Doctor Who - The Ghost Monument Review

The Ghost Monument, is a thrilling episode with some great character driven plot. Series 11 of Doctor Who is on a role!

Warning, this review will contain spoilers.

The Ghost Monument is the first adventure for the newly formed TARDIS team, in much the same way as End of the World or Beast Below was. Action, adventure, robots, spaceships, alien planets, scares, and mystery. What more do you want from an episode of Doctor Who! Well as with last week, this episode also had very compelling characters too.

The 13th Doctor is awesome! Jodie Whittaker delivered another stellar performance. She just utterly is the Doctor. There’s just so many traits about her that are completely who the Doctor is and should be. I also like that the Doctor’s using Northern colloquialisms like “Let’s get shift on.” After the 12th Doctor it is refreshing to have an empathic Doctor again, one who cares about people, for me that’s a core character trait of the Doctor.

It’s great having a team of companions again. Ryan, Yas and Graham all bring something new to the show. I think it feels like the right balance has been struck for having multiple companions, they’re a team and they’re working together. They feel like different people, but they have each other’s backs, and they’re bringing their individual mindset and skillset to their adventures.

It’s always a sign of bad writing when a significant death doesn’t have any lasting impact, so I like that Grace’s death still has a resonance. Graham is still going through the grieving process and trying to be there for Ryan which is really interesting to watch, very human and very emotional. I know there was some doubt when Bradley Walsh was cast as a companion, but I think - as with the casting of Billie Piper and Catherine Tate – any doubt was unfounded.

Aside from the main TARDIS team this week’s supporting characters, Angstrom and Epzo, were also compelling. Angstrom in particular was an interesting character, resourceful and initially closed off but opening up once she started to trust the Doctor.

This episode perfectly got that zone of scary but not too dark that Doctor Who excels at. Those cloth creatures (whatever they were) were genuinely unnerving. The scares in Doctor Who should be like that, unnerving but not so terrifying that they’ll traumatise the kids who might be watching.

Who else was surprised at the mention of the Stenza? The reveal that the Stenza were responsible for what happened to the planet Desolation, cast a mysterious and ominous shadow over everything that happened. Even in their absence the Stenza are a threat. I’m wondering if that’s why there’s no Daleks this year, because the Stenza are going to be a lurking, and possibly reoccurring big bad. I hope that might be the case because it’s about time Doctor Who had some new big bad monsters, and the Stenza are certainly deeply unpleasant.

Speaking of possible arcs and reoccurring stories, what is the ‘Timeless Child’? I suspect that’s going to become important later on.

This week also gave us our first look at the new TARDIS. Personally I really like this design. We only really got a glimpse of it but I like it. It has elements that sort of feel like they echo the 9th/10th Doctor TARDIS and the 11th Doctor TARDIS. This is a TARDIS that feels like the perfect fusion of organic and mechanical which is what the TARDIS should be. My only complaint is that no one uttered the words “It’s bigger on the inside.”

So to sum up, The Ghost Monument was another entertaining instalment in what promises to be an excellent series of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who - The Woman Who Fell to Earth Review

Doctor Who is back. Jodie Whittaker is the Doctor.

This review will contain some spoilers so be warned…

First off, Jodie Whittaker. She hit the ground running (literally as well as metaphorically!). From the moment we first encountered her, I felt like Jodie Whittaker was the Doctor. Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor was smart, funny, and utterly likeable. This is the newest incarnation of my hero growing up. There were elements of her performance that reminded me a little of Matt Smith and David Tennant but at the same time she utterly made the role her own.

One of the things that makes or breaks any era of Doctor Who is the companions. I think the 13th Doctor is going to have a good team of friends to play off and I think watching the dynamic unfold between them will be really interesting. Each of them is going to bring something different to their adventures with the Doctor. You can already see the traces of what’s going to make them fantastic companions as the series progresses in much the same way that Rose Tyler was showing what she was made of right from the beginning.

Ryan seems to be the smart one but not in a traditional book smart way. It also seems like he has some self-confidence issues which I think the Doctor will help him work through. He was a likeable and relatable character which is what I want to be seeing from any new companion.

Yas seems to have an investigative nose which reminded me somewhat of Sarah Jane, any companion that reminds of Sarah Jane must be doing something right! Also having a companion be a Police Officer is a pretty original idea but one that I think will work well.

I thought Graham was going to be the weakest of the new TARDIS team but I was wrong, I don’t think there is a weak member of the team. It’s interesting to see a companion who’s more cautious, I don’t think that’s really happened before.

I had a feeling that Grace was going to die, but that didn’t undermine the poignancy of her death. I think that her death is going to be something that has an important and powerful lasting impact throughout the series.

Monsters, this episode had a proper monster! If you read my Doctor Who Series 10 reviews you might recall I complained frequently about a lack of proper monsters. Well The Woman Who Fell to Earth gave us a proper monster. I don’t think Tim Shaw will come to be regarded as one of the all-time classic Doctor Who monsters but he was a good adversary for the new Doctor to face.

Even the setting was new, instead of London we’re now in Sheffield. After Clara Oswald and Amy Pond both having fairly vaguely defined backstories it was nice to see the new team having a life in a city before they met the Doctor. I think moving away from London is a smart idea, since 2005 pretty much every series of Doctor Who has been very London heavy so leaving the capital really makes this feel like a fresh start. It was definitely Sheffield, I’m from Yorkshire and it felt like an authentic representation of my county.

Fundamentally this is a ‘new Doctor’ episode. To a certain extent it followed the mould that has been set by The Christmas Invasion and The Eleventh Hour for what a new Doctor episode is. The Doctor has to figure out who they are in their newest incarnation and save the world. That is the type of episode that The Woman Who Fell to Earth is. Is that a bad thing? I don’t think so. This is a new era of Doctor Who, with a brand new Doctor, I think it was right to start the series like this. It was a great episode to whet our appetite for more Who and I definitely want to see more of what this era has in store.

Also I loved that tease we got of the new theme tune over the credits. It gave me a Classic Who vibe in all the best ways.

