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Doctor Who: The Power of the Doctor (2022)
The Power of Nostalgia
This epic finale to the Chibnall/Jodie era is good fun and one of the top 5 episodes of the era. It isn't perfect as I feel too much unnecessary stuff was thrown in but the nostalgia with old faces returning is a wonderful aspect which lifts the episode hugely.
The moment when the 13th Doctor finds herself meeting manifestations of her consciousness, the "Guardians of the Edge", in the form of the 1st, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th Doctors is a truly magical addition. I am thankful to Chibnall for finding this tenuous excuse to bring back David Bradley, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann in their more aged forms. It was fantastic to see them all as they are now. They all perform their cameos perfectly in a way that CGI de-aging wouldn't have matched.
It is nice and fitting that Jo Martin gets to return as a manifestation of the Fugitive Doctor too and it is fabulous to also get the return of former companions.
Sophie Aldred is Ace in more ways than one and her role in this is "wicked". Bradley Walsh popping back up as Graham and teaming up amusingly with Ace is great. Tegan gets a good role in the story too and the cameos at the end of Jo, Mel and especially Ian were terrific to see. The emotion I felt seeing William Russell making his long, long overdue return as Ian Chesterton was huge.
The scenes with Davison meeting back up with Tegan and McCoy meeting back up with Ace are superbly emotional too. The joy and warmth of those scenes just shines through. They were tremendous scenes.
These elements should result in a 10/10 classic and I am sure some fans do rate it at that top level but there are aspects of the episode that I am not so keen on which hold it back a little bit in my ratings:
I don't like the opening scenes with the space train. I find it unsatisfying in how it is done. The CyberMasters are not all that formidable, being defeated by a handful of train guards before regenerating. I don't get why the train guards recognise regeneration energy and feel the whole scene is just a bit cheesy and clunky.
Dan leaves, rather unceremoniously with the Doctor dumping him at the ruinous site where his house once stood and showing no care for this predicament.
Then Vinder inexplicably returns. I do not buy into the contrived, overly convenient scenario of someone the Doctor met before in another part of space and time just happening to bump into the Doctor again by crossing the galaxy through a wormhole searching for the "qurunx" energy that the Master is using for his scheme. I wish Dan, Captain Jack or someone else more fitting had played the role in the story Vinder did.
I think the reset of the volcanoes and other resolutions were rather weak deus ex machina endings. I found the qurunx a bit strange and the way it is used to blast the Doctor was not the best climax for my taste either. I also found it odd how Yaz dropped off the rest of the companions while the Doctor is unconscious. Wouldn't they want to check she was ok or say goodbye before leaving?
There are so many elements crammed into this story - The Master, Rasputin, altered famous paintings, CyberMasters, Ashad, Daleks, Vinder, old companions, former Doctors, UNIT, missing seismologists, volcanoes, space train heists, a stolen sentient energy hiding as a child.... etc. It is epic spectacle but a little bit messy at times.
However, it is fun, exciting and has lots of excellent stuff in it. The use of old cast members is my favourite element but I also enjoy various other parts:
Sacha Dhawan was good value and a formidable adversary. I liked the Master as Rasputin. I even laughed at the crazy and incongruous dancing to Boney M's disco hit!
The cinematography, effects, music and dynamic pacing is all good.
Jodie Whittaker and Mandip Gill perform well in their finale and Jodie's final words "tag, you're it" were good.
The regeneration looked great and was both hugely intriguing and really exhilerating as we see David Tennant return and his clothes change! I believe this will be explained in the forthcoming 60th Anniversary.
Episode Rating: 8.5/10.
2022 Specials Ranking: 1st out of 3.
Doctor Who: The Snowmen (2012)
Snowy Memories
This is a very enjoyable Christmas special with lots of very good elements.
Richard E. Grant is a great guest star and although he is not given enough to do he makes a sinister and impressive villain with brilliant screen presence.
Having the return of a classic adversary from one of the best ever seasons of Doctor Who (Classic era Season 5) from the days of the 2nd Doctor, is a fabulous nostalgic aspect. Having the legendary Sir Ian McKellen perform the voice of that villain, the Great Intelligence, provides a fabulous, rich voice which adds gravitas to the character. Again, he isn't used as much as I would like but his voice performance is a doubtlessly positive element.
Anyone who has not seen the incredible earlier appearances of the Great Intelligence needs to go and watch The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear. They are top standard Doctor Who even with certain episodes missing and only available as animations or telesnap reconstructions.
The acting of Matt Smith and Jenna Louise Coleman is very high quality and the 'Paternoster Gang' are well acted too with Strax providing a lot of amusement in this episode.
The Sherlock references are fun, including the theme music being used and the music throughout this episode is one of Murray Gold's finest scores I think.
The special effects and the recreation of an atmospheric Victorian London are perfect.
The Snowmen themselves are well done and are scary enough to have kids hiding behind their sofas.
The story up until the end is interesting, exciting, intriguing and fun. If only there was an ingenious solution from the Doctor to defeat the Great Intelligence we would have had a really great episode. Instead the Doctor's genius goes unused as people's emotions suddenly and magically save the day instead (again) and I found this ending a bit weak.
The ending is rather a deus ex machina where people feeling a strong emotion suddenly defeats the alien threat. This is at least fairly logical here as the snow is telepathic therefore emotions influencing it makes a fair amount of sense. The problem is it is a bit of a lazy, unexciting, uninspired 'love conquers all' ending which Moffatt era stories have used too many times. In fact it was effectively being used for the 3rd of Moffatt's Christmas specials in a row! (Emotional singing controlled the clouds in A Christmas Carol, the widow's strong feelings for her family and her husband returned them all home and brought her husband back from the dead in The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and now the family's love and loss of Clara turns the 'evil' snow into rain.) It was also used in Moffatt era stories like The Lodger, Closing Time etc and is similar to storylines like Amy's love for the Doctor allowing her to remember him and bring him back into existence in The Big Bang.
The Impossible Girl arc is a bit overdone in my opinion but I prefer it to the River/Melody arc and at this stage it was certainly intriguing.
The ending only slightly lets down an otherwise very enjoyable episode for me. It is a solid quality, fun episode with plenty of interesting content.
My Rating: 8/10.
My Episode Ranking: 5th out of 14 episodes in Series 7.
Doctor Who: Time Crash (2007)
Timeless Charm
This Children in Need charity special mini-episode is absolutely joyous.
We get the 10th Doctor meeting up with the 5th Doctor in a really lovely, funny and engaging little interaction.
It was marvelous to bring Peter Davison back and his banter with David Tennant is really funny and utterly charming.
Also this is well enough done to make it actually work as part of the ongoing series forming a link between Last of the Timelords and Voyage of the Damned. It massively improves on Dimensions in Time, showing how to do a charity special properly.
