2017 Stuff

Here are a list of things in the world of TV and Film that were interesting

1. Doctor Who: The 13th Doctor Reveal
What better way to end a great Wimbledon than with the reveal of a new Doctor Who? The build up and the reveal were great. Jodie was fantastic.

2. Dunkirk (2017)
Christopher Nolan's film about the Allied Forces should be seen by everyone as it is fantastic.

3. Feud
An interesting series about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. It is funny and sad at the same time.

4. Broadchurch Series 3
The third series tackled the issue of rape. It is an improvement over the second series.

5. Blue Planet 2
An interesting look at marine life.

6. Wonder Woman (2017)
It was a long time coming but we finally got a film about Wonder Woman and it was great. Gol Gadot is great in the role and Patty Jenkins is a good director. Hopefully the upcoming sequal will be just as good if not better.

7. Three Girls (2017)
A harrowing but necessary television about the girls of Rotheram. One of the most important drams put out by the BBC.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time

I was very nervous going into this episode. Twice Upon a Time is the last episode to be produced by Steven Moffat and the last to star Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. I really wanted it to be good so that both men could leave the show on a high note. At first I was worried that the return of the First Doctor might distract from the departure of the Twelfth. Some of the early publicity and previews put me off as well as they emphasized the First Doctor's sexism. After I finished watching this episode I was much happier.

Twice Upon a Time is a story about deciding when to let go. When the First and Twelfth Doctors meet at the South Pole, they are both trying to stave off their regenerations and cling on to their current identities even if it means they will die. We discover that the First Doctor is afraid of the first change while the Twelfth just wants to stop after all the deaths he has seen. The Doctors are joined at the South Pole by the Captain, a World War One Soldier whose death has been postponed by an error in the timeline and is now being pursued through frozen time by glass people who are seeking to harvest his memories. As the Doctors try to protect the Captain's life they begin to consider whether to regenerate or not, just as the Captain considers whether he will die or not.

Due to the introspective nature of the story, there isn't really a villain at all. The Doctors discover that the Glass People, known as Testimony, are not really antagonists after all. Their reason for seeking peoples' memories is to preserve that person after physical death. It is actually the Doctor at fault because his decision to not regenerate caused the timeline error that drew the Captain to them. Some viewers might be disappointed at the lack of an antagonist but I found it a refreshing change. Not every Doctor Who story has to have a villain.

Bill Potts appears as the avatar for the glass people to get close to the Doctor and find out who he is. I thought this was a good way of including Bill in the story as it did not undo the fate of the real Bill. Her memories could have been preserved at some point after she became human or perhaps just before Heather made her a puddle person. Either way it works and Pearl Mackie is always great as a foil to both Doctors.

Ultimately all three men face their destinies. The Captain chooses to face his death in Ypres but the Twelfth Doctor adjusts the time to occur at the beginning of the Christmas truce so that he is spared.
It was a nice way of including Christmas and the scene of hope in a bleak place gives the two Doctors the motivation to carry on and face their regenerations. The act of kindness from the Twelfth towards the Captain makes the First Doctor see that the good in the universe is caused by the Doctor and gives the Twelfth Doctor motivation to carry on.  I had guessed that the truce would be referred to but I was worried that Steven Moffat was going to make the Doctor the cause of it. Thankfully, this did not happen.

The First Doctor's regeneration stays the same and the shots of David Bradley at the console are a nice homage to the original. it is a shame that his final line had to change as I would like Steven Moffat to have kept the keep warm line.

The Twelfth Doctor's regeneration in the Tardis is alright. His final speech was like a resolution to his future self. We get the return of the ‘Never Cruel or Cowardly’ by Terrence Dicks as well as the dislike of pears from Human Nature.  ‘Doctor, I let you go’ worked both as a final line for Capaldi playing the Doctor and for Steven Moffatt handing over the creative reins to Chibnall. It is fitting that the last thing we see of the Twelfth Doctor is his eyes and forehead which were the first things we saw of him in The Day of the Doctor.

The first moment with the Jodie Whittaker as the Doctor was very good indeed. Rachael Talalay builds up the tension by giving us brief glimpses of the new Doctor before we see her face.

First is a glimpses of her hand and the old ring dropping off her finger in a homage to the Second Doctor's first appearance. Then we get a blurry POV shot, which is unusual in the show,  and a reflection in the scanner screen.   Jodie’s first word was good. It was brief enough to keep people hooked. I also liked the ‘To Be Continued’ graphic. These words reinforce the idea that although the era is over the story as a whole is not over. It is slightly let down by an exploing Tardis sequence that feels awfully familiar. Still, Jodie herself looks interesting.

The Captain was a likeable character and it was a nice, if slightly predictable, twist that he is an ancestor to Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. He is well played by Mark Gatiss. He showed the stiff upper lip of a British Army Soldier without turning it into a caricature like something from his wonderful comedy series The League of Gentlemen. This character’s appearance makes up for the incident of the Cyber Brig at the end of Death in Heaven.

David Bradley does a good job portraying of the First Doctor. A lot of the character’s ticks are in place including the way he calls the Tardis the ship, his use of a monocle, and calling people ‘my dear’. Some of Moffat’s writing overstates the characters’ sexism and misses the point of the smacked bottom line. Nevertheless this Doctor does get a great speech about trying to find the reason for good in the universe. It is also refreshing to see a less grandstanding Doctor who has yet to gain the titles that his future selves do. It is also fun seeing him puncture some aspects of his future self such as the sonic sunglasses.  The inclusion of William Hartnell footage at the beginning and the end reinforces that this is a tribute performance and not an attempt to replace the original leading man.

Of course, the real focus of this episode is Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor who is, of course brilliant. He is funny when he is bantering with his older incarnation and his reaction to seeing Bill again is heart-warming. You really get the sense that his Doctor cares about the people around him

This episode also featured a surprise cameo by Rusty, the ‘good Dalek’ when  the Doctor goes to him for knowledge about Testimony. It might have seemed quite self-referential but there is something fitting in the idea that the Doctor should meet someone from his earliest adventure. Twice Upon a Time highlights the importance of the Doctor as a force for good so it is interesting to compare the olderTwelfth Doctor, a dark, pragmatic Time Lord who didn’t care about the deaths of other soldiers to the Doctor that we see now who is trying to protect the life of the Captain

The only other cameo appearance s of note were Nardole and Clara, manifested by the glass people to say goodbye to the Twelfth Doctor. It was nice to see Nardole back. As with Bill, I am glad that this departure looking after the children of the colony ship has not been overwritten. One might surmise that he was finally got at by the Cybermen or perhaps he held off the Cybermen long enough to die of natural causes. There is perhaps room for a future tie-in comic, novel or audio to bring him back. Clara’s final words were good even though she was obviously on green screen. At least it clears up the issue of the Doctor’s  memory problems so he remembers her.

Rachael Talalay is to be congratulated for making the regeneration and the entirety of the episode, work so well. The original series had Douglas Camfield and Graeme Harper as their best directors and Rachael Talalay is equal to those in being able to make the show look better in a way her contemporaries couldn’t manage. The Tardis has never looked so gorgeous as it does here She recreates Derek Martinus’; shot of the First Doctor standing over the Tardis. Her use of ‘John Smith’ for VFX is a wise one as the time vortex looked amazing as did the transition from black and white Hartnell footage to the widescreen David Bradley footage. There are also beautiful shots such as when the Twelfth Doctor raps his coat around him in the cold battlefield. I hope that Rachael comes back for the Chibnall era but if not she will be missed.

Murray Gold reuses a lot of old themes here including ‘Vale Decem’ and the ‘Flavia theme’ but if this is to be his last story then he deserves to make it a greatest hits package. He has done a lot for the show after all so he is allowed this one indulgence. He has been the only composer from the show’s return in 2005 so his departure would be a momentous event for the series.

Twice Upon a Time doesn’t quite reach the heights of Heaven Sent or The Doctor Falls but it was a nice, acceptable end to the Steven Moffat era and a good send off to the wonderful Peter Capaldi. We can look back at the Capaldi era fondly as we go into the Chibnall series and the onus of producing good Doctor Who falls to him.  Congratulations to Steven Moffat and Peter Capaldi.

A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

If I had to choose a favourite Christmas film then A Muppet Christmas Carol would definitely be among them.

The film stars Michael Caine in the role of Eberneezer Scrooge. It follows the story of A Christmas Carol as Scrooge is visited and redeemed through visits by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. This version omits the death of Scrooge's sister, slightly decreasing his reason for disliking Christmas.

