Category: Episode by Episode
Doctor Who episode 884: Flux Chapter Six – The Vanquishers (5/12/2021)
‘I do not have time for your delusional witterings.’ The longest Doctor Who story since 1986 closes, like The Trial of a Time Lord, with an extended action-adventure that realises it’s bitten off more than it can chew, and ends up with a lot of noises off and kicking the can down the road. Still, on its own merits it at least centres the Doctor (all three of them), giving Whittaker her best material this series, and has plenty of nice moments. On balance it’s much better than it could have been.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 883: Flux Chapter Five – Survivors of the Flux (28/11/2021)
‘Division is simple – and indescribable.’ So, this is it: the big reveal. The reason why the whole of creation is being very slowly destroyed. It’s because Division, an organisation set up to control the flow of time, fears the Doctor has given hope to the peoples of the universe (I underestimated the power of all those inspirational poster quotes). Therefore, they’ve decided to scrap it all and start again. Except, taking the old definition of madness (doing the same thing and expecting a different result) to cosmic extremes, Tecteun (for it is she!) is offering to take the Doctor back so she can do it all over again in the next life. Division is simple – indescribably stupid.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 882: Flux Chapter Four – Village of the Angels (21/11/2021)
‘A rogue Weeping Angel? On the run from other Angels, hiding in the mind of a human?’ The only episode of Flux with a co-write credit, for The Haunting of Villa Diodati’s Maxine Alderton. Like her earlier episode, this leans into horror to become the most credible haunted house story of the new series. It’s a classic base under siege which synthesises elements of the Weeping Angels’ previous standalone stories (the setting recalls Wester Drumlins, much of the lore is from The Time of Angels, the captive community of victims is from Angels Take Manhattan and the abduction from a graveyard is like the Ghost Story for Christmas webcast) into something that feels fresh.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 881: Flux Chapter Three – Once, Upon Time (14/11/2021)
‘I’m normally very good at keeping up with things, but you lost me quite early on.’ I said The Halloween Apocalypse teetered on the brink of incoherence. This not only tips over the edge, it plummets, like Kylie going down on Starship Titanic. Starting with ‘Bel’s Story’ didn’t help – my reaction was pure “Not Another One” meme as Chibnall throws more random characters into the mix including the Grand Serpent and ‘Awsok’, plus that funny Victorian Scouser wandering about again. And Daleks, Cybermen, and a Weeping Angel – gotta catch ‘em all!
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 880: Flux Chapter Two – War of the Sontarans (7/11/2021)
‘Hello, dear. I don’t understand any of this.’ The bulk of this episode is the first substantial appearance of the Sontarans as villains since 2008. I sense an effort to rehabilitate them as credible baddies after years of Strax’s antics. But wisely, Chibnall doesn’t try to make them entirely serious – they are, after all, Robert Holmes creations with all the cynicism that implies. Extrapolating from classic series appearances, when they frequently seemed closer to cracking the secrets of Gallifrey than even the Daleks, these Sontarans have launched a temporal (not ‘tempura’, Dan) offensive, enforcing Jingo Linx’s claim to the Earth from their base in present-day Liverpool.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 879: Flux Chapter One – The Halloween Apocalypse (31/10/2021)
‘This is impossible. The end of the universe is chasing us.’ Praxeus, but with everything turned up to 11. Rather than a global apocalypse this offers up a cosmic cataclysm with the same frenetic jumping from location to location, and a whole load of new characters to try to follow. Perhaps the fact that almost none of them interacts is down to the production challenges created by the pandemic – but given Chibnall’s previous form it’s as likely that this is just how he wrote it.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 878: Revolution of the Daleks (1/1/2021)
‘I’m the Doctor. I’m the one who stops the Daleks.’ This is the best of Chibnall’s episodes so far. The difference is in the way it’s written: effectively splitting up the Fam in the service of advancing the story and moving forward the characters, applying some discipline to the globetrotting, and doing some light political satire in a very RTD way. The end result falls short of being a masterpiece, but it’s a good New Year special and a satisfying coda to Series 12.
Continue readingDoctor Who: Lockdown Adventures (2020)
‘Then suddenly, one year, there was no spring.’ In the UK, news in the second half of the 2010s was dominated by cross-party implosion following the Tory Brexit Referendum, and the Trump presidency. But at the beginning of 2020, just as Series 12 of Doctor Who was airing, rumour grew of a shadow in the East. By the end of February, hundreds were dying every day in China, and the virus was creeping closer to home. On 12th March 2020, my entire business was put on a fortnight’s “working from home trial”. I didn’t regularly return to the office until 19th August 2021.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 877: The Timeless Children (1/3/2020)
‘It’s all lies. None of this is the truth.’ The Deadly Assassin of the 21st Century, with a showdown between the Doctor and the Master on Gallifrey, a lengthy sequence in the Matrix, and a similar emetic reaction from a subset of fans. Whether it proves as influentially iconoclastic as Robert Holmes’ story only time will tell. And around the edges, it also acts as a series climax, wrapping up Asahd’s plans for the ascension of the Cybermen, revealing the truth about Ruth and Brendan, and explaining the Master’s Time Lord plan.
Continue readingDoctor Who episode 876: Ascension of the Cybermen (23/2/2020)
‘I’ll have to bill you for therapy at this rate.’ First impressions were that this was The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos done right, with genuine stakes and a credible villain. Like Tim Shaw, Ashad has beef with the Doctor – but in Ashad’s case he has the power to back up his threats, and much of this episode’s propulsive energy comes from his relentless, single-minded hatred. He’s the Locutus of the Cybermen: the rest of the species are emotionless drones, while he acts as a channel for their malevolence.
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