Review - The Bells of Saint John

I thought I'd start my reviews and suggested fixes with the opener for the second part of Season 7. So let me say up front that The Bells of Saint John is a prime example of how not to do a Doctor Who episode.

The Bells of Saint John - Season 7, Episode 6

We start with some "previously, on Doctor Who" dialogue and the (admittedly amusing) joke about the titular bells. This sends The Doctor off to meet Clara again to find out how she got his number. After an attack by one of what is undoubtedly Moffet's worst monsters yet, the Spoonheads, The Doctor seems to immediately forget what brought him there in the first place and reverts to default "coax the young girl into the van" mode. This reeked a bit of TheCompanion Show, featuring The Doctor, but in all fairness, we've had to treat each encounter with Clara as a re-introduction, which puts her character at the forefront.

The Spoonheads themselves are a very poor monster because they are no real threat. They are sort of creepy in that "crazy person standing and staring" way, but The Doctor can just scramble them with the Sonic Screwdriver and they're gone. Boring! I felt the invisible threat of all encompassing WiFi to be much more disturbing that stupid robots with no back of their heads.

As a positive, there isn't all that much Deus Ex Screwdriver in this episode. The Doctor uses the Sonic to disassemble a Spoonhead (a process he is shown taking some time to do), but does the majority of his problem solving through bulk-standard "hacking" with a laptop.

The episode suffers badly from Go, go, go, Geronimo! The Doctor is running around in a manic whirl trying to impress Clara more than solve the problem. In fact, the problem seems to solve itself. The resolution seems rushed, and is pretty much the classic "hit the self destruct and run out the secret tunnel" villain move. Totally unimaginative, and a huge let-down.

3/10

Can we fix it?

I think with a few changes this one could be fairly reasonable. The basic concept of WiFi hacking of people was interesting, but it was diluted by the ridiculous Spoonheads and Clara's re-introduction to The Doctor.

First up, I'd remove the Spoonheads. They are stupid, pose no real threat and exist purely as low level goons for The Doctor to defeat easily. The main threat of this episode it the WiFi itself, and there is no need for robotic mobile WiFi towers because as was pointed out several times in the episode, the majority of London would be covered by some WiFi or other. We would see the Uploaders ijacking routers and mobile phones to act as new nodes for their WiFi network, thereby turning our own tech against us, which is far more insidious in my opinion.

The Never-should-have-beens

The concept of hacking people to change their "stats" was also interesting, but I would prefer to have seen it as a parasitic leeching of those stats from other hacked people, using their "processing power" to perform your own tasks. If one of the agents wanted to buff their creativity or intelligence, they would be drawing it from another person. In this way, people aren't necessarily dying in front of their computers, just becoming increasingly stupid (see the metaphor there?). We hear the old "the farmer loves his flock" metaphor, but I prefer "why eat chicken today when you can have eggs forever?" Eventually they would be totally uploaded to the Cloud and consumed, but not at the rate the episode implied (surely people would have noticed that).

I also feel The Great Intelligence shouldn't have been so explicitly revealed as The Client in this episode. I would have preferred it as just being a voice on the phone, and one we can't hear at that. Most viewers would likely guess The Client is The Great Intelligence, but being less obvious creates that "aren't I smart" reward for those that need that kind of thing.

So, as the episode starts we have The Doctor get his phone call from Clara looking for IT help. This scene could play out almost the same until The Doctor gets to Clara's house. At this point, instead of rescuing Clara from a Spoonhead, The Doctor presses the matter of the person who gave her his number, all the while Clara is being integrated.

The Doctor convinces her to take him to the store where she got the number, and during the walk there we get some introductory small talk showing that she is smart and quick witted. Maybe we even have a guy staring at his phone almost run into them before saying something stupid like, "LOL! Soz mate!"

Here we see more of the Uploaders doing their hacking and stat boosting with exposition of how it works. We see Clara is now fully integrated and they hack her to switch her phone's personal hot-spot on, creating another Wi-Fi node.

Clara comes out of the store and tells The Doctor that the woman who gave her his number wasn't there, and the funny thing is the store owner said he didn't have any female employees. The Doctor asks Clara what the woman looked like, but as Clara begins a vague description, she exhibits signs of a drop in intelligence and focus, umming and aahing and getting distracted before The Doctor can get anything useful out of her. At this point The Doctor becomes concerned about what's going on, perhaps looking around and noticing a lot of people on laptops, tablets and phones all zoned out or acting stupid.

The Agents are seen discovering The Doctor on Clara's WiFi and begin integrating him, only to notice it seems to be taking ages. They get Miss Kizlet and explain that the speeds are fine, he's just a huge file. She goes off to talk to The Client, and tells them to keep integrating. When she returns later she orders all available bandwidth put on downloading The Doctor to the Cloud.

The Doctor makes the connection to the intelligence drop and the WiFi, and takes Clara on board the TARDIS to escape it, at which point we see The Doctor is at 99% downloaded. The Uploaders puzzle over how he disappeared from WiFi range in the middle of London and Miss Kizlet goes to convene with The Client again. When she reappears she tells the other Uploaders to look for a Blue Police Box.

Clara recovers in the TARDIS and The Doctor does some exposition and wondering aloud how he can defeat the Uploaders whilst examining Clara's phone. He eventually gets on to viruses, and this gives him an idea. We see him sit down and begin meditating.

