Doctor Who Review: Timeheist

Time Heist is fast and furious and fun, but there is still a strange sense that this should have been a Matt Smith episode rather than a Peter Capaldi one. This has running through corridors in spades (some very good running through corridors) and  plenty of manically paced escapes and sudden revelations – all more Matt Smith style escapades rather than the slower pace of Capaldi.

However, Capaldi slots in just fine – in particular his abrasive relationship with his two new partners in crime (Pippa Bennett-Warner as Saibra the shape-shifting mutant, and Jonathan Bailey as Psi, the electronically implanted hacker) – dragging them along (because the eyebrows put him in charge) at first, but winning their respect and friendship as they go along. Like in “Into the Dalek”, the Doctor is accused of callous disregard when he helps Saibra apparently kill herself rather than be captured by the Teller; but these are really acts of mercy and compassion from someone who is still trying to understand the concepts.

The Doctor, Clara and his new friends have been brought together to break into the impenetrable Bank of Karabraxos, for reasons that are not immediately clear because they’ve all voluntarily wiped their memories. They’ve been brought together by a shadowy figure who calls himself The Architect and from the moment they meet, they are up against time, constantly having to figure out and escape from their situation.

The villain of the piece is the nasty Ms Delphox, Head of Security, played with style, wit and supremely snooty sauciness by Keeley Hawes (who might just tip Lena Heady out of the way as my choice for a female Doctor Who). She takes charge of “the Teller”, being the monster that can sense the guilt of any potential bank robbers and then suck their minds out.

Eventually, the gang (after supposed deaths and resurrections) make it to the private vault of Madame Karabraxos herself, who turns out to be the original that Ms Delphox (and all previous Heads of Security) had been cloned from.

It all turns out to be a bit timey-wimey paradox-y stuff as the Architect is actually the Doctor in the future, getting his past self to break into the bank in order to give Madame Karabraxos a piece of paper that will provoke her, in her old age, to call on the Doctor to get his past self to break into the bank…  which was all about realising that the Teller was not a monster, but a prisoner, pining for his locked-up mate. Teller and Mate are released and all is sorted – just like last season’s “Hide”.

 
It’s all fine enough, but I can’t help but feel the concept of the heist and Madame Karabraxos is not allowed to take flight. Keeley Hawes is superb but she really just gets to chew the scenery here – how about making her a serious villain? What if the Doctor and co were having to steal something with much greater consequences, beyond this episode? What if Madame Karabraxos had to go after them? What if the future Doctor carried on manipulating events – no wonder this Doctor seems a bit paranoid and with a sense of self-loathing? But no, it’s just about freeing some poor love-struck beastie – noble enough in itself, but I just think things could have been a little more epic.

And on with episode 5 of the flash-fic-fan fic (remember, each episode is exactly 100 words, and made up as we go along – no planning allowed..)

HungerTime – Part Five

The Dalek Scientist scanned for life forms and found none. It spotted the Tardis; , scanned as a source of time energy. The Dalek reached further, through the disruption caused by the Tardis’s vortex energy.

Behind a wall there were one life form, two beings shrouded in temporal charge and one being that defied all analysis.

One of the temporally charged beings jumped up with a weapon. The sonic screwdriver buzzed, reality shimmered around the Dalek and it found itself firing at a white-haired, older man accompanied by a human male with dark hair. The old man crumpled and fell.

If you want more Doctor Who reviews, go to http://reviewthewho.wordpress.com/ - my reviews of the Matt Smith/ 11th Doctor stories are under Series 5,6 and 7 - and a whole load of reviews covering all 50 years of the show are elsewhere. Go on, you know you want to.

Now go and buy my ebook The Royal Wedding from Hell
   

Doctor Who Review: Listen

“Listen” is one of the best Nu-Who episodes of all – up there with Blink, Girl in the Fireplace, Vincent and the Doctor and A Christmas Carol. It’s really the first proper Capaldi Doctor story – there’s a nagging feeling that the previous 3 were written without being sure about what the 12^th Doctor would be like – so his character was worked into the story. With “Listen”, the story is all about his character. The whole premise, about whether there could be a silent, untraceable being shadowing your every move and being the basis of a recurring mass nightmare, comes from the idle and slightly tortured mind of the 12^th Doctor. Leave the 11^th Doctor on his own and he’ll invent a new recipe for fish fingers and custard, or go off and get engaged to Marilyn Monroe – leave the 12^th Doctor alone and he’ll delve all the way into the long, dark teatime of the soul.

