Doctor Who 7x10: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis

It's a rare and exciting occasion to see the inner corridors and rooms of the Tardis. The Sleeping Quarters were seen in Edge of Destruction while The Masque of Mandragora introduced the corridors and the secondary console room. Later stories, such The Invasion of Time, Logopolis and Castrovalva, showed how deep and labyrinthine the ship could be. The current series has dipped its toes in the water with The Doctor's Wife and now, with Journey to the Centre of the Tardis, we get an entire episode devoted to looking through different rooms of the ship.

Seeing these different rooms is the highlight of the episode. There are numerous fan pleasing moments throughout, such as the swimming pool, the Eye of Harmony and the sound of the cloister bell tolling. There were also some great new areas such as the grand, gothic, library complete with bottled knowledge and books. In fact, the episode is full of wonderful looking locations, such as the white void with the wreckage of the Tardis engines floating inside it. It's a far cry from the brick walled location filming of The Invasion of Time. As with other Tardis stories like Logopolis and Castrovalva, there is a lot of technobabble, but it is allowed just this once.

The Tardis isn't the only thing that is bigger on the inside. People are too. The characters all have secrets that they're keeping. Gregor and Bram Van Baalen have been pretending that their brother, Tricky, is an android so that they could keep him from become the Captain. The Doctor is keeping his suspicions about Clara, and the meaning of the zombie creatures that are stalking the corridors, to himself. Clara, meanwhile, uncovers the secret of the Doctor's name in a book on the history of the Time War. Like the Tardis interior, each of these secrets is slowly uncovered.

It is therefore very disappointing when the story is resolved through a reset switch and everyone's memories of the adventure are erased. There is at least a hint that Gregor Van Baalens will remember to treat Tricky in a better manner, so perhaps the memories are still present in the Doctor and Clara's head. Then again, it still feels like a waste of time to pretend you're developing Clara when you're not. It's almost as if the adventure might as well have never happened. Since the next episode features Vastra, Jenny and Strax I had assumed that the Doctor and Clara were going back in time to the period of The Snowmen look for clues about Clara's origins. It's a wasted opportunity.

The Doctor was far less quirky this week in the face of danger. This allowed Matt Smith to show the darker side of the Doctor which has become less common of late. He was very effective because of this. His best moment was when he confessed to Clara that he is suspicious of her, finally releasing all of his pent up anxiety over her origins. This is probably the most interesting portrayal of the Doctor of Series 7B.

There is very little development for Clara this week, as she exists here simply to get into trouble in the Tardis. The scenes of her screaming at the zombie creatures and having to be rescued by the Doctor almost harked back to the "classic" era companions. But not in a good way. She seems to know nothing about her other selves and thinks she is just an ordinary girl. The focus on mystery over character development is starting to hurt the character. My favourite moment is when she becomes scared of the Doctor.

The Van Baalen brothers are refreshingly banal villains. Where many Doctor Who villains want to take over the universe, they just want to sell scrap for a living. It was also nice that they were a family,creating a more interesting relationship between the characters. Gregor, played by Ashley Waters, is the bastard, tricking his younger brother. Bram displays less personality while Tricky is the only one who really shows any sign of compassion. I didn't quite buy the idea of Gregor and Bram convincing Tricky that he is an android. How could anyone believe they were an android if they were feeling physical pain or had to eat because they were hungry? It was a weak sub plot.

All in all this was a good episode with strong visuals and ideas, let down only by having a rubbish ending and a slightly odd sub plot about Tricky. One can only hope that the remaining two episodes will do a better job of developing the Doctor and companion relationship before the finale arrives.

7/10

Doctor Who 7x09: Hide

"Behind the sofa" is a term which has been mentioned in conjunction with Doctor Who many times. There are many fans who think that Doctor Who should be scary. As a fan during the wilderness years, I found most of the "classic" series stories too dated to be considered creepy.  The Web of Fear is the only story where I can understand why it was considered scary on its first broadcast, with all the shadows and paranoia about a traitor. Hide is a story that should appeal to fans of spooky Doctor Who, although the sunny weather on the day of broadcast spoiled the atmosphere somewhat. Nevertheless, there's still a great deal to like about this episode.

The Doctor and Clara arrive at Caliburn house, where Professor Alec Palmer and his assistant, an empathic psychic called Emma Grayling, are searching for the ghast known as "The Witch of the Well".  These two supporting characters are established as Doctor and companion types. Professor Palmer, like the Doctor, is a war survivor who hides secrets from his female assistant. Emma Grayling is a far more vulnerable character.

