Day of the Doctor (2013)

So it finally arrived. After months and years of waiting, I got to see a celebration of my favourite TV show. I knew very little about it and I deliberately avoided any magazines and websites that had rumours and pictures. This was a special celebration and it would be broadcast in over 90 countries and in cinemas and that was where I was watching it. The atmosphere in the cinema was fantastic. There was a wide range of ages and some people were wearing fez’s and there were even one or two people dressed as Matt Smith and Tom Baker. We sat down an hour before it aired and it was fun to see the cinema slowly fill up. I must admit that I was slightly worried that I would be disappointed with this. Partly due to the fact that it’s a special celebration, part because An Adventure is Time and Space was so wonderful and also partly because Night of the Doctor was amazing. The story sees David Tennant returns to the show for the first time since he regenerated into Matt Smith on New Year’s Day 2010. John Hurt joins the show as the War Doctor and after the minisode we are left in no doubt that he is the 9^th Doctor. So that makes Eccleston the 10^th, Tennant the 11^th, Smith the 12^th and Capaldi the 13^th.  

Day of the Doctor was going to address the Time War in a way that it hadn’t done until this episode. Instead of just talking about it we actually got to saw it and we learn that John Hurt’s Doctor is the one who pressed the button and killed the Timelords and Daleks to end the War. This is what Matt Smith’s Doctor meant in ‘The Doctors Wife’ when he said that he’d “killed all of them”. We got more Gallifrey than we could shake a stick at and it looked it became apparent that Doctor Who fans were going to get pretty much everything they have wanted since the show returned in 2005.

The return of Tennant’s Doctor meant that we were going to get more comedy than we’ve ever had in a Steven Moffat produced story. I thought that Tennant was on fine form and some of his best bits came when he was acting opposite Joanna Page’s Elizabeth and against the rabbit. In a story that had quite a lot of dark tones it was good to have some light relief. He had a lot of fun scenes with Matt Smith’s Doctor who worked well with everyone else but still managed to come across as the incumbent Doctor. John Hurt was a supremely brilliant piece of casting and must have been the voice of the older fan when he mocked Smith and Tennant’s Doctor for waving of hands whilst talking and their silly catchphrases. But when he needed to he could be the brilliant actor that we all know he can be and has that gravelly voice which just adds to his greatness. I’m quite glad that Eccleston didn’t want to do this story because he wouldn’t have been as good as Hurt.

As the companion, Jenna Coleman is very good and does well from start to finish. She holds her own several times during this story and I liked how she was the one who showed that the cell door was unlocked and that three Timelords hadn’t tried the lock. It’s easy to see why Clara is such a good companion and whilst the argument continues as to whether she’s the best of the new era, one thing is for sure and that is when you are one of the good things about a celebratory special with other incarnations of the Doctors then you know that she has to be in the top 2.

This story marks the return of the Zygons who have appeared in a couple of Big Finish plays in recent years but this marks their first TV appearance since their debut in the 1975 Tom Baker story ‘Terror of the Zygons’. Not quite sure why they chose to bring this particular monster back but it was a good choice and they did well with it. The look of them was good and the advance in prosthetics since 1975 was good enough that it looked quite creepy and the moment when the copy of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart changed was quite graphic and I was surprised that this was given a PG by the BBFC. Hopefully it won’t be 38 years before the Zygons return because they are a good monster.

One of the main worries that I had was that this was going to be one of those complicated stories that has more questions than answers which is something that Steven Moffat seems so fond of. However that wasn’t the case as what we got was something that resolved the cliffhanger from Name of the Doctor and celebrated this epic milestone in satisfactory. I think that Moffat has had way too much flak from fans over the last couple of years which I think was largely un-necessary.

