Review

When I wrote my first piece on Doctor Who, I said that this would be a big Welcome bacm angels episode, however now I don't think I did them justice, so here it is again

WELCOME BACK TO THE BIGGEST INTERGALACTIC BADASSES IN THE UNIVERSE! DON'T BLINK!

This is the Moffat we know and love, the intricate plot maker who can keep you on the edge of you seat and guessing until the very end, but lets jump straight in:

PLOT

This episode is Moffat to his absolute best. The pre-credit opening was amazing, The idea of sending a message through time to have The Doctor come back to where you sent it, how mind bending is that! I'm going to address the weeping angels later in the ep, but I will state now that they were absolutly scary, especially during the scene in that trailer with the image. The only thing that I did pick up on was that they opace seemed much slower than the last couple of episodes. Thats not a complaint by the way, This kind of timing could have aided last weeks episode. The cliffhanger, oh my god if any fan out there wasn't having a geek-gasm WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???? It was just so sublte the idea that statues were all angels, I mean who was even thinking about counting the heads? If the second episode is anything this one, then this'll become my favourite of all DW 2 parters.

THE DOCTOR AND AMY

For the past 3 episodes I have felt that we have either been focusing on one of The Doctor or Amy, The Doctor in the first, Amy in the second and The Doctor in the third. But this episode gave us the best look into both of them, The Doctor tthrough River and Amy through those terrifyingly tense scenes. I was listening to the DWO podcast, they mentioned something about Amy I liked, at the point in the episode when everyone is busy and River calls the Doctor over, Amy sarcastically asks "Anyone need me" and then walks off to amuse herself. If that had been any other companion she would have followed along with what the doctor was doing like a love sick puppy, Karen just brings a sense of equal to the companion role that we haven't seen in the new series before, yhea Donna coame close but she was annoying so she doesn't count. Another thing DWO pointed out was that this episdoe was one of the first ones they filmed, Could you tell? cause I couldn't Matt Smith was pitch perfect in his role, I got chills on the trap line, and his whole personality seemed more fleshed out than it did in the first set of episodes, maybe it was helped by the fact he had River to lead, but Matt still made his own imprint on the episode.

RIVER SONG

Normally I give this section to all of the Secondary Characters, but I feel that the other characters, while present and sutiably strong, were more fodda for The Doctors interactions with River. So here we are with Ms Song, Has there ever been such a complex and intriguing relationship between a Doctor and a companion? Is she his wife? Is she the Rani? Is she the Doctor? Is she a time thief who has stole the real River Song's diary and is now abusing what she knows of old Gallirayan society to manipulate The Doctor? Who knows, but Moffat is definently good enough to keep us guessing. My only real complaint is the Spoilers line, I don't know why, but it annoyed me, still it was good that they didn't dwel on the whole diary and spoilers thing. I've never really watched Alex Kingston, but she brings this really light bubbly sort of feeling to hers and the Doctor's interactions, it's almost as though she knows better than him, which it seems she does. So while I hope we don't learn everything at the end of this 2 parter I would like to find out at least a little bit more to whet my appitite for the Season Finale

ALIEN / ENEMY OF THE WEEK

So here we are, how about them Angels? How scary were they? Everyone knew coming in that this episode would be compared to Blink, so I know when it came to the angels I had conflicting hopes. But Moffat changed what the angels were, giving us a new experience that we hadn't predicted. As the Doctor said, the first set we met were scavengers, barely surviving , they had to wait for people. Howe asy would it been to have had the angel slink around the tunnel picking off the crew one by one and ending up with Jsut the Doctor, Father and River left as Amy is thrust back trough time (this was my prediction). But the image section, the slowly changing of Amy from looking into its eyes, and the Army of angels underground, these are not the angels we knew and loved, these are dangerous and deadly badasses... Oh joy! I'm going to address a question not that I've heard from a few people, why did the angel in the tunnel snap those soliders necks. When Angel Bob was talking to The Doctor he talked about how the Angel needed the Ceribral Cortex and the voice box to comunicate with the Doctor, however why the angel needs to speak with the Doctor remains to be seen. But what if an angel can lie, what if the angel we have seen in the bottem of the maze of the dead isn't the one in the spaceship. These angels must have been trapped in that maze, else they would have gone after the people nearby, so what if they needed the hull of the ship breached to get out? Scary

