Doctor Who: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos

These days, we've used to the idea of every single series of Doctor Who ending with a big finale. There's usually some game changing event like a companion departure, a new Doctor's debut or the return of an old villain. It wasn't always the case though. In the 1963-1989  run of the series, it was more common for a final story to simply be a stop. The Battle of Ransokoor Av Kolos falls into the latter category. The Tardis team is pretty much the same as the end of the adventure as thy were at the beginning.Only a couple of beats make this seem significant.

One way this does resemble more recent finales is the return of an old villain. This time it's Tim Shaw, the Stenza warrior from The Woman Who Fell to Earth. Since we last saw him, he teleported to the planet of two psychic aliens know as the Uks.  With the help of the Uks, Tim Shaw has constructed an edifice which he plans to use as a super weapon. Using parts of five different planets he plans to destroy the Earth as a revenge fr the Doctor. The scheme is somewhat derivative of The Pirate Planet.

The Doctor and company get involved when they answer the distress signal and meet a man called Paltraki. Although he does not remember it straightaway he has stolen one of the planet components that Tim Shaw needs.

They are ultimately able to resolve the manner by sending the planets back to the same place. Event he Doctor refers to it as being derivative of Journey's End. 

Upon finding out about Tim Shaw, Graham decides he wants revenge. This is where the lack of game changing quality brings the episode down. The rules of genre would dictate Graham does not kill Tim Shaw. Instead he shoots him in the foot. A fan seculated it might have been more interesting if Graham had actually killed Tm Shaw and he and Ryan had tried to cover it up. As it is, the ending of this arc is a little too predictable to be interesting.

The Doctor's ethics are challenged this week but not too deeply. Graham is challenging her rules on guns, but she hands out bombs without concern. There is also the interesting idea that she has inadvertently led to Tim Shaw being the creator, but it is glossed over. Jodie is great as the Doctor, and I know from Broadchurch that she can do serious. This is one episode whee a more serious Doctor was needed to make the gravity of the situation seem real.

Tim Shaw himself is alright. Having him be weakened on a life support system was interesting. Unfortunately he didn't really do anything except to exposit and walk around a lot. I had hoped that the episode would flesh out the character but it doesn't really. He is put in stasis by Graham and Ryan at the end of the episode, but it is possible he may come back in the future. If he does then they should take his character in a new direction.

The Uks are an interesting idea. Psychic aliens who have the power to manipulate matter. It's unclear why such a powerful race would think that the injured Tim Shaw was any kind of creator. They are more creators than he is.

Ryan and Yasmin get very little to do this week. Ryan is mostly there to act as Graham's conscience and reminds Graham that they and the Tardis team are a family. Yasmin gets even less, acting as a sounding board to the Doctor but not given much else.

The setting of this episode is a disappointing quarry planet. The scenes where the Uks are speaking in portentous dialogue gave some fans flashbacks to Time and the Rani. There is speculation that it will drive people mad, but when the Doctor and Yasmin remove their implants they only get slight headaches.

One thing I like is that this episode only refers to the current series. There are some callbacks to The Ghost Monument, as in the Sniperbots, who are still as useless as they were in that episode and the reference to Stenza technology.

The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos is an episode that poses a lot of interesting ideas but does not give them the depth or exploration they deserved. There are a few peppered moments. The jokes are funny. The Die Hard reference is amusing and the notion of the time travellers as family is great. It's not terrible but not the best.

Rating = 6/10

Doctor Who: It Takes You Away

In almost every series of the revived Doctor Who, the penultimate episode has been an experimental one, trying new or offbeat ideas for the show. Sometimes it pays off and you get something wonderful like Heaven Sent. Other times you get something that's a bit of a mess, like Fear Her or Nightmare in Silver.  This time around,  It Takes You Away felt somewhere between the two. Some good ideas but not executed as well as it could have been

The episode started out well, with our intrepid group of time travelers arriving at a Norwegian Fjord and investigating a boarded up house. There's a bit of a horror theme going on with these segments, with a creepy house, and figure in the shadows moving around. Segun Akinola's music aids in building the haunting atmosphere.

It turns out that the shadowy figure is a blind girl. Her father has gone missing and there seems to be a monster outside. As our explorers investigate it turns out that the father did not dissapear from outside the house but inside. A mirror in the house is a gateway to a dark realm known as the anti-zone. After dealing with the horrors of the anti-zone our heroes each the gateway to a sentient universe known as the Solitract. This is where the episode loses the horror theme and becomes an emotional story. The girl's father is alive but has been tempted here by a recreation of his dead wife. Graham soon meets a copy of Grace.

