Day 799: The Day of the Doctor

The Day of the Doctor is, unsurprisingly, perfect. It's a massive celebration, not so much of the programme itself, but of the philosophy behind the programme. And there's honestly so much happening in this episode that I'll have to skim over an awful lot, and I'll just look at a few highlights that I feel are what makes this episode special.

For a start, there's the very concept of the episode itself, and how it plays out. One of the biggest changes that Russell T Davies made to the character of the Doctor when he brought the series back in 2005 was to have the Doctor destroy Gallifrey and kill all of the Time Lords. And that's good for the programme, as it introduces a new facet to the Doctor's character; something which leads him to have a new found sense of regret and guilt about what he's done. But the problem with this is that this doesn't seem like something that the Doctor would do. The Day of the Doctor keeps coming back to that question as John Hurt's War Doctor, who is about to commit that act, continually questions himself about what is his best option. So that gives the story an opening to consider what the character of the Doctor really should be, what connects each of the twelve actors who have so far played him into doing what the Doctor does.

And we see that through the sub-plot of the episode, where the Doctors have to not only prevent a Zygon invasion of Earth, they also have to prevent UNIT from blowing up the Earth as well. So they do this by forcing them into a situation where they have to negotiate a peace, by wiping everyone's memory of whether they are Zygon or human and then forcing them to sit down and talk. It's put down in the episode as penance for the Time War, where the Doctor feels so guilty about what he has done to Gallifrey and how he was forced to take the violent solution that he opts to always seek for the peace in the universe. It's what drives the New Series Doctors in a nutshell, that they remember what happened on that fateful day on Gallifrey and that they swear never to do it again, they will be the Doctor forever-more.

But the problem with that reading, as the story points out, is that it still doesn't excuse the War Doctor from destroying Gallifrey. Because that title that the Doctor has taken on extends far back to before the series even started, all the way back to before the TARDIS landed in a junkyard in 1963. It's a decision that he made to never be cruel or cowardly, always to help people in their time of need. And with all of that in mind, it's still impossible to imagine the Doctor destroying Gallifrey like that. As Clara says when the Eleventh Doctor joins the Tenth and War Doctors in support to use the Moment to destroy Gallifrey "I never pictured you doing it". As written, it's an easy decision to make for the character, but when you start to picture it in your mind, you can't see any of the Doctors doing it - actually killing so many innocent lives.

So, naturally, the Doctor decides to rewrite history, bringing together all of his past, and one of his future, selves so that they can save Gallifrey by sending it away somewhere safe from Daleks. And it's one of the most beautiful moments in the history of the programme because it's all about saving lives on a massive scale - taking the peaceful solution en masse. And throughout that sequence, there's one moment that stands out for me as a single segment of joy that's never fully explored in the episode. Of all the Doctors there, only a handful get put on the screen by themselves. And chief among them is not the eyebrows of the Twelfth Doctor, instead it's the face of the Ninth. This man, who has been so tortured by this decision that he believes that he has made, is here saving Gallifrey and doing the thing that he constantly wished that he was able to do throughout his all too brief time aboard the TARDIS. And that's kind of perfect.

So that's The Day of the Doctor in a nutshell. It takes the concept of what the series is all about and plays around with it, before finally settling on this idea of the Doctor as the man of peace in a Universe at war. And it's that concept that's made Doctor Who one of the greatest television programmes ever, in my opinion, and it's what made the last 2 and a bit years such a joy to do. But that time must come to an end, as all things do, and the end is rapidly approaching for We've Got Work to Do...

Day 751: Journey's End

Provided that you ignore 5 minutes of Journey's End, you're left with what is actually one of Russell T Davies' best finales. It fixes the majority of my problems with The Stolen Earth, and whilst it still has some mild problems, it's fairly easy to overlook them in the grand scheme of things.

The mild problems generally revolve around the Tenth Doctor clone (henceforth referred to as Handy Doctor) that was created with Donna's input. Coming completely out of nowhere, it doesn't entirely work as a resolution to the cliffhanger, making the audience feel just a little bit cheated as a result. Also, I'm not entirely happy with the fact that the tragic ending of Doomsday is entirely undone thanks to this clone of David Tennant that pops up out of nowhere to go off and have the sexy times with Rose (this also relies on the fact that people have forgotten that it's not an exact clone of David Tennant, it's also got some genetic input from Catherine Tate. Which could be useful, I suppose). But whilst I can nitpick this, it does work in the overall insane atmosphere that permeates through Journey's End. And also, it does give a magnificent Three Doctors joke courtesy of Captain Jack Harkness, which is a personal highlight of mine for this story.

Another highlight is the scenes featuring Davros, as played by Julian Bleach. The character dances as a villain for the Doctor, pointing out all of his failings as a character, such as his arrogance and his double standards of hating the army yet managing to turn all of his companions into his soldiers. The scenes also provide the much needed stillness that I was yearning for in The Stolen Earth. The extended running time of this episode allows for the Doctor and Davros to simply sit down and have a conversation of their various positions, which helps make the story just a little bit more palatable in my opinion.

So, at the end of the day, we're left with a story that, despite its flaws, is still ridiculously fun and one of my favourite finales from the Russell T Davies era. Except, of course, for one small thing.

