The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived

Between Series 6 (32) and 8 (34) there were just three two parters and for series 9 (35) we have now had three two parters so it seems that with the series length reduced to an even number, Moffat has clued on that people want two parters and the previous two parters have been highly enjoyable and had lots of actions. The first part was written by Steven Moffat and Jamie Matthieson. Quite why it took two people to write this script alludes me. The set up for this episode is that the Doctor and Clara arrive on Earth in Viking times and the village they arrive just in time for an attack from the Mire. Things move along and then Ashildr dies and is bought back to live but the thing about the first episode is that it feels an awful lot like padding. It’s the sort of padding which would be seen during the classic era. At the end I just thought that a lot happened but nothing substantial happened.

The second episode is where all the interesting stuff starts to happen. Despite some nice performances, the story was ruined by Rory the lion popping up later in the episode as the main threat and someone that Me is working with.

This story was heavily billed because it featured Maisie Williams who is apparently well known because of her role in Game of Thrones. She is definetly better when she plays Me than Ashidr. Not quite convinced that Me is a good name for a character even though the explanation given was quite clever.

This story and the second episode in particular is very much a character piece because over the course of the two episodes not much happens. You could easily edit these two episodes into one. I think that the second episode tries to explore the idea that immortality is a curse is something that was explored (briefly) in The Five Doctors and also mentioned in School Reunion (2006). I think that its generally perceived that immortality isn’t the great thing that it could be.

One aspect of the second episode that I found good was that I didn’t miss Clara. It was about 15 minutes into the episode before I noticed she hadn’t appeared yet. I think that this shows how good Peter Capaldi was and how good Maisie Williams was. During their scenes together they were both on very good form.

One thing that still makes me chuckle is all the speculation about who Maisie Williams’ character was. Many thought it was Susan or maybe Jenny and it turns out that she was just a normal girl/woman and there wasn’t anything extra terrestrial about her is something that must have annoyed loads of people on Gallifrey Base. It was a relief that there was nothing special about her although for a while I did think that maybe she was Jenny but that didn’t last very long.

I did like the bit where the Doctor finally realises why he chose this face. It was a question he asked back in his first story and its because of the events from Fires of Pompeii when the Tenth Doctor leaves and then has a change of heart and goes back to save Capaldi’s character in that story. It’s not such a barmy idea because Romana second incarnation is based on Princess Astra so with this logic it means that Peter Davison’s Doctor based his sixth incarnation on Commander Maxil from Arc of Infinity.

This two parter is the weakest so far of the season and maybe even of Capaldi’s tenure on the show. There are bits that are quite good but as a two parter it isn’t very exciting.  I think that its because it moves too slowly and after four episodes. It took three people to write these two episodes and to be honest that’s too many. I think that Catherine Treganna had the stronger episode. It would be wrong for me not to acknowledge the directing because Ed Bazalgette did a very good job as he utilises the lovely locations that the story was being filmed in and the house that is used in the second part looked fantastic and the lighting was just perfect. It’s amusing to think that Bazalgette went from lead guitarist of The Vapors who had a hit with Turning Japanese and then ended up directing Doctor Who.

The NEXT TIME trailer shows that the Zygons return to Doctor Who. Typical, you wait nearly forty years for a Zygon story and then we get two in two years.

Terror of the Sontarans (2015)

Terror of the Sontrarans is the final story of the series and this story has dual writing credits from John Dorney and Dan Starkey who is more use to playing a Sontaran opposite Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi’s Doctors. I remember reading the DWM magazine and reading that bother writers had a different perspective on the Sontaran character which does show because there are moments where they are the stern serious race that we know them to be and then at other times there are moments which make them seem a bit humorous.

As the title suggests, the Sontarans are the ones that are being terrorised and when the Sontarans are being terrorised then you know that the threat must be great. In reality I don’t think that was explored as well as it could have been. The idea of a Sontaran being other than stoic and brave is an interesting one but its never explored in any great detail and that is a little bit disappointing.

