Doctor Who – Page 3 – SF Universe

Another Doctor Who Night In
(Part Two)

[I]n my last post I detailed my latest recent DVD-watching binge of Doctor Who stories, the recent choices all being Tom Baker stories. Last night I watched a couple more Doctor Who stories, switching this time to Jon Pertwee and the two Auton classics, Spearhead from Space (Special Edition) and Terror of the Autons, as featured on the Mannequin Mania DVD box set.

Spearhead from Space is one of my favourite Pertwee stories. When Jon Pertwee fell out of the TARDIS, almost exactly one month after my ninth birthday, I wasn\’t too pleased. I\’d been a Pat Troughton fan since I first started really paying attention to Doctor Who back in 1966 or so, at the young age of five-going-six years old. Up until that point in my life, he was the only Doctor I\’d known, as I\’d been too young to really remember Hartnell, although I\’d doubtless seen a few of his as well, and had a view brief flashes and memory fragments of several stories.

So when Troughton left, and this new guy, Pertwee, took over, I was not a happy camper. But that mood didn\’t last for long. By the end of the first episode of Spearhead, I\’d completely forgotten about Troughton, and Pertwee was now most definitely The Doctor in my eyes. The sheer excellence of the story itself greatly eased the transition, and at that tender age, I found the concept of the Nestene Consciousness, and in particular the Autons, very scary and unnerving. For years afterwards, I was extremely nervous whenever I walked past any department store window. My young imagination already had the shop front dummies ready to smash through the windows and grab me. 🙂

Terror of the Autons is also a good story, but it never quite had the same impact on me as Spearhead from Space, although to this day, I still hate plastic flowers, plastic chairs and telephone cables. 🙂 The Autons in this one (except for the cops) weren\’t quite as frightening as those in Spearhead. With their massive heads and their circus background, they looked faintly silly and ridiculous, although the fight sequences with the UNIT troops were excellent.

However, this was the story that first introduced The Master, played by the late, great Roger Delgado, who quickly became a great favourite of mine. For that reason alone Terror of the Autons will always hold a fond spot in my heart. The story also introduced the new companion, cute and cuddly Jo Grant, played by Katy Manning, who joined Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Yates, Corporal Benton and the rest of the UNIT cast, and who was to be at Pertwee\’s side for the next three years of his run on the show. The classic and much-lauded \”UNIT family\” was now well and truly in place to usher in a new and one of the most fondly-remembered periods in the show\’s history.

Overall, another cracking night\’s viewing on the Doctor Who front.

Another Doctor Who Night In (Part Two)

In my last post I detailed my latest recent DVD-watching binge of Doctor Who stories, the recent choices all being Tom Baker stories. Last night I watched a couple more Doctor Who stories, switching this time to Jon Pertwee and the two Auton classics, Spearhead from Space (Special Edition) and Terror of the Autons, as featured on the Mannequin Mania DVD box set.

Overall, another cracking night\’s viewing on the Doctor Who front.

Another Doctor Who Night In

[W]e had another nice Doctor Who night last night at our place, watching several classic Who DVDs. Again, like last time out, they\’re all Tom Baker stories, two from the Philip Hinchcliffe era and the third from the Graham Williams era.

We started off with The Seeds of Doom, one of my favourite stories from the Philip Hinchcliffe \”Gothic Horror\” era of the classic series, a four-year period that remains, to this day, my favourite-ever era in the history of Doctor Who, either Classic or New series. This is quite a scary one, with the Krynoid very reminiscent of the plant creature in the first 1953 Quatermass serial. Doctor Who, especially the classic series, was very heavily influenced by Quatermass. Always copy the best, that\’s what I say! 🙂

This was followed by The Deadly Assassin, the rather controversial story which showcased the \”reinvention\” of the Time Lords. This one got some of the more purist fans of the original, near-omnipotent Time Lords in a bit of a tizzy, and I have to admit that I found myself sometimes wondering how this bunch of incompetent bureaucrats could ever have been the lords of time and space. The story also featured the first reappearance of The Master since the Pertwee era, a welcome return. The Deadly Assassin is an excellent tale, always rated among one of the greatest of the classic series, although I wouldn\’t rate it as one of my own personal biggest favourites (I do like it, however).