The Great Gonzo serves as Charles Dickens narrating the story, assisted by Rizzo the Rat as his assistant. They keept he story light and accessible for the child audience.

Michael Caine is quite good as Scrooge. He does not go quite as nasty as the Alistair Simm version from Scrooge, but he does at least show the human side.

The soundtrack is pretty memorable. It is only annoying that "When Love is Gone" was cut but bits of it can still be heard in the closing credits.

Steven Moffat's Achievements

Soon enough, the Steven Moffat era of Doctor Who will be over. Some people, even those whose opinions I appreciate, will say that this was not before time. However, just this once, lets put these opinions to rest and appreciate all of the good things that he has ever done. If there is anything in the past seven years you have enjoyed from Doctor Who then you have got Steven Moffat to thank for allowing it through. If you one of those looking forward to Chris Chibnall being showrunner then remember that Steven Moffat is the man that hired him as showrunner and was the one who kept the Doctor Who torch going long enough for a replacement.

Here are ten of what I consider to be Steven Moffat's greatest achievements as showrunner.

1) The Night of the Doctor was a real success story by Steven. Bringing back Paul McGann was a brilliant stroke. Even if we couldngt get him in a whole story we at least got him for a regeneration.

2) The Eleventh Hour is another success story. It is hard to start with a new Doctor and new companion but Steven proved it could be done. Chris Chibnall may be doing something similar but it is on the basis that Steven Made it work.

3) The 5ish Doctors Reboot.  Although  Peter Davison initiated the project, Steven Moffat allowed Peter access tot he BBC Production team. This could easily have been a small fan-only project but thanks to Steven it became mainstream.

4) Casting Pearl Mackie as Bill Potts. Without doubt she is my favourite companion of his tenor. Someone who feels like a real person.

5)  Heaven Sent. Steven Moffat's script served as a blueprint for a story that was also acted and directed. It is a good example of Steven moving outside his comfort zone and produce an episode focusing on just the Doctor and one monster. This is 45 minutes of pure Doctor Who bliss.

6) Hiring Rachael Talalay as a director for each of Peter Capaldi's season finales. She is one of the best directors of Doctor Who. Some struggle with making the show dynamic but she is able to do so much with a low budget.

7) Hiring two brilliant mainstream Doctors in the form of Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi. Casting young and old. He also cast a brilliant guest Doctor in the form of John Hurt. It is great that one of Britain's best actors got to be in the show.

8) Deep Breath. Just when Steven Moffat had already rebooted the script he rebooted again, producing an episode that introduces a darker Doctor in precisely the way that the production team failed to manage with Colin Baker in 1984.

9) While Rachael Talalalay is the director for the Peter Capaldi years Nick Hurran is the one for the Matt Smith years, proving his stuff with The God Complex.

10) Amy Pond and Rory Williams.Karen Gillian is really feisty while Rory Williams was the great every-man who put up with the Doctor's shenanigans to help the woman he loved. They were great companions.

A Peek (Doctor Who Spoilers)

Although the new series of Doctor Who has been filming for several weeks now, clear pictures have been hard to come by. Pictures of Jodie Whittater's Doctor in her predecessor's costume were removed but here some clearer ones have been made available to the public. These are the only spoiler based pictures that I am ever likely to upload.



These pictures are also significant for giving us our first clear view of new companion, Graham.  He and the new Doctor are looking around some industrial site.



It feels momentous when you get your first glimpse of the new Doctor in the old one's costume. Sometimes they look really good as Jodie does here. It's also nice to see the new companions in action. Whatever there roles are it looks interesting.

Doctor Who: Pudsey Preview

We get our first hint of how David Bradley will be playing the Doctor.

The thing that really stood out to me from the clip is just how good to see Peter Capaldi again.  With all the hype over the next Doctor, it is easy to forget just how great Peter Capaldi has been. I'm going to miss his Doctor.

David Bradley is looking okay as the First Doctor. It will never be an exact duplication of William Hartnell, but it is a rough approximate.

Mark Gatiss appears  to be playing the Captain straight and is not as a cliched Blackader soldier.

Doctor Who: New Doctor, New Costume

After a new Doctor is announced, the next big thing is to find out what the costume will be like. It's the first hint as to how the actor will play the role. Earlier today, the BBC released the first image of the new Doctor in costume. This is what she will look like in the upcoming series...

I have to admit that I wasn't sure about the costume when I first saw it. I think this was because I was expecting the new costume to be sombre, more like what Jodie wore in her introduction clip. This more lighter, more colourful costume through me off. . However, the more I looked at this costume, the more it grew on me. I'm now positive about it than I was at first glance. 

The individual components are somewhat similar to those worn by previous Doctors. The braces and high trousers are somewhat similar to the kind worn by Patrick Troughton. Boots and coats are common parts of many Doctor's costumes although this coat includes a hood. The most significant difference is the earrings which none of the male Doctors ever wore. The only problem I have is that her exposed ankles and neck may feel uncomfortable if she is filming exterior scenes in a cold Cardiff winter. These elements may be rectified if the series goes on or else she'll need to wrap up warmly between takes. 

While I was initially put off by the bright colours, they work as a contrast to the more sombre clothing that Peter Capaldi's Doctor wore. Fans on twitter have pointed out that the striped top and suspenders combination is similar to what  Robin Williams wore in Mork and Mindy. It also recalls the more colourful costumes worn by Tom Baker and Colin Baker This costume, at least, is not as garish as the Sixth Doctor's patchwork coat. Indeed, the lighter coat had me thinking of the one Peter Davison wore. 

Together, the combination of items and colours makes this costume look like it was thrown together s like Tom Baker's Season 12 costume or Matt Smith's Season 5 costume. It's a change from the Howard Burden designs which, while nice to look at, always felt a little too streamlined and put together. I like it. It may suggest that this new Doctor, or new show, will be brighter and bolder. 

It's nice that the new costume is shown off with a background image. It may be photoshopped  but I prefer it to the bland white backgrounds which were common for character images in the Peter Capaldi era. Also in shot is a Tardis which some have speculated to be the new prop. If so it's not bad. The blue is quite faded but that might just be because of the grading on the picture. I quite like the white text on blue background although it's a pity the text is not like other police boxes. Still, while it may not look like a metropolitan police box but none of the others have. 

The fact that the costume has been revealed suggests that  filming has either started or is about to start The new era seems to be underway. 

Doctor Who: The New Team

Last night, at around 10.30pm, the BBC revealed who would be playing the Doctor's new friends. Bradley Walsh will be playing Graham. Mandip Gill is playing Yasmin and Tosin Cole is playing Ryan. As there has been so little  Doctor Who news of late I drifted away and missed the announcement.  Just by chance, I checked the Doctor Who News Page and found out about the news. Overall, I am fairly okay with this. 

There were rumours about the involvement of Bradley Walsh since August but then the rumours faded away . He is best known for hosting The Chase, an ITV game show.  He has also been in Coronation Street and played DC Ronnie Brooks in Law and Order UK, another show that Chris Chibnall worked on. Doctor Who fans will best know him from The Sarah Jane Adventures. 

The other two are less well known and their casting was a surprise. Mandip Gill is  known for playing Phoebe McQueen in Hollyoaks, a show that I've never watched. She has also appeared in Cuckoo, Doctors, and Casualty. Tosin Cole, like Mandip, has appeared in Hollyoaks. He has also been in Eastenders and E20. He also appeared in The Force Awakens as Bastian, a Lieutenant in the Resistance who flew an X-Wing. Although Star Wars might be the bigger sf franchise, this role will probably be bigger and bring him to more attention.

At no point in the the press release are the new characters described as 'companions' or 'assistants'. Although they will undoubtebly be involved in the adventures, it is not yet clear if all or any of them will get to travel in the Tardis. If they do then it will be the largest ongoing team since the Fifth Doctor's era. Perhaps they will be a family in the same way the Tyler family was in the Tennant years, or the UNIT family in the Pertwee years. Perhaps they will all travel in the Tardis at different times from one another.

I am personally hoping for four travellers, reminiscent f my favourite team of Ian, Barbara and Susan. Some dislike what they consider a 'crowded Tardis' and feel that the Tegan, Nyssa and Adric team didn't work. But I always feel it depends how you integrate the characters into the story. A Story like the Aztecs involves each character using their abilities to get to the Tardis. Ian has to use his fighting skills, the Doctor uses his knowledge of science and Barbara uses her knowledge of Aztec history to ouwit her enemies. If everyone has a role to play then the story can work.