It is in the final moments that the episode slightly falls apart. The Frog was a weird element in the episode. Treated seriously. Like Buddweiser Frog.

The father, Ed, was not dealt with as harshly as perhaps he should have been. This is a an who left his disabled daughter alone in a boarded up house in the middle of nowhere with no food and no clear way back to civilization. It's not clear whether the solitract was influencing his decision or whether he is generally a terrible parent. The lack of clarity on this issue hurts the episode.

Nonetheless, the episode still had an interesting theme about moving on. The Man from his dead wife and Graham from Grace. Both have a responsibility to the living.

Graham had a lot of development coming close to his dead wife. He has the strength to pull away from it. He also gets the comedy scene of carrying food around.

Ryan was good as the helper to the girl. His proecting father issues was good.

Yasmin a little less well served as she was mostly there for the Doctor to explain things to. Liked her calming the victim.

Hopefully this episode is the calm moment before things get interesting. Next episode. with a familiar voice in the trailer, the result should be interesting.

Score = 7/10

Doctor Who: The Witchfinders

The Witch Hunts are a period not explored in televised Doctor Who before. In Bilehurst Cragg, a woman called Mistress Savage is having witches burnt. Although the Doctor stipulates non-interference she can't help but get involved and try to save a life, even if she doesn't save it. The only way out of the situation is to pretend to be a witch-finder.

They are soon joined by King James I. He is well played by Alan Cumming. Theatrical, flirtatious with Ryan, sexist towards the Doctor, and still managing to be dark  when he threatens to burn the witches. The character is definitely an interesting one to watch.

The true source of threat is revealled to be the Morax, alien war criminals that have been imprisoned on Pendel Hill. They were a well conceived alien threat. Muddy zombies. The only thing I didn't like about them were the voices which reminded me a bit of the Pyrovile Priestess from The Fires of Pompeii and the Eknodines from Amy's Choice.

The Mistress Savage was a well played villain, alternating between coldly harsh, sympathetic and evil. The girl convinced as the victim.

Jodie Whittaker was good this week. The moment she tells the others not to interfere in history and then can't help but halt the witch trial was typically Doctorish behaviour. She was also effective in the scene later on where she pleaded with King James for her life was good. It was also good to see her Doctor confronting the Morlax. She is becoming a fully rounded Doctor.

Graham was amusing when he was posing as the Witchfinder General. Although he got a serious moment to question Mistress Savage about her goodness, his funny hat meant that he always seemed comical.

Ryan didn't contribute much to the story but had comedy moments as he was hit on by King James I.

Yaz got a bit less to do this week. She did get to talk about the importance of standing up to bullying.

The episode has a very bleached out look which suited the grim subject matter. It gets a bit more colourful at the end, with lurid green trees when the Doctor stops the Morax. It is as though the Doctor fighting monsters restores the shape of the show. The music by Segun Akinola continues to be good.

While I may have preferred the previous episode, The Witchfinders is still a very decent episode of Doctor Who. It would have actually been a better Halloween Special than Arachnids in the U.K. was.

8/10

Doctor Who: Kerblam!

A gift for the Doctor contains a message for help. so she goes to Kerblam! central to investigate.
From here they could have told a story about evil business, with the two heads covering something up. Fortunately, writer Pete McTighe avoided the obvious cliches. Instead it is the worker who is attacking the system and plans to send parcels of death.

This episode was good, solid fun. Like the Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam is a light episode, but where the former felt unsure of itself, the latter is much moe aware of the tone, skirting between humour and seriousness.

Jodie was great this week and her Doctor was a highlight of the episode. Her giddy excitement at seeing the Keblam Man's arrival was hilarious and I loved watching her facial reactions and seeing her try on the Fez. She also got a great scene where she railed against the bosses only to say 'laters'

Ryan's background as a warehouse worker was referred to this week.He

Yaz got to use her police training against the villain for once.

Graham was fun as the janitor. It was a more comedic role but it sufficed.

The robots were good. They were more funny when they were being passive aggressive.

The supporting cast were all good. It was nice to see Julie Hesmondhalgh in the Doctor Who at last.

The music was less noticeable than last week but hte Kerblam delivery jingle was catchy

There were a lot of nods to old Doctor Who what with the Fez, the reference to The Unicorn and the Wasp as well as the Venusian Aikido.