To wrap up the evening, we finished off with another highly-rated classic, City of Death, which I also quite like, although, again, I wouldn\’t rate it in my own personal Top Ten Classic Who stories. I was never as fond of the Graham Williams era as I was of the Hinchcliffe era. Tom Baker was allowed to do his own thing far too much, and often hammed it up a lot, with the humour getting a bit silly and slapstick at times. I much preferred the more scary and serious feel of the Hinchcliffe era, when Baker\’s humour was much more subdued and subtle, and he played the role totally straight. That said, City of Death was definitely one of the best stories of the Williams era. Scaroth was one of the better villains that the fourth Doctor faced, and I\’ve always found the concept of the Jagaroth, a ruthless alien race which terrorized the galaxy half a billion years ago, to be something that I\’d love to see revisited again. Maybe in the new series. The TARDIS can go anywhere, after all.

Anyway, that was another really enjoyable evening. Here\’s looking forward to watching some more Doctor Who soon.

Doctor Who DVD Marathon Session

[I]\’m having a bit of a quiet night in tonight, watching a few Doctor Who DVDs with a couple of mates. We have four DVDs on the menu tonight, and they\’re all Tom Baker stories, among them three of my all-time favourite DW classics from the Hinchcliffe era.

We\’re starting of with Image of the Fendahl (just finishing now), followed by Terror of the Zygons, Genesis of the Daleks, and finally Destiny of the Daleks. The first three stories are all in my Top Ten classic Doctor Who Stories list. Destiny is pretty decent too, if not quite up to the standard of the first three.

Tom Baker has always been my favourite Doctor, and the Hinchcliffe era by far my favourite era ever of Doctor Who. The underlying horror, more subdued Baker humour, excellent acting and extremely high quality of the scripts in Baker\’s first three seasons have never been equalled, let alone surpassed, either in the classic or the new series.

I haven\’t seen any of these in quite a long time now, so it\’ll be really nice to revisit these old classics again. We\’re in for a very enjoyable evening. 🙂

Doctor Who: \”Last Christmas\”

[I] watched the Doctor Who Christmas Special earlier this evening. Verdict? Mmmm… not bad, actually.

I must admit that when I first heard that the title of the Christmas Special was going to be Last Christmas, and saw the trailer with Santa Claus in it, I let out a huge groan, fearing the worst. Oh please, not another piece of silly, irrelevant Christmas fluff! I had images of a soppy, saccharine, Christmas-sy pile of old tosh, with Santa and strains of Wham! permeating the background music. The very thought of it filled me with dread.

Thankfully my worst fears didn\’t materialize. There was a perfectly good and logical reason for Santa, and a reasonably intelligent story, which was even pretty dark and ominous in parts. Most unChristmas-sy. 🙂 Even the aliens were pretty good, and although derivative, Moffat managed to work a joking reference into the script as an acknowledgement of the original source. I won\’t say anything more, in case I give away spoilers for anyone who hasn\’t seen it yet.

It was nice to see Clara\’s place confirmed as continuing companion in the series, after all the speculation about \”will she or won\’t she?\” (stay or leave). I know that the character has taken a lot of criticism from fans, but I think that she has come into her own during Season 8, after an initial beginning as more of a plot device than a real character. In my opinion, she is fitting in better now with Peter Capaldi than she ever did during Matt Smith\’s era. Jenna Coleman is a good little actress, so I\’m quite glad that she\’s staying with the show for a while yet.

Overall, Steven Moffat has produced a reasonably good Christmas Special for 2014. Sure, it may not have been the best Doctor Who episode of all time, but it was definitely worth an hour of my time.

