Day 801: Deep Breath

When Peter Capaldi was announced as the Doctor, you could feel a wave of excitement dash through the Doctor Who fan community. Everyone looked at him as someone new and exciting, an older Doctor to complement the two younger Doctors that had most recently taken on the role. And I was initially excited to see him as the Doctor. But then, as I got more and more used to the idea of him playing the role, I got a bit worried about whether I would even like him; whether I would come to accept his face as the Doctor. Whilst everyone else jumped up in the air at the idea of the Doctor as a serious figure, one who wasn't sure whether he was even a good man or not, I quietly sat back and waited to see what would happen with this new man in the role.

At least I'd still have Steven Moffat's writing to look forward to, which has been rejuvenated by the prospect of a new Doctor. We've now entered the next, and probably final phase, of the Moffat era of Doctor Who, which I'd call the Capaldi era. It's not quite as focussed on the magic of the concept of Doctor Who, nor on the idea of showing the spectacle of travelling through time and space. Instead, we get a story that's more focussed on character interaction and character study. Indeed, one of the most exciting scenes in the episode isn't the final battle between the Paternoster Gang and the clockwork droids, it's a conversation between Clara and Madame Vastra. In it, Vastra helps Clara come to terms with the Doctor's regeneration by deliberately riling her up, taking Clara's insecurities about this new Doctor and supposing that it might be because he isn't a pretty young man. It sends Clara into a rage that helps her come to terms with the regeneration and realise that she's being unfair to the new Doctor. And it's all symbolised by Vastra's veil, which she uses to hide her lizard visage from those that only want to see a mask and not her own true self. While at the start of the scene, Vastra wears it, it is gone by the end, signifying that Clara is ready to see the Doctor for what he is, which is reflected in her further conversations with him which are far more focussed on how to solve the ongoing problem, as well as how to react with this new Doctor.

And as Clara has to get used to this new Doctor, I've got to get used to him as well. I will admit, I warmed to him over the course of the episode. I wasn't too sure about the new found anger for the twelfth Doctor, but I loved that he kept his keen mind, most obviously seen in the restaurant scene as he deduces that they are surrounded by robots. And so, at around two-thirds of the way through the episode, I was ready to accept him as the Doctor. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, he abandoned Clara to a collection of robots in favour of his own safety. My belief in the Doctor was ruined, I was utterly distraught. How could this man do this? He's been my hero for around ten years, and here he is, doing such a callous act. And as Clara was interrogated by the Half-Face Man who led the robots, I was utterly convinced that the Doctor wouldn't be there to save her, and that it would all end badly.

But then, as Clara was questioned, she put her hand out behind her so that the Doctor could grab it and she would know that he would be there. And an unfamiliar hand belonging to an unfamiliar face grabbed it, sending me into a wave of shock - a further example of how I may never be able to trust this Doctor. And what felt like an eternity later, but in reality only half a second, that unfamiliar man pulled off the disguise that he was using, revealing the Doctor. Not Peter Capaldi playing the Doctor, this man was the Doctor. A hero that's always there, protecting you, even when you're afraid and at your most vulnerable. Sure, he might go about it in an interesting way, and he might not be the most polite to you in doing so, but he will always be there for you when you most need it.

And, from that moment on, I always accepted Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Even when he possibly killed the Half-Face Man, and throughout the rest of the series as he contemplated whether he was a good man, I always knew that he was. Because he is the Doctor, and I'm sorry that I ever doubted him.

Day 798: The Name of the Doctor

The Name of the Doctor is actually really good. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was; I think it left me feeling a bit cold on first viewing and so I was fully expecting to be disappointed by it on a re-watch. But, as I say, I was rather pleased with it, and it's mainly because of the new context that I watched it in.

The Name of the Doctor is unlike every other series finale that we've had so far in the new series. It's not a big celebration where we get to see the Doctor triumph over evil, but at some sort of cost, instead it's a quiet, dark tale where we see the Doctor come face to face with his final days. There's so much finality and grimness surrounding the episode, from the fact that essentially every one of the main parts except for Madame Vastra gets killed off at some point in the episode to the darker shadows and tones that director Saul Metzstein paints the episode with, giving the impression that this is not the usual end of series romp that we've come to expect. And that's good, because it fits with what the story is aiming to be about: the Doctor coming face to face with his own mortality as the vast majority of the action is set around his grave. You wouldn't expect it to be a particularly rompy episode; it should be relatively serious and dark. But that's really just half the story of what this episode truly represents.

Although this was not known at the time, The Name of the Doctor was Matt Smith's last regular episode of Doctor Who. He's got two more episodes, both of which are 'special' episodes that stand relatively separate from the rest of the series. And over the course of those specials, we learn that Matt Smith's incarnation of the Doctor is technically the final incarnation of the Doctor, having used up all 12 of his regenerations. So read in all of that context, The Name of the Doctor feels like a farewell to Doctor Who itself, a quiet moment when we face the inevitable end of the programme and reflect on its power. When we dash through the Doctor's past in the time stream, we can now read this as one last look in the memory box before we put it away in a distant cupboard. Similarly, whilst it's a relatively brief and un-remarked upon scene within the story, the moment when the Paternoster Gang looks out at the night sky turning itself off because the Doctor wasn't there to save them speaks wonders as to the greater impact that the programme has had on the lives of millions, although the moment works far better on the smaller scale as we see the Paternoster Gang torn apart because of the Doctor's interference with them is removed, killing Jenny and making Strax into a monster, instead of the character that we know and love.

