Wacky Reviews: Doctor Who

[CaptainWacky]

Night Terrors - I don't know what it is with Mark Gatiss. He obviously understandds Doctor Who very well, as show by An Adventure In Space And Time, which was excellent. You'd think he would be capable of writing a great episode. But he's not? His ratio of good to bad has certainly improved as of series 7. But this one is definitely on the "bad" side. There's a boy who's really an alien with powers he doesn't understand that scare him. And he shrinks people down into his haunted dollhouse. These are fine ideas to write an episode around. But you have to like have stuff happen in the episode too. It's not enough to just throw Rory and Amy in a dollhouse and have them walk around for over half an hour. But that's exactly what happens. They don't even see a doll until about twenty minutes into their walking around of corridors (it's the exact opposite of the excellent walking around of corridros in The Doctor's Wife) and then...the dolls aren't even scary. At all. Maybe if they had really spooky doll faces they would be. But they just have weird faces and they laugh all the time? (I keep starting sentences with "but", sorry.) It's really boring.

The stuff with the Doctor and the child is a bit better because Matt Smith is good at acting with children and the "monsters are real" speech is well delivered, but the boy himself isn't very good and his father is play by that wooden guy from fucking Outcasts and he's terrible and I hate him. Human emotion saves the day, of course, as it obviously would when the episode starts with a father struggling to love his son. Of course they still don't have the money to pay off the landlord so the family probably ended up homeless the next day.

SCORE: 5/10

The Girl Who Waited - This series could really use a good episode right about now and, thankfully, it has one! This one has a good sci-fi plot that results in solid character stuff for our three main characters. That's what I like to see! Karen Gillan does a great job playing the bitter older Amy. Arthur Darvill is finally given something to do again (seriously Rory's done fuck all since the Ganger episodes other than talk in a silly voice in AGMGTW) and he of course delivers. And the scene where the Doctor shuts the door on Old Amy does a much better job of showing us that the Doctor CAN be scary than River's annoying speech did of telling us the Doctor can be scary in AGMGTW. GOOD STUFF.

The robots are a bit too similar to the anti-bodies in Let's Kill Shitler but the writer probably didn't know that at the time. I'm not sure why the final escape scene was in slow motion when the robots moved pretty slowly anyway and it looked a bit silly. And Murray Gold sticks his noise in. But this is good!

FUCK ANOTHER "BUT" SENTENCE.

SCORE: 8.25/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The God Complex - This episode is pretty good. It has an effective setting in the hotel and the mystery is pretty interesting. I don't think it ever rises above "pretty good" though. It had potential to but it doesn't really come together? Anway, I liked Rita. That is important to say. The actress is good (and yes, pretty) and you can imagine her being a future companion. The stereotype nerd guy is a bit meh. And there's David Walliams, who does fine as a cowardly alien. Really I was surprised how little he does in the episode. There's one part where he eats a fish which I guess is supposed to be funny and it's inappropriately intercut with Rita's death. It's weird. He survies at the end but the character doesn't learn anything or do anything important. He's just kind of there.

It isn't very scary, either, though the part with the laughing dummies at the start is easily scarier than anything in Night Terrors. Walliams' worst nightmare is the Weeping Angels because...they had the props lying around? In the end the Doctor has to convince Amy to lose her faith in him to save her, which is a good scene. But really you'd think she'd have lost a bit of faith in him after the whole "failing to save her baby" thing and the "letting her future self die" thing.

I like all the stuff with the Doctor and Rita and there's some funny lines. I did think maybe they overdid the slightly comical background music (and Walliams eating a fish) when there was supposed to be dramatic stuff happening? I like the Doctor and the minotaur scenes thoguh the ending feels a bit flat (the ending to the main storyline, not the actual ending.)

The end scene could have been stuck on any episode really. It's well acted by Matt and Karen, as you would expect. Rory doesn't get a goodbye, of course, because Rory still isn't really treated like a full companion. Anyway, this is still a good episode so yeah.

SCORE: 7.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

Closing Time - You know when you're trying to convince someone that ACTUALLY Doctor Who is good and not cheap or cheesey anymore and doesn't relay on cheap gay jokes, annoying background music and James Corden screeching? This is the kind the exact episode that comes on when you've convinced that person to watch and you have to just say "oh, bugger."