I mentioned before about how I said to ignore 5 minutes of Journey's End. Those five minutes represent one of the most uncomfortable and frankly sadistic moments in the history of Doctor Who. Donna has partially merged with the Doctor, absorbing his mind. However, the mind of the Doctor is too big for a human and so it is threatening to kill Donna. So the Doctor does what the Doctor does. He wipes away her entire mind and all of her memories of their time together, effectively killing the woman that Donna had become. It doesn't feel like the right thing for the Doctor to do in that situation. Instead of letting her die as the wonderful woman that she became, he instead sentences her to the fate worse than death of making her forget everything that they did together.

And this isn't the only time that this has been brought up in the series, but in each of those times it was dealt with far more intelligently than it was here. In The War Games, for instance, the decision is taken out of the Doctor's hands for Jamie and Zoe's minds to be wiped. It works within the context of the story because it's being given to them as a sort of punishment from the Time Lords for travelling with the Doctor. The Doctor's hands are nowhere near this decision, and he feels just as heartbroken as we do that this injustice has occurred. So that's an argument previously present in the series to say that this sort of thing should be seen as heartbreaking on behalf of the Doctor. But one could argue that the Doctor does feel heartbroken over this action that has been forced upon him. So we need further evidence within the context of the series.

Enter Forest of the Dead. River's death scene is made all the more interesting because she does it willingly on behalf of the time that she spent with the Doctor. Despite the Doctor's protests of how time can be rewritten, she only responds by saying that her time with the Doctor can't be rewritten, and that she wants to die with those happy memories that she shared with him, rather than live and not remember. It presents the argument that the Doctor shouldn't have interfered with the memories of the companion, and that the companion should have really died rather than have someone else meddle with their lives. It also introduces the aspect of choice, that River, and by extension Donna, should be the one to choose their fate, and not the Doctor. It all looks towards putting the ending of Journey's End as something really quite uncomfortable.

Now, there is one last episode that is worth mentioning here, which is of course Hell Bent, the series finale to Capaldi's second series. However, I don't necessarily want to get ahead of myself with respect to the blog, so instead I'll just leave this here, and link forwards to that episode when the time comes. So, I suppose we'll just have to end on a cliffhanger for the moment, and pick up again later...

Behold, a cliffhanger has been resolved!

Day 750: The Stolen Earth

The Stolen Earth is an episode that I've personally got mixed feelings about. On paper, the episode feels remarkably fantastic, but as broadcast the episode doesn't quite work in some areas, while wholeheartedly succeeding in others.

I think that where the episode's key success is is in its scale. The invasion of Earth by the Daleks feels as epic as it ought to, with the Earth being subjugated in a ball of fire and mayhem, all kept to within the time limit of around 10 minutes. It all makes the Daleks feel impressive and as if they're a powerful force that could feasibly destroy the Earth. Also important is the presence of the large supporting cast, with companions from throughout the Russell T Davies era taking part, making the event feel just a little bit larger than normal episodes would.

However, both of these points also work to the story's disadvantage in my opinion. The Daleks, whilst they feel epic, don't have any real menace behind them that would make them truly frightening. Think, for instance of the silent "Exterminate" scene in The Parting of the Ways, where the tension of Lynda's oncoming death continues to rise, and is then subverted, giving the Daleks the sense that they enjoy the sensation of playing with their victims before they kill them. There's no real scene of that nature in The Stolen Earth, instead the Daleks feel like soldiers going out and killing instead of the truly malevolent creatures of hate that they truly are.

Also, whilst having a large supporting cast is fun, it also makes the episode feel just a little bit crowded. For all that I love the conference call scene in this episode, especially the flirting between Captain Jack and Sarah Jane, I can't help but feel that there's just a little bit too much going on in too short a space of time for my liking. The episode needs a point of stillness within it, where the characters can just breathe and talk about what's happened. There are moments that are like that within the episode, such as Martha meeting with her mother but they all are part of some greater scene where action is being taken, which doesn't totally work in my opinion. Although I will say in the story's defence that the scene where the Doctor and Rose meet again is actually fantastic, and was everything that I was looking for within this episode.

There's also the cliffhanger, which is probably one of the best in the series' history. The regeneration works because it not only represents the oncoming death of one of the series' main characters, the Tenth Doctor, but it also shows takes all previous 'certain death' scenarios featured in cliffhangers by providing an easy way to show that this really is the Doctor dying and there is no way out for him. That is, unless something completely ridiculous happens to lend a hand and get him out of that situation...

Day 749: Turn Left

The Doctor-lite episode was a concept developed by Russell T Davies in order to work around the main cast's shooting schedules. A typical Doctor-lite episode will only have the Doctor in it for a fraction of screen time, with most of the focus instead being placed on the supporting characters. What makes these episodes particularly interesting is the way in which they tell a Doctor Who story without the presence of the Doctor. Love and Monsters decided to take the angle of looking at people who were obsessed with the Doctor, taking the hole left by the Doctor's absence and filling it in with the new characters and their impression of the Doctor. Blink, on the other hand, opted for a different approach by instead showing a Doctor Who story that the Doctor doesn't happen to feature in very much, with the lack of the Doctor in the story not as noticeable thanks to Steven Moffat's strong storytelling. Turn Left feels as if it looked at both of those stories and instead chose to tackle the initial problem head on. Whilst the previous adventures tried to dance around the fact that the Doctor wasn't present, Turn Left openly asks the question of what would happen if you tried to tell a Doctor Who story without the Doctor.

