Time Trips: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller

As with many others in the Time Trips series, this sees a popular author, this time author of Chocolat Joanne Harris, write a Doctor Who story. This one features Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor and in terms of continuity is set right before the end of his last story, Planet of the Spiders. 

The dying Doctor finds himself in the Village where life is idyllically simple. But when the Doctor meets the Queen he begins to realise this strange world masks a dark secret.

The idea for this is a good one, poignantly focusing on the Doctor dying. Whilst I felt Harris characterised the Third Doctor pretty well it didn't have much in common with his era. It felt like a New Who story which only used the Third Doctor as it was the only one that practically worked with the regeneration. 

One of the best of the series and an excellent idea which is well executed. Harris did a decent job of doing a Doctor Who story.

Doctor Who Unlocked: Robot of Sherwood

Every episode of Doctor Who has much more than meets the eye so I like to put together a little post exploring links to the past and other things you might not have known about! 

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

The Doctor mentions Richard the Lionheart during his battle with Robin Hood. He is referring to The Crusade, a First Doctor story which featured the king played by James Bond and Indiana Jones actor Julian Glover.

Included on the screen when the Doctor shows Robin famous images of Robin Hood is a shot of Second Doctor Patrick Troughton playing the character in the in 50s children’s TV show The Adventures of Robin Hood.

The Doctor suspects he and Clara are in a miniscope. This happened in the Third Doctor story Carnival of Monsters. Miniscopes are very small externally but like the TARDIS much bigger in the inside so that whole landscapes can be captured within them.

Friar Tuck is played by Trevor Cooper who previously appeared in Doctor Who in as Takis in Sixth Doctor adventure Revelation of the Daleks.

Ben Miller plays the Sheriff of Nottingham and is well known as the comedy partner of Alexander Armstrong. Armstrong has also appeared in Doctor Who, playing Reg Arwell in The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe and voicing Sarah-Jane Smith’s supercomputer Mr. Smith.

When deciding on a destination the Doctor says “What about Mars? The Ice Warrior hives”. He is of course referring to the infamous monsters who last appeared in Cold War, which was also written by Robot of Sherwood writer Mark Gatiss.

The Doctor shows himself to be a great swordsman here and this is a trait which has been seen throughout his regenerations. The Third Doctor had a sword fight with the Master in The Sea Devils, the Fourth Doctor battled with a sword in The Androids of Tara and more recently the Tenth Doctor faced the Sycorax leader in The Christmas Invasion.

As with most of the series of the revived Doctor Who the early episodes have had a set pattern. First there’s the first episode, set in the present day and usually a debut to a Doctor or companion or both (Rose, Smith and Jones, Partners in Crime, The Eleventh Hour,The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon, Asylum of the Daleks, Deep Breath). Then the next two episodes usually involve a historical setting and a futuristic setting (The End of the World/The Unquiet Dead, New Earth/Tooth and Claw, The Shakespeare Code/Gridlock, The Fires of Pompeii/Planet of the Ood, The Beast Below/Victory of the Daleks, The Curse of the Black Spot/The Doctor’s Wife, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship/A Town Called Mercy and Into the Dalek/Robot of Sherwood).

Doctor Who Unlocked: Into the Dalek

Every episode of Doctor Who has much more than meets the eye so I like to put together a little post exploring links to the past and other things you might not have known about! 

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

Into the Dalek is the first Doctor Who story since 2010’s The Waters of Mars which hasn’t featured Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. Coincidentally, that episode was also written by Phil Ford, who wrote Into the Dalek. 

We see Clara meeting new teacher Danny Pink at Coal Hill School. The school featured in the very first episode of Doctor Who back in 1963 where teachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright taught the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan. The school reappeared in 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks when daleks had built a transmat system in the school’s cellar and last year’s The Day of the Doctor when we saw Clara working there.

Using miniaturization to treat a patient has happened before in Doctor Who. In The Invisible Enemy the Fourth Doctor and his companion Leela went inside the Doctor’s own head to fight a virus.

Other cases of miniaturization include a TARDIS malfunction in First Doctor story Planet of the Giants and the Doctor hiding in the Teselecta to avoid his death in The Wedding of River Song. Like Rusty, the Teselecta had robotic anti-bodies.