The moment when Tom Baker appeared was one of those moments that got a reaction from the crowd. There were cheers and there was a good reason for it. There was the Eighth Doctor minisode and there is a special featuring Doctors 5-7. He may be nearly 80 years old but he was able to match Matt Smith in the acting stakes and there were a few instances where it was like the Doctor from 1974 was back on screen. He’s credited as The Curator but it’s basically he’s the Doctor and he’s making up for the mistake he made when he wouldn’t appear in ‘The Five Doctors’. Hopefully in 30 years’ time Christopher Eccleston will have the same change of heart and appear. Another surprise which got a reaction from the crowd was the brief appearance of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor. All we got was his hand pulling a lever and him looking at us like he was Malcolm Tucker in the TARDIS.

There were things that didn’t work in this story. Firstly the 3D was awful. I’ve not seen a 3D film since I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4 and decided after that I would no longer waste money on this stupid technology. However I broke that rule for Doctor Who and whilst wearing the glasses didn’t bother me as much as it use to in other films, I could easily have enjoyed this just as much in standard old fashioned 2D. Secondly was the use of Billie Piper. Her return was hyped up just as much as that of David Tennant’s and despite whether you think she’s a positive influence or not on the series, you would have expected her involvement to be a lot more than it was here. She is the one that makes John Hurt’s Doctor think twice about pressing the red button. To be honest this could have been done by someone else and whilst I don’t dislike Billie Piper’s Rose as much as some people I know, I think that she could have been better used.

Day of the Doctor was everything that I would have wanted from the 50^th Anniversary special. I thought that seeing it in the cinema was a wise choice because sitting in a room with probably 2,000 Doctor Who fans who all applauded what they had seen and that was worth the £12 on its own. As for the story I was so happy that it didn’t disappoint me. I didn’t know what I initially thought but I knew I wasn’t disappointed. Apart from Billie Piper, everyone was well used and raised to the moment. It was the perfect way to celebrate the Doctor’s birthday and effectively performed a reboot at the very end and started the ball rolling with the incoming 12^th/13^th Doctor.

An Adventure in Space and Time (2013)

With the main course due in a couple of days it was time to have the starter. I was really looking forward to this drama which looked at William Hartnell's time on Doctor Who. Like most dramas of this type it starts at the end and goes to a flashback to tell a story. In the end we get a Cyberman and the bloke dressed up as him quips "tell him to hurry up I've got a planet to invade". The story isn't here to give up a world that puts people in a bad light. This was a love letter by Mark Gatiss who did the sketches for Doctor Who night back in 1999. One particular sketch was not very nice to the actors but this is completely different and its done with a nice balance of humour and drama. As the story unfolds we get things that we as fans know such as Hartnell fluffed his lines, Lime Grove Studio was tiny and the sprinklers went off when it got too hot. As Hartnell's health deteriorates it was a moment when Hartnell asks for a reduced workload and Newman basically fires him. I genuinely though that it was Hartnell's choice to leave but this clearly wasn't the case. The moment when Matt Smith appears in the TARDIS was a totally unexpected moment and it was this moment that I felt this was Mark Gatiss' goodnight kiss to the show. It was quick, simple but hugely fantastic and it was for me the icing on the cake as far as this story was concerned.

The performances were really good. No one really sounded like the people they were suppose to play but that didn't matter as the performances were so good that at no point did I think that Brian Cox was playing Sydney Newman but that it was Sydney Newman. David Bradley should be congratulated for giving a superb performance as William Hartnell. It was nice how as Hartnell got more ill Bradley's performance reflected this and it meant that it became more heartbreaking and the final part saw me fighting with myself in an attempt to not cry. I managed it but only just. Jessica Raine's performance as Verity Lambert was just as important as Bradley's. She had to juggle many balls as the first female BBC producer. I thought that her performance was heartfelt and the final scene between Verity and William was made emotional by their chemistry that they had from the very beginning.

