Season 9 wrap-up

As Season 9 comes to a close, let's have a little look back.

My scores

Episode 1 - The Magician's Apprentice 9/10
Episode 2 - The Witch's Familiar          7/10
Episode 3 - Under the Lake                   8/10
Episode 4 - Before the Flood                 6/10
Episode 5 - The Girl Who Died             9/10
Episode 6 - The Woman Who Lived     10/10
Episode 7 - The Zygon Invasion            9/10
Episode 8 - The Zygon Inversion         10/10
Episode 9 - Sleep No More                    9/10
Episode 10 - Face the Raven                 8/10
Episode 11 - Heaven Sent                    10/10
Episode 12 - Hell Bent                           8/10

                              Season Average =  8/10

This season started off quite strongly with The Magician's Apprentice, but then again, I'm a sucker for Davros. Sadly this story fell short in the conclusion, as dos the next one. After this little false start, the season was very solid. The introduction of Ashieldr was a breath of fresh air. It's always fun when someone can challenge The Doctor, and Maisie Williams was superb in the role.

The loss of Clara was probably about due. As I've said before though, its impact was considerably lessened by the addition of two more episodes with her appearing, and the knowledge that she had what was likely a considerable life after that. Her death went from a cautionary tale about the dangers of hubris to essentially showing her being rewarded for her arrogant behaviour with effective immortality.

For all that though, I know I would love to watch at least a little bit of the Clara and Ashieldr show. The things those girls could get up to.

Have fun, you crazy kids!

Ongoing problems

Thinking about my pet peeves, Season 9 had:

• A whopping 6 episodes with In-Who-Endos
• 3 episodes that resorted to Deus Ex Screwdriver
• 2 episode with problems associated with Needlessly Recurring Monsters
• 1 instance of there being Too Many Monsters
• 1 episode that got a little bit Go, go, go, Geronimo!

I'm not sure, but this could be a record with regards to In-Who-Endos. Most of them added nothing as well, like Clara's couple of references to a lesbian fling with Jane Austin. It's so frustratingly unnecessary.

I thought with the early loss of the Sonic that we'd get less Deus Ex Screwdriver this season, but the immediate introduction of the seemingly even more powerful Sonic Sunglasses kept it relatively alive. Still not as bad as some seasons for actual usage, but as a concept, the sunglasses annoyed me no end. I'm glad to see them go, even if the new design of the sonic is a bit... elaborate.

Add more glowing bits!

The large number of two-parters has all but eliminated Go, go, go Geronimo! as an issue. That said, a couple of those two-parters were probably more like loosely related standalone episodes. The Girl Who Died / The Woman Who Lived could easily have been split up with no loss of coherency. Similarly, Face The Raven, Heaven Sent, and Hell Bent were only technically the same story because each picked up immediately after the last and were steps in getting The Doctor to Gallifrey. The stories themselves were reasonably separate.

I'll also point out that most of the stories showed The Doctor in his new Rock and Roll guise, playing the electric guitar for no real reason. I'm categorising this as his Annoying Catch Phrase, and very much got to the More of the Same stage.

Season Arc

The Hybrid arc was one of the most blatant since the reboot. Davros fully explained the prophecy in the second part of the first story, so it was out there early. This meant we had to have several stories that attempted to pile confusion onto the situation by adding a bunch of things that could be referred to as Hybrids like Ashieldr and Osgood.

In some ways, I felt this arc didn't have enough time to play out. Perhaps this is the one drawback of having so many two-parters. It would have been nice to see this arc play out over a longer period. There are a bunch of other things that could possibly be considered Hybrids that could also have been referenced here. River Song is basically a Hybrid. Rose Tyler absorbed the Time Vortex, so maybe that counts. Then there's the Doctor Donna and even Cyber-Danny. References to these as possibilities of being the prophesied Hybrid would have allowed a greater tease and more confusion.

Another way to fix this would be to reorder the episodes. Having Davros' story coming after initial teases of the Hybrid would allow more subtle references to possibly go over audiences heads, only to have Davros reveal the truth around mid-season. A good reordering of the season would be:

Episode 1 - The Zygon Invasion
Episode 2 - The Zygon Inversion
Episode 3 - The Girl Who Died
Episode 4 - Under the Lake
Episode 5 - Before the Flood
Episode 6 - The Woman Who Lived
Episode 7 - The Magician's Apprentice
Episode 8 - The Witch's Familiar
Episode 9 - Sleep No More
Episode 10 - Face the Raven
Episode 11 - Heaven Sent
Episode 12 - Hell Bent

There would of course need to be a couple of minor re-writes, but I feel like this would work quite well. We'd start with the very strong Zygon story which ends with The Doctor looking all shifty when Osgood refers to herself as a Hybrid (rather than him using the term). This wouldn't mean anything to audiences yet, but The Doctor's reaction would show it's important. I'd then downplay the reference to Ashieldr as a Hybrid at the end of The Girl Who Died by not actually using the term. Saying she is part Human, part Mire would be enough. By splitting up the Ashieldr stories, you give audiences time to forget about the Hybrid. Sticking the Fisher King story in there would add confusion by referencing the Minister of War, which I originally took as the season arc, coming as it did straight after the Hybrid thing seemed to be resolved.

After the events of The Woman Who Lived, The Doctor gets depressed about the Hybrid, because he has realised (wrongly) that Ashieldr is it, so he goes on his bender, and we get the Davros story. A quick break from that whole thing with Sleep No More, then into the three-part finale to wrap the season up.

Another small benefit of putting the Davros story mid-season is that The Doctor doesn't lose his sonic, and therefore the Glasses don't need to exist for most of the episodes!

Review - Before The Flood

We travel back to 1980 to figure out what happened Before The Flood to create the homicidal ghosts from Under The Lake in what turns out to be a rather bland conclusion to this two-parter.