The result is, of course, chaos. Every single event that the Doctor should have saved Earth from instead goes horribly wrong, with massive amounts of destruction and death taking place without his valued input into the Earth. It's an episode that's filled with horrific event after horrific event, and it feels absolutely terrible to watch. It's worth noting as well that Davies makes the clever decision to create all of the tragedy out of the lighter episodes of the series such as The Runaway Bride or Partners in Crime. It's a retroactive impact for all of those previous adventures because it suddenly reminds you that all of those stories had the chance to end horribly, for all of their rompy nature. It reinforces the importance of the Doctor to the Universe, creating not only a stronger episode but a stronger series overall.

And there's so much more besides this to create a frightfully good story. The scenes with Mr Colasanto go from being heart-warming to tragic, and Jacqueline King delivers an understated but perfect performance as Donna's mother. It's one of the best episodes that Davies has produced under his tenure and is, in many ways, absolutely perfect.

Day 723: Doomsday

Doomsday is about the end of a world. Not a physical world, as such, but a more personal world. It is the story of the end of the world of the Doctor and Rose.

As I mentioned yesterday, it's clear that the Doctor has been a massive influence on Rose, perhaps for the worse. And we see that so strongly here, in the opening scenes as Rose encounters the Daleks, not with a feeling of fear or awe, but instead smugness. She gloats about how she destroyed the Emperor Dalek, and how the Doctor is going to destroy every last one of them. And it's becoming more and more apparent that this is affecting her relationships with the people that she loves. Her own mother is distraught when Rose proudly declares that she's going to stay with the Doctor forever and this is rendered in the heartbreaking scene as Rose is sent off to the parallel world against her will by the Doctor, a decision made in the best intentions, but one which she rejects, jumping back to be with the Doctor, because she loves him.

And this leaves the Doctor with a dilemma. On the one hand, he has just been given the opportunity to send Rose away, let her live without his influence acting upon her; let her be safe from all of the horrors of the Universe; let her have a family. But he can't stay angry because of the energy that she brings him. Because he loves her too, and she's been a bad influence on him, but he hasn't wanted to admit it. But, in the briefest of moments, you get the sense that he's preparing himself for life with Rose for the rest of her life, as they get ready to save the Universe.

But it's clear that this will not last, and a series of events conspire to send her back to the parallel universe for good. And, to be honest, this is one of the best things that happens to Rose all series. We see her raw emotion, and all of the subtext of the series comes flowing out. We realise just how much the Doctor means to Rose, and just how much she loves him. And the story concludes with the Doctor meeting Rose on a beach, and they have a talk about what's happened. And she cries that she loves him, and he gets cut off before he can return the affection. It's the real tragic moment of this story, that we see two people fall in love before our eyes, and then they get cut off just as they begin to realise it. Even Romeo and Juliet were allowed some time to

And whilst I may disagree with the length of time over which this story arc is continued, and whilst I may have disliked the relationship between the Doctor and Rose as it developed over the past series, there is no denying that this is a powerful piece of television. And besides that, Daleks fight Cybermen in it, which, to be perfectly frank, is amazing.

Day 722: Army of Ghosts

Army of Ghosts is an episode that I continually seem to underestimate. Every time I watch it, it surprises me in a different way, whether it be through noticing a cameo of a former presenter of the Australian version of Play School, to the fact that the Torchwood Institute is built around the frightening notion of attempting to bring back the British Empire, even down to the fact that they refuse to use the metric system. But these are all hidden details in what is, at heart, a frightening story about love.

It begins with Rose and the Doctor coming back to see Jackie. But it's painfully obvious that Rose is different, she's been absorbing the Doctor's personality as she's been spending more and more time with him and falling more and more in love with him. And it's becoming worrying for Jackie, because she's seeing someone who was once perfectly normal and likeable gain all of the arrogance of the Doctor, blustering into things and laughing at the TARDIS console. There was a scene at the start of Rise of the Cybermen where the Doctor and Rose made Mickey feel uncomfortable, both in a mental and physical sense. And whilst other programmes would do the expected thing of having them develop as characters from that point, and overcome their deficiencies, Russell T Davies makes the brave decision to instead increase their deficiencies. This is seen in the scene where they are smugly moving about the TARDIS console whilst Jackie looks on with a state of worry for the people that they have become.

What Davies has done is taken the audience to the point where it's becoming painfully obvious that the Doctor and Rose need to get a hold of themselves. And whilst there are still some who see this as a touching love story, you can't help but avoid the fact that the story is still building up to some tragic event that has to occur for them. And that tragic event is explored wonderfully in Doomsday.

Day 721: Fear Her

Fear Her is relentlessly disliked. In a recent survey in Doctor Who magazine, ranking all Doctor Who episodes from worst to best up until The Time of the Doctor, Fear Her was ranked 240th out of 241. The only story that it was better than was The Twin Dilemma, which is arguably a story that helped to speed along the cancellation of Doctor Who. So that should give you some idea of how much this story is hated. But why is there so much vitriol for this story? It's a question that I've asked myself time and time again, because I honestly can't see it.