It is also interesting that all of the characters have ordinary names. Previous companions have had old fashioned names like 'Rose' or 'Martha' or unusual ones like 'Bill. It could mean that Chris Chibnall is trying to ground the series in a sense of normality.

Sharon D. Clarke is announced as playing a 'recurring role'. Inevitably this leads to the speculation that she's The Rani, Omega, or whateverold character. She could be an earthbound supporting character.

With this announcement also came the news that the episodes would be shortened from 12 episodes to 10x50 minute episodes. This is shorter but hopefully means that Chris Chibnall will get the series in the can quicker.

There should be something for everyone in this cast. Younger characters and old. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1x02: The Harvest

Last week's episode set up the characters. This week we get the actual story.

Buffy is able to overcome Luke with the Chekhov's cross that Angel gave her. She and Xander and Willow take refuge in the library. This is where Giles is able to give a big speech about the power of monsters. Buffy vows to get Jesse back.

Buffy returns to the crypt to search for Jesse and Xander obsessively comes with her. They descend into the sewers where they find Jesse has become the vampire and they flee

All the while, Giles and Willow have been working out about the Harvest, an event where a vessel will devour the blood that will power the Master's freedom.

Buffy and the others head to the Bronze where the harvest happens. Xander kills Jesse. Willow injures Darla and Buffy kills Luke, thus leaving the Master trapped.

Angel only appears briefly but doesn't really help. He warns her about the Harvest but Giles could probably have found this information in his book. It feels as though he was only in the episode because he had to be.

The direction is good. The final act at the Bronze is nice and moody.

Overall this is a promising episode. Everything is set up and anyone would c

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1x01: Welcome to the hellmouth

Earlier this year I commented on the fact that it was 20th anniversary of Buffy. Now I am keeping the promise I made back then to look back at the earlier episodes. How does Series 1 hold up after all this time?

The pre-titles sequence sets up the basic premise of Buffy. A man and a woman enter the school. In horror movies the girl would die but in this scenario she turns out to be the vampire and attacks the boy. The female victims are the empowered ones.

After the distinctive title sequence we are introduced to Buffy Summers. It is her first day at Sunnydale High after she was kicked out of her old one in Los Angeles. She meets new friends such as WIllow and Xander and also the adversarial Cordelia. Unfortunately she cannot escape her destiny. The librarian is her new watcher, Rupert Giles. Soon afterward, the body of the man from the pre-titles sequence is found and it becomes clear that Vampires are present.

In the evening, Buffy meets the mysterious Angel and gets a cross. She then goes to the Bronze where Willow is taken by a vampire.

Buffy is a likeable character. At this stage she is trying to move away from her vampire slaying duty but she is not too winy about it. Sarah Michelle Gellar successfully protrays the

Cordelia is the Queen Bee of Sunnydale High. She is unlikeable at this stage but it will be interesting to see where she goes from here.

Willow is shy and a victim.Alsion Hannigan does a good job portraying her.

Xander is outgoing but gawky. Nicholas Brendon does a good job in portraying him.

Jesse appears to be a main character and he is nerdy.

Principle Flutie is amusing and Buffy's mom is alright.

Vampires: The Master, Luke and Darla. The Master seems like a great character with nosferatu style make-up.

The sets are good. Teh graveyard is eerie and the Master's lair is a wonderfully gothic looking place.

Big Finish: The First Doctor Adventures

Looks like the BBC are taking full advantage of David Bradley's time in Cardiff. There will be a series of audios.

Jamie Glover, Jemma Powell and Claudia Grant will also reprise their roles from An Adventure in Space and Time. James Dreyfus has been cast as the Master. I'm not keen on this idea that everyone must meet the Master but it will be interesting to see what has happened.  

Class Cancelled

It was announced that Class will not be getting a second series. This is no surprise. Patrick Ness had announced it was quit and neither Chris Chibnall, nor outgoing showrunner Steven Moffat have said nothing about the show's future.

The show was fairly average. The episodes were released fairly quickly as though BBC3 wanted to get rid of it.A fantasy showset at a school is not a bad idea. Buffy and Smallville did it well enough. But Class was ultimately bland.

This is a shame for Doctor Who, as a spin-off for young adults could have increased the audience of the parent show and kept that age group interested.

Thirty Years of the Seventh Doctor

It is thirty years since Time and the Rani Part 1. It was not a very good introduction. Since Colin Baker had quit he had been forced to wear a wig for the regeneration. The story itself was also a bit of a mess. Fortunately his era gets better. We got stories like Remembrance of the Daleks, Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Ghost Light and Survival. 

RIP Victor Pemberton

And another Doctor Who luminary is lost to us. Victor Pemberton has died at the age of 85.

Victor Pemberton first appeared on screen in The Moonbase as a crewmember infected by the Cybermen's poison. But then he became story editor for The Tomb of the Cybermen. He finally got to write a whole story in Fury from the Deep. He created the Sonic Screwdriver, a device used many times since and passed over to the modern series. In the 1970s, Victor wrote the script for Doctor Who and the Pescatons, a story released on LP with a similar ocean theme.

Sadly I never met the man in person. I remember seeing a 2002 production of Fury in Portsmouth, with Nick Scovell as the Doctor. I' later got to see the recons and enjoyed it. He will be remembered.

Seattle International Films: Broken Doors

In the early days of Doctor Who fandom, the fan writers created categories for certain types of story. These included 'historicals', 'pseudo-historicals', 'base under siege' or 'oddball'. The final Doctor Who film made by Seattle International Films would classify as 'oddball'. It is set in an alternative dimension where there are no rules. Strange and surreal things happen to our heroes. 

The Doctor and Carl are brought to this strange dimension when the Tardis crashes there, in a rocky wilderness. The Doctor needs to replace a valuable component. The Doctor and Carl vist a nearby house and are separated and forced to complete tests. The Doctor meets a masked figure who offers her a device, but Carl is tricked into killing the Doctor, forcing her to regenerate into a new, male, incarnation.

Out of all four films, Broken Doors is the one with the best production values. The shot on video look is reminiscent of the originals series. All of the locations, especially the quarry planet, could have been accomplished by the BBC TV series. 

Barbara Benedetti has settled in to the role of the Doctor. She is strong in confronting the masked man. It's a pit that we only got four videos with her. 

Randy Rogel is good as Carl. The character is used for comic relief but gets the significant role of being the one to inadvertently  cause of the Doctor's regeneration. 

Michael Santo is the voice of the masked figure, as well as the form of the regenerative Doctor. It is a shame that we never got to see his incarnation of the Doctor. 

The Seattle International Films have been fascinating to watch. Each one has improved on its predecessor and it looks like they finally got them to look great. If anything, these films definately prove a female Doctor can work. Let's hope Jodie Whittaker is up to the task. 

Seattle International Films: Pentagon West (Is There a Doctor In the House?)

Pentagon West isn't quite a Doctor Who film. Having completed two Doctor Who films, Ryan K Johnson was looking to make a TV pilot for a science fiction show. He ultimatey decided to put the Doctor and Carl in it. So this is an pisode of Pentagon West which just happens to have the Doctor in it.

Pentagon West is the story about a group of grad students. Their mentor, Doctor Komar, has completed his project but is becoming strangely reclusive and not allowing them access. The students investigate and run into the mysterious Doctor and her friend Carl, who are investigating Komar's experiments.

The student characters are a fairly decent bunch. Robin is the apparent leader of the group, being the most reasonable. Dr Komar is played as an eccentric scientist. He even has an eastern European accent.

The Doctor and Carl are not in most of it, but Barbara Benedetti and Randy Rogel still steal the screen when they are in it.

The story is very talky. The music is home made this time around. A big improvement. The opening sequence is a little abrupt but it is so much better to hear a special conditioned soundtrack to having theme bits stuck in.

6/10

Seattle International Films: Visions of Utomu

The Wrath of Eukor was a fairly decent post-regeneration story. With Visions of Utomu we get to see the Doctor and Carl having a standard adventure as Seattle International films branches out to give us a sci-fi adventure.

The story opens in a castle on a medieval planet. The Prince Germain and Princess Aldraina are meeting and are due to marry to unite two kingdoms. This plan is thrown into jeopardy when the Prince is kidnapped by the minions of the evil Utomu.

The Tardis lands in Castle and the Doctor and Carl are blamed for the Prince's disappearance.
Fortunately, the King recognize the Doctor from the legend and asks for her help in rescuing the Prince. The Doctor agrees. The Princess wants to go but the King prevents her.