New Doctor New Look

It’s been too long since I wrote something about Doctor Who so in light of the BBC releasing the first official image of Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor I thought I would just share a few thoughts about Doctor Who Series 11.

Image BBC©

Series 11 seems like it is going to be a near complete relaunch for Doctor Who. I think that this will work similarly to the transition between the David Tennant and Matt Smith eras of the show. There were some aspects of continuity between the two of them but for the most part it was a change. More or less everything from the TARDIS (both inside and out) to the Sonic Screwdriver changed. That’s the level of change I expect we will be seeing by the time Jodie Whitaker is on our screens as the Doctor.

Based on the newly released image Jodie Whitaker looks very much like she is the Doctor. The whole ensemble of her new outfit just looks very Doctor-ish. I'm glad that they haven't done anything sexist and cringey like putting the Doctor in something pink or making her wear heels just because she's a woman (I was slightly worried they might do that). I'm also glad that once again the Doctor will be wearing a long coat.

In the background of the newly released promotional image of Jodie Whitaker as the Doctor we got our first look at her new TARDIS. To me the Police Box now looks a lot like the version that was used back in the 70s by the 3^rd and 4^th Doctors. I wonder if that’s a possible hint as to what the interior is going to look like. Will we finally see a TARDIS which has “the round things” again?

The Doctor is also going to be travelling with a team of companions in Series 11. My main thought about this is that it reminds me of the very first Tardis team with Ian, Barbara and Susan. I wonder if that's going to be something that's referenced. Perhaps giving her a full team of companions is a way of legitimising Jodie Whitaker as the first female Doctor by echoing the early years when multiple companions were the norm. I'm going to be reserving judgement until we know more because we literally know nothing about them right now! And remember people dismissed Billie Piper and Catherine Tate when they were initially cast yet no one (or at least no sensible person) would dismiss Donna Nobel and Rose Tyler now.

One of the main things that Series 11 is going to have to do is recapture the family audience. Doctor Who should never ever get too dark. Dark stories belong in the expanded universe and in adult spin-offs like Torchwood. There’s no denying that throughout the Capaldi era Doctor Who has struggled in the ratings and mainstream popularity. A part of why Doctor Who was such a massive success back in 2005 was because it aimed at the family audience. Jodie Whittaker needs to connect with the younger audience in the same way Christopher Ecclestone, David Tennant and Matt Smith did. Doctor Who needs to re-attract the 9 year old kids that will then read Doctor Who Adventures magazine and hunt down the action figures of their favourite characters. If the show if to survive beyond Series 11 it needs to bring in a new generation of fans.

In conclusion, I am cautiously optimistic about the future of Doctor Who. I really want Series 11 to be the smash hit success that Doctor Who deserves. So far I haven’t seen anything to make me nervous about the future of the series but I hope that my faith will not turn out to be misplaced.

The Sarah Jane Adventures Appreciation

Recently I have been watching all of The Sarah Jane Adventures and I thought I’d write a blog post sharing some appreciation for this wonderful series.

If you didn’t already know The Sarah Jane Adventures is a Doctor Who spin off series that follows the adventures on Earth of former companion Sarah Jane Smith (played by Elisabeth Sladen). In the first episode – Invasion of the Bane - Sarah Jane adopts Luke. Sarah Jane, her son and their friends Maria, Clyde and Rani then save the world from various alien threats on a weekly basis. The series ran for 5 seasons from 2007 to 2011, it came to an end in 2011 because of Elisabeth Sladen’s death.

It was definitely a part of the wider Doctor Who universe. There are monsters that are familiar from Doctor Who – like the Slitheen, the Sontarans and the Judoon – who appear. There’s also appearances from former Doctor Who companions K9, Jo Grant and the Brigadier. The Doctor himself even appears in two different stories. There’s no doubt that The Sarah Jane Adventures is connected to Doctor Who. And yet The Sarah Jane Adventures also managed to be its own unique thing. The stories are usually self-contained and whatever the situation is it never really feels like the Doctor’s presence is missed.

Undoubtedly at the heart of the series was Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith. Her warmth, humour and friendship shone throughout. She was more than capable of carrying the series and was a very likeable protagonist. When I first watched The Sarah Jane Adventures I didn’t really appreciate just how good (and rare) it was to see an older woman being presented as a capable and competent hero. Capable and competent is definitely a good phrase to describe Sarah Jane, she knows what’s up and she knows how to handle the situation.

Throughout its run The Sarah Jane Adventures was regularly willing to tackle themes of tolerance, prejudice and acceptance. These were some of the key themes and something which played into multiple stories. In terms of tolerance the show also practised what it preached with an ethnically diverse cast of characters and a good mix of male and female characters. They were even going to have Luke come out as gay had the series continued!

The storylines within The Sarah Jane Adventures worked well for the series. Unlike Doctor Who it never got bogged down with big, dramatic, overblown arcs. Most of the stories are just standalone adventures with some connections from week to week. The stories mainly follow a villain-of-the-week format but the talent of the writers meant that it doesn’t feel repetitive. The tone varies throughout the stories, some of them - usually anything involving the Slitheen – are silly and lighter hearted and there’s nothing wrong with having a bit of fun sometimes. Then there’s the more serious stories.

The Sarah Jane Adventures was a very emotionally intelligent series. The characters are allowed to be emotionally complex. Everyone in the main team ends up growing a lot throughout the series as they either deal with situations that have a significant personal resonance or we learn more about who they are. The series doesn’t speak down for its younger target demographic. Indeed there are several episodes – such as The Mark of the Berserker, The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith and The Curse of Clyde Langer – which are incredibly moving and poignant drama.

Everything about The Sarah Jane Adventures just worked well. It had likeable characters, interesting storylines and it’s very entertaining. So if you’re a Doctor Who fan who has never seen The Sarah Jane Adventures then I would firmly recommend it. If (like me) you grew up with the series and haven’t watched it since then I would definitely say that it’s one worth revisiting.