The thing about this story is that I just didn’t think it quite worked. I listened to it and thought that I had missed something and so I took the decision to listen to it again and I liked it but I can’t say that it was the best story of the year. I think that if it had just been the Sontarans then this story would have had a different effect on me but at the end of the day it was what it was and it’s a rather disappointing end to the Mel series. Its been good having Mel back and it confirms how good the character could have been had she been given the chance to be less screamy on TV.

The central performances were quite good. Throughout the three stories both Sylvester McCoy and Bonnie Langford have performed well and its refreshing to see Sylvester McCoy in a series of adventures with someone other Sophie Aldred. Bonnie Langford hasn’t been a hindrance and her characters abilities have been utilised and hopefully we will hear more from her in the coming years. Some of the supporting characters were interesting enough. Dan Starkey was good as Field Major Kayste, Skegg and Stodd he delivers a solid performance as a Sontaran. I quite liked Andree Bernard’s performance as Tethenka (amongst other things). She was a passive character at first and it seemed obvious that she was going to change at some point during the story. That’s not to say that it wasn’t well done but if I can spot this sort of thing out then it shows how obvious it was.

Before the Flood

The previous episode was a nice base under siege story and when the NEXT TIME trailer aired I was a) surprised that it was a two parter and b) disappointed that the story didn’t seem to be entirely under water. That said there were things in this story that might get me past the disappointment. The cliffhanger from the previous episode was rather good because it saw the Doctor appear in the sea with black eyes. The episode starts with a nice monologue with the Doctor running around the TARDIS console (a rarely used set this series) and he talks about the Bootstrap Paradox and Beethoven. The Doctor playing the guitar is something that is becoming the Doctor’s new Sonic Screwdriver. The pre-title scene says that the Doctor discovers that Beethoven never existed so he published the works of the composer himself thus becoming Beethoven.

The story features another example of a nod to a previous story and in this episode it was the Tivolian race who previous appeared in ‘The God Complex’ (written by Toby Whithouse) back in 2011. In that story the Tivolian was played by David Walliams but this time the representative from this race is Prentis played by Paul Kaye. I quite liked the character of Prentis although I thought that the ghost version was better.

The action is split between the base in 2119 in Scotland and an army base in the 1980’s. As much as I liked what happened in the army base I thought that the posters designed to make it look like it too place in the USSR. They may as well have had someone talking in a dodgy Russian accent as well. The one advantage of having this outside is that at least there was some light instead of the low light of the undersea base.

There is some interesting stuff about the Fisher King, firstly the name is a bit of an issue. Everytime I heard the name Fisher King, I just thought of the toymaker Fisher Price. Aside from the name I thought that the design was very good. I think that the design is one of the best that the show has come up with for quite some time. When it first appears in the episode we didn’t see it and I thought that this was to hide the fact that it wasn’t very good but that wasn’t the case and its highlight comes when it is about the be hit by the water from the burst dam. The big scene between the Fisher King and the Doctor is a very good one and the highlight of the whole two episodes. I liked the bit where the King describes the Timelords and “cowardly, vain curators who suddenly remembered they had teeth and became the most war-like race in the galaxy”.

The only problem with this story is that the narrative races along at such a pace that it kind of ties itself in knots and when it comes to wrap things up the story goes down a timey wimey route and I just started questioning what was going on. In a way I don’t really mind because the whole two parter has been put together very well with some very good performances especially from Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman. Even the supporting cast are well written and I think that the decision to have a deaf actress not just in the story but quite active in the story is something that seems to have been overlooked by the wider press. It’s weird to think that we are already a third of the way through the series and the ratings continue to be lower than usual and the late start time isn’t helping. The sooner that the show returns to earlier in the year when Strictly Come Dancing isn’t on the better because SCD is hurting Doctor Who.