Granted, this story isn't particularly good. It's a cheap episode, and it clearly shows, given that the episode goes out of its way to avoid showing effects shots, at one point substitution the monster with a red light. Similarly, while the episode does have an interesting hook to it: being that a child can draw pictures that kidnap people, it doesn't quite work on screen because it never really follows up on the premise by looking at the people affected by it. Compare Fear Her with The Idiot's Lantern, for instance. The Idiot's Lantern quite clearly shows people distressed by the threat of people being taken away in vans to some undisclosed location, and that shows itself in some emotionally charged scenes peppered throughout the episode. For Fear Her, we get a few scenes of people looking worried, and that's that. It's a failure both in terms of the story, because it should have clearly thought about the emotional impact of what is happening and the acting, which never truly is able to convey the emotion of having children abducted on a regular basis from that street.

But the story does succeed in some areas. It does have an interesting undercurrent dealing with an abusive father, which is a very different area for the series to go into, and I feel that if this sub-plot were part of a better written story, then it would be more well regarded. Also, the 'love conquers all' ending, whilst relentlessly cheesy, is still rather fun, and whilst I may have been laughing at certain moments (the line "We did see a flash of lightning earlier that seemed to strike him" never fails to make me laugh by how understated it is) rather than laughing with certain moments, at least I'm enjoying the story. Overall, it's not as bad as its reputation suggests, and certainly not the second worst episode of Doctor Who ever (<cough> Warrriors of the Deep <cough>). It's just a bit of light relief as the calm before the storm...

Day 720: Love and Monsters

Love and Monsters is a fairly divisive episode. Some say that it's awful because it doesn't properly function as a Doctor Who story, given that the Doctor is only in it for 5 minutes, as well as insulting Doctor Who fans. Others like it for daring to do something different, as well as being affectionate to most Doctor Who fans, and only insulting a certain sect of fans such as one big name fan who had served on the programme as a continuity advisor. As for myself, I'm a bit 'meh' on this episode. I appreciate what it's trying to do, and I love that the story focuses itself on Doctor Who fans, but the story drags in certain places and the ending doesn't quite work in my opinion, notwithstanding the 'love life' joke which is amazing.

But ruminating on whether this story is any good or not doesn't feel particularly interesting to me, so I'll take a slightly different tack. Over the past couple of months, I've been catching up on some DVDs that I had lying around, including the complete set of a British comedy series called I'm Alan Partridge. It's very funny, with some excellent characters, including Michael, a fairly dimwitted and entertaining Geordie. What I wasn't quite expecting was to see the actor who plays Michael, Simon Greenall, pop up in Love and Monsters, playing an entirely different character, which distracted me slightly from the main event.

It's a common problem that I face, encountering actors across various TV series playing vastly different characters. I rushed through The Thick of It a couple of months ago, because I wanted to get it done before the new series of Doctor Who, lest the character of Malcolm Tucker would stick too clearly in the mind whilst watching Peter Capaldi's Doctor. Similarly, I'm holding back on watching the new Jessica Jones series, because David Tennant plays the villain and, whilst delivering an amazing performance, I'm afraid that all I'll see him as is the Doctor. And, of course, I can never forget seeing Guy Siner, the actor who played Lieutenant Gruber in 'Allo 'Allo, pop up in Genesis of the Daleks as one of the Kaleds, an entirely different Nazi analogue. It is for him that I name this problem, Gruber's Syndrome, where you see an actor appear in something that you recognise from somewhere else, and you can't quite disassociate yourself from the role that they previously portrayed. It's annoying, but I've learnt to live with it, and at the very least, it's meant that I have been able to develop a frighteningly large encyclopaedia of actors in my mind, just through seeing them in things elsewhere.

Day 719: The Satan Pit

The Satan Pit differs from The Impossible Planet in terms of action. The first 25 minutes or so of this episode are some of the most intense in any episode of Doctor Who. And whilst it may not seem from the outset to be intense as described, through strength of direction and writing, it becomes something truly marvellous.

It begins slowly, with a brief action sequence to resolve the cliffhanger, but immediately, the tension begins to rise with the ever-present threat of the Ood banging on the door. And just as things begin to sort themselves out, problems start to arise. The Doctor is cut off from everyone else, so Rose is left to help guide the crew-members into a basic plan to escape the Ood. They do this by choosing to go into the maintenance shafts, which is left to the absolute last second. James Strong, the director, takes full advantage of this by having a disorienting series of quick cuts, varying from the cover of the maintenance shaft, the face of Mr Jefferson (the security chief) and one of the Ood slowly advancing. This leads to the impression for the audience that the Ood are closer than they appear to be, and that makes them even more of a threat.

Inside the maintenance shafts, claustrophobia begins to set in. Everything is kept tight, and the Ood are never allowed to be too far away, in a chase to take down the people in the Sanctuary Base. Murray Gold's music keeps rising in tension, only pausing for a brief moment to allow for the sacrifice of Mr Jefferson. This brief pause is well needed, and credit should clearly go to Matt Jones and Russell T Davies, who both did writing work on this story. His death both reminds viewers that the characters are more than capable of dying in this episode, as well as providing a brief moment of quiet in the otherwise intense scene. This allows for the audience to breathe, so that the episode feels real, and not just an extended action scene.

What the moment of quiet also allows for is a jolt to bring the action back to the story. The surprise appearance of an Ood kicks the story into overdrive, ensuring that attention is kept to the story. And then, as quickly as the Ood appears, the sequence is allowed to finish with the crew-members hitting the Ood with a psychic knock-out, leaving them safe, for the time being. And after that sequence, I personally had to pause the episode and go for a quick break to breathe and recover. It's a thoroughly worrying and exciting sequence, and one of my personal favourites in the story.