This episode is so many things – it is a dark character study of the 12^th Doctor, it is a straight horror story, it is a romantic comedy and a romantic drama, it’s a far future time travel piece of sci-fi. Most of all, it’s simply a great piece of TV drama, written with all of the skills that we know the Moff possesses, directed to full on spooky effect and with three principal performances that hit all the right buttons.

Jenna Coleman continues to impress in Series 9, now that she has real material to work with and a better defined relationship with the Doctor. Clara hung out with the 11^th Doc because she fancied him and was swept up in the excitement of it all. Clara allows herself to accompany the 12^th Doctor because she feels a duty to him. She knows he’s a good man, she knows he is a remarkable man, but the Doctor is still struggling to realise it himself. Bringing a romantic element to her life is a masterstroke. How much longer will she tolerate the fantasy life over real life? Samuel Anderson as, first of all, Danny and then later Orson Pink is very good, stepping easily into the main supporting character . As Danny, his sensitive portrayal of a man haunted by his past and trying to make a normal life for himself is a contrast to the Doctor’s own struggle, and maybe Clara’s dilemas too. This slowing of the pace, that we saw so effectively in the restaurant conversation in Deep Breath, is carried on here. Clara and Danny’s date cuts between cute comedy and abrasive conflict, but both actors keep their mutual attraction bubbling along. It’s an adult relationship – two people working through the surface stuff because they know there’s a deeper connection; it’s no rush of flowery romance and it’s better because of it.

Pushing the storyline along, and dragging Clara along with it, is Capaldi’s 12^th Doctor. Matt Smith’s 11^th Doctor was the young man, with an almost childlike demeanour, who bore the weight of ages. Capaldi is the opposite – physically and in much of his temperament, he’s an old man – wrinkled, grey, thin and cantankerous. But his personality is so much less mature. He’s a boy, trying to find his place in the Universe, although aware that his place is so much more than most people’s places. “Listen” takes us back to the physical boy, with a neat link to the Day of the Doctor, and reveals a wee slice of what made the Doctor what he became. According to the “Time of the Doctor”, Capaldi is sort of a brand new Doctor – the beginning of a whole new cycle of regenerations. This story backs that up – he’s still new, still coming to terms with himself. Peter Capaldi, with those eyes, that furrowed brow, those spindly limbs and hissing teeth, is unlikely to become a cuddly Doctor. Caring squeezes out when it absolutely has to, when he meets and empathises with the young Danny – the 12^th Doctor is on your side, but it’s not always easy to see it. It will take growth and emotional maturity to really empathise with real people and situations. He knows he has to be outraged by injustice and evil, but he doesn’t necessarily feel it.

The 12^th Doctor and Clara have one of the most intriguing relationships that the show has ever produced – unlike last series, Clara is not a mystery to solve – she’s the Doctor’s friend, here to help him. He needs her. His abrasive, blunt and merciless character is covering up his fears. And Clara knows it; she can see the child within and it’s her responsibility to help him find the man, the Timelord, that she knows that the Doctor can be. In “Listen” she actually meets that child, but she’s also starting a relationship where she, once again, will be the one helping someone find their way out of the dark.

And amid all this deep character stuff is a monster to be avoided, people to be rescued, mysteries to solve, paradoxes to be confused by – this is Who at its best; pulp horrors and romance and action, all mixed in with something far weightier about who we are and where we come from and how we come together; we have nightmares, but we ALL have nightmares – and we can all help each other face the fears and come out of the dark.

And now, Flash-fic-Fan-fic:

HungerTime – Part Four

The Tardis landed. The Doctor leapt out brandishing his spoon. “Where is she?” he bellowed at the empty, snow-filled street.

There was a thumping of feet from behind him. He turned in time to be floored by three Claras.
 “Doctor!” said Clara.
“You’re not the Doctor,” said Oswin.
“I need a Doctor,” said Victorian Clara.
“This can’t happen,” said the Doctor, “Three of you. All at once.”
“Rich coming from you,” said Clara.
Snow swirled, sparks flew. The Doctor raised the sonic. It screamed and exploded. A terribly familiar pepperpot shaped formed in the snow.
“Running time,” said the Doctor.