Jodie Whittaker is The New Doctor – My Reaction

As you probably know yesterday the BBC announced that Jodie Whittaker will be playing the 13^th Doctor in the next series of Doctor Who. This announcement has sparked a lot of reaction, debate and conversation online and I thought I should add my voice to this.

First off, it is far too early to be judging what the new Doctor is like. We haven’t seen her in an episode yet. We haven’t even seen what her costume is going to be. We really don’t know what she is going to be like. This immediate knee jerk reaction to dismiss the new Doctor happens every single time. I remember the near total dismissal when Matt Smith was cast and now he is regarded as one of the best Doctors. I think everyone who has already written her off – whatever their reason - needs to give her a chance first.

I have seen some reactions that seem to think because we’ve had Rey in Star Wars and Wonder Woman has had a movie that we don’t need any more women in sci-fi/fantasy. This just completely misses the point. The number of men compared to the number of women in sci-fi/fantasy is still vastly unequal. It would be nice if we could get to a point where women in sci-fi/fantasy are just seen as characters rather than female characters however part of that coming about is through choices being made like casting a female Doctor.

The Doctor being female is definitely going to change the dynamic of the show. But that’s not a bad thing. Change has always been at the core of Doctor Who. Whoever was cast as the 13^th Doctor was going to change the dynamic of the series. The grandfatherly 1^st Doctor has a completely different dynamic to the cool 10^th Doctor. Doctor Who never stays exactly the same and introducing the first female Doctor is just another change.

Sadly Doctor Who has been in a weak position lately. Whatever your opinion is on the 12^th Doctor, Clara Oswald, Bill Potts and the past few series it is hard to deny that the show is in a precarious position. Ratings have been declining and main stream appeal has been lost. Christmas 2016 was the first one since 2005 were none of the major high street stores listed Doctor Who toys in their Christmas gift guides. There’s not really many younger viewers becoming Whovians at the moment.  Before the announcement yesterday I had assumed that the BBC would see a female Doctor as too big a risk given the uncertainty around the show’s future. However the BBC seem to have decided that right now is the time to take a bit of a risk and finally cast a female Doctor. It was possibly a casting decision that was motivated by a want to get people talking about the show again which it certainly has done! I hope for the sake of the shows future that this is a risk that will pay off in terms of support for the series.

Also I’d like to see how River Song will react to learning that her husband is now her wife. River’s story was nicely concluded in The Husbands of River Song. However I would be really interested to watch Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor meeting her wife, Professor River Song.

Right now it is too early to say if Series 11 of Doctor Who will be good and if Jodie Whitaker is going to be good as the 13^th Doctor. A lot is going to depend on who her companion (or companions) are, what her stories are like, how her Doctor is going to be written and what monsters is she going to be fighting. However I have faith that Doctor Who is about to enter a new era that will end up being a very highly regarded and much loved era.

Doctor Who – The Doctor Falls Review

This episode simultaneously had the best and the worst of Moffat Doctor Who in it.

I am going to be starting this review by discussing Bill. This was ultimately Bill’s episode and watching it I cared far more about what was going to happen to Bill than anything else in this episode. I believe I have typed this more or less every week but Pearl Mackie delivered a faultless performance. The scenes where Bill struggles with being turned into a Cyberman were really well acted and gave more emotional depth to what could so easily have just been a swept aside shock twist. The final ending for her felt very satisfying. Heather appearing and returning Bill to human form didn’t cheapen Bill’s exit but instead gave her a happily ever after. I liked how it also linked back to her debut in The Pilot. Whilst I am sad that it has turned out that Bill Potts is only a one series companion I feel like that exit was a good one that left the door open for a potential future return. I think Bill Potts should be thought of as one of the all-time best Doctor Who companions, right up there with Rose Tyler and Sarah Jane Smith.

I think John Simm is undoubtedly the worst Master. In my opinion there’s just nothing redeemable about him. I have disliked Missy a lot since her debut in 2014 but I think Michelle Gomez actually gave a decent performance in this episode and made her more likeable. I think it would have been a lot better to have seen Missy sacrificing herself to stop the Cybermen and show just how much she has changed. But ultimately I don’t think either Missy or the Master were actually needed in this episode.

This episode wasn’t just the end for Bill and Missy and the Master, it was also the end for Nardole. I know reaction to Nardole has been mixed but I thought he was a good character. I always enjoy when there’s a team in the TARDIS and Nardole played off Bill and the Doctor well. The addition of Matt Lucas to the craft also brought some more humour to the show which I feel has been much needed since prior to this series. I think Nardole’s exit was a little rushed but it was a good way to send him off.

The Doctor in this episode was simultaneously great and irritating. Capaldi has rarely been able to be the Doctor that he could be but this episode gave us some moments of greatness. I know most people are probably talking about the speech and whilst it was a good moment I think some of the smaller moments in this episode were actually much stronger. Of course the Doctor would make it one of his priorities to ensure that the children were all safe. However I really don’t understand were all this angst and dread about regeneration has come from. Moffat constantly teasing that the Doctor is about to regenerate was just irritating. In my opinion regenerations should be handled like it was in 2005’s The Parting of the Ways. It should be just a regular adventure that when things go too far the Doctor has to regenerate at the end of it.

Another thing that frustrated me was why did we need English countryside on a spaceship? Moffat should have just picked either countryside or spaceship and stuck with it which would have made the story more compact. I’ve found with both parts of this story that the spaceship was not particularly well executed or explained. It was just a plot device which was not needed in a story that did better on its emotional moments.

Why did we need to see the other versions of the Cybermen? They felt like they were there for little more than fan service – or possibly to bulk out the ranks of the Cyberman army by just reusing existing costumes! I think there might have been some explanation as to why there were different generations of Cybermen but if the episode had just focused on the Mondasian Cybermen it probably would have been stronger. I think bring back to the Mondasian Cybermen was a good choice - they look more chilling which was used for eerie dramatic effect. And this story used the way the Cybermen were created as a means of survival to good effect with the Mondsian versions.

