Tag: Zygons

Doctor Who: The Zygon Inversion

In less than an hour, at 8pm, The Zygon Inversion, the eighth episode of Doctor Who, Series 9, will air on BBC1, with the second half of what looks to be a very good two-parter, which had a very interesting start last week with The Zygon Invasion.

The Zygon Invasion was definitely a step up in pace from the previous four episodes, and on last week\’s showing, this story has the potential to become my second-favourite story of Series 9, behind the excellent series opening two-parter, The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar. There were some potentially interesting plot thingies laid down in The Zygon Invasion last week, so here\’s hoping The Zygon Inversion can follow through and deliver the goods tonight. I particularly liked the evil Zygon Clara, with Jenna Coleman getting her teeth into playing a nasty villain for a change, rather than her usual nice-girl companion role. With all the rumours floating around about Clara leaving the series, I\’ll be watching what happens to her with interest.

The CapaldiDoc seems to be in a pretty tight squeeze right at the end of last week\’s cliffhanger, but he\’ll save the day, of course. I\’m also wondering how Kate Lethbridge-Stewart came through her encounter with the Zygon last week, although I strongly suspect it was her who survived (again, obvious really). The Zygons seem to be pretty vulnerable in those 5-10 seconds that they take to transform from their human form back into Zygon. That\’s five or ten seconds when any trained UNIT member with fast reflexes would fill said Zygon full of holes long before it would complete the transformation.

Anyway, roll on 8pm on BBC 1, and The Zygon Inversion.

Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion

The Zygon Invasion, the seventh episode of Doctor Who, Series 9, has just started on BBC1. It moves us into the second half of this series\’ block of stories, with the beginning of what looks to be a very good two-parter, finishing off next week with The Zygon Inversion.

Great start so far. The Doctor, Clara, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT face off against the Zygons. LOTS of Zygons. It\’s pretty much a sequel to the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, with a heckuva lot more Zygons. Of course, there\’s a lot of people getting killed and duplicated, and half the time, we don\’t know who the hell is whom. But at least we\’ve found out now how Osgood can still be alive even though she was killed by Missy in the last series.

A bit obvious, really, when you think of it. 🙂

Doctor Who: The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived

This week’s episode of Doctor Who, The Woman Who Lived, which aired on BBC1 at 8.20pm last night, marks the half-way mark of Series 9. It\’s a direct follow-on from last week\’s episode, The Girl Who Died, and they form two self-contained stories in a prequel/sequel format, as opposed to the first two Series 9 stories, which were genuine two-part stories. The Girl Who Died and The Woman Who Lived are two different stories, set in different time periods, but both featuring Maisie Williams playing the same character. It seems like Steven Moffat is concentrating on writing in two-story blocks this series, a trend which will continue for the rest of Series 9. That\’s okay by me, as I believe two-parters are inherently much stronger than single episodes.

The Girl Who Died was of interest to me mostly because it is written by Jamie Mathieson, the same guy who wrote Flatline and Mummy on the Orient Express, two of my favourite episodes from the last Series (I make a point of looking out for anything written by this guy now). The fact that the story featured Maisie Williams (playing Ashildr) helping the Doctor and Clara fight off an alien (the Mire – not exactly the greatest alien threat in the series\’ long history) attack on a Viking village meant that this had the potential to be a good one, and it certainly wasn\’t terrible. However The Girl Who Died was only a fair-to-middling story, far from earth-shatteringly brilliant. But compared to the extremely high quality of Jamie Mathieson\’s previous two stories, it was a bit of a let-down for me.

Last night\’s follow-up episode, The Woman Who Lived, written by Catherine Tregenna, was a stronger story, very well written, with some excellent characterisation and dialogue, and quite a bit of heavy and fascinating morality lens material. The story was also notable in that Clara didn\’t appear in it at all until right at the end, making it a Doctor/Ashildr adventure as opposed to a normal Doctor/Clara one. It was interesting on this level because of all the rumours surrounding Jenna Coleman\’s impending departure from the series, and there were more than a few rumours floating around hinting at Ashildr becoming the new companion, but that didn\’t happen. However, it’ll still be interesting to see if Maisie Williams’ character becomes a recurring one in Doctor Who, as she\’s definitely one of the more interesting characters that NuWho has produced in recent years.