Season 9, Episode 4 - Before The Flood

After a cold open in which The Doctor explains the bootstrap paradox (he tells us to Google it), we pick up where last episode left off, with The Doctor, O'Donnell and Bennett appearing in the soon to be submerged town in 1980. The town has been done up to look like a part of the soviet republic, which, The Doctor explains, is because it's a training facility for the army at the height of the Cold War.

They soon discover the alien craft they had salvaged in the future, and The Doctor quickly identifies it as a kind of space hearse. Our top hatted Tivolian turns out to be the undertaker charged with burying a creature called The Fisher King in the traditional manner of taking him to a remote backwater (i.e. Earth). After a couple of truly cringeworthy S&M In-Who-Endos, the team figure out Prentis the undertaker knows nothing about the killer message, and The Doctor returns to the TARDIS to call Clara.

"I like being enslaved. Get it?"

After learning about the new ghost that's appeared outside the Drum, The Doctor admits that his fate is already sealed, but sets about trying to solve the problem before his time runs out. He tries to talk to his ghost, but it just accesses a control panel and lets the other ghosts out of the Faraday Cage. In the face of this, The Doctor instructs Clara and the others to hide in the cage but leave her phone outside so that the cage doesn't cut off contact.  

While The Doctor it trying to puzzle everything out, we discover The Fisher King has risen from the slab and has carved the message in the side of the hearse. He then kills Prentis, thereby starting the chain of events already witnessed in Under The Lake.

The Fisher King chases The Doctor and his group, and manages to kill O'Donnell. Bennett chastises The Doctor for not saving her, pointing out the coldness that has become characteristic of Twelve. They try to return to the future, but the TARDIS simply loops back half an hour. The Doctor has to physically restrain Bennett from interfering in past events and altering the future.

Meanwhile, in the future (does that make sense?) the newly arrived ghost of O'Donnell steals Clara's phone, forcing her to figure out how to safely leave the Faraday Cage. She realises that Lunn was spared by the ghosts once before, and that is most likely because he hadn't seen the message in the ship. Class isn't happy about it, but he leaves to retrieve the phone. When he fails to return, Clara agrees to go with Cass to find him, despite the danger. 

What danger?

The Doctor confronts The Fisher King, getting a bit of banter back and forth, before tricking it into thinking he'd erased its message. It rushes outside to check, only for The Doctor's ploy to be revealed when the overloading power core taken from the ship detonates, bringing the dam wall down and flooding the town. Presumably the Fisher King is killed in the flood.

As the ghosts close in on the survivors back in the future, the stasis pod opens, revealing it was The Doctor inside the whole time (which I had guessed would be the case last episode). The Doctor uses his ghost, which is actually a hologram, to trick the ghosts back into the Faraday Cage, and things wrap up nicely after that. The Doctor is even able to use his fantasmagorical new Sonic Sunglasses to erase the memory of the message from the minds of the survivors, in a delightful bit of Deus Ex Screwdriver. Or should that be Deus Ex Sunglasses?

Ultimately this is a rather disappointing end to what started off as a solid story. The pacing was really off, and it feels like a lot of nothing happens. Then just as the big bad shows up, he is completely wasted. Also, why is he called The Fisher King? There was absolutely no attempt at explaining that. Ordinarily I'm all for things being unexplained, but this was such a bizarre reference to leave hanging there that it just annoyed me.

We also see what could be the first obvious reference to a season arc, with mention made of "the Minister of War" as something The Doctor had yet to experience. I'd like to hope there will be other subtle references to the finale in previous episodes, but that they were so subtle I didn't pick up on them yet.

So, yeah. A disappointingly flat ending here. Definitely not a favourite.

6/10

Can we fix it?

I think the biggest fix that needs to be made here is just utilising the Fisher King himself more. A couple of off screen kills and a scene of dialogue with The Doctor just wasn't enough. The conversation between the two was great. I very much liked the King referring to the Timelords as "cowardly, vain curators who suddenly remembered they had teeth and became the most war-like race in the galaxy." But so much more could have been done with a physically menacing warrior alien.

I'd have liked to see more chases and close calls as he hunted the heroes down. Perhaps some of the banter we have in the one-on-one between The Doctor and the King could be thrown in here as he's trying to hunt them down.

By culling some of the slower scenes and beefing the tension of this bit up, the solution would have been all the more rewarding. It could also have been good to have Bennett be the one to set the charge by the dam wall, making him far less of a passenger in the final act, and perhaps giving him some sense of revenge for the lost O'Donnell.

Also, I would use a different name for The Fisher King. Unless the season arc turns out to have something to do with Arthurian Legend, it is totally out of place.

Review - Mummy on the Orient Express

The Doctor and Clara go for their "last hoora" with a relaxing train ride that turns out to be less relaxing than planned in Mummy on the Orient Express.

Season 8, Episode 8 - Mummy on the Orient Express

The cold open shows us everything we need to know for the premise of this episode. A woman is killed by a monster only she can see, and this is happening on a train, which for some reason is in space. The on screen timer is a neat little device and clues us in to the time limit before The Doctor has it explained later on.

After the tense ending to Kill the Moon, Clara has resolved to end her adventuring with one more little jaunt to space. The whole dynamic is that of a couple who know the relationship is dying but are desperately trying to end on good terms. Uncomfortable and slightly melancholy.

The episode plays out at a good pace with hints and clues nicely woven into the dialogue, rather than ham-fistedly slapped in just as they're needed. Moments of character development between The Doctor and Clara are well balanced with the more tense investigation and action during attacks by the Foretold. As the attacks increase in frequency, the tension rises and things come to a head nicely.

The Foretold itself was creepy, even if it was yet another "advance slowly and act menacing" type of monster. At least the 66.6 seconds rule kind of justified that and removed the whole, "why don't you just run away" thing.

"I'm much more spry than I look."

The Doctor maintains the detached alien nature we have seen throughout this season, which is a stress point in his relationship with Clara. He of course gets a chance to kind of explain himself at the end, but whilst he is still the same Doctor in that he wants to solve problems and save people, he seems to now have the ability to switch off. I can't really see Ten or Eleven methodically pumping a doomed person for information with out at least saying, "I'm so, so sorry."

