Doctor Who Series 7 Episode 5 - spoiler warning!!!

This is what Moffat does best. Sad endings, weird time stuff and creepy bad guys. He plays to all his strengths with this episode, which almost makes up for the deteriorating standard of the series thus far.

It’s awesome to see the Angels back in their original motivation and not trying feed off cracks in time or talking through dead people. While the Statue of Liberty is a bit stupid, it’s made up by the Cherubs and their endlessly creeptastic laughter.

River’s back and judging on her new title of Professor, it’s not long before she gets her very own write-out episode (which I know will please one particular person who follows this blog).

Time is reassuringly messed up to the borderline, where we still make reasonable sense of what the Doctor’s saying. The “once you’ve seen it” rule is a very nice, though it doesn't really fit with many other established rules in who, but then again none of those rules fit with each other anyway, so I suppose we could call this problem some sort of adherence to tradition.

The exit of Amy and Rory is extremely well done ad I have to admit that under Moffat’s penning, the vast majority of my hatred for the extremely loud redhead dissipated.

The Doctor’s reaction is also spot-on. True, it does look a little juvenile, but the Doctor has always got younger with each regeneration (in mind if not always in body).

To draw a comparison, the Tenth Doc gives up the woman he loves, to another version of himself, then just walks off. This always pissed me off – well that whole love story pissed me off  - but ending with the Doctor shrugging and essentially going “well best go off and have a Christmas Special now” really irked me.

The ending of this episode is really nice, even if the slow motion running and black and white freeze framing was a bit hammy.

The only real downside to this, as it so frequently is, is that it makes me wish that Moffat would take more control and write more. His first series as head writer is my favourite of the revived era, because he wrote is much of it and kept it on track. Letting the other writers have their time is one thing, but over the course of this series alone, the characters have been conveniently re-written so many times, seemingly so the particular writer at the helm needed them to be for the sake of their plots.

As head writer, Moffat should have been saying “no” to a fair few of the scripts that got greenlit, simply because they didn’t fit at all with the world that he’s built since taking over the show.

But as for this, it’s a Stella ending, well written, well directed and well performed. Ad the best part is, you don’t really have to watch all the episodes before it to understand what’s going on, so if you haven’t, you can save yourself a lot of cringing and yelling at the TV.

Doctor Who Series 7 Episode 4 Review

Well it’s about time!

At last an episode that I enjoyed  - don’t get me wrong it’s got its problems, but it’s more than capable of overcoming them.

The key to it’s success is that it isn’t trying too hard to be about some deep and meaningful, like it’s two immediate prequels. It doesn’t attempt to critically compare the Doctor to a war criminal or paint him as some sort of militant animal lover.

It’s nice to see the Doctor not being burdened with his conscience every five minutes, but exploring the true reason that he travels the universe; boredom.

The idea that Amy and Rory might be getting tired of travelling with him is also quite good; it gives off the impression that while we’re all sure it’d be awesome to go flying round the universe, even that gets tiresome after you’ve figured out how to have a nice life in one place. It goes back to the comment that the Ninth Doctor made in ‘Father’s Day” about the wonders of a normal life that he could never have. It’s nice to see this kind of continuity being shown.

There are some pitfalls  - I don’t quite understand why the bad guys wanted the human race dead and the explanation for what they were seemed to be built off your standard legendary-monster-from-protagonist’s-childhood that who has used more than a few times.

That "Power of Three" line at the end was is the sort of hack writing that belongs in Smallville and kind of put a downer on the end for me.

Also the good idea that Amy and Rory might prefer their normal life to that of the Doctor’s is seemingly just written off for the sake of the plot in the last two minutes.

Overall; not much to say  - it’s an improvement on last week and doesn’t try to shoehorn in issues that don't really fit the show’s tone.

Good supporting cast and a good make up job on the bad guy.

With the exception of the ending line, there’s not much wrong with this episode.

Doctor Who Series 7 Episode 3 Review

So what do you do with a war criminal who’s reformed and is seemingly now applying his skills for the benefit of others. Well apparently that’s not something we should ponder, as people like this are likely to blow themselves up, to avoid the dilemma.

That’s the major issue I have with this episode, the position we take say if we find a Nazi hiding out, is to try them for their crimes regardless of what they’re doing, who their friends now are and how many kittens they save in a year.

The moral message of this episode is undermined by the suicide of the secondary antagonist. This is no doubt a consequence of Toby Whithouse realising that the difficult questions he was asking…err…kinda weren’t difficult to answer.

The concept of the characters arguing over what should happen to this guy, is really weak. The answer is easy; he gets punished for his crimes. But instead of this, Whithouse contrives a way into the plot for him killing himself and avoiding being tried for his crimes in a “heroic” self-sacrifice. But we’ve established as canon, that in the Who universe you only get one life; when it ends, that’s it; there’s nothing.  

I doesn't matter what this guy believed would happen to him if he killed himself, when we know precisely what will happen and that it doesn’t involve being punished.

