The writer of this story is Matt Jones who would go on to writer the 2006 Doctor Who story The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, Jones has adapted this story from his own novel. As I am still getting use to the Bernice Summerfield series, it’s nice that they have done a straight forward (relatively so) story. The story sees the introduction of Bernice’s ex-husband Jason Kane who is kidnapped and Bernice is involved in a conflict between the Ursulans and the Sunless. There is an issue as the Sunless have invaded Ursu to try and retrieve technology that was stolen from their home world. It’s a nice situation to use in the story and it’s done very well.

Sophie Aldred and Anneke Wills are the two actors from the Doctor Who world to grace the Bernice Summerfield world. Aldred seems to having a whale of a time playing Miranda who seems to be a very unlikeable person, she almost seems to be like Cruella de Ville. She starts off as a very condescending person but that quickly changes when it emerges that she is after the figurine and is willing to kill to get it. Wills on the other hand is very different and is very likeable, I think that as Doctor Kitzinger she is a warm person who seems not to far removed from Polly.

The relationship between Bernice and Jason was quite an interesting one because they weren’t on speaking terms at the start of the story then once Jason is kidnapped she seems to warm to him slightly but after they are reunited where there is a brief moment that Bernice seems happy to see Jason its back to normal. Stephen Fewell does well as Jason Kane and it’s a nice character that isn’t in the story enough for my liking. Hopefully in future stories he will return.

The journal entries are a wonderful way of telling the story. Aside from the lovely music that they use it’s a nice way to break up the scenes and helped at times with the plot development but really for me it’s the music that I think is truly superb. Lisa Bowerman is very good as Bernice in this story as she gets to do be the Bernice that I think she should be and that is a female Indiana Jones. She is believable as a leader and delivers the comedy stuff very well and it’s balanced just right with the dramatic stuff. I found Tameka to be annoying because some of the lines seemed slightly off. There was one moment where just moments before she is about to be sucked out of an air lock she is more worried about her hair. Not the most important thing in such a situation. Apart from these brief moments I thought that Jane Burke was good as Tameka, the character is designed as someone who clearly doesn’t really like the slow methodical nature of archaeology. I really do like Lewis Davis as Emile Mars-Smith who comes across as a slightly weedy person but that maybe why I like the character. The rest of the supporting characters are very good as you would expect from Barnaby Edwards and Nicholas Pegg.

I still find myself getting put off by the swearing, its mild but it’s still unusual to hear from a Big Finish production. Beyond the Sun is an enjoyable story which I liked far more than Oh No It Isn’t. I don’t think it’s perfect but it’s reasonable and has aged well over the last 14 years. If I had one issue with this story is that the tracks are way too long. Most Doctor Who releases have tracks that are usually at most seven minutes long. Of the eight tracks that make up this story, five of them are over 10 minutes long with the longest being 19 minutes and 55 seconds long. There is no need for this. Thankfully it looks like the next release has more reasonable durations which is good. I am starting to see why Bernice has been going for 20 years in book and audio.

Rating – 7/10

Asylum of the Daleks (2012)

So its back, after what has felt like an eternity we have the Doctor back. For only the fourth time in Doctor Who history, the series starts off with a Dalek story and we were promised every Dalek design in this story. Whether we got that is unclear but that’s sort of unimportant because the story starts off with the Doctor being captured by the Daleks and the same fate falls upon Amy and Rory who by the start of the episode are about to be ex-Ponds. The plot is that the Daleks wants the Doctor to turn of the forcefield to allow them to blow up this planet which contains the maddest Daleks. There is a wonderful scene where the Daleks talk about the concept of beauty and that is the reason why the Daleks never could kill the Doctor. Lovely little scene.

The fact that there was a scene on Skaro did through me a bit because in Remembrance of the Daleks, the Doctor destroyed Skaro with the hand of Omega so it does through up a question as to when the opening scene is set. Looked bloody cool though. The development of eye stalks coming out of peoples heads is quite a creepy thing especially when the people appear quite normal but once you get clued up about them then it still manages to work. The ‘parliament’ of the Daleks was an impressive achievement and everytime I see it I think that it’s the best shot of many Daleks since the show returned. The revelation that Oswin was infact a Dalek was something that I didn’t see coming. There was an explanation why she was on her own and didn’t come out of that room but I really didn’t see that one coming. I loved how there were different rooms and in particular the final room with the Daleks which had Oswin roll off a whole list of alien names that the Doctor has faced over the years.

The introduction of Jenna Louise Coleman was another big surprise because I thought that she wouldn’t be appearing until the fifth episode. It’s going to be interesting to see how she becomes the Doctor’s companion and shows that Moffat has a plan/story arc ready. Despite not interacting with anyone I thought that she was very good, she seems like she is going to be different to the previous companions that we have seen before. Matt Smith was very good in this as he starts his third series in the role its clear that he has got a firm handle to the role and the story allowed him to show the more dramatic side of his character which was nice. Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill were also very good in this but if I’m honest I am finding the whole married thing to be a tad bit problematic. Ok so there was a purpose to it in this episode but usually its not really necersary. 

It’s seems that Steven Moffat has taken on board the critiscm of the last series when people said that it was too complicated and has instead managed to blend the two, it was the sort of Doctor Who story that we would have got in 2010. I thought that it was a very solid story that managed to do something different. We were treated to an opening episode that gave us more Daleks than we have seen for quite sometime with the most recent version of Daleks kept to an almost cameo appearance. Asylum of the Daleks is a welcome return to Doctor Who and it bodes well for the rest of the series.

Rating - 8/10