I was disappointed to see yet another thing that can supposedly stop the Sonic Screwdriver. What is it this time? Some kind of "interference field," apparently. This is the main symptom of Deus Ex Screwdriver, and I'm not sure why they couldn't have stuck with one of the established weaknesses instead of making a new one. Hell, they could have said the shoe had cause some kind of issue that meant it would take time to open the lock. Time The Doctor didn't have, because he kinda got arrested.

Ultimately the solution comes about reasonably well, if a bit coincidentally. The fact that Perkins has something to do with it was nice, even if the rest of the scientists in the room seem nothing but window dressing. The Doctor shouldn't always be the only person to have any fun.

Frank Skinner as Perkins is a definite highlight in this episode, and helps to elevate it from merely satisfactory to very enjoyable. Any time The Doctor is challenged by someone is great fun. The offer of Companion status was actually quite exciting, as I could see Perkins' dry wit fitting into the TARDIS crew nicely. I hope to see him return at some point.

"Ooooh, yeah, I see your problem, Guv. Won't be cheap. Can't get the parts, you see."

The decision to not reveal the identity of whomever was pulling the strings here was definitely the right one. Knowing wouldn't have offered any additional value to the episode, and it leaves a thread hanging which could be tied into something else later on. I was also glad to see no season arc reference here, even though one could easily have been slotted in as it has in previous episodes this season.

The episode is book-ended by Clara's attempt to resolve her relationships with The Doctor and Danny. Instead of a grown up resolution though, we see a continuation of the "other man" theme which was the main driver of The Caretaker. Much of the final scene could easily be taken out of context and applied to a romantic or sexual situation. This is a great shame, because it seemed a bit of work had gone into sending Clara down the path of breaking up with The Doctor, only to have her ignore that and go on with the deception that caused all the trouble in the first place. Add to that the conversation between Clara and Maisie, where there is uncertainty around the nature of the whole relationship, and we are treading the dark path of Hunka hunka burning Doc again.

Despite all the confused relationship stuff, this is a tight story that plays out well with a believable threat and likeable characters. It's not perfect, but it's a good, solid effort.

8/10

Can we fix it?

Ordinarily I would say we could lose a good chunk of the Doctor / Clara relationship stuff, but honestly, the episode doesn't suffer for it. Instead I'd try to refocus some of it to clarify this isn't a girl trying to work out which man she loves, but is instead about a girl choosing between two lifestyles. She loves one man so much that she is now facing the inevitable putting away of childish things. The love of Danny Pink has given her something to lose should her dangerous lifestyle finally catch up with her. 

This stuff is all there, but it keeps getting clouded with ambiguous romantic implications. I say, get rid of the ambiguity, just as they finally did with Amy Pond when they showed her talking to Baby Melody about Rory. If Maisie must ask if there is a romantic relationship there, Clara should shut it down immediately. 

"No, I have a boyfriend. He's great. I love him. The Doctor is just a friend. Someone to get in trouble with."
"And what does your boyfriend think about that?"
"He doesn't like trouble. He's had enough of that in his life already."
"But you do like it, don't you?"
"Well... I mean, it's not like I need it."

A little exchange like this would make it clear that Clara loves Danny and sees The Doctor as a kind of Partner in Crime type of friend. It would also tie in with the talk of addiction at the end, making the closing scene less like someone plotting continued infidelity and more like a junkie justifying their next binge.

Review - Under The Lake

The Doctor and Clara go ghost hunting Under The Lake in this rather enjoyable first instalment of yet another two-part story.

Season 9, Episode 3, Under The Lake

Deep under a Sottish lake, a research facility has salvaged an alien craft. Scrawled inside is a mysterious message which glints menacingly in the eyes of all who look at it. Soon after, the mission commander is incinerated when one of the crew is startled by a dapper looking ghost and accidentally fires the ship's engines. No need to grieve though, as he's back pretty soon, only with fewer eyes.

I see dead people. But they can't see me.

The Doctor and Clara arrive, and the first thing we learn is that the TARDIS is not happy being there. Despite this, or maybe because of it, they choose to investigate, and it doesn't take them long to run across a pair of ghosts, who are intimidating, but non-violent. The ghosts lead them to the ship, but turn nasty after The Doctor and Clara have seen inside. They eventually run into the crew sheltering in a lead-shielded Faraday cage, and learn the ghosts only come out during the facility's artificial night cycle.

The Doctor spends some time trying to puzzle out what these entities are and how they work, but soon things start escalating and we lose another crew member to the ghosts. Of course, as is traditional, the first victim has been established to be utterly loathsome, so we don't really feel bad about it. 

We are treated to a little explanation about how the ghosts are using the facility to try to kill the remaining people, but the why of it is the pertinent question. There is only one thing for it; catch the ghosts. After a thrilling game of cat and mouse to lure the ghosts into the Faraday cage, our resident deaf character Cass is able to read their lips to decipher what they are saying. Sadly the way she is able to do this is through The Doctor's freaking Sonic Sunglasses.

Why?

I had hoped those things were a once-off. When The Doctor got rid of his sonic in the previous story, I wanted to believe they were going to run without one for a while, thereby eliminating the issue of Deus Ex Screwdriver. Sadly, with the inclusion of these damnable sunglasses, it seems the Sonic will be able to do more things now.

Anyway, The Doctor figures out what the ghosts are up to and what their message means, allowing the crew to salvage a stasis pod that was missing from the alien craft. The Doctor decides to travel to the past to discover what happened to cause this and maybe what is inside the pod, but before he can get everyone to the TARDIS, the ghosts manage to overload the facility's nuclear reactor, causing the automatic safety systems to flood the base in an attempt to cool the reactor.

Despite their best efforts, the crew are split up. With The Doctor unable to pilot the TARDIS to the other side of the flooded hallway due to the presence of the ghosts, Clara and friends settle in to wait for his return. The episode comes to a bit of a killer cliffhanger when another ghost emerges from the murky depths of the lake, resolving into the figure of...