As a fan who watched all the 5th Doctor era as a kid itwas so special for me and indeed David Tennant was also a child fan of Davison (who weirdly became his father-in-law in real life). All the references are great and it is a joy to watch.
My Rating: 9/10.
Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time (1993)
One-dimensional
This was a special little 2-part story marking the show's 30th anniversary. It was made up of the first mini episode that was shown as part of charity telethon Children in Need with the second mini episode shown during the next evening's Saturday night TV show Noel's House Party.
It has some nostalgic appeal because it has 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Doctors reappearing along with the 7th Doctor plus many many cameos for companions from the history of the show. Also, after 4 years with no Doctor Who on TV I remember being thrilled to have something for the anniversary.
Unfortunately all the returning stars have very little chance to shine. Mostly they blurt out a line or two of mostly expositionary dialogue and that is it. Even the Doctors are not given any really engaging scenes. So it is grest to see everyone but it is all spread very thin without much to really enjoy.
The plot is a jumbled mess and is forced to be a crossover with hit show Eastenders, a London based sosp. This has no relevance at all and is all a bit daft.
It was shown in rudimentary 3D but mostly just looks a bit rubbish.
Aspects of particular interest include Kate O'Mara having her final appearance as The Rani, the Brigadier and Susan having scenes with the 6th Doctor, Liz Shaw getting a cameo, well known film actor Samuel West getting an early small role, K-9 and Bessie featuring and all the other cameos.
It is a bit of nonsensical fun.
Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi: Life and Death (2022)
Baby Soka
Here we get an opening episode of a series filling in gsps in the prequel era of Star Wars.
This is a pleasant backstory for Ahsoka showing her home, her birth and the discovery of her force sensitivity.
There is some interest in seeing this origin story and the world Ahsoka is from.
The Clone Wars style animation, music and characters are decent.
The story of the ritual hunting expedition is a bit weird and the big cat creature is not the best creation.
It is an ok little story. Nothing special in terms of plot or concept but an adequate origin story for a great character.
This begins a very interesting and dark series which is a great addition to Star Wars.
My Rating: 7/10.
Doctor Who: Eve of the Daleks (2022)
Fun but Flawed
This is quite hard to judge. In one way it is a lot of fun but in another way it is rather overly contrived. Overall I think it is flawed, as usual in this era, but it is decent as entertainment.
Aisling Bea is a great plus point as Sarah in this episode. She does a great job and is extremely engaging and funny. She would actually make a good companion.
Seeing comedy actress Pauline MacLynn as Sarah's mum was good but she has very little to do sadly.
The role of Nick is decently acted but is a less enjoyable character for me. He is a bit messily devised, I feel. I think perhaps they overplayed the creepy obsessive side of him a bit.
The discussions of Yaz and the Doctor's relationship is not interesting to me and neither is some of the other dialogue. I did like the Doctor's inspirational team talk late in the episode though. That was good.
The TARDIS problem, time loop, Dalek plan and the location don't really work as well as lots of Doctor Who does at getting me to suspend disbelief. It is a contrived scenario that doesn't fit together all that well or quite feel convincing enough to carry away my imagination. I found myself reminded of doubts that the Daleks "wouldn't do it that way" and it wouldn't work in the way depicted. If it was really done well I wouldn't think of those doubts so much. I tend to overthink and stuff has to be really well put together to keep me immersed. This didn't quite manage that. However, the time loop does provide a fun aspect and feeling of urgency and the Daleks are fun to see in another New Year special.
There is a repetition of a naff Chibnall era feature that villains are terrible at shooting slow moving people who are easy targets. It is perfectly possible to make action scenes where characters dodge bullets/lasers in a more slick, convincing way. This era seemed to me to be pretty weak at portraying this type of action. Also, the scene where 2 Daleks are destroyed by Nick ducking is weak and another repetition of an earlier Chibnall episode (Series 11 finale).
I dislike the ending. I find the way they escape and the building collapse a bit lacking in quality and am unimpressed by some other aspects of the plot which I mentioned but there was quite a bit of fun in the episode, particularly with Aisling Bea. She was providing lots of energy and amusement. There is also just a bit of a feel of nice, comforting Doctor Who escapism about it. It is quite enjoyable.
My Rating: 7/10.
2022 Specials Ranking: 2nd out of 3.
Doctor Who: Flux: Chapter Six - The Vanquishers (2021)
Totally Fluxed - One of the worst episodes of Who ever.
The first time I watched this I was nervous and had major doubts that it would bring the Flux story together but I still had some (naive) hopes that it could. I was sadly wrong to still have hope because Chibnall, in my opinion, crashed and burned the whole Flux story. For me, only Village of the Angels really stands up on rewatching it. That is a jewel amidst the mess of the rest of the story.
I felt utterly betrayed as a viewer having invested in the story only to find it didn't lead towards satisfying conclusions especially as I had defended Chibnall against criticism from other fans. Some fans were too extreme and prejudiced in their attacks on his era so I stand by my view that there was good stuff in Chibnall's era, that him and Jodie deserved a chance and did not deserve personal abuse. However, essentially I am sad to say there was a lot of truth in claims that his writing was not good enough.
This review is going to sound like an utterly negative rant I'm afraid but please bear in mind I always try to enjoy episodes, try to look for positives, try to be fair and open minded. Two episodes earlier I scored Chapter 4 as a 9.5/10 showing I was very open to appreciating quality when it appeared in this series and era. I gave this story an equally open minded chance but after due consideration this one is just one of my least favourite episodes ever, sorry.
I feel Chibnall tries to dazzle us with lots of tricksy editing together of complicated, supposedly epic storylines in Flux in an attempt to copy Moffatt's popular style. It actually worked for some fans who say Series 13 was Chibnall's best. They are entitled to that different taste but for me it is easily his worst and one of the 2 worst seasons of Doctor Who, just above Season 24 of the classic era thanks to Village of the Angels dragging up the average. I think it demonstrated Chibnall was out of his depth as showrunner.
It looks great, has good music, is well acted and has good effects. That is all it has, really, in my view.
I am very sorry to those who love it but I feel it all turns out to be lacking any substance or internal logic and has some utterly nonsensical content that leads the whole story to fall flat:
The Joseph Williamson story was all for no purpose. You could have had the whole Flux story without Williamson and it would not deduct even the slightest from the story. It would just reduce the needless confusion by removing one convoluted aspect.
The Vinder and Bel story also goes nowhere. They are just cipher characters to carry a pointless plot. Their journeys to find each other has no impact on any of the rest of the story. Theories were widespread that they must have significance, perhaps as the Timeless Child's parents or another mysterious importance. But no they just were two random add-on companions. Well why didn't Chibnall just split up the TARDIS team and give Yaz and Dan the roles taken by Bel and Vinder, trying to find each other and find the Doctor? Oh, I forgot, they DID get split from the Doctor and had a quest. So why do that same plot with 2 side characters as well and make it seem like it was leading to a revelation when it went nowhere? Giving Yaz and Dan more valuable character time would have made more sense than shoving in this whole needless arc. Giving Jericho and Claire, whose characters had more meaning and impact in the plot, more screentime instead of introducing Bel, Vinder and Di would have been better too I think.