You will need to watch this several times to spot all the cameos. As I write this I had spotted William Russell as a BBC security guard, Carole Ann Ford as a house mum with her hair in curls, Anneke Wills and Jan Marsh at Verity's leaving bash.I hadn't spotted Mark Eden (Marco Polo in Marco Polo) and if there are more then I look forward to spotting them. As I mentioned earlier this isn't a story that is going to be a warts and all story and the closest it comes to be serious is with Waris Hussein and there are a couple of uncomfortable moments where its clear that his skin is a problem but these are fleeting moments and put in there to at least address the issue that racism was around in 1963.

I had high expectations going into this and there were met and exceeded. This was a lovely and emotional story that showed me why I love Doctor Who and why in two days time, the show will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. Well written, well performed and well directed. Day of the Doctor has a lot to live up to and who would have thought that would be possible even in their wildest dreams.

The Time Machine (2013)

So this is where it ends. After 10 releases we get to see the 11^th Doctor’s story in the range and we almost didn’t see it. AudioGo went into administration just before Big Finish would normally have released it so we are getting this story somewhat later than usual. The story is performed by Jenna Coleman and it takes place six days from now or November 23^rd 2013 and sees the Doctor encounter Professor Chivers (played by Michael Cochrane) who is trying to assemble a time machine.

It’s quite nice that they have got Michael Cochrane into to this release as he has been in several Big Finish releases and also appeared in Ghostlight and can always be relied upon to give a sound performance. I thought that he was quite good in this story and even though he came close to being a clichéd villain who was obsessed with time travel, he managed to reign it in. Jenna Colman also performed well but I did feel at times like she was just going through the motions at time.

It’s great how all the pop up from the eleventh Doctor has been explained. It’s nice that it was the explanation that was given and it didn’t feel like it was plucked out of nowhere but something that had been sort of early on.

I don’t think that this story was quite what I was expecting for a final story. I suppose that over the eleven months that this series has been running, I was expecting a massive pay off but perhaps my expectations were too high. It’s a perfectly fine story that is performed well and the story works well along with the rest of the series and Matt Fitton has done a tricky job of tying up the loose ends as well as tell his story which isn’t a good job. It’s a fraction over an hour but the pacing uses it well.

This series has been a success. Despite the troubles that AudioGo are currently it doesn’t detract from the good work that everyone associated with the series has achieved. It’s a fine tribute to the show that they have managed to tell eleven stories with a story arc running through them whilst making each story work on its own and feel like the period that its suppose to represent.

The Tomfiles: #22 - Re-evaluating a Story: 100

Whilst waiting for the Big Finish to release the November releases. I thought that I would do something different. I would go back and listen to all the releases that I haven’t been particularly kind to over the years. See whether time has changed my opinion of a particular release or whether its still the same as before. The first story that I am going to look back at is the 100^th main range release called (oddly enough) 100. Released back in September 2007, this was Big Finish’s way of celebrating its milestone. It was the released during a year of transition as Gary Russell stepped to one side and Nicholas Briggs took charge of the range and we were treated the single episode stories but this was the first one where each of the four episodes were a stand-alone story.

When I first reviewed it back in October 2007, I said that the four stories were “disappointing” and rather foolishly said that you can’t tell a good story in 25 minutes and that you need at least 60 minutes to make a story work. Oh how truly stupid I have been. This is the review that saw me get an e-mail supposedly from Robert Shearman outlining his point of view. It was worth being this wrong just for that.