How's that regeneration going for you then?

The pacing of this episode was pretty good, which is no doubt due significantly to the fact that it's a two-parter. It was about as far from Go, go, go, Geronimo! as you can get, if anything feeling a little too slow in parts. It was great to give The Doctor some time to puzzle things out, and as an added bonus, allow the other minor characters to be more than just cannon fodder, or substitute audience members to explain things to. The inclusion of Cass was a nice touch, but it kind of did telegraph that she would end up reading the ghost's lips. Still, great to see minor characters adding their skills to solve the mystery. The ghosts themselves are mildly creepy, and their attempts at physical violence are threatening, but the scarier bit is them using the base itself against their victims. I am genuinely curious as to what's going on here, although I have some theories. Again, my score may want revising after part two, but on the face of it, this one is pretty good.

Apart from those freaking glasses.

8/10

Can we fix it?

Not a lot actually needs doing here. Originally I was going to complain about how the base floods itself to cool the reactor, and how little sense this made, but on second thought, Vector Petroleum has already been established as a fairly heartless company (it is an oil company, after all). So with that in mind, I think it's easy to imagine them killing the crew in favour of losing the facility.

The only change then becomes those bloody sunglasses. We clearly need a video link so that Cass can read the ghosts lips, but there is any number of bits of tech that would conceivably be in this facility to establish a video link. The scuba suits could all have GoPros on them, for example. Bing, bam, boom. No need for sunglasses.

Review - The Witch's Familiar

Davros shows a softer side as we wrap up the season 9 opener with part 2, The Witch's Familiar.

Season 9, Episode 2 - The Witch's Familiar

Last week I suggested it was maybe a little lazy to not explain how Missy managed to survive. Okay. I admit it I was wrong to even mention it. The cold open of this episode was such a stark contrast to last week's which was tight and left me excited about the rest of the episode. This week's was laborious. I felt every one of the four minutes and thirty seconds that ticked by as Missy elaborately described her ploy to Clara. I'm always happy to see call-backs to classic Who, and Missy's words about it not mattering which face The Doctor was using was a nice way of explaining why Capaldi was doing the scene, but part of me would have preferred they stuck with one of the older ones. 

Once we get into the episode proper, The Doctor has a bit of a meltdown, steals a crippled man's wheelchair and begins threatening violence on anyone who tells him the truth. Admittedly the scene with The Doctor tooling around in Davros' chair was pretty funny. And the cup of tea line was brilliant, coming as it did literal seconds after I asked that very question.  

Does funny excuse nonsensical? Yes, it probably does.

Missy and Clara go for a wander through Skaro's sewers, where Missy takes the opportunity to do a bit of exposition around a vital plot device. Missy continues to be hit and miss for me, acting a good mix of nutty and self-centred in this part, but with some cringe-worthy moments too. Using Clara as bait, and tricking her into the Dalek shell was perfect, but her silly American accent thing whilst the decaying Daleks destroyed the live one was so annoying, and it just kept going. I'm also not sure how I feel about the revelation The Master had a daughter. I think I'm okay with it, as it makes him a bit more analogous to The Doctor, who we all know was a dad once.

The reappearance of Colony Sarff worked well here, showing a The Doctor as fallible, although how you could miss that many snakes in the chair, I'll never know. As The Doctor and Davros interacted, my ire began to rise significantly. What were they doing to Davros? He was the ultimate bad guy, and they were turning him into a big softy. I resigned myself to the fact that most people would have a bit of a change of heart when facing down the Reaper, so I just went with it, not once suspecting it was a ploy. My relief at that revelation was palpable. That didn't excuse having Davros suddenly able to open his eyes, nor the accompanying Star Wars line though.

I can't believe I already made that joke last week.

Davros' plot was a good one, but I'm interested to know how he knew the resultant Hybrid Warrior would truly be superior to the current Daleks, and not in some way infected with the weaknesses of the Time Lords. The process wasn't exactly scientific, was it. Just shoot regeneration energy into all the Daleks and see what comes out. Perhaps if he'd been a bit more scientific about the whole thing he wouldn't have ended up with the mother of all plumbing problems.

I was in no way a fan of The Doctor's whole "I knew what you were doing and I let you," thing. It reminded me a bit of The Curse of the Fatal Death. The interesting thing is, that despite not taking up Davros' offer to commit genocide on the Dalek race, The Doctor still seems pretty happy to cause them to be wiped out in another, far more complicated way, which also carried the risk of not working. What if the rotting Daleks had fully regenerated into living beings, rather than the Ghostbusters 2 style anger slime? What if the new Hybrids caught a case of forgiveness from him, and decided to work together despite being shoved into a sewer and all that?

Pictured: Everything going as planned.

Either way, the resolution is a bit of fun, and Missy's attempts to get The Doctor to kill Clara on the way out were delightfully mischievous. The Doctor, naturally lets Missy escape, and despite being surrounded by Daleks in the middle of a crumbling city, her statement that she had "a very clever idea" clearly implies we'll be seeing her again at some point.

Last week I talked about the loss of the Sonic, and questioned whether they'd abandon it for good, thereby voiding the issue of Deus Ex Screwdriver, finally concluding that The Doctor would most likely make a new one after all this was over. Little did I know it would be worse than I thought. Sonic Sunglasses? Groan!

Overall, this one fell a bit flat after the solid set-up in The Magician's Apprentice. In some ways it was good to get more insight into The Master's relationship with The Doctor, but the cold open did drag a lot. There were a couple of places that don't really stand up to close scrutiny, and if the rest of the story was going better, I wouldn't have time to scratch the surface of those and realise that was the case. So not an ideal episode, but buoyed somewhat by the first part.

7/10

Can we fix it?

A couple of quick, easy tweaks to start with here. Stop Missy from doing that stupid voice in the sewer. Also, choreograph or shoot the bit where Clara is threatening her with the stick so that when she snatches it back, it doesn't look quite so clumsy. Seriously, there is no reason Clara couldn't have avoided that lunge. Closer and faster is what that scene needs.