The interaction between the main cast is what made this episode good. The Doctor and the Professor talking about war provides a sombre moment for the two old soldiers, while Clara is confident enough to make Emma admit to her liking of the Professor.

The Doctor and Clara also have a few good shared moments of their own. Clara finally starts to see how distant a Time Lord can be when the Doctor travels from the beginning to the end of the earth for traces of the ghast. The Doctor himself is playing a goofy person for her benefit, but drops this in the company of the Professor and when he is asking Emma about Clara's identity.

This was the first episode that Jenna played Clara, and while there were a few moments where she seemed more subdued, I could see this was the same character as in the other 7B episodes. Her facial expression when the Doctor is spouting technobabble in the Tardis is hilarious.

The Crooked Man was a decent monster. Like the creatures of Silent Hill, the horror of this monster comes from the way it deforms the basic human shape to create something uneasy.

Jamie Payne does a good job directing this episode. The constant flashes of the monster or Hila, help to create a sense of unease. The production also does a good job of separating the real Caliburn House with the pocket universe version through use of colour tones. The real one brown and the echo universe blue. The only niggle was the scene where Matt's bow tie reappeared after he removed it. I guess that production team had so many shots of Matt in that forest that they slipped up.

A less forgivable mistake, in the eyes of the fans, was Matt Smith's pronunciation of "Metebelis 3", the planet of the Third Doctor's final adventure. I do sympathize with Matt as I used to pronounce it the same way he did before I finally saw Planet of the Spiders. There's also the tiny question of why Eleven had access to the Blue Crystals after they had all been destroyed along with the Great One. Then again he's a time traveller and may have picked it up in the past.

Hide certainly had more depth than Cold War and more focus than Rings of Akhaten. Only a few issues are preventing me from ranking this episode on par with Bells of St John.

8/10

Doctor Who 7x08: Cold War

The return of the Ice Warriors was definitely exciting news for long time fans, including myself, but probably not so interesting for the general public. Despite appearing four times in the "classic" series, the big green martians have never achieved the same level of popularity as the Daleks or the Cybermen. Part of the problem is that the bulky armour they wear makes them very slow moving for a race of supposed warriors. Also the concept of green men from Mars is one of the least original in the eneitre show. Nevertheless, the enthusiasm of the writer, Mark Gatiss, and the work of the costume designer have come together to create a new and great looking warrior in a fairly solid story.

Grand Marshall Skaldak is a fantastic looking creature. The new armour ditches the large hips and lego hands that hampered the original, but maintains the turtle shell look and size that worked in the first place. It’s also great to finally be able to see inside the suit. The new voice is a slightly less successful change. While I can understand the production team wanting to get rid of the old whisper, the new voice occasionally sounds like a Judoon . The true form is slightly disappointing, but then, we fans have always had a better idea of what they’d look like in our heads. Anything else would be a disappointment. The personality takes the best elements from the original series. The decision to give him the daughter gives the Ice Warriors a bit more depth, as they’ve never been seen to have families before. It also makes me really want to see what a female ice warrior would be like.

The Cold War is an interesting period setting for an Ice Warrior to appear in. A war fought with espionage and missiles. It’s also nice that the story is set on a Russian submarine, not an English or American one. It makes a change from Gatiss’ usual Anglo-centric storytelling. Despite being created and televised during the Cold War, the original series of Doctor Who never really explored this topic.  The closest it came was with the 1984 story Warriors of the Deep, but even then the writer set the story in an allegorical 2084 to give some distance. It must be difficult for a 21st century child to imagine what the cold war was like, so this episode may have been quite educational for them.

The Submarine set is a brilliantly designed, cramped and dripping with water. An atmospheric base ready for a siege. Mike Tucker's model work for the exterior of the Submarine is also fairly decent. The Doctor Who production may well come tor rely on these kinds of effects more often, now that the Mill are closing down.

As far as the characters go Professor Grishenko is the best written. His enthusiasm for Ultravox and Western culture gives him a little bit of personality.David Warner is the kind of actor who always enhances the quality of any part he plays. No matter how small.

It’s good that Grishenko gets some characterization because the rest of the submarine crew are fairly bland bunch. The Captain had no personality. Lieutenant Stephasim was a standard aggressive character who is suspicious of the Doctor and Clara and wants nuclear war. He has no redeeming features and the viewer feels no sympathy when he is killed off. His sole reason for being in this story is to provide conflict. I don’t even remember the names of the rest of the crew. They were just redshirts to be picked off by the alien intruder.None of the characters really developed as the story progressed. It also seems strange that it was the older members of the crew who were against using the missiles. Certainly by the late 80s, teenagers were rebelling against their communist elders by wearing jeans, a sign of Western decadence. The younger crewmembers like Stephasim were the hotheads.