Read in all of that context, The Name of the Doctor becomes a sad and beautiful coda to the history of Doctor Who, before it goes forth into the great 50th anniversary celebrations that await us tomorrow. But before we do that, I just want to make a quick wrap up of something else.

The Purple Period of Steven Moffat's time as show-runner kind of ends here, with a bit of a run-on through the rest of Matt Smith's tenure before Capaldi takes the reigns as the Doctor, bringing with him a new approach to the programme. And watching it all again, I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. The Purple Period is an era of variety, where each episode is wildly different from the next. Consider that within the 9 episode stretch from The Snowmen to The Name of the Doctor, we have 3 writers who do multiple episodes, each of which is completely and utterly different to their other stories for the same era. It feels good to see so much variety within the programme, an ability to really get a grip on the sheer breadth of travelling in time and space. But, alongside that, there's also a strong lack of consistency throughout the series.

Whilst the variety is good, it also means that there's no sense that each episode works in the same universe as the one before or after it - there's no real sense that Moffat is looking over the programme and keeping control of how everything will look at the end of the day. That's how we end up with relatively weaker stories like Nightmare in Silver or Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS; they could have been good stories had a little bit more attention been paid to them before they went to screen. It means that The Purple Period is unfortunately a bit of a failure, a time when Doctor Who should have been spectacular but it simply wasn't. It doesn't bode well for the final two episodes in this section, but oddly enough, I've got a feeling that everything will turn out just fine.

Day 796: The Crimson Horror

The surprise break-out stars of the second section to Steven Moffat's era of Doctor Who - the BIG section, were the characters of Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax, all of whom were introduced in A Good Man Goes to War. They worked because they were all based on strong concepts, be they Sontaran nurses or a Victorian Silurian/human couple who solve mysteries which gleefully enticed the viewer to want to see more of these characters at a future point, something that was helped by the strong performances from the actors who play them. So it's no surprise that they were called upon to return to the worlds of Doctor Who, which they first did in 2012's beautiful Christmas special The Snowmen, and then later in the rather more distinct episode that is The Crimson Horror.

The Crimson Horror doesn't necessarily feel like a Doctor Who episode, instead it feels more like a theoretical episode of the spin-off series 'The Paternoster Gang', starring Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax, with the Doctor and Clara making a guest appearance. The writing, for instance, feels more overtly comical than what you'd normally expect from a Doctor Who episode, such as one of the greatest exchanges in Doctor Who history:
"In the wrong hands that venom could wipe out all life on this planet"
"You know what these are? The wrong hands!"
It's that comedic approach to this episode, where almost every scene should contain some form of joke that makes this episode feel completely unlike an episode of Doctor Who, where the focus is clearly on story first - jokes to be inserted if and when they are needed.

And you get a certain feeling of oddness from the design as well. Previous historical adventures in the Moffat era have at least made an attempt to give the feeling of living in that era, from the low lighting and uniforms in the Russian submarine in the 1980's that we see in Cold War to the fog and murkiness of a pirate ship on the high seas that we see in The Curse of the Black Spot. The Crimson Horror, on the other hand, doesn't feel like a Victorian story, instead it feels like an artist's impression of a Victorian story - steampunk-esque rocket controls and old fashioned and over-large gramophones. It makes the story feel just that little bit more odd; lending to the impression that it's a Doctor Who story where the Doctor's intruding on another television programme.

And, weirdly, it all works amazingly well. I keep on being drawn to this episode as something truly splendid and odd and I love every moment of it (even the Thomas Thomas joke - any story that has an entire scene devoted to a single bad pun gets a thumbs up in my book). It's one of the great disappointments in Doctor Who that the idea of The Paternoster Gang has seemed to have died out; they've made one more appearance in Capaldi's first story and haven't appeared since. Hopefully we'll get to see them again in the coming series though, they're probably one of the greatest things to come out of Moffat's era of the programme.

Day 790: The Snowmen

Steven Moffat's Purple Period is not named that way to sum up the overall storytelling ethos behind the episodes from The Snowmen to The Time of the Doctor, instead it's named that way because the Eleventh Doctor tends to wear a purple coat in these adventures. I know, it's awfully imaginative of me to call it that. But, to be honest, there's not really that much that connects these stories together. The stories range wildly in terms of theme, as well as quality, creating a feeling of inconsistency that means that this period isn't looked on too fondly. We'll look into more of the reasons why it's difficult to love the Purple Period as it fully progresses, but I will just remark for now that, even though it's difficult to love as a whole, the individual episodes can actually be rather excellent. I would personally say that two of the episodes in the Purple Period are some of the best episodes ever produced in the history of Doctor Who, and there are a few others that I have a bit of a soft spot for. And chief amongst those episodes is The Snowmen.