Eventually the Uploaders have scoured London and have found the Doctor's TARDIS and surround it just as he exits. At this point his download resumes, clicks over to 100% and The Doctor falls unconscious to the ground. We see Miss Kizlet observing The Doctor in the Cloud monitors, but unlike the other inhabitants of the Cloud, The Doctor says he knows just where he is. At this point the system goes haywire, Uploaders begin resetting and those with bodies to go to begin to return.

Miss Kizlet runs to her office and calls The Client, whom we gather from her end of the conversation is abandoning her. She gives the "I don't know who I'll be without you" line before The Doctor's brain hacking of the Cloud resets everything and UNIT arrives to find the Woman-child Kizlet on the floor of her office.

Post resolution wrap up would be similar, with the addition of Clara having large gaps in her memory, and not remembering the woman who gave her The Doctor's number at all.

Boom! Job's a good 'un.

I'd love to hear what you guys would have done differently.

Review - Cold War

Finally, an episode that didn't make me cringe. Cold War stands as a good example of how to structure a Doctor Who story. I don't even have that many fixes for it.

Cold War - Season 7, Episode 8

The structure of the episode was quite good. In fact it was the perfect example of the classic structure I outlined in my original post on Go, go, go, Geronimo! Despite the very early monster reveal, they still managed to create some tension and a nice additional reveal by having Grand Marshall Skaldak remove his armour. We then get only quick glimpses of the suit-less Skaldak as he runs amok during the "escalation" phase. In the end we still only see his face in full, leaving the possibilities for foot and body shots to still be mysterious in future episodes.

There was some low-level Deus Ex Screwdriver but this was limited through The Doctor dropping the Sonic early on. His eventual ploy using it could easily have been a bluff, so I've not really git too big a beef with it. Interestingly we may have seen the first sign of The Doctor's Screwdriver having Red Settings as seen on River's version in Silence in the Library

Clara took more of a back seat in this episode, which was nice. She played an active part, whilst at the same time remaining secondary. We saw some arc development for her as she realises it's not all fun and games with The Doctor, but it didn't detract from the story of the moment.

There was a refreshing lack of Hunka hunka Burning Doc, although there was a minor In-Who-Endo as The Doctor excitedly tells Professor Grisenko, "I could kiss you," with the Professor replying, "If you insist." I'm probably being over-sensitive on the gay innuendos now, but that, like most of the innuendos I complain about, felt forced and out of place. It didn't help that I was actively thinking during the opening titles, "I wonder how they'll get a gay reference in this week."

Of course in an episode set on a submarine, it could have been much, much worse.

I've heard others complain about some technical problems with the sub not being able to fire or even open tubes at 700m depth and maneuverability issues. There was also the question of why a nuclear sub is being used to survey for oil, which was never really fully explained. Overall I was quite pleased with this episode though, and if they stay on this level, I'll be happy.

8/10

Can we fix it?

Not much to fix here, really. Not being a submarine nerd, the technical issues that have been pointed out to me have no impact. Of course for those who are, this could be an issue, so I think a bit more time on exposition could have helped.

First, some explanation on how the Firebird was a modified or experimental sub designed for deep water launches would have somewhat quietened the military nerds out there. That could also explain the CCTV cameras used by The Doctor when coaching Clara through her encounter with Skaldak.

They also needed a bit more explanation as to why a fully laden and operationally active nuclear sub was hauling a Professor around to drill core samples looking for oil. It doesn't take much, but a quick line about the need for secrecy in these uncertain times could have been enough.

I also think the submariner that defrosted Skaldak needed a tad more motivation, but other than that, this was a solid episode.

Review - The Rings of Akhaten

The alternate title for The Rings of Akhaten should be "What The Hell Was That?" There were a few glimpses of good ideas, but the whole thing somehow felt not fully formed.

The Rings of Akhaten - Season 7, Episode 7

The bookends of this episode push into The Companion Show featuring The Doctor territory, but the opening does set up the resolution rather well, so I can forgive it a bit. Overall the episode suffered from Go, go, go, Geronimo!, perhaps because we lost the entire pre-credits opening to Clara's background, which meant the build up and exposition in the markets were rushed as we barreled towards the epic confrontation that was more monologue than practical solution.

The concept of sentimental items as currency is interesting, and reminded me of the episode of Red Dwarf called Polymorph II - Emohawk, in which the GELFs are said to trade in emotions. Clearly this economy has developed due to the rituals to keep Grandfather asleep requiring lots of these objects, but the concept seemed a bit too ethereal for a science fiction show. The markets themselves were a nice touch, but much like the Mos Eisley Cantina in the original Star Wars, many of the denizens seemed rushed or poorly realised.

We have a nice use of Clara outside of the bookends using her mad child-rearing skills to calm a scared little girl called Merry. Clara doesn't seem to be falling for the Hunka hunka burning Doc, and I can't recall any In-Who-Endos, so that's a positive. The relationship between Doctor and Companion seems to be simply platonic for the time being (despite the kiss with Victorian Clara in The Snowmen).

Unfortunately the creatures that come for Merry, the Vigil, are grossly underutilised. They are quite reminiscent of the Spoonheads from The Bells of Saint John in that they turn up, act a bit creepy and don't really pose a threat. And then they just disappear. Then we have the mummy, which is thrown out there as a red herring appearing just to vaguely menace the characters without actually posing a real threat before simply being tossed aside from the narrative.

Grandfather itself was very poor. It looked like they couldn't be bothered to animate both sides of its face, so just mirrored it. And it was simply awful. CG is good and all, but I get the feeling a guy with some minor prosthetics and a bunch of light filters would have looked way better. Sometimes the old ways are best.