The whole Flux threat gets solved by Di the museum guide! How does she have the scientific solution that the Doctor fails to see?! And it is a convenient easy deus ex machina getout anyway with no clever aspects and seemingly leaving most of the universe destroyed?! And why did the Ravagers even kidnap Di? How did it serve their plans? Everything Di said and did could again have been done by one of the more significant characters instead to better effect or she could have been a far better written character if they cut out lots of the excess messy plot threads and concentrated on making her story work.
The idea of Time as a powerful being is dumb, illogical, uninteresting and pointless to me. It is mind boggling to suggest that Time is a sentient power in battle with space and far too big an idea to just throw in casually before disappearing again. Why did Chibnall bother with this aspect?
The setup of Tecteun as a vital part of new lore is thrown away as she gets wiped out suddenly. All that build-up and apparent importance is gone in a moment with nothing resolved.
The setup of Swarm and Azure as powerful, menacing villains is equally thrown away by them also being wiped out suddenly. What a waste and why even have 2 of them. They ultimately were again just random elements with no satisfactory journey or destination.
The pocket watch of memories is literally thrown in the bin. The stories of the Timeless Child, Division, the Fugitive Doctor and the visions of a mysterious Lungbarrow type house just gets dismissed casually and left hanging. Why did he meddle with lore so controversially if he didn't have a plan to deliver a meaningful conclusion?
The Doctor being split into 3 makes no sense and is a total gimmick to make the Doctor be where she is needed. Another unnecessary element thrown in that adds to the messiness of it all. All the flitting around in timelines is for no purpose and is just confusion for the sake of it. Who are the Fugitive Doctor's companions? Why do people appear with the wrong faces? Just because, it seems!
The so called comedy scenes with Sontarans have some of the most cringe making, unfunny bits of dialogue ever in the show for my tastes. The Sontaran groaning "choc-o-late" as he is tempted to betray military secrets for candy is, perhaps, the lowest point of Doctor Who in my opinion. It is ridiculous and makes Horns of Nimon look like Shakespeare. Some may see it as a "bit of fun" but my kids didn't laugh or smile and I certainly didn't. It is just embarrassing.
The Sontarans look good and have an extremely powerful military presence that potentially made them great villains again but it all gets thrown away to use them as comedy stooges as if it is an episode of The Simpsons!
The Grand Serpent does nothing, wasting yet another large element of the build-up episodes and he is inexplicably dumped on a rock in space which, bizarrely, apparently has an atmosphere and gravity?! What?!
I hate being so negative about an episode of my beloved show. But honestly, on my second rewatch this dropped into the running to be one of the worst single episodes of Doctor Who ever for me because it is such a car crash of unfulfilled ideas. It is certainly in my bottom 3. It left Flux as a whole story feeling to me a totally ill-conceived mess and the lack of good endings spoiled my view of a lot of the previous 5 chapters. Really really sad.
My Rating: 3/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 6th out of 6.
Overall Flux Story Average Rating: 4.75/10.
Doctor Who: Flux: Chapter Five - Survivors of the Flux (2021)
Fluxed Up
Fans of this Flux story might find this episode fun and think I am being mean but I promise that when I watched this first time I was full of hope and positive expectations, especially following a great 4th Chapter of the Flux story. Sadly, once I saw the series finale it left this 5th Chapter as just another part of the the hot mess of incoherent, pointless story threads that had overwhelmed most of the first 3 chapters. All of the convoluted threads required the 6th part to bring them all to a great conclusion in order for it all to work but instead we discover all the threads lead nowhere. Things are all just happening without any of the characters or plot threads really being needed to make the story work. So on rewatch this episode just looks to me like building us up for things that weren't going to happen.
As with earlier chapters, this episode is sprinkled with bits of good stuff:
Most of the acting is really good.
The music is good.
It looks amazing with great filmic visuals.
There are moments of good action, drama or humour in amongst the poorly written messy stuff.
The Grand Serpent seems a scary, intriguing villain in this episode and the scenes where he kills people are quite chilling which is a plus. But in the next episode we see this promise of him being a significant character is thrown away and therefore all the convoluted, time travelling plotting in this episode is for nothing and it doesn't make sense:
Why does he need to interfere with UNIT over its history? There was no need for all that trouble.
How does he travel in time?
How does only Kate Stewart notice a non-aging alien lurking in plain sight and why didn't she act sooner?
What are his aims and how did Earth become his target?
The UNIT timeline isn't even correct as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart is supposedly a Corporal for UNIT at a time that we know doesn't fit with his timeline in classic Who.
It feels like just a jumble that hasn't been written carefully enough to me.
Chibnall just throws more and more and more convoluted threads of information at us without a coherent story or any good endings in place to make it all work.
I find the Joseph Williamson thread poor and it has no purpose. If the whole Williamson aspect was cut it would not make any difference to the plot. It is unnecessary and just adds confusion.
The whole quest by Yaz, Dan and Jericho in the past to find a date of the future Sontaran attack is utterly without sense or purpose. It wasn't needed for the plot. It comes over to me as just a series of weak attempts at Indiana Jones style scenes. I find it embarrassing.
Jericho is fantastic but is wasted in this episode as mostly just a comedy stooge.
Tecteun (well acted by Barbara Flynn) COULD have helped resolve the Timeless Child/Fugitive Doctor arc in a more satisfying and/or less controversial way but instead the dialogue doubles down on the vague info-dump we got from the Master without any refinement at all which is disappointing to me.
My Rating: 3/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 4th out of 6.
Doctor Who: Flux: Chapter Four - Village of the Angels (2021)
A fabulous gem in an otherwise deeply flawed season.
After 3 very flawed chapters of the Flux story we suddenly get this outstanding gem of a story of a village invaded by Angels. It thankfully mostly works as a standalone without much of the ongoing Flux arcs (which for me were mistly nonsense) and it manages to make the Weeping Angels the scariest and best they have been since Blink, in my opinion.
The only negative is that there are scenes from one of the overarching story threads involving Bel going to a planet where Swarm and Azure are capturing people. Those scenes add zero quality to the episode and take us away from the great village scenes. Bel is pleasant and the scenes are only a small part of the episode but I really wish they weren't in this episode at all. They are an unwanted distraction which end up slightly detracting from an otherwise terrific episode for me.
The major part of the episode set in the village with Angels attacking people is tremendous. Professor Jericho is a wonderful guest character, beautifully acted by the excellent Kevin McNally. He was a character many fans, me included, wanted more of after this story. The return of Claire is very welcome too as she is another very well acted, strong character. All the other villagers are good. The scenes are nearly all full of quality, tension and thrills as well as nice humour.
