Doctor Who Series 7: The Name of the Doctor Review

Full spoilers for the episode follow. 

Hello everybody & welcome to my review of the finale to Series 7: Part 2 of Doctor Who. The Name of the Doctor.

There's been a lot building up to this episode. There's been the mystery surrounding Clara Oswald,  the Great Intelligence, the planet Trenzalore and of course The Name of the Doctor. It's thankful then that Stephen Moffat has managed to deliver a brilliant (though not entirely perfect) episode that has left me even more excited for the 50th anniversary special.

The plot of the episode is very compelling, and despite the initially smaller scope when compared to previous series, there's an epic nature throughout, especially in the last act when things escalate considerably. There's also an element of sadness throughout, as the Doctor is forced to visit his future grave on Trenzalore in order to save his friends. Matt Smith really nails the emotional moments in this episode (& there are a lot of those by the way), and the almost weary tone in his voice is a nice touch to the performance. Matt has really come into his own as the character during this series now that he has more serious material to dig into & his chemistry with Jenna-Louise Coleman has been very fun to watch. Coleman also nail's the emotional material as Clara Oswald. Clara has quickly become one of my favourite companions since the series re-launched, right up there with Rose Tyler. She's given a great moment in the third act where she chooses to sacrifice herself to save the Doctor, which gives Moffat the opportunity for a hell of a lot of fan-service.

 The supporting cast across the board deliver in spades. Dan Starkey as Strax gets some of the episodes biggest laughs, the best being the gag of him wrestling Scotsmen in Glasgow during his day off, that one had me laughing. Neve McIntosh & Catrin Stewart are also very good and they handle the more dramatic material they are given with ease. I also really liked the "conference call" scene, which took place in a communal dreamstate (that's the kind of writing I like to see from Moffat). Alex Kingston is brilliant in what looks to be her final appearance as River Song (though there's always the chance that Moffat might use a younger version of her later on). I've had a mixed opinion on River over the past series, the character became quite annoying from Series 5 onward, particularly after the shock reveal in A Good Man Goes to War (this isn't a criticism of Kingston's acting, it's just the dialogue the character was given and her sketchy characterisation), but here, since this takes place after Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead from River's perspective, the character is better handled by Moffat's script and is given the send-off she deserves.

The Great Intelligence returns as the primary villain (which wasn't exactly a surprise given his cameo in The Bells of Saint John) and while he is a very sinister presence, his new minions, the Whispermen, don't do very much in the episode other than kidnap the Doctor's friends and attempt to stop their hearts in a later scene. Richard E. Grant however gives a very creepy performance as the G.I. His plan to enter the Doctor's "grave", which in this case is a column of energy set inside a wrecked future-TARDIS (which is also gigantic as a result of the bigger-on-the-inside leaking out) to undo the Doctor's past is diabolical, although his line about wanting vengeance kind of irritated me. The only problem with this villain plot is that it's impact is diminished because the Great Intelligence hasn't been enough of a presence in the series to warrant this kind of line. He appeared twice during Patrick Troughton's run on the series and has only appeared as the main villain once before. Maybe if we'd gotten a line that indicated that the G.I was previously affiliated with the Silence perhaps?

 The Great Intelligence's plan provides an excuse for some classic Doctor action, as we see flashes of all the classic series Doctor's with Clara & the G.I. Now at times this looks really seamless, especially
during the awesome pre-credits scene where Clara meets the First Doctor himself, William Hartnell, stealing the TARDIS from Galifrey. Other times though, it's pretty obvious that Jenna & Richard have been superimposed into the archive footage from the classic, but I dug the novelty too much to care.