But that only describes half of this fantastic adventure. I've made no real mention of the Beast, and the work that has gone into that, with all of those fantastic ideas. Nor have I mentioned the Ood in any great detail, where arguably the story's greatest idea is thrown away, only to be picked up again in a couple of series' time. But that's just because there's so much to talk about in this two parter, and so little time to do it in. It's a truly fantastic story, and one that I've been quietly looking forward to over the past couple of days.

Day 718: The Impossible Planet

To be perfectly honest, this story is not only, in my opinion, the best story of Tennant's first series, it is also one of the best stories that I've covered on this blog. It's like a black hole of a story, grabbing your attention and never letting go until the credits start to roll. And it's easy to see why.

Take, for instance, the scene that I've put above, where we see Scooti die in a rather horrific way. The scene begins with her encountering the frightening appearance of Toby, the chief archaeologist, who has been possessed by the Beast. It's handled with a degree of quietness and serenity, acknowledging the perverse beauty of what we're seeing. Like Scooti, we are drawn to Toby and his appearance, but we ultimately reject it. Unfortunately, this is where the story shifts gears slightly, and we go into a more dangerous region. Scooti tries to escape, but she is stopped, as the glass breaks and she is left to go out into the vacuum of space. The music and direction changes abruptly, reflecting the intensity of what is happening, as Scooti's screams become more and more desperate. And whilst this is a ruthlessly tense scene, what makes it powerful, in my opinion, is what comes directly after it.

We eventually end up in one of the habitation zones on the sanctuary base, with the crew-members looking for Scooti. The Doctor finds her, floating beautifully in space, in what is a truly haunting image. We then pay respects to this character, before closing the window and leaving her to drift off into the black hole. And this is what makes the story so powerful. It's based around ordinary humans who have done something stupid, who have gone out to explore a region of space that should never have existed. And it's dangerous, and they're probably going to die, but these are ordinary, likeable people, who clearly have lives outside of the adventure. And the tension of the story is exacerbated because all of these people feel real, feel as if they could be part of your life. And when they die, they are mourned, just like any other person is.

But that's just the first half of how I think this story is so fantastic. Much of The Impossible Planet is based around tension, letting the horror build until it reaches a breaking point. And we'll see that breaking point in the next entry, when we look at The Satan Pit.

Day 717: The Idiot's Lantern

The Idiot's Lantern is, quite simply, a romp. It's a fun run-around in 1950's London with no major consequences for the series ahead. And whilst it generally succeeds in being watchable, it's mostly forgettable, aside from a few brief images and concepts. So what else is there to talk about with respect to this episode?

Well, there's Euros Lyn's direction, for a start. He has made the curious decision to shoot almost all of the episode on a Dutch angle, tilting the camera to one side so that everything looks slanted and slightly unnerving. And whilst this does create a certain amount of atmosphere in the episode, it is unfortunately over-used. This ended up taking me out of the story completely, because I became fixated on the angle that the camera was on, trying to figure out when it would go back to being normal again. So whilst Euros Lyn clearly had the best of intentions with this decision, I can't help but fault him for what he did.

There's also the basic design of the episode, which feels as if it has been based on the Quatermass serials in the 1950's. Now, these are actually some rather fantastic pieces of television, filled with paranoia. But while the design of the story feels as if it wants to be part of that, having men in suits, and dark rooms with mysterious goings-on, it never quite works because the story just doesn't have the tension of the original serials, leaving this to feel like a pale pastiche of a better story.

But, despite the fact that I've been reasonably harsh on this story, I did enjoy it, and it has gone to further cement Tennant in the role of the Doctor, giving him a story where he can be the complete hero. He runs about, drops witty remarks, and saves the day whilst praising ordinary people. It's a fun performance to watch, and clearly part of why Tennant was so loved in the role, even if some of his stories weren't particularly good.

Day 716: The Age of Steel

The Age of Steel is, in my opinion, one of the few good Cybermen stories. To clarify what I mean by this, I'll just give a quick run-down of what I think of the previous Cybermen stories, in reverse order.

Silver Nemesis is very fun to watch, but the story lacks a certain depth to it. The same can be said of Attack of the Cybermen, although it is somewhat lacking in fun, but it has just a bit more depth. Earthshock is very well produced, and whilst I may not necessarily like it, I'm more than willing to give it a second chance sometime in the future. Revenge of the Cybermen is forgettable, but not bad. The Invasion is excellent, and what I would say is, up until The Age of Steel, the most recent good Cyberman story. The Wheel in Space isn't very engaging, which I can claim by virtue of the fact that I can barely remember what happens in it, a year and a half after first watching it. The Tomb of the Cybermen is a bit overrated in my opinion, but it means well, and The Moonbase is enjoyable, but not much else.

And the one story missing from that list is The Tenth Planet, the first Cyberman story. This is where we get introduced to the inner horror that is the Cybermen, that they are essentially human beings who have been converted into machines, and that their modus operandi is to go around the Universe and convert other people into Cybermen. "You will become like us" is their mantra, a frightening phrase on a certain level, provoking fear that one might lose their humanity, but still live. Naturally, this entire line of thought is barely touched upon in later stories featuring the Cybermen, and it take The Age of Steel to realise that there is potential in the original concept.

