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

Doctor Who: Arachnids in the UK

Arachnophobia seems to be an affliction on many people. They find spiders to be scary and hideous.
Personally I’ve never been that scared of spiders. I actually like them. They get rid of annoying flies. Your attitude toward this episode may depend on how you feel about our eight-legged friends.

The story begins similarly to Aliens of London. The Doctor manages to return her friends to Sheffield as she promised, only half an hour after they left. The Doctor and Ryan go to have tea with Yaz at her flat while Graham decides to return to his own house. These separate scenes serve to flesh out the characters. At Yaz's flat we are introduced to her Dad and her sister. Graham returning home to mourn Grace shows how far he has developed. These scenes are written well.

Unfortunately, the sci-fi story in the middle lets it down.  Arachnids in the UK is basically the Green Death condensed into 50 minutes. Toxic waste is turning spiders into giants. There is no real mystery as to why the spiders are going big. We go from mysterious business types trying Yasmin’s dad explaining how rubbish is built up and references to rubbish chutes, and then spiders. It’s easy to see how everything fits together. No real twists along the way. Nobody other than our regulars are threatened by the spiders. You would think Yasmin’s family would come under threat to up the tension, but only her mum does.

The Spiders themselves are good CGI creation. Glad they weren’t the enemy. Sadly the Doctor elects to kill them ‘humanely’ rather than use the Tardis to take them to another planet. The death of the Big Spider is supposed to be sad but since it was going to die anyway, it’s not much. It’s similar to the death of the Triceratops in Chibnall’s Dinosaurs on a Space Ship. Also similar to exploited meat creature in Torchwood’s Meat.

The supporting cast are thinned down to three primary characters. Yasmin's dad and sister are likeable, if straightforward. Yasmin’s mum is doubter like Jackie. Professor is just dumping exposition Doand Trump character is funny for a minute. Yasmin’s dad and sister are fine.

The Doctor seemed a bit more like Matt Smith or David this week. Commenting and rambling. She referred to regeneration as though it had just happened whereas she seemed fully in control last episode.

Bradley Walsh is fanstatic this week grieving over Grace. Yasmin gets a bit more fleshed out. There is either going to be love interest in Ryan or love interest in the Doctor. Ryan gets the least to do in this episode though he does get funny moments making spider shadow puppets and using music to lure the spiders.

If there’s one thing that’s becoming apparent with the Chris Chibnall episodes, it’s that the character moments are strong and the plot is weak.  As with The Ghost Monument, I found myself checking the time which is not a good sign. Let's hope the upcoming episodes are better.

Rating = 6/10

Doctor Who: Rosa

Before this episode aired, I was very nervous. The American Civil Rights movement is a very sensitive subject matter and there are so many ways that this episode could have gone wrong. Fortunately the writers, Malorie Blackman and Chris Chibnall, were able to navigate the difficulties and the result was a very good episode.

The most important thing that this episode gets right is that the Doctor and companions did not in any way inspire Rosa's act of protest that led to the bus boycott. Instead our time travellers are on the edge of events, trying to keep history free of interference from a another time traveller, a racist  criminal called Krasko, who wants to create small changes that will stop the bus boycott and stop the Civil Rights movement from happening. There is no big plan for an alien invasion. The villain is all too-human, motivated by petty racism.

It's probably the closest to a pure historical since the William Hartnell years. We get references to Emmett Till and Ryan gets to meet Martin Luther King. As the villain is humanoid, we get no bug-eyed monsters. The enemies in this case are human. Unlike other episodes, where racism is allegorical with aliens, here it is very raw and real feeling.

I complained last time about the pacing problems. Although The Ghost Monument was set on a hostile alien planet, our regular characters never felt like they were in danger. This week, in part because of the grim subject matter, there was a lot more tension. Only minutes after leaving the Tardis, Ryan is slapped by a racist man. Every few moments there was peril afflicting our characters. It was Krasko, then it was the Police Officer. The characters were constantly kept on their toes. Their attempts to make Rosa get the bus were being disrupted and they had to improvise to make it work.

I continue to like this new Doctor. Jodie was effective, whether she was joking about being Banksy, or being serious when she confronts Krasko. The companions were also very good. Ryan and Yasmin both get to deal with racism. Ryan having to keep his cool was good. There was also a hint of chemistry between them. Graham was great. Him having to be the catalyst for Rosa Parks was good. He is fully supportive of Ryan. All were really effective at the end when they were reluctantly part of that bus journey.

The supporting cast were also very effective. Vinnette Robinson was good as Rosa Parks. She felt like a dignified human being, intelligent and brave. The show did not glamourise her or patronise her. It was very well done.

Krasko was an interesting villain. An escapee from stormcage with a vortex manipulator. He couldn't actually hurt anyone so could only manipulate. Some might wonder if he should be there or not. The story might have worked if he had been an ordinary time agent accidentally changing things.  Still, his motivation of racism did fit in with the theme.

Mark Tonderai's direction was good. I particularly liked the opening scene of the camera following the bus and then moving off into an alleyway where the Tardis materialised. A nice continuous shot. The crane shot of the motel down to the Doctor and her friends was good as it showed them oppressed by its sign.

The only thing I wasn't sure about was the song 'Rise-Up'. It was effective in the scene where Rosa was arrested and where the Doctor talks about Rosa's importance in history. I don't think it needed to be in the ending credits.

Rosa was a good episode. Where the previous two episodes of Series 11 were safe introductions, this one feels as though it is trying new things and exploring new areas for the show. A proper success.

Rate = 9/10