The Doctor and Carl disguise themselves as entertainers to infiltrate Utomu's castle but the Princess has followed them, determined to rescue the Prince. Meanwhile, Utomu tries to persuade the Prince to join him.

Barbara Benedetti continues to be a great  Doctor. She is confident and brave. Carl continues to be the comic relief character. He gets the indignity of being hypnotised into being a great singer but he could have had more serious moments.

Utomu proves a more interesting villain than Eukor was. A former advisor who was banished from the Kingdom. He has the ability to predict the future but misinterprets the signs. Wesley Rice puts in a good peformance.

The Princess Aldraina is likeable enough. Just as the Doctor is now a woman the Princess takes on the rescuer role usually associated with the Prince. On the other hand Prince Germain is a book reader and has to be rescued. It's a nice gender role reversal.

While Wrath of Eukor was made on exterior this is made in almost entirely interior and suffers for it. The backgrounds look sadly unconvincing. The Tardis interior is just a white corridor. The music is once again recycled from previous adventures, specifically the medieval themed King's Demons. 

Ryan K. Johnson has written a much tighter script this time around with a lot more humour. It's a shame  the production values let the story down buut it is still a fun way to pass the time.

6/10

Seattle International Films: The Wrath of Eukor

Jodie Whittaker may be the first female actor to play the Doctor in the official series, but there have been other female Doctors in unofficial productions. In 1984, an actor called Barbara Benedetti played the character in a fan film created by a company called Seattle International and directed by Ryan K Johnson. The female actors since then have all been in comedy sketches but this is one of the few examples not to be a spoof.

The story opens with a pre-titles sequence, set in London, 1911. A chimney sweep, Carl Evans, discovers the female Doctor who is suffering the effects of her recent regeneration. The Doctor is wearing the multicoloured coat implying she is the seventh incarnation. Carl helps the Doctor back to the Tardis and discovers that it is bigger on the inside. It's a nice sequence. The only flaw in this sequence is that Carl shouldn't recognize a police box. Otherwise this is a far better way of bypassing a regeneration scene than  Time and the Rani would manage.

After the titles, the Tardis materialises in a modern day National Park where Vietnam veterans are living in the wild. A reporter is investigating the camp and is later killed by an unseen alien force.
The veterans accusethe Doctor and Carl are accused of the murder but the Doctor's curiosity is piqued and she helps to track down the force. One by one, the veterans are killed off.

The force responsible for these killings is revealled to be Eukor, an energy being. Carl unwittingly frees Eukor who possesses one of the vets. The Doctor and Carl take Eukor to an energy plant and the Doctor traps Eukor in a force field. Like Prisoner Zero in The Eleventh Hour, Eukor is basically just a blank slate for which this new Doctor can pitch herself against. His voice sounds a little bit like Zordon from Power Rangers.

Barbara Benedetti proves to be decent Doctor. She gets the confidence and the intellectual qualities of the part.  The obligatory sex change jokes are there at the beginning but once they're out of the way she just gets on with being the Doctor.

Randy Rogel is good as Carl, the Dick Van Dyke-alike companion. His performance is brilliant although his accent is incredibly distracting.

The supporting cast are a decent bunch of actors, although most of the characters are killed off too soon to really get to know them.

The production is fairly good. The outdoor filming gives the whole thing a sense of atmosphere. The only strike down is the incidental music is recycled from the early 1980s stories with Earthshock and The Leisure Hive featuring prominently. This music doesn't really suit the atmosphere.The title sequence is inspired by the Sid Sutton version, with Barbara Benedetti's face superimposed.



Overall this is a decent start to the series. It's nice to have largely exterior scenes. Time will tell whether audiences will accept a female Doctor but this fan film certainly proved it can work.

7/10

Bond 25 Update

After a long wait, EON Productions have officially announced that Bond will be returning to US Cinemas on November 8, 2019, with a traditional earlier release in the UK and the rest of the world.

The new film will be written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who have collaborated on and written several previous Bond films. It will be interesting to see which new topics their Bond film explore. Will they follow on Blofeld and Spectre or will this be yet another soft reboot?

It's nice to get some confirmation that this film is happening. There is still some uncertainty about whether Daniel Craig will be in it but I hope he is. He and Dalton are my favourites.

Doctor Who Updates

The week has certainly been an eventful one in Doctor Who. On Sunday, the trailer for the Christmas Special was released at San Diego Comicon and online. We now known to be called Twice Upon a Time. They missed a trick in not calling it Twelfth Night but it's still a much better title than the rumored title of The Doctors.

The first exciting thing is that Polly is coming back. She will be played in this episode by an actor called Lily Travers. It's likely that Ben will also be coming back. The scene in the trailer may be on the Cybermens' Space Ship.

It has also been revealled that Mark Gatiss will be playing an army officer. This character seems important enough to appear on the official image and is likely to be the companion for this episode. He may or may descendant of the Brigadier.

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David Bradley shows more promise. There's more of a twinkle to his performance. I wasn't sure about the idea of recasting the actor as the Doctor but he is growing on me. I expect Big Finish will announce an audio release for him soon enough.

Up and Coming on This Blog...

I've graduated and I will be quite busy. In my spare time I have been reaquainting myself with Linkin Park after hearing the sad news of the death of Chester Bennington. But here are a list of things that will be coming up on the blog if I can find the time.

My aim is to start some reviews for the earliest series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Since it's the 20th anniversary of Buffy it makes sense to do this now. Another television show I will be reviewing is the first series of Press Gang, in tribute to departing Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat.

More film reviews will be coming out. I hope to include reviews of La Belle et La Bette or Orphee. There will be many other things if I have a time.

As far as audio goes I may also review some of the BBV productions of the Faction Paradox Audios. It is twenty years since the organisation first debuted in Alien Bodies. 

With so much to do, I can't quite say when these will come out, but hopefully as soon as possible.

Jodie Whittaker

Wow...

I was not expecting Jodie Whittaker to be revealed as the thirteenth Doctor. When her name first appeared on betting sites,  I assumed that someone has got the wrong end of the stick of a Broadchurch actor being the new lead. Even after her face featuring on the front page of The Sun I was still convinced they'd all got it wrong. As it turns out I was the one who was wrong, just as I had been when I assumed that Peter Capaldi would not be the twelfth Doctor. I'm really not very good at guessing these casting decisions.

It's debatable whether the decision to broadcast the reveal after the Wimbledon Men's Final was a wise one. I normally enjoy watching tennis but this time around I felt especially tense and wanted the match to be over just so I could find out who the new Doctor was. There was no way of knowing how long the match would go on for and every little delay caused frustration. On the other hand, it meant the announcement could have been seen by a very wide audience, if they hadn't walked away in the gap before the next match started.

When we finally got to the reveal that too was drawn out. We saw the new Doctor from the back, walking through a sunny forest, in a long coat and hoodie that concealed the face and body. It could just as easily have been a slender man. It was not until a flash of eyelash that we got a hint that it was a woman and when she finally removed her hood, smiled and walked towards a dodgy TARDIS, viewers like me were left stunned.

If there was ever going to be a female Doctor then Jodie Whittaker was a good pick. She's not an overly 'eccentric' actor like a lot of the popular choices for a female Doctor Who. She was great in Broadchurch when she played Beth Latimer.  She has also appeared in a television adaption of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Return to Cranford. I hope she keeps her Yorkshire accent. She is also the first Yorkshire Doctor. The decision is also in keeping with Chris Chibnall's desire to work with actors he has worked with before. It will be interesting to see how she acts. I certainly hope she keeps the costume she wore here, or something reminiscent of it, at least.

Reactions to the new Doctor have been understandably mixed. Some fans, like Ian Levine, have been getting angry about this change. Other fans have been crying 'sexist' at the doubters. Many more others are just fine with it. I'm personally indifferent. If she gives a great performance then I'll watch. I used to be against the idea of a woman as the Doctor until I saw the Barbara Benedetti fan film series a couple of years back. Those fan films were a little ropy by today's standards but they did prove that a female Doctor would not interfere too much with the format of the show.

It will be interesting to find out whether Steven Moffat knew the identity of the new Doctor, given how many references to Time Lord gender change were made in the finale of Series Ten. It's interesting to  that he was paving the way for his successor. I guess we'll find out in upcoming interviews.

We will have months to speculate on how this decision changes the show Will there be a new male companion? How often will the show refer to the Doctor's new gender? How will it affect the way the Doctor's personality is depicted? There are a lot of questions that the writers must answer.