The first story was 100BC written by Jacqueline Rayner and in my 2007 review I commented how when Evelyn feigned an ailment is the first time that I disliked the character of Evelyn. I now think that it’s a shame that Evelyn and the Doctor are at odds because the dynamic of the group is so good and it’s not nice to see them fall out. After  a while Evelyn’s attitude does get a bit tiresome and I found myself rooting for the Doctor to get his point across and prove Evelyn wrong. It’s a good opening story. The second story features Mozart and I described this as a poorer story than 100BC and that’s wrong. I think that actually its marginally better because they are both good stories but it’s because this is bonkers but in a good way. I still think that Mozart’s attempted suicide is quite surprising considering that Big Finish rarely goes into this territory. The story has the sort of things that you would expect from a Shearman story and that’s the charm of it. I also can’t believe that I never made mention of the Soprano’s inspired ending to the episode where it cuts off mid-sentence. The third story was written by Joseph Lidster and my main gripe with it seemed to be that it spent too long building up the story and then rushed the end. My opinion of the episode is that it was different to the previous two episodes. In the 2007 review I seemed to have blacked out and missed the ending because the end of the episode came out of nowhere but its clear to even a blind spiel-snake that this episode has an ending and also a good one. Evil Evelyn was quite fun to listen to but I think that whilst it didn’t have same sort of feel as the previous two stories it felt more emotional and that’s not a bad thing as Lidster’s two releases from the year before (The Reaping and The Gathering) had a nice mix of emotion and science fiction. Another enjoyable release.  The final episode was my favourite part in my 2007 review and in 2013 it is still my favourite release. The tense created that the Doctor only has 100 days left is one of the things that I like, another thing is that the Doctor gets to go back and spy on himself.  By the end of the episode I thought that I was 100% correct in my opinion and it’s the only instance of the four stories that nothing changed.

Since we have had several releases like this such as The Company of Friends, Forty-Five and most recently Recorded Time and Other Stories, one thing has showed that it is possible to tell a story in 25 minutes and I was wrong and would like to apologise to Jacqueline Rayner, Robert Shearman, Joseph Lidster and Paul Cornell for being as harsh as I was to it. I think that compared to the other single four part stories that BF have produced its not the best but its still a lot of fun and an enjoyable release and was the template for future releases of this type.

Next Time: Flip Flop

1963: The Space Race (2013)

After enjoying the opening story to the 50^th Anniversary celebrations, I had high hopes for this middle story as it was a) a sixth doctor adventure b) it was written by Jonathan Morris and c) it was a Sixth Doctor and Peri story and they are a rarity in the main range. The last one was back in 2011 and in fact this is only sixth main range story since 1999. It starts off quite well as we get the initial set up and then when the Doctor and Peri first appear it feels like we are back on familiar territory. I like how there is a nice reference to ‘Marco Polo’ within the first five minutes.

The opening episode focuses on the landing of a capsule where Marinka has had somewhat of a memory fade. When they try and get into the capsule it does feel like the moment in ‘The Ambassadors of Death’ where they get into the capsule and find that there’s nothing inside, well the nice twist is that the Dog that the Russians sent into space (Laika) is in there instead. The plot get more bizarre when it turns out that Laika has Marinka’s voice. When I say bizarre, I mean that in a good way.

One of the things that I like about this release is how it never seems to stop for a breather. From the moment that the release starts it progresses at a nice pace. No sooner has the drama stopped to get Marinka down than the Doctor ends up going to the Moon. If you try and pin down where this is going to be heading then chances are you would be wrong and I was wrong and that its going to go somewhere different. Once I realised that the story seemed to be a dog with a human mind recruiting other dogs I couldn’t help chuckling to myself. Is this the new Reservoir Dogs?  All the humour that was generated with this thought disappeared once the story moved to the surface of the moon as the tone seemed to shift quite substantially.

The second half of the story seems to be about animals getting revenge on humans for experimenting on them and sending them into space. A sort of anti-Doctor Dolittle story was quite an amusing idea. The moment where the true spy is revealed (about an hour in) was one that I didn’t see coming. Not sure whether its cause I am stupid or just really smart by Morris but either way it worked out well.

The cliffhanger for episode three was another moment that I didn’t see coming and it ties in with the assignation of US President John F Kennedy on November 23^rd 1963. It’s at this point that I decided that I enjoyed this story. The other cliffhangers were all quite good and its good that they all work because it means that the flow of the story continues even with the interruption of the intro and outro there doesn’t feel like things slow down or stumble around.