The final moment with the sudden appearance of the 1^st Doctor was a good moment to end the episode on. This felt like the type of lead into the Christmas special that I remember from growing up with Doctor Who – like when the Titanic crashed into the TARDIS or when the mysterious bride played by Catherine Tate appeared. It was especially pleasing for big Doctor Who geeks like me that the 1^st Doctor should appear in The Doctor Falls because the 1^st Doctor’s regeneration story was The Tenth Planet which was the previous appearance of the Mondasian Cybermen. I think we should be in for an interesting Christmas special with the 1^st Doctor meeting the 12^th Doctor.

In conclusion, the good parts were really good but The Doctor Falls also had a lot of elements that were just irritating and frustrating. However it was a solid conclusion to what has been a good series of Doctor Who.

I know this review is going up later than usual but I wanted to give myself more time to write a review that did justice to the episode. Obviously that’s it for this series so there won’t be a review next week. However I am planning a piece giving an overall opinion on Series 10 as well as a few more Doctor Who posts.

Doctor Who - World Enough and Time Review

I really hope that Bill survives.

This post will have some spoilers, if you wanted to watch this episode completely fresh then read the review after you’ve seen it.

I think Bill Potts has probably been the most universally popular companion since Rose Tyler, surely they can’t kill her off. Pearl Mackie once again shone in this episode and Bill has been an incredibly likeable character. After they’ve done pretty well on showing her sexuality and yet still making Bill feel like a well-rounded character it would be massively frustrating and problematic if Doctor Who fell into the tired trope of killing off the lesbian.

I’ve mentioned before that I don’t like Missy. In my review from last week I talked about how I was a bit unconvinced by the Missy redemption arc from this series. She wasn’t as irritating as she has been previously this week and some of her one-liners actually got a little chuckle from me. I’m still not sure if she’s actually going to get her redemption – I possibly suspect that she might sacrifice herself during next week’s epic battle.  

The Cybermen are back. In my opinion the Cybermen can be some of the scariest Doctor Who monsters around, however so often they’re not very well written which has led to lots of mediocre Cybermen stories over the years. This episode certainly gave us some very sinister, eerie and tense moments. It also showed just enough but left enough to the imagination which is always a good tactic for making things scary.

Bringing back the original Mondasian Cybermen as they first appeared back in 1966’s The Tenth Planet was an interesting idea however it could have been little more than fan service. I think it remains to be seen with next week’s episode if it was more than just fan service. However I am not really sure if we needed to see another origin story for the Cybermen. 2006’s Age of Steel did a good job at modernising the origin of the Cybermen in what is in my opinion one of the best stories from that series. The Big Finish audio drama Spare Parts already told an emotionally moving origin story for the Mondasian Cybermen. Also that line about the ‘genesis of the Cybermen’ just felt far too self-indulgent.

The Master is also back this week. I am not a fan of John Simm as the Master, in my opinion 2007’s The Sound of Drums and 2009’s The End Of Time are two of the very worse stories from the entire 10^th Doctor era. So as you might imagine I was very disappointed when I found out that the Master was back. Despite most of the promotion for this week making it seem like the Master was going to be a very significant part of this week’s episode he actually wasn’t in it very much. However that reveal at the end of the episode felt exactly like something out of the 3^rd Doctor era.

Overall I feel that this episode was mainly focused on setting up part two next week. There were definitely some moments during the middle which felt like the plot was sagging slightly. I suppose it would have been too much to cram into a single episode however I think this week parts of the story were stretched a little bit too thin.

I both eagerly await next week’s episode to find out what happens next but at the same time I don’t want to see what has overall been a good series of Doctor Who come to an end!

Please don’t kill off Bill!

Doctor Who - The Eaters of Light Review

I’m honestly not really sure what I think of this episode which makes it a bit of a difficult one to review!

The Doctor, Bill and Nardole arrive in Scotland to find what happened to the missing Ninth Legion and of course there’s a monster on the loose which is why the Ninth Legion vanished. This series has given us a couple of historical episodes which is good to see again because historical episodes might not have the spectacle of space episodes but they can be just as interesting. The monster this week was spoken about more than we saw it. I think this was a wise choice as the glimpses we saw of it were not that scary but when it’s just spoken about as something that’s lurking in the shadows it suddenly becomes a much more interesting creature.

Bill was great once again. I think I’ve said this every week but week after week Bill has been one of the strongest parts of each episodes. Her academic curiosity kick-started this week’s adventure, the scene where she figured out how the TARDIS translates other languages was fun, and she showed just how competent she can be when she took charge of the Ninth legion. Once again this week her sexuality was referenced. I like the way it keeps being brought up every few episodes because it reminds us that it is an important part of who she is but at the same time it does not define her.

I like how the Doctor and Bill brought the Romans and the Picts together in order to start to resolve this week’s conflict. Communication is important in resolving issues and getting on with saving the world. I think possibly this episode had some of the strongest supporting characters that we’ve seen this series. The Ninth Legion for example actually felt like they were well rounded characters rather than just stereotypes of roman soldiers, though I struggled to believe that they were meant to be 18 and younger. However whilst I liked the part with the Picts and the Romans coming together I’m really not that impressed with the conclusion to this week’s episode. I understand what they were aiming for but to me it just felt rushed and left the episode on a somewhat unsatisfying note.

Also the part with Missy at the end just felt weird and tacked on at the end unnecessarily. This whole arc about Missy potentially reforming is just a bit weird because even if she does reform are we seriously meant to believe that the Master – one of the most persistent Doctor Who villains – has become good for good?

I think overall The Eaters of Light was a likeable episode with some good moments. However I honestly don’t think it was that strong an episode and I don’t think it was that memorable. I liked it but it could have been just a bit better.

Doctor Who – Empress of Mars Review

Empress of Mars is one of the most Doctor Who-ish episodes of Doctor Who.

That opening sequence with the Doctor, Bill and Nardole wandering around NASA just felt like the perfect Doctor Who opening sequence. Right from the start of this episode I felt like I knew what I was in for and I really enjoyed it. Colonial Victorian soldiers fighting the militaristic Ice Warriors on Mars was a set up that could have fallen flat however I think it worked. The episode had the conversation that Mars is the Ice Warriors planet and the humans were the invaders in that situation. Empress of Mars pulled off an action packed episode that revelled in sci-fi fun and also had moral conversations.

