The Name of the Doctor

Wow! I am still recovering from the dramatic finale to series 7 of Doctor Who and scratching my head trying to work out what is going to come next. Join me as I discuss the episode and try to work some things out. If you haven't seen the episode yet (er, why not) then do not read on…

The finale begins with a sort of montage of Clara meeting the classic Doctors. We see the First Doctor about to steal the TARDIS, the Third Doctor driving in Bessie and many more. Clara tells us she was born to save the Doctor, but how? Well we now know that she followed the Great Intelligence into the Doctor’s time stream and continually tried to save him. I found this a satisfactory explanation to the mystery of Clara and it was great to see classic Doctors properly appearing in the show- I particularly liked a version of Clara telling the First Doctor which TARDIS to steal.

This was another episode where the Doctor didn’t make an appearance until a good ten minutes into the episode. Instead we see the Paternoster Gang joined by Clara and River Song in a “conference call”.  According to Vastra “time travel has always been possible in dreams”. I was once again convinced that the Paternoster Gang need their own spin-off show. One day perhaps? The highlight of this great scene was the chilling line from Jenny saying “I think I’ve been murdered”. Fortunately all three of the Paternoster Gang survived the episode so the spin-off series can still happen.

Once Clara told the Doctor what she had seen, he knew he had to go to his grave at Trenzalore. The TARDIS wasn’t too keen on this and the Doctor could only get there by using the planet’s gravity, cracking a TARDIS window in the process. I feel that the crack may well be an important clue because when we see the Doctor’s grave, the TADIS having grown to a huge size, the same window has a crack in! Does this mean the Doctor is going to die soon, before the window can be repaired?

The finale saw the return of River Song, after her death in Forest of the Dead. It’s the latest in her timeline we’ve seen and she is effectively a ghost, saved to the database of the library. Her appearance here is fairly understated, her role mostly being as an assistant to Clara, still connected through the conference call. There is a great scene though where the Doctor reveals he is connected to her and hasn’t contacted her since the library because he felt it would hurt him too much. Very emotional.

I feel that we have now come to the big talking point of the episode, the ending. The Doctor goes to get Clara from inside his timeline but before the two of them can leave they see a shadowy figure, who turns out to be legendary actor John Hurt and, as the caption said, “The Doctor”. But how can John Hurt be the Doctor? Well some rumours suggest he is a Doctor that fits between the Eighth and the Ninth Doctors. This seems most likely as we have very little idea of what happened between the TV Movie and Rose. Perhaps what this new Doctor said can give us a clue:

John Hurt’s Doctor: What I did, I did without choice in the name of peace and sanity.

Matt Smith’s Doctor: But not in the name of the Doctor!

Well all we can know is that this new Doctor did something bad and didn’t have a choice. Time war? Seems the most likely. If this is the case and John Hurt is technically the Ninth Doctor our naming system is going to be messed up. Fingers crossed that he’ll be given a new name so we don’t get too confused.

Other possibilities? Well maybe he is the First Doctor, coming before William Hartnell, although this doesn’t feel right to me. Or perhaps he is the next Doctor, coming after Matt Smith. Possible but the fact that the Eleventh Doctor knows what he has done and the fact that it seems Matt Smith will probably be around for at least another series, this too seems unlikely. So I’m going for my first theory.

Still, even if that is the case there are still so many questions. What exactly did JH Doctor do? What has he got to do with the 50th anniversary special? And what about the Tenth Doctor? And the Zygons? Well I guess we will have to wait until the 23rd November to find out! How are we going to cope? This feature will be back on the 24th November to analyse the special but stay tuned as there might be the odd other thing before then too! Thanks for reading!

Nightmare in Silver

Uh-oh, the Cybermen are back and they are scarier than ever! Join me as I analysis the upgraded foes and prepare for the series finale! There will be spoilers so I suggest you run if you haven’t yet seen the episode!

Ah, the Cybermen, the Doctor’s greatest enemy with legs. The original Cybermen came from the planet Mondas, Earth’s twin planet. They gradually upgraded from being fairly rubbish half fabric/half metal monsters to terrifying adversaries. Fortunately they were defeatable, what with their weakness to gold and everything. In the new series the Cybermen were created by John Lumic, head of Cybus Industries, who made human 2.0 in a Parallel World, although they didn’t stay there for long.