I suppose after the incredible series-opening two-parter The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar, it was bound to be difficult for the rest of the series to live up to the first adventure. But, that said, none of the other stories have been terrible so far. The Under the Lake/Before the Flood two-parter wasn\’t bad, very moody and atmospheric, and The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived certainly weren\’t bad stories either, but they certainly suffer by comparison with such a classic series opener. I mean, that story had the Daleks, Davros, AND Missy/The Master. It\’s certainly hard to top that, although the upcoming Zygons two-parter also promises to be a good one.

I think the problem with the past three stories is that they\’ve been fairly strong character pieces, but the aliens seem to be a bit of an afterthought, in comparison to the first story\’s roster of classic villains. However, Peter Capaldi has really grown into the role of the Doctor, and the Doctor and Clara are an excellent team now. I consider them to be one of the better Doctor/Companion pairings of the New Series.

Here\’s looking forward to next week\’s episode, The Zygon Invasion, the first of a two-part Zygon adventure.

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. 🙂

Countdown to \”Day of the Doctor\” – Two Hours and Counting Down

I\’m sitting here eagerly awaiting the start of the 50th Anniversary Doctor Who Special, The Day of the Doctor, which airs on BBC1 in about one and a half hours, at 7.50pm. I\’m really looking forward to seeing the Zygons again, after almost forty years. I\’m also really looking forward to seeing the David Tennant Doctor and Rose again. And John Hurt. Oh yes, more John Hurt, please!

We\’re all aware that Matt Smith is bowing out with the upcoming Christmas Special, The Time of the Doctor, after three really good years on the show. That\’ll be sad, as I really liked him. But I\’m sure the series will be in safe hands, as Matt gives over the reins to Peter Capaldi, who is a darned good actor. Steven Moffat, and Russell T. Davies before him, haven\’t let us down yet with their choices of actors for the modern series. I trust their judgment. Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith have ALL been excellent in the role, and I\’m certain that Peter Capaldi will be, too. I\’m particularly interested in how the relationship between the new Doctor and companion Clara Oswald will pan out.

So here\’s looking forward to The Day of the Doctor. I\’m sure it will be a cracker, although it will have to be something really \”special\” to be better than the truly excellent An Adventure in Space and Time, which aired on BBC2 on Thursday night. If it\’s even half as good as that one, I\’ll be happy! 🙂

Doctor Who – Fifty Years in Time and Space

This month marks the 50th Anniversary of my all-time favourite sci-fi television series, Doctor Who. The very first episode of An Unearthly Child aired on BBC1 at 5.15pm on Saturday 23rd November, 1963, and the world of sci-fi television, and our lives, would never be the same again.

There has obviously been a lot of recent activity to celebrate the anniversary. The November issue of Doctor Who Magazine is of course a bumper 50th Anniversary special, with some truly excellent and detailed behind the scenes articles and a few other nice bits \’n\’ bobs. There have also been various television programs celebrating the lead-up to the anniversary. Last Thursday (14th November) gave us the excellent The Science of Doctor Who on BBC2, featuring the ever-brilliant and entertaining Professor Brian Cox, the Doctor himself (Matt Smith), and various other celebrities from the worlds of science and entertainment. Monday 18th also gave us the bumper two-hour The Ultimate Guide to Doctor Who on BBC3.