NEXT TIME

So the Doctor is under the pump to come up with a way to stop the angels, my suggestion would be to watch this episode again, the answer will be hidden in there somewhere. And Amy continues to struggle with the Angel's Curse (I like that name), the doctor tells her to keep her eyes closed, a backwards blink? And who knows what we find out about River.
I now feel justified, for this entire time I've been saying that the cracks can't be as simple as they seem, and now we find the Doctor is going to deal with one in this episode, so maybe they have no link to the finale, if this is true then what is the running Link, cause Moffat has said there is one (In Moffat we Trust).

Rating: 9.5/10

Favourite Quote:
The Doctor: "The writing. The graffiti. Old High Gallifreyan! The lost language of the Timelords. There were days - there were many days - these words could burn stars, and raise up empires, and topple gods."
Amy: "What does this say?"
The Doctor: "'Hello sweetie.'"

Review

Or How to Depress a Dalek

This week delivered everything I ever wanted in a Doctor Who episode, an angry Doctor, actually scary Daleks and the Doctor using some sort of impossible object to save the day. I even enjoyed the most preposterous solution to a bomb ever. Also I have a new room-mate who would like to give its opinion, but let’s jump straight in:

PLOT

Well this week we were off to the time of the Second World War and the London Blitz, with the Doctor’s old friend Winne Churchill who has a brand new scheme to defeat the terrible Nazi menace, and their old friends of the Doctor, the Dalek’s but whatever could they be up to this time? In all honesty from the line old friends until this time could have been the description of the Dalek, Daleks in Manhattan and the Stolen Earth, so while I was interested to see what this new era would do with the Daleks, but I wasn’t jumping up and down about it (my room has a fan so that is inadvisable anyway). I really enjoyed the episode especially the whole subservient Daleks at the start was quite amusing, as was the whole set of scenes on the Dalek ship. There was just something about this episode that was engrossing, and as I previously stated I even liked the whole scene with the android Bracewell (Someone motioned to me that in this episode there was a Star Wars homage in the part where the Daleks shoot off his hand and say ‘No, we created you’, much like ‘NO, I am your father’) I will admit it made no sense, but the pure emotion of the scene and of Bracewell (Bill Patterson) made me believe.

THE DOCTOR AND AMY

This episode was quite Amy light, so I’ll get her out of the way first, Amy continued to shine as one of the doctor’s most useful companions, working out all the clever things we expect from the Doctor. Now for the man of the episode, Matt Smith showed his full range of the Doctor traits, the absolute frustrated fury he had for the compliant Dalek, the calm brilliance that was on display when he held them for ransom (with a biscuit, I challenge you to find another TV hero who can confront his greatest enemy with only a biscuit?) and the absolute terror of the rebirth of his worst enemy. While I still feel bad after yesterday’s Tennant review, I think Mr Smith (if only his name was John) has so far been brilliant, and seems to be getting better.

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Let’s start with Mr Churchill, the whole buddy-buddy thing that he had going on with The Doctor was really nice, I felt like it was two old friends having a catch up (the whole handshake over the TARDIS key was a nice touch). There are some people who think that Ian McNeice conveyed the insurmountable pressure that Winston was under very well. And then there was Bracewell.. I thought he was the most human character in the episode; the emotion on his face during the bomb defuesal was completely believable, basically I thought they were both much better than last week’s offering.

ALIEN/ENEMY OF THE WEEK

Well lets all have a big welcome back for the Daleks, while there has been a lot of Dalek overkill during the RTD era it was nice to see them back at their fearsome best, with a new design and paint-job too. I also found the Daleks at the start, pretending to be compliant to the humans; hilarious asking the doctor as he tries to destroy it “would you like some tea”. And using the Doctor for their master plan how surprising and interesting was that (am I being sarcastic or sincere? You be the judge). Now to explain the depressed Dalek and my room-mate, on Thursday I purchased a small Dalek (Laser non-operational of course) and as we sat down to watch the episode (well he was strapped down to stop it trying to beat me to death) it was... upbeat?? Well it was yelling exterminate rather loudly so it seemed okay. However by the end it seemed almost depressed as it tried to now kill its self over its replacement, I’m not quite sure what to do with it.. I’m thinking of showing it the stolen planet, where the Dalek kills to doctor, to cheer it up (better not show it the genocide at the end though).