Since The Next Doctor it’s been a bit confusing which type of Cybermen the Doctor has been facing. They have looked exactly like the Cybus Cybermen yet didn’t have the Cybus logo on their chest. Neil Gaiman, writer of this episode came up with a solution though:

“My theory is the Cybus Cybermen were sent to Victorian days and zapped off into time and space at the end of The Next Doctor. They met a bunch of the Mondasian/Telosian Cybermen, and there was some cross-breeding and interchange of technology, which is why you then get the ones that look like, but actually aren’t, the Cybus Cybermen. And then I thought well, they’re going to keep upgrading themselves – my computer doesn’t look like it did five or ten years ago, definitely not 15 years ago. It’s going to be faster and it’s going to be better.”

Fans, for once, are rather happy with this idea so although it has not been stated in the show I think it is going to effectively become canonical. Gaiman has made new look Cybermen are much more powerful than ever before. Firstly they’ve upgraded Cybermats into smaller, more covert version called Cybermites. They new Cybermen can be impossibly fast if they want to be and can also detach limbs to defeat their enemies, be that suffocating with a hand or tricking people by detaching their head from their body. I think it can safely be said that they are much more difficult to defeat now!

The episode largely focused on the Doctor’s internal battle with the Cyber Planner, the Cyberman version of himself. Matt Smith once again proved his versatility as an actor and was fantastic at being a villain. Clara spent much of the episode in charge of a platoon and she seemed to take to it rather naturally, almost as if she has been conditioned for fighting…. I also liked Porridge (played by Warwick Davis), who turned out to be the reluctant Emperor of the Universe!

Although the Cybermen were destroyed when the planet was imploded it is clear that won’t be the last we see of them. We were even teased with a way they can survive, a lone Cybermite floating through space. Suffice to say the Doctor will no doubt face them again in the coming years and if there isn’t a handy implosion device he may struggle to defeat them!

There was plenty of references to parts of the Whoniverse in the episode too with Webley’s collection showing various aliens we have seen before. It’s like a Whovian I-Spy! I managed to spot the following but their may be more:

• Spacesuits like the one the Doctor used in The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe
• One of the dummies from The God Complex
• A Blowfish, like the one from the Torchwood episode Kiss,Kiss, Bang, Bang.
• A panbabylonian and an ultramancer from The Rings of Akhaten.
• A Shansheeth from The Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor.

So, the series finale approaches! Will we find out The Name of the Doctor? Well maybe the prequel will give us some clues:

So, it looks like the Doctor and Clara are going to find out each other’s secrets! The episode will involve Strax, Vastra and Jenny, the mysterious Whispermen and by the looks of it the Great Intelligence! Apparently it is going to change the show forever and will lead into the 50th Anniversary Special which will air in November. It’s going to be huge! Join me next week as I try to cope with it all!

The Doctor Who Experience

Today is one of those days where I get to report on a visit to somewhere exciting. In fact I’m not sure I’ve been as excited to be somewhere since I was a child. Last Friday myself and my friend Louise took the epic journey across to Cardiff, Wales, the home of Doctor Who since it’s revival in 2005. This time round we went to the Doctor Who Experience, a sort of museum dedicated to the show. And it was awesome!

After the long train journey, which involved several changes at some of the tiny stations in Cardiff, we arrived in Cardiff Bay amongst a mass of graduates from Glamorgan university. They were all dressed up in their robes with the silly hats and we had to meander through them to get some lunch. I became jealous of these lucky few who do not have to suffer another year of lectures and assignments as I do.

We sat eating lunch looking over the lovely view of the bay and then approached the weird warehouse that is the Doctor Who Experience.

The first section of the experience is interactive. Basically you get to travel through space and time whilst the Doctor (Matt Smith) appears on a screen telling you what to do. Unfortunately you weren’t allowed to take photos in the first section so I will have to use my excellent writing skills to put the relevant images in your head. Blimey, this might be testing!