(This has never happened to me as I don't know any people, but it sounds like the kind of thing that happens!)

So the Doctor's been travelling for two hundred years. This seems problematic for reasons I'll mention in the next review. But just based on this episode, if it had been two years it wouldn't have made any difference. I don't MIND that he travelled on his own(?) for two hundred years, it just seems like a bit of a missed opportunity to have something interesting happen in that time. I mean I'm sure there's audio dramas or novels set in that time but I don't care about those. I do find it amsuing that it took him two hundred years to remember to visit Craig.

So yeah James Corden is still annoying. There's lots of really obvious "we're not gay!" jokes because that's still funny somehow (it's not though.) James Corden screeches a lot. I didn't find the emotional parts emotional. Maybe if I was a neurotypical all the baby stuff would work on me, but I'm not so I have to judge it with my brain patterns. Matt Smith is a good actor but I didn't even find the "I'm going to die tomorrow" stuff sad because, well, it's obviously not going to happen. The Cybermen are rubbish again and FOR SOME REASON decide to play audio of Craig's baby crying really loud into their secret lair while they're assimilating him. Then he makes them blow up with love and remember how a father's love saved the day three episodes ago? Here it is again!

I liked how everyone in the shop liked the Doctor.

There's a really weird bit at the end where some kids stare at the Doctor and you hear their voices as adults remembering him. It's like they're supposed to be remembering seeing the Doctor right before he died, except that makes no sense because he doesn't die, they don't know who he is anyway and what the fuck is this scene.

Then there's a tacked-on bit with River and they play the nursery rhyme from the doll episode and eyepatch woman knows it or something?

Anyway, this is bad.

SCORE: 5.25/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Wedding Of River Song - The thing about this "the Doctor is going to die!" arc is that we saw the Doctor's death in the first twenty minutes of the first episode of the series and there hasn't really been much development since then. Okay was learned (a bit) about the Silence, but the actual event "the Doctor is shot by an River dressed as an astronaut" hasn't changed. And it's been a while, with the mid series break. We had the baby arc to divert us for a while (then that was ruined by Let's Kill Shitler) then we had "the Doctor's death date!" at the end of a few episodes. But really we've just been waiting to get to this episode and so has the Doctor apparently...

See last episode we had the Doctor going to see Craig after travelling for two hundred years. At the end of the episode he was just hours away from death and he put on his cowboy hat and it looks like he's going straight to Lake Silencio to die. In this episode we see that he actually decided now was the time to investigate the Silence and find out why he had to die. He didn't think about doing this in the two hundred years he was travelling, apparenty, but only in the couple of hours before he was supposed to die. He kills a Dalek, plays chess with Mark Gatiss (who then dies in a scene that looks like something out of Knightmare) then blue guy's still alive as a head and apparently he knew everything about the Silence all along but didn't bother mentioning it before. I like the actor playing blue guy, but couldn't they have just used a different character to avoid the lame "it was a busy day!" excuse?

Anyway, I haven't mentioned that the episode starts with the Doctor talking to Churchill in a timeline where everything is all happening at once, because it's not really all that relevant. I mean it's a cool idea but it's kind of just there in the background. I did like Dickens talking about his Christmas special because it seemed like a reference to when they used to have celebrities appear in the series finales? It gets better once Amy turns up (LOOKING HOT IN A SUIT) and the Silence look quite creepy stored in tanks. Then we come to Madame Kovarian and the old "eye patch double cross" trick...

Kovarian isn't really a very good villain, is she? What do we really know about her? She wants to kill the Doctor for reasons which can't be stated yet (because Moffat hasn't decided what they are) so she doesn't have much in the way of background of motivation. She's just an evil woman with an eye patch and she doesn't even get to make many good evil speechs or anything. Amy kills her because she's a psycho too (really?) but it's an aborted timeline that never happened so surely Kovarian should still be alive? We never see her again.

Oh, the reason for this aborted timeline is because River didn't shoot the Doctor. So just to get this straight: the Silence create River to be the perfect assassin to kill the Doctor. But she falls in love with him and doesn't kill him. BUT they just stick her in an automated spacesuit any way giving her NO CHOICE but to kill the Doctor, which was their plan all along. So they kind of wasted time training her to be the perfect assassin. BUT then even though she's in an evil spacesuit and has no control of her actions, she still manages to not kill the Doctor because...love? Why didn't they just send the empty spacesuit against the Doctor? The Silence are really bad at plans.

