Live Review: S8.E12 - Death In Heaven

If Dark Water was gentle and full of ideas and thoughts with little action, then Death In Heaven is the complete opposite and more than makes up for it. In fact, it too has plenty of ideas so it was quite a heady rush of explosive content (with it's share of literal explosions as well!) By the end of the story, the whole series had been wrapped up and shipped off to the archives with a glowing report and the gripes about the continuing drama and ties to Earth seemed almost irrelevant. Except, the very end had still left an open question along with a terrible teaser for the Christmas special and suddenly the concerns and displeasure at the poorer episodes came flooding back. Sometimes a tease is nice and makes you feel excited with anticipation leaving you wanting more, but sometimes it can leave you feeling violated, belittled and bullied, desperately wishing your tormentor would leave you alone... but I'm getting ahead of myself...

Being a two-parter, as Peter Capaldi delighted in saying during last week's Doctor Who Extra, the last episode ended with a classic cliffhanger and this one of course began with a reprise (albeit in the form of a "Previously..." highlights compilation). We are reminded that Missy is using a Gallifreyan Hard-drive and that Earth's weakness is the fact that the dead outnumber the living. In new content, we see Clara stand up to a Cyberman much as she stood up to the Clockwork Robot in Deep Breath by trying to negotiate, saying that alive she is a tactical advantage but dead she would be his biggest mistake. In a new innovation, the Cyberman scans her from the disk on his chest-plate and identifies her as Clara Oswald, an insignificant human. Quick as a flash and without blinking, Clara tells him that Clara Oswald never existed and was just a cover for the man that could hide from the Cybermen in plain sight by changing his appearance and ultimately leads into the title sequence with "I'm the Doctor!" As if to re-enforce her claim, the titles roll with Jenna Coleman getting top billing ahead of Peter Capaldi and even her eyes take the place of his peering through the swirling clouds!

Live Review: S8.E11 - Dark Water

Peter Capaldi's first series is nearly over. It's been a little turbulent with a mix of "Good, but could be better", "What were they thinking? At least it looks good", "Creative and innovative" and "Wow! That was a good one!" The transition to a new Doctor is always a bit of a bumpy ride but there was much hope for Capaldi with the expectation that the first episode would settle him in and he would be brilliant from the second... As I've said in the past, however, the Doctor is only part of the picture and liking or disliking a particular Doctor tends to actually mean liking or disliking the writers and producers more than the actor. Tom Baker, for instance, is generally regarded as the best Doctor, but I think a lot of fans would agree that while that may be true, his last few series were not so good and actually some in the middle were a bit ropey too... that's due to the changes in production team who chose to drive the show in a different direction. Unfortunately, I think the Twelfth Doctor has suffered by this kind of shift as well. Steven Moffat may still be at the helm, but his co-producers have changed more dramatically this year and the show has a different feel to it with more continuing drama and personal character arcs rather than narrative arcs and I think that is what has led to a drop in the audience Appreciation Index. New writers and directors also play their part of course so it is perhaps a good thing that the finale is a two parter written by Moffat himself... where we finally find out who Missy is and what the Heaven/Afterlife tease has been about all season...

Live Review: S8.E10 - In The Forest Of The Night

Maybe it's just me, but Doctor Who set in the woods just feels right. There's something scary and spooky about the coverage offered by the foliage and the height of trees allow any assailant to drop down from above or spring out from below and from any angle. There is something very Earthly yet remote and removed from everyday town life. On top of that are the fairy tales and legends of Little Red Riding Hood, Peter And The Wolf, Robin Hood... adventure and danger, excitement and fear. You never know what you might find if you brush aside those branches or peep through the bushes and the unlikely contrast of technology and nature has a certain delicious appeal. From the title of this episode, it's clearly time to go down to the woods, and we could be in for a surprise...

We join the action as a young school girl is running through the trees. Is she running from something? She occasionally waves her arms about her head as if swatting mosquitoes away but there is nothing visible that we can see. She is wearing a red coat... is it too much to assume a Red Riding Hood association? She reaches a small clearing where she finds big blue Police Box, and notices the St. John's Ambulance sticker. She knocks on the door and when a tall grey heard man opens the door, she asks for the Doctor, explaining that she is being chased. The man ushers her in to his impossibly large room and she doesn't bat an eyelid...