I think that writer Maxine Alderton is the greatest thing in Chibnall's era. She wrote some of the best material of this era. It is quite clear, I think, she is most likely responsible for all the great stuff in this episode while Chibnall writes the weak bits with Bel that link to his overall arc.
The exhilerating scenes with the Angels are compelling and the story is clever and fun. The cliffhanger is thrilling and powerful.
The mid-credits scene when Vinder sees a recording of Bel at the very end is the weakest bit of the episode. Why oh why did Chibs have to shove that in?! It spoils the incredible end of the episode by distracting from the cliffhanger's impact with a pointless scene tacked on afterwards. It also features a cheesy, cliched bit of silliness with Bel chatting away needlessly and running out of time to give her co-ordinates. That is a stupid annoyance for me. Why wouldn't she say the co-ordinates first or just talk less and more quickly? So contrived.
Without the scenes from Bel and Vinder's journey this would be an easy 10/10 classic but those scenes and especially the mid-credits scene very sadly drops it to a 9.5/10 for me.
I don't require perfection for a 10, nothing is perfect, but I expect extremely high quality that can stand alongside other great TV. This nearly achieved that but I feel like Chibnall's insistence on pushing his poorly devised, poorly written story arc into the episode just takes the shine off a bit.
Still, overall this is a cracking episode. I only mention the negative to explain my frustration and why it is 9.5 not 10/10. But I really want to focus on the positives because amidst a divisive era which was often let down by things a lot of us didn't like, this episode was superb quality. It would grace any season of the show.
My Rating: 9.5/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 1st out of 6.
Doctor Who: Flux: Chapter Three - Once, Upon Time (2021)
Hot Mess - Chapter 3.
The first 2 chapters of Flux seemed not too bad at first and only look worse to me once the whole story is finished. This third chapter though was where I could see the flaws starting to overwhelm the story even on first viewing.
This is a total hot mess, in my opinion. Chibnall seems to want to emulate Moffatt era stories like The Wedding of River Song where every conceivable idea that popped into Moffatt's head got thrown into a convoluted jumble. But even though I rather disliked the most chaotic Moffatt stories, Chibnall manages to make his story even more incoherent and even more ridiculous.
I am definitely extremely analytical, I cannot help that, but I am not a negative nitpicker, I am open-minded, endeavour to be fair and always try to look for positives. And there are positives I give credit for in this episode:
Great looking photography, costumes/make-up and effects.
Good music and acting.
Some initially intriguing aspects (although they end up disappointing).
A few decent moments of drama.
The negatives though are many and various:
The escape from the previous chapter's cliffhanger is silly.
There is very messy, convoluted storytelling with lots of jumping around. If this turned out to have logical explanations and good conclusions that would be far more forgivable but all the numerous threads go nowhere and mean this is simply a needless, incoherent concoction. All style and no substance.
The Joseph Williamson thread is pointless and silly.
The whole Atropos/Time/Mouri aspect is a nonsensical mess.
Bel and Vinder's story is totally not needed and cheesy.
The Passenger idea is weak and unexplained.
The Grand Serpent is just thrown in as yet another unnecessary element.
Dialogue is clunky.
Bel's baby monitor thing is stupid.
It all too often makes me cringe. I feel so so sad that all my hopes and expectations were being flushed away. I had defended Chibnall to the point of arguing and blocking people online as I felt he deserved a fair, open minded audience and time to tell his era's story. I stand by that but I started to feel he had let me down with this. I really feel he was out of his depth and throwing dozens of ideas at a wall to see if any stuck. He could have made a simple, fun 6 part story or a complicated 6 part explanation of his Timeless Child/Division ideas. Either could have worked. But instead he just made up dozens of new unfinished ideas and chucked them all in willy-nilly with no decent endings being worked out.
This particular episode is one of my least favourites of all time, sadly. A really incoherent jumble and pretty boring in my view too. Of the episodes remaining of Flux there were unfortunately equally flawed episodes to come but thankfully the next episode turned out to be a sudden high point of excellence amidst a very disappointing series. It was an enormous improvement.
The cliffhanger of this episode has Weeping Angels taking over the TARDIS. That begs the question "how can they do that?" However, it is undoubtedly exciting and powerful and effectively sets up the brilliant next episode so I give some credit for an impactful cliffhanger.
My Rating: 3/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 5th out of 6.
Doctor Who: Flux: Chapter Two - War of the Sontarans (2021)
Let down by the overall Flux
On my first viewing of this, when it was first broadcast, I enjoyed it quite a lot. Sadly, once I saw the whole of Flux and eventually went back and rewatched it I find it far less satisfying. The flaws become clear to me, particularly in the overarching story elements which end up falling flat once the Flux story pans out.
There are aspects which still stand up as positives:
The Sontarans look good and their leader is excellent. They pose a strong threat for the first time since The Sontaran Strategem/ Poison Earth.
The Crimean War setting is well created and battle scenes are very good.
Mary Seacole is well acted and a good historical inclusion.
A lot of the Crimean War aspect is fun and parts of the 2021 Sontaran invasion are fun.
However, the negatives stand out when rewatching after seeing the Flux story in full:
The characters are all thrown inexplicably into situations to suit where Chibnall wants them to be. Why is Vinder on the planet Time? Why does Yaz get brought there? Why does Dan return to 2021 Earth? Why is the Doctor thrown from the TARDIS into the Crimean War? It is just for plot convenience.
The whole Atropos storyline is nonsensical, confusing and has no internal logic. In fact, to put it bluntly, I think the whole Atropos/Time/Mouri idea is rubbish.
The blundering Sontaran soldier is a bit daft.
The Joseph Williamson scenes are silly, confusing and ultimately not needed.
Chibnall making characters say historical figures full names every time they are referred to over and over has become extremely tiresome. Why does the Doctor need to keep saying "Mary Seacole" every time instead of just Mary or Mrs. Seacole or just saying "thankyou" rather than "thankyou Mary Seacole?! It is SO unnatural and occurs every time a historical figure appears in Chibnall era. Bizarrely treating the audience as if we are so stupid we need the identities of these people hammered home repeatedly.
Also, the idea the Sontarans are attacking in present day Earth and a random part of Earth history doesn't really have a logical explanation in the story or indeed any real clear purpose. It is just done for effect because surely logically they only needed to attack in the time of the Flux.
I will give credit for all the good, fun action, the strong Sontaran design, the good acting, the excellent music, excellent photography and effects and the better bits of dialogue but this is far less enjoyable for me than it seemed on first viewing.
My Rating: 5.5/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 2nd out of 6.
Doctor Who: Flux: Chapter One - The Halloween Apocalypse (2021)
What the Flux is all this leading to?