If you read my post anticipating Series 10 you might remember that I was rather excited by the return of the Ice Warriors. They are definitely one of my all-time favourite Doctor Who monsters and I wasn’t disappointed by them. Empress of Mars actually marks the first time on screen that the Ice Warriors have actually been on Mars and it worked really well as a setting for them. This series was a little light on proper monsters for the first few weeks but a big Ice Warrior story with them en masse has certainly satisfied my wanting a proper monster story. However the Ice Warriors in this episode were not just another monster. They had an understandable motive which made them a compelling, interesting and redeemable threat. I liked the Empress of Mars herself, Iraxxa as a character. I thought the adapted design of the traditional Ice Warrior armour worked very well for her. Iraxxa was interesting because in some ways she was just another villain interested in destruction but she was also willing to negotiate and give peace a chance, something that we don’t usually see from the average Doctor Who monster.

This episode had a lot that felt familiar from previous Doctor Who stories, not in a stealing stuff sort of way but more an affection fan pleasing tribute to Doctor Who’s legacy. The Ice Warriors are obviously classic monsters and they’re arguably amongst the most iconic Doctor Who monsters of all time. The clash between humans and reptilian monsters based on ideologies reminded me of previous Silurian stories, particularly 1970’s The Silurians and 2010’s Cold Blood. The Ice Warrior tomb was fairly reminiscent of a certain tomb from 1967’s The Tomb of The Cybermen. At the very end of the episode we saw a glimpse of Alpha Centauri from the Peladon stories during the 3^rd Doctor era. Appropriately enough the Ice Warriors actually appeared in both The Curse of Peladon and The Monster of Peladon. This was definitely an episode crammed full of references to make a fan of classic Doctor Who smile.

I think this was a strong episode for Peter Capaldi. This episode combined the fun side of the Doctor with the man who has seen war and the hero who saves everyone. That’s the Doctor I want to see, that’s the Doctor I grew up believing in. I have previously said that the 12^th Doctor doesn’t always feel like he wants to be the Doctor or like he enjoys having adventures and saving people, however this was certainly an episode were he felt like the Doctor. There were moments in Capaldi’s performance that felt reminiscent of Matt Smith and Tom Baker.

My main disappointment with this episode was the Bill didn’t get as much to do as she has done in previous episodes. Given how she reacted in Thin Ice I feel that Bill should have had stronger opinions on the colonialist ideas of the Victorian soldiers. This was the first episode that I’ve felt like Bill’s potential was wasted. However as always Pearl Mackie absolutely shined with another excellent performance. Bill was definitely once again a highlight of the episode however she should have had more to do.

And what was up with Missy asking the Doctor if something is wrong at the very end of the episode? Something to do with the finale, I think.

In conclusion, the eagerly awaited return of the Ice Warriors did not disappoint me. Empress of Mars was a Doctor Who episode full of fan pleasing moments, monsters and an enjoyable story. I think it’s one of my favourites this series.

And if you’re wondering, of course the Doctor’s Frozen reference made me laugh!

Doll Book Shop – My Latest Craft

I finished my latest craft project today, making a doll sized book shop!

I’m a literature student and I love collecting dolls and making rooms to display them in so I guess it was only a matter of time before I made something like this! I took inspiration from tutorials by MyFroggyStuff on YouTube and combined that with my own ideas. Before I started I wondered if this project was going to be too ambitious but I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

As with all my doll rooms, this started off as a cereal box that I cut open the front side on and then covered the edges in paper.

Next I started to make the outside of the bookshop. Using a doll as a guide I cut out a piece of wood grain scrapbook paper to be the door. The wood print paper is from that pack I found in my haul the other week. I cut out a sign for the shop and a window that I’d made on the computer and printed out. The window is a photo of some of my books that I edited so it looked like a window display.

Usually I don’t bother decorating the outside of the box but on this occasion I wanted to make a shop front. I covered half of the outside with white paper and half with more wood grain scrapbook paper. I then glued the sign, window and door onto the box. Now the store front is finished.

With the exterior completed it was time to start working on the inside. I used a doll as a guide to figure out what would be the right size for this book print scrapbook paper I found in Hobbycraft. Once trimmed down I glued the book print into the box and then covered the bottom half with white paper.

I decided to use more wood grain paper to cover up the seam between the two sides of the book print paper and suggest a beam in the shop. I then used (even more) wood grain for the flooring and glued in another edited picture for a window. This is a photo of a street that I took in San Francisco, I guess that means this book shop is in California!

With the basic room completed the book shop needed furnishing. I found this box in The Works, I think it’s meant to be a jewellery box but I’m repurposing it as a book case. I made mini books by gluing images from flyers, catalogs and leaflets onto card from an Amazon order. The books fit nicely into the book case and went in the room.

For some finishing touches I took a frame that I had left over from The Superhero Hangout and framed this little quote from The Doctor (if you’re wondering the quote is from 2006’s Tooth and Claw). I also added the ottoman poofs that I had made previously from a MyFroggyStuff video, they’re really easy to make as they are just old socks!

So here’s the finished room with various dolls using it! I like that this is a room which can be used by various characters. This room has a lot of pattern and texture however it doesn’t feel like it’s too much. I also like that it’s a space that I can expand further with the potential to add extra books and extra shelving units in the future.

Doctor Who – Extremis Review

Spoiler warning, it probably is impossible to talk about this episode without giving a few spoilers. This episode is best watched without knowing what’s going to happen so please only read this review after watching the episode.

First off, Pearl Mackie once again was excellent as Bill Potts. Bill is a really likeable companion and she brings a great sense of excitement as she sees new things. But Pearl is also great at delivering the emotional beats that are necessary, there’s more to Bill than her one-liners.

Speaking of companions, I like Nardole. He’s been a good addition to the main cast and Matt Lucas brings a welcome dose of humour which is something that has been missing from the programme over the past couple of years. I also liked the revelation in this episode that River Song sent him to look after the Doctor. It’s nice to get a reminder that even though River has gone she certainly hasn’t been forgotten.