The Doctor wants to touch River and reset time so he can die and it looks like the Doctor has accepted his own death. Then there's the part with millions of voices sending messages wanting to help the Doctor. This is nice. River is going to convince the Doctor he should live after all! EXCEPT the Doctor is actually in the Teselecta and already knows that he won't die. So when the story was going towards the Doctor having accepted his death that was another "HAHA, FOOLED YOU, THAT WASN'T THE STORY AT ALL" moment and I don't really like those.

Come to think of it, when did the Doctor come up with the plan to use the shapeshifting robot to save himself? Was it only when he happened to run into it in the bar? Did he never think at all in the two hundred year jump (sorry to keep bringing that up but really it's quite a long time) "Oh, I could just fake my death!"? Apparently not. Or else that means when the Doctor sadly accepted time was catching up to him after learning of the Brigidair's death, he was actually just faking it to fool the audience.

Also we've always known that River knows the Doctor's name and that they get married. It looks like they get married here and that she learns his name. But that's really another "FOOLED YOU!" part so River still doesn't know the Doctor's name and I guess there has to be another episode where she learns it and they get married for real...

We find out the "first question, the oldest question in the universe" is "Doctor Who?" Which obviously isn't the oldest question in the universe. Also the Doctor acts like he knows why he has to die once he finds out what the question is, as if the truth of his identity is the actual important part (when really it's because answering the question means the Time Lords will come through the crack in space.) I don't really think this "question" stuff holds together.

Is this an entertaining episode? Yeah, mostly. Is it a good series finale? Not really? It feels a bit weightless. It ends with the Doctor deciding to let everyone think he's dead and disappeared back into the shadows and I'm sure that'll be an interesting new direction for the show going forwad! Right?

(Sorry this review keeps getting longer and I'm rushing now.)

SCORE: 7.5/10

 

[whisky]

Hindsight reviews are the best kind, because you can point out all the potential the series had, and how it dashed it all by simply making it all up as they went along

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe - I remember Moffat did an interview before this episode saying something like "och, Christmas episodes shouldn't be too complicated like last year, they should be simple because everyone's drunk and sleepy from turkey!" Simple isn't necessarily bad, of course. But in this case it is!

The episode starts off decently enough with a comedy scene of the Doctor escaping an exploding spaceship and putting on a spacesuit while falling to Earth. A woman helps him and again it's a fairly amusing scene. Then was skip forward three years. The Doctor is posing as the caretaker for the woman and her chilidren. He does nice, zany things for the kids (while Murray Gold goes FUCKING NUTS) and it's okay. It's not as good as Mary Poppins. It's okay. There's a big box that takes the boy child to another dimension. This is where the episode goes downhill. Like, it's obviously a Narnia homage and that's fine. But the thing about Narnia is that it had a plot. It wasn't just a boy (who isn't exactly a great actor) wandering around in the snow for ages. Then the Doctor and the girl (WHO IS BETTER THAN THE BOY) wandering around too (with a funny "fairyland" exchange!) Then the mother gets in on the "walking around in snow" action and runs into Bill Bailey and some other people. Now you might think this is where the plot kicks in, but not really. There's very little point to the Bill Bailey characters. I thought maybe they'd learn a lesson about it being bad to drop acid rain on a beautiful tree planet. But they don't. They just beam out.

Finally some tree people wake up and use the boy to explain the plot. They need to get off the planet but they need someone "strong" to fly their ship for them. Why didn't they design a ship they could fly themselves? I don't know. They need the mother, but when last we saw her she was on the evil(?) people's machine thing and the woman (who is sympathetic to her because she's a woman too and ONLY WOMEN care about saving children) told her it would take "years" to learn how to operate the alien machine thing. But the mother easily operates it because she's a MOTHER and that gives her the ability to operate alien machine (and also because it's operated by two joysticks and seems really easy to use. I guess the other woman was just thick.) The tree people need a human mother to save them at the last minute because...well the Doctor says something about "the mothership!" and that's supposed to explain it. He also says "she's more than a woman, she's a mum!" but let's forget that line ever happened.