If you want more Doctor Who reviews, go to http://reviewthewho.wordpress.com/ - my reviews of the Matt Smith/ 11th Doctor stories are under Series 5,6 and 7 - and a whole load of reviews covering all 50 years of the show are elsewhere. Go on, you know you want to.

Now go and buy my ebook The Royal Wedding from Hell

Doctor Who: Robot of Sherwood Review

Clara wants to meet Robin Hood and the Doctor, grudgingly obliges, although he insists that no such person existed. However, on arrival in Sherwood Forest an arrow twangs into the Tardis, and the Doctor takes on Hood’s blade with his spoon. This very much sets the tone for the whole episode.

It’s all a bit daft but still jolly good fun – we get a far more settled Doctor from Capaldi – he is arrogant and ratty and vain, and some of the best moments deal with his rivalry with Hood, both men of giant egos unable to let the other take the lead. There’s snappy dialogue between the pair and Clara gets a few good lines too.

When it comes to the sci-fi, it’s pretty weak. We’re stuck with a bunch of generic robot types who are in cahoots with the Sheriff of Nottingham so that they can gather up enough gold to launch their crashed spaceship again. The Doctor, who has continually insisted that Hood, the Merry men and the Sheriff are all robots created by the spaceship to fool and enslave the local population, turns out to have been wrong. Which scuppers a neat idea that could have provided a bit of emotional resonance – what if Robin Hood the robot believed he was real? But no, Mark Gatiss decides that the legend of Robin Hood is faithfully true and that there really was a man capable of splitting an arrow.

The ship finally takes off but hasn’t got enough gold to make it to orbit so will explode and take most of England with it…EXCEPT, our heroes are able to ping a gold arrow at it, which tips it over the critical level and off the robots go – and then blow up in orbit. This is just kind of stupid, but I suppose, if you’ve been enjoying the ho ho ho’s of Robin Hood and chums for the last 40 minute then you can let this go.

This is not actually bad, just somewhat ridiculous. Capaldi and Hood trade funnies, the Sheriff chews up the scenery, Clara is wonderful and there’s a sort of bit of subtext about how we all want a hero to be real. It strays into the same territory as the Time Warrior and The Curse of the Black Spot – it’s panto Who as opposed to true pseudo-historical. Matt Smith may have twirled his merry way through this but I’m not sure if this is a 12^th Doctor Adventure at all.

And now, Flash-fic-Fan-fic:

HungerTime – Part Three

Alarms screamed throughout the Dalek saucer. The rebel ship had been destroyed but the time anomaly remained.

“What is happening?” demanded the Supreme Dalek.

The Orange Scientist acted fast. The saucer could not be saved. The time rupture was reverberating back through Dalek history.

“Answer, answer,” shrieked the Supreme.

The Scientist blasted the Supreme. Now it was the commanding Dalek and could command the saucer’s full systems.

It reversed the polarity of the quantum drives, sending the saucer into a fatal plunge.

The saucer dissolved into space-time. The Scientist channelled quantum energy to itself, dematerialised and went after the anomaly.

Doctor Who: Into the Dalek review

Doctor: “This is Clara. Not my assistant, she’s ah, some other word.”

Clara: “I’m his carer.”
Doctor: “Yeah, my carer. She cares so I don’t have to.”

 And there we have it – three simple lines of dialogue which sum up the relationship between the 12^th Doctor and Clara. My English teacher taught me that the essence of great art is much in little and this is a great example. It’s funny, sharp and brutal all at the same time.

 When I say it sums up their relationship, it sums it up as it is at this moment – 2 episodes into Series 8. Since the 12^th Doctor is a work in progress right now, so is their relationship. How much you like his series (so far) is going to depend on how much uncertainty you can put up with. Or maybe we’ll be on edge with the 12^th Doctor all the time – when he asks Clara if he’s a good person, we may never get a straight answer.

This has some similarities to Season 5’s “The Beast Below” – which had Amy stepping up to take the role as the Doctor’s Assistant – helping him to see more than just what’s in front of him. Except “The Beast Below” was somewhat heavy-handed in the way it shoved the Doctor/ Assistant relationship in our faces at the expense of the story. “Into the Dalek” is better made.