Now for the bigger stuff. I mentioned the opening flashback would have been stronger if they'd used an old Doctor. Having seen how perfectly David Bradley played William Hartnell in An Adventure in Space and Time, getting him in to play the scene as One would have been awesome. That said, Four would have also been a solid choice, because with coat, scarf, hair and hat, you could easily shoot the scene without clearly showing The Doctor's face.

My main alteration here would be to change the whole, "I knew what you were doing" thing. With a slight change of dialogue we could have "I thought that may be what you were trying, but I'm a good bloke, so I did it anyway." It could also be changed so that The Doctor was less concerned with the creation of the Hybrid and more that exactly what happened would happen. This makes him seem less callous about essentially doing the same thing he refused to do earlier. Just because he's not actually doing the killing, doesn't mean he's not responsible.

The Doctor pleads with Davros as he has his energy drained, saying he shouldn't do this, it's dangerous, etc. Davros laughs and gloats until Missy arrives and The Doctor explains sadly and without any smarminess what Davros has missed. Things then play out the same from there on.

Oh, except for the sunglasses. Rather than them being sonic, The Doctor just uses them like a car alarm. They could even make the little bloop-bloop noise.

Man, I hope the sunglasses were a one-off.

Review - The Magician's Apprentice

Season 9 kicks off in spectacular style as The Doctor faces one of his oldest nemeses in The Magician's Apprentice.

Season 9, Episode 1 - The Magician's Apprentice

I sat and watched tentatively as this episode began, the foul taste of Season 8's final episodes still fresh in my mind. "Don't be crap," I thought as a war-torn alien landscape trapped a young boy, and The Doctor showed up to save him. Nothing offensive yet, but nothing particularly reassuring either. Then The Doctor asks who the boy is, and the answer he gets literally made me call out, "Oh-HO!"

"I am your father!"

With that cold open, the bar had been set and the stakes had been raised. Now I was really worried, because if it was crap, it would hurt all the more.

We soon discover The Doctor is being pursued by a robed roller-blader with a severe skin condition, who had tracked him through a handful of locations referencing previous seasons. His a message for The Doctor is that Davros has remembered something, and this revelation clearly sends The Doctor on a bit of a downer.

Then we cut to Clara at Coal Hill, teaching her students all about her apparent lesbian fling with Jane Austin, for some reason. Quite apart from this unnecessary In-Who-Endo, it now seems that everyone is cool with Clara casually receiving calls from secret military organisations at work and running out on her job at a second's notice. Either way we end up at UNIT HQ investigating why every plane on earth has become frozen in time.

Sadly it is nothing but a ruse by Missy, who delightfully doesn't even bother explaining why she isn't dead. In some ways I loved that, but it could also be seen as very lazy. Now I know The Master is pretty crazy now, and I understand we are still meant to see Missy as a bad guy, but randomly disintegrating people seems particularly psychopathic. Her interplay with Clara is nice though. I liked the way she reveals the concept of a Confession Dial, The Doctor's last will and testament. The big let-down that it wasn't for Clara was kind of telegraphed, but still had a nice pay off.

"You ain't no thang."

After some techno-babble, the ladies find The Doctor a few hundred years in the past having an "axe battle." I will admit, it was really fun watching The Doctor rock out, and the dodgy jokes were glorious, but this section chewed up a lot of time, making it feel that not much actually happens this episode. Lumpy-face turns up again, and after a demonstration of his snake powers, we have some kind of Mexican stand-off and The Doctor is coerced into following Snakes McGee to where Davros sits dying.

Then we get treated to another one of those God-awful disguised Daleks. Ugh! I hate, hate, hate them. They look stupid and go against everything the Daleks stand for.

"When they tell you not to run in the toffee apple factory, let me tell you, you don't run."

The stealth planet was an okay device, although the "you can see it once you've been here a while" was a bit of a stretch. Why was Davros' place not stealthed too? How did they get from outer space into atmosphere without feeling it? Not a big deal, but one of those things that can grate if the rest of the episode isn't good enough to help you ignore it. Gladly that isn't the case here.

I liked that they pulled some more archival footage to tie this into the Classic Who stuff. And I absolutely loved showing us Four's line from Genesis of the Daleks which forms the whole premise of this episode. And that leaves us with a delightful cliff-hanger that revisits that very question, asking if The Doctor has changed enough to answer differently this time.

"Sarah Connor?"

It's tough to rate this one, because it's only part one of a two-parter, but on the face of it, I liked it. Missy continues to irk me, but I must admit that this episode had her growing on me. I also note with interest the apparently abandonment of the Sonic Screwdriver. Could it be this spells the end of Deus Ex Screwdriver? It would be an interesting path to take, especially as it gives up a solid merchandising stream. Most likely The Doctor will just build another one when all this is over, but I'm interested to see where they take it. Part two may see me want to retroactively reassess my opinion of this story, but now I'm going to call it a winner. 

9/10

Can we fix it?

Not much to do here, especially in the second half, but the opening could use a couple of tweaks.

Firstly, Clara's call-up to UNIT, needs a review. I wasn't a fan of her commanding her students to whip out their phones and start searching for news on the planes. I'd prefer to have that scene cut down to just have her circle the plane on the window. Sure, the Headmaster can come in at that point and say she has a call, but rather than Clara jump in with, "that'll be UNIT," we instead hear that her mother has been taken ill. Clara would looked perplexed for a second before the Headmaster tells her, "they're trying to get in contact with her doctor," at which point Clara twigs, makes her apologies, and bolts. Things play out the same from there.

The way I see it, The Master / Missy may be insane, but randomly killing people and bragging about windowing his wife is a bit OTT. The Master was originally Doctor Who's version of Loki. Power-hungry and convinced of his superiority to other life forms. The crazy should be manifesting as unpredictability and mood swings rather than malicious murder. 

