Doctor Who 7x04 The Power of Three

Amy and Rory are now the longest running companions in post-2005 Doctor Who yet I feel
I know less about them than I do with Rose, Martha or Donna from the Russell T Davies years. The problem is that without a family, friends or fixed location, there's never been anything to make the Ponds feel grounded in reality. Their lives have been rewritten and rebooted due to the many time paradoxes found in Moffat era episodes. Fortunately, writer Chris Chibnall has made use of Amy and Rory's penultimate adventure to delve deeper into the personal lives of these two characters.

Amy and Rory wake up one morning in their home to find that small black cubes have appeared in their street. The Doctor is already on Earth and they soon discover that Cubes have appeared all across the world. Everyone notices the cubes, including UNIT, led by Kate Steward. They track the Doctor so that they can get him to help them. The Doctor decides to monitor the Cubes until they show signs of action. This means he has to live at the Ponds for a year,which gives him the chance to get the Ponds better. These domestic moments become the focus of the story.

It's difficult to imagine what Amy and Rory would be like without the Doctor since so much of their lives are built around their experiences with him. Amy grew up obsessed with her "raggedy Doctor". Rory first became a nurse simply to try and become more like the Doctor to impress Amy. Their daughter was used as part of a sci-fi plot to assassinate the Doctor. Even Amy's new job as a travel journalist  complements the Doctor's role as a traveler. In this episode we get to see them do normal things like throwing out rubbish, checking the fridge and receiving a message about glasses prescriptions. We also get to see them with friends and colleagues, though not long enough to really build up a picture of life without the Doctor.

Fortunately, Rory's dad, Brian is back. As a recurring character, he helps to build the sense of the Ponds having a consistent history. He's just as fun as he was in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, thinking up all sorts of possible origins of the Cubes and keeping a log  to diligently records the activity of the Cubes everyday. He also gets to show some inner strength in his concern about whether the Doctor can keep his two relatives safe.

While Amy and Rory find it easy to slip  into the life of the Doctor, the Doctor seems to find it much more difficult to slip in to theirs. Four days of no cube activity frustrate the Doctor. His attempts to stave off tedium, by painting the garden fence and practicing football, all in under an hour, are some of the funniest moments of the episode. He resembles a child with ADHD, to the point where he won't even stay on Earth and nips off in the Tardis. He still wants to be around the Ponds though, and drags them off on all sorts of adventures before realizing that he is making life more difficult for them as a result. His best moment is when he is chatting with Amy and tells her that he travels he is running towards things, not away for them. It's a good justification for his travelling, and also  fits in with the reasons why he left Gallifrey in the first place. A normal life is nothing for him.

With the focus on the Pond family, the only other major character is Kate Stewart,  leader of UNIT and daughter of former Brigadier, Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. The reference to Sir Alistair seemed a little gratuitous and I would've preferred they stuck with Colonel Magumbo as a leader, but I still enjoyed Jemma Redgrave's performance.

After a year of being dormant, the Cubes finally activate and begin attacking people. This is where the episode starts to fall apart.  Rory and Brian head to the hospital where Brian gets kidnapped by two androids posing as nurses. These androids have been running tests on the hospital staff, but it's not clear why they need to keep experimenting since they must be ready to destroy the humans by now.

Fortunately, the Doctor and Amy are able to reach a spaceship and find Rory and Brian. It is here that we see the creature behind the Cube attack. The Shakri was a bit of a disappointment. The Doctor claims that it is a legend from Gallifrey, but that seems to hold no relevance other than to make them seem like a bigger threat than they actually were. Galactic pest controllers are not really the stuff of childhood nightmares. It seemed like a waste of Steven Berkoff's acting talents to have him speaking generic dialogue with his face covered in  latex. The fact that the Shakri is just a recorded image means that he doesn't even act against Matt Smith or anyone else.

The threat of the Cubes is dispatched with a quick flick of the sonic screwdriver. A simple alteration to the signals and peoples' hearts start beating again, It's a disappointing conclusion to what up to that point had been a decent tale.

