Episode #252: Deep Breath

"I'm the Doctor. I've lived for over two thousand years, and not all of them were good. I've made many mistakes, and it's about time I did something about that. Clara, I'm not your boyfriend."

Episode #252:      Deep Breath.
Companions:        The 12th Doctor and Clara Oswald.
Air Date:              23rd August 2014.

Shortly after his regeneration, the Twelfth Doctor arrives in Victorian London, and Clara Oswald struggles to embrace the new man the Doctor has become. All the while, they reunite with the Paternoster Gang to investigate a series of combustions that have been occurring all around the city.

And so begins the 12th Doctor's era on the show and what a great start it is. Deep Breath is a bit of a rather odd story though. Since the end of The Time of the Doctor, somehow he and Clara ended up back in the Mesozoic, swallowed by a dinosaur (and that is enormously incorrect in it's size) and somehow time travels with it to the Victorian era where robots are stealing body parts. By Doctor Who standards it's probably just another Saturday.

The Doctor's new persona is quite similar to that of the 1st Doctor, in that he is rather a grumpy grandfatherly figure. A bit rude perhaps but also funny. I had wondered whether this was intentional as this is a brand new reset of regenerations. I don;t know whether that was the case but it seems to fit the new personality.

The new element of this story is that the robot body part thieves aren't just a random villain for a one off post-regeneration story. They are in fact connected to a previous story The Girl in the Fireplace. You may remember that one as the story where the 10th Doctor, Rose and Micky fought time travelling robots using body parts to fix their ship. While not from the SS Madame de Pompadour, they are from the sister ship SS Marie Antoinette. It's a nice tie in to a previous story.

Part of the story that doesn't really work for me is Clara at the beginning of the episode. In her recent adventures she has had to deal with the concept and actuality of Time Lord regeneration and yet she seems to not understand it now where the Doctor is concerned. The writers try to make this seem about her being in love with the 13th Doctor and wanting him back over an old man, but it doesn't come off that way to me at all. It takes a final moment of the episode to reconcile this which it does to an extent.

The adventure is a good one. It has adventure, action, excitement, humour and a slight bit of horror. It has some great dialogue too, from Clara's logic about torture to the final unanswered confrontation between the Doctor and the half-faced robot. Even the phone call from the 11th Doctor is a good emotional ride. Eventually it ends with a bizarre twist involving a mysterious woman named Missy in some sort of "afterlife". An interesting set up for later in the series.

A great start to the new series and a new Doctor.

Episode #247 : The Name of the Doctor

"You didn't listen, did you? You lot never do. That's the problem. The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discovered. He wasn't talking about my secret. No, no, no, that's not what's been found. He was talking about my grave. Trenzalore is where I'm buried."

Episode #247:      The Name of the Doctor.
Companions:        The 11th Doctor and Clara Oswald.
Air Date:              18th May 2013.

A prophecy is coming true. The Eleventh Doctor is summoned to Trenzalore where it was said he would fall. But what does the alleged site of his final battle have to do with the mystery of Clara — or is it Oswin — Oswald? Can the Paternoster Gang help him avoid his apparent destiny? And most of all...Doctor who?

What a fantastic ending to this season of the show. We get a host of the Doctor's friends together, the return of the Great Intelligence, the final revelation of what and were Trenzalore is and at last the resolution to the impossible girl story line.

It is difficult to explain how good this story is because it isn't any one thing. It's the emotion, the perfectly written scenes and dialogue and the awe moments when everything starts to come together. I have said it before and I'm repeating it now, when Stephen Moffat really puts his mind to it we get some phenomenal episodes. The Name of the Doctor has it all whether you are a modern fan or a classic one. The brief flashes of the old incarnations really gives me the giddy feelings watching this one.

But who is the mysterious Doctor not spoken about? And what a coup getting esteemed (now late) actor John Hurt in for that role is just a masterstroke. That all gets explained soon enough as well. You have to remember that this was leading up to the 50th anniversary episode and we're in for a wild ride.