First and foremost it’s a rip-roaring adventure. The Daleks are presented in grand style – a Dalek Saucer chasing a spaceship through an asteroid field, the Doctor saving one of its occupants and landing on a ship hiding behind one of the asteroids. The Daleks are closing in but the soldiers on the ship have a captive, “good” Dalek aboard. Can the Doc lead a shrunken team inside the Dalek to fix it and turn it against his own kind? Excellent pulp stuff with lots of thrills and spills and action. Inside the Dalek, the team are chased by anti-bodies, fall into slime, race around its insides, turn it bad again and then try to make literal contact with its mind. Outside the Dalek, the ship is breached and a Dalek assault team charges in with the soldiers fighting a desperate rear-guard action.

Yet with all this ferocious charging about, there is time for some well-worked character scenes – when the Doctor is first aboard the ship and his abrasive reaction to anyone with guns, Clara’s sweet burgeoning romance with Danny Pink, the Doctor’s struggle with his morality towards the Daleks.

Capaldi’s Doctor continues to evolve – he’s blunt but not uncaring, but a lot of that attitude is fear about himself – he still can’t work out who he is. Jenna Coleman continues to impress – Clara as the Doctor’s Carer is far better than Clara as lovestruck fangirl of DESTINY.

All in all a stronger episode than the debut; I suspect there is still more settling down to come, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

AND – on to our Flash-fic-fan-fic

HungerTime – part two

 “Run, you clever boy. And remember,” said Oswin. She could feel the Dalek consciousness closing in, just as weaponry rained down upon the Asylum.

The barriers she’d erected in her escape pod burst open. The planet roared as it exploded around her.

“Come on then,” shouted a familiar voice, “run.”

Oswin jumped up. Smoke billowed through the door. A short, dark-haired girl stepped through, coughing. “We need to get out of here,” said Clara.

They ran, stumbling from the capsule and into a snow-filled street, bumping into another short, young lady with dark hair.

“This is strange,” said all three.

Doctor Who - Deep Breath Review

Okay – 12 episodes of Doctor Who Series 8, 12 quick and dirty reviews and 12 episodes of flash-fic fan-fic featuring the all-new 12th Doctor. Away we go…

 Deep Breath

We start with a giant T-Rex stomping up Victorian London. It’s a great special effect shot, looks superb in the trailers and is frankly just gratuitous in the episode. Either way, the T-Rex spews up the Tardis and its occupants, the lovely Clara and the newly regenerated Doctor. The Paternoster Gang (Lady Vastra, Jenny and Strax the Comedy Sontaran) are on hand to ease the regeneration along, but I really hope this is the last we see of this lot. There’s a good fifteen minutes or more of the Doctor struggling with who he is; fifteen minutes too much in my opinion – it’s a cliché that was done to death back in Classic Who, and when you consider how the 11^th Doctor was thrown into action almost fully formed, it just grates a bit now. On the plus side, Jenna Coleman is given some decent material – Clara’s struggles with the new Doctor make far more sense and, for a large part of the feature-length episode, it’s Clara that carries the story.

A story turns up soon enough though; there’s a nasty cyborg thing going round snatching bits of people. There’s an excellent scene when the Doctor and Clara are lured to a restaurant (by whom? That’s another issue..) – where the new Doctor starts to settle down and take charge and Clara starts coming to terms with him. There’s a tricky moment when the Doctor leaves Clara to the mercy of that very nasty cyborg with half a face – is the Doctor a coward, is he just being pragmatic or is he so cunning that he knows Clara will be OK (if somewhat shaken) and his “escape” provides him with the cover to come back and sort it all out? Sorting it out comes down to the Paternoster gang whirling into action against the patch-work cyborgs and the Doctor having an angry face-off (ahem) with the half-faced cyborg in a big balloon. But did the cyborg jump, or was he pushed?

Overall, it’s solid enough stuff – but it certainly doesn’t match the Eleventh Hour as a new Doctor’s debut. Capaldi is good but, since his character is kept deliberately on edge, he isn’t able to own the role and the show like his predecessor did. Hopefully things will settle down as we go along. As mentioned before, Coleman gets to bring some real character to Clara – being made to question her attitude to the Doctor and some form of development from pretty sidekick to someone who really is going to help. The pace of the episode seemed uneven; this comes across as a transition piece, moving away from the fast, furious and fun running around of the 11^th Doctor to something slower and more considered. The episode definitely strays into Hinchcliffe horror territory.