The Warehouse

The Warehouse is the middle story of this series and after being impressed with We Are The Daleks, I had high hopes for this story. This story has been penned by Mike Tucker who is writing his first story for Big Finish since 2003’s The Draconian Rage for the Benny range and its been 14 years since he wrote a story for the main range when he wrote the superb Dust Breeding back in 2001. The set up is that the Doctor and Mel arrive in the for mentioned Warehouse which at first seems to be a parody of the sort of Warehouses used by Amazon or other big companies with stocktakes being done repeatedly. There is a line in this story which hit home with me when the Doctor says “What about the shops on the high street?, they’ll become something of a novelty” For someone like me who works in retail this is a slice of reality in Doctor Who.

For the second story running, Mel’s computer abilities are used in a story. I recently re-listened to The Juggernauts which is 10 years old and that is another example of Mel being used much better than she was ever used during her time on TV. Bonnie Langford seems to be happy playing Mel which isn’t something that could have been said in the late 1980’s but with the quality of writing that Big Finish has come up with in recent years it means that she can show what the character can do. Sylvester McCoy is also having fun with the story and now that he hasn’t got to deal with dark matters like he did when he was co-starrting with Philip Olivier and Sophie Aldred.

At the end of the day the thing about this story is that it is neither terrible nor great. I don’t think that this story is Tucker’s best because I think Dust Breeding gets that honour. The main cast were fun to listen to and I think that the supporting cast all did their best. However despite the great performances and the good central idea I cant say that I understood this story. It started off well enough and I thought the idea of the warehouse being some sort of source of food/help to people on the planet below was quite good but I just couldn’t get into despite the very good performances. It’s still the case that the middle story in a trilogy series is the weakest but compared to the middle story of the previous trilogy (Equilibrium), this is a slightly better story. I am still impressed with how good Mel has been used in this series and look forward to the Sontarans returning.

Under The Lake

Under The Lake is a story with a lot to write about. The first being the transmission time which was 8.25pm and this was to allow Strictly Come Dancing to air for two hours, bearing in mind that they are competing with The X-Factor which wasn’t on last night due to England playing Australia in the Rugby World Cup, the BBC could easily have moved this forward by an hour and thus allow people to enjoy this story. It’s also the latest (to my knowledge) that a Doctor Who has ever been transmitted although the way the BBC keeps throwing this show around the schedule I could easy see it put on after Casualty or even Match of the Day. As I don’t care about Peter Andre or Jeremy Vine or some guy from McBusted prancing around the dancefloor, I managed to keep myself entertained (thanks to Netflix) and when 8.25pm arrived, I was able to enjoy a story that from the ttrailer was going to be something that I enjoyed. I always enjoy base under siege stories and anyone who followed my marathon blog will know this and whilst I know it wasn’t going to be as good as base under siege stories such as The Moonbase or Horror of Fang Rock or The Tomb of the Cybermen, it has the potential to be the best story for quite a while. I’m going to cut any tension out of the story by saying that this is the best story of the series and the best story of Peter Capaldi’s era.

This story has been written by Toby Whithouse who has clearly been told to crank it up to 11 and certainly has done that which bearing in mind he wrote the very creepy God Complex back in 2011 perhaps isn’t a difficult request. The set up of the story is that the Doctor and Clara arrive on an underground base where the crew are holed up in a Faraday Cage type room because there are ghosts that are trying to kill them so that they can use their bodies to strengthen a signal. The thing is that the story works so well in making things as creepy and scary as possible that I found myself not really concerned with why things are happening. There is a scary ghost with the weirdest face and no eyes running around after people who can pick up weapons and walk through walls but just cant do both at the same time.

As with any base under siege stories there has to be a group of people on it that are a mix of annoying and not so annoying. What is quite impressive is that one of the cast member is actually deaf and I thought that the sign language part would be dropped quickly but it wasn’t and so credit goes to Whithouse. The effects used to create the ghosts is superb and there is one shot where a ghosts face is inches away from someones face and it was quite an incredible shot. The cliffhanger shot of the Doctor in the sea with his eyes removed is one of the most impressive last shots in recent years and so everyone involved in creating the effects for this episode should be very proud with what they have achieved.

