Review - The Woman Who Lived

The Doctor ditches Clara to chase down an alien artefact in 17th century England, only to run into his little hybrid in The Woman Who Lived.

Season 9, Episode 6 - The Woman Who Lived

After landing in the TARDIS, The Doctor stumbles upon a highway robbery in progress, the perpetrator of which turns out to be the immortal Ashieldr, now the notorious Highwayman The Knightmare. Having ruined her attempted robbery and also lost the alien artefact he was searching for, The Doctor returns to Ashieldr's house to learn what she's been up to since he made her immortal.

Ashieldr has forgotten many of the events of her long life including her name, but has volumes of diaries that record them all. These act as a convenient way for The Doctor to learn about many of the tragic events of her life without all the hassle of making her open up and tell him. I can't work out if this is lazy writing or sheer brilliance. I think I'll roll with it though. It just works.

You just saved us a full episode of deep character interaction.

She has loved, and even had children, only to lose them. Some events have been torn out of the diaries, and when asked about them, she reveals she does that when she wants to forget. The Doctor can't understand what could be worse than losing her babies, but she explains she keeps that one to remind her not to have any more.

Williams does a great job of the flashbacks here. They nicely bridge the gap between the slightly naive Viking girl we met before and the old woman in a young woman's body we see now. She has been hardened by her long and lonely life, which was alluded to at the end of the previous episode. Now she is determined to shake the bonds of Earth and explore the universe. She asks The Doctor to take her with him, but he refuses. In the face of that refusal, she goes to the gardens and speaks to a shadowy figure with glowing eyes. It's made pretty clear she is going to betray The Doctor. 

They then work together to retrieve the alien artefact, now identified as a jewelled pendant called the Eyes of Hades. During the break-in to steal the pendant, Ashieldr offers The Doctor a face mask. He declines, saying he has his own. Yep, you guessed it. Those bloody sunglasses are back. Thankfully the only thing he uses them for this episode is lighting a candle, which sound waves could at least conceivably achieve.

*Shakes fist in impotent rage*

After recovering the Eyes of Hades, Ashieldr again asks The Doctor to take her with him. When he again refuses she goes through with her original plan to give the artefact to a stranded alien called Leandro from Delta Leonis (that's right, he's a lion man) who needs it to escape Earth. However it turns out the pendant is only activated by a death. The Doctor is outraged at Ashieldr's willingness to kill, but the embittered woman sees mortal people as transient, and she refers to death as an "abundant resource."

As Ashieldr and Leandro leave to attend the hanging of Ashieldr's rival highwayman, Sam Swift, The Doctor talks his way out of custody and follows hot on their heels. Swift is spending his final moments making jokes, some which were rather bordering on In-Who-Endos, but The Doctor soon shows up and uses his psychic paper to grant Sam a pardon. Ashieldr then goes all in and uses the Eyes of Hades to draw the life force from Sam, creating a portal in the sky. 

Not another one.

But as predicted by The Doctor, Leandro double crosses Ashieldr and his story to her is revealed to be a lie. As alien ships begin firing through the portal, preparing to invade, Ashieldr remembers human compassion and uses her remaining Mire chip to restore Sam's life force and repel the invasion, but not before Leandro escapes through the closing portal. Afterwards, The Doctor and Ashieldr celebrate in the pub with Sam Swift and discuss the future. Ashieldr decides to dedicate her life to looking after the people left behind in The Doctor's wake.

As The Doctor sits in the TARDIS thinking and noodling on his guitar as has become standard this season, Clara returns. She shows him a picture of one of her students. Lurking in the background with a fairly sinister smile is Ashieldr, lending further evidence to her being the season arc.

All up this was a pretty damn good episode. It built on the previous episode despite no direct connection between the two threats. The Doctor and Ashieldr worked together reasonably well, and the lack of Clara had zero impact on the episode. I could maybe see her as a permanent Companion, but I do get why she won't really work well as one.