With that in mind a slight tweak to Clara and Missy's interaction. We should be treated to a glimpse at Missy's point of view here. When Clara talks of Missy going good, Missy looks confused. "I've always been good," she says, "just not your good." Missy could still kill those guys, but rather than brag about how mean she is being to show how she is totally a bad guy still, I swear, she talks about how it's not evil because humans are primitive. A parallel of Loki's ant/boot metaphor would be nice. A particularly cheeky thing would be for her to use it verbatim, prefacing it by saying "A great man once said..."

These are minor quibbles though. Overall it was top notch.

Review - Deep Breath

The Doctor suffers the usual regeneration confusion in the first episode of Peter Capaldi's run, Deep Breath.

Series 8, Episode 1 - Deep Breath

Sorry for the delay on this one, but I've posted some initial thoughts over on Geek-O-Rama.net. Below is the same review, with my suggested fixes as always.

Much like previous regeneration episodes of the New Who, we spend most of the time seeing the doctor getting his head around who he is now. He spends much of the first half of the episode being confused and forgetful. At the same time Clara spends the first half of the episode not knowing how to handle The Doctor's change to an older form.

We touch again on the theme of Companion abandonment, both physical and emotional, as Clara comes to terms with The Doctor's wholesale change and later when he runs off, gets a taste of that "what now" feeling we've seen companions deal with before.

It's made clear fairly early on that there will be no hanky-panky with this Doctor, leading to the final scene in which he makes it emphatically clear that he is not Clara's boyfriend. Early on, Vastra lays it down wonderfully, putting Clara, and by proxy certain segments of the audience, in their place.

For all her protestations, much of Clara's issue with The Doctor's regeneration does seem to relate to physical looks, so that whole scene is quite gratifying in many ways. On the other hand, Clara's implication that she's into older blokes could be a worrying indication that we've not seen the end of Hunka Hunka Burning Doc.

But how could he possibly have adventures in space and time when he's so... grey?

Bringing the Clockwork Men back was an odd choice and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I always thought more could have been done with them, but this felt a bit ham-fisted. Why did they need to be from a sister ship? In The Girl In The Fireplace it was established that it was the destruction of the mission computer that caused the maintenance droids to start cannibalising the crew. Are we to believe this happened twice? I'd have rather seen this as the same group of droids that had all come through a time window and become trapped. I'd hesitate to file this under Needlessly Recurring Monsters as this was only their second outing, but they were clumsily brought back, which is a characteristic of that particular problem.

Sure, I could have harvested a whole face, but where's the fun in that?

The dinosaur was a bit of a nothingness though. It served almost no purpose in furthering the story, apart from a very public immolation. I suppose it did bring the Paternoster Gang there, but I suspect a blue box crashing into the middle of Victorian London would probably have done the same thing. Not exactly a Too Many Monsters type situation, but more of a red herring.

Don't look at me. I'm irrelevant.

This episode went to great lengths to show the parallels between The Doctor with his multiple regenerations and the Clockwork Man with the constant replacing of its own parts. The broom analogy was a good one, which coincidentally I had seen used only recently as I read Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight. I'm not sure if the silver tray scene was taking this too far or not. I think I liked it though. I do worry that this "who am I" business will become a sub-plot that takes up too much of this season.

There are a few choice In-Who-Endos between Vastra and Jenny, but nothing excessively crude. I even chuckled at a few points. Sadly, by involving Clara in these, Vastra and Jenny's relationship is somehow marginalised. The cool thing about Vastra and Jenny's relationship was not that is was a cross-species same-sex one, but that it was seemingly strongly monogamous. By showing that Vastra is into other girls too, really ruins what was a lovely duo.

Please ignore my wife and get nekkid.

And finally The Doctor thinks to ask the question he should have done in The Bells of Saint John. Who gave Clara his number? This really is all the tease for the season arc that we need. Unfortunately that's not spoon-feeding us enough, so they elected to have an entire epilogue scene introducing Missy, the Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere. In a far more tragic turn of events, she refers to The Doctor as her boyfriend. Goddamnit!

A couple of other minor concerns, I noticed The Doctor said "that's not the question" a couple of times. I'm not sure if that's just a one-off for this episode, or if it will become his Annoying Catchphrase. If it does, it's not as bad as it could be, although I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it used a few more times. There was also a touch of Deus Ex Screwdriver with the revelation the sonic is voice activated now.

And I just need to take a second to comment on the new opening credits. Do. Not. Like. There's a hint of something interesting there, but all the cogs and clocks is just a bit too clichéd for me. There's nothing wrong with the good old time vortex with flying names. It's a classic for a reason.

As nice as it was to see Capaldi take on the mantle of The Doctor (and I think he did it well), this episode was just too riddled with issues to score particularly highly from me.

6/10

Can we fix it?

First up, some easy fixes. We dial back the innuendos from Vastra and Jenny a bit, and remove any hint that Vastra is hot for Clara. There's enough comedy in this episode without it. Also, completely remove the final scene with Missy. It was unnecessary and the episode was already significantly over time.

I've already alluded to some of the changes I'd make to the whole Clockwork Men thing. Replace the reference to them being from a sister ship of the SS Madame De Pompadour. It didn't help The Doctor to learn this, and was only there to explain their reappearance to the audience. I'd make them from the same ship, but they got caught outside a time window (or even halfway through) when The Doctor shut things down. This would mean they were hanging around, not for thousands of years, but only a century or so. Enough time to wear out and begin the process of replacing their own systems with human parts, but still retain some clockwork.

Their origin could be revealed during The Doctor's dialogue with the Control Node, removing the need for the naming of any ships. If it was scripted well enough, things could be relatively obscure, whilst at the same time making the audience aware of the link to the previous episode.

"We were seeking replacement parts to repair damage to our ship. Our time windows were destroyed, but our ship still awaits us. We determined to wait."