Anyway, getting away from the excitement, the final set up for the overarching plot this season brings us finally to Trenzalore. This planet was mentioned by the headless Dorium during his "doctor who?" prophecy at the end of A Good Man Goes to War. The Great Intelligence has planned all this to get his revenge on the Doctor for thwarting his schemes. His plan being to enter the Doctor's time stream and cause his adventures to fail although this will destroy him. Clara realizes that the "impossible girl" is her existing in all the Doctor's time lines helping him out and stopping the Great Intelligence. Quite clever really although it does in my mind cause a few little paradoxes not to mention that this future for the Doctor and Trenzalore will never come about.

The Name of the Doctor is a great ending to the story arc and is a nice stepping stone to what comes next.

Episode #245 : The Crimson Horror

"Them new manufacturers can do horrible things to a person. Horrible. I've pickled things in here that'd fair turn your hair snowy as top of Buckden Pike."

Episode #245:      The Crimson Horror.
Companions:        The 11th Doctor and Clara Oswald.
Air Date:              4th May 2013.

In 1893, the Eleventh Doctor's old friends, Vastra, Jenny Flint and Strax find an optogram of the Doctor on a victim of the mysterious "crimson horror". They head for Yorkshire, where Jenny infiltrates Mrs Winifred Gillyflower's community of Sweetville to find what has happened to him.

A good old Victorian gothic horror. The Paternosta Gang investigate a strange series of murders in Yorkshire which leave red-skinned bodies floating in the canal. The Doctor and Clara have got their first but both need rescuing before the villain of the piece can be stopped. It's nice to see the old Victorian gang getting some centre stage again but half way through it becomes the Doctor and Clara show once again.

For it's nice gothic storytelling it isn't a great episode mainly because it jumps around a bit in the middle explaining what happened to the Doctor and Clara before the episode even starts but also because once it does get going the ending feels all too rushed just to get to a rather unsatisfying climax. The Crimson Horror is one of those stories that if fleshed out a bit could have done better by being a two part story rather than being crammed into 45 minutes.

The actual villain of the story isn't very inspiring either being an old lady with a prehistoric leech stuck to her. Both are defeated way too easily and the story just ends. Even the leech, while creepy crawling across the floor, just seems a weak adversary.

There is a continuation to the Clara mystery but it doesn't go anywhere as the Doctor refuses to inform his Victorian friends about what is going on, leaving them just as much in the dark as the rest of us were at the time.

I really do like Clara has a companion. For a time I would have said that Amy Pond was my favourite modern companion but I have come to appreciate Clara more. She is a good strong female role model who knows her own mind and isn't just on screen to be a screamer. She is part of the story, leading from the front with the Doctor. That she isn't living on the TARDIS and has her own life away from time travel feels better than the later Pond stories where they lived at home. I think Clara has, at this point, become my favourite Doctor Who companion.

It is with her that the story ends on a lead in to the next adventure with the children she looks after finding some rather random photos online of Clara during her recent adventures. Some of them I'm not sure how they could have been taken but that doesn't spoil it.

Episode #239 : The Snowmen

"I said I'd feed you. I didn't say who to."

Episode #239:      The Angels Snowmen.
Companions:        The 11th Doctor.
Air Date:               25th December 2012.

After losing Amy Pond and Rory Williams, the Eleventh Doctor has retired to Victorian England, where Strax, Jenny Flint, and Vastra assist him. The Doctor eventually meets Clara Oswald, and takes a liking to the young barmaid who leads a double life as a governess. At the same time, a sinister plot is unfolding; snowmen are randomly appearing around London, growing in size and power. All they need to take over the world is some human DNA in ice crystal form, and the frozen body of a drowned governess can give them just that.

The 2012 Christmas special and while set at Christmas it isn't written around the holiday period specifically which for me is very nice. Using Victorian Christmas is a bit cliché but it works well for this story. Probably wouldn't work as well without it.

Once again we see a Clara look-a-like. How is this connected to Oswin from Asylum of the Daleks? Well, that is for the future and we'll get there soon enough. It was a very clever introduction and sets up our next companion and her story arc nicely.