The experience began in the museum of Starship UK (from The Beast Below). There are loads of props from the show like the telescope from Tooth and Claw. A node (from Silence in the Library) shared some of the props with us and then something dramatic happened and the Doctor appeared on screen, live from the Pandorica 2. “They had another one just lying around!”. I would have like a little bit more time here to spot some of the props but the large number of people in one go and the short time spent there meant you didn’t have chance to have a proper look.

Things got more exciting then when the TARDIS appeared in a puff of smoke and the Doctor insisted we went on board. It is a replica of the Eleventh Doctor’s first TARDIS console although sadly a barrier meant you couldn’t actually touch the console. There were some levers to pull attached to the barrier and the Doctor told us that it would be best if children used these. My immediate thought was “I am a child, no-one is stopping me using this lever!”. I loved it when I got told to use the lever and the TARDIS floor moved. For a moment a dream had come true.

Next thing we knew we were on board a dalek spaceship and daleks rolled out to face us. Despite knowing they weren’t real I was still a little worried they would exterminate me! What if the whole thing had all been an elaborate plan by the daleks? Fortunately before we were exterminated the old daleks turned up and there was a battle between the paradigms.

After a quick run through a forest full of weeping angels, which was quite frankly terrifying, we got to watch a 3D film where loads of monsters were floating through the time vortex. This looked pretty spectacular but all too soon it was over. Next was the museum part of the experience.

Keeping up so far? If you have never seen Doctor Who the whole last bit probably made very little sense to you. To be honest I’m just indulging my memories here more than anything else. As you might imagine, I took quite a few photos in the museum section so here are a few highlights.

Costumes! They had costumes for all Eleven Doctors (although some were replicas rather than originals)!

^{Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), Fourth Doctor (Tom Baker) and Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)}

The TARDIS! The console that the Ninth and Tenth Doctor used is in the experience and it is awesome. I loved being in there. As well as being an integral part of the show it is a work of art! It was restored but it is still showing some wear and tear after it was blown up in The End of Time.

Monsters! Lots of monsters from the show appear, although most of them are from the new series!

^{Varga (from The Ice Warriors), New series Sontaran, Cyber controller, Silence, Weeping Angel and Skaldak (from Cold War)}

There were also various other costumes and props used in the show and various bits about how Doctor Who is put together, like how they make the costumes and props. The bit I found most interesting in this was the set designers who design what they want the set to look like through small cardboard models. It was fun to see how these little models became massive sets on TV.

All in all the experience was great fun, if a little expensive for what it was. I imagine children would really love it though as that is the audience in mind for the interactive bit. I would have liked there to have been more from the Classic era of the show because there was very little at all but I suppose that was to be expected with the experience being right next to the current Doctor Who studios. Also I got to control a dalek which was awesome. Great day out!

After the experience we explored Cardiff a bit. I have been several times before but I particularly love the bay area and think the whole city is lovely now that a lot of work has been put into modernising it. As a Doctor Who novel I once read said: “Never been to Cardiff? You haven’t lived?”

That’s all for today,  thanks for reading!

The Crimson Horror

This week the Doctor and Clara take a trip up North and are joined by Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax to fight Mrs Gillyflower and the Crimson Horror! As usual there will be spoilers so if you haven’t yet seen the episode I suggest you look away now!

The episode began with the Paternoster Row gang deciding they should head up to Yorkshire after the image of the Doctor is imprinted on a dead man’s eye. And it is no ordinary corpse as the man’s skin is bright red. They begin to investigate, sending Jenny in to pose as a potential worker at the mysterious Sweetville factory. Eventually she finds the Doctor, virtually paralysed and with bright red skin. It turns out Mrs Gillyflower has a symbiotic relationship with an evolved form of an ancient leech and is planning to wipe out humanity with leech poison, preserving only the best looking for her new world using a diluted version.

All in all, a bonkers episode! Interestingly fans seem to have a rather split opinion on it. The thing with this episode is that it didn’t try to do anything particularly new and had no part to play in the plot arc, it was just a jolly good romp. Should Doctor Who be allowed to do that? Well that’s up to you but for me it has always been part of the show and always should be!

The episode had a heavy focus on the Paternoster Row gang. We first met them in 2011’s A Good Man Goes to War. Back then Strax, the Sontaran, had been forced to be a nurse during a war by the Doctor, knowing how much of an insult he would see it as. Jenny is a Victorian Chambermaid with a very intimate relationship with Silurian Madame Vastra.