I was a bit put out by the initial interaction with Sam Swift, but it becomes clear they were setting his jocular attitude up as a catalyst to bringing Ashieldr back on track. An example for The Doctor to point to and say, "he gets it."

I am now genuinely interested in the season arc. Is Ashieldr the Minister of War? Is she still on track? What does that smile mean? I am hoping that the references to the arc drop off for a while though. Definitely the best this season, and possibly the best of Capaldi's run so far.

10/10

Can we fix it?

Not much to do here. Shave out some of the sexual innuendos in Sam's gallows humour, or at least make them less overt, and get rid of those freaking sunglasses. They literally added nothing to this episode. Neither, for that matter, did The Doctor playing his guitar again. These things were minor and didn't really affect the quality of the episode, but they are adding to the overall caricature of The Doctor we are seeing this season, and is starting to feel very samey.

Review - The Long Game

There's nothing much wrong with The Long Game, apart from having to follow the perfection that was Dalek.

Season 1, Episode 7 - The Long Game

Off we jaunt to the far future of Earth with young Adam Mitchell trailing behind. Its interesting to see this new dynamic develop with a second companion. With The Doctor and Rose decidedly not interested in each other, The Doctor seems to become more paternal with Rose, even  sort of helping her impress Adam.

The concept of Platform 5 and its floor-based hierarchy was an interesting one. The environments were well realised, with that oh so slightly Blade Runner-esque used future feel to them. It had a realness that many other Sci-Fi shows (even other episodes of Doctor who) often fail to achieve.

Simon Pegg was, naturally, brilliant as The Editor. He gave the perfect balance of over-confident Machiavellian genius and simpering lackey, depending on who he was talking to. Very well played.

Always a winner.

The idea of the media controlling humanity is an interesting and frankly terrifying one, but I feel this story may have had more impact in the 80s or 90s, before the Internet and social media began pushing back against (and even feeding) traditional media sources. Still scary though because we can see attempts at it now.

The Jagrafess was a bit of a disappointment. The design was okay, but It looked plastic. I think the glossy sheen all over it was supposed to be moisture, but it didn't really work. I get the feeling they could have achieved a better result with a puppet. Even the explosion (another one?) was a bit poor and could have benefited from some practical effects.

And how is it attached to the ceiling?

Overall, it was a solid episode with little to complain about from my usual list. I was a bit sad they dumped Adam so quickly. There was potential there for a good group dynamic. of course, with The Empty Child coming up, that will be remedied soon enough.

8/10

Can we fix it?

As I said up front, there's not a lot wrong with this episode. If I were to tweak something it would be the mystery around the Big Boss. There are a bunch of questions raised that should have at least been addressed. How was The Jagrafess able to appear and mess up the progression of human history? This should have been the first question The Doctor asked it. Maybe then we could have had some nice foreshadowing of the season arc, which of course relies on The Doctor failing to follow any of this up. As it is, it seems a bit odd to me that The Doctor would happily let things will get back to normal without at least exploring the origins.

Not a big deal, but it just seems a bit wrong.

Review - Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

On the surface Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS seems alright, but when you get down to it, it's riddled with little problems that make it almost totally unengaging.

Season 7, Episode 10 - Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

When I first heard the concept of this episode, I was expecting a thinly veiled excuse to reference previous episodes from the past 50 years. To be honest, I was kind of looking forward to that. Like a Where's Wally (or Waldo depending on where you're from) for hardcore Whovians. There was a little bit of that, but it was misplaced and quickly abandoned. It was great to see the Eye of Harmony and other references like the pool and the library, plus there were a few objects for sharp-eyed fans, but so much more could have been made of the time echoes. It was nice to hear the voices from the past, but some footage would have been good too. It may have been difficult, but I don't think impossible.

The story itself wasn't a bad idea. Sadly it stumbled on more than one occasion. The monsters were reasonably creepy, but there was no explanation as to why they would be violent. Without any motivation for their violence, I'm left feeling they were just included because... well... you've gotta have a monster. They didn't really need to be there because there is already a bigger threat, the TARDIS itself. Hey, I'm sensing a pattern.