We had some significant Deus Ex Screwdriver in this episode. They seemed to be making a joke about it with The Doctor not wanting to give it up because "it's useful sometimes". That said, we end up in a situation where The Doctor can't open a door because its a special kind of... oh wait actually he can open it. What was with that? Then of course he uses it to hold off the Vigil just as they are looking like they could actually pose a threat. I can't work out whether it was better that it wasn't the Screwdriver that destroyed them or worse because they were never really defeated.

The ending was overly dramatic and slightly nonsensical. What was Grandfather eating from The Doctor? Was it his emotions? His memories? Either way it seemed to have consumed quite a bit of whatever it was, and yet The Doctor remained unchanged. Where was this sacrifice we heard all about? All up the ending felt a bit too "magical" which was slightly jarring.

I reckon a bit more science to that fiction would have been good.

3/10

Can we fix it?

There's a few things we need to do to get a decent story out of this, and most of them relate to exposition. We need to know more about how this sentimentality economy works, and more about the structure of the religion. Both are clearly relating to history, with the Queen of Years having to learn all the stories and songs and an item's provenance being of more worth than it's materials. The connection here is subtle, but it seems to imply that they are trying fatten the Queen up with history to make her a tasty morsel in case her sacrifice is required. I don't think this was made clear enough through all the singing and space bikes.

I would have liked to see something used in the markets to weigh the sentimentality of an item. A savvy space merchant isn't going to take your word on being attached to something and I can't believe that all of the species trading in the market have some kind of psychic ability to determine the value.

Some more interaction with other members of the religion would also have been good. We had a brief moment with the Chorister, but apart from singing, we get nothing. A bit of exposition from him, or someone else explaining the ultimate purpose of the Queen of Years would have helped keep things straight. They could even bee kind about it, telling her she's doing a great thing and other placations.

I'd have dropped either the mummy or Grandfather, as along with the Vigil there are too many monsters here. If the mummy is to be a red herring, it shouldn't come to life. We should be made to feel like it might right up to the point it's revealed the planet is the enemy. There's plenty of reasons a mummy would be interred in the holiest place of a religion.

The singing needed to be cut back too. It was quite out of place, and really only served to be a dramatic soundtrack to The Doctor's monologue at the end. The monologue also needed to go. It was way too much for anything other than a pre-regeneration season finale.

So ideally I'd have the episode run the same up until we get to the markets, where we get more of that explanation of the economy, perhaps with The Doctor showing the link between this form of trade and the big ceremony. Maybe we even have a member of the priesthood appear to tell them about it. Tourists clearly aren't unusual and the priests would be keen to get followers or at least participants. We learn from the priest that the ceremony is to commemorate their God defeating and imprisoning an evil and destructive enemy (Grandfather is a silly name, so something better should be used).

While the priest is putting the hard sell on The Doctor, Clara notices Merry and follows her. This gives a decent reason for The Doctor to disappear. The scenes with Clara, Merry and the Vigil were fine and would stay as is, with the addition of an explanation from Merry that the Vigil were her bodyguards. When Merry returns, it is to the Vigil, not to priests.

When we get to the ceremony, The Doctor reiterates the offering of psychically charged items and wonders where the pure psychic energy is going. We can keep the singing if they really want, if only to allow us to cut between Merry and the Chorister to imply the mummy is the enemy.

In the pyramid other priests are ritually monitoring archaic machines. One of them comments that the energy levels are low, and the offerings may not be enough. The high-priest sadly orders the Vigil to collect Merry in order to make up the difference.

The chase would play out the same except it is the Vigil who take Merry from the ceremony, rather than a beam of light.

While The Doctor and Clara are running off to get the space bike (I'll let them keep that one) the priests are explaining to Merry that her sacrifice is needed to stop the enemy ravaging the seven systems (let's keep it local for a change). The Doctor and Clara burst in (because the Sonic Screwdriver has no problems with the door) and The Doctor demands to know why they need to sacrifice her.

The priest reveals that the pyramid is a giant psychic syphon that powers an energy shield generator designed to keep the enemy imprisoned. Clara taps on the glass case with the mummy saying it looks like regular glass to her. The Doctor looks out of the window at the now raging planet and tells her that's not the enemy.

The priest goes on to say that the mummy is the creature who first imprisoned the enemy, now risen as a god for his sacrifice to power the shield generator. The Doctor refuses to let Merry die, offering himself in her place. Clara points out that the device killed the mummy, but The Doctor explains that it runs on history, and he's got a lot of history.

Clara takes Merry back on the bike as the pyramid begins syphoning The Doctor's energy. The end plays out in a similar way except without the epic monologue. When Clara returns with her leaf, weakly and tearfully trying to save The Doctor, her words about the potential futures missed by her mother spark The Doctor, who manages to rewire the pyramid to work on potentiality rather than history, possibly by reversing the polarity of the neutron flow. This allows them to power prison forever using just Clara's leaf.

Similar wrap up with some resolution on what the priesthood will do moving forward. Clara's epilogue could remain unchanged.

I know a lot of people didn't like this episode, so how'd I go at fixing it?

Review - Hide

Interesting and tense but with a strong season arc connection, Hide is about as bad as an episode if Doctor Who should get.

