The Power of Three

This week Doctor Who gave us the invasion of the small cubes and the time the Doctor came to stay. There’ll be spoilers so if you haven’t seen the episode yet you probably want to avoid this post- basically, run!

This episode felt like a Russell T Davies era episode: an invasion of Earth, rolling news coverage and very character driven. It’s the first invasion of contemporary Earth story we’ve had in a long time. The plot consisted of millions of small cubes landing on Earth and then not doing anything. The Doctor was forced to come and stay with the Ponds as they are in the process of deciding whether they should keep travelling with the Doctor.

Seeing the Doctor come to stay is good fun and provides most of the many laughs from the episode. He has no patience and can’t sit still and do nothing. He did loads of keepie-uppies and played on the Wii. My favourite scene which I think summed up the whole episode was when the three characters were sat watching The Apprentice (with the real Lord Sugar putting in a cameo) and the Doctor talks about inventing the Yorkshire pudding. That is perfect TV.

The episode also did a fantastic job at referencing classic Who but did so in a way that it didn’t matter if you don’t get the references. The Doctor mentions past companions dying (Adric!), how his metal dog used to hover (K9) and there was return of sorts for classic monsters the Zygons, hidden under the Savoy hotel. Perhaps the best classic reference was in the form of character Kate Stewart, the person now in charge of UNIT. Kate is the daughter of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the former leader of UNIT and the character that met the most Doctors (Two, Three, Four, Five and Six). Kate fitted in perfectly with the show and Jenna Redgrave had her character nailed. I really hope Kate Stewart becomes a semi-regular character in the future!

I did have a few problems with the episode, though they are fairly minor niggles. The resolution of the plot felt a bit rushed. If Doctor Who was an hour long this episode would have been perfect. However, I loved the cubes and really want one. I liked the way that they all did different things, from squirting water to playing the Birdie Song really loudly. My other problem was the massive coincidence that meant one of the seven locations across the world just happened to be the hospital Rory works in. That was handy.

Still, I do think this was a great episode and Chris Chibnall has really proved himself as a writer. And this episode sorted a problem I had back when I was talking about Asylum of the Daleks. Amy is now working as a journalist as opposed to a model, which seems a much more likely thing a TARDIS traveller would do!

On a completly unconnected note, I was wondering how old the Doctor is now. We could follow his age fairly easily until series 6. Something like 200 years went by for the Doctor between episodes and as he’s been doing lots of travelling without the Ponds it seems likely even more time has gone by. Just how old is he now? I’d like that to be cleared up please.

The horrible thing is now that there’s only one more episode left and it will be the end of the Ponds. This is the point where we have to speculate wildly about what might happen. For one thing Christmas has been mentioned in every episode of the series. I suspect if that’s more than coincidence it’s actually to do with this year’s Christmas special, where Oswin will return. A more important thing to note is how the titles to each episode are getting darker. There’s also been quite a lot of flashing lights and lights turning off in the episodes so far. Given what happens when lights flicker and the Weeping Angels are around this could be a sign of things to come. Maybe.

It’s worrying that it’s the Weeping Angels that the Doctor has to face next week. He’s not really defeated them properly yet. Sure, he beat four of them in “Blink” but that was only four. “The Time of Angels” was only resolved because of the crack in time which sucked the Angels in. Can the Doctor defeat a whole city’s worth of Angels? And how will the story of the Ponds end?

A Town Called Mercy

The Doctor gets to wear a stetson again and visit the Wild West for the first time in forty six years. Join me to discuss the episode and talk about morals. There’ll be spoilers so if you haven’t seen the episode yet you probably want to avoid this post- basically, run!

I was particularly excited about this episode. It was written by Toby Whithouse (creator of one of my fave shows, Being Human) and writer of some of the best Who episodes (School Reunion, The Vampires of Venice and The God Complex before this one). It’s also the first Doctor Who western since The Gunfighters in 1966, a First Doctor story which is one of the worst of the era. It was originally going to be called “The Gunslingers” which is how this week’s ‘monster’ got it’s name.

It appears that in comparison to last series, Series 7 is going for fairly simple plots. The town of Mercy is looking after Kahler-Hex, an alien Doctor who is providing the town with electricity and healthcare. He can’t step outside the town’s border though for fear of meeting with the Gunslinger, Kahler-Tec, a cyborg. Hex experimented on innocent soldiers to create cyborgs which ultimately won a horrible war. The Gunslinger wants revenge for what Hex did to him.

The Doctor sees what Hex did in Hex’s ship and then does a very un-Doctery thing. He decides Hex deserves to be executed and drags him outside of the town. It’s only because of sheriff Issac’s sacrifice that Hex survives and it takes Amy Pond to make the Doctor change his mind. She tells him to be better than Hex. The Doctor argues that because of his mercy many people have died, referencing the Master and the daleks. He knows that saving Hex would involve putting the whole town in danger and he doesn’t want to do that. Plus I get the feeling he has turned a little dark and wants people that do bad things to die- he did that in the last episode with Soloman. The situation is summed up later in the episode: “You’re both good man but sometimes you forget that”.

I suppose this episode brings up a major issue within the world. Is the death penalty right, can it ever be right? Many countries have withdrawn it from the legal system but it still remains in many others. People have strong opinions about this and some will argue that murderers and terrorists etc should die for their crimes. The Doctor was kind of taking this view in this episode but normally he turns to the other side of the argument- that killing someone for their crimes makes you no better than them. And I think he’s right about that fact.