The trio then returned to fight the Great Intelligence in The Snowmen and made their third appearance in this episode. It’s not the last we’ll see of them either as they will be back in the series finale, The Name of the Doctor. The trio are great fun- Vastra and Jenny are pretty bad-ass, as Jenny demonstrated today. Strax is hilarious, largely because he is a warrior who doesn’t get to do much fighting. The funniest moment of the episode involved Strax, when a small boy told him detailed directions much like a Satnav. When asked his name the boy said it was “Thomas, Thomas”. TomTom, geddit?

The great guest cast was rounded off by Diana Rigg and her daughter Rachel Stirling. Rigg is best known for her role as Emma Peel in British spy drama The Avengers and as a Bond Girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service but the modern audience might know her better for her role in Game of Thrones. Diana Rigg was excellent as the sinister Mrs Gillyflower- interestingly this is the first time in her whole career where she got to speak in her real accent. Mark Gatiss wrote the episode especially for the mother and daughter.

As with the rest of this run, tonight’s episode featured some references to the show’s past. The first came when talking about the eye of a dead person retaining an image of the last thing it sees. The Fourth Doctor discussed this is the fantastic story The Ark in Space and he too said it was not impossible and managed to access the last image. A bigger reference came when the Doctor spoke to Clara about a gobby Australian. This harks back to the Fifth Doctor era when companion Tegan was desperate to get to Heathrow Airport to become an air-hostess. She eventually made it there in Time-Flight. The Doctor even says “Braveheart, Clara” just like he used to say to Tegan.

The final scene of the episode was a little unusual as it seemed only to serve the purpose of setting up the next episode. Angie and Artie, the two children Clara nannies for had found photos of her from Cold War and Hide.That’s the trouble with only travelling to the fairly recent past, you might get noticed! Angie and Artie will join the Doctor and Clara in next week’s episode, which is written by Neil Gaiman and sees the return and re-invention of the Cybermen. Gaiman’s last Who episode, The Doctor’s Wife, quickly became a fan favourite and from the reviews so far this looks like it will do the same.

More on that next week though! Angie and Artie also managed to find a photo of the Victorian version of Clara. It is the first time modern Clara has any inclination there might be another version of her. The Doctor has not exactly been subtle about it either, visiting a empathetic psychic and trying to get back to Victorian London to solve the mystery. It seems possible that during the course of the next episode Clara is going to find out about the other hers, or if not then than in the finale.

That’s all for today but do join us next week for Nightmare in Silver!

Hide

I misjudged my calculation on my TARDIS and have ended up a day later than I meant to. Still, better late than never, here’s some thoughts and discussion on the latest episode of Doctor Who, Hide. It’s a spooky one. Kind of. It will contain spoilers of course so if you haven’t yet seen the episode, I suggest you hide (see what I did there?)

So, Hide. This was one of those episodes of Doctor Who that continually messed with your expectations. The Doctor and Clara arrive in 1974 in part of a ghost story. After an appearance from the “ghost” we learn it’s no ghost but a time traveller trapped in a pocket universe, being chased by a monster. Eventually the gang manage to rescue her and then the Doctor finally realises the monster isn’t chasing her, it is trying to get home to be with it’s partner. So it’s not a ghost story, it’s a love story. Only Doctor Who could make that happen!

Part of the love story comes from the guest characters, Alec Palmer and Emma Grayling. It’s rare that we get such a well characterised guest cast but writer Neil Cross managed to do it this week. The unusual approach of having the Doctor already know who they are worked a treat. Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott) was formerly a spy and he caused lots of deaths during his time with the service. A bit like the Doctor, he was trying to do something to counteract his past. Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine) was an even better character, an empathetic physic, a woman who can sense feelings but therefore lives a difficult life. The two characters were made for each other and finally became an item thanks to Clara and the Doctor. Incidentally, Jessica Raine will play Verity Lambert in the upcoming Doctor Who making of drama An Adventure in Space and Time.

The other part of the love story came from the hideous creature that is apparently called “The Crooked Man”. It was a great example of the old saying “never judge a book by its cover” and just because it is an ugly creature doesn’t mean it isn’t capable of love! How sweet!