The concept of exploring the lives of the companions was introduced in the Russell T Davies era, and this episode seems to pay homage to his era in more ways than one. Here we have an alien invasion which is televised around the world, celebrity cameos, and we see the way that the way that people react to the invasion. The fact that there hasn't been a story like this for ages meant that the old tropes suddenly felt fresh and exciting again.

Director Douglas MacKinnon does a good job of directing, using a lot of fast cuts and slow-mo moves. At times it felt a little distracting, like when Brian turns from the Pond's window to the street of cubes. At the same time, it helps to move the episode forward quickly, given that younger viewers might have been bored with the lack of monster.

This episode was less of a mini movie than the others, but focused much better on character. I've always had a bit of affection for the Ponds, mostly because I like Karen Gillan and Arthur Darville. But Chris Chibnall has succeeded in making me feel that their loss next week will be huge. Only the disappointing conclusion prevents this from becoming one of the great stories.

6/10

Doctor Who 7x03 A Town Called Mercy

It's been forty six years since The Gunfighters and now Doctor Who has attempted to do a Western episode again. A Town Called Mercy has the advantage over The Gunfighters of some very good foreign location filming in Spain. Director Saul Metzstein manages to pull off a filmic look for the tale using modern camera techniques. 

The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in the town of Mercy. The Doctor is quick to spot the oddities,  as the electrics ten years before their time and the wariness of the townspeople. It turns out that the wariness is caused by an alien cyborg known as "The Gunslinger" who is preventing people from leaving the town is demanding that the townspeople hand over an alien doctor called "Kahler Jex". The town Marshall, Isaac, is trying to keep Jex safe since it was Jex who installed the electrics. 

But Jex is no innocent. The Doctor discovers that Jex is responsible for creating the Gunslinger as part of some hideous experiments to create machines of war. The Doctor is angry and comes perilously close to handing over Jex to the Gunslinger. It takes some words from Amy, and the accidental death of Isacc, to force the Doctor back to the path of non violent action. 

Despite the movie feel, this is a small scale story, focused on the conflict between justice and mercy. The Doctor is personally baffled by these ethics.  He wishes to save the townspeople, but at the same time, he can understand Jex since they are very similar. Both are Doctors who have fought in a war and wish to save  people. Surprisingly, Whithouse avoids any specific references to the Time War. When Jex calls the Doctor up, he focuses on the Doctor's morality rather than guilt. For this reviewer, the ommision damaged the episode.

Adrian Scarborough does a good job portraying the guilt that Kahler Jex feels, switching from a polite and harmless suited scientist to a man who has bitterness inside. In spite of his cowardliness he makes the decision to kill himself and bring an end to the conflict.

Amy tries to be the voice of reason for the Doctor and Jex. "That's not how we roll and you know it" she tells the Doctor as he is about to allow Jex to die. "We have to be better than this". These are strange words coming from Amy, who carried a gun in The Impossible Astronaut and again in A Good Man Goes to War. In The Wedding of River Song, she kills Madame Kovarian and only much later shows any feelings of remorse. If anything, I think Rory would be the one more likely to want to save lives. As he is a nurse, he would believe in the sanctity of life. Instead, Rory gets one line about how he is willing to allow the Doctor to kill Jex, and does pretty much nothing else for the rest of the episode. It is disappointing for this to happen in one of his final episodes.

The Gunslinger is inspired by many different sources. His appearance is like that of a Terminator, while his goal of hunting down his creator is similar to that of Frankenstein's monster. It was good that he didn't kill himself at the end of the episode, as that would have been predictable.

The townspeople all fulfill the roles of the Western genre. The Sheriff the young lynch mobster, barmaid and preacher. Ben Browder plays the role of the Sheriff Isaac very straight, and not at all cheesy. In spite of this being a story about mercy, the Preacher doesn't really contribute anything to the tale.

This is an interesting story, with shades of Boom Town due to the Doctor's personal dilemma relating to justice. Nevertheless this episode never quite hits as hard emotionally as it should have done. 