Overall the structure suffered in the middle. Things got a bit Go, go, go, Geronimo! because there was no distinct investigation or escalation phases. The monster reveal was poorly handled, with them being almost immediately visible and violent, with none of the slow build-up that makes for a good episode.

The pacing also suffered due to the characters' inability to remember how scared they are. Even after the death of Bram, Gregor remained focused on salvage. I know this was supposed to be in his character, but selfishness isn't stupidity. I'd expect a desire to save himself over claiming salvage. We also see Clara one minute running from one of the perusing creatures, the next happy to stop and wonder at the various rooms she passes. She even takes some time to have a read of a book that shouldn't really have caught her attention beyond it being sat on a pedestal. Clara hasn't been introduced to the Time War, and so it makes no sense for her to feel a need to read so pressing that she forgets the creepy burning zombie that she's running away from.

I'm curious as to why The Doctor didn't try more forcefully to stop Gregor from taking the circuit from the TARDIS' architectural reconfiguration system. I'm glad he was non-violent and didn't just do the standard "angry Doctor yelling" bit, but he just acted like a whiney little kid who's had his toy nicked by the schoolyard bully. He completely failed to convey the danger of its removal, so I can totally see why Gregor didn't think it was that big of a deal. The Doctor didn't even raise an objection when he threatened to blow the wall up.

The sub-plot with Tricky not really being an android seemed really tacked on. Maybe they wanted the minor characters to still have an arc that left them better off for their contact with The Doctor, but all it really did was chew up screen time with a bunch of angst that didn't really add anything. And why did the fact that he could sense the TARDIS' pain come up so often? The natural assumption is some kind of machine empathy, but then it's not fully explained after we find out he's human.

The scene on the cliff could have really dripped with Hunka hunka burning Doc, but was actually rather restrained. It could be taken either way, and so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt for now and assume it was a platonic mixture of friendship and fear. That said, the scene itself was pure Companion Show featuring The Doctor, rubbing the season arc in our faces.

The ending was rather rushed and wasn't internally consistent. If the magnetic beacon that The Doctor wrote on was from his timeline, how was it able to shut off the tractor beam in the past? Surely there would still be an active beacon there that was causing the issue. Either way, the resolution seemed to me to be engineered entirely to create a situation whereby Clara could discover The Doctor's name and then forget it. An unfortunate case of season arc influencing story.

And did "new timeline Tricky" know who he was, or was he was still under the impression he was an android? It was a bit sad if he was.

'Hey, Robobitch! Make me a sandwich.'

Ultimately this episode had potential, but failed to deliver. Too much time was spent on the minor characters and not enough on exploring more of the TARDIS. The monsters were an unnecessary inclusion and the Deus Ex Machina ending (A reset button? Really?) was almost, but not quite, a slap in the face.

4/10

Can we fix it?

The problems are all over the place with this episode, so it could be tough to come up with a simple fix. I think the first point to deal with is the salvage crew. They need to be a bit better defined. Gregor is greedy, self important and won't listen to anyone else. He is a villain and will not change. Bram is the big dumb one who goes along with whatever Gregor tells him simply because he thinks he's too stupid to have an opinion. Tricky is introduced as an android, but makes no special mention of the TARDIS' feelings. He questions Gregor frequently and is clearly in the right with most decisions, but defers to the Captain as is his place.

We open the same way with reference to the TARDIS not liking Clara, which would be the only reference to the season arc in the episode. The TARDIS crashes the same way (but without the beacon) and The Doctor gets the salvage crew into the TARDIS the same way, but once inside, things go differently.

The major fix would be with the monsters, and the best way of doing this is to change the way all of the time echoes are handled. The echoes themselves should get increasingly real, starting off as barely heard voices and just glimpsed shadows. This allows for some footage from very early serials to be spliced in, even if it's just a ghostly William Hartnell standing there talking, or one of the old companions.