As for the Doctor he has had time away following the loss of the Ponds. We have a change of outfit to something more Victorian/Edwardian and he's a bit depressive until a new adventure takes a hold of him. I rather like the new outfit style over the more modern one that he has had during his time with the Ponds.

Our villain is an old classic, The Great Intelligence, last seen during the days of the 2nd Doctor in 1968. It wasn't a great villain back then and it isn't very good now but as a classic era fan it is great to see another connection to the halcyon days of the show. It is rather different to that original form but the end of the episode gives us another connection and explains why the original Great Intelligence uses the London underground for it's schemes in those original stories.

The adventure itself isn't all that unfortunately. It is another very typical modern story that might have worked better had it been a multi-part adventure akin to the good old days. As it is, it feels to me as though too much is pushed together, it is rushed, and it doesn't have enough time in an hour to do it all justice. But it is an entertaining story and one which in hindsight sets up a lot of what is to come for the 11th Doctor.

Episode #205 : The Next Doctor

The "Next" Doctor: It's strange, though. I talk of Cybermen... from the stars... and you don't blink, Mr. Smith.
The Doctor: Ah, don't blink, whatever you do, don't blink, remember that? The blinking and the statues and... Sally and the angels? No?
The "Next" Doctor: You're a very odd man.
The Doctor: Mmm... I still am.

Episode #205:      The Next Doctor.
Companions:        The 10th Doctor.
Air Date:              25th December  2008.

Christmas 1851, and Cybermen stalk Victorian London. The Tenth Doctor discovers a spate of mysterious deaths, and he's surprised to meet another Doctor! Are two Doctors enough to stop the rise of the CyberKing?

The Doctor is travelling alone again and winds up at Christmas in 1851 just in time to be drawn into the evil schemes of the "Pete's World" Cybermen who have escaped the Void by somehow using Dalek technology. They now plan to convert the Earth using the villainous Mercy Hartigan. On the way he encounters someone he thinks is his future self but ultimately isn't. Much running ensues, the mystery solved and a rather obvious Cyberking is stopped.

The Next Doctor is a story where I cannot decide whether I like it or not. On one had I find the adventure somewhat lackluster and with a glaring historical issue at the end, but at the same time it's not a bad little romp. Some aspects obviously trigger a little OCD in me I guess but I'll come to that shortly. Either way i have decided that since I cannot decide it is unfair to mark the episode down so it gets an average rating from me.

Jackson Lake, the supposed "next Doctor" is quite a good character though I don't see much use for his companion Rossita. It almost makes me wish that Lake had been the next incarnation as until his amnesia/fugue is fixed he makes quite a good Doctor personality. Making him a confused personality thinking he is a Time Lord is a clever idea but once unraveled it feels like a bit of a let down and you almost wish he was the next incarnation of the Doctor.

So, jumping ahead to the historical issue that I mentioned. Well, we have a two hundred foot high Cyberman battle mech stomping all over London. Even Lake says that it will be mentioned of in the history books for years to come. But it wasn't and it really irks me that such a thing was included. Doctor Who is more subtle than that. Even when we had the Loch Ness Monster popping up in London the Doctor does make a point that humans are self deceiving at times. But this wasn't a couple hundred people seeing something in the river Thames, this is thousands of people seeing a giant robot battle suit. Now, this brings me to events from the 11th Doctor... did the reboot of the universe erase these events from ever happening in the first place? It's all timey-whimey again.

One last comment though that does make this episode better for me than other Christmas specials is that it doesn't make too much of a point of it being Christmas in the episode. There are a couple references and then they focus on the adventure, and just get on with it.

TW #25 : Fragments / Exit Wounds

"Here's what's going to happen: everything you love, everything you treasure, will die. I'm gonna tear your world apart, Captain Jack Harkness, piece by piece. Starting now".

Episode 25 :            Fragments / Exit Wounds.
Companions:           Jack Harkness, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, and Ianto Jones.
Air Date:                 21st March to 4th April 2008.

Captain John Hart returns to have his revenge on Torchwood and takes Jack prisoner. Jack and his long lost brother Gray don't have a good reunion. Can the rest of the team trust John?