So The Age of Steel is good because it does something interesting with the Cybermen. It doesn't just make them into faceless monsters, instead it makes them into faceless monsters that used to have faces. There's heartbreaking scenes as we see ordinary people get converted into Cybermen, including the incredibly haunting scene of the bride who has become a Cyberman, and gets her emotions turned back on again, reminding us of the human trapped within that skin of metal. Indeed, the entire climax to the story is based around giving the Cybermen back their emotions, such that they realise what they have become and breakdown out of fear. In fact, to quote The Tomb of the Cybermen, you might say that they've had a complete metal breakdown.

And this all is a hallmark of what Russell T Davies is doing with the programme. He's reminding people that Doctor Who can be at its best when it is about people. It's not looking at Cybermen as scary because they're going to kill you, it's making Cybermen scary because they can be you. By taking this approach, he makes the Cybermen into a far more dangerous force, and not just second tier villains compared to the Daleks. What this all means is that through Davies and Tom MacRae's writing, and Graeme Harper's excellent direction, we have what is a Cyberman story that is actually and legitimately good.

Day 715: Rise of the Cybermen

It might be easiest to start talking about this episode by talking about something else entirely. One day I was particularly bored, with the new series of Doctor Who not airing in Australia for a couple of months, so I went on the internet and had a wander. Across my travels, I encountered a website that had a section that had a couple of links to what I thought were episode synopses of Tennant's first series. I clicked on one, and my mouth dropped open. These weren't synopses, these were the actual episodes themselves.

To put this into context, waiting for Doctor Who in Australia was a test of patience. Unlike today where simulcasts of Doctor Who episodes occur every Sunday morning, back in 2006 we had to wait around three months for the episodes to arrive here. In that three months, I'd spoil myself mightily by reading synopses, watching clips, and playing online games based on the episode. So to come across new episodes of Doctor Who, available online for my viewing pleasure, was perhaps the most shocking discovery I ever made. In the spur of the moment, I watched New Earth first, which I enjoyed. I also watched School Reunion, and Rise of the Cybermen, before guilt got the better of me and I stopped watching online, preferring to wait for the broadcast (incidentally, guilt did not prevent me from looking up spoilers, and it would take around four more years for me to watch an episode without being spoiled beforehand. But that's a story for another day.)

So when I think of Rise of the Cybermen, my thoughts don't necessarily drift towards thinking about parallel worlds, or the fact that the cliffhanger reveal of the Cybermen is rendered weak by the fact that Cybermen had been a fairly large part of the marketing for that year. Instead, I think about sitting down in a chair in front of a computer and gleefully watching a new episode of Doctor Who. Nothing can take that thrill away from me, and I'm glad that I can still have it every time I sit down for something new.

Day 714: The Girl in the Fireplace

My Mum hates The Girl in the Fireplace with a deep and unbridled passion. Last night we had a wide ranging discussion of her hatred of this story, which seemed to revolve around the fact that she felt that the clockwork droids were underused, she felt that the plot was too complicated and that she has a strong dislike of Arthur, the horse. Now, I'm quite fond of this episode. It's not the best of the series (we'll get to that in about a week or so), nor is it Steven Moffat's best written work or Euros Lyn's best directed work (I have to be honest and say that his best directed work, Children of Earth, is outside the scope of this blog, but it is truly marvellous), but I do rate it highly. So I am forced to start this on the defensive, to defend this story from those that would attack it.

So I should perhaps begin with the plot. It's fairly basic, to be honest. Over the course of 45 minutes, the Doctor, Rose and Mickey land on a spaceship and discover that clockwork droids are attempting to steal the brain of an 18th century French aristocrat, Madame de Pompadour, when she turns a certain age, the age of the spaceship, and steal her brain so that they can repair their spaceship. So the Doctor and co. embark on a wild race to try and find her at that age, to stop the droids from killing her. But that's not the point of the story. The point is instead looking at the Doctor and Madame de Pompadour as they fall in love, but whilst it's over a long period of 30 years for Madame de Pompadour, it is only a couple of hours for the Doctor. It's an interesting commentary on the role that time travel has for the Doctor, where he can meet people and flash forward through their lives, while they are destined to take the slow path and settle down. It means that relationships can flash by in an instant for him, whereas they're eternally long for others. It's quite heartbreaking to realise at the end that the Doctor has missed her death, of natural causes, because of a foolish mistake he made in the heat of the moment. But that's the curse of the Doctor, as he never settles down to take the slow path.

Now, all of that said, I will admit that there are some issues with the plotting of the story. It's clearly structured as a love story, and yet it's completely done and dusted within 45 minutes. It literally feels like one second she's kissing the Doctor, the next, she's in a hearse being led away from Versailles. It means that the full flow of the story doesn't quite work, but that's a small problem in an otherwise excellent story.

Moving on to the clockwork droids, their design is excellent. It's a visually arresting thing to see their masks ripped off to reveal some clockwork beneath them, like examining an antique cuckoo clock. They're creepy as well, their masks looking not quite human, and yet the time period that they're in means that they don't look out of place. And, aside from that, there's a fantastic jump scare in this episode that caused me to give off a very manly scream. So I'm inclined to reject the notion that they're not effective as monsters, and instead I should say that I think they work rather well.

And as for the horse, it's completely worth it for the exchange

"What's a horse doing on a spaceship?"

"Mickey, what's pre-revolutionary France doing on a spaceship? Try to get some perspective!".