Doctor Who, Season 8 – \”Deep Breath\”

I know it\’s hard to believe, but we\’re already half-way through the new season of Doctor Who. So I thought that it\’s about time that I started posting a few brief opinions on each episode, hoping that I\’ll be able to catch up before we get to the end of the season.

The season opener, Deep Breath, was a longer than usual 75-minute episode. It\’s a typical regeneration debut story, much more about introducing the new Doctor than anything else, and, as such, it did that very well. Here are what I regarded as the plus and negative points:

The Good Stuff:
The most important thing first. I loved the new Doctor. Peter Capaldi is a fine actor, and I think he\’s going to be excellent in the role. He\’s totally different to the previous incarnation, and that\’s how it should be. He\’s a grumpy, sarcastic Scotsman (and very funny, in a totally different way to the manic Matt Smith), with a strong streak of \”alienness\”, which any good Doctor needs to offset his humanity. He pushed all the right buttons for me in his debut story, and I\’m looking forward to watching him grow into the role.

I also really liked seeing Lady Vastra, Jenny and Strax again. I always enjoy the appearances of the Paternoster Gang, and I think that Strax is absolutely hilarious. Lots of humourous moments and good character scenes in this story.

The Bad Stuff:
The story itself was okay but wasn\’t exactly amazing either. The plot was a bit on the thin side, and if you take out Peter Capaldi and the Paternoster Gang, the episode would barely have rated a C. Also, Steven Moffat\’s seeming obsession with having the Doctor constantly revisit the Victorian era is starting to wear a bit thin, as much as I might like the Victorian era.

I also had a couple of major plot and character quibbles with this story:

Number One is Clara\’s totally out of character reaction to the new Doctor. Yes, I know that Steven Moffat was using it as a strong dig at the type of fan who was reacting negatively to Matt Smith leaving, and all of the stupid, irrational hating on Peter Capaldi before they\’d even seen him in the role. But it was a completely wrong reboot of Clara\’s character. Any other companion reacting like this, yes, maybe, just maybe it might\’ve been a bit more realistic, but not the Impossible Girl.

She\’s met all of the Doctors, and a new one shouldn\’t even phase her, older or not. Hell, she\’s even been in an adventure with three different Doctors, Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt, in The Day of the Doctor, so she\’s pretty familiar with regeneration and other Doctors. I know that some people are of the opinion that Clara doesn\’t remember any of her other lives (or the Doctor\’s she met), but I\’m firmly in the \”yes she does\” camp. But even if she doesn\’t, she would never, EVER have reacted in this way.

Her overly-negative, almost hysterical overreaction to the Peter Capaldi Doctor being \”older\” is also way out of character, and totally immature and unrealistic. She\’s already met an older Doctor (Hurt), and got on really well with him. The Clara that we all know simply would NOT have behaved like this towards the new Doctor.

Number Two is a major plot/continuity cock-up by Moffat: the phone call from the Matt Smith Doctor on Trenzalore to Clara. He says to Clara that the time is getting close, and \”it\’s going to be a real whopper\” (obviously referring to the upcoming regeneration). This scene was quite poignant and well-acted, until you actually stop and remember back to what happened at the end of The Time of the Doctor. The Doctor, as far as he was concerned for the ENTIRE episode, wasn\’t going to regenerate. He was going to die.

That was the whole damned point of the story. He\’d run out of regenerations, and, right up until the climax of the episode, when the Time Lords popped up and gave the Doctor a new cycle of regenerations (after Clara pleading with them, of course), he was resigned to meeting his end while fighting to save the people of Trenzalore from the Daleks. He didn\’t know he was going to regenerate UNTIL IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED. So Matt Smith\’s Doctor wouldn\’t/couldn\’t have made that phone call to Clara. As beautiful and emotional as the scene undoubtedly was, it was also a stupid continuity error and very sloppy writing on Moffat\’s part.