With no monster threatening her, Clara's journey of discovery (and our journey of re-discovery) can be a bit more quaint, finding rooms and objects from The Doctor's past and chasing voices and half seen strangers through the corridors. She may see the History of the Time War, but she doesn't read it. The book exists purely to tease fans who would fantasise about being able to read it. As the episode progresses, the time echoes get closer to the present, and more real. The voices are clearer and the visions more solid, until we start seeing a few seconds into the future. In fact, we could have Clara chase an echo of herself chasing her echo deeper into the TARDIS.

Meanwhile, The Doctor and the salvage crew start their search and decide to split up, but Gregor and Bram go off together, following the scanner's directions to the architectural reconfiguration system. The Doctor and Tricky also experience some time echoes, and at first The Doctor dismisses them as the TARDIS venting some pent up time energy from the crash or some such, but he gets increasingly worried as the echoes get stronger.

At this point The Doctor finds Clara just as she's about to touch one of his echoes. He explains that the echoes are like ripples in a pond; at the edge they're weak but the closer to the disturbance the stronger they get, and that coming into contact with them would cause an energy backlash that would kill you. Whatever caused the disturbance will soon happen, and The Doctor doesn't think he can stop it because technically it's already happened.

By now Gregor and Bram have found the architectural reconfiguration system. When they take the circuit, the TARDIS begins quaking, and it is only now that the TARDIS begins reshaping herself. The Doctor notices what's happening and confirms the problem through an interface panel (rather than just waving his wa... I mean screwdriver). The TARDIS is using too much energy reconfiguring itself and can't contain the power overload.

Gregor and Bram wander around the corridors of the TARDIS until they finally have a run-in with the burning zombie echoes, but now instead of outright attacking, the echoes simply shamble towards them. It is fear of the how the creatures look that makes the brothers run as opposed to them actively trying to attack. During their flight, Bram pushes a zombie away with his pick. The pick freezes and shatters, causing a cold burn up his hand and arm.

The Doctor leads his group towards the heart of the TARDIS, which they need to access through the Eye of Harmony. Now they have a run-in with the burning zombies, and The Doctor gets very worried. They meet up with Gregor and Bram and keep running from the zombies. They get trapped in the Eye, but because the TARDIS removed the doors. At this point The Doctor demands the return of the circuit, with Gregor refusing. The Doctor explains that the Zombies are future echoes of themselves burned to a crisp because of him, and Bram and Tricky demand he comply. Gregor continues to refuse, claiming the Doctor is tricking them out of their pay. Tricky tries to talk him down, but Gregor yells that he's the Captain and to stop questioning his orders, he always thinks he knows better etcetera, and eventually a fight breaks out. Tricky recovers the circuit but Gregor goes over the edge, dragging Bram with him.

Tricky tosses the circuit to The Doctor and goes to help Bram who's hanging from his uninjured arm. The Doctor fiddles with the circuit and Tricky grabs Bram as we see the zombies have reappeared at the far end of the gantry, slowly advancing. Tricky struggles to lift Bram who tells him to let him go and save himself. Tricky refuses, saying he is expendable. Bram reveals Tricky is human and his younger brother. The Doctor activates the circuit *sigh* with the Sonic Screwdriver I suppose, reinstating the doors and creating a platform that lifts Bram back up. We see the zombies fade away as the group leaves the Eye of Harmony.

As the group enters the heart of the TARDIS, it is on the verge of meltdown. The Doctor begins doing some jiggery pokery as Bram explains the situation to Tricky. The story would remain the same, except with an implication that Gregor may have caused the accident that injured Tricky as a means of getting rid of his father's favourite and claiming what he saw as his birthright.

The Doctor manages to vent the built up energy, resulting in a wonderful collage of clips from the past 50 years, and everything is wrapped up nicely, with Tricky taking over as Captain.

With this we get a much longer nostalgic walk down memory lane, and a better buildup of the threat level. We have a clear villain with a better motivation for his lies than "it was good for a laugh," and who is killed for being stupid and greedy. Plus it's a much clearer resolution for poor Tricky. We also avoid getting bogged down in the season arc too much and don't have to resort to a weak "reset button" ending.

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.

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.