Although Fragments is a sort of flashback episode it is also technically the first of a two part climax to the second season of Torchwood and so I am including both episodes under one heading. Fragments sets up John Hart luring the team to a location with the intent on killing the Torchwood team. Instead everyone survives but we have flashbacks to how the various team members were recruited by Jack Harkness.

Jack starts off in the late 19th century being discovered by a pair of Torchwood agents who being unable to kill him instead bring him into the organisation with the intent of using his skills to hunt down aliens and other strangeness. It follows him through to new years eve 1999 (when the 8th Doctor is saving the world in San Francisco) where the Cardiff team and killed by their leader as he feels nothing can save the Earth. This one is quite interesting not so much for Jack but more for showing us that early Torchwood is quite a nasty organisation and how the character changes from when he is abandoned on the Games Station until we see him again in the 20th century.

Toshiko's flashback reveals that she is a bit of tech genius and the things she had to do before UNIT arrested her and Jack recruited her. In Exit Wounds we also get a confirmation that it was Toshiko who the 9th Doctor spoke with during the events of Aliens of London/World War Three. Ianto is shown trying to get into the group following the fall of Torchwood at Canary Wharf and helping Jack capture the pterodactyl we saw briefly in the first season. Owen loses a fiance to some brain parasite that Torchwood couldn't help with. The reaction goes a long way to see why he is the way he is. Normally this sort of episode would be quite dull for me but seeing how these characters came together is actually worth an episode devoted to it.

When we get to the finale episode we learn that John Hart is being forced to do what is doing by Jack's brother Gray who for reasons I don't fully get wants to kill his brother. Now, I can understand that being tortured and left for dead by some unspeakably evil race can drive you a bit crazy but it doesn't feel fleshed out enough in this story for why Gray has such a hatred for Jack. I'd have liked a little bit more if I am honest. Eventually Gray is stopped and captured, being placed in cryogenic storage by Jack.

It was good to see John Hart again but once more I feel that he was underused having only appeared in effectively two and a tiny bit episodes. We needed some more time with the character then but I doubt we will see him make a return either.

In Exit Wounds it would appear that John Hurt, possibly through Gray, has the means to summon and repel the Weevils making me wonder whether their presence in Cardiff is the result of Jack's brother. Again, I'd like to have seen something more made of that.

Lastly this episode sees the deaths of two regular characters: Toshiko and Owen. Toshiko is shot by Gray and Owen is incinerated by a nuclear power surge. They get some good screen time in their last moments, which certainly brought a tear or two to my eyes, where Toshiko basically admits that she was in love with Owen. It is a sad ending but done very well.

Episode #172 : Tooth and Claw

Rose Tyler: I wanted to say [imitating Queen Victoria] "we are not amused". Bet you five quid I can make her say it.

The Doctor: Well if I gambled on that, it'd be an abuse of my privilege as a traveller in time.

Rose Tyler: Ten quid?

The Doctor: Done.

Episode 172:   Tooth and Claw.
Companions:   10th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:          22nd April 2006.

The Tenth Doctor and Rose have to protect Queen Victoria, but can anything stop the Empire of the Wolf?

In the past Doctor Who has covered a number of "supernatural" villains from ghosts, a composite creature/Frankenstein's monster and vampires, but with this story we get the Whoniverse treatment on Werewolves. The plot deals with an alien entity that for reasons never explained transforms a host body into a wolf-like creature when subjected to moonlight. Legends of this creature came to the attention of Queen Victoria's husband who puts a plan into operation to destroy the creature but dies before it can be implemented.

Tooth and Claw is one of those modern stories that really has both a lot going for it but also seems to be lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on. I think it comes down to the issue that there is no real reason why this entity would seek to infect the royal family and transform the British Empire into some weird steampunk space travelling civilisation. There is no sense that the entity wants to go anywhere. There is also the issue of the strange Scottish martial artists who serve the entity. That isn't explained either and is very out of place.

The story sets up the start of the Torchwood Institute, named after the hose at which the events of this adventure take place. Queen Victoria sets up Torchwood to investigate the strange and paranormal, and where necessary defeat them.