I thought that Colin Baker was on fine form (as usual) and my favourite moment came when he was trying to defend humanity and basically say that whilst humanity has its bad side, it also have a wonderful side and humans can be good. Effectively the moral message was ‘Don’t tar everyone with the same brush!’. Nicola Bryant was also very good and I would go so far as to say that its one of her best performances for quite sometime. She is productive to the story and is used in a good and interesting way.

I thought that this was a very sound release. It wasn’t what I was expecting and I certainly wasn’t expecting a moral story with humans in animals and it could have been easy for Big Finish to do a standard story about the space race and what they and Jonathan Morris have given us is something completely different. I still think that Fanfare for the Common Men is more fun but certainly this story is enjoyable from start to finish and in the celebrations to the 50^th anniversary, The Space Race doesn’t let the side down

 

The Queen of Time (2013)

The second story of the final series sees a second Doctor Lost story. Like the previous release (which I didn’t like too much), this story was from Brian Hayles and it was adapted by Catherine Harvey who has written for the main range so I thought that this would hopefully make up for the disappointment of the last story. It certainly started off promising with a rather run opening TARDIS scene which saw Zoe and Jamie playing a game. There was a nice bit of music which was unexpected but much appreciated. It’s clear from the first fifteen minutes that this would have lost something had it been made for TV. The narration and the music that  was created by Toby Hrycek-Robinson, gives the impression that it wouldn’t have worked as well on TV because the set that I have in my imagination is far grander than what could have been achieved in 1968/69.

As the story develops I keep thinking about The Celestial Toymaker and how I just cant shake off that feeling. It shouldn’t be that surprising really considering that Hayles wrote The Celestial Toymaker. It’s clearly something that Hayles does well and I appreciate that story more because of this fact. There are scenes in this that could have instantly come out of that story and one of them is the scene where Jamie and Zoe are in the hour glass as it filled with sand as the Doctor and Hecuba eat. The story progresses quite nicely and it doesn’t seem to overstay its welcome. Whereas in The Dark Planet I felt that it could have been severely reduced in length, I felt that this story had a good pace to it and it felt like had been structured in the right way so that it didn’t feel like it had a rushed ending or was being padded.

Caroline Faber is very good as Hecuba. Faber has most recently been in Merlin as Hunith but has a very impressive track record. Hecuba is instantly unlikeable and I can believe that she’s a top villain just by that laugh that she uses. Hecuba interaction with the Doctor is quite a well realised one and it reminds me of the First Doctor and the Celestial Toymaker. I thought that Jamie was quite different in this story as he started off as a love struck teenager. That didn’t last for long but it was fun while it lasted. I thought that Frazer Hines was on his usual fine form and is always worth the money based purely on his impression of Patrick Troughton. He can always be relied upon to deliver a good performance and he does so here. Wendy Padbury’s first appearance for what seems like an age is a good one. She was just as good as Frazer Hines and reminds us why Zoe is such a good character and why Wendy Padbury is very good.

The first cliffhanger was rather good and I think that would have looked quite good on TV.  The opening episode was quite a good one as it was very much of the period and introduced a good villain whilst utilising Frazer Hines and Wendy Padbury well. The cliffhanger ended with Faber’s voice and that’s not a bad thing. The second cliffhanger was the same sort of thing and ended with Faber talking but I thought that the ending worked quite well. The third cliffhanger was probably my favourite as it had a companion in peril with Hecuba laughing.

The first episode moved quite quickly whilst the second seemed to slow down slightly. It picks up again in the third and fourth episodes but it doesn’t seem to have the punch that the opening episode did. It never got boring and I enjoyed this release far more than The Dark Planet. I think that Brian Hayles’ original idea was quite a good one and served as a perfectly good sequel to The Celestial Toymaker. Catherine Harvey has done a good job in making this story work not only for audio but for a 21^st Century audience.  An enjoyable release.