So overall, a couple of major issues, and a fairly average, unremarkable story. That said, there were quite a few nice character pieces, sad bits, and slices of humour. The performances of Lady Vastra, Strax and Jenny were excellent, as usual. And Peter Capaldi\’s performance (which is, after all, the most important thing) as the new Doctor was A-rated. So Deep Breath was a success, both as a regeneration story and an introduction to the new Doctor.

Deep Breath – Some Quick Thoughts

Deep Breath is, at its core, a fairly typical regeneration debut story. The story itself wasn\’t bad, but wasn\’t exactly anything special either. But a regeneration story has the primary function of successfully introducing the new Doctor to the audience. This is the single most important thing we needed from Deep Breath, to break in Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor, and, as such, the episode did an excellent job of it. Everything else is secondary, in my opinion, although there were definitely both plus and minus points.

As I\’ve said, the story was nothing exceptional, not exactly setting the world on fire for me. However, there were some nice scenes in it. The character set-pieces and interaction were generally excellent (with the exception of one thing). There were also quite a few nice bits of humour in among all the sad bits, and I also really liked seeing Lady Vastra, Jenny and Strax again. I enjoy these characters a lot, and I think that Strax is absolutely hilarious.

On the negative side, the plot itself was definitely a bit thin, there were at least a couple of glaring plot and character inconsistencies, particularly Clara\’s aggressively negative overreaction to the new, older Doctor, which was TOTALLY out of character. Any other companion, yes, it might\’ve actually been more realistic, but not the Impossible Girl. She\’s met them all. And even if, as some people argue, she has no memories of her other lives (which I disagree with), her reaction was STILL over-the-top and totally out of character.

Hey, she\’s already pretty familiar with regeneration and different Doctors, she\’s even been in an adventure with three different Doctors (Matt Smith, David Tennant and John Hurt), in The Day of the Doctor 50th Anniversary Special, and having already met (and liked) an older Doctor (Hurt), her overly-negative reaction to Capaldi because he is \”old\” is totally unrealistic and out-of-character.

The shame is that Jenna Coleman is a pretty good actress, and Clara, as a companion, is quite likeable. But Steven Moffat didn\’t come up with the writing goods for her on this occasion, writing her not as herself, but reducing her to some kind of a one-dimensional cypher, a dig at and representation of fans who can\’t handle regeneration and the replacing of \”their\” Doctor with a new one. In her defense, I have to say that this is NOT Jenna Coleman\’s fault, and the young lady can only deal with the scripts she\’s been given.

Another major plot flaw was actually one of the nicest scenes in the entire episode, the phone call from the Matt Smith Doctor on Trenzalore to Clara, said call obviously being made before or during the events of The Time of the Doctor. It\’s all very poignant, heart-tugging and well-acted, until you actually stop and think about it, and you realize that it simply couldn\’t have happened. It was was a major continuity flub and sloppy writing by Moffat. Nice, emotional, tear-jerking writing, but sloppy and wrong, wrong, WRONG.

MattDoc says to Clara that \”the time is getting close\”, and \”it\’s going to be a real whopper\” (he\’s obviously referring to an \”upcoming regeneration\”). But remember back to what happened at the end of The Time of the Doctor. The whole crux of the story was that the Doctor was coming to the end of his final incarnation. There weren\’t going to BE any more regenerations. As far as MattDoc was concerned, for pretty much the ENTIRE episode, he\’d run out of regenerations, and he was going to die. That was the whole point of the story. Which is what would\’ve happened if Clara hadn\’t begged the Time Lords to save him, as they did right at the end, by popping up at the last minute and giving the Doctor a new cycle of regenerations. So Matt Smith\’s Doctor couldn\’t have made that phone call. He didn\’t know he was going to regenerate before it actually happened. Very sloppy continuity mess-up on Moffat\’s part.