This story is worth a watch just for the werewolf element. It's more science fiction than horror however, but still very well done.

Episode #162 : The Unquiet Dead

"I saw the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon...  in Cardiff!"

Episode 162:   The Unquiet Dead.
Companions:   9th Doctor and Rose Tyler.
Air Date:         9th April 2005.

The dead are roaming the streets of 1869 Cardiff when the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler arrive, just in time for Christmas. Teaming up with Charles Dickens, the TARDIS team encounter the Gelth, creatures sucked through the Cardiff Rift from the other end of the universe, their home lost. Surely inhabiting dead bodies is wrong, though! Can both sides be helped, or are these gaseous creatures not to be trusted?

The Unquiet Dead is an excellent story that focuses on a horror element to good effect. I've always enjoyed the horror stories in Doctor Who but the new series does it so much better. Here we have a story based featuring Charles Dickens, aliens spirit creatures animating the bodies of the dead and another reference to the Time War. Three episodes in and finally I think the new show has found its new roots with this one.

We get more interaction between the Doctor and Rose as they discuss the morality of allowing these entities to use dead human bodies to continue existing. It is a tough question and is handled well here within the confines of the story. Ultimately however the Doctor continues to come across as a little arrogant here and it is hard to like this incarnation at times.

The Bad Wolf reference here comes from the serving girl Gweneth, who has the psychic gift, who sees into the future for Rose and mentions the big bad wolf. Gweneth is played by Eve Myles who would later appear in Torchwood, which ironically is based around the very time/space rift that the alien Gelth use in this episode. I do wonder whether Torchwood was first thought up around this episode and then much later transferred into it's own show.

The Undead Quiet is a very good episode, of much better quality than the previous two. I don't think there are any faults to this one at all though more of the Gelth might have been interesting.

Episode #156 : Ghostlight

Ace: It's true isn't it. This is the house I told you about.

Doctor: You were thirteen. You climbed over the wall for a dare.

Ace: That's your surprise isn't it? Bringing me back here.

Doctor: Remind me what it was that you sensed when you entered this deserted house. An aura of intense evil?

Episode 156:   Ghostlight.
Companions:   7th Doctor and Ace.
Air Date:         4th to 18th October 1989.

The Doctor brings Ace to Gabriel Chase, an old house that she once burnt down in her home town of Perivale. The year is 1883 and the house is presided over by Josiah Samuel Smith, who turns out to be the evolved form of an alien brought to Earth in a stone spaceship that is now in the basement. Others present include the explorer Redvers Fenn-Cooper, who has been driven mad by what he has seen there, and Nimrod, Smith's Neanderthal manservant. Smith intends to use Fenn-Cooper's unwitting help in a plot to kill Queen Victoria and restore the British Empire to its former glory. His plans are hampered by Control, a female alien whose life-cycle is in balance with his own. Ace inadvertently causes the release of the spaceship's true owner - a powerful alien being known as Light.

Ghostlight is a fantastic story and a real example of how good late 80's Doctor Who could be. It starts off as a suitable atmospheric horror tale in a "haunted house" and then it slowly resolves into well thought out science fiction. Ghostlight has so many levels to it that a viewer really needs to watch it several times over to catch them all. This was explained by Julian Knott in an issue of DWB as follows:

'A script as well-balanced as it was well-packed into three episodes (with no discernible padding) deserves much praise. After a couple of viewings it becomes apparent that there is hardly a word wasted, and that many key words and phrases have been picked to convey a very specific meaning (such as the Doctor's remark that Ace's change of clothes into [those of] a "Victorian gentleman" is a "metamorphosis"). Every action has a reason, every occurrence an explanation. Even the standard defuse-the-bomb/stop-the-countdown "firestorm program" sequence at the end made enough sense in context, and succeeded in rounding the story off nicely. Even if some things are not made clear at the time they occur, then they are explained, or can be explained, at a later stage.'

The Doctor is simply fantastic in this story. He balances numerous "games" and seems to be fully aware of everything that is going on in the old house. While this is an element of every incarnation I don't think it is ever so well written in classic Who as it is in both this story and the following on Curse of Fenric.