Oh and also the tree ship can travel through time for some reason and the mother uses her special mother powers to save Alexander Armstrong. There were two other people in the plane with him and we don't see what happened to them. Maybe they died. Who cares, it's Christmas!

The Doctor goes to see Amy and Rory two years after they last saw him and it's the only moment in the episode that actually feels authentic.

This is the worst thing Moffat's ever written (well, in Doctor Who. Maybe he wrote some shit episodes of Coupling and Press Gang too.)

SCORE: 4/10

THAT'S IT for series 6. Series 5 was better. I'll review series 7 (which I think was better too?) whenever Netflix add it. Bye.

 

[The Tomtrek]

Yeah that's a bad episode.


Still better than "Voyage of the Damned", though.

 

[CaptainWacky]

It didn't make me want to kill as many people as Voyage Of The Damned did.

 

[CaptainWacky]

Here is an infographic that people on tumblr probably loved...



http://rebeccaamoore.com/2014/05/29/university-study-on-sexism-in-bbcs-doctor-who-infographic/

Of course the Bechdel test isn't a measure of quality so it's entirely possible (and I'm sure there's specific examples) there were Moffat episodes where women barely spoke that were far better than RTD episodes where loads of women spoke. Also worth noting that Rose, Martha and Donna all had mothers (and Martha a sister) on the show that would help their episodes pass, whereas Amy's only personal relationships were with the Doctor and Rory.

Oh and I think the Clara episodes would fair far better. She had Vestra, Jenny and "let me go, I hate you!" girl to interact with, for a start.

 

[whisky]

Isnt that test when two women have a conversation that isn't about a man?

 

[CaptainWacky]

That's the one.

 

[CaptainWacky]

So Netflix sent me an email saying "hey Wacky, we have series 7 of Doctor Who now! Time to bring back Wacky Reviews Doctor Who!" In those words. Of course they didn't mention that it's only the first five episodes. I guess they have to wait two years before adding episodes. But I'll review them anyway OKAY.

Asylum Of The Daleks - It's a good episode. The Daleks are good in it. Not sure why they don't use their nano clouds more often as they would seemingly make it really easy for the Daleks to conquer worlds, but these things happen!

The most notable thing about it is the first appearance of Jenna Coleman as Oswin Oswald. And she's really really good in this episode. And not just because she's in that red dress. Yeah she's the kind of typical Moffat quick-witted, flirty female character, but she plays it so well that she isn't annoying at all. She's also great in the dramatic scene. Of course it's not explained how she's such a great hacker who can resist becoming a Dalek and erase all records of the Doctor and everything (the Doctor keeps saying everything she does is impossible.) I guess this particular time shard of Clara spent her whole life becoming a master hacker because she knew one day she'd need to? Anyway, it's a great first appearance.

Not so good is the Amy/Rory stuff. And by "not so good" I mean "actively bad." After all their character development over the last two years, after all the crazy stuff they've been through the episode starts with them having split up (the last time we saw them they'd been happily married for several years.) Then Rory's back to blundering around poking Daleks and acting dumb. Then it turns out Amy's only been pretending to be a bitch so that he'd divorce her because she's found out she can't have children. She did all this before, you know, talking to him about the fact that she can't have childrne (which doesn't actually bother him at all when she tells him, and was probably pretty obvious to him as they've been married for years at this point?) I mean come on. He waited two thousand years for her. For fuck's sake! If she still feels she can't talk to him at this point then their marriage does deserve to be in trouble. Oh and she slaps him twice which is supposed to be funny or something but just makes her look like a horrible person. And she's wearing too much make-up because she's been on a sexy photoshoot in make-up because that's what people do when they're pretending to be evil to scare their husband away. Moffat sometimes gets criticised for the way he writes characters and stuff like this (and stuff rom the latest series of Sherlock) make it seem justified.

The episode ends with the Daleks forgetting who the Doctor is so it looks they're continuing the arc of the universe thinking the Doctor is dead and him hiding in the shadows and I'm sure that won't all be forgotten soon!

But yeah good episode.

