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: Cold War Review

Full spoilers for the episode follow...

Hello everybody and welcome to my review of Cold War. This episode features the return of the Ice Warriors, an enemy not seen since the 70's. I'd been looking forward to seeing this classic monster return to the series and writer Mark Gatiss handles this episode very well, even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of the series premiere.

This episode takes place entirely on board a Russian submarine during the Cold War, they have retrieved an Ice Warrior from the North pole, thinking it's a frozen mammoth. After being freed from it's prison, the Ice Warrior attacks. At the same time, the Doctor & Clara (thinking they're heading to Las Vegas) arrive on the submarine and are stranded there when the Tardis mysteriously de-materialises. Normally this would have seemed too coincidental, but since thanks to dialogue in the Series 6 episode "The Doctor's Wife", it's easy to assume the TARDIS brought the Doctor here because he was needed.

The dialogue between the Doctor and the Ice Warrior, General Skaldak, is great and Nicholas Briggs does a great job voicing the character, but then again, Briggs is always great whenever he does these roles. Skaldak's armour looks fantastic, its very faithful to the original look of the Ice Warriors and the fact that it's used minimally makes it all the more awesome when we see it in action. The episode is also given an Alien vibe by having Skaldak leave his armour for half the episode and scuttle around the submarine picking off the crew. I would have liked if the Doctor had referenced how he's the last of his species to Skaldak when he attempts to launch the submarines nuclear missiles, but that's only a minor gripe. It's nice that this episode ends somewhat happily for Skaldak when he is rescued by his people at the end of the episode, proving he isn't the last of his species like he thought, which helps prevent this episode from having too many parallels with Series 1 episode "Dalek".

Jenna Louise Coleman & Matt Smith give good performances as usual. There's an interesting dynamic between Clara & the scientist Professor Grisenko (played brilliantly by David Warner), who is the one character they meet in this episode with any real personality. The rest of the submarine crew, while the actors give decent performances, aren't very memorable. This is a mostly serious episode, though the few jokes there are prove quite funny. The music by Murray Gold (who I haven't really mentioned much in my reviews for some strange reason) is brilliant as ever. I've enjoyed his work on the show from Series 1.

This was a good episode. The Ice Warriors are back with a vengeance as is Doctor Who in general, and this makes me all the more pumped for the impending 50th anniversary special. I'm really enjoying this series right now, let's hope that the next episode continues this trend of quality...

Score: 4.0/5.0