This is the start of the 6 part Flux story. Up to this point I had been a big defender of Chibnall and Jodie, begging other fans to give them a chance and look for positives. Sadly, this was where it went horribly wrong for me as Flux made me feel Chibnall was totally out of his depth and the significant flaws of his era were now getting worse not better. Ironically some fans find Flux fun and an improvement in its attempt to do Moffatt style spectacle and convoluted storytelling but in my view it failed badly.
I find the opening scene of the Doctor and Yaz trying to escape Karvanista embarrassing. I cringed all the way through it. Just silly nonsense. The only marginally funny bit (in a corny way) was the voice activation "release" working when the Doctor says "what a relief". The rest was dire.
The second scene with Joseph Williamson begins one of the many pointless threads of the story. The whole Williamson Tunnels subplot is not needed and scenes like this just add to the confusion for no gain.
The third scene with Dan and Di would be ok if the subplot of Di's involvement ended up being worthwhile but once you see all of series 13 you realise Di was just thrown into the mix without any sense behind the idea. It is great to include a good actor with a 'disability' but not if there is no logical reason for the character to be involved. It smacks of tokenism.
The fourth scene with Swarm escaping imprisonment is mostly great. Swarm is fascinating and looks good with clearly menacing power. But why is he suddenly able to escape after eons of imprisonment? And why wasn't this the opening scene? His "happy halloween Doctor" line was surely meant to lead into the opening titles. Why was the silly Karvanista scene chucked onto the start? But also, why does an alien from another world recognise that the time travelling Doctor is going to be experiencing Halloween? Lol. Despite these reservations, the scene of Swarm escaping is a plus point of the episode.
The leaking TARDIS aspect is totally weird and is never really explained.
John Bishop quickly establishes Dan as a good hearted guy and a potentially good companion. But the scene with the adult trick or treater is a waste of time with no point and I didn't find it funny. The rest of his introduction is fine.
Karvanista's appearance scene with Dan has a bit of decent humour but is pretty daft and the design of Karvanista looking like a dog (like a second rate Chewbacca or a bipedal version of Dagget from Battlestar Galactica) is not a great idea in my opinion. Neither is Karvanista leaving a laptop behind and shrinking Dan's house. Just done for show. Not a big negative but this all adds nothing for me.
Why does Karvanista kidnap Dan anyway? If the plan is to protect Earth/humanity then kidnapping one human at a time (with some difficulty) is an unconvincing plan.
What is the point of Azure being hidden as a human in a research facility? This goes nowhere and has no purpose.
These are all early signs of the hot mess of half-baked ideas that characterise almost all of the Flux story.
The only good bits in the first 25 minutes are Swarm seeming an intriguing and menacing villain and Dan being a decent new companion.
The next good addition is Claire (very well acted by Annabel Scholey) and her intriguing introduction which leads to the only bit of Flux that ends up being brilliant - Village of the Angels. After another clunky scene of dialogue between the Doctor and Yaz we get a great, chilling scene of a Weeping Angel attacking Claire which adds more mystery and a real thrill. The way Chibnall uses Weeping Angels this series is better, in my view, than they were used in most Moffatt era encounters and this is the one big plus of Series 13.
Then we get the introduction of Vinder. He is well acted but by the end of Flux we we see there isn't any reason for his inclusion in the story. Him and Bel are just randoms.
We see visually impressive scenes of the Flux phenomenon which ultimately (in Chapter 6) turns out to be a throwaway threat with an inadequate resolution so the whole Flux threat feels weak when rewatching.
We then get further unimpressive scenes of Azure being inexplicably converted back from a human plus the Doctor talking mumbo jumbo to Yaz and confronting Karvanista in a way that attempts to go for comedy rather than drama.
Vinder tries to escape the Flux and Dan is rescued and then yet another thread is thrown into the mix as Sontarans prepare for an attack. The new retro look of the Sontaran design is good and at this stage it appears they will be a strong adversary. Sadly later in Flux the Sontarans are turned into a joke even more than they were in Moffatt's era.
The final scenes are a mix of good and bad. Good bits of dramatic cliffhanger elements are provided with the Flux threatening the TARDIS and Swarm threatening the Doctor. However, Azure taking Di is weird and has no logical reason. Meanwhile, the Doctor's split-second ability to formulate a plan of creating a magically perfectly fitting barrier of conveniently, and inexplicably Flux immune, Lupari ships is just silly.
The one bit of this which stands up really well on rewatch are the Angel scenes with Claire which are superb. There is also a suitably dramatic bit of setup for the next episode which feels quite epic so I will give credit for that too.
I must also praise the decent acting, great music, great visual effects and filmic quality look of it all.
Story-wise, though, it is a jumble of what mostly turns out to be nonsense. So, although it had some potential on first viewing, it ends up very disappointing for me when rewatching with knowledge of how it all ends. All style and no substance.
My rating: 4.5/10.
Series 13 Episode Ranking: 3rd out of 6.
Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks (2021)
Dalek fun that needed more thought.
This is the second of Chibnall and Jodie's three New Year Specials featuring Daleks. It is a lot of fun but is, in my view, flawed (as usual in this era).
What is great is that John Barrowman returns as Captain Jack and gets to team up with the 13th Doctor. He is as good as usual. I don't think Chibnall allowed enough warmth or chemistry between him and 13 though. It feels like 13 is cold towards him despite him rescuing her. I don't really see why she would be so dismissive of him as I feel their relationship has moved on and she should be grateful and happy to see him.
The rescue is a bit unconvincing, I think, as is the opening sequence where MI6 entrusts transport of a Dalek casing to one person without any security at all. And did the people stealing the Dalek guess which burger van the driver would stop at or did they put assassins in every burger van on the route? Again it just feels slapdash writing that is lacking credibility.
The episode is mostly entertaining and enjoyable though, with good action, some nice banter at times and menacing Dalek confrontations. The return of Daleks acting as puppeteers of humans is fun because that idea is scary and cool.
Captain Jack adds some quality and all the companions perform well. We say a sad farewell to Graham (especially) and Ryan with a touchingly sad exit scene. Bradley Walsh was superb and made Graham a top level companion despite very patchy material. I am glad he later returned for Jodie's final episode. I reckon Tosin Cole was overly harshly judged and just was let down by the material too much of the time. I think he was a decent companion and quite endearing.
The Doctor inviting Dalek armies to Earth to deal with the mutated Daleks on Earth is another unconvincing aspect. Far too risky.
Overall this is a mixed bag - enjoyable, not bad, but has a few too many flaws really, in my opinion.
My Rating: 7/10.
Series 12 Episode Ranking: 7th out of 11.
Doctor Who: The Timeless Children (2020)
The Careless Showrunner
This is the most controversial episode of Doctor Who ever. The Timeless Child arc comes to its climactic reveal telling us the Doctor was the Timeless Child who had the power of regeneration and whose DNA was used to create the regenerating ability in all Timelords.