6/10

Doctor Who 7x02 Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

It took me quite a while to form an opinion about this episode. On the one hand it's not a particularly subtle or complex story, but on the other hand it is still a lot of fun. Writer Chris Chibnall has taken many different elements that kids would love, such as dinosaurs, camp robots and a big game hunter, and constructed a plot around them that remains surprisingly coherent.

The Doctor has assembled a gang to help him investigate a spaceship heading to Earth. On board the ship the Doctor and his gang discover the dinosaurs of the title. There are many different sorts, from ankylosaurs to pterodactyls, triceratops, t-rex and velociraptors. All of them are well realised in CGI form by the creators at the Mill.

Of course, budget issues mean that the episode cannot focus entirely on dinosaur chases, so the plot focuses more on why there are dinosaurs on a ship rather than just trying to get away from them. It turns out that the ship was built by Silurians. It was clever of writer Chris Chibnall to tie the presence of dinosaurs in with an old piece of Doctor Who mythology.

The Silurians themselves are long dead, killed by Solomon, a space pirate who wants to sell the dinosaurs for profit. Many villains in post 2005 Doctor Who have had motivations but Solomon is the first truly nasty villain we’ve seen in ages. He simply wants money, and nothing else. He shows no compassion towards anything at all. You feel very little sympathy for him when the Doctor allows him to die from the missile strike. 

The Doctor spends most of the episode in a fun mood.  He is exuberant in this episode, firing on all emotions from the joy of seeing dinosaurs to kissing Rory. He also gives full on anger when dealing with Solomon.

With no divorce angst this week, Amy Pond is a lot happier and fun to watch. She’s a lot more active in this episode,  accessing the ship's computer and providing the Doctor with crucial information about the nature of the ship. She is almost a Doctor figure herself, keeping an eye on Nefertiti and Riddell.

It was good to see how far Rory has developed since The Eleventh Hour by comparing him with his father, Brian. Rory is so used to the madness of time travel that he just accepts the crazy conclusions that the Doctor comes to without questioning them. He's also angry when Brian is injured and unafraid of venting his anger towards Solomon's camp Robots. Brian Williams is a little more doubtful and hysterical in a crisis. It’s fun seeing Brian adjust to the world of the Tardis and becoming a traveller at the end of the story. It was a bit of a coincidence that the ship needed two people of the same gene set to fly it.

Chris Chibnall has taken a lot of elements that kids would love, such as dinosaurs, Egyptians and big game hunters, and somehow put them together in a coherent plot which works. There are a few conveniences, such as the Doctor recruiting a big game hunter as though he knows he'll need one. There is also the fact that the ship needs two people of the same genetic code to fly the ship, which makes it pretty convenient that the Doctor accidentally brought Brian along. Niggles aside, this episode is still generally good.

7/10

Doctor Who 7x01 Asylum of the Daleks

I must admit, before this episode aired I felt very little enthusiasm about the return of Doctor Who. While I knew that kids love the Daleks, I'd personally grown tired of them. When they first came back, in the 2005 episode Dalek, the old monsters felt fresh and exciting again. Now, after appearing in many episodes since, their cries of "exterminate" have once again become stale and repetitive. Why, I thought, could the production team not have brought back another old enemy? Like the Cybermen? Or the Master? Something that hasn't been used quite as often. Or even better, create an entirely new and exciting adversary? Fortunately, with this episode, Moffat managed to make me excited about the idea of Daleks once more.

The episode gets off to an impressive start with an impressive CGI sequence of the ruins of the Dalek City on Skaro. It's been years since this planet appeared on Doctor Who. When the camera pans through into the Dalek statue it's a good reminder of how far the series has progressed, technically, since 1963. It is here, that the Doctor encounters Dalek sleeper agent Darla Von Kaarlsen, and is trapped by the Daleks. Meanwhile, on Earth, Amy and Rory are also captured by the Daleks and brought to a ship. Here they reunite with the Doctor and are take before the Dalek parliament. It's another impressive feat, with hundreds of Daleks. Only the Dalek Minister himself is a disappointing, just a Dalek mutant in a tube. On top of all this, the Daleks ask the Doctor, Amy and Rory to save them. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Great as the pre-credits sequence is, it's nothing compared to the shock that comes after the titles when we meet Oswin Oswald, an ever so familiar brunette. Jenna Louise Coleman's surprise appearance, several months before she becomes the new companion, has to be one of the best kept secrets of the new series. For a moment I doubted my facial recognition skills. I was also surprised to find that I enjoyed watching her. She was funny and quick witted. I now look forward to seeing her in the Christmas special.