In order to make any real conflict, the Doctor goes massively off the rails in this episode, I got the impression that they were trying to make him more dangerous and unpredictable, but the whole concept was undermined by how out of character his was. And trying to say, it’s because he’s been travelling “alone for too long” doesn’t count; I’ll take the protagonist’s character development on screen thank you.

Having the Doctor rearrange his personality for the convenience of the plot, in my mind, is a stone’s throw away from him turning up fully regenerated and saying “yeah this happened between episodes.”

Rory is relatively back in character, but as for Amy, so many of the writers have taken liberties with her personality that I have no way of knowing whether anything she says in this episode is in character.

To credit the make up department, the Gunslinger looks pretty badass, but when he starts talking he kind of loses most of his malice. He is at least at far easier to take seriously than that bloody Minotaur he gave us in “The God Complex”.

While this episode is definitely an improvement on last week, there’s nothing particularly great about it. It doesn’t repair the damage of the low quality of “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” in the same way as “The Doctor’s Wife” did for that truly awful pirate episode.

The plot is exciting enough at the right bits, but, as is his problem, Whithouse doesn't have the eyes for filler and banter, so it drags in between action sequences.

I commend an attempt to use Who as some sort of discussion board for important moral issues, but the one that’s being brought forward here is an old one that we figured out the answer to a long time ago.

Doctor Who Series 7, Episode 2 Review

What a shit episode. I’m next to speechless. 

The Doctor turns up on a spaceship, with a hunter stereotype, an Egyptian stereotype and two people who look like Amy and Rory, but act like who ever the fuck the plot needs them to be.  Oh and Rory’s dad is there too, but only so he can set up a quite literal deus ex machina in the last five minutes.

To add to the woefully bad writing by Chris Chibnall, Saul Metzstien matches the low quality level with some awful directional decisions. if you’re going to film on the TARDIS set, do it from the side where I can’t see a shitload of lighting equipment; kinda damages the suspension of disbelief.

Moffatt should have killed the script for this when it was thrown across his desk (most likely written on the back of a cigarette box or a napkin for all the care that seems to have gone into refining it).

On top of that, there’s a lack of effort across all departments; for example whoever edited this episode, cut out the first part of the word “Doctor” when Solomon is shouting it at the end, making it impossible to take seriously. Big sinister exotics trader and his last words are “TORRRR”.  These are very basic failings.

Amy is in character for a grand total of half a minute and I don’t know who she’s married to now, but it sure as fuck isn’t Rory ; as this guy is more like Mickey or Captain Jack, based on what he says and does.

Nefertiti has nothing to do in this episode, other than be a stereotype  and have sex with another supporting character at the end, who incidentally also has nothing to do, bar shamelessly rip off Jurassic Park at several points. I actually wonder whether the BBC is worried about being sued over this.

No more of my time will be taken up by this episode. It was rubbish. It had a terrible script, a director who didn’t even know which way round to film his sets and a complete abuse of the characters and motivations

Doctor Who: Series 7 Episode 1 Review - SPOILER WARNING

Spoiler warning!!!!! There are spoilers in this review, don't read it if you haven't seen the episode. I don't want anyone whinging about it being ruined for them. This is a spoiler warning.

Moffat’s intention with this episode was to make the Daleks scary again and while I can't say it was a complete success, it was definitely fun to watch.

The Daleks of the Asylum are more nervy than scary; it’s a bit like watching a highly edited version of Alien, with the dark corridors and the general claustrophobic nature of the mise en scene.

The story’s not bad either, a little bit contrived, but far better than any vessel the Davies ever came up with for bringing the Daleks back. The main problems I have with it are ones that seemingly already have a resolution in the mix. Namely, while Amy and Rory are being written out later this year, Moffat has clearly already run out of things to do with them, as evidenced by the fact that he has to have them break up so he can have them fall back in love and not really experience any more development than their two series have already given them.

The revelation that Amy can’t have children any more might be a tad too mature a theme for the vast majority of Who’s fan base and while the supporting character is very good, the revelation about her being a Dalek, living her life out in a dream world, wasn’t really any different from that little girl in the Library being hooked up to the main computer. Moffat is showing a disturbing trend of reusing ideas. It meant that I at least guessed her true nature within minutes.

Incidentally though, this revelation does give Matt Smith a chance to show off some more impressive acting skills, particularly at the point when he says, “but…you are a Dalek” – even though he’s speaking to a friend, he can’t help but keep the hatred from his voice, as he says the final word.

There’s one good Scotland joke in there too, as the Moff seemingly puts down his copy of Writer’s Guide to Bullying Gingers and picks up 100 Ways to Draw Complaints from Scotland.

So there we have it; it’s a good start, didn’t exactly make the Daleks scary for me, but I could see it working better on a younger audience. The revelation about Amy is a bit grown-up and serious for this show and…hold on, the Doctor cured some crazy lady’s brain tumor, with some medicine he had lying around, last series, surely he’s got something that could help with Amy’s problem.

The Dalek girl in her true form was a bit silly and really couldn’t be taken seriously saying her dialogue with Nicholas Briggs’ voice.

Overall, not bad at all.