So, in my opinion, I think that The Girl in the Fireplace is an amazing episode of Doctor Who, and I look forward to watching it again. Unfortunately though, I know that it will never be that way for my mother, who instead has a bizzare love of The Lazarus Experiment...

Day 713: School Reunion

This episode, within the first 5 minutes, has Physics and chips. And if that isn't a summary of my 3 years at The University of Newcastle, then I don't know what is. But that's just one brief element of how School Reunion speaks to people, reaching into their past and finding things to talk about. And, perhaps more pertinent to most people, it revolves around the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K9.

Their return is clearly an attempt to play on nostalgia, for these two characters are two of the more beloved companions in the series' history, with Sarah Jane's era coinciding with one of the more popular times in the show's history while K9 proved to be a cultural icon, much like the Daleks or Cybermen, entering into the culture of the world around him through a mixture of a good performance, a good design and good writing. And their return is fun to watch, as we see that Sarah Jane never stopped investigating strange goings-on, while K9 is still able to defend people against alien threats. And the story focuses on that return to a certain extent, reminding the audience of the old times with the Doctor and letting them go on one last adventure with him.

But where the story fails, in my opinion, is that it decides to throw in a stupid sub-plot for Rose. Rose is now jealous of the fact that the Doctor has travelled with other companions, because she was under the impression that she was special. So she decides to make things difficult for both the Doctor and Sarah Jane because she's so blind as to not see that one day she will leave the Doctor and they will both move on with their lives. It's an annoying character trait and does not endear me to the character of Rose at all, nor does it endear me to this Doctor as he, in a way, encourages her, creating a 'special and perfect bond' with her that continues to make her feel as if she's the only companion that's ever going to travel with him. It's a sour note on an otherwise fun story, and one that unfortunately will continue across the series to come.

Still, on the plus side, "Forget the shooty dog thing" is one of the greatest lines of dialogue in the history of Doctor Who.

Day 712: Tooth and Claw

Tooth and Claw. It's a story with two main driving forces behind it, character and plot. Both work well, and at least one sets out the tone for what will be the rest of the series.

Looking at plot, it's fairly basic. A brotherhood of monks who worship a werewolf have conspired to kidnap Queen Victoria to turn her into a werewolf. How the plot chooses to present itself, then, is by presenting what is a quite well done action movie. The first half, aside from a well-choreographed pre-titles sequence, is a fairly slow affair, letting tension build up around the wolf. This tension is then let loose in the second half, with a series of scenes where characters run down corridors and try to escape the fairly impressive CGI wolf. This is all very well directed by Euros Lyn, who presents a lot of it as quick shots, keeping the pace and making the wolf a palpable threat. Similarly, Murray Gold, the composer, makes the wolf into something truly epic with his excellent score, and the Director of Photography, Rory Taylor, imbues the story with a certain darkness, with everything feeling slightly grey, misty, and frightening. All in all, a well produced story of Doctor Who that's entertaining, but not much else.

But that's slightly wrong. Because the characters of the Doctor and Rose within this story are almost unbearable. They're joking about, laughing in the face of danger, even as other people are dying, and seeming to not take everything completely seriously. And what's important is that they're called out on this behaviour. Queen Victoria exiles them from the British Empire and sets up an entire institute dedicated into sorting out problems from alien worlds, known as Torchwood, explicitly as a warning to the Doctor. The Tenth Doctor with Rose is a dangerous pairing because they have become slightly too smug, slightly too happy with the way in which they work together. And this is becoming a problem, and even more notably, this is becoming a problem in their first proper story together (Tennant was missing from half of The Christmas Invasion and they spent much of their time together in New Earth with one of them possessed by Cassandra). Clearly, this series is going to be focussing on their relationship together, because it's not quite OK and something will need to happen to change things for them, possibly with disastrous consequences.

Day 711: New Earth

I'm never quite sure what to make of this episode. Every time that I watch it, I always slightly look forward to it, because there are several good things within the story. And yet, the final result always leaves me feeling slightly cold.

I think that it's because of one key factor: David Tennant. He's fantastic in the role here, again, bringing energy, intensity, and empathy (this episode marks the first instance of him saying "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" in the series, incidentally). But the episode is clearly structured around him and his performance as the Doctor, in an attempt to show off this new Doctor and get people excited for him. And it works, because he's fantastic in the role, but to an audience viewing the story in hindsight, they're already familiar with the character, so there's not much to get them involved as well. To put it more succinctly, there's no real replay value to this story.

But it's not explicitly bad, and it does at least attempt to do interesting things. Cassandra's return is intelligently handled, treating her with a clear character development as she goes from comic relief to a slightly tragic figure. Similarly, the general conceit of the story focussing around breeding people as testing grounds for diseases, whilst thoroughly disturbing, is all too plausible. But aside from these points, there's not much that will get me to enjoy New Earth. Maybe they'll shine for me the next time I watch it. At the very least, it does have one of the funniest performances in all of Doctor Who's history...

Day 710: The Christmas Invasion

This feels weird. In case you hadn't noticed, I took most of November off to focus on my studies, deciding that an appropriate stopping point would be 'The Parting of the Ways', the last story to feature Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. So today I resumed this grand adventure with 'The Christmas Invasion', with a new Doctor: David Tennant. And it felt a bit weird because it had been a long time since I sat down and watched an older episode of Doctor Who. Whilst I have been keeping up to date with the current series, this story still felt like a step back into the past, and I'm not sure that I was ready for it. Everything felt slightly different, from the lighting to the direction, to the writing, everything just didn't quite gel. Which is weird, as I've watched this story countless times, so I should know it like the back of my hand.