Season 7, Episode 9 - Hide

The pacing of this episode was solid. We start off slow with a steady escalation. Not much of it seems rushed, and The Doctor does seem to have to work for a solution. Happily the Sonic Screwdriver sees very little use, although when it is used it is as a scanner of some sort, which is a pet peeve. Either way, the Screwdriver didn't play a major role in saving the day, which is good.

I liked the way the episode was shot, with the monster reveal being very subtle. Even at the end we never saw the whole of the Crooked Man, nor learn what it actually is. It was a good horror episode, but is that what we want from Doctor Who? Ordinarily I'm not fond of the move towards more horror episodes, but in this case I'm not that fussed. It worked well because it was more about the tension than the monster.

That said, it wasn't entirely consistent with regards to how the pocket dimension worked. We are seeing supposedly unchanging images of Hila Tukurian in the pocket dimension, why does she appear to move in the opening scene? Why is she not always in the same geographic place? Why, when The Doctor goes to rescue her, is the timeline consistent in both dimensions? It shouldn't have been too hard to flesh that out.

There were some hints at a bit of Hunka hunka burning Doc from Clara, but not a lot. The love content of the episode was high, but most of it was from Emma and Professor Palmer. I was also glad to see The Doctor being more oblivious to others' feelings again. He seemed almost heartless towards Clara's angst about time travel, and his intrusion into a private moment at the end was classic Doctor behaviour.

My major issue here is the footprint of the season arc. We discover The Doctor traveled there specifically to find Emma to ask her about Clara. Pushing us fully into The Companion Show territory, we had more of the TARDIS not liking Clara, which is most likely connected to her tendency to resurrect, much like Captain Jack before her.

This leads me to another minor issue. When Captain Jack clung to the outside of the TARDIS during flight in the episode Utopia, it killed him. Yet here we are with The Doctor surviving the same thing unscathed. Twice. I've had this discussion with other fans who pointed out that the TARDIS may not have had to enter the Time Vortex to get to the pocket dimension, making the trip less dangerous for The Doctor and the Crooked Man. Either way, it could have been handled better.

All up, I was entertained and would likely watch it again, but it's far from a favourite.

6/10

Can we fix it?

My issues are pretty small with this episode, so the fix should be fairly simple. I'm not sure how important all this foreshadowing for Clara and the season arc is, and so I can't really make a call as to what to cut and what to keep, but I do feel we could have shaved some of it out. Keeping The Doctor's chat with Emma at the end would probably be enough, with Clara's issues with the TARDIS fitting reasonably well into the story. I'd have also dropped Clara's first mention of the TARDIS not liking her, as we've heard that before and it becomes quite clear once they have their altercation later.

The issue with The Doctor travelling on the TARDIS could be easily clarified by either having the TARDIS materialise around The Doctor, or simply having him leap through the open doors. If he absolutely had to cling to the outside, perhaps a short explanation as to why he's okay would be nice, even if it's dismissive.

Equally, some more explanation around the timelines when The Doctor is travelling through the portal would be nice. It would be easy enough to slip in a line about how the timeflows in both dimensions synchronise when the psychic connection is made. This would explain both how Hila appeared to be moving in the images at the start, and how The Doctor could exact his rescue mission. Of course it doesn't explain what happened in the minutes when the connection was broken, so it could be a neat trick to have things freeze for The Doctor whilst the connection is broken.

So instead of confusing chronology and Emma being cajoled and guilted into reopening the portal, we get a nice tension builder where the Crooked Man is about to pounce on The Doctor just as the connection breaks. With Emma out of action, Clara has her run-in with the TARDIS and zooms in to the rescue an instant after the connection broke, materialising around The Doctor with the Crooked man comically ploughing into the side of the TARDIS.

The ending could then play out the same way, but perhaps with The Doctor bringing the Crooked Man back through the portal, rather than the TARDIS, so as to avoid needlessly burning up her energy source.

What do you think? Did I miss anything?

The what of the who?

So... this happened last week:

Season 7, Episode 13 - The Name of the Doctor

So it appears the penultimate episode of Season 7 will somehow involve The Doctor's name. The poster teases "His secret revealed," which is frankly a horrifying thought.

For good or ill there have been a lot of changes to Doctor Who over the years, but there is one thing that's remained constant; We don't know his name. When all is said and done the show's title is more than just a recurring joke. It is, as Dorium Maldovar hinted in The Wedding of River Song, the ultimate question. And it's one that doesn't need an answer.

We've got Alex Kingston credited too, so we will see River Song again. Maybe that'll keep Clara off The Doctor for an episode at least. Perhaps we'll see a proper wedding. Perhaps it's time for a trip to Trenzalor.

To my way of thinking, The Doctor hasn't yet wed River Song because he didn't tell her his name. Of course, the real wedding could have happened off camera, but it does remain an option.

Dorium's prophesy from The Wedding of River Song is a more likely candidate:

On the fields of Trenzalor, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsley or fail to answer, a question will be asked. One that must never be answered. And silence must fall when the question is asked.

So "the fall of the eleventh" indicates the death of The Doctor (or at least the Matt Smith version), and even though he has been rumoured to be bugging out after his contract ends this year, he's still set for the 50th Anniversary show and this year's Christmas Special. Not exactly his fall if he gets two more adventures out of it. And I thought the Tenth Doctor took a long time to die.

I'm hoping they take the route I proposed earlier and show The Doctor handing the Sonic Screwdriver over to River. That would be the last loose end in the River Song timeline, and we can begin removing romance from The Doctor altogether.

Either way, I'm fairly confident what we won't see or hear is the actual name of The Doctor.

If we do, that's it. I'm out.