This episode contained a direct reference to the Third Doctor era with the blue crystal from Metebelis III. The Doctor first picked one of these crystals up during the course of The Green Death and it was a central part of the plot in Planet of the Spiders which led to the Doctor’s regeneration. The crystals have psychic powers, hence there inclusion in this story- although it does mean the Doctor has returned to Metebelis III since that regeneration. Some fans noted Matt Smith’s mispronunciation of the name, although I would have to question whether he got it right and it was actually Jon Pertwee would pronounced it wrong…

We had some more development with Clara relationship with the TARDIS. Clara still senses that the TARDIS doesn’t like her but there’s no real evidence that it true. If the TARDIS doesn’t like Clara, is it just because she’s new like the Doctor said or because of what she is- the same way that it tried to shake off Captain Jack because he’s an anomaly. Maybe Hide was the end of this dislike though as the TARDIS did open it’s doors to let Clara travel into the pocket universe to rescue the Doctor. I’m sure we will find out for certain next week in a story largely set within the TARDIS!

Once again we didn’t really find out anything to explain the mystery of Clara. Emma Grayling decided she was a normal girl and nothing out of the ordinary. It did spark off a new mystery which we will be seeing much more of as time goes one. Emma said the Doctor had “a sliver of ice in his heart”. Steven Moffat has said that the 50th anniversary special will reveal a dark secret that the Doctor has. I haven’t the slightest idea what that might be though!

Next week is an exciting episode as we take a Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. Join us then!

Cold War

It issss once again time to analysssse another epissssode of Doctor Who! Thissss week it’ssss time to board a sssubmarine with an Ice Warrior! OK, enough of speaking like an Ice Warrior, it’ll soon get boring and I’ll wear out by “s” key. As usual there’ll be spoilers so if you haven't seen the episode yet I suggest you don’t read on!

Before anything else, I feel a little bit of history on the Ice Warriors is necessary. They first appeared in 1967 when the Doctor Who team weren’t allowed to use daleks as the pepperpots were being used in films. Various monsters were created and Ice Warriors were quite possible the best. In The Ice Warriors the Second Doctor and his companions Jamie and Victoria found the Ice Warriors frozen in ice in the Earth’s future where a new Ice Age had occurred. It was actually Victoria that named them Ice Warriors and the Martians don’t seem to mind. The trio faced them again in The Seeds of Death when they tried to use the trans-mat system to take over the Earth and then the Third Doctor bumped into them in The Curse of Peladon where they had renounced their old ways. In The Monster of Peladon though a rogue faction of Ice Warriors had gone back to the old ways.

That was in 1974 and the Ice Warriors haven’t been seen on screen since. Until now that is. Mark Gatiss had been desperate to bring the Icw Warriors back in the new series but showrunner and friend Steven Moffat wasn’t so sure. Then Gatiss came up with the idea that made the Ice Warriors scarier- they can come out of their armour. Yep, here Skaldak leaves his armour and runs around the Soviet submarine finding out about humans by killing them. The master-stroke was the creepy hands hanging over people’s heads. Suddenly the Ice Warriors have become a whole lot scarier!

I’ve been scratching my head trying to work out a timeline for the Ice Warriors. This is technically the earliest in time we’ve ever seen them and Skaldak had been in the ice 5,000 years. All the other episodes were set far in the future, though Varga and co in The Ice Warriors had been there for “centuries”. Maybe Varga and Skaldak come from a similar time? All we know is that they were once a great empire, they weren’t for a huge proportion of humanity’s life and then they were again. There’s still plenty of room for expansion of their story and I hope we get some of that in the not so distant future.

This episode is the first one where Clara was in real danger. It’s the first episode of Series 7 Part 2 where we actually had some deaths, and even then there were only three, a relatively low body count for the show. It was great to see how terrified by it all she was and how much she enjoyed the whole saving the world thing. There is pretty much no further clues to help solve her mystery. The only thing I picked up on was when the Professor asked her what hobbies she had and she couldn’t come up with an answer. Clara’s life before the Doctor seems disturbingly empty. She was quite scared at the time though so it could mean nothing!

I have noticed something which may be vitally important to the series arc or might be a coincidence. In this episode there is a direct quote from Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”:

“What do you want from me?”