Chris Chibnall has gone up in my estimations. Whether or not people accept this new Doctor remains to be seen but Chris has proved that he's willing to take risks and not just go for a bland conformity. There's no guarantee that Series Eleven will be better of course. There will probably be the usual mix of mostly good but some bad episodes. But it does seem more exciting than it did before.

The New Doctor Is Coming....

It's been a while coming but the BBC have announced that the new Doctor's identity will be revealled this Sunday after the Wimbledon Mens' Finals. I love the fact that this is a show where we get an announcement of an announcement. Few other shows do this. I've got new Doctor nerves. A sense of anticipation and fear that is likely to distract me from other duties this weekend. Am I going to like this Doctor or will I not? Knowing how long a Wimbledon final can go on, who knows how late it will be before the announcement? It might even go into the next day.

The trailer for the announcement was certainly interesting. It opens with a stone obelisk in the wild, a nice homage to the opening from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Obelisk is shown to contain a Tardis key and we cut to various signs and landmarks with the number '13' embedded into them. This sequence is punctuated by a weird little piece of synthesizer music that I quite liked.

The speculation was to the identity of the new Doctor will no doubt be ramping up. Somehow I get the feeling they won't be a woman, although I'm happy to be proved wrong. My fantasy casting for a female Doctor would be Eva Green. It's just a shame for us that she's too big a star for the show now. As for a male Doctor,sSomeone like Sacha Dhawan would be great for the role based on his appearance in the Tractate Middoth.  I wouldn't object to another young male Doctor but I hope he's a bit different from Tennant or Smith.People will undoubtably be scanning the betting sites for who it is. Chances are we may know a few hours before the actual announcement.

I have never before been so interested in knowing hte result of a tennis match.

DWM: A Change of Editor

What's the second most important part of Doctor Who after the television show? Some may argue that it's Big Finish. Others may argue that it's the books. I come close to the books but I'd say the real factor is the magazine. Even though the news section is made almost redundant by the internet, the magazine has many interesting features on the facts and fiction behind our favourite show. Today the magazine's current editor, Tom Spilsbury, announced that he would be stepping down from the role after the next issue. He willbe replaced by Marcus Hearn, who co-edited the magazine in the mid 90s.

Tom Spilsbury took over from Clayton Hickman with issue 397, way back in 2007. It featured the first interview with Catherine Tate after her character, Donna had become a full-time companion.

Tom Spilsbury was always pushing the boundaries and some issues had specific themes. One of my personal favourites was the soap opera-themed issue. I liked the way the cover art was similar to Inside Soap magazine.

During his time as editor, Tom was able to introduce three new Doctors. The Matt Smith's first cover was that iconic picture where Matt is standing next to the Tardis in a dark side street. The second was John Hurt as the War Doctor. A couple of months later, Peter Capaldi debued. The cover looked a bit odd but the interview with Zoe Ball was great.

So Farewell Tom Spilsbury. You've been a brilliant editor. And welcome, Marcus Hearn. Hopefully you can keep up the good work.

Doctor Who: Overview of Series Ten

Here we are at the end of another series of Doctor Who. Series Ten has been a long time coming and the build up was certainly interesting. We knew since January 2016 that Steven Moffat was going to be leaving the show but not before he produced one more series and introduced a new companion. This extra series was probably necessary to keep the show going but it still felt strange. What would Steven Moffat do with another year? Would he rock the boat before his departure or would the series be running on the spot, keeping warm until Chris Chibnall's arrival? The news that Matt Lucas was coming back as a companion also filled fans with confusion. How would this barely characterized character work as a companion?

The best thing about this new series have been the companions. Bill is fantastic. Pearl Mackie makes her a wonderfully grounded character compared to the slightly strange Amy and Clara. She is the best companion of the Steven Moffat.

The aforementioned return of Nardole was actually rather brilliant. The character was expanded on and his more serious side was well played by  Matt Lucas.

The Missy redemption story was decent even if I felt that it could have been handled better. The Lie of the Land suffered by having one scene where Missy is casual about killing people to the opposite where she is crying over her victims. These two scenes should have been in different episodes. Then it would have felt like time had passed and Missy had been thinking more about things. Michelle Gomez has been fantastic. I hope she gets brought back at some point in the future.

When we first met the Twelfth Doctor in Series 8 he was an angry man who claimed he didn't care. Series Nine humanized the character quite a bit, almost too much. In Series Ten he has found a happy medium. Peter Capaldi is perfect for being a tutor to Bill and his performance in the finale was outstanding. I really don't want to see his Doctor go.

My Final Episode rankings are as follows:

1. World Enough and Time (9/10)
2. The Doctor Falls (8/10)
3. The Pilot (8/10)
4. Eaters of Light (8/10)
5. The Empress of Mars (8/10)
6. The Pyramid at the End of the World (8/10)
7. Thin Ice (7/10)
8. Smile (7/10)
9. Knock Knock (6/10)
10. Oxygen (6/10)
11. Extremis (6/10)
12. The Lie of the Land (5/10)

Overall, Series Ten has been a solid series. Looking back at my scores, most of them were eight out of tens, meaning I found the episodes generally quite good. The World Enough and Time and The Doctor Dances were undoubtedly my favourites, taking the best bits from some of Moffat;s previous finales and making them into something even better.

Steven Moffat has only one more episode of the Twelfth Doctor's era left to go. Let's hope that it is a proper send off for his Doctor and not a continuity fest for the First.

Doctor Who 10x12: The Doctor Falls

As The Doctor Falls opens, the odds are heavily stacked against the Doctor. A new army of Cybermen is about to take over the Space Ship, the Master has teamed up with Missy and Bill has been converted into a Cyberman. How would these elements be resolved? 

The pre-titles sequence introduces us to another level of the ship. In contrast to the polluted city, this level resembles a nice countryside with an artificial sky and a solar farm where a woman called Hazran protects children from converted patients. As the children are walking along, the ground starts to break underneath them as a Space Ship bursts through from a lower level. A Mondassian Cyberman also emerges, carrying the Doctor. It’s a nice image. 

After the opening titles the story cuts back to some time previously, back in the city at the bottom of the ship. The Doctor is now a prisoner of the Master and Missy, who are gloating over their victory and the rise of their Cyberman army. It's a similar scene to those at the beginning of Last of the Time Lords and The End of Time Part Two and works just as well here.  In this scene, the Master gets to explain how he escaped from Gallifrey, his reason for disguising himself as Razor and for converting the ship's crew into Mondassians. It's nice that these things are addressed as its the kind of detail that can sometimes be hand-waved away. 

The Master and Missy’s victory is short lived. True to form, the Doctor has secretly managed to outwit the Master by tampering with the Cybermen programming. They will now pursue Time Lords as well as humans. As the Cybermen advance, the Master and Missy are forced to make their escape with Nardole on a Ship while the converted Bill resists her programming and helps the Doctor to escape. Our five main characters arrive at the Solar Farm that we saw in the pre-titles sequence and the story leaps to two weeks later. 

From here on in the plot is very straightforward.  Everyone on the Solar Farm prepares to defend themselves from the Cybermen long enough to allow the children to escape to one of the upper floors of the Ship.  Despite all of the hype, the actual Cyber-Attack is very short, and the Doctor can dispose of them by blowing up parts of the ship. Where the episode excels is in the character interaction and development that occurs in the build up to the assault. 

Bill has a particularly hard time in dealing with being a Cyberman. Although her body is cybernetic she has been able to able to retain her emotions due to her link with the Monks in Lie of the Land. She spends most of the episode trying to come to terms with her new appearance and the fact that people are afraid to approach her. She even tells the Doctor she does not want to live if she stays like this which is heartbreaking. Bill still images herself as human, which means that Pearl Mackie still feature heavily in the episode. It’s a clever writer trick by Steven Moffat, and Rachael Talalay pulls the transitions between human-Bill and Cyber-Bill with great aplomb. Cybermen voices are not great for conveying emotional depth so it makes sense to have Pearl Mackie. 

The Master and Missy are unwilling to involve themselves in the conflict and decide to escape in the Master’s Tardis. The character don't really contribute much to help but they are splendidly written in this episode.  The Master is sadistic when he taunts Bill. Missy’s true allegiances remain ambiguous. Together are flirtatious and sometimes answer the others’ thoughts. The fact that they want to run away from a dangerous situation is perfectly in keeping with the Masters of the past. We see that the Doctor’s attempt to redeem Missy did have an effect as she tries to kill the Master and return. The Master shoots her so the Doctor will never know that she tried to redeem herself. It’s a suitable fate for the character. Neither of them regenerates which means that Chris Chibnall could easily bring either of them back if he chooses. Although I would like to see them again, this would be good enough a conclusion for the character as it is. 