Rusty grates “Death to the Daleks” at one point, which is a title of a 1974 dalek adventure featuring Jon Pertwee’s Third Doctor.

When the Doctor opens his mind to Rusty, images from past dalek stories are seen. We see an extermination from Dalek, the dalek attack on the Valiant from The Stolen Earth and the destruction of the daleks and the crucible in Journey’s End.

The Doctor then mentions meeting the daleks on Skaro, referring to the second Doctor Who story The Daleks. Skaro was destroyed by the Seventh Doctor in Remembrance of the Daleks but has since been seen (in ruins) in Asylum of the Daleks.

The attacking daleks shout “SEEK! LOCATE! DESTROY!”. Whilst nowhere near as famous as “EXTERMINATE!” these dalek calls have been heard regularly in Doctor Who, right from The Daleks onwards.

The scene where Clara and Journey are climbing was actually filmed by the actors crawling along the floor!

The new Doctor makes his dislike of soldiers clear, a character trait which was particularly clear in the Tenth Doctor.

Michelle Gomez reveals her character’s name to be “Missy”. Gretchen is the second character to have made it to “Heaven”, after the Half-Face Man in Deep Breath. 

Brett Domino- Doctor Who Song

This is the history of Doctor Who in a rap, by YouTube stars Brett Domino, which featured on Blue Peter.

Doctor Who Unlocked: Deep Breath

Every episode of Doctor Who has much more than meets the eye so I like to put together a little post exploring links to the past and other things you might not have known about! 

WARNING: Contains Spoilers

 

The episode sees the return of the Paternoster Row Gang, Vastra, Jenny and Strax. They previously appeared in A Good Man Goes to War, The Snowmen, The Crimson Horror, and The Name of the Doctor, as well as several mini-episodes.

Madame Vastra says “Well then, here we go again” when she meets the new Doctor. This echoes the Brigadier’s line “Well, here we go again” at the end of Planet of the Spiders when the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee) regenerated into the Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker).

The new titles were actually designed by a fan. Youtube user billydakiduk posted this video on the site which was seen by Steven Moffat, who liked its originality. The titles vary only slightly from the original video.

The new Doctor says he needs a “long scarf”. This is of course a reference back to the Fourth Doctor.

When Clara enters the TARDIS at the end of the episode she says “You’ve redecorated, I don’t like it”. This line has been used lots of times in Doctor Who including- the Second Doctor in The Three Doctors and The Five Doctors, the Eleventh Doctor in Closing Time and the Tenth Doctor in The Day of the Doctor.

Brian Miller plays the homeless man the Doctor has a strange conversation with. He also Dugdale in Fifth Doctor story Snakedance, voiced daleks in Resurrection of the Daleks and Remembrance of the Daleks and appeared in the Sarah Jane Adventures story The Mad Woman in the Attic. He was married to Elisabeth Sladen, who played Sarah-Jane Smith.

Paul Hickey returns as Inspector Gregson after playing the character in the prequel to The Snowman, Vastra Investigates. Gregson was a character in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle in adventures including The Greek Interpreter, Wisteria Lodge and the Red Circle. 

There are several more Sherlock Holmes references in the episode too. Vastra mentions the “Paternoster Irregulars” a play on Holmes band of helpful youths the Baker Street Irregulars. Jenny says Vastra is investigating the “Conk-Singleton forgery Case”, a case Sherlock Holmes mentions in The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.

The episode is heavily related to Series 2 episode The Girl in the Fireplace. In that episode Clockwork droids from the spaceship SS. Madame de Pompadour seek rebuild their ship with human parts. In Deep Breath the droids are from the sister ship the SS. Marie Antoinette and rebuild themselves as well as the ship with human parts. In both episodes the Doctor comments on how stupid they are.

The new Doctor says he has seen his face before. That is because Peter Capaldi played Caecilius in Series 4 episode The Fires of Pompeii. He also appeared in Torchwood: Children of Earth, which is set in the same universe, as civil servant John Frobisher.

At the end of Deep Breath we find out why the TARDIS phone was off the hook at the end The Time of the Doctor- the Eleventh Doctor rang Clara before regenerating. Matt Smith filmed the scene on the last day of shooting of The Time of the Doctor.