SCORE: 8/10


Dinosaurs On A Spaceship - There's some stuff in this episode that I wonder if it's actually bad or just not aimed at me. I mean I can see why some people (kids maybe?) would enjoy the riding the dinosaur scene and some of the other wacky comedy. It's not for me but a lot of things aren't for me. However some stuff is just bad. Mitchell and Webb as comedy robots with silly voices. I'm not blaming them, I'm sure they were told to do comedy voices for the kiddies. But it's bad. The Doctor brings a big game hunter and Queen Nefertiti with him on this adventure for some reason. Why he thinks either would be useful isn't explained. Why he's friends with a horrible, sexist killer of defenceless animals isn't explained either (the character seems to only exist so he can say something sexist, then Nefertiti can say "I DON'T NEED NO MAN" but then looked all turned on by his sexism.) Rory's dad is there too and doesn't do much (he's only there because the spacehsip can only be flown by two members of a family for some reason.) The scene at the end where he looks at Earth from the TARDIS is nice though. Would have been better if we'd cared about the charcter more.

About halfway through David Bradley shows up as the villain and he's very good at acting evil. The character doesn't really have anything about him other than "really evil in every way" so it's a bit of a waste of the actor, really. Then the episode oddly switches tone, after being one of the most kiddie-friendly episodes since 2005 suddenly there's rape threats and the Doctor murdering an (evil) guy. It's a bit weird. Also weird is that even though the Doctor faked his death and is in hiding, the Indian Space People (or whatever!) manage to contact him and know he's the Doctor (and yet there's another scene where David Bradley looks him up and finds no information.) It's a bit lazy?

Anyway this isn't the worst episode ever. Stuff happens in it!

SCORE: 5.5/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

A Town Called Mercy - This is an episode that's easy to forget. It's not going to be on anyone's "worst episode ever" list, but it's not going to be anyone's favourite either. It's just kind of there. It reminds me of a TNG episode, but a season seven TNG episode. It's starts off well with a good looking old west town and a cyborg and Farscape guy. The actor playing the alien doctor is pretty good too. But everything's so...obvious? Everything happens exactly as you'd expect and to make it worse it's all really spelled out to the viewer. Like there's a "we're not so different, you and I!" moment with the Doctor and the alien doctor but the alien Doctor literally says "we're not so different, you and I!" just to make sure you get it. Ben Browder (see I actually do know his name!) dying early is about the only unexpected thing to happen. Then the angry mob arrives right when you think they will and the evil doctor sacrifices himself right when you think he will and also there's a pointless voiceover at the beginning and end to make it seem more important. Oh and unlike previous Toby Whithouse episodes it's kind of lacking in humour (the horse named Susan bit is the only funny part.)

It's not bad though. Matt Smith is very good as usual. Rory does litterally nothing and Amy barely does more (but does look really attractive!) So maybe it's time for some new companions!

SCORE: 6.5/10


The Power Of Three - Chibnal's back! Lucky us! This episode...is better than Dinosaurs On A Spaceship. So that's good. It does feel a lot like a RTD episode, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as it does some stuff well. I like the idea of the cubes just sitting around on Earth for a year driving everyone a bit crazy with their theories. There's a really good scene with the Doctor and Amy which is really well acted by Matt and Karen. The humour is...well it's funnier than Dinosaurs let's give it that. And I like the Kate Stewart character and it makes a change from an army guy walking in with a big gun and saying "you will help us, Doctor!" and the Doctor saying "well even though I don't like your big gun you are a DECENT BLOKE so I will!" If that ever happened maybe I'm making it up.

On the other hand, there's some stupid stuff and weird pacing where nothing much happens then in the last ten minutes the cubes go crazy and a guy who looks like Darth Vader without his helmet explains the plot to the Doctor. Why do the aliens suddenly start abducting people a year after arriving, on the same day that they use the cubes to kill a third of the Earth's population? So that the Doctor can save the day with the Sonic, that's why! And he does that by...defibulating a third of the world's population. And they all come back to life. That wouldn't happen! It's stupid! And the episode starts with a pointless voiceover again.

Then Amy and Rory just change their mind about travelling with the Doctor really quickly and the episode's over. It wasn't too bad.

SCORE: 6.5/10


The Angels Take Manhattan - It's the third episode I watched tonight to start with a voiceover! I'm not saying it has any effect on the quality of the episode, it's just a bit weird. It makes more sense here with the noir style opening. The Angel's are back and they're much closer to how they were in Blink than in the series 5 two parter. We don't see them moving and they don't talk through anyone. I think that's good (not that the two-parter was bad anyway.)