In a nice contrast with the two Masters' cowardice, Nardole gets to show off his bravery. He was sidelined in the previous episode but here he gets to play a crucial role in helping the solar farmers to prepare their defenses, There is also a lovely little subplot where he falls in love with Hazran, the woman looking after the kids. This episode serves as a departure for Nardole as he stays behind and look after the kids and protect them from further Cyberman attacks. His farewell to the Doctor and Bill was touching. It’s a nice ending for a character that started off as a bit of a coward and comic relief. It was grat to see what Matt Lucas could do. 

With all of the competing elements mentioned already, it would be easy to imagine that Peter Capaldi's Doctor would be overshadowed. Fortunately this is far from the case as he shines above verything else. As the episode progresses he is gradually weakening, and it seems that several wounds are causing his regeneration rather than one big event. Nevertheless he shows his bravery by plowing on. The speech he gives to the Master about kindness is probably one of his stand up moments. The Master’s response is great and the Doctor imploring Missy is also heart-breaking. We see the warrior side of the Doctor when he uses the sonic screwdriver to blow up parts of the ship and take the Cybermen with it. His regeneration is started when the Cybermen shoot him. The Doctor's regeneration is very reminiscent of previous Doctors. He gets flashbacks like Tom Baker's in Logopolis and also quotes 'I don't want to go' and 'the Doctor was me' from the last two. This time though his regeneration is more weary. 

The Cybermen themselves were decent even if they weren't really the focus on the episode. We not only see the Mondassian ones but also the Cybus and Cyberiad versions. The Doctor suggests that Cybermen evolve because of parallel evolution. There is a nice throw in to the Cybermen coming from Marinus in The World Shapes. The Cybermen are after the children because there is less spare flesh and blood to throw away which is sick. Although they do not get so much attention this week, they are at least in control of their situation and not actually pawns of the Master this time around. 

By the end of the episode all of our characters go their separate ways. The wounded Doctor is on his way to regeneration and Nardole is staying behind to look after children. The least satisfying of these was Bill’s departure. Throughout the episode she is crying tears and these turn out to be Heather, the undead girl from The Pilot. She saves Bill by taking her on as a passenger and they go off into the universe. It’s very similar to what happens to Clara in Hell Bent, although since Bill is a lot more likeable than Clara it is easy to let it pass. 

Although Bill’s departure was less than satisfying, everything else was so sublime that it was easy to let that go. Rachael Talalay’s direction was fantastic and I am sad that we may only have one more episode to go, unless Chibnall asks her to come back. Murray Gold’s score is decent, with callbacks to Rise of the Cybermen and Heaven Sent. 

There was certainly a lot of fan references in this episode. We got references to previous Cyberman stories as well as the Master having the same dematerialisation circuit as in the original series. Steven Moffat is definately not worrying too much about fans. 

The episode ends with the Twelfth Doctor in the snow, meeting his first incarnation played by David Bradley. It will be interesting to see the difference between his performance as the actor, William Hartnell and the character of the First Doctor. Will he be a better substitute than Richard Hurndall? I’m excited to find out. 

Series Ten has been a fairly good series. Nothing bad but nothing brilliant. The Doctor Falls was one of the better episodes.

8/10

Doctor Who 10x11: World Enough and Time

Doesn’t it feel like Series Ten has gone really quickly? Not so long ago we were being introduced to the wonderful Bill Potts in The Pilot. As we approach the end of the Capaldi era, Steven Moffat seems to be pulling out all of the stops to pull surprise viewers and create a sense of uncertainty as to how this era will end.

The first shock of the episode comes in the pre-titles sequence. We see the Doctor stepping out of the Tardis and start to regenerate in the middle of a snowy wilderness. It remains to be seen whether or not he actually completes this regeneration but it's already more intriguing than the one in The Lie of the Land because now we're at the end of the series. At this point, the departure of Peter Capaldi is almost upon us, and a sudden regeneration wouldn't seem too out of place.

After the titles, we are introduced to the main setting of this episode; an unnamed colony ship, reversing away from a black hole.  A distress signal has been sent from the ship which is what brings the Doctor, Bill Nardole and Missy into the story. The Doctor intends to test the sincerity of Missy's redemption and this is the perfect scenario. With Bill and Nardole as her companions, Missy must assume the role of the Doctor and save the ship. It's a funny scenario, which viewers a glimpse into what it might be like to see a female incarnation of the Doctor. Paving the way for Chris Chibnall, perhaps?

But nothing is ever straightforward. Upon leaving the Tardis, Missy and her companions meet the only surviving crew-member, Jorje. The arrival of a human is bringing something up the elevator from the bottom of the ship. Jorje is determined to kill the human to prevent the elevator from arriving. The Doctor gets involved and tensions escalate until we get the second shock of the episode when Bill is shot. The image of Bill with an empty hole through her chest is horrifying for a pre-watershed show. But before the viewers can truly process Bill’s death, the elevator arrives and a group of freaky patients emerge and take Bill’s body away to the bottom of the ship.

Normally, it would be simple enough for the Doctor to go down the elevator and rescue Bill except for the fact that this ship is experiencing time dilation. Because the ship is reversing away from the black hole, time is moving slower at the back end of where Bill is, and moving faster at the top where the Doctor, Nardole, Missy and Jorje are. This means that in the few minutes the Doctor is devising a plan to save Bill, weeks and months are passing for her. It’s a fascinating concept for Doctor Who to explore and adds tension as to quite how long Bill will have to wait to be saved.

Meanwhile, Bill wakes up and finds that the hole in her heart has been filled with a huge chest unit. As she gets up and explores, she finds she is trapped in a really creepy hospital along with the patients. Her only friend is a mysterious man with an Eastern European accent, called Razor. These patients it seems are being prepared for the greater good, and long-time viewers of Doctor Who will start recognise that they are being turned into Cybermen. The months go by for Bill, as she befriends Razor.

When the group are eventually reunited it is after the three key revelations. The Space Ship is actually from Mondas and Bill has been converted into a Cyberman. Missy discovers that Razor is actually her previous incarnation in disguise.  The duel threats of the Cybermen and Missy certainly represent one of the best cliff-hangers of this period of the show.

It is a sign of how likeable Bill is that you feel sorry for her in the episode. Amy and Clara being converted would never have seemed so sad. Pearl Mackie really sells the horror of the hospital and her disapproval of the Doctor’s plan to redeem Missy. Pearl's performance and some good writing have combined for a really interesting character. As much as I like Bill I hope the Cyber-Conversion sticks. It would be so much like Steven Moffat to reverse it.

Fans have long wanted to see a Genesis of the Cybermen on television and this is a really good one.
The Patients are creepy form of Proto-Cybermen with voice boxes and horrible bandaged faces. The designer is to be congratulated for adapting the Mondasian Cyberman. The ones here are more streamlined creature and Nicholas Briggs provides them with creepy voice. I also liked the idea that the handlebars were an early version of the emotional inhibitor. It went towards justifying that strange design choice.

The Doctor goes through a range of emotions. The look of disbelief on his face when he sees Bill has been shot is excellent, as is his look of surprise at the return of John Simm's Master in the climax. The Doctor's desire to redeem Missy’s is a little naïve but the writing makes it more understandable from his perspective. If he can turn an evil person like Missy good then it will be better for the rest of the universe. His mistake may end up in leading to not only the death of others, but the end of his current incarnation as well.

With so much else happening, Nardole doesn’t get a lot to do this week apart from cracking the odd jokes. Missy takes his place as a computer expert, making him almost redundant. Hopefully he will contribute a bit more to next week’s episode. It's not yet known for certain whether he will stay on for the Christmas episode, or even for Series Eleven. If the next episode is Nardole's last then it would be great if he could go out on a high. Matt Lucas has been great this series and I don’t want his departure to be a disappointment.

Missy also goes through the ringer here. The scenes where she pretends to be the Doctor are absolutely hilarious. Her look of uncertainty when she meets her other self is good. If she truly is searching for redemption then the appearance of her old self will be a temptation. It will be interesting to see where this goes.