It makes little sense for the clockwork robots to harvest human parts to make anything when they are trapped in a resource-rich environment. It worked when they were trapped in space, but on Earth in any timeframe they would have access to raw materials they could fashion parts out of. By highlighting that they are attempting to remain hidden until such a time as they can return to their ship, they sort of justify this behaviour again.

This would also mean the Control Node would have to have a whole face. If he absolutely needed to have half a face to show his mechanical nature, he should have a reason for that such as damage to the skin, as well as try to conceal it. To this end, I'd have his first on-screen victim be shown to claw at his face tearing some of the skin off. After that he would be seen wearing a Phantom of the Opera style half mask, which would harken back to the original appearance in Season 2.

With some further explanation from the Control Node about how over time they found their systems began failing. They originally manufactured mechanical replacements but started using human parts in order to blend in. Stories had begun to circulate amongst the lower classes about murderous and ghoulish nobles who would steal your flesh and couldn't be killed. At this point they fled France, but it didn't stop the revolutionaries cutting the heads off of a lot of nobles. But the human bits have a short lifespan, and need more regular replacement., leading to the harvest restaurant.

Everything else could play out the same way, even the flying escape pod and the cheesy impalement on Big Ben.

Honestly though, these guys better not show up again. They are supposed to be unique enough to make The Doctor geek out over them. Let's keep them that way.

Season 2 wrap-up

With my reviews of Season 2 complete, it's time for another season wrap-up.

My scores

Episode 1 - New Earth                         5/10
Episode 2 - Tooth and Claw                 8/10
Episode 3 - School Reunion                  9/10
Episode 4 - The Girl in the Fireplace   8/10
Episode 5 - Rise of the Cybermen         8/10
Episode 6 - The Age of Steel                 8/10
Episode 7 - The Idiot's Lantern             8/10
Episode 8 - The Impossible Planet        8/10
Episode 9 - The Satan Pit                     8/10
Episode 10 - Love & Monsters             5/10
Episode 11 - Fear Her                          7/10
Episode 12 - Army of Ghosts               9/10
Episode 13 - Doomsday                       8/10

                              Season Average = 7/10

After a poor start with New Earth, we settled into a fairly solid season until Love and Monsters sends it all crashing back down. We didn't quite get any 10/10 this season, although School Reunion was very, very close.

Yes!

No!

Ongoing problems

How does this season stand up with regards to my pet peeves? Well, Season 2 saw:

• 2 episodes featuring instances of Hunka hunka burning Doc
• 2 episodes with In-Who-Endos
• 3 episodes that resorted to Deus Ex Screwdriver
• 1 episode that veered into The Companion Show Featuring The Doctor territory

We see a continued reliance on the Sonic, with three episodes using it in silly ways or having to specifically lock it out. However, this was balanced by several episodes where The Doctor used other devices to achieve a goal that I feel in more recent times he would have used the Sonic for, so that was nice.

Overall, the instances of these problems seemed to be less frequent this season, which could have contributed to the fairly consistent high scores I've given them. The main fixes I applied to these episodes have been tightening up the story and closing plot holes.

Season Arc

The Torchwood arc started off rather subtle, but like the Bad Wolf arc, the hints sometimes felt forced.

Subtle is good.

All up, the concept of Torchwood was probably a little easier to work in to the various stories than the phrase "Bad Wolf". References to Torchwood all seemed relatively natural, apart from maybe The Captain's reference in The Satan Pit. I suppose it also helps that Torchwood is an organisation that can have an impact on many aspects of The Doctor's adventures.

References to the series arc were far more sparse this season, with just under half the episodes featuring a reference (6 out of 13), compared to nearly all episodes in series 1. The first mention of Torchwood in Season 1 could go unnoticed, but its impact in The Christmas Invasion makes it clear that whatever it is, it's powerful and possibly dangerous. Our first reference in Season 2 proper outright states what it is, so although we are yet to see what Torchwood becomes, we already know from the outset broadly what it is.

Could this have been handled differently? Maybe. If the origin reveal had come later in the series, the references would have been a bit more mysterious. Swapping Tooth and Claw with Fear Her could help a lot, meaning that by the time we see Torchwood's origin, we have already been teased with multiple Torchwood references. We would also jump straight from that origin to the modern organisation in Army of Ghosts.

Either way, easing up on the number of references and making them feel less forced improves the series arc tease immensely, and makes it feel a lot better integrated into the individual stories.

Review - Fear Her

The Doctor and Rose pop off to the 2012 London Olympics and deal with a couple of  in the lower budget offering, Fear Her.

Season 2, Episode 11 - Fear Her

This episode was apparently written as a lighter episode for kids and as such it didn't get much praise from older viewers. I'm not really sure why, as I quite liked it. Maybe it was the lack of flashy effects or gribbly monsters. For me, neither of those really matter, and their absence forces a reliance on writing.

Consequently the pacing of this episode was spot on, with The Doctor and Rose teasing out clues well and key events happening at a nice rate. From the cold open the scene is immediately set. It's 2012, kids are going missing, and there's a creepy little girl involved. When The Doctor and Rose show up we get nice subtle hints about the temperature and stalling cars which is vital later on. The Doctor points out the evidence of ionic energy being used, and seems to fairly quickly know approximately what is happening, if not why and by whom.

The interplay between The Doctor and Rose is really good in this episode. There's no real hint of sexual tension, and the whole thing plays out as more a master and apprentice type relationship as The Doctor sort of teaches Rose more about his world. I feel like this dynamic gets missed a lot, with The Doctor just pulling the companions along and getting them to do menial tasks with no explanation whilst he shows everyone how clever he is. Here we see Rose picking up on hints and being an active part of the investigation phase of the story. Then Rose has to deal with one of the lowest budget monsters of New Who, The Scribble of Doooooom!

Not at all scary. 

Of course in an unfortunate little bit of Deus Ex Screwdriver, The Doctor is somehow able to "kill" the scribble by waving the Sonic at it. At least he had to take it back to the TARDIS to analyse it. According to some other episodes, he should have been able to determine what it was made of with a little swish and flick.