I think the plot of this episode can best be described as the Doctor Who version of The Matrix. But before we got to that twist this was an episode about a mysterious book that should not be seen. I liked the mystery aspect of Extremis, it was an intriguing concept which was interesting to watch unfold. I simultaneously wanted Bill and the Doctor to read the Veritas to find out what it was but also really didn’t want them to. I also really liked the twist when it turned out that everything we had been watching was actually a simulation and the Doctor was really sat outside the Vault all along. This is one of those episodes that will be good to re-watch once you know how it all ends.

Extremis has filled us in on what’s in the Vault. I was really hoping that the Vault was going to turn out to be a series long arc and so I was disappointed that we got a more or less full reveal in episode six. After Knock Knock it was not a surprise to learn that it was Missy lurking in the Vault but it was still interesting to learn the how and why. I really don’t like Missy but she wasn’t actually that irritating in this episode, the flashbacks to her where nicely used throughout the episode and I liked the way that they contrasted what was happening as the story unfolded.

Missy wasn’t actually the main villain for this week. Instead we got some zombie like creatures – I don’t know what they’re called yet but the BBC Doctor Who website is calling them the Monks. Their design kind of reminds me of the humanoid form of the Pyrovile’s from 2008’s The Fires of Pompeii. After the first few weeks lacked proper monsters these were interesting creatures to see. We don’t know much about them yet which is intriguing to watch. However they are clearly very powerful and they are planning a massive invasion of Earth.

I don’t know if it’s just because I’m out of the loop but I was surprised to find out that this episode leads into next week’s episode, I thought it was another standalone story. I actually really like the way that Oxygen, Extremis and The Pyramid at the End of the World will all link together. It reminds me of how back in 1975 The Arc In Space, The Sontaran Experiment, Genesis of the Daleks and Revenge of the Cybermen all linked together. Each one can be viewed as a story in its own right but they all link together.

In conclusion, this was an interesting episode with an intriguing concept and finally some really cool monsters! Extremis also did a good job at tying up several dangling story threads whilst also setting up a second half. Once again Series 10 has given us another solid episode of Doctor Who!

Doctor Who – Oxygen Review

‘Space the final frontier…’ I liked this episode from the moment it opened with the Doctor quoting Star Trek!

Now, before I start this review properly I’m going to give a spoiler warning. I don’t think it will be possible to write about this episode without talking about that last minute twist. So be warned!

Oxygen was essentially a base-under-siege episode. A classic Doctor Who story type that has been done many times throughout the shows history. Tonally I’d say this base-under-siege was most similar to 1977’s The Robots of Death and 2007’s 42. Oxygen has that constant sense of pressure and the constant building of obstacles and challenges much like 42. But it also has a similar tone to The Robots of Death with the thing that the mining crew rely on turning against them and picking them off.

Even though it was a fairly standard format for Doctor Who this episode definitely gave us something new. The concept at the heart of the episode - oxygen is being sold to space explorers - is an intriguing one. The episode did a good job of exploring what that would mean for humans travelling through space in that future. However admittedly it become reduced to just ‘we’re fighting space suit zombies’. Not that I mind, I have been saying for the past few weeks that I’ve been wanting proper monsters and this week I finally got them! But I would have actually liked to have seen the episode delve into the concept of oxygen coming at a price a little more, admittedly 45 minutes is a little too short to go too in depth but if Oxygen had been a two parter then that would have been interesting.

Peter Capaldi is nailing his performance as the Doctor each week. This is what I have been wanting from him since he took over the role. He had some speeches about saving people that wouldn’t have felt out of place in a Matt Smith or David Tennant episode. This is a Doctor enjoying saving the universe, something that we haven’t really seen much of from the 12^th Doctor prior to Series 10. He can be dangerous but he is also compassionate, funny and most importantly a hero.

As for the thing at the end of the episode that I mentioned at the start of this post… The Doctor is blind now. I did not see that coming, after all it’s not unusual for someone to get hurt during an adventure but it rarely tends to be permanent. Except this time it is permanent. The Doctor is now blind. I’m interested to see how that is going to unfold during the rest of the series.

So overall this was another solid episode that was reminiscent of Doctor Who at its best. I’m starting to feel that this season is almost giving us a Greatest Moments of Doctor Who and I am absolutely fine with that!

Doctor Who – Knock Knock Review

I don’t think this week’s episode was the best, especially given how good the past few weeks have been, but it was good to see a story that gave us more of a glimpse into who Bill is. Also, warning you now but there’s some spoilers in this review.

From 1989’s Ghostlight, to 2007’s Blink, to 2013’s Hide, the haunted house that is actually being inhabited by aliens is a reoccurring story throughout Doctor Who. I think the choice to do this story trope with Bill’s search for student housing was an interesting one. I was expecting that to play out in a comedic way like 2010’s The Lodger but I think this episode actually had far more in common with Hide. The first part is a spooky story about a house where something weird is happening and then in the final part we find out that it’s actually not what we first thought and it is something more emotional.

Knock Knock had some very unnerving monsters. Not in the way that the Silence or the Weeping Angels are unnerving. Just it really made my skin crawl when we saw the space lice things swarming and crawling around. However, I’m still wanting a really big bad monster. But going by the next time trailer I might finally get the big bad monster as next week’s thing looks very similar to the Vashta Nerada.

Once again Bill was the star of the episode, Pearl Mackie once again delivered a great performance. I have a feeling that Bill Potts is going to end up right up there with Sarah Jane Smith and Rose Tyler in the all-time best companion rankings. Bill keeps asking questions and seeing things in new and interesting ways. In this episode we also got to see how being with the Doctor has started to change her, much like when Rose Tyler returned home for the first time in Aliens of London. One of the problems with Amy Pond, Rory Williams and Clara Oswald was that we never really got too much of a glimpse into their lives away from the Tardis, and when we did it never felt that developed. Knock Knock gave Bill friends and showed her dealing with something instantly recognisable, student housing! And also it made me laugh when Black Magic by Little Mix was the song that came up on her phone, particularly as I’d been listening to it earlier!