Clara's sacrifice at the end provides a great explanation for how she has met the Doctor and died several times, in fact it's enhanced by the classic Doctor appearances. One of the best things about this episode (and in the case of the recent series, original) is that the Doctor actually repays Clara for her sacrifice and saves her, going so far as risking his own timestream collapsing in on itself to do so. The big reveal at the end and the surprise appearance from John Hurt (I got chills when I heard his voice) was masterfully handled and the line delivery from Hurt & Matt Smith was pitch perfect. I'm interested to see how Stephen Moffat explains this "secret incarnation" of the Doctor

The production aspects of this episode are blockbuster standard. Trenzalore is dark, gloomy and morbid, the same applies to the vegetation-ridden future-TARDIS (which reminded me a little bit of Portal 2). The direction from Saul Metztein was superb, he's quickly becoming one of my favourite directors on the show. There are plenty of awesome money shots here. The ending scenes set inside the Doctor's timestream are rushed in some places though. The Doctor Clara reunion was swept aside a little too quickly in favour of the big reveal. This was a truly fantastic episode, a fabulous return to form for Stephen Moffat and a fitting end to the current series. Now we just have to wait 6 whole months for the 50th. Right now I wish I had a TARDIS of my own...

Score: 4.5/5.0

Doctor Who: Series 7: Nightmare in Silver Review

Hello everybody and welcome to my review of Nightmare in Silver.

When Neil Gaiman wrote "The Doctor's Wife" in 2011, he created a fantastic tale that was pure, quintessential Who, which enhanced the very premise of the series and was the absolute standout episode of Series 6. Naturally, anticipation has been high for Gaiman's second story, especially since it features the Cybermen. It's a shame then this episode proved to be something of a disappointment.

Picking up from the amusing cliffhanger at the end of "The Crimson Horror", the Doctor takes Clara and the kids (Angie & Artie) to whom she is nanny (after they sort of blackmailed Clara into taking them with her) to an extraterrestrial theme park, which they soon discover to be full of Cybermen. After Angie & Artie are kidnapped and the Doctor is partially infused with Cyber-technology, Clara must lead a military platoon against the Cybermen, who are now more powerful than ever.

This sounds like a decent premise, but unfortunately there is too much going on in this episode and most of the plot threads don't properly come to fruition. The biggest problem are the children, Angie & Artie. Putting aside the fact that the child actors aren't very good (I'm sorry but I have to be honest here), the characters themselves are just frustrating to watch. Angie in particular comes across as extremely unlikable. I don't care how dilapidated the theme park looks, if I were that girl, I would be far too amazed at the fact that I just TRAVELLED IN TIME to care about whether or not my phone had 3G. Artie is just an empty vessel, there's nothing interesting about him whatsoever. Thankfully these two are benched for the rest of the episode a quarter of the way in after they are given Cyber ear pieces. Maybe Gaiman became just as annoyed with the children as I did (though that doesn't really excuse him for writing bad dialogue for them, sorry again).

The guest stars are a little mixed, Tamzin Outhwaite has a pointless role as the leader of the military platoon, who is killed just as her character is given something to do. Warwick Davies gives a good performance as Porridge, but he doesn't get enough of a purpose to be onscreen until the end, which admittedly was kind of a surprise, though the moment when he asks Clara to marry him was quite forced and came out of nowhere. Jason Watkins fares quite well as Webley to begin with, but his character just fades off the map after he is infused with Cyber technology.

The Cybermen themselves are a mixed bag. While the new design looks very cool (miles better than the "Mighty Morphin" Daleks re-design from Victory of the Daleks), they aren't given enough screentime which diminishes the impact of their new abilities. There are some chilling moments. but they're few and far between. It's also frustrating that Nicholas Briggs only gets a few lines of dialogue, and even then it's the same sentence repeated. The Cyber-Mites are really creepy and they're a good evolution from the Cybermat's, which in honesty looked a little clunky.

The best thing about this episode is the Doctor's mental battle with the Cyber Planner/Mr Clever. This allowed Matt Smith to give a great performance as he switched back and forth between the two personalities, the Cyber Planner allowing Matt to turn the creepy dial up to eleven (see what I did there). This definitely reminded me of Superior Spider-Man, except here, the malevolent persona was rightly expunged in the end.