In the end the Doctor helps Hex escape by having Rory and various residents put a Kahler symbol on their face and run around confusing the cyborg’s sensor. When Hex got to his ship though he blew himself up, wishing no more to die because of him. Let me share with you what Kahler-Hex says which really sums up how brilliant Toby Whithouse is as a writer:

“In my culture, we believe that when you die, your spirit has to climb a mountain, carrying the souls of everyone you’ve wronged in your lifetime. Imagine the weight I will have to lift: the monsters I created, the people they killed. Isaac! He was my friend. Now his soul will be in my arms, too.”

Fantastic! And the Gunslinger lives on to protect the village and everyone’s pretty much happy. Apart from a little tension from the fact the Ponds want to return home again and the Doctor looking a bit miffed about this but expect much more on that plotline next week.

There was also some great fun bits this week. Rory had a couple of good lines, although the Ponds were largely absent from the episode, but the best had to be the horse. The preacher says “He’s called Joshua” to which the Doctor replies “No he isn’t. I speak horse. He’s called Susan and he wants you to respect his life choices”.

I feel I should also mention how much like a Western the episode felt. The set was fantastic. They filmed the episode in Almeria, Spain in the same sort of area where all the classic Western films were filmed. Murray Gold did a fantastic job with the music, as always and Whithouse made it feel like a Western despite the sci-fi elements what with a stand-off at high noon and everything. All in all I think it was a great episode and it was my favourite for some time, though some may have found the episode too dark and serious. But the Doctor has always been on the edge of darkness and has carried a gun many times in the past. And if you think of what he did in the Time War the events of this episode were nothing.

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

It’s Doctor Who Series 7 and there is the most literal title ever- Dinosaurs on a Spaceship. Join me as I discuss the episode and show off with various factlets on the episode. There’ll be spoilers so if you haven’t seen the episode yet you probably want to avoid this post- basically, run!

So the episode opens with the Doctor assembling the cast. Queen Nefertiti of Egypt forces herself on the Doctor and then he’s speaking with what appears to be an Indian version of Torchwood who are going to blow up a spaceship which is heading towards Earth. The Doctor goes to investigate but first picks up Edwardian hunter Riddell and the Pond’s, complete with Rory’s Dad Brian.

It then leads into an adventure where a creepy old man called Soloman has taken over the spaceship and plans to sell the dinosaurs. The Doctor and the gang have to stop him and prevent the pressure cargo from being blown up by that Indian agency. Simples.

This is a really uncomplicated episode and it works well because of that. But this post is no-where near as simple because I’m going to shift all over the place and go on about various things. Keep up.

Chris Chibnall, writer of this episode, is clearly the man in charge of the Silurian's. He brought them back in Series 5 and the dinosaurs were on the ship because the Silurian's were trying to save them, until Soloman came along and massacred all the Homo Reptilia. It was a complete surprise to see a Silurian on the screen but a great one. Great work Chibnall!

So fairly soon after their arrival on the spaceship the Doctor, Rory and Brian are transported to a beach which is also on the spaceship apparently. The beach is the only beach that Doctor Who has access to film on apparently. It was Bad Wolf Bay a couple of times AND appeared in the Time of the Angels two-parter. Brian Williams is a fantastic character what with always carrying a trowel and golf balls, brilliantly played by Mark Williams (you know him as Arthur Weasley). It was interesting to see what Rory’s dad is like and it kind of explains a lot. He refused to be called a Pond (the Doctor assumes anyone related to Amy is a Pond) and the scene at the end where he had a packed lunch sat on the edge of the TARDIS looking at the Earth was perfect. There’ll be more of Brian later in the series too!

The other characters introduced are quite interesting. Queen Nefertiti is a strong, independent woman which is something you don’t tend to see from historical women. And played by a very attractive actress I might add. Riddell on the other hand is a game hunter who is really sexist. He should be a character the Doctor hates but his heart is in the right place and he is a genuinely great character. I kind of want to meet him. The pair of them get on rather well and at the end we see them both back with the Edwardian tents. That even works historically as Nefertiti disappears from the records for no apparent reason. It works for me.

There’s two very camp robots in this episode voiced by famous comedy double-act David Mitchell and Robert Webb. They’re not the villains really though, just servants of Soloman, playing by David Bradley (who you know as Argus Filch). Soloman is creepy, especially when he wants to take Queen Nefertiti as his prize. And all the kids of the world hated him when he shot the triceratops. Not to mention the fact he wiped out thousands of Silurian's. But still, the Doctor killed him. Put the missile target in Soloman’s ship and sent the ship flying into space. That was a very un-Doctory thing to do. Suddenly the Doctor is becoming very dark again, which we haven’t really seen since David Tennant’s time. In the next episode he is supposed to do something really un-Doctory. This is all part of the series arc and it’ll be interesting to see where it goes.

There was a touching scene, or rather a scary one, where Amy is talking to the Doctor saying she is always listening out for the TARDIS sound (aren’t we all?). The Doctor says he does still care and that the Ponds will probably be with him until the end of him. Then Amy says it’ll be the other way round and there’s an awkward silence. Is Amy going to die? I really doubt it but I think to the Doctor she’ll effectively be dead, in a similar way to Rose and Donna are both living their lives but “died” at the end of a series all the same.

All in all a fun episode. It felt very much like Classic Who at times but with good CGI and prosthetics (top marks to the team for that, it looked incredible). Dinosaurs last appeared in Doctor Who properly in a Third Doctor story called “Invasion of the Dinosaurs” where toy dinosaurs were super-imposed onto London. It’s not supposed to be very good. Chris Chibnall wrote the episode after next as well which is great, though it’ll be very different to this one!