The biggest complaint people have seems to be that they feel it means William Hartnell was not the first Doctor and that it changes the lore hugely. I actually don't see it as that terrible in terms of the lore simply because I choose to interpret it in a way that I find acceptable rather than the way Chibnall seems to have intended it. In any case, though, I still have issues with how this episode fumbles the presentation of the storyline's conclusion.
We hear the whole explanation of the Timeless Child storyline being narrated by the Master alongside images from the matrix. Chibnall's insistence on constant spoken exposition is a major weakness of his era and whilst Sacha Dhawan is superb, having this as a long chunk of spoken exposition (yet again) is not the best way to do it. They could have simply SHOWN us the story in flashback.
The rage the Master feels about the Timeless Child would have been given greater context if HE was the Timeless Child (maybe even with the Doctor having been Tecteun in a previous life and experimenting on the Timeless Child who became the Master) or perhaps them BOTH being "Timeless Children" found together and experimented on. I would have liked some involvement from the Master in the backstory.
As it is, unlike many fans, I can accept having a pre-Hartnell existence but would have liked that to be confirmed as a very separate existence where they were not known as the Doctor and didn't travel in a police box TARDIS. It could easily have tied in neatly with the Lungbarrow/Cartmel Master-Plan type scenario talked about and widely accepted since the 80s where one of the first Timelords, known as The Other, ends up being thrown into the "looms" which ultimately causes their DNA to be reborn as the Doctor. I don't like that this story reveal leaves the suggestion that the Fugitive Doctor came before the First Doctor. That isn't expressed clearly in a way that couldn't be explained differently in a future story though.
I like to believe that the Timeless Child incarnations are an entirely separate life, known as the Other and that the Fugitive Doctor is actually a secret, hidden incarnation between the 2nd and 3rd Doctors tying in with the Season 6B theory.
My head-canon is that the Timelords halted the 2nd Doctors forced regeneration in the War Games and offered him the option of coming back to Division and going on missions for them. He accepted and the Season 6B theory comes into play with the 2nd Doctor travelling for many years on missions. My theory is the 2nd Doctor finally regenerated into the Fugitive Doctor and continued on missions for Division but she learned of the secret Timelord origins and realised she disagreed with Division's manipulation of the universe so rebelled and went into hiding. When she is recaptured she is forced to regenerate into the 3rd Doctor and has memory of life as a Division agent erased and placing him in 2nd Doctor clothing to help hide the truth.
If I use my "head canon" then I have no major objection to the earlier existence as The Other who was rebooted as a baby who is essentially an entirely new person who grows up to be the First Doctor. Even if we accept the Fugitive Doctor was before Hartnell it is clearly expressed that the Doctor was forced to be reborn as a baby with no memories who grows up to be the Hartnell Doctor. I am satisfied that this means Hartnell is the start of a new life and therefore still the "first" and the "original" of a new existence
I have a problem with the way it is revealed both due to the spoken explanation and the unnecessarily controversial way it is left for fans. I also have a problem with the way it was confusingly previewed as a story of a police officer in Ireland. That was needlessly convoluted and muddies the waters further.
The Cyber-Timelords are a bit odd too. If they regenerate wouldn't they correct their cybernetic alterations?
I also am not keen on the final scenes with Ko Sharmus getting shot and pressing the button AFTER being shot. Pure unlikely luck which could have so easily failed. Why wasn't he pressing the button BEFORE he was shot? That would have been far better.
I rate this episode low for Doctor Who due to the clumsy and overly controversial culmination of the previously intriguing arc. I personally do give it some credit though as I found the episode dramatic, exciting and fascinating in a way at times, very well acted, beautiful looking with great effects and good music. I am ok with the lore addition IF I interpret it my way. So I won't judge it quite as harshly as some fans do perhaps as it IS open to interpretation and is open to be improved in future stories. The Master could even be tricking the Doctor, in theory. But I cannot credit Chibnall or this episode very much in terms of writing quality when I am having to do so much work to make the story work for me!
My Rating for this episode: 4.5/10.
Series 12 Episode Ranking: 10th out of 11.
(Rating for Ascension of the Cybermen: 7.5/10. Therefore rating for overall 2-part story = 6/10.)
Doctor Who: Ascension of the Cybermen (2020)
Ascending towards a finale.
This is the first part of a two-part story. It continues the Lone Cyberman arc and also picks up the Timeless Child arc and starts to bring both threads towards their climactic point in the 2nd part.
Whilst Chibnall's era was very flawed, in my opinion, I found the setup of these arcs and the suspense building through Series 12 was superb. It had me hugely intrigued and excited.
This episode has fewer problematic aspects than a lot of Chibnall era episodes and it is fun with exciting action. The Cybermen themselves are powerfully portrayed as a truly formidable enemy. Their leader, Ashad, is menacing and is a great, interesting villain.
Jodie is at her best, showing some edge and strength. The companions are also on good form. The humans they meet are all well acted, especially Ko Sharmus.
There are negatives for me though:
The Cyber-drones aren't great.
Ryan's basketball style explosive throwing is cheesy and unconvincing.
The spacecraft luckily crash landing through an open hangar entrance that is very narrowly big enough just seems rather too lucky and could have been depicted better.
There are moments of daft dialogue (as usual in this era) but not as much as in a bunch of other episodes.
The mysterious scenes of an abandoned child who grows up and joins the Garda (police) in Ireland are pretty pointless and convoluted. It only ends up confusing matters further. Intrigue it built up was not paid off.
On the plus side though, the music is great, as it has been throughout this era, I think. The effects and filming also continues to be of mostly high quality apart from a few slightly silly gimmicks like the Cyber-drones and over-use of flaring lighting in this episode.
The cliffhanger is exciting and sets up the finale very well.
My Rating: 7.5/10.
Series 12 Episode Ranking: 6th out of 11.
Doctor Who: School Reunion (2006)
Joyous Reunion
This story features a wonderful reunion between the Doctor, his greatest companion Sarah Jane Smith and his beloved robotic dog K9. That aspect alone provides huge heartwarming nostalgia, lovely scenes and some very touching moments.
David Tennant shows his brilliance and there is nice dynamic between current companion Rose, her boyfriend Mickey and the Doctor's old friends. It provides some really funny, well written humour and thought provoking material about how the Doctor impacts his companions both when they are with him and when he leaves them behind.
Elisabeth Sladen is as fantastic as ever as Sarah Jane Smith (leading to her own excellent and well deserved spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures) and K9 is as lovable and funny as ever too.
The story involves 10 and Rose working under cover at a school to investigate strange goings on which are also being investigated by Sarah Jane. It turns out creatures called Krillitanes are using the schoolchildren in their plot and are devouring some of them too. Anthony Head is a great villain and the Krillitanes fit in well with the pantheon of Doctor Who monsters posing good threat and providing fun scares.