There is strange scene at the end of Deep Breath apparently set in heaven. The woman who appears is actress Michelle Gomez, who plays the character the Keeper of the Nethersphere. Very little is known about the character but she has a big role to play in the series finale, the second part being titled Death in Heaven.

Review: Engines of War by George Mann

This book focuses on the War Doctor, that mysterious older Doctor who protested about the name and was played by John Hurt on TV. From his perspective it is set shortly before The Day of the Doctor, the 50th anniversary special. The Time War is raging on as the Doctor accidentally rescues human refugee Cinder. The pair discover the daleks have a devastating new weapon that could wipe out Gallifrey. He tells the Time Lords of the discovery but their solution involves genocide of the local human population. Can the Doctor save the humans and prevent the daleks from destroying Gallifrey?

This starts rather slowly and generically as it essentially tells of how the Doctor meets Cinder. Cinder is a great companion, made tough by the Time War but discovering a better life with the Doctor. She fitted the companion role really well and it was a good tactic to see this little explored Doctor through her eyes. 

The second act of the book is the best one, as the Doctor goes to Gallifrey. I don't think I've ever read a Doctor Who book as stepped in continuity as this one. It follows on from the Fourth Doctor Gallifrey based adventures and quite a lot of time is spent in the Death Zone from The Five Doctors. There's also a reference to that climactic scene in Genesis of the Daleks ("do I have the right?") and of course it serves as a prelude to The Day of the Doctor. Not only that though is it sets up The End of Time really well too, how the Time Lords became the Doctor's enemy. Whilst the daleks are great monsters their lack of personality makes them limited for story-telling, especially when you can't see them like you can on TV. So what Mann does is make the Time Lords the main enemy with the daleks an additional threat. For me it worked perfectly, acting as the perfect bridge between the Time Lord stories of the classic series to The End of Time. 

It would have been nice to see how the War Doctor differs from the other Doctors a little more. There are moments when he does things the others just wouldn't but they are few and far between. I would probably let this go if it was addressed in a future novel but for me his character was just too Doctor-ish for the "one who broke the promise". 

Overall though a really enjoyable book from George Mann, a fitting debut in novel form for the War Doctor. My only hope now is that he gets some more! 

New Doctor Who Comics

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor Comic #1
Written by Nick Abadzis, Art by Elena Casagrande

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor Comic #1
Written by Al Ewing and Rob Williams, Art by Simon Fraser

Earlier in the year the license for Doctor Who comics moved from IDW (who had been doing a wonderful job) to Titan Comics. Last week the first issues of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor Comics were released, with a Twelfth Doctor series to begin later in the year. Titan have opted to create their own companions for these two series, an unusual move.

The Tenth Doctor comic is set around the time of the Specials and issue #1 barely features David Tennant's Tenth Doctor. It focuses instead on new companion Gabby Gonzalez, a Mexican waitress living with her family in New York. I had mixed feeling about this as though it's an interesting move to have such a different companion but it almost feels so different its not very Doctor Who-ish. Even the first arc has a Mexican theme, involving monsters on the Day of the Dead. The issue itself was not particularly inspiring but it did feel like it set up a potentially good series.

The Eleventh Doctor comic is set between Series 5 and 6 and whilst it focuses on the new companion, Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor appears a fair bit. British library assistant Alice Obifune is mourning the loss of her mother when the Doctor shows up. There's a great use of black and white as colour is only only introduced to the issue when the Doctor turns up. Unlike the Tenth Doctor issue #1, this is a self-contained story about an alien dog which feeds on sadness. It's not the greatest plot ever but a useful tool for starting the series. I thought the issue was properly excellent and immediately left me gasping for more. Alice is already a strong companion and she worked well alongside the Eleventh Doctor. I'm intrigued by the long-term plans for this series, with glimpses of a Time Lord appearing a couple of times. What is that all about?

The art styles for the two issues are actually fairly similar and although I really liked the artwork I felt that the character likeness needed work. Although the only two existing characters are the Doctors it was quite noticeable that they didn't really look much like the actors that portrayed them!