Deus Ex Screwdriver

I once laughed and rolled my eyes theatrically as I read someone on the Internet ranting about how Harry Potter was stupid because there was no rules to the magic. "All magic systems need to have rules or they can just do anything," they said. I'm going to try as hard as I can to not make this that kind of rant.

The Sonic Screwdriver is The Doctor's magic wand. When he needs to do some technical jiggery-pokery, out it comes, and with a flick and swish he's opened a door, scanned a computer or somehow de-teleported someone. How can one device do so many things?

It was recognised long ago that the Sonic Screwdriver had the potential to be overused. That's essentially why it was written out during The Fifth Doctor's run. Even before its destruction it had limited uses and most of those uses could at least conceivably be achieved using sound waves. Opening locks, pulling stuff apart or welding stuff together. These are all things The Doctor could need to do in the process of creating a solution to a problem, but without being the solution itself. The Sonic Screwdriver was a tool to assist The Doctor, and anything he used it for he should have been able to do without it (albeit with more difficulty).

It's just a door handle

Since the reboot however, the Sonic Screwdriver just keeps getting more and more features. It's gone from a Gallifreyan Army Knife to some kind of Über iPhone. Need to remotely control your TARDIS? There's a setting for that! Nasty bite wound on the neck? There's a setting for that! Want to scan for life forms whilst reprogramming an alien computer and diagnosing someone's mental disorder? There's a etc.

To be fair, it's still mostly used for opening locks

You know things are bad when you have to start making up specific exclusions to what it can do. The wooden lock weakness has been around for a while, and is a fun little gag of high-tech foiled by low-tech, but to now have to include "deadlock seals" just to avoid the Sonic coming into play really highlights the issue. It's a bit like Superman being so Super that they had to invent Kryptonite just to give the stories some tension.

It would probably be fine for The Doctor to do most of these things, but using some other device. It could even be a mundane device that The Doctor has supercharged somehow, possibly even using the Sonic Screwdriver to do it. In a way that isn't just randomly waving the glowing end over it, that is.

Can we fix it?

Well this is a tough one. Having already established the increasing range of uses for the Sonic Screwdriver, it would be difficult to suddenly start ignoring them. Equally, the Sonic Screwdriver is a rather iconic part of the Doctor Who mythos, and so attempting to once again remove it as they did in the early 80s could be a hard path. Interestingly, I think the best tactic here would involve first making the Sonic Screwdriver better.

It was established in Silence in the Library that at some point in his future The Doctor gives the Sonic Screwdriver to River Song, but that by the time he does, it is vastly superior to the one The Doctor had at the time. As we are yet to see The Doctor gift his Sonic Screwdriver to River, I would suggest we could see some plot points whereby The Doctor adds "Red Settings" and "Damper Settings" before a later episode sees him pass it on to River. In fact, we recently saw what could have been the "Red Settings" in Cold War, so hopefully they are already moving towards this.

After ridding himself of the Über Sonic, The Doctor could potentially build another, less complex version that doesn't have as much functionality, but can still be used as a tool. In this way, we reset the power level of the Sonic, thereby avoiding the requirement to make more "sonic-proof" doohickies, plus we tie up some of the River Song continuity.

So yeah, I'm not saying there needs to be a list of hard and fast rules for the Sonic Screwdriver, but it does need limitations. It should be just one of the tools The Doctor falls back on.

It's The Doctor that can do anything, not the Sonic Screwdriver.

In-Who-Endo

What is with all the sexual innuendo on Doctor Who? Even taking out the Companion love and the other Hunka hunka burning Doc situations we're still left with quite a few instances of sexual innuendo ranging from fairly innocent to Carry On.

I would watch the hell out of this

Is this, as others have often said, a sign of the changing times, or is it an unnecessary inclusion in what is supposed to be a family program? Am I being prudish in my annoyance at the sex references? I worry I may be, but allow me to explain myself.

First up, I'm not saying Doctor Who needs to be 100% kid friendly. I quite enjoy when I see a masterfully crafted adult joke included in something that kids could watch and totally miss. There's a bunch of things I used to watch as a kid that going back as an adult I noticed contained some delightful gems that just flew straight over my younger self's head. However I do feel that many if not all of these innuendos are gratuitous or laboured. And why does all this innuendo seem to contain so many gay references?

A great example is in The Unicorn and The Wasp when The Doctor and Agatha Christie interview suspects. One them, Roger Eddison lies about their whereabouts because he was having it off with Davenport, one of the male servants. We know this because we are shown a long and blatant shot of Roger leading Davenport off into the woods. This in itself wouldn't that much of an issue if it was a major plot point. Instead it seems to boil down to, "look, they had gay people then too, but they had to lie about it!" which I feel is actually rather patronising.

It's not the gayness that annoys me, because even visualising the scene with Davenport replaced with a scullery maid, it still seems clumsy. Perhaps it's the lingering nature of the flashback, or perhaps it's just that the tryst adds nothing to the story. The 45 minute format is already constraining without wasting screen time like this.

Another major In-Who-Endo that had me palming face was during A Good Man Goes to War when Madame Vastra delivers the line, "I don't know why you put up with me," to Jenny before lashing out with her hyper-long tongue for a quite horrendous lesbian joke. Don't get me wrong, I love Vastra and Jenny, but that was just so over the top it hurt. It's like if that quip was made before a gay male character was shown to press a button from three feet away with a thrust of his hips, or save the day by sucking a golf ball through a garden hose.