John Simm is great in the dual role of Razor and the Master.  The character of Razor is a bit of a funny caricature but Simm makes him hilarious. His Master so far seems just the same as before but now with a goatee and a really great costume designed by Hayley Nebauer. I can’t wait to see him in full in the next episode

The rest of the supporting cast play a fairly peripheral role. The blue skinned Jorje is a largely forgettable character, largely serving as a plot device to shoot Bill and then spout exposition. The crew of the bottom deck are far more effective. Paul Brightwell as the Surgeon is a wonderfully sinister character. Alison Lintott as the nurse is a nasty type. They are both the kind of characters you wouldn’t want to s meet in a real hospital.

Rachael Talalay is the best director of the Peter Capaldi years. Only Ben Wheately comes close. The scenes at the bottom of the ship are as close to a horror movie as you could get for an early Saturday evening family show. Murray Gold must also be congratulated for providing some very distinctive music. The violins and falsetto sell the creepiness. We're a long way from the work of Ed Bazalgette.

World Enough and Time is a fantastic episode. Steven Moffat has never killed off a companion before. As this is his very last series it would be a great opportunity for him to leave after doing something shocking.

9/10

From Sherlock Holmes to Dracula

It turns out that after leaving Doctor Who , Steven Moffat is going to be working on an adaption of Dracula. He will be writing this series with Mark Gatiss and Sue Vertue's Hartswood Films will be producing it. The show share the same mini-series structure as Sherlock.

The fact that this is another adaption of an old British fictional character makes the show feel a little familiar, especially if it shares the same episodic structure. It will be interesting to see who gets cast as Dracula. Will they go for a traditional actor or someone new and unexpected? If Dracula is a surname then they could easily cast a woman. The sexuality of vampires is something Moffat will do well and I can't imagine Steven Moffat creating anything like Twilight so that is just as well. Hopefully it will be better than that turgid 2006 adaption which starred Mark Warren. Time will tell if this is as popular as Sherlock or whether it will dissapear into obscurity like Jekyll.

Doctor Who 10x10: The Eaters of Light

The writer of this episode, Rona Munro, is as a playwright and scriptwriter but Doctor Who fans would identify her as the writer of Survival, the final story of Doctor Who’s original 26 year run. Survival was a pretty good story and I was curious to see whether The Eaters of Light would live up to it.

The Eaters of Light does share a few similarities with Rona’s previous tale. In Survival the Doctor and his companion met a group of young people surviving in the wild from monsters. In this story he meets two different groups of young people surviving in the wild from monsters. One of these groups is the Pict people, the residents of Scotland. The other group are the survivors of the Ninth Legion, a group of young male Romans sent to conquer the country. As with Survival, the fighting of these different factions is causing damage to the greater world at large and the Doctor also gets a speech where he implores each group to stop fighting or they will die together.

The monster that the Picts and the Legion are faced with is an Eater of Light.  For many years, a warrior of the Pict tribe would enter a Cairn to fight this monster and keep the rest of the world safe. Since the Romans invaded, the young warrior Kar decided to allow a Eaters of Light into the world to kill the Romans. Kar's actions have had grave consequences as there is now a risk that many more Eaters of Light will go on. Although the concept of a creature that can eat light is a good one, the realization of the Eater was slightly disappointing. The CGI dragon looked like something that would come from a PS2 game. It was a fairly standard threat. 

Ultimately, the Ninth Legion and the Picts decide to sacrifice themselves by throwing themselves into the portal and fighting the Eaters. As time is different in the Cairn where the portal is, the Picts and Romans can fight the Eaters for a few minutes and the outside world will be getting years of peace. Kar’s decision to take the Doctor’s advice about growing up and fight is necessary to fight evils. It is suitable message for young people who should take a stand against the problems of the world like terrorism. It was interesting that the Doctor was initially willing to sacrifice himself. I thought he would stay and this would lead itno the finale, but it is a scene for the companions to pull him away.

The supporting cast are decent. Rebecca Benson is good in the role of Kar, alternating between being a fighter and having a vulnerability. A female character who is not too brave to be unbelievable. She is well-meaning and naïve attitude. The Roman Legion are well played, but the most we learn about them are their sexualities.

The Celtic music is probably my favourite pieces of Murray Gold’s music so far this series. It would be great if we could get a soundtrack of this and his Series 9 scores that Silva Screen couldn’t be bothered to release.  The direction was nothing special but at least the damp hillside location looked very atmospheric.

Bill is really good this week. The episode makes up for Empress of Mars where she side-lined. She comes into the story already knowing the Ninth Legion and is able to persuade the Romans to leave their hiding place so they can find the Doctor.  I’m not sure she demonstrated being a history buff before but this is something the writers are pushing now. Once again she is chatted up but this time by a bisexual person. This is also the episode where she finds out the Tardis translation circuits and it’s nice that she is still learning the different facets of the show as she goes on.

Nardole is also fantastic in the episode. He is the only member of the crew to ingratiate himself with the Pict tribe. He also gets the brilliant joke about Scotland causing death. It is wonderful seeing him on a proper adventure with the Doctor and Bill. He is a really fun character. His only downside is that he hates Jazz.

Peter Capaldi is on top form.  His Doctor getting some great lines this week and shares a lot of fun banter with Nardole and Bill. He shows off his ruder side when he declares the two warrior groups as children and we see him act as a magician when he outwits the Picts with a bag of popcorn and the warrior who wants to self-sacrificial side when he offers to be the one who stays over the rift.

One final similarity between Survival and Eaters of Light is the appearance by the Master, or rather Missy, who makes a brief appearance at the end of the episode. Although the Doctor told Bill and Nardole that he had taken her back to the vault he had actually kept her on the Tardis to help with the maintenance. She is once again pretending to be turned good. I still find this difficult to believe as it feels so rushed. I think the writers should have threaded this redemption story across a few more episodes in order to make it feel convincing. It still feels as though she is going to betray him any second. More interesting is the Doctor’s reaction as he desperately wants Missy to be good even if she was to. If he is going to be disappointed then it will be interesting to see.

The Eaters of Light was a solid episode. It was not a game-changing episode but it had a good location, decent characterisation and some great dialogue. Once again, the Doctor, Bill and Nardole prove themselves to be the best Tardis team. Next week’s episode looks like it will shape things up.

8/10

Big Finish: Derek Jacobi to return as the Master

Derek Jacobi first played the Master in the sadly unsuccessful relaunch cartoon,  Scream of the Shalka. Then he got to play the Master for real in the TV Series. Now his version of the Master is set to return in the Big Finish Audios.

It will be interesting to see how the chaacter is integrated with first appearance as Professor Yana. The Doctor didn't recognize Professor Yana so we can assume the earlier Doctors never met this incarnation in person.  In Utopia we are told that the Master was found on the coast of the silver devastation as a child. I'd always assumed he'd regenerated and become a child again, but perhaps he'd always been an adult and was simply de-aged himself.

Doctor Who 10x09: Empress of Mars

A story featuring the Ice Warriors on their home planet of Mars seems like an obvious idea for a Doctor Who story yet the television series has never attempted it before now. A story was briefly in line for the Patrick Troughton years but was never made as the budget couldn't match up with the ideas. When the Doctor finally did land on the red planet in Waters of Mars, the martians themselves were only mentioned in dialogue. Finally, in 2017, Mark Gatiss has given the fans what he wanted, but on top of this he's added a a group of Victorian soldiers.

The reason for the  Victorians being on Mars is that they were brought in a space ship by a surviving Ice Warrior who they nicknamed Faraday. The Ice Warrior has given the Victorians access to a large cannon which the they think they are using to dig away for rocks, but the Ice Warriors has been using them to open up the entrance to an Ice Warrior Hive and awaken the Empress.  It's a similar setup to Tomb of the Cybermen. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat are such big fans of those old episodes that it's no surprise that this kind of reference was in it.

Fortunately, unlike in Tomb, the aliens don't just go back to sleep again.  With the Ice Warriors' freedom, tensions mount between the two races and escalate into a battle with the Doctor and Bill  trying to broker peace but just getting caught up in the middle of things. Eventually two peacemakers on both sides, the Captain and Faraday, make themselves known.

The Victorians themselves are decent enough characters. Catchlove is the war-maker of the team and is a bit snooty. The Colonel, Godsacre, is a character burdened with the guilt of having survived a hanging. With a backstory like that, you just know he is going to redeem himself by the end of the story. The rest soldiers are straightforward so we do not feel too bad when they are being killed off by the Ice Warriors.

The Ice Warriors themselves are impressive. The design from Cold War was already pretty good and here there are more of them. The Doctor says they are bonded to their armour which contradicts the idea that they could get out of the suit in Cold War, but I like this better. I didn't so much like the way their armaments kill people by compressing them into tiny footballs. It looked a bit odd.