The combination of humour, heartwarming drama, excitement and sheer fun make this a classic and any criticisms are no more than you could level at any of the greatest Doctor Who adventures. Doctor Who is never perfect but it is perfectly magic! This is one of my favourites!
My Rating: 10/10.
Doctor Who: The Empty Child (2005)
"Are you my mummy?"
My Series 1 Review: Episodes 9 & 10
The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances
This is a much loved two part story beginning with The Empty Child and concluding with The Doctor Dances. The high regard this story is held in is well deserved as it is a superb mix of thrills, fun and engaging drama.
The Doctor and Rose visit wartime London where they meet a mysterious and flamboyant fellow time traveller, Captain Jack Harkness and an eerie child in a gas mask wandering around asking "Are you my mummy?"
The scary and intriguing scenes with the gas masked child are phenomenal and have become a very famous part of the show's modern era. It is exactly the kind of "hide behind the sofa" Doctor Who that I love. The way this develops and gets resolved is exciting and satisfying.
John Barrowman makes a big impression as the outrageous, funny and entertaining Captain Jack. His repeated returns to the show have made him a big part of modern Who lore.
Richard Wilson is another great guest actor and overall the whole production is top class.
Christopher Eccleston is always at his best, in my opinion, when the material is dark and thrilling so he is on top form in the dramatic scenes in this story. He also does well with the lighter, humorous parts here but I always find him less comfortable in humour and joy than he is when dealing with danger and darkness.
Future showrunner Steven Moffatt does a great job writing this story. In my opinion he was better as a guest writer than as a showrunner. He became less consistent when creating the whole show but when writing contained stories like this he is fantastic.
Overall both these episodes are real classics and the best of the Eccleston era.
My rating: 10/10.
Star Wars Rebels: Steps Into Shadow: Part Two (2016)
Bendu - The one in between.
I love this 2 part story. The first episode is not as dramatic or exciting as some other episodes but it is really interesting and thoughtful as well as powerfully moving the characters on from the previous season's incredible conclusion.
One of the great plus points is the wonderful character the Bendu. A force powerful creature who Kanan encounters. The Bendu is voiced by legendary actor Tom Baker - the 4th Doctor from Doctor Who - who is an enchanting man, superbly magical actor and has the most gorgeous voice. Tom is perfect and the creature is a fascinating and fantastical figure who teaches Kanan important lessons.
Kanan is suffering from his loss of sight and this is used very well in the story with his despair being explored.
Ezra has a new look and is shown to have become very powerful. This is shown to be with help from the Sith holocron which brings the power a dark complexity. This creates great suspense for where Ezra is heading. In the meantime, Ezra's immense fighting skills and powers are thrilling to see. He is not greater in power than Jedi we have seen elsewhere but uses his powers in a different, flamboyant and more ruthless way than a Jedi.
I love the dark underlying threat, the progression in the story and the character interactions.
This second part is more action packed and develops the storylines well in amongst the battles. This is lots of fun but with plenty of depth.
My rating: Parts 1 & 2 - 9/10.
Doctor Who: Legend of the Sea Devils (2022)
Not Legendary
A lot of online comment on everything is extremism and this, like all the new stories at this time received a lot of hate. I find that some of the attacks were slightly over the top with 1/10 ratings and calling it utter rubbish etc. However, I do think it is sadly worthy of being called not good enough.
Like most of Chibnall's era it has pluses and minuses and on my first viewing I embraced the positives and tried to just see it as "a bit of fun" but when I rewatched it I found the negatives easily outweighed the positives.
In the negative side:
It had terrible exposition (a big Chibnall flaw). I would say this is the worst episode ever for expositionary dialogue because it seemed to me that virtually every bit of dialogue spoken by characters in the episode was unnaturally explaining what was going on or asking questions. It is very far from the "show don't tell" philosophy which Chibnall vehemently claimed to advocate when he criticised 80s Doctor Who. It is not good storytelling to explain verbally what is going on and what has happened all the time. It is also not fun or enjoyable dialogue to just be explaining the story.
It was a bit weird in that the Sea Devils seemed to have mysterious magic powers. The overall feel was more magic than scifi. It was a bit too over the top for my taste.
It is yet another case in this era of a convenient, contrived plot - The Doctor wants to explore a particular historical event and just so happens to get drawn to land exactly where a vital encounter regarding this event takes place. Rather convenient. Then she 'coincidentally' finds that the events she was randomly interested in are linked to a conflict with her old foes the Sea Devils. It would have been far better if the TARDIS had just taken them to this point in history. Most (not all) good Doctor Who works by the Doctor getting dropped into alien encounters rather than visiting a specific event deliberately and finding an alien encounter by coincidence.
As a result of these contrivances, the overpowered Sea Devils and the dialogue, the story feels cheesy to me. It is also badly edited. There are scenes such as a fight scene where stuff appears or disappears due to being edited incorrectly and the story makes little sense.
I didn't feel the acting was great either.
On the plus side:
It was adventurous and quite fun at times.
The Sea Devils returning was nice and they looked good. They were interesting antagonists.
It looked very good in terms of cinematography, costume and design.
Yaz's romantic interest in the Doctor was dealt with well - A lot of online comment beforehand prejudged that it was going to end up with a full-on romance. Many hyped that as terrible while others got excited for it. In fact though Chibnall did exactly what I prefer - He kept the Doctor true to tradition (pre-Moffatt) and had the Doctor avoiding romantic entanglement while remaining caring and respectful towards Yaz's feelings. I find it exactly how 10 was with Rose because, despite many fans calling it a romance, he clearly had feelings for her but held back from acting upon them or getting into an actual romance. He even refused to say "I love you" to Rose and said the meta-crisis Doctor could be with her but he never could. I was very pleased with the way RTD handled that and was very pleased with how Chibnall handled this. It fits my taste.
All in all this episode was a hard one to rate. At first I thought it was about a 5.5/10 but my judgement after rewatching it more recently is that it is 4.5 to 5/10 at most. I think my rating is a fair score based on my preferences but can understand if some people like the swashbuckling adventure feel it has and overlook its issues more than me.
My Rating: 4.5/10.
2022 Specials Ranking: 3rd out of 3.
Doctor Who: Dragonfire: Part One (1987)
A Story of Ice and Fire
Review of all 3 episodes:
Dragonfire is, in my opinion, easily the best story of Season 24.
It introduces the much admired new companion, Ace. She is a fun, strong, young, female character and is a good role model for young fans. It also is a decent little story overall, much better than the rest of the season for my taste.
We get the return of Tony Selby as Sabalom Glitz and he is a charming addition. We also get Sylvester McCoy who is, as usual, entertaining and we say goodbye to Bonnie Langford as Mel.