Those were my two main gripes, and the rest I can live with. However, one thing I couldn\’t complain about was Peter Capaldi\’s performance as the new Doctor, which was excellent, top notch. I think he\’s going to be an excellent Doctor. For that reason alone, I\’ll give Deep Breath a B instead of the C that I thought the fairly average story by itself actually deserved.

Doctor Who is Back! Season 8 Starts TODAY!

Later this evening, in slightly over two hours to be exact, the big event that every Doctor Who fan on the planet has been waiting for happens, when the first episode of Season 8 debuts on BBC1 at 7.50pm.

This first episode, Deep Breath, is a 75-minute feature-length debut to the new season, and is the first of the twelve episodes comprising Season 8 (or Season 34, if you prefer to include the Classic Series along with the New Series, as I do). I know absolutely nothing about this episode or any of the others, as I\’ve been taking extreme measures to avoid ANY spoilers on the new season. I know nothing other than the titles of the episodes, and that the last two episodes of the season comprise the two-part Season Finale.

I\’ve become totally pissed off in recent years, having each new season ruined by spoilers all over the internet, on TV and in the magazines, so this year it\’s been me dodging any kind of spoilers as nimbly as I can. Fingers crossed I can make through today, and indeed all twelve episodes, without having anyone ruin things for me by spilling the beans about upcoming stories before I get to watch them first. God help anyone who does. 🙂

The Season 8 Episode Listing is as follows:

Deep Breath
Into the Dalek
Robot of Sherwood
Listen
Time Heist
The Caretaker
Kill the Moon
Mummy on the Orient Express
Flatline
In the Forest of the Night
Dark Water
Death in Heaven

I\’ve been eagerly awaiting the first full appearance of the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, as he steps into the role he has inherited from the absolutely amazing Matt Smith. I\’ve always been a huge fan of Matt Smith as the Doctor. He\’s been a huge success, and gave us an hilariously funny, zany, eccentric, manic, and sometimes truly alien Doctor persona that reminded me most of Tom Baker (on speed), mixed with a lot of Patrick Troughton, and with some of the best elements of the other Doctors thrown in for good measure.

When you combine all of that with Smith\’s own natural hi-energy fun and crazy personality (apparently he\’s like that in real life, honest), he created a brilliant new Doctor, one who really convinced me that \”he was born for the role\”. I absolutely loved him, despite being very apprehensive back when he first took over from David Tennant (whom I also loved). Matt Smith made even the lamest episodes (and there have been a few) FUN to watch, keeping me as a viewer even at times when I thought the series was going a bit stale.

So Peter Capaldi has a lot to live up to, some pretty big shoes to fill there, but I reckon he\’ll make a darned good Doctor once he settles in. He\’s a very experienced actor, who has been around the acting business for many, many years, and the BBC have never failed yet to pick a good one to fill the new Doctor\’s role.

Another thing that I consider a major plus is that Capaldi was also a big fan of the classic series when he was a kid. This love and respect for the classic series might serve him well as he slips into the role of the new Doctor. He was a big fan of the first four Doctors, and watched the show avidly right from the William Hartnell era, right on through to the the middle of Tom Baker\’s run on the show. Eerily enough, this mirrors almost exactly my own childhood history with Doctor Who.

Anyway, back to the new season opener tonight. I\’m actually really looking forward to this new, older, grumpier, darker Doctor, and to seeing how Peter Capaldi works with the current companion, Clara (played by Jenna Coleman). Roll on this evening, 7.50pm!

Doctor Who – Season 8 Starts Today!

We\’re into the early hours of Saturday morning right now, and the big event that every Doctor Who fan on the planet has been waiting for happens later this evening, when the first episode of Season 8 debuts on BBC1 at 7.50pm.

This first episode is the first of twelve, and is a 75-minute feature-length episode titled Deep Breath. I know absolutely nothing about it, as I\’ve been very stringent about avoiding spoilers on the new season, other than the titles of the episodes, and that the last two episodes of the season are the two-part Season Finale.