NEXT TIME

River song is back, and so are the weeping angels, hidden within a myriad of stone statues, will the doctor find it before something terrible happens? Also note that in the trailer there is an image of around five of them in a corridor, is this single angel on a rescue mission?

The Crack is back, I maintain that something this obvious must be a ploy to distract us from something else, could it be the final villain in the first episode Mister Moffat alluded to in a recent interview?? Also the Stolen Earth Reset, how will this play in?

Rating: 8/10

Favourite Quote: “Don’t mess with me sweetheart”

Review

Well well well, here we are, Week 2 and Moffat tries to bring the darkness... with limited results, Amy saves us from the Doctor, and the Smilers are revealed ... and don’t satisfy. But lets jump straight in:

PLOT

Okay, this episode sees us aboard the Starship UK, where things aren’t as they seem (wouldn’t be much of an episode if things were exactly as they seem I suppose), and as one might expect it is up to the Doctor and Amy to get to the bottom of it. So far as plots go, I really felt let down by this one, Early moments with the smilers gave them a real scare appeal as these evil watchers, who are working rouge to bring society down. However one of the aspects I did like was how SM showed that given the option humanity will do terrible things and just simply choose to erase them, it made a good point and was a generally nice touch.

THE DOCTOR AND AMY

Being only the second episode, the relationship between these two is still kind of being explored, but we got to see how the ‘Last of the Time Lords’ idea was presented in this new series. I quite like how Matt Smith played it, choosing to be more distant too it and accepting of it than DT. I also liked the contrast at that point between the Doctor and Amy, they both knew terrible things and while Amy chose to hide from it, the doctor chooses to live on with the knowledge of his past, in order to find other ways of saving everyone. Now the ending, This is the sort of ending that reminds me of Dalek during the Eccleston series, where the Doctor is ready to kill but the Companion (in Dalek, Rose) stops asnd saves the Alien, this time however Amy sees something that the Doctor doesn’t, its nice that Amy seems to be more akin to the Doctor than any other new series companions, but the ending still did feel right... as though there is still something missing to this Doctor

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

The secondary Characters of this episode (Liz 10 (reminds me of the kids show Ben 10) and Mandy) were probably the most paper thin characters that I have seen from SM in his entire Who writing time, from the man who delivered Sally Sparrow and Madame de Pompadour, it hurts to watch these characters flap about on the screen. Mandy, while providing a good comaprrison between the doctor and the Space Whale, wasn’t all that interesting and once we got past Amy getting abducted, she seemed to serve no further purpose. As for Liz 10 I just didn’t find here interesting, although I will admit here line "I'm the bloody Queen, mate. Basically, I rule" was quite awesome, but past that I just didn’t care about her.

ALIEN/ENEMY OF THE WEEK

Enemy:

The Smilers, touted as being one of the better big bads of the new season these guys were pretty pathetic, offering only a minor chill factor, they didn’t really kill anyone or do anything, they were just mere tools of the system, nothing to interesting here.

Alien:

The Space Whale, I liked how this entity was portrayed as the main villain of the piece controlling everything, but turns out to be a doctor like creature (hmm... maybe humanity should have been put as the enemy) But once much like the other characters was completely un-interesting, and a little bit silly

NEXT TIME

Churchill and the Daleks, for a guy who seems so happy with his new best friends, why would Churchill call on the Doctor... something doesn’t ring true here.

FUTURE

As we can see there is a crack, much like the one on Amy’s wall on the side of the ship. Is the crack following the doctor? And if so who is opening them? Is this something to do with the Pandorica? Who the hell knows, but this smells an awful lot of a Bad Wolf scenario.