By contrast the references to their relationship made in The Snowmen and it's prelude webisodes were much better. Rather than forcing in a crude sex joke, they played with the reactions of others by juxtaposing them with the frankness and normalcy with which Vastra treats the relationship. I particularly liked the line:

I resent your implication of impropriety. We are married.

Witty without being gratuitous and delivered wonderfully. Absolutely spot on for that kind of thing.

Many of River's flirtations with The Doctor are borderline too. She can get away with much of it because she's supposed to be a bit of a Vamp, but references to handcuffs are pushing things a bit for me. Jack Harkness' broad sexual appetites are an interesting commentary on the loosening of sexual morals and were not too gratuitously played (in Doctor Who at least), except for the time he implied fantasising about being the meat in a Doctor sandwich. These references are subtle and amusing, but are they necessary?

Can we fix it?

This is one of those tough ones, simply because it's hard to tell what's being included to make some kind of statement, and what's being included just because of changing degrees of normalcy. Some of the gay references in particular are subtle enough that if it wasn't for the gratuitous ones putting me on my guard, I likely wouldn't notice them. I seem to remember a passing reference to a same-sex wedding in (I think) The Power of Three which I probably wouldn't recall even that vaguely if I hadn't already been put in the frame of mind that whenever homosexuality is mentioned on the show I immediately think, "Not again."

I think those references don't need "fixing". Homosexual relationships should be represented in the same way as heterosexual ones. It's a sign of the times that we can now replace a straight couple with a gay one with little to no impact on the plot. The Fat One and The Thin One from A Good Man Goes to War are a reasonable (although not perfect) example. They could have been any kind of couple, but were a gay couple. Their sexuality was fairly inconsequential. The execution of that is another story, as they were rather clichéd gay guys, they were constantly reminding us they were married, and I had the sneaking suspicion they were some kind of political commentary, especially considering their connection to the Anglican Church.

That said, if the fact that a character's sexuality isn't integral to the plot, why mention it at all? I'm not a Torchwood fan (only seen one episode), but I imagine when Jack has more screen time his sexuality becomes just another character trait. His charm and willingness to crack on to anything is a tool writers could use to further the plot (again, I don't know if they did or not though). Roger and Davenport though? Not so much, in my opinion.

So if they were set on having Roger be gay and for The Doctor to instantly realise that was the reason behind his (quite obvious) lie during questioning, then the wandering off into the woods scene could have been a bit more subtle. The Doctor and Donna had already noticed his flirtations with Davenport earlier in the episode, so perhaps a glance at Davenport through the window during questioning would be enough, or a brief shot of them walking together as flashback before the Doctor gets a knowing look and moves things along.

A better solution (apart from cutting it altogether) would be if Roger's lie kept The Doctor and Agatha focused on him instead of the real killer until eventually they uncover his deception and switch focus. If it was only Donna who noticed Roger's interactions with Davenport earlier and she was busy investigating the house during questioning, she could be the one to explain it to The Doctor after he had wasted time trying to solve that little mystery. This would allow The Doctor to be seen as fallible, something which is desperately needed more and more these days.

So that was pretty rambling and convoluted, but what I'm getting at is that overt sex jokes are tacky and don't need to appear in a family show like Doctor Who. Forcing gay relationships into episodes is equally tacky, as it reeks of political posturing; showing how hip and PC the writers are. Sexual equality is important in shows that are accessible to younger audiences, as it helps to normalise all types of people and relationships. Overcompensation isn't helpful though, as it can make it seem like a joke of some kind.

So, if the writers are making someone gay, they need to ask themselves, "why does the audience need to know?" If their sexuality affects the plot, make sure it's in a significant way. If it doesn't, reference to their sexuality may not be required at all. If they want to include a sex joke (which shouldn't be very often), make it short and subtle. It should sail far over younger viewers heads and only be enough to cause adults to share a knowing look.

In the meantime, I look forward to a new Companion:

Ooooh, Matron!

Hunka hunka burning Doc

"Why is it," I ask myself with shocking regularity, "that nearly every woman who comes in contact with The Doctor wants to cut herself off a piece of that?"

My earliest memories of The Doctor are of him being a nearly asexual being. Yes, The Doctor has, at some point in the past been married and had children (and Grandchildren), but for whatever reason he seemed to have moved on from all that. On the occasions when romantic entanglements happened around him, he treated them as annoyances or curiosities. When he recognised them at all

He was too intelligent for sex.

Nowadays he still seems a little awkward on most occasions when he gets female attention, but he is also quite frequently seen putting it about. There have been implications of sex between The Doctor and Madame de Pompadour, Queen Elizabeth I, and River Song at least. I'm likely forgetting some other subtle references too.

Funny? Sure. Necessary? Probably not

And that's just the people he actually reciprocates with. There's a whole host of ladies who lined up unsuccessfully to have a crack at him too.

The funny thing is, the ladies didn't start throwing themselves at The Doctor until he regenerated from Christopher Eccleston into the slightly more pleasing form of David Tennant. Even Rose doesn't really show any full-blown romantic feelings until after this point. Things have only gotten worse with Matt Smith, and it's kind of dumbing the show down.

He's becoming too sexy for intelligence.

I do wonder if the appointment of increasingly youthful actors in the role of The Doctor is the cause or an effect of this. By which I mean, did they want to add sexual tension and got a Doctor they thought could realistically pull it off, or did the better looking Doctor give them the confidence (or audience demand) to include the sexual tension?