The central performances have been quite good. Peter Capaldi is on fine form in this story but yet again I don’t think that Jenna Coleman was as good. She was better than the previous two episodes but I just don’t think that the character is as noticeable as she has been. I don’t know if that’s because the plots aren’t centered around her but something has changed since the new series started and whilst I approve of the fact that Clara isn’t at the centre of the story, something needs to be done for the character to fill the gap.

It’s never possible to fully judge a story until the second episode but the thing is that I wasn’t expecting this to be a two parter. I know that some people might say that it was obvious but it wasn’t to me and so when the next time caption appeared I was genuinely shocked. This story achieved a lot whilst just being about running down corridors. Judging by the NEXT TIME trailer for next weeks episode, things aren’t going to have the same base under siege vibe. Anyway one thing is for sure and that this series is shaping up to be a very strong one because its now three strong stories in a row and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of the quality dipping any time soon.

The Witch's Familiar (2015)

After being very impressed with the opening episode, there was an awful lot riding on this week’s episode. There was a number of new things done in the previous episode that were new and more would appear in this episode but the pre-title scene features just Clara and Missy where we get a scene which basically explains how Clara and Missy managed to get out of the Dalek chamber despite being shot by the Daleks. This allows Missy to be quite humorous whilst telling a story about the Doctor. By the time the music played and Clara and Missy were walking into the distance with Clara wanting the stick I couldn’t help but find myself thinking that this is a potential spin off for Big Finish.

If there is one thing that this episode that will forever stick in my memory it is the part where the Doctor scoops Davros out of his chair and appears in the main chamber sitting in the chair. The sight of the Doctor in that rather distinctive chair is one that may never leave me. The effect used to show that Davros is half the man he used to be is rather good and this is another reason why Steven Moffat deserves more credit that he gets. Other things that are used in this episode include a nostalgia nod to the very first Dalek story. Clara get to sit inside a Dalek and this mirrors what Ian Chesterton did. The difference is that Moffat uses this opportunity to do something different because when Clara tries to say something nice it gets changed by the Dalek and words like Exterminate get shouted. This leads to a nice little scene at the end of the episode where the Clara Dalek is approaching the Doctor and she is trying to convince him that she’s not a proper Dalek whilst Missy is trying to convince otherwise is the last bit of drama in the episode and it’s a nice three hander.

The thing about this episode is that it is definitely Julian Bleach’s episode as he pretty much stole the show. There was always the possibility of Davros not dying but it’s the truth and when the Doctor realises that Davros is being honest it leads to a wonderful bit where Davros opens his real eyes for the first time. A dying Davros along with the sun rising on Skaro is another great moment in the episode. Davros’ return has been a huge success and hopefully it wont be another eight years before the character returns.

There is the whole part in the sewer that is a mix of new and old because they went through tunnels in the first Dalek story and in this episode we get Clara and Missy finding a different way of getting into the Dalek city but the fine mind of Steven Moffat means that the walls of the tunnels in this story are in fact old Daleks that have been reduced to brown goo. I know that this aspect of the story didn’t go down too well especially when it lead to the Daleks being defeated. I admit visually it was a bit gross but in terms of narrative, it works really well and the idea of gooey Daleks being rather angry and in pain is quite clever.

There are aspects of this episode that don’t work quite well and the first being Missy. She was really quite menacing in Deep Water and Death in Heaven but in these two episodes she has lost a lot of the menace. There were glimmers of the old Missy/Master but on the whole it seems that Missy has been reduced to the companion status that was given to Clara. The only good moment was when she was convincing the Doctor about the Dalek with Clara in. That is about as much as I can fault the episode because when I watched the omnibus and it was mixed into one I thought that everything worked really well and it could easily have been a movie. The writing was clever, the directing was superb from Hettie MacDonald and the performances were really strong. The visual effects were all top notch and recreating Skaro in the way that it was seen on screen was stunning and just makes me wish they could have been used in the stories set on Skaro in the past.

This two parter (only the second one for Peter Capaldi) is really enjoyable and shows that the series is going from strength to strength. Watching the next time trailer I think that this could be a potential new classic because it’s the base under water siege type story and I always love them.