Oswin was a crew of the Alaska, a ship that has crashed into the Asylum, a planet where the Daleks keep their insane in captivity. The Alaska has crashed into the planet, meaning the insane Daleks can get out. The Daleks want the Doctor, Amy and Rory to go down to the planet and deactivate the shields. The Asylum itself is a good concept. The outside of the planet is a beautiful snowy landscape, filmed in Spain. The interior is a wonderful area of dank, dripping metal rooms and corridors. It's another success for production designer Michael Pickwoad.

With the help of Oswin, The Doctor, Amy and Rory are able to avoid the nanite infected bodies of the Alaska crew and the insane Daleks to reach the shield control. Along the way, Amy becomes infected with the nanites, converting her into a Dalek slave. There is also the underlying issue of Amy and Rory's breakup, something the Doctor is determined to fix. I never quite believed this subplot since in The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe they seemed to be fine together. Amy eventually reveals to Rory that she left him because she cannot have children. While it's nice to know that events in A Good Man Goes to War are still having repercussions for Amy, after she was so blase in Series Five, It still seems odd that Amy and Rory never discussed these reasons while they were arranging the divorce. What did Amy actually tell Rory was the reason she wanted the divorce?

Before leaving the planet, the Doctor attempts to rescue Oswin and another twist comes into play. Oswin was an insane Dalek all along. Her human personality is her way of blocking off the truth. There's still the question of why Oswin spoke in a human voice to the Doctor, but it doesn't spoil the fun. She manages to overcome her Dalek nature, aiding the Doctor's escape and breaking the fourth wall by looking at the camera and saying "remember me". Doctor Who fans will certainly know the reason why.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory materialize inside the Tardis, which strangely hasn't been moved since it was brought to the Dalek ship. The Doctor emerges briefly to gloat over the Daleks but they have forgotten who he is. Oswin has removed their data concerning him, and the Doctor's identity is once again hidden.

Asylum of the Daleks explores the idea of Daleks representing pure hatred. The Dalek Minister states that they find "Divine Hatred" beautiful. Moffat also ties this idea in with his favourite themes of identity and memory.  The Dalek Slaves have lost their humanity, and their past memories are simply tools to use as a weapon. When Amy becomes infected by the nanites she too begins to lose her identity and memory. She even mistakes Daleks for humans when she's hallucinating. Oswin Oswald manages to hold on to her old identity by dreaming up a false reality for herself. The Doctor's own identity is important to the Daleks, as he is a figure of hatred to them. When the story begins, the Doctor is "the Predator".  Oswin says that the Daleks have become stronger in fear of the Doctor. By the end, the Daleks have forgotten the Doctor, and perhaps this will mean a decrease in their strength.

Even as he finds new angles to explore regarding Daleks, Moffat takes the time to pay homage to the Dalek stories of the past. Several of the Daleks in the asylum are models from the classic series. Sadly, most of them were barely visible in the darkness, although I did manage to spot the Special Weapons Dalek. There are references to the Dalek attacks on Aridius, Kembel and Exillon and the Dalek Slaves  are a cross between the Robomen from Invasion of Earth and the Dalek troopers from Resurrection.  The story also reestablishes the personal conflict between the Doctor and the Daleks, instead of the Time Lords in general

It was good to see Amy and Rory again, although, considering that this is their last season they felt extraneous to the main plot. The Doctor could just as easily have infiltrated the Asylum on his own, and chatted with Oswin along the way. Amy's presence provides an element of peril when she starts transforming into a Dalek but neither she nor her husband contribute anything useful to the Doctor's mission.

Niggles aside, this was an enjoyable piece of television with a few excellent twists and turns. It has renewed my excitement for Doctor Who and I can't wait to see the next episode!

9/10