The Season 8 Episode Listing is as follows:

Deep Breath
Into the Dalek
Robot of Sherwood
Listen
Time Heist
The Caretaker
Kill the Moon
Mummy on the Orient Express
Flatline
In the Forest of the Night
Dark Water
Death in Heaven

I\’ve been eagerly awaiting the first full appearance of the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi, as he steps into the role he has inherited from the absolutely amazing Matt Smith. Peter Capaldi has some pretty big shoes to fill there, but I reckon he\’ll make a darned good Doctor. He\’s a very experienced actor, who has been around the acting business for many, many years. And the BBC have never failed yet to pick a good one to fill the new Doctor\’s role.

Something which I think bodes well for the show, in my opinion, is that he was also a big fan of the classic series when he was a kid, in particular the first four Doctors, up until the middle of Tom Baker\’s run on the show. All of which pretty much mirrors exactly my own childhood journey with Doctor Who. This love and respect of the classic series might serve him well as he slips into the role of the new Doctor.

Anyway, I\’m actually really looking forward to this new, older, grumpier, darker Doctor, and to seeing how Peter Capaldi works with the current companion, Clara (played by Jenna Coleman). Roll on this evening, 7.50pm!

Doctor Who Back on UK Television!

Like every other Doctor Who fan on the planet, I\’ve been eagerly awaiting the start of the new season, and most of all the first full appearance of the new Doctor, Peter Capaldi. Now at last, Doctor Who returns to UK television tomorrow, Saturday, 23rd August, at 7.50pm, in a 75-minute feature-length episode.

The first episode of twelve in the new Season 8 (or Season 34, if you prefer to include the classic series, as I do), is Deep Breath. Here\’s a list of the twelve episodes of the new season:

Deep Breath
Into the Dalek
Robot of Sherwood
Listen
Time Heist
The Caretaker
Kill the Moon
Mummy on the Orient Express
Flatline
In the Forest of the Night
Dark Water
Death in Heaven

The last two episodes are the two-part Season Finale. I\’ve deliberately avoided giving any spoilers. Indeed, I\’ve actively avoided encountering any spoilers myself, and I know absolutely nothing about the episodes other than their titles. I\’ve become royally fed up, every single year, having each new season ruined by spoilers all over the internet, on TV and in the magazines, so this year it\’s been me dodging any kind of spoilers as nimbly as I can. Fingers crossed I can make it to Saturday, and woe betide anyone who ruins things for me. 🙂

I\’ve always been a huge fan of Matt Smith and his portrayal of the Doctor. Starting off as a relative unknown, he took to the role like a duck to water, and he has been, without a doubt, a huge success as the 11th Doctor. He brought us a zany, eccentric, manic, and often truly alien version of the Doctor that reminded me most of Tom Baker (on speed), which can never be a bad thing as far as I\’m concerned, as TomDoc has always been my favourite Doctor of all.

By adopting some of the best elements of not only Tom Baker, but also other previous Doctors (there\’s a lot of Patrick Troughton in there as well), combined with his own natural hi-energy craziness, Smith created a new persona which really appealed to me in a \”he was born for the role\” kind of way. I absolutely loved him, which came as a big surprise to me as I was really apprehensive back when he first took over from David Tennant. Even in the less notable episodes, he lights up the screen and he makes even the worst stories watchable, even if only to enjoy Smith doing his thing.

So Peter Capaldi has a lot to live up to, although I\’m sure he\’ll be more than up to the job. He\’s an accomplished actor, and has been around for a long, long time. He\’s also a lifetime Doctor Who fan, and has been since he was a young child. Or at least he was an obsessive fan of the classic series (I\’ve no idea what he thinks of the new series), from the beginning with William Hartnell, right on through to the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker. So this bodes well for the show, in my opinion.

I\’m actually looking forward to this older, darker Doctor, and to seeing how he works with the current companion, Clara (Jenna Coleman). Roll on Saturday evening, 7.50pm!