I've previously linked to an article which quoted Steven Moffat on why the Companions are all attractive young girls:

I think the function of a companion is pretty simple. I don’t think that’s very difficult. It’s just a question of who credibly is going to agree to go in the TARDIS? Who’s going to do it? Is it going to be a mother of 15 children? No. Is it going to be someone in their 60s? No. Is there going to be a particular age range? I mean … who’s going to have a crush on the Doctor? You know, come on! It’s more than a format. It’s evolved from good, dramatic reasons.

And this makes sense to a degree, but this is one of those statements that confuses correlation with causation. Yes, hot young girls who have a crush on The Doctor have a reason for running off with him, but that doesn't mean only hot young girls who have a crush on The Doctor have a reason for running off with him. The statement also neatly ignores Donna Noble.

Can we fix it?

Of course we can; very easily. Stop writing women that want The Doctor, at least not all the time. And if you do, make sure it's for a reason. Was there a reason for Nefertiti to be all over The Doctor? Not that I could see.

And give us Companions that have more motivation for traveling with The Doctor than "He's a bit of alright." There is a bunch of other logical reasons a person may want to go off adventuring, and they're almost all more interesting.

Things only got back on track with Amy Pond after The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang where Amy and Rory's relationship solidified, and the relationship between Companion and Doctor worked much better with the sexual tension removed.

Sadly, we couldn't go the length of a whole Christmas Special without Clara jumping on The Doctor for a big ol' smoocharoo. I literally faceplamed at that point. The episode was in no way richer for it's inclusion, and it felt very, very forced.

The only female Companion to not have the hots for him was Donna Noble. Having seen the Catherine Tate Show before she appeared in The Runaway Bride, my opinion was already soiled of how she'd be as a Companion (I wasn't a fan). I didn't really like The Runaway Bride much and I was dreading her inclusion as a full-time Companion, but it turns out she was a perfect foil for The Doctor, and she is actually my favourite of the new Companions. And with no sexual tension too.

I would kill for that again.

The Companion Show, featuring The Doctor

A greater man than I introduced me to this phrase, and it neatly encapsulated an issue I'd been feeling for a while. This is something that really started with Amy Pond, but for a couple of seasons now the clear focus of Doctor Who has shifted away from the titular character and onto the companion. Why exactly?

Show runner Steven Moffat has made it clear how he feels about this, saying:

Doctor Who is more the story, in a way, about the companion. It’s her take on The Doctor, it’s her adventure she goes on with the Doctor. It’s a story that you tell because the companion, the other character, changes more than the Doctor ever does.

And this does sort of make sense in a way. However surely it's possible to show us the Companion change as a person without making the whole show about them. It is their experiences with The Doctor that cause this change, and it is those experiences that should be the focus.

Unfortunately what we are seeing is the Companion become the driving force behind whole plotlines. They are spending so much time showing the development of the Companions that the adventures in time and space are becoming secondary. How can adventures in time and space be the secondary focus of a show about a man with a spaceship capable of time travel?

Here in Australia, we got the Season 6 pre-title rider of Amy Pond introducing the show:

And now on ABC1, The Amy Pond Show

It's my understanding that this was there mostly for the burgeoning US audience to sort of catch them up. Unfortunately it also helped to skew the focus further away from The Doctor. It was the opening for The Amy Pond Show.

Now this has been taken a step further, with the entire focus of the second half of Season 7 being on who Clara Oswald is. There's still time for them to tone it back, but that will be difficult without The Doctor completely ignoring the entire reason Clara has interested him in the first place. It has quite literally become The Clara Oswald Show, featuring The Doctor.

Can we fix it?

Companions are a funny thing, and can be quite divisive amongst fans. Of course I love Amy Pond, but that's more because Karen Gillan is smoking hot and I am in no way ashamed of admitting that. It's clear Moffat wants to ensure the companion remains a hot, young female, and that's fan-service as much as anything else, despite how he may justify it. Regardless of how young, hot and female they are, they don't need to be the driving force behind the show.

Moffat has said:

I think when you start with a character who’s going to be a companion, who’s going to be on the TARDIS, you can’t think of the word ‘companion.’ You can’t think that they know that they’re a supporting character on a TV show.

So he clearly understands that the character are supposed to be supporting The Doctor, but at the same time wants to make them more than that. This is the mistake. I'm not saying the Companions have to be one-dimensional arm-candy for The Doctor who exist solely to get into trouble and be saved by him. Hell, if you don't get so caught up on them having to be hot young girls with a crush on The Doctor they have a better chance of adding value and, you know, supporting him.

Ideally we should not really notice the development of the Companion unless they get thrust to the fore for whatever reason. Perhaps we should be left wondering why they agreed to go travelling with The Doctor for their whole tenure. We should end up re-watching the first episode with a Companion and only then realise, "Wow, they've changed a lot."

So in short, Companions should be introduced in the context of their first story, given a simple reason for joining The Doctor (please not just that they want him), and spend their time with him gradually changing from a naive earthbound dreamer into a tough and seasoned time traveler. In stories they should be there to assist The Doctor with whatever skills they have, and in season arcs they should be more or less the same thing, but with the option of being more instrumental if dramatically appropriate.

And they need to stop kissing The Doctor.

Seriously.

Go, go, go, Geronimo!

What do I mean by "Go, go, go, Geronimo!"?

Well this is my catch all term for the pacing problems many episodes of Doctor Who seem to suffer from. Often things are happening at break-neck speed, and major elements seem overly rushed. For whatever reason we get flung towards the resolution without really feeling any real involvement, tension or wonder.