The story gives Ace a fantastic and long awaited story where she is the centre of the plot. Not nearly enough companions get that in my opinion. In Ghostlight we learn about an event that scared her as a young teenager and the Doctor brings her back to the past of that event to force her to confront her fears.

Ghostlight is a simply marvellous story that gets better with age. I recommend it fully.

Episode #91 : The Talons of Weng-Chiang

Leela: What's the tribe here?

The Doctor: Cockneys!

Episode 91:   The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
Companions: 4th Doctor and Leela.
Air Date:       Six episodes. 26th February to 2nd April 1977.

The Fourth Doctor brings Leela to Victorian London to see how her ancestors lived, but is rapidly drawn into a fiendish plot involving Chinese Tongs, disappearing women, an Oriental stage magician, a murderous ventriloquist's dummy and giant rats in the sewers.

The adventures of the 4th Doctor come back to their horror roots with another classic adventure in The Talons of Weng-Chiang. The setting for this tale of mystery and terror is the fog wrapped streets of London of the 1890's. The atmosphere for this story has been piled on thick and it serves to present a really top notch tale.

The story has it's science fiction elements as always. In this case the villain posing as the Chinese god Weng-Chiang (A made up deity I believe) is a renegade and war criminal from the future, the 51st century to be exact. We get a little bit of details about that time in this story, specifically the Doctor mentions that the Earth is in a grip of an ice age and the villainous Greel speaks about Time Agents (of which future companion Jack Harkness was once a member as we know) looking for him. We know about the ice age in the future from The Ice Warriors. It's nice to see some continuity linking from the past and the future of the show.

While the story itself is excellent the episode has some issues. My main grumble is the length of it. At six parts it is close to a three hour story and that is just too long even at the time when production and scripts were much better than the dawn of the series. The second is some truly poor effects. A couple of times we see an experiment of Greel's, a giant rat which hunts the sewers under London. The giant rat is simply a man in an oversized and painfully obvious rat costume. It is so bad as to be laughable.

This story has garnered controversy for some of its Asian roles being played by white actors in "yellowface", especially John Bennett as Chang. Most of this controversy is in the US and Canada, where the use of yellowface fell out of practice earlier than it did in the UK. Indeed, TV Ontario refused to air it after consulting with local Chinese-Canadian groups, and multiple stations in the US and Canada also declined to air it.

Episode #36 : The Evil of the Daleks

"I am not a student of human nature. I am a professor of a far wider academy of

which human nature is merely a part."

 

 

Episode 36:   The Evil of the Daleks.
Companions: The 2nd Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria Waterfield.
Air Date:        Seven episodes. 20th May to 1st July 1967.

 

The Daleks draft the Second Doctor into distilling the Human Factor. Once implanted, it will make the Dalek race invincible. Jamie's faith in the Doctor is stretched to the limit as he appears to be collaborating with the Daleks. The Doctor has a few tricks up his sleeve, but then again so might the Daleks.

 

The Evil of the Daleks is another lengthy story which is missing all but two episodes. The story synopses has it as a rather quirky story, especially for one that features the Daleks. It carries on almost immediately from the end of the prior story and then jumps to Victorian London, and then to the Dalek home world of Skaro. The overall plot seems to be that the Daleks desire a human factor in order to conquer the universe and they are trying to distill that and inject it into themselves. The Doctor ends up forced to help them and implants them with child-like mind set, before then blowing them all up.

 

This was supposed to be the final story with the Daleks for the show as their creator, Terry Nation, was attempting to get them their own American TV show which ultimately never happened. It would be some time before the Daleks reappeared in the show.

This story introduces the Dalek Emperor as the overall ruler of their race. It isn't seen again until the 9th Doctor story Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways, but it isn't clear if it is the same Emperor, or a replacement.

 

We pick up a new companion with this story, Victoria Waterfield, a young lady from Victorian London. With her father killed by the Daleks, the Doctor and Jamie take her on board the TARDIS.

 

All in all it seems like an OK story but a bit odd in places. Maybe one day it will get the animated treatment and we can see how it actually plays out.