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...

Live Review: S8.E9 - Flatline

After 50 years and more than 250 adventures, coming up with new ideas can be a little tricky and while there is something appealing and satisfying in reusing favourites, creating new monsters with similar appeal can be hit and miss. However, every now and then something truly original and creative graces out screens. The early days had plenty of these of course because everything was new - the TARDIS being bigger on the inside, the Daleks, telepathic communication, an insect filled planet, the travellers being scaled to half an inch tall, all within the first 13 stories - but the striking innovations tend to thin out after that and truly innovative ideas become somewhat scarce. Every now and then though, a story idea crops ups that makes you sit up and take notice and Flatline is one of them. In fact, there are three elements at play within the narrative that all have merits in their own right. Subtly woven through it all is the continuing drama with regards to Danny and Clara as well as the more obvious quest for Clara to identify with the more complex depths of the Doctor.

The episode opens with an establishing scene of course, and this time it's a man talking on his phone reporting that "they are everywhere... all around", the atmosphere is that of something very creepy and sinister which results in the man falling out of shot and appearing shortly afterwards as a stretched image on the wallpaper border strip - stretched to such an extent that it takes a very sharp angle from the camera to reveal it. Element one in place, roll titles...

Live Review: S8.E8 - Mummy On The Orient Expres

A long time ago, way back at the end of Steven Moffat's first series, an idea was created. Amy and Rory had just got married, the Doctor had returned from the depths of their memories, danced the Drunken Giraffe at the reception and it was time to say goodbye... The episode (Big Bang ended wit the Doctor receiving a phone call in the TARDIS from an unknown caller that causes concern... There is an Egyptian Goddess on the Orient Express, in space! The Doctor is confused because, as he put it "I was there when she was sealed into the seventh obelisk. I was at the prayer meeting... Don't worry about a thing your Majesty, we're on our way"... It was assumed, by me at least, that this was a tease into the Christmas episode, much like the Titanic crashing through the TARDIS a few years earlier, but no. The Christmas episode took place during Amy and Rory's honeymoon and the Doctor was on his own dealing with flying sharks in A Christmas Carol and then time passed before the start of the next series and the Egyptian Goddess was forgotten about.

But not by Moffat. He gave the title to writer Jamie Mathieson and let him do the rest. Not surprisingly, the details of the Doctor's telephone conversation were a little overlooked after four years and a change of both companion and Doctor so the resulting episode doesn't mention it specifically. What is important to remember is that the last episode ended with Clara angry at the Doctor telling him she has had enough...

Live Review: S8.E7 - Kill The Moon

Moffat has done it again. He's given us an episode title that filled me with dread, and not in a good way. Let's Kill Hitler was bad enough, though the episode turned out alright, but Kill The Moon must surely be worse and it's followed by Mummy On The Orient Express which isn't much better - just like Dinosaurs On A Spaceship, though again that one turned out reasonably well... So here it is, the pre-title sequence tells us it is 2049 and Clara is on the moon with Courtney Woods, the school girl from the previous episode, the Doctor isn't around and Clara's making a plea straight to the camera "An innocent life versus the future of all mankind" and there are only 45 minutes to decide... so the length of an episode then! Roll titles!

We're then taken back to the beginning of the story as Clara tries to convince the Doctor to reassure Courtney, who has gone off the rails since he told her she wasn't anything special and she threw up in the TARDIS. They find her back on board with cleaning materials and travel sickness bracelets, ready to go off again and prove herself to the Doctor. Clara tells her she's not going anywhere but the Doctor offers her the honour of being the first woman on the moon and away they go...

First Doctor Reviews Completed

As the current series passes its half way point, I am happy to announce that I have finally reached the end of William Hartnell's episodes. Writing reviews for the new series along with the classics has proved a little troublesome so I have fallen further behind, currently five weeks. Hopefully, with the next three classics being missing stories followed by one on DVD and another three missing after that, I should be able to claw my way back on track since there will be no extras or commentaries to watch. That said, there are another five new episodes to work around so it won't be plain sailing just yet...

Meanwhile, I thought I would post a list of Hartnell's stories and order it according to how they scored. You may be surprised at some of the positions, I know I was, but I've tried to stay consistent with my scoring and just because I like something on the surface doesn't mean it's actually good. Ordering by Production and Content scores produce interestingly different lists.

#	Title	Content	Production	Total
12	The Romans	71%	100%	85.5%
21	The Daleks' Master Plan	81%	86%	83.5%
17	The Time Meddler	74%	90%	82.0%
10	The Dalek Invasion of Earth	77%	82%	79.5%
11	The Rescue	73%	86%	79.3%
7	The Sensorites	69%	88%	78.5%
2	The Daleks	73%	78%	75.5%
3	The Edge of Destruction	73%	76%	74.5%
9	Planet of Giants	68%	80%	74.0%
16	The Chase	71%	74%	72.5%
27	The War Machines	68%	76%	72.0%
13	The Web Planet	65%	78%	71.5%
6	The Aztecs	59%	84%	71.5%
4	Marco Polo	47%	96%	71.5%
8	The Reign of Terror	48%	92%	70.0%
1	100,000 BC (An Unearthly Child)	61%	76%	68.5%
29	The Tenth Planet	60%	74%	67.0%
26	The Savages	68%	64%	66.0%
20	The Myth Makers	47%	82%	64.5%
24	The Celestial Toymaker	53%	74%	63.5%
5	The Keys of Marinus	53%	72%	62.5%
14	The Crusade	44%	80%	62.0%
25	The Gunfighters	43%	78%	60.5%
18	Galaxy 4	36%	80%	58.0%
23	The Ark	51%	50%	50.5%
22	The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve	38%	62%	50.0%
15	The Space Museum	42%	38%	40.0%
28	The Smugglers	27%	52%	39.5%
19	Mission to the Unknown	29%	46%	37.5%

Where episodes have equal scores, preference is given to content.

By way of comparison, when listed by Production scores the top five would be "The Romans", "Marco Polo", "The Reign of Terror", "The Time Meddler" and "The Sensorites" showing that historicals were by far the BBC's strong area. Conversely, when listed by Content scores the top five would be "The Daleks' Master Plan", "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", "The Time Meddler", "The Daleks", and "The Edge of Destruction" which clearly highlights the strength of the Daleks and the value of science fiction in a, well, science fiction series!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, at the bottom of the list in Production terms are "Galaxy 4", "Mission to the Unknown", and "The Smugglers", while Content puts "The Ark", "Mission to the Unknown" and "The Space Museum" at the bottom.

All this gives William Hartnell's stories a total score of 66.6% (Content 58%, Production 76%), though there is a strong bias towards the 70-75 mark and it's the bottom six that really drag him down so I'd be inclined, pragmatically, to score him 70% (+/- 5)