But the best is yet to come. I\’ve been eagerly awaiting the 50th Anniversary Special, The Day of the Doctor, which is being aired on the evening of Saturday 23rd on BBC1. This one gives us not one, not two, but THREE Doctors (plus Clara, of course), and Rose, and Daleks, AND the long-awaited return of one of the best-ever Doctor Who monsters, the Zygons. I mean, what\’s not to look forward to? Add to this the fact that the anniversary is actually falling on Saturday 23rd November, rather than, say, on a Wednesday, or one of the other days of the week. That alone is giving me a huge thrill. Hey, it doesn\’t take much to get me excited, eh? Roll on Saturday evening! I\’ll be like a young kid again. 🙂

However, as much as I might be looking forward to The Day of the Doctor, there\’s something else that I\’m looking forward to even more. Tonight, at 9pm, BBC2 is screening An Adventure in Space and Time, which promises to be an absolute gem. Sure, the 50th Anniversary Special is wildly anticipated by all Doctor Who fans, myself included. But Doctor Who specials come and go, and there have been quite a few of them over the years, some good, some not so good. There has never been a Doctor Who programme like An Adventure in Space and Time on television before. It is a \”first\”, and, as such, is, in my opinion, even more important than the 50th Anniversary Special itself. I consider it to be the most important Doctor Who production of recent years.

An Adventure in Space and Time is a prestigious television drama portraying the origins and earliest behind-the-scenes developments of Doctor Who and the Hartnell-era cast. It\’s written by the irrepressible Mark Gatiss, and stars excellent character actor David Bradley as William Hartnell, major Hollywood star Brian Cox as Sydney Newman, and a cast of excellent young British actors including Sacha Dhawan as Waris Hussein, Jessica Raine as Verity Lambert, Jamie Glover as William Russell, Jemma Powell as Jacqueline Hill and Claudia Grant as Carole Ann Ford.

An Adventure in Space and Time promises to be something truly special, and is absolutely NOT to be missed by any Doctor Who fan. I\’ll make sure that I have the phone off the hook, and all my friends and relatives will be informed that they will suffer the most horrible death imaginable if they come anywhere near my house between 9.00pm and 10.30pm tonight. They have been warned! 🙂

Doctor Who Returns to UK Television

[T]his coming Saturday, 30th March, at 6.15pm, sees the return of Doctor Who to UK television screens, as we finally get to see the first episode of the second half of Series 7, The Bells of Saint John. I\’m really looking forward to the start of this sequence of new stories, as is, I\’m sure, every other Doctor Who fan on the planet.

As far as I\’m concerned, Matt Smith has been a huge success as the 11th Doctor. His zany, eccentric portrayal combines the best elements of previous Doctors, but is influenced mostly by my favourite Doctor of all, Tom Baker, which has to be A Very Good Thing (at least in my book). Even in the Doctor Who stories which are… let\’s say… not exactly the best, Smith puts in a performance that is rarely less than excellent, and, by sheer acting ability alone, often elevates the quality of those episodes beyond that of the mediocre scripts.

I\’m also looking forward to seeing how he works with his new companion, Clara Oswin Oswald (played by Jenna-Louise Coleman). We\’ve already seen her a couple of times before, firstly in last season\’s Asylum of the Daleks, and then in the last Christmas Special, The Snowmen. She\’s already died twice, but keeps coming back, which bodes well for some intriguing story and character development in coming stories. From what we\’ve seen so far, Jenna-Louise Coleman is an excellent young actress, and Clara Oswald should more than ably fill the shoes of The Ponds as the Doctor\’s new companion.

But most of all, and I\’m sure many Doctor Who fans will empathize with me here, I\’m looking forward to the monsters. Yes, the monsters! What adversaries, both old and new, will the Doctor be facing this year? I\’ve caught the trailer on TV a few times over the past week, and I\’m pretty excited about it. The Cybermen are back, looking better than ever. But what excites me the most is that we\’ll at last be getting to see the Ice Warriors, the very first time they\’ve appeared in the new series.

The Ice Warriors have always been one of my favourite classic Doctor Who monsters, right up there with the Daleks, Cybermen, Autons, Silurians, Sea Devils and Zygons, and it\’s long, long past time that they made an appearance in the new series. They look absolutely amazing, at least from the brief glimpse that we got of them in the trailer. I don\’t know which episode of the new season the Ice Warriors will appear in, but I can\’t wait to see them. Hopefully Moffat and co. will do them proud with an excellent story.

Roll on Saturday evening, 6.15pm!