The previous two episodes have been so Clara-centric that it felt strange that she was pushed into the background for this episode. Clara gets a lot less of a meaty role than in previous weeks. She seemed like a generic companion with her “pass the test dialogue”. I’m willing to give Gatiss the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was having difficulty working out what the new companion's personality was supposed to be. Jenna’s natural charisma makes it work though.

There's also little to say about the Doctor this week. The plot of this episode vaguely resembled that of Dalek, with the Doctor coming face to face with a surviving member of a race of old enemies. The problem is that an Ice Warrior is less of a personal threat to the Doctor than a Dalek would be. Despite the fact that the Doctor nearly destroyed the submarine to stop Skaldak, it never felt as thought he Doctor was being emotionally pushed. With such thin material to work with, it felt like Matt Smith was on auto pilot this week - which is always fun to watch, but the script could've challenged Matt a bit more.

Another returning element from the Troughton era was the HADS, the defence mechanism that shifts the Tardis away from trouble. I assumed, when the Tardis first dissapeared from the submarine, that Clara’s previous comment that the Tardis didn’t like her had been correct and that the Tardis was trying to move away from her. Instead it turned out just a transparent plot device to stop the Tardis from being a convenient get out clause. The fact that it was the HADS, from the Patrick Troughton story The Krotons made it popular for some fans, but in the end it's just technobabble. However, I still like the idea of the Doctor and Clara having trek from the North to South pole. Knowing Big Finish's reputation, I imagine they'll one day do a trilogy about this journey. 

Compared to last week's ambitious episode, this was a well-made story with less ambition, and paper thin supporting characters. I preferred it when it was called Dalek. 

6/10

The Two Doctors!

The moment we've all been waiting to see...

Couldn't resist posting this. The two Doctors together outside the Tardis! Fans have been looking forward to this meeting, so it's great to finally get a glimpse of it. Unsurprisingly it looks as if it will be the genuine tenth Doctor, not the Doctor/Donna version, that will be appearing in the special.

I'm still in two minds about whether I think having older Doctors in the special is a good idea or not, but I have little doubt that I will enjoy seeing these two Doctors interacting with each other.

Doctor Who 7x07: The Rings of Akhaten

Although the modern series of Doctor Who has featured various alien planets, there have been fewer examples of alien societies. There's been nothing like the Federation of Snakedance or the city of Shur in The Ribos Operation. It's rare now for the Doctor and his companion to soak up the atmosphere of said world. For once, fans have been granted this privilege, when the Doctor takes Clara on her first journey into space to the Rings of Akhaten, a society of seven worlds orbiting a sun, during their Festival of Offerings.

The arrival on Akhaten is the best part of the episode, giving a good sense of wonder. The opening shot of the alien Sun is an impressive piece of FX work from The Mill. Moments later, the Doctor is introducing Clara to a bazaar full of weird and wonderful alien beings. It's great to see so many monsters in one room, although many of them have probably been recycled from previous Doctor Who stories. I think I spotted the Hoix from Love and Monsters wearing the breathing apparatus of a Hath from The Doctor’s Daughter. I liked the Do’reen creature though, and It's always refreshing to see aliens that don't want to take over the world.

However, a fantastic location still needs a decent plot, and this is where the episode falters. In the market, Clara is separated from the Doctor and meets up with a young girl called Merry, also known as the Queen of Years, well played by a child actor who manages to seem sincere. Merry is being pursued by religious people  in red robes. It transpires that the society of Akhaten trades in memories and stories. So Merry is to sing a song during the Festival which will keep an Old God in slumber. Using her experience with children, Clara convinces Merry to sing. When the Doctor and Clara attend the ceremony, Merry sings and is taken to the Temple. The quality of the CGI takes a dip at the point where the Doctor and Clara have to take a Speeder across to the Temple. For some reason they don’t need any kind of space suit or oxygen mask, and it is never made clear that there is supposed to be a vacuum in space.

The Doctor and Clara arrive at the Pyramid Temple, which when the plot really starts to fall apart. Inside the temple the Doctor and Clara, find Merry and a Chorister, in front of a glass case containing a Mummy on a throne. The Mummy is waking up. At this point episode turns into one long dialogue of exposition with the Doctor, Merry and the Chorister taking it in turns to explain what’s supposed to be happening. It turns out that Merry was always supposed to sacrifice her soul, or story, to the Old God.