The Ice Empress is also a pretty good addition to the Ice Warrior lore. Her voice is somewhat reminiscent of the Racnoss from The Runaway Bride and her armour is a really good design. It is disappointing that she is easily taken hostage by Catchlove and has to be rescued by Godsacre. You would think that with her bulky armour and her strength she might have overpowered a thin skinned human.

The story concludes with the surviving Victorians soldiers pledging themselves to serve the Ice Warriors which seems like an odd  decision, given the number of their friends that had been killed. The Doctor then helps the Ice Warriors by making them establish contact with another alien species, hinting that this is a prequel to the events of The Curse of Peladon. It was great to see that the alien they contacted was Alpha Centauri. I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that they got Ysanne Churchman to do the voice. It wasn't an entirely necessary cameo but it was a nice treat for the fans.

The characterization of the Doctor was much better this week. There was no weird scene of him mocking his companion or grinning or laughing like a lunatic when he crashes a a vehicle. Unusually the Doctor is more more on the sidelines this week with Godacre getting to the heroic character who saves the day. This isn't actually a problem since Capaldi still manages to make the Doctor stand out. Besides, it's actually nice that the supporting characters get to be more important. Most recently the Modern Series has swung too far in the other direction.

Bill is also well characterized but like the Doctor, she is a bit sidelined this week. Although she does get to talk to the Ice Empress, she doesn't really contribute anything lasting. It is odd that her race was not an issue given that the humans in this story were Victorian, but she was at least disgusted by the Victorian attitude . Nevertheless, Pearl Mackie remains a joy to watch in this episode.

Sadly, Nardole is only at the beginning of the episode and at the very end. Matt Lucas is still enjoyable in the role though. The reason for his absence is because the Tardis was inexplicably drawn off course from Mars by some external force. He is forced to recruit Missy and they both go back. The final scene of the Doctor surprised that Missy came back was interesting. It is not clear whether Missy was the one who sent the Tardis off course in the first place, but it would not surprise me.

Wayne Yip's direction is quite decent. The colour and photography of the episode is good with the green of the ice warriors contrasted with the reds and oranges of Mars. Yip also does a good job in making there look like there are more Ice Warriors than there probably were on set. Murray Gold did a decent job with the soundtrack even if it didn't stand out.

By the end of the episode we have been left with interesting questions. What was responsible for drawing the Tardis from Mars back to Earth? Will Missy stay free of the vault? Hopefully the former will be answered but I imagine that the second definitely will.

Empress of Mars is less ambitious than the Monk trilogy but unlike those episodes, this one does at least succeed at what it is trying to accomplish. If  Mark Gatiss does come back then he will hopefully continue in this vein, otherwise this would be a script to finish on.

8/10

RIP Adam West

Another day and we have another sad passing of a much loved actor. Adam West's Batman was the first version I ever saw. Channel 4 was rerunning the 1966 series in the early 90s and it was the first superhero show I ever really saw and the one that first got me interested in the genre. Tastes change a as you get older. Some fans give the impression that you are not supposed to like the 'camp' Batman. In the late 2000s I revisited the series and found that it was really good. The show was absurd but the people making it were aware of that. Adam West was great because played the role utterly serious which just made the absurd situations funnier. As a child, you took the show seriously like the characters did. When you were older, you could see the funnier side. Adam West did make a welcome return to the Batman universe in my other favourite version of the character, the 1992 animated series. There he played a character called the Gray Ghost, a superhero loved by the current Bruce Wayne. It was a great tribute to this actor and Adam was brilliant in it.  His Family Guy appearance was also great. So long, Adam West, you were brilliant. 

RIP Peter Sallis

Peter Sallis has passed away at the age of 96. I first knew about him as the voice of Wallace in the Wallace and Gromit clay animation series. He gave a very distinctive vocal performance and those films were a highlight of my childhood. As I grew older and became a Doctor Who fan I recognized that same voice when I saw Peter playing Scientist Penley  in The Ice Warriors. The character itself was probably not that special but Peter Sallis gave him some charisma. He is probably better known for his on-screen appearance as Norman Clegg in Last of the Summer Wines from 1973 to the series' conclusion in 2010. His contributions will be missed.

Doctor Who 10x08: The Lie of the Land

The first 'act' of The Lie of the Land presented a very interesting scenario of the Doctor turning evil and the companions having to stop him.  It takes place six months since Bill consented to the Monks. The Monks now rule the world and the Doctor has apparently become their Minister of Propaganda. Bill Potts is back in the UK, living the life of just another citizen in this dystopian world. She alone can see the changes and has invented an imagined version of her real mum to speak to and remind herself of the truth. When Nardole finds her they both team up to find the Doctor on board a boat. This is a very new situation for these companions.

All this potential is ruined the moment that the Bill and Nardole are reunited with the Doctor.  It turns out the Doctor was just pretending to be evil to test Bill and has been gathering a resistance. He even throws in a fake regeneration which would have no meaning to Bill and felt like it was included just to boost the trailers. These fake regenerations have become standard now. The Doctor and his friends laughing at Bill also seemed unnecessary cruel. When a similar test of faith happened in The Curse of Fenric, the Doctor appeared regretful. Here is he is every too gleeful. You'd almost think he actually was being controlled by the monks.

After the promising first act,  the episode devolves into a standard adventure where Doctor and his companions work with a resistance to overthrow evil authorities. With the Doctor now good, everything feels much easier for our heroes than it should. The Doctor opening the vault to try and get Missy’s help and Missy suggests killing Bill which is something that the Doctor could probably have worked out for himself.  It was nice to see the inside of the vault but a bit disappointing that it was only Missy inside of it. I was hoping there was going to be an extra twist with something else in there.

As the  Doctor and his allies attempt to find the Monks control centre, the plot slowly becomes ever more ridiculous.  In the previous episodes we saw that the Monks were able to meticulously planning the invasion of Earth but now we find out that they have given no thought to protecting their own base, allowing the Doctor and his team of rebels to get to the control system with very mild resistance. This is where having the Doctor on the good guys side causes problems.  It all felt too easy for our heroes. Bill uses her emotional link to her mum to overpower the Monks which is very similar to the way that Craig’s love conquered the
space ship in The Lodger. 

The Monks were very easily dispatched. They simply run away when the going gets tough. It could have been more interesting if we had seen the humans pursuing and fighting them. They've been shown to have the power to teleport into peoples' places and use gravity beams to control military craft but they now flee and we don't get to see how. Like many of the big events of this episode, the Monks' defeat is explained in a voice over by Bill, which feels like it was just done just to save the money and time to be spent on scenes.

At the conclusion everyone has forgotten about the alien invasion and put it down to a film which doesn’t explain how they were all wearing black clothes or what they think happened to all the people that were killed in a six months since the Monks took over. The Doctor gets a funny and true line about humanity never learns to resist dictatorships. That is true but it is still hard to think people wouldn't notice the physical changes in the world. The time paradox resolution of The Last of the Time Lords worked way better than this. The conclusion also sees Missy confessing her guilt to her past crimes but it is almost impossible to believe that she won't turn evil again by the time of the finale. Michelle Gomez puts on another good performance nad does her best to sell the concept, but it is hard to believe, especially when Missy seemed to relish the idea of killing Bill earlier on.

If Bill is so important to the Monks then why did they let her wander around with the rest of the public? Would it not be better for her to have been their prisoner? The one point where a Monk came face to face with her it apparently did not recognize her. It feels as if the writer, Toby Whithouse, had no knowledge of what had gone on in Peter Harness' script. If that was the case then it was a sloppily planned arc.

The Doctor is on and off for the episode. It seemed strange enough  when he and his new soldier pals laugh at Bill for thinking he turned evil. He also laughs when he crashes the boat into the shore. Peter Capaldi turns in a decent performance but there is something a bit off about the Doctor this week.

At the end of tree episodes we still didn't really know enough about the Monks. Why did the Monks want to take over the Earth? Did they specifically want control of this planet? What was their end game? They felt a little bit too nebulous.

This episode had the opposite problem to the previous two parts of the Monk trilogy. Extremis and Pyramid had thin plots which were stretched across 45-50 minutes. Lie of the Land had a lot of plot but a lot of the narrative had to be covered in voice overs.

The Lie of the Land was a bit of a dud. It actually made me reevaluate Extremis because that episode had interesting things to say about coping in a crisis. At least we have the Ice Warriors in next week although you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the Cybermen coming back since the production team accidentally put the Cybermen theme over the Next time trailer. Let's hope that the romp will be mor entertaining

5/10