When the series was rebooted in 2005, I was immediately concerned about the loss of the serialised format. Even with a slightly longer running time it just wasn't going to be able to do what a four-parter could.

Traditionally the structure of a Doctor Who story was something like this:

Part 1 (Introduction)
We're given a glimpse of the problem. Maybe the Monster of the Week (MotW) interacts with or kills someone, but we don't see the MotW itself. If necessary, we get "Monster Vision". The Doctor turns up and is intrigued by whatever is going on. Maybe he meets some friendlies with tales of woe, maybe he runs across one of the MotW's agents. The episode usually ends with some "Monster Vision" or perhaps a tiny glimpse of part of the MotW if it won't give them away too much.

Part 2 (Investigation)
The Doctor starts sticking his beak in. Roadblocks appear in whatever relevant manner. Perhaps the problem is complex, or he needs someone's help or cooperation and they're not forthcoming. We get insight into what the problem is and why we should be concerned, usually through The Doctor interacting with his Companion. Meanwhile the MotW or its agents continue with their schemes, reacting to The Doctor as needed. The episode ends with a full reveal of the MotW.

Part 3 (Escalation)
The MotW and any minions enter the "end game" phase of their plan, ramping up the threat level considerably. The Doctor needs to push himself to come up with or complete a solution. The Doctor's Companion will (either here or at the end of the previous episode) fall into the clutches of the MotW and either require saving, or somehow save themselves (this is the new millennium, after all). We are shown a very real threat by the bad guys here. The episode ends with the MotW seemingly on the brink of victory.

Part 4 (Resolution)
The solution The Doctor has been striving towards comes to fruition after a final showdown with the MotW. Once victorious, The Doctor does some tying up of loose ends with the good guys and trots off in the TARDIS.

Now you can see a similar structure in use in the new episodes, but it is so highly compressed it loses a lot of the tension. This is especially evident when we get the occasional two-parter, which allows for closer to the same amount of screen time as an old-school three or four parter.

Two-parters like Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel, The Sontaran Stratagem / The Poison Sky, and The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood don't suffer from these pacing issues and very closely fit the traditional structure with two parts instead of four. Whatever other issues those stories may have, Go, go, go, Geronimo! isn't one of them.

As the overarching season plots become more of a focus for the show, they are in danger of overtaking the individual story plot. The more time taken to foreshadow these big stories, the less time is left to make the current one work properly. The best way to introduce the season arc has always been to make subtle references to it. Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Saxon and the Crack in the Universe were all handled reasonably well with only subtle references during or at the end of individual stories. The Silence and Clara arcs are far more blatant, and often detract from what should be the focus of the episode by taking up screen time, or feeling forced in. In some ways this is a symptom of The Companion Show featuring The Doctor.

Not every episode needs to reference the season arc, and even if they don't, the season arc story can reference the other episodes. Vincent and The Doctor is a prime example of this. It had no direct reference to the season arc, but was drawn into the opening of The Pandorica Opens.

Can we fix it?

I suppose the issue is simply one of time, which unless all stories become two-parters isn't very easily fixable.

But if we want to stick to a single 45 minute episode, can we fix the pacing? Well there are single part stories that are paced well, such as The Doctor's Daughter or The Curse of the Black Spot. So what are these episodes doing that others, such as Dinosaurs on a Spaceship or The Bells of Saint John are not? I'd suggest it's what they choose to skip or condense in the structure that makes the difference.

In my two positive examples, The Doctor foregoes a lot of Introduction and is thrust immediately into the problem, jumping straight into Investigation. Escalation happens almost simultaneously with Investigation too, allowing both of these phases to have some meat to them. This allows the threat to seem credible and the eventual solution to seem well thought out and not some sort of rushed handwavium.

In the negative examples, we get too much Introduction and not enough Investigation or Escalation. We get walked through a new setting or some new characters with cursory (and often unsubtle) explanations of the problem, but no real sense of threat. The endings are also rushed, which actually further downplays any sense of threat we may have got by making it seem too easily overcome.

So in short, chuck The Doctor in the deep end, have him work things out as the problem gets increasingly dangerous, and make sure the final confrontation is a risky, down-to-the-wire solution that The Doctor has pushed himself to achieve.

Or maybe they should just make all stories two-parters.

What is Fixing Who?

I am a fan of Doctor Who.

Now that's not to say I'm a rabid Whovian, but I have watched the majority of the surviving episodes, and even a couple of the reconstructions that are floating around.

Over the last couple of seasons I have been growing increasingly uneasy about the direction the show has been taking. More and more little niggles are adding up to really rub me the wrong way.

My overarching complaints can be categorised as:

• Go, go, go, Geronimo!
• The Companion Show, featuring The Doctor
• Hunka hunka burning Doc
• Deus Ex Screwdriver
• In-Who-Endo

I'll expand on these later, but I'd hope those on the same page as me would already have an idea what I'm getting at with each of these. The list is by no means exhaustive, but many of the smaller issues are symptoms of the larger ones

I've been thinking about these problems for a while, but I recently realised that rather than dwell on the negatives it would be a far more fun exercise to whip out the old Sonic Screwdriver and work out what it would take to fix the show I have loved from childhood.

I also hope to get the chance to rework specific problem episodes to show how they could have been done better.

Of course, this is all my own opinion, and I'm not a qualified writer, but I do watch a lot of telly, and that's gotta count for something, right?