Shooting on location in New York makes the episode feel more important too. It definitely has the feel of a finale to it. River's back as well and...she's alright. I mean she doesn't really need to be in the episode. Thankfully she's not dressed as a Nazi and having orgasms as she kills people this time. Of course her very appearances is just a reminder of how badly handled the whole story with her being Amy and Rory's daughter is. They try to establish a bit of a connection here with her and Amy but it's too late. (I did like how she was the one encouraging Amy to go after Rory at the end while the Doctor was telling her not to though.)

The emotional stuff does work. The scene with Amy and Rory on the rooftop is especially good. (It would have been kind of funny if it hadn't worked and the episode had just ended with them splatting on the pavement though.) And the part with the Doctor going back to Young Amelia at the end is the best part. GOOD STUFF.

On the other hand, of course the Statue Of Liberty as an angel makes no sense as the whole point of them is they move when no one's looking at them and there's always going to be someone looking at the Statue Of Liberty. Yeah it looks cool and it doesn't ruin the episode, but I still think things are better when they make sense.

Also the whole thing about "you can't change the past once you're read it" has surely been contradicted in many previous episodes and many episodes to come. And the whole "the Doctor can't see Amy and Rory again because of time distortions in New York!" is so easily countered with "just land the TARDIS outside New York and take a bus." Or is it that he can't see them again because he's read their gravestones? That really doesn't work either as he surely knows the date of death of many historical figures he's met. It's not like it says "and they died without ever seeing the Doctor again!" on their graves (that would be a strange thing to say on their graves.)

But you just have to accept it as a reason why he can't see them again and it is sad and well acted and yes this is the best episode of this series (well the 2012 part of this series.) See you next year or something!

SCORE: 8.75/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

OH and just while I remember, what was the actual point in bringing Amy's parents back to life when they were never seen or mentioned again (they were practically forgotten before the end of the episode where they returned, even)?

Also River slapped the Doctor in Angels and I'm keeping track of stuff like that now so just noting it.

 

[The Tomtrek]

Netflix now has the second half of series 7, up to "The Name of The Doctor". GET TO IT WACKY.

 

[CaptainWacky]

When I finish Angel. MAYBE.

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Snowmen - We're back! It's Chrstimas again and it's better than last year's! We get to meet our second version of Clara and Jenna and Matt Smith have good chemistry together and are fun to watch. Strax is funny. Jenny and Vestra are okay. Richard E Grant is a good actor and a good glowerer. The Snowmen look cool (but they're underused.) The episode isn't boring (LIKE LAST YEAR'S SHITFEST) so it's enjoyable all the way through.

BUT I HAVE ISSUES: The whole thing about the Doctor not wanting to help people anymore and isolating himself from everyone (except when he's out and about doing comedy stuff with Strax apparently) feels a bit like time-wasting. I get that they need to follow up the Ponds leaving but nobody is going to buy that the Doctor doesn't care about people anymore and as soon as he does decide to help he's instantly doing a wacky Sherlock Holmes thing and it's like why couldn't the episode just start with this. Also the way Clara "proves" himself to him is by saying "Pond" which is actually just a huge coincidence and doesn't really prove that Clara herself is super smart or anything.

And what was the point of Clara being a cockney (and Jenna isn't good at the voice) and pretending to be posh (and she's a bit better at this voice which is weird since the cockney voice is supposed to be her real voice)? It doesn't pay off in any way. I know originally this Clara was going to become the Companion so maybe it would have been a key part of her charcter. As it is it just seems like something randomly thrown in.

And Richard E Grant doesn't get much to do except glower and Ian McKellan only has a few lines (which are all very well acted but it's a shame Ian McKellan's only Doctor Who appearance is just a few lines) and the "Doctor? Doctor Who!" line is used THREE TMES and I find that annoying sorry.

SCORE (I kind of regret scoring episodes out of ten because I'm autistic and we unable to just score them in whole numbers and had to give ludicrous scores like 6.75/10 to episodes BECAUSE THAT'S THE RIGHT SCORE and then I look back through the thread and think things like "why didn't I just give Turn Left 8/10?" or something and all these scores are based on 'Rose' being a 7/10 episode okay don't take them seriously): 7/10

 

[whisky]

I rate down any episode with Strax, Jenny and Vastra, they are the very definition of overused.