I didn't get to see The Snowmen when it was first broadcast in Australia. This was because two of the four members of my family are reasonably large Tolkien fans, and instead wanted to go and see 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey', so we went as a family to see that instead. Returning home from that disappointing experience, it was near midnight and everyone else in the house decided to go to bed whilst I watched the recording that I'd made of the episode. The house was dark, and silent, which added to the mood of the story immeasurably.  The Snowmen is a story that feels wintry, particularly in terms of the lighting where it's kept down, allowing that darkness to contribute to the overall feel of the story.

The lighting also allows for contrast to be made when the story requires it, such as the flash-forward to present day Clara at the end of the episode, which feels completely and utterly different to the previous 56 minutes, further creating this mystery of the impossible girl. Similarly, the office of Madame Vastra is also brightly lit, although that is moreover done to establish a feeling of comfort. The outside Victorian streets all look dark and grey, which makes Clara's situation with respect to finding the Doctor feel slightly hopeless. But then, when she enters into the world of the Paternoster Gang, she's greeted with a miniature jungle, portraying a sense of warmth and friendliness that says that Vastra may actually be ready to listen. Then again, the more exotic set dressing, as well as the indication that Vastra is drinking something that looks suspiciously like red wine (my money's on the obscure and beautiful Australian drink: Portello), indicates that Vastra is still a character who is dangerous and that Clara will still have to work to earn her respect.

But of course, the biggest reason why things like lighting and special effects make an impact in this story is because of the magic trick that it pulls two-thirds into the episode. Clearly, Steven Moffat wanted to bring the feeling of a fairy tale back to Doctor Who, at least initially, and so the episode features strong magical imagery as the key memorable points, such as the invisible ladder leading to a spiral staircase, on top of which is a police box on a cloud. It's all rather beautiful, but it's not quite the most magical moment in the entire episode.

In one single shot, we see the Doctor walk into the TARDIS in one take. Then, turning on the lights, he not only reveals the new control room to the audience, but he also reveals to Clara that it's smaller on the outside. And, just for a moment, when I watched this at the dead of night, in a silent house, I believed that it was smaller on the outside as well. It's a beautiful magic trick, presenting an impossible illusion that not only can you not quite figure out how it was done on first glance, you almost don't want to figure out how it was done. It's because the TARDIS being bigger on the inside is such an every day part of Doctor Who that you forget that it's simply extraordinary, particularly as every other TARDIS entrance up until this point is obviously cutting from one scene to the other. But by doing the TARDIS entrance in such a unique way, it genuinely makes The Snowmen feel extraordinary.

And there's so much else to talk about in The Snowmen that just adds to the magic of the story. There's the Doctor's bow tie, the Paternoster Gang as a whole, the entire character of Clara, Murray Gold's beautiful score, and even the title sequence, which, whilst not fantastic, at least has one of the best endings to a title sequence in the history of Doctor Who. But I've unfortunately run out of time to talk about the episode (I've gone around half an hour over my self-imposed deadline for the entry), so maybe I'll get to talk about them some other time. For now, though, I'll leave you with this piece of advice: watch The Snowmen in the dark. Because, at the very least, some magic tricks work better when you can't see all that's happening in the background.

Day 777: A Good Man Goes to War

A Good Man Goes to War is the epitome of Steven Moffat's experiment for Series 6, which he ended up partially continuing in Series 7, before abandoning altogether after that. His idea was that a way to structure Doctor Who would be to stagger it throughout the year, with the first half of the series being broadcast in the UK Spring, and the second half in the UK Autumn. Amongst the many reasons that he put forward for this being a worthwhile venture, he stated that this would provide the opportunity for Doctor Who to have two big series openers, and two big series finales, all within the one year. Hence why I refer to this section of Moffat's tenure as the BIG section - there's a clear want to make a lot of Doctor Who episodes feel massive.

And this is mainly achieved in A Good Man Goes to War, where the episode feels appropriately epic. I love the notion that the Doctor is able to win a battle with no blood shed at all (not entirely true, of course, as there's a bit of friendly fire between the Church and the Headless Monks). I also think that the final battle, where it's revealed that the Doctor has managed to lead everyone into a trap, is actually quite well directed, with the camera never remaining entirely fixed and always dashing between two or three settings, giving the impression of chaos in clear contrast to the controlled attack from the Doctor earlier in the episode. There is, at the end of the day, a lot to really enjoy in this episode, but the problem is that it doesn't quite work as a series finale; it's just too Big.

I can't help but feel that the story doesn't give appropriate time to the characters, to how they cope with these big moments. There's a few moments at the end of the story where the Doctor goes and wraps everything up whilst still leaving things open to be covered in the Autumn half of the series, but other than that it all feels like the story just lacks enough of those moments to give a well-rounded episode. And that's kind of my problem with A Good Man Goes to War. As a series finale, it succeeds massively, being appropriately epic and exciting. But as episode 7 of Series 6, it doesn't quite work, and just needs a bit more space to breathe.