The villain, Kane, and other cast are ok and there are no major problems really. It is still hampered by the cheesy style of this era (for example the literal cliffhanger in Part One and some over the top costumes and dialogue) so it doesn't reach the level of earlier glory years of the show in my opinion but it is mainly just a bit of fun.
It is a decent effort for this era.
My overall rating: 6.5/10.
Doctor Who: Logopolis: Part One (1981)
End of an Era
Review of all 4 episodes:
This story had a huge impact on me when it was first broadcast as it was the first regeneration story I saw where my beloved Doctor changed. Tom Baker was the Doctor for an epic 7 seasons and became the difinitive Doctor. Him leaving is a huge moment and his final story is a major milestone. I remember being sad but also excited about the regeneration. Tom is still my favourite Doctor and on my many rewatches I am always moved by him saying farewell as the incumbent Doctor.
The story itself is quite a dense science fiction story involving complex mathematical ideas and quite weird concepts of the universe being threatened by 'entropy'.
The Doctor is trying to fix his TARDIS chameleon circuit with help from the mathematicians of Logopolis. The Master hijacks this plan materialising his TARDIS in the same spot as the Doctor causing a 'recursion loop' and then travels to Logopolis himself in an effort to use the threat of entropy to gain power and control.
It is all quite involved with ambitiously big concepts. This is added to by the foreboding figure 'The Watcher' who is following the Doctor and the cloister bell ringing both of which give an atmosphere of impending doom.
I find this story fascinating and stimulating. It maintains my interest and makes me feel the tension and dread of the imminent regeneration. It is also entertaining and has a great battle of wits between Tom Baker's Doctor and Anthony Ainley's Master which is great to watch.
Tegan Jovanka, a brash Australian air stewardess played by Janet Fielding makes her debut as the new companion.
The regeneration scene itself is powerful for me still today as it evokes the feelings I had at the time. A clear memory from my youth and a very good scene.
Overall this is a suitably high quality finale for the great Tom Baker. The joy Tom has given us from his phenomenal performance and dazzling presence as the 4th Doctor is so special and I treasure his era, particularly his incredible first 3 seasons. He is a hero on and off screen.
My ratings: All 4 episodes - 9.5/10.
Doctor Who: The Keeper of Traken: Part Two (1981)
Traken Triumph
Review of all 4 parts continued:
The Keeper of Traken
I have strong memories of seeing this on its original broadcast. I found the Master and the Melkur creepy and thoroughly enjoyed the story. Many years later this was the first classic story that successfully thrilled my young son. So I have very positive experiences of this story.
Some fans understandably are less keen on season 18 as it is a bit less 'fun' than preceding seasons but I like dark and gritty Doctor Who and I really like most of this season. Stories occasionally show JNT's tendencies to have too many arguments between characters and aggressive scenes but Chris Bidmead (and perhaps Terrance Dicks overseeing/advising) seem to help JNT to create a serious science fiction series and this story is one of the best of the season. I also think it is actually really fun.
The story involves the elderly Keeper of Traken asking the Doctor for help as he senses his imminent successor is going to be threatened by evil. Sure enough a calcified statue - Melkur - is secretly hiding the Master who manages to take control of the incoming Keeper's body.
This new leader, Tremas, is played by Anthony Ainley as a pleasant character and father of new companion Nyssa. He then becomes the new Master and is deliciously evil. Ainley plays his differing dual roles superbly and the Master was returned in style after a long absence.
Tom Baker is great as ever and Nyssa is introduced pretty well as an intelligent companion although why JNT thought 2 highly intelligent young companions were required at the same time, with Adric having joined not long before, is a bit of a headscratcher. An early sign of JNT's poor decision making I think.
Anyway, there is sinister drama, enjoyable characterisation and nicely written dialogue. An excellent serial.
My ratings: All 4 episodes 9.5/10.
Doctor Who: The Keeper of Traken: Part One (1981)
Traken Triumph
Review of all 4 parts:
The Keeper of Traken
I have strong memories of seeing this on its original broadcast. I found the Master and the Melkur creepy and thoroughly enjoyed the story. Many years later this was the first classic story that successfully thrilled my young son. So I have very positive experiences of this story.
Some fans understandably are less keen on season 18 as it is a bit less 'fun' than preceding seasons but I like dark and gritty Doctor Who and I really like most of this season. Stories occasionally show JNT's tendencies to have too many arguments between characters and aggressive scenes but Chris Bidmead (and perhaps Terrance Dicks overseeing/advising) seem to help JNT to create a serious science fiction series and this story is one of the best of the season. I also think it is actually really fun.
The story involves the elderly Keeper of Traken asking the Doctor for help as he senses his imminent successor is going to be threatened by evil. Sure enough a calcified statue - Melkur - is secretly hiding the Master who manages to take control of the incoming Keeper's body.
This new leader, Tremas, is played by Anthony Ainley as a pleasant character and father of new companion Nyssa. He then becomes the new Master and is deliciously evil. Ainley plays his differing dual roles superbly and the Master was returned in style after a long absence.
Tom Baker is great as ever and Nyssa is introduced pretty well as an intelligent companion although why JNT thought 2 highly intelligent young companions were required at the same time, with Adric having joined not long before, is a bit of a headscratcher. An early sign of JNT's poor decision making I think.
Anyway, there is sinister drama, enjoyable characterisation and nicely written dialogue. An excellent serial.
My ratings: All 4 episodes 9.5/10.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch: Return to Kamino (2021)
Kamino Climax
This was the best episode of the series up to this point. A really cracking bit of drama and excitement.
Hunter has been taken by Crosshair and is transported to Kamino, pursued by his comrades who Crosshair hopes will follow and fall into his trap.
The animation is superb and there are some really epic scenes which add meaningfully to the overall Star Wars story. We get dramatic developments which really move the story on from the prequels and into the age of the Empire.
The personal conflicts and character depth in scenes where Crosshair confronts his old friends are powerful too.
Omega has grown as a character and is becoming very engaging. The cliffhanger is pretty gobsmacking and sets up the season finale perfectly.
Great episode.
My rating: 9.5/10.
Star Wars: The Bad Batch: War-Mantle (2021)
Passing on the Mantle
This is a very good episode as we see Rex asking the Bad Batch to rescue his friend Gregor, the clone we met in Clone Wars, who has rebelled against his new Empire bosses and has been imprisoned.
The story is a simple rescue mission adventure and is very enjoyable. It has added depth of showing the transition of clones being replaced by early Imperial Stormtroopers.
The way the music foreshadows music from the movies is really cool and helps to add to the feeling of transition.
The animation is beautiful again and there is some good action including the especially cool dogfights.
Crosshair again facing his old comrades and the cliffhanger ending are powerful additions.
A great set up for the next episode.
My rating: 8.5/10.