Jenna-Louise Coleman got some funny scenes here as Clara commanded the somewhat incompetent squad of soldiers against the Cybermen, though it did make Tamzin Outhwaite's character even more useless. While I've heard some criticism that this is out of character for Clara. I see it as more of an evolution of the character. Clara has faced down some pretty scary monsters in this series so it's natural that she would eventually become more confident in the face of danger.

The production aspects of this episode are mixed. There's some sloppy editing in places and the effect of the Cybermen disintegrating when they're hit with a shot from Clara's gun looks pretty lacklustre. The shot of the army of Cybermen however looks great and it gives the episode a much needed epic scope, and the props and make-up are very good, particularly the Cybertech on the Doctor's face, and of course Murray Gold's music is awesome. I'm glad that the theme of the Cybermen from Series 2 is still there, even if it has been changed up a bit.

Overall this was an ok episode, though by Gaiman's standards, it was quite an anticlimax. Every writer produces a dud now and again though, it's just a shame that it had to be this one...

Score: 2.5/5.0

Doctor Who Series 7: The Crimson Horror Review

Full spoilers for the episode follow.

Hello everybody and welcome to my review of The Crimson Horror. I realise I've fallen behind a bit in my reviews for Series 7 (tbh I've been falling behind on all my reviews). I'm sorry for the delay and I'll try and get my reviews of the previous two episodes up as soon as I can.

So far I've enjoyed this series as a whole. Jenna-Louise Coleman's Clara Oswin is easily a more interesting and compelling companion than Karen Gillen's Amy Pond and Matt Smith has really benefited well from the more serious, yet still fun tone of this new series.

So far though, none of the episodes have been able to re-capture the fun factor that I had with the series premiere, The Bells of Saint John, and after the admittedly disappointing "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS", I was a little worried. Thankfully The Crimson Horror delivered on that aspect in spades. This was a very fun episode.

The first half of the episode is from the perspective of the Silurian detective Madame Vastra her human wife Jenny & their butler, the Sontaran known as Strax. I've always had a fondness for these three characters since their first appearance in "A Good Man Goes to War" and they certainly haven't worn out their welcome yet. Jenny plays a bigger role here than in previous episodes and Catrin Stewart is clearly having a lot of fun with the role. This comes at the expense of Madame Vastra who has less screentime but that's forgivable as the character of Jenny needed fleshing out and Vastra has had enough exposure in previous episodes, and of course Neve McIntosh gives a good performance as the character. Strax meanwhile is just a bundle of fun and Dan Starkly is an absolute riot in the role, providing many of the episodes laughs.

Don't take this to mean that the Doctor & Clara don't feature prominently, once they appear we have a nice, old timey flashback to how they became mixed up in this story. Matt Smith is really coming into his own now as the titular character and the same applies to Jenna-Louise Coleman, these two have such great chemistry, and their Yorkshire accents weren't that bad either.

For the villain, we have Dame Diana Rigg as Ms Gillyflower, who along with her prehistoric leech companion, Mr Sweet, plans to cover the skies with his venom. Dame Diana turns in a grade-A performance as the villain. Ms Gillyflower is certainly a villain we love to hate by the end of the episode. She is joined by her real life daughter Rachel Stirling, who plays Gillyflower's disfigured daughter, Ada. This is in fact the first time these two have acted alongside one another. There's plenty of intensity in their scenes together and I really came to like the character of Ada after a while. Her scenes with the Doctor were very emotional.

The direction by Saul Metztein was very good and the same applied to Murray Gold's music (though in honesty Murray Gold always delivers). Mark Gatiss provides a witty script with plenty of laughs sprinkled in, though they are balanced by some dark and serious moments, such as the revelation that Ms Gillyflower experimented on her daughter so she could develop an anti-toxin to Mr Sweet's venom. What a nasty old woman!

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. It wasn't perfect, there were a few problems (the Tom-Tom joke wasn't that funny and it felt out of place with the Victorian setting), but nothing glaring enough to ruin this joyride...

Score: 4.0/5.0