Review

On the 1st of January man Who fans mourned the loss of the Tenth Doctor (Mr Dacid Tennant) and were saddened by the leaving of Russell T. Davis, most of us belived that no one would ever be able to fill their shoes, and on April 3rd... We were proven right, because on that day 2 new men ( an old hand and a fresh face) walked into town, wearing their own set of shoes, while the old shoes were left behind (... I don't think this analogy is working to well any more), and one thing is for certain, nothing will ever be the same

THE OLD HAND

Using all the brilliant episodes of DW written by Mr Moffat that have come before, I still didn't know what to expect. Could he make an episode that was quick witted and interesting, and still maintain that slightly dark adult edge he'd always given us before? Well the doctor has just regenerated, the TARDIS is rebuilding its self, the Sonic Screwdriver is broken and there is a shape-shifting alien prisoner on the loose... Oh and the world is going to be incinerated in 20 minutes, did I mention that the companion has gone through 12 years of therapy because of the doctor? I loved this episode it had the perfect mix of introdution and story, while we still learnt so much about this new doctor and who all our new characters are, but at the same time we got an interesting story with real enemies and pace. If we can consider this a view as to what is to come, I must say that I'm quite happy.

THE FRESH FACE

Now I know I may have rambled on the teeniest tinyest bit about shoes before, but now I'll explain what I mean, DT left a large shadow that many people though (yes, your reverant blogger included) Matt Smith would only get lost in. But we never even looked at him as the guiy who is replacing David, he was very much his own man, while he's still the mad brilliant Doctor we know and love, he brings just brings an energy to the doctor that gives it a new and different life (I particularilly enjoyed the Custrad fish fingers and how Amy bested him quite a few times). I look forward to seeing what else we learn about this new (Nothing like DT) doctor.


Kiss'O'Gram

So what about miss Pond? Looking at the most reccent set of comanions, everyone has been reliant on the Doctor, and while he may let them down for a moment, he is always quickly back to make things right. But for Amelia Pond, he has always let her down; because of him she was subjected to 12 years of therapy and a futher 2 years of anxiety when he skipped off again. So why did she go with him? He can't really be trusted and you're getting married tomorrow. But he is the man she has dreamed of/ imagined for most of her life. So while I remain unsure of how this thing will develop, I'm sure it'll be interesting to watch.




So How was...

           The Story

Cosidering the standard set by RD in the way season openers, this exceeded what I expected, I will admit that it didn't quite have the enemy element of 'Rose" or 'The Christmas Invasion', but it did come across as a mush smarter episode. I also liked the character intorductions, we learnt about the doctor and amy, through their interactions which were generally quite interesting. Another aspect which I did enjoy, and can see becoming a staple of this doctor, was the back-track view, where we searched Rory and Prisoner 0's human form. It was this use of new technology along side the nods to clasic Who that really sold me.

The Sceondary Characters

The secondary character development in this was quite good, while I would say we didn't see the usual range of colourful characters that Moffat's Who episodes have given us, this story had to be more focused on the Doctor and Amy, so it would be hard to introduce more characters. That being said, I did like his introduction of Rory, I found Rory to be very real, noticing the world around him before the doctor even arrives, he isn't like some characters (first season Micky for example) who only seem to do things in relation to what either the doctor has told them to do, or that the doctor is doing.

Alien of the week

Prisoner 0, during the first half an hour I was not impressed by this snarly growly creature, he just seemed to run around anc hase things, no thought at all. However when at the end he started talking and practically taunting the doctor, as thought he knows him, or is part of something bigger, like say... I don't know... THE  PANDORICA!!! More on this to come 

The other aliens were the Atraxi... I wasn't a big fan of these guys either, they were necessarilly big eyes in snowflake style ships, that look an awful lot like the ones piloted by the empress of the Raknos. For me I would ahve been just as happy if the Judoon had been used, but then again I guess we would have lost the bit at the end where Matt Smith steps through the images of the doctor, which was quite awsome

NEXT TIME...

So what are we up to next week and what could be coming back? Well to address the later question, Prisoner 0 alluded to the Pandorica and silence, now there have been rumours that the Pandorica would be in the finale, so lets assume those confimred, but how does 0 know about it?? I'm not too sure wether this is the last we'll see of 0 (remeber because it took the doctor 2 years to come back with the Tarids 0 could have escaped, been shot, had kids settled down, we just have to remember that stuff could have happened). Now to the next episode, well we have London in space and wierd Smilers in some sort of red room. So thus far it looks good :).

Rating: 7/10