I loved Tennant's first series when I was younger. In many ways, I was the perfect age for it: 11, going on 12, a young kid ready to be excited by alien monsters and eccentric heroes. And watching this episode, I can't help but be reminded of how much I loved that time. Because this story feels like it's part of a completely new era: one filled with energy and adventure. There's so much action in this story; within the first ten minutes we're attacked by robotic Father Christmases, then in the next ten, we're facing a deadly Christmas tree. And that's not forgetting the sword-fight that makes up the climax of the story. It's all a stark contrast to the last episode we encountered, where there was action, but it was all leading up to a key inaction by the Doctor, opposed to here, where the action leading up to the Doctor arriving only intensifies when he finally appears.

But the interesting thing that I found about this story is that it takes such a long time for Tennant to appear. He comes and goes in brief flashes throughout the story, but he only fully appears in the last twenty minutes or so. And this is an incredible gamble on the part of Russell T Davies, writer and showrunner, to hold off introducing his new Doctor for such a long time. Because he runs the risk of him not being fully formed in the role, leaving the audience with half of an idea of what the Doctor is rather than being fully prepared for their new hero (remember that 'Rose' featured the Doctor fairly regularly for much of its 45 minute running time, and similar things will be said about forthcoming post-regeneration stories 'The Eleventh Hour' and 'Deep Breath'). But it's a gamble that arguably works, with Tennant arriving into the role and giving a performance that's reasonably consistent with what we'll see throughout his tenure. He's energetic, bright, and has flashes of darkness that can disappear at an instant, but return again with more fury than you can possibly imagine. And it's a performance that can allow you to forgive the story for not letting you experience that Doctor for longer because that single short burst is more than enough to get you engaged and excited about the story.

And so Tennant's performance became this story's saving grace for me. I went from being slightly challenged by the different form of storytelling employed for this adventure to being excited for the time that I have ahead of me with this New Doctor. And, as I look at the ever dwindling list of stories that I have left to cover, I can look ahead to them and say We've Got Work To Do!

Day 709: The Parting of the Ways

Amongst the many fantastic things in this episode, the most amazing of them all is the regeneration from the Ninth Doctor to the Tenth Doctor. It begins with the Doctor knowing that he's going to die, but talking with Rose as if everything's normal. But something's clearly different, because the Doctor's nervously making jokes, and saying things that don't really make sense. Just as Rose begins to figure out that something's wrong, a burst of energy comes from the Doctor's body. He contains it, but it's now absolutely clear to him what's going to happen.

And in this brief moment, he comes to terms with everything. This damaged Doctor thanks Rose for the time that they've spent together, and then remarks that he's been pretty good as well. It's the culmination of the entire character arc that the Doctor has gone through, as he finally accepts himself as the Doctor and allows himself to be truly content with the way that he is. This is a man who has faced all sorts of horrors in the Time War, and has been left alone in the Universe. He's gone on a journey of healing, culminating in his death and rebirth.

And this death and rebirth is different from every other regeneration that we've seen so far. It's almost triumphant with the Doctor embracing it with a smile, and standing up, ready to take his end and be born again. It's a happy moment, and one of my personal favourite regeneration scenes in the history of Doctor Who.

Day 708: Bad Wolf

Cliffhangers, in my opinion, can be generally divided into two categories. The first is 'Peril', where a character is placed in mortal peril at the end of the episode, and the tension of the cliffhanger is built upon seeing wither they live, and more importantly, how they lived (an example of this ending are the cliffhanger to The Magician's Apprentice, where Missy, Clara and the TARDIS are seemingly destroyed). The other category is 'Development', where the ending is pivoted around a major plot development that changes the entire structure of the story (an example of this could be the ending to Under the Lake, where the 'ghost Doctor' is revealed, changing the story slightly from being about ghosts attacking a base to how the Doctor became a ghost in the first place). Bad Wolf's ending doesn't quite fit into either of those categories, and it's all the better for it.

On the surface, it's a 'Peril' ending. The episode clearly ends on the point of the Daleks stating that they are going to go and conquer the Earth, which puts everyone in danger, increasing the tension in the story. But there's also the argument that the cliffhanger didn't begin there, instead it began around 5 minutes earlier when the Daleks were first revealed, showing that they have been in command of the Game Station for all these years, as well as surviving the Time War, changing the focus of the episode from a story about homicidal game shows to a fight against the Daleks. This would put it in the 'Development' column, although there's enough 'Peril' in there to make it a hybrid of the two.

But that's all missing the entire point of the ending. The real meat of it is the Doctor's speech, where he stands up to the Daleks, ready to take them on in an instant. The notion of the speech is fantastic, as we get steadily more and more excited as he lays out his aims for the next episode. But we don't get to see his actions, which makes the next episode all the more exciting. It turns the tension present in the cliffhanger on its head, not using events that will happen and you need to see the conclusion of said events in the next episode, but instead you get told about the events happening and the conclusion of the events within the cliffhanger, making it more of a trailer than a cliffhanger ending. But it still works, and it makes for one of my favourite scenes in the history of Doctor Who.