“Much”

In The Rings of Akhaten there was a quote from “Alice in Wonderland” and someone I was watching with reckoned there was a quote from “The Woman in Black” in the preview for next week’s episode, Hide. I don’t remember any book quotes in The Bells of Saint John although there was the obvious mention of the book by Amelia Williams. Are these book links a clue? Or is this just another Doctor Who coincidence?

For me the highlight of Cold War, apart from Skaldak of course, was David Warner’s professor. Most of the submarine crew weren’t particularly fascinating characters but the professor was great. He was good fun what with being an old Russian man who loved Ultravox and Duran Duran but he was also a caring character who was really sweet. The two-hander with him and Clara was brilliant! Definitely guest star of the week!

One final thing is when the Doctor talks about resetting HADS on the TARDIS he pretty much repeats what he said way back in the 1969 story The Krotons! Few other shows can do continuity like Doctor Who does!

That is it for this week but do join us next week for the creepy ghost story, Hide!

The Rings of Akhaten

Hello and welcome to another post new Doctor Who episode discussion! This week the Doctor takes Clara to her first alien planet. As usual there’ll be spoilers so if you haven’t seen the episode yet I suggest you look away now!

The Rings of Akhaten was written by Neil Cross, who is based in New Zealand and wrote Luther and quite a few episodes of Spooks. The episode has split the fandom, with some absolutely loving it and some absolutely hating it. Personally I am more leaning towards the hating it side of things but there were still plenty of things to love!

First of all, the pre-credits sequence, which saw the Doctor pretty much stalking Clara’s Mum and Dad. He was making sure Clara was definitely human and normal and it seems she is. The secret of the leaf is revealed and it turns out not to be something sci-fi at all but simply a symbol of her parent’s relationship when said leaf hit her Dad in the eye. And then we discover that Clara’s mother died when she was a child, giving us some great emotional context for the new companion.

The Rings of Akhaten are an asteroid belt, full of many varying alien races. And it’s now time for alien safari- here’s all the alien races that are ‘named’ in the episode:

The story itself revolves around saving a little girl from being sacrificed to what is pretty much a god. I must mention what a brilliant little actress and singer the girl is- her name is Emilia Jones and she is the daughter of infamous Welsh choral singer Aled Jones. The currency in Akhaten is sentimental items and Clara gives up both the leaf and her mother’s ring to save the day. For once the companion has some empathy with the idea of the Doctor’s loss of his own people. And speaking of which, what an incredible speech Matt Smith gave on that subject:

“I have lived a long life and I have seen a few things… I walked away from the last great Time War, I marked the passing of the Time Lords, I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment until nothing remained, no time, no space, just me. I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man. I watched universes freeze and creations burn, I have seen things you wouldn’t believe, I have lost things you will never understand - and I know things, secrets that must never be told, knowledge that must never be spoken… knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze! So come on then! Take it!”

OK, now some things to notice in this episode. Firstly, the Doctor mentioned he’d been to the Rings of Akhaten before, with his grand-daughter. The Doctor’s grand-daughter, Susan, appeared with the First Doctor and was left in London in the year 2164 to help rebuild civilisation after a dalek invasion with her new boyfriend. Maybe she’ll make a return one day?

The Doctor claimed he had nothing of sentimental value on him, except his sonic screwdriver, but that’s not exactly true as he must still have Amy Pond’s reading glasses on him (he had them when he was watching Clara’s parents after all). The Doctor simply cannot part from them!

There wasn’t much in terms of solving the mystery of Clara in this episode, although maybe there is a clue when she says that the TARDIS doesn’t like her. The TARDIS is a living thing and theoretically could try to stop someone getting in. As it can see through time and space it probably knows the secret behind Clara and might not like it. But then again you always need a key to get into the TARDIS and Clara doesn’t have one yet. In fact she’s not really reached companion status yet and is dropped home at the end of the episode, which seems a bit odd. The part-time companion thing worked well for Amy and Rory in the first half of series 7 but it doesn’t feel quite right with Clara. Maybe next episode will see her enter the TARDIS permanently?

That’s all here for this week but join me next week as I discuss The Cold War, where the Ice Warriors are back in their first appearance since 1974- expect some Doctor Who history within it!