I was wondering during the past week if Bill’s sexuality was going to ever be addressed again. So often in Sci-Fi/Fantasy when LGBT characters actually appear the writers will have a brief moment  then never mention their sexuality again – like Sulu in the most recent Star Trek film for example. However we had another reference to the fact that Bill is a lesbian in tonight’s episode.

I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I love that this series is partially set in and around a university. Having a companion who is a student is an obvious but great idea. Having the Doctor at a university is also an obvious but great idea. It’s just so entertaining to watch! Though maybe I’m biased as I am currently a student.

I was disappointed by the vault scene at the end of the episode. I was really hoping that the vault was going to be something that was only kept in the background but this week I felt it was a little too much. I think that it’s going to turn out that Missy is locked up in the vault and she’s going to break free from it soon.

Overall Doctor Who finally seems to be back to the standard it should be. Not every episode is an all-time great but this series is still proving to be definitely worth watching, long may it continue.

Doctor Who – Thin Ice Review

The first trip into the past for Bill delivered yet another solid Doctor Who adventure.

I compared last week’s episode to 2010’s The Beast Below, however with a creature being held captive for the gains of the human characters Thin Ice managed to echo The Beast Below more in some ways!

Peter Capaldi once more shines as the Doctor. This series is just proving that – as I know some people have said – he was always going to be an amazing Doctor if he was just given good scripts. There’s a speech that the Doctor gives in this episode that I feel is going to end up ranking right up there amongst the very best of the Doctor’s speeches.

Thin Ice managed to balance how to show the Doctor’s guilt and shame over killing with the optimistic hero that he should be. I really don’t like it when the Doctor is written as a tortured hero, that’s not who he is! Yes he can get grumpy and angry but at the end of the day he is always a hero and an optimist. I know the counterargument is that because he’s lived so long and fought in the Time War he should be tortured however I think Thin Ice showed perfectly how to get the right balance.

Doctor Who has always been at its very best when the companion is allowed to shine and show off their strengths. Bill continues to be an interesting character to watch and a refreshing change after Clara Oswald’s more smug tendencies. She has some great one-liners that made me genuinely laugh out loud, however I think her strongest traits are her enquiring mind and her strong sense of compassion. It was interesting to see a companion actually struggling to deal with the fact that the Doctor’s adventures often involve death. I might be wrong, but I think this is one of the first times we have ever seen a companion be shocked at a death in Doctor Who.

Another thing that was refreshing to see in an episode of Doctor Who was an acknowledgement that racism is a thing that existed in the past. This episode wasn’t defined by dealing with racism but it was referenced and acknowledged. It makes sense to at least address racism in the past given that Bill is a black woman in Regency England.

Episodes where it’s the humans who are the real monsters are quite common within Doctor Who, 2008’s Planet of the Ood or the various Silurian stories being a couple of examples of that type of story. Thin Ice certainly falls into that bracket. This style of episode can either be really well done or come across as too heavy handed in its message, fortunately Thin Ice managed to do this story well. However I do still hope that soon we get an episode with a proper big bad monster.

The way that this series is all set around (or keeps referencing) the university that the Doctor is teaching at feels quite reminiscent of the way that UNIT kept reoccurring throughout the 3^rd Doctor era to me. In the 3^rd Doctor era the Doctor worked for UNIT as their scientific advisor and many stories would partially revolve around UNIT. This similarity to the UNIT era of Doctor Who is further heightened with Nardole’s frequent appearances and the way that Smile and Thin Ice followed on from each other. I personally am all for this sort of grounding and connectedness between the episodes.

I think that Thin Ice was another solid episode for this series that delivered on the emotional potential of its context and managed to rise beyond being just another historical episode.

Doctor Who – Smile Review

The new series of Doctor Who is continuing to make me smile.

The future human colony where something has gone wrong. It’s a classic story line that has appeared countless times in the sci-fi genre. It’s a story that Doctor Who has frequently used before (from 1977’s The Face of Evil to 2008’s The Doctor’s Daughter). However even though we’ve seen this type of story done before it’s a story archetype that can still work if it’s done well, Smile manages to do it well.

The real strength of this episode was watching the relationship and friendship between Bill and the Doctor develop. The Doctor is pushing Bill and she’s pushing him back. I love how Bill keeps asking questions and is very curious about all the new situations that she’s encountering each week. The way Bill reacts to stuff with enthusiasm and curiosity is really interesting to watch, because let’s be honest going to a city in the future on another planet would be cool! Peter Capaldi’s 12^th Doctor and Pearl Mackie’s Bill Potts are just such a good companion/Doctor team, in the same sort of way that it was always a joy to watch David Tennant and Catherine Tate sparking off each other.

I think one of the weakest aspects of this story were the aliens/monsters. The Vardy were an interesting concept though I feel that they would have been even stronger if they’d had chance to be a little bit more developed. And whilst moral ambiguity is interesting to play with, this is Doctor Who and sometimes you just want a big bad monster. When I first saw the Emojibots I thought that they were designed to sell toys, I definitely think that is the case after having seen the episode! However cool robots are a staple of Doctor Who – from K1 to K9 – so I’m not complaining too much about them!

In terms of the ongoing story arc I’m pretty happy with the level that they’re setting it at so far. There was another reference to the vault that the Doctor is protecting and another mention of the Doctor making an oath but otherwise it wasn’t touched on to heavily. Enough to tease but not enough to dominate the plot of this episode.

This episode was always going to be defined as the ‘Bill Potts takes her first proper trip in the TARDIS’ episode. To that end it works well in helping us get to know Bill more. This episode certainly had a few tonal similarities with The End of The World and The Beast Below, the first proper trips in the TARDIS for Rose Tyler and Amy Pond. There was even a brief allusion to Starship UK which featured in The Beast Bellow! I suspect that Smile much like those episodes won’t come to be an all-time favourite but it was an episode that epitomised much of what makes Doctor Who great.