It’s not great, but it is very good, at least until Matt Smith’s cameo. This is just awful – surely a huge insult to Peter Capaldi? Does Capaldi not become the Doctor until Smith formally hands the role over via the call to Clara? Is Clara so weak and superficial (and we’ve just spent half the episode proving she isn’t) that she needs the previous Doctor, HER Doctor to persuade her to stick with the new Doctor? It’s an insulting and totally unnecessary scene that, for me, sours a perfectly acceptable start for the 12^th Doctor.

AND NOW, the flash fic. The rules are – each episode is exactly 100 words, I don’t do any real planning – we’re making it up as we go along -  a bit like Capaldi’s new Doctor…

HungerTime – part one

The latest version of the console room was still not right. It had far more round things but still missed something. He found the intercom switch.

“Clara,” shouted the Doctor, “can you come to the test console room. I need your input.”

No answer. He checked the Tardis interior display. Rooms, corridors, whole sectors shifted in and out of being but there was no way a part could vanish if Clara was in it.

She wasn’t anywhere.

They’d been drifting through the vortex – it was impossible for Clara to leave the Tardis.

But, he thought, Clara is the impossible girl.

The Time of the Doctor - Review

Was there any way that this story could possibly live up to expectations? THIS story, THE last story of the Eleventh Doctor, THE story when Matt Smith regenerates, , THE follow-up to “The Day of the Doctor” with our first look at Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, THE story screened (within a day or so, probably) simultaneously across the globe. Surely it can’t live up to that kind of hype? Um, no, no it seems it can’t.

On the whole, this is not so much a Doctor Who story, more of a wrapping up of loose ends and an almost episode long drawn-out final scene for Matt Smith. There are various bits of running around but ultimately, not much actually happens apart from the regeneration.

It starts in reasonably promising style – the Doctor’s appearance at Clara’s Xmas dinner, where he appears fully clothed to us watching and to Clara but then reveals that he’s still actually naked and appearing so to Clara’s family made me laugh like a drain.
But when we head off to Trenzalore, we just begin the long slow end of the Doctor. Yes, we know the prophecy said that this is where he dies so it’s all a bit foreboding. And yes, it is a surprise to have it very simply confirmed that Smith is in fact the 13th Doctor (number 9 was actually Hurt’s War Doctor, Eccleston bumped to no 10, and Tennant managing to be both 11 and 12) and therefore the absolute last one. BUT, we also know full well that Peter Capaldi has been cast as the next Doctor (because there was a live TV special) so there is bound to be some timey-wimey-ness to allow the regeneration to take place, so it’s not like the Doctor’s impending “death” is anything to get too stressed about.

Coleman is reduced back to the companion that occasionally hangs out with the Doctor as opposed to actually travelling with him. She calls him up, gets sent away, comes back again, gets sent away again and then comes back again. She lets a big old tear run down her face (again), and gets to do the Impossible Girl bit (again) to save the day. Is it a little insulting to her character that at the very end, the Doc still hallucinates one last goodbye to Amy Pond?
Actually, it’s possibly more insulting that the better companion is an old cyberman head that the Doctor has called Handles. Handles’ final demise as he watches one last Trenzalore sunset is one of the episode’s more touching moments.

Smith, almost needless to say, is superb, playing his usual manic self, then a slightly less sprightly 300 year older self and finally a near to death self. He does manage to bring a slight tear to the eye as his doddery form makes it to the top of the tower for one last rant at the Daleks.
And then he explodes (thanks to Clara’s plea to the timelords) with an all new load of regenerations and obliterates the Daleks.
Back in the Tardis, young again, briefly, he finally regenerates into a boggly-eyed Peter Capaldi with a suitably wacky cliffhanger “would you know how to fly this thing?”

The Time of the Doctor would always struggle to follow The Day of the Doctor, I found myself surprisingly unexcited as this episode came round. Whereas the big anniversary episode managed to avoid being a greatest hits of Who, The Time of the Doctor became just that – menacing Daleks, a few Cybermen, Weeping Angels in the snow, hissing Silences and silly Sontarans.
A few nice moments, but otherwise a disappointing end to a great Doctor’s run.

I’ll get to a more full overview of Matt Smith’s era, but for now, will say that it’s heights were the very best of nu-Who but Season 6, especially its second half, let the whole period down.
Matt Smith, though, was never less than excellent. His final line was beautiful:

“I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me.”

So will I, Matt Smith, so will I.

PS - if you want lots more Who reviews, covering all 50 years, then nip over to "Review the Who", where you will find my, more reasoned, reviews of the Matt Smith era along with a boatload of great writing about the greatest show in the Universe.