 

[CaptainWacky]

The Bells Of Saint John - It's a season opener but TECHNICALLY it isn't since this is really the second part of the season that started last year with Aslyum of The Daleks. But really this has the total feel of a season open, partly because it's the most RTD-y episode Moffat's done. It resembles 'Smith And Jones' and 'Partners In Crime' but is a bit better than both of them. On the other hand it isn't anywhere near Moffat's previous season opener that introduces a new companion 'The Eleventh Hour'. But most episodes aren't as good as that. I think it suffers because Clara has kind of already been introduced twice before this episode. Different versions of her anyway. So it's almost like they don't want to reveal too much about Clara's character here. All we really learn by the end is that she wanted to go travelling but ended up looking after some kids and she doesn't know what WiFi is. I think it's also partly to keep the "impossible girl" mystery going that her introduction is slightly underwhelming. Jenna is good though in her interactions with Matt.

The best scene by far is the airplane part. That was quite inspired.

Haunted wifi isn't anywhere near as spooky as "statues that come to life when you don't look at them", but the spoonheads are quite creepy. The villains end up being quite ineffective when the Doctor faces them down (through a robot Doctor.) I suppose that's because they're only a front for the Great Intelligence, but the GI barely has a presence in the episode...

I read the ebook of Amy Pond's novel and it was nowhere near as long as the book the boy had here.

SCORE: 7.5/10


The Rings of Akhaten - This one...it's not terrible. It's not one of the worst ever like some people say. But it's not all that good either. I appreciate them using a wide variety of alien species but they come across a bit characterless when they're all just sitting silently in the arena while the big evil planet/sun thing is going to eat them. Until they have to sing anyway. And there's too much singing, sorry. And I know it's Doctor Who but the special effects on the space moped thing are notably bad. And wouldn't destroying that planet/sun thing have a serious effect on the place where all the aliens live? The Doctor just leaves without checking.

On the plus side Clara gets more characterisation here than in the oponer and does a good job again. Matt Smith is typically good in this big speech to the planet/sun thing. And it's good to be on an alien planet full of aliens even if the execution wasn't the best.

SCORE: 6/10


Cold War - I have mentioned before that I don't think Mark Gattiss is all that great at writing Doctor Who. But this episode is actually really good! His best episode I would say. It's a good old fashioned "monster in a confined space" story but the monster has some depth and the tight space has good actors in it. David Warner is always fun in anything and he's very good here as the quirky old guy (but not annoyingly quirky!) Davos from GOT is someone you cast when you want a character who you can trust as a solid bloke who'll do the right thing, even if he is in charge of a Russian sub or loyal to Stannis (and REAL GOT FANS will have noticed Edmure Tully too.) Clara is good (while still not giving a lot away) and I like how she's actually scared of the Ice Warrior and stays behind when the Doctor tells her. This is a good episode I have no complaints.

SCORE: 8.5/10


Hide - This is also good! I like the atmosphere with the big house and later the creepy empty pocket dimension. Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine (who is good looking!) are very good guest stars. They feel like real charaters in their won right who don't exist just for the Doctor to save them. Clara is starting to feel like more of a character which is good. I like the scene with the TARDIS hologram (is that ever used again?) My only complain is that the ending where the Doctor figures out that the monster is looking for its mate feels really rushed. I mean I like the idea that the monster wasn't evil and we just thought it was because it was ugly, but they could have developed and foreshadowed this a bit more. But it's a good episode!

SCORE: 8.25/10

 

[CaptainWacky]

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS - This is an episode that's quite good but feels like it should be better. It has stuff I like! Cool TARDIS stuff. Cool time travel stuff. The Doctor finally accepts that Clara's just a normal person. Jenna Coleman wears a nice dress and runs around in it. But it also has the three brothers and the really weird and underdeveloped "we tricked you into thinking you're an android as a prank!" thing. And the thick brother is a terrible actor. Luckily he dies halfway through, but then returns at the end for one last line (and the other brother becomes slightly nicer...but is still fooling the other brother into thinking he's an android!) Also I feel the "trapped in the TARDIS" stuff was done better in 'The Doctor's Wife' even though this episode has more rooms to play with. So yeah this needed a rewrite or something.

SCORE: 7.5/10