Also present in the story is a group of creatures called the Vigil appear to take the sacrifice. I haven't mentioned them before and that is because they are almost irrelevant to the story. They are meant to be bringing Merry to the God as a sacrifice, but the people in red robes have already done this themselves.It is not clear where the Vigil come from, why they exist or how they came to do what they do.

Eventually the Mummy wakes and dies. It turns out that the Mummy is an alarm clock and not the God after all. The real God is the sun. Why did the natives need an alarm clock? It is never revealled. The Sun God appears to have a jack o'lantern face, making it look more ridiculous than scary.

The ending is a real mess. The Doctor sends Merry and Clara away from the Temple. All the aliens join Merry for a little singalong to appease the Sun God, which is as twee as it sounds. The Doctor appears to be sacrificing his memories to overfeed the Sun, but all it does is to drain his strength and his memories don’t seem to be affected. It takes Clara, using the leaf from her Journal of 101 Places to See. I don’t quite know why this is more effective than the Doctor’s memories.

Sadly, we don’t get to see what effect the Sun’s disappearance has on the inhabitants of Akhaten, as the scene cuts straight from the Sun’s defeat to the Doctor bringing Clara back to Earth. The only consolation is knowing that the inhabitants of Akhaten have returned the ring that Clara left earlier. It’s all very patchy. Perhaps a rewrite ended up losing some of the material.

This is a story that is more interesting in a magical sense, which Gods and stories. The stories thing also ties in with Clara’s backstory. Just as Clara’s leaf has a special story of bringing her parents’ together, so she herself is special and unique from the two other Claras.

Matt Smith continues to impress and gets a great Doctorish speech against the Sun God. He's also pretty funny in the Bazaar, and his high pitched barks with Do’reen are hilarious. The Doctor is more in the background this week. The mention his granddaughter is good. It is possible that Neil Cross intended to draw a parallel between the Doctor, as a Time Lord and the Grandfather Sun as two impossibly old things. But that’s not at all clear.

Clara continues to be well played by Jenna Louise Coleman. The Pre titles sequence reveals more about Clara’s history, but we learn slightly less about the girl herself. She appears to have led an ordinary life, but perhaps the falling leaf and chain of circumstances of circumstances leading to her parents meeting were coincidence? However, I’m more inclined to believe that whatever splits Clara into multiple people is something that happens in her future, possibly the Doctor unwittingly creating this.

Former showrunner Russell T Davies once said that audiences do not care about aliens from the planet Zog without human characters. He is right in some respects, as it is difficult to make audiences care about made up worlds. The Rings of Akhaten shows many of the pros and cons of the alien society storyline. In a way, Neil Cross' first Doctor Who episode is as ambitious and risky as The Web Planet was in 1965. In spite of its faults, I still find I quite like this episode. An ambitious failure is better than an unambitious one. In the end, this episode doesn’t quite live up to its potential, but I like what they were aiming for.

7/10

Jemma Redgrave returns as Kate Stewart in the 50th Anniversary Special

It has been revealed today that Jemma Redgrave will be reprising the role of Kate Stewart for the 50th Anniversary Special.

I loved the character in The Power of Three, so it will be great to see her again. Kate's presence also means that the legacy of Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart will be celebrated in the anniversary year.

This Special is becoming more exciting by the minute.

The news so far on the Doctor Who 50th anniversary Special (possible spoilers)...

It's the end of the first week of shooting on Doctor Who's 50th anniversary special, and certain pieces of information have been revealed over that time. Let's take a look at what's been ascertained so far...

The most exciting news, revealed last Saturday, is that David Tennant and Billie Piper are returning for the special. Hooray! Some people have speculated that he will be playing the 10.5 Doctor from Journey's End, but I think this is very unlikely. The audience wants to see the Tenth Doctor, not his substitute.

David Tennant has already been spotted filming this week. Anyone interested should search the web. So far there have been no clear pictures of Billie Piper, but I imagine that sooner or later they will be appearing. 

In other casting news, John Hurt, famous from the Harry Potter movies and I Claudius, is also making an appearance in the special. His casting has been overshadowed by the Tennant and Piper news, but it's great to have such an established actor in the show.

The Zygons will becoming back. Although these monsters have been popular it's the first time anyone tried to revive them. The production team appear to have stuck very closely to the original design with only minor modifications.