Basically, it’s not an all-time classic episode but there’s a lot to like in Smile.

Also, I am definitely going to be reviewing the episodes of this series of Doctor Who each week. But I promise that I am going to be getting out some more non-Doctor Who blog posts soon!

Doctor Who – The Pilot Review

Doctor Who is back, and it’s good!

Last night the first episode of the new season of Doctor Who aired and it was good, it feels like the show is back on track where it should be. I am pleased to say that I was not disappointed by The Pilot.

Peter Capaldi is the Doctor! After two seasons of doubting him I finally feel like Capaldi has become the Doctor that he should have been from the start. I won’t go into detail this time about all my problems with the 12^th Doctor, I already talked about that in my Return of Doctor Mysterio review and my pre-Series 10 post. However I felt like in The Pilot we got to see the full range of who the Doctor can and should be instead of just some grumpy guy moping around which is what he has been for the past couple of series. This is finally the 12^th Doctor as he should be, someone who is strange but funny and also compassionate. I particularly liked the little touch of having a picture of River Song and Susan on his desk, it helped to make the Doctor feel like he was still a part of what has come before him.

Setting the episode in a university was a brilliant idea. It just makes so much sense to see the Doctor in that environment. The scene were the Doctor was lecturing at the university was great, that speech felt reminiscent of some of the epic speeches that Matt Smith used to give. I think I agree with the Doctor’s summation that being a student is about texting, snogging and vegan wraps! (Even though I’m not out snogging!)

I liked how this episode was setting up some of the later series. The Doctor was at the university because he is protecting something that is hidden in a vault, it wasn’t specified what was lurking in the vault but I bet that whatever it is will become relevant later on in this series. The brief appearance from a Dalek was good. I hope that was it for the Daleks in this series. I don’t want them to be a big bad in yet another series but it was good to see the Daleks briefly appear as a reminder that they are still lurking out there.

Let’s talk about Bill Potts now. This was the first episode for her she shone as the new companion, I’m looking forward to getting to know her more over the coming weeks. To me it feels like there is something about Bill that is reminisicent of both Rose Tyler and Donna Nobel. I think Bill is going to be a welcome addition to the TARDIS. Bill is particularly notable as the first LGBT companion, I thought her sexuality was well handled in this episode as part of the plot revolved around her having a crush on a woman. Bill is definitely a lesbian, it is part of who she is however – at this point - it’s neither being ignored or defining her. Also she got even cooler when it turned out that she’s into sci-fi!

Tonally I think The Pilot was closest to 2008’s series opener Partners In Crime. In some ways it was a fairly standard new companion episode. We had the glimpse into her life, then the weird thing happening, the meeting with the Doctor and of course the ‘it’s bigger on the inside moment’. But most importantly this episode was about the Doctor meeting his new best friend.

A New Series of Doctor Who is Coming

As you probably know a new series of Doctor Who is starting soon. This is the 10^th series since Doctor Who returned back in 2005 and the last series for Peter Capaldi’s 12^th Doctor. I became a Doctor Who fan back when I was 8 and saw the episode Rose when it originally aired. However I have been getting increasingly cold on Doctor Who since the mess that was Series 8 aired. I have been a very loyal fan for a large chunk of my life so this isn’t just me spewing out negativity. I really want this new series to be good.

This series is bringing us a brand new companion, Bill. I’m still trying to make my mind up on Bill however in terms of personality it looks like she is going to be a distinct departure from Amy Pond and Clara Oswald. Also Bill has a girlfriend! This is tremendously exciting to finally be seeing a full time LGBT companion in the TARDIS, especially an LGBT Woman of Colour. LGBT characters in sci-fi/fantasy are rare and LGBT Women of Colour are even rarer, so long as her story is well handled I think we should be applauding the BBC for this move.

From a story point of view it’s also a very promising sign that Bill already has a partner when she meets the Doctor. Part of what made the Russel T Davis era of Doctor Who so good was that Rose Tyler, Martha Jones and Donna Nobel all had people they cared about. The companions having lives outside of the TARDIS was a new development when Doctor Who came back in 2005 but it was something that helped make the new series even richer. In this way I hope that Bill will follow the mold set by Rose, Martha and Donna.

Another element that I hope is revived from the 2005 series for this new series is the way that story arcs are handled. The Bad Wolf and Torchwood arcs from Series 1 and 2 are perfect examples of how a story arc should unfold within Doctor Who. Week by week there were little hints which built towards the finale. If you missed them it didn’t matter but if you went back and viewed the whole series you could see the arc being foreshadowed. This is how a story arc should be done as opposed to the mess of unanswered questions and needlessly complex back and forth plotting that has become the norm since 2010.

The Ice Warriors are back! This has me excited as the Ice Warriors rank pretty highly amongst my favourite Doctor Who monsters. The race of warriors from Mars are arguably one of the most complex alien races in Doctor Who. They are a military race who have a strong code of honour – not unlike the Klingons in Star Trek. However what makes the Ice Warriors so interesting to me is that they are allowed to be morally ambiguous, some of them are pacifistic scientists whilst others are completely evil warmongers. The trailers for the new series also seem to be teasing that the Ice Warrior story is going to be set on Mars. This is a new take for the Ice Warriors as they have never had a TV episode set on Mars. In the Doctor Who expanded universe there have been many Ice Warrior stories that have delved into the culture of their home world I hope we get to see this on TV.

I’m disappointed that the Daleks are coming back, however I am intrigued by the return of the Cybermen. The Daleks have become overused and in my opinion they need a significant break before they next return. The Cybermen have also been overused in recent years, let’s be honest the last good Cyberman story was 2006’s Doomsday. But what I find interesting about them retuning this time is that the production team has decided to bring back the very original designs of the Cybermen from their 1966 debut. Bringing back the original Cybermen allows for a fresh start and provides a convenient excuse to drop the mess of continuity and bad storylines from the past decade of Doctor Who.

Basically at the moment I’m expecting the best but preparing for the worst. I really want this new series of Doctor Who to be good but I am worried that it might let me down again.