The scribble leads them (thanks to Rose's insight) to Chloe Webber and her terrified mum Trish. There is strong implication Chloe was abused by her father, and this has clearly had some impact on her. Despite her Trish's assurance she is a "good girl' she has nightmares, and these nightmares are soon to become all too real.

Actually scary.

The Doctor soon finds out that Chloe is possessed by an Isolus, a creature he is familiar enough with to give us a full run-down on and get to the root of the problem. As The Doctor and Rose investigate, there's maybe a bit too much "telling" rather than "showing" particularly during the interrogation of the Isolus, but that's probably a result of the low-budget nature of the episode, as well as the difficulty of "showing" much of the information conveyed here.

Regardless of that, the story plays out well, and action resumes with The Doctor making some kind of doohicky (notice again, it's something the Sonic couldn't do). This gives some time for The Doctor and Rose to discuss the nature of the Isolus as a scared little kid. I liked the little "I was a dad once" reference there too, and Rose's reaction. Ultimately The Doctor's efforts are all for naught as Chloe and the Isolus vanish him, leaving Rose to figure out a solution on her own. Quite a refreshing change.

For all the talk of the Isolus needing and loving Chloe, and the implication these feelings were reciprocated, it seemed pretty quick to dump the kid once it could go home to it's family. This seemed a little off to me. Like some kind of fair-weather friendship. Its departure releases all of Chloe's drawings back to life, including the evil dad picture. And I've got to say, that looming shadow at the top of the stairs was scarier than many of the full-blown monsters of recent years. Perhaps it speaks to that child within that fears such half-seen and yet all-too-real terrors.

Scary as balls!

After everything is wrapped up, we get some nice foreshadowing of Rose's imminent departure. It's a little clumsy, but it plays nicely into the way the next episode opens.

All up, this is a fairly solid outing, even if it does have a slightly saccharine ending with the love-powered space pod and all.

7/10

Can we fix it?

There's not a great deal wrong here but I'd make a couple of tweaks. The departure of the Isolus needs some work and to do that I'd tweak the story in a few places.

Firstly, we would learn from Trish that not only was Chloe's dad abusive, but as a true bully he seemed to enjoy the fear he created. He lost interest in bullying his wife when she began standing up to him, but when Chloe came along, he found he could get more fear out of Trish when he threatened and hurt Chloe. She'd tried to leave. It didn't go well.

We also learn that Chloe isn't such a "good kid", but is in fact moody and resentful. Her behaviour in the episode isn't far removed from the every day, although since the Isolus' arrival, she has become more introverted and detached from reality, as she spends time sharing the Isolus' fantasies. More is made of her nightmares too. These are what drives her to draw her dad. Perhaps the wall around the drawing also shows damage, as though Chloe has been hitting the image. 

Next, when the Isolus leaves it wants to take Chloe with it by transplanting her into a fabricated reality. At this point Chloe feels alone and as though her mother failed her. The Isolus is offering a safe and fun life. After a heartfelt speech from Trish, the Isolus, having recently been separated from its family tells Chloe she should stay.

Whilst The Doctor is running with the Torch, Chloe argues with Trish. She wanted to go with the Isolus. The Isolus can keep bad things away. Keep her safe. At this point Chloe's heightened emotional state allows the drawing of her dad to fully break through. As the shadow appears Chloe goes catatonic with fear. Trish also shrinks away, as Rose is trapped outside, unable to help. Looking at Chloe and with her words fresh in her mind, Trish stands up to the phantom dad, showing Chloe she will always protect her.

I feel this would not only make a bit more sense in that the Isolus and Chloe's relationship isn't simply dissolved at a whim, but it's slightly more empowering to have Chloe's and her mum finally stand up to the dad and send him packing.

Review - The Idiot's Lantern

We touch on themes of domestic violence and women's liberation in post-war Britain in The Idiot's Lantern.

Season 2, Episode 7 - The Idiot's Lantern

As I said above, this story touches some interesting topics beyond the main storyline of a parasitic energy being from outer space. Mr Connolly is clearly a nasty piece of work, mentally and physically abusive of his family, not to mention the kind of bloke who spies on and rats out his neighbours.

In many ways it feels as if Mark Gatiss is speaking to his own father with many of the lines here. It certainly seems to have it's basis in reality. Or maybe I'm just relating to it on some deep level. Either way, these kind of smaller, human problems intermingling with the larger intergalactic menaces make for far more engaging stories in my opinion. They show The Doctor doesn't just fix the big problems, but helps fix people too.

He does this by getting angry

This particular intergalactic menace is The Wire, a very hungry creature who is giving people cheap TV in order to suck their faces off and create a new body during the Queen's coronation. The Doctor first realises something is wrong when he notices all the TV antennae around. I'm not sure if the shape of the aerials was symbolic, but if it was I can't think what they could be getting at.

Something about license fees, maybe.

The Wire is a nicely creepy Big Boss, and its evil plot is solid, but the goons are yet another zombie style monster. The one thing that saves it is the fact that whilst the faceless people are slowly revealed in the same manner as a monster, they are in fact the harmless victims of the real monster. It's actually quite a nice red herring for The Doctor to follow, and plays out well.

Good thing these suit trousers are brown.

Interestingly, the basic premise of a disembodied entity stealing people's essences was recycled in the much poorer episode The Bells of Saint John. Having re-watched this episode, it further highlights the deficiencies in that story, which suffered major pacing issues as well as from having a stupid monster.

None of my usual gripes appeared in this episode, apart from a hint of Deus Ex Screwdriver when The Doctor uses it to scan for brainwaves. It's a bit sad that I'm desensitised to the Sonic being used like this now. Ah well.

So yeah, this is a solid episode that offers a multifaceted story. The Torchwood reference was subtle, and the whole thing moved along nicely to a happy ending for most of those involved.

8/10

Can we fix it?

No, not really. It's not going to be a fan favourite, but this is a solid plot with no major weaknesses. I'd probably leave it as is.