As with the Ice Warriors, they are keeping the design similar.

Another cast member is Joanna Page from Gavin and Stacey. People can find out who she is playing by looking at the spoiler pictures.

With Tennant, Piper, Hurt and the Zygons, the special is looking interesting. Who knows what other treats are in store for the viewers?

Doctor Who 7x06: The Bells of St John

In the first episode of the new series, the Doctor meets a new companion in contemporary London. He and his companion proceed to stop a takeover plan by an alien that is using a famous London landmark as its base of operations.  This description could cover several Doctor Who episodes from the past seven years of the new series, starting with Rose. Even the enemy, the Great Intelligence, is an old one and the new companion is someone the audience has met twice before. It should all feel tired and dated, but due to the work of the people behind and in front of the camera, it manages to seem fresh and exciting.

One thing that has definitely made the episode feel fresh is the chemistry between Matt Smith and Jenna Louise Coleman. I don't think it would matter who the companion was, Jenna would be great at playing anyone. She has already played two different incarnations of Clara with great success and the third one is shaping up to be just as memorable. This contemporary version already has the nanny aspect of the Governess Clara and eventually gains the computer hacking skills of the others. She is also slightly less flamboyant than the others and is more down to earth. She is witty in her chat with the Doctor and vulnerable when facing the robot 'spoonheads'. One new key factor is that she wants to travel, and has kept a journal for places to visit. However, she does not leave people behind. I like the fact that she did not immediately follow the Doctor into the Tardis and asked him to come back the next day. It demonstrates that she's an intelligent woman who thinks before she leaps.

Matt Smith's Doctor has a new burst of energy. He has always been brilliant and is wonderfully strange and alien when he licks the leaf from Clara's journal and also very funny when he tries to take a bite out of a cake in the cafe which he hasn't paid for yet. He is also pulls quite creepy expressions as the Spoonhead disguised as the Doctor. Praise also has to go towards the new costume, with the new purple tweed coat looking so fantastic. I'm never sure about the Doctor having retro clothing, but this costume looks perfect. I hope that the Eleventh Doctor and Clara stay together for a while. Not since the Tenth Doctor and Donna have I been convinced of a Doctor and companion team.

Doctor Who is a show that has always been brilliant at mixing the fantastic with the mundane and The Bells of St John continues this trend with the crazy idea of an alien presence, the Great Intelligence, living in the Wi-Fi.  In The Web of Fear, the Intelligence tried to absorb the Doctor's mind. Now it is uploading many more minds in order to absorb them as part of its consciousness. After being slightly disappointed at the use of Richard E Grant in the The Snowmen, it is good to know that we will be seeing more of him in the upcoming episodes. I can't wait for the inevitable rematch with the Doctor.

The intermediary villain, Miss Kizlet, was well played by Celia Imrie. She displays dark sense of humour when ordering the death of an underling and chatting with the Doctor. Her best moment is when the Intelligence leaves her, causing her regress to a state of childhood. It is a scene that Imrie plays well.

The least effective enemies were the Spoonheads, the walking base stations for the Intelligence. Their best moment comes when they are in disguise and are creepy when they twist their heads to reveal a blank metallic cavity at the back of the head.  On the other hand, they don't demonstrate much offensive capability.  Once a Spoonhead has uploaded Clara's mind, it makes no attempt to stop the Doctor when he starts reversing the download. Their only other function in the episode is to provide a climax, when the Doctor cleverly uses one of them to trick Miss Kizlet. I somehow don't think these will be remembered as the best Who monsters of all time.

New director Colm McCarthy makes this whole episode feel like a celebration of modern London, getting lots of good shots of the Doctor and his new companion, Clara, riding around London locations and landmarks, such as the South Bank Westminster bridge, and the Shard. He also includes a brilliant sequence where Clara walks from the street, into the Tardis and out into a plane continuously.

Murray Gold also seems to have a new wave of energy. The music for the Doctor and Clara riding the motorcycle was new and unusual. His theme for Clara is pretty good as well.

The plot may be simple, but Steven Moffat has left several unanswered questions  How did Clara end up existing in different time periods and what is the significance of the leaf in her journal? There is also the question of identity of the shop girl who gave Clara the phone number for the Tardis. There are several possible suspects, and certain casting information for the 50th anniversary special has generated some interesting theories.

On its own merits, The Bells of St John will never stand out as a classic, but it is still a pretty good episode and makes the rest of the series look very promising. All in all it's a good  start for Doctor Who's 50th anniversary year.

9/10