Doctor Who: Demons of the Punjab

The Doctor takes Yaz to visit her nanny and finds out that she is due to marry a Hindu man called Prem. But this is during the partition and Prem's brother, Manish wants the division.

The wedding is blocked by Demons, or rather, aliens called Thiracians who the Doctor identified as assassins.  When it appears that they have killed the Holy Man who was supposed to initiate the wedding, the Doctor tries to hold off the aliens so that the wedding can take place.

But all is not as it seems. The aliens reveal that they are are innocent of the murder. Their planet has been destroyed and now they only pay witness to death. It was actually Manish who killed Holy Man and he has invited friends. Nani and her Mother get away while Prem holds the attackers off. The Doctor and friends get to witness Prem's death.

Demons of the Punjab is another episode where the aliens were barely there. The Thiracians look cool and the Doctor does stand up to them but are innocent Real monsters the people. It does leave the slight plot hole that if they didn't kill the Holy Man then why did they not find bullets?

The setting is the key here. The partition is an area that has not been explored yet in Who. This is mostly focused on a few people.

Yaz got proper character development. She is determined to find out more about her nani's past and initially shocked when she discovers that Prem and Nanny to Marry, but we see Yaz mature as she comes to understand how her nanny was thinking. By the end she is happy not to know anymore.

The Doctor comes across much better in this. She stands up to the aliens. She also engages with a wedding. The first time, I think, of the Doctor ever officiating.

Bradley Walsh is brilliant. Scene where he comforts Yaz is brilliant. His speech was reminiscent of the one Troughton gave.

Ryan got a bit less to do this week. But he's had enough for now.

The direction for this episode was good. Everything looked visually stunning. The music was also very good. Segun Akinola continues to shine. He got Indian composers to do this episode.

A pure historical like Hartnell. Shades of Father's Day as well.

Score = 8/10

RIP Stan Lee

Farewell to one of the most influential people in comics history.

When I was growing up, it was all about Spider-Man and the X-Men. The Avengers hadn't had their breakout success in the Marvel Studios film series yet. Spider-Man showed me how you could have a hero who had to alternate his superhero life with his ordinary life.

Doctor Who: The Tsuranga Conundrum

There comes a point in every era of Doctor Who where the new showrunner produces a bad episode. For Russell T. Davies, that was Aliens of London. For Steven Moffat it was The Beast Below. For Chris Chibnall it's The Tsuranga Conundrum.

The episode starts out well. After being blown up by a sonic mine, the Doctor and her friends are transported to The Tsuranga, a medical spaceship. For the first fifteen minutes of the episode, the Doctor, in a dazed and confused state, tries to work out where she and her friends are and how they can escape. It's a nice sequence of building up mystery, getting a sense of location and introducing our guest cast for the week.

The Tsuranga is soon under attack from a tiny alien called the P'ting. This little creature looks cute but is actually a deadly creature that eats anything and cannot be touched. This was a nice little creation and kudos to Tim Price, who worked on the Doctor Who writes room, for coming up with it.

The rest of the episode is about everyone on board trying to get the P'ting off the ship and make it safely to the medical station. At the same time, the other patients get their own little problems to deal with. A former General having to admit her pilot problem. A male pregnancy and Ryan and Graham coming to terms with their own dad. This is where the episode really start to go wrong.  For all that we're meant to believe the crew are in mortal danger, everyone gets time to stop for long chats. There is no sense that the Space Ship is getting worse.

Jodie Whittaker's Doctor wasn't given so much Matt Smith dialogue this week but she does lack authority. She bows down to the medical staff member, Astos when he talks about exploring. There is also a scene where she and General Cicero are trying to talk the crew and the General seems to have more authority. I never felt like Jodie's Doctor was really in charge.

Ryan and Graham get to bond this week. Ryan deals with issues of fatherhood. Graham gets to be the comic relief, hoping to deliver a baby based on watching Call the Midwife.

After all her character development last week, Yaz is the one who is once again given very little to do. She guards the reactor and kicks the P'ting and that's about it.

This episode felt like a dull episode of Star Trek. We had spaceships, an android who looked like Data and a Space Station. The tone was all misplaced. Every character was earnestly talking technobabble. There is a reference to CERN which was the only good scene.

The only other good thing about the episode was the music. Segun Akinola's score carried the episode, generating tension where there was none in the script.

Rating = 5/10