The Final Day

So, there we are. It's all done and dusted. Just whilst I'm still typing away, though, I want to make a few quick mentions of some people that I really want to thank over the course of the years with this blog.

First of all, I'd like to thank my friends and family for providing moral support through these past few years. In particular, I want to thank Katherine Bowyer and Kerrie Duffy, who have 'liked' and commented on virtually every post that I've put up on Facebook. Without you two, I would have given this up a long time ago, so thank you for that.

Thanks are also due to Mitchell McLeod and Elizabeth Bowyer, the two people who have written guest entries whilst I've been otherwise indisposed. If there's one thing that this blog has taught me, it's that there are far better writers out there than me, and none more so than these two splendid human beings. And whilst I remember, thanks also to anyone who's said anything or helped me think of something for any entry in the blog. You've helped me when I've needed it, and that help is much appreciated.

Thank you to the person who put up reconstructions of all the missing episodes up on daily motion, it really helped me out in the early days of the blog, and it was a sad day when I saw that they'd all been taken down overnight. On a similar note, thank you to the old CRT TV on which I have watched most episodes of Doctor Who and has thankfully never broken throughout the years. And a special thank you to The University of Newcastle, for not judging me when I watched The Caves of Androzani Part 4 on one of your projector screens.

And finally, I want to thank you for reading this blog and making it all worthwhile. If we've never met before, I hope that we do some day, and if we have, then you have made my life all the better for it. This blog has given me some truly treasured memories, and my most treasured memories of all are when I've been interacting with you, the readers. So thank you. And goodnight.

Day 826: The Husbands of River Song

I started this blog, not only to document my viewing of every episode of Doctor Who in order, but also as a reminder; something to keep me active in pursuing this foolish endeavour. And I did the very sensible thing of ensuring that I told a lot of people about the blog as I was planning to start it, so that whenever I would be tempted to stop it, I would think about letting them down and those thoughts would be gone from my mind. And whilst that was a very sensible decision at the time, I couldn't help but regard it as a mistake for roughly 75% of the time that I've been doing this blog.

This has not been an easy ride, and I would never recommend anyone to copy me in doing this. Even one a day was not slow enough for me, and I would occasionally be driven to madness in trying to balance my studies with the blog (fortunately everything turned out alright in the end, particularly after a well deserved study break late in 2015 which really helped relieve my mental health). I also don't have particularly fond memories of watching certain episodes, with Timelash Part 2 almost driving me insane with boredom and certain lengthy Patrick Troughton episodes leaving me fond of them out of a weird sense of Stockholm Syndrome. And whilst I won't say that Time-Flight was the cause of my minor breakdown, I will say that it did happen to be on in the room whilst the breakdown was happening. So I'm not going to do the blog again, and if I do do something like this, I'll make some serious changes to it.

But, for all that I've regarded this blog as a mistake, I'd be lying if I didn't say that it was the best mistake I've ever made. I have had amazing fun with this blog. Thanks to it, I've been able to re-evaluate so many episodes in their proper time and I've been able to rekindle my passion for this fantastic television series. I've been able to grow to love and care for every single companion and every single Doctor. I've been able to redeem The Armageddon Factor, previously my least favourite story of all time and now one of my secret pleasures. Similarly, I've found that The TV Movie, despite every fibre of my being wanting to dislike it for effectively killing the franchise, is still absolutely marvellous and I love watching it every time. Some stories, like The Sensorites or The Greatest Show in the Galaxy have become new favourites of mine, joining the ranks of others that I've been anticipating since the day I started the blog, like Kinda or Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways. I've laughed at Carnival of Monsters, and cried at The War Games. And, really, anything that gives me an excuse to watch Series 5 again gets a thumbs up from me.

And there's one story that sums up the entire experience for me. Silence in the Library got a fairly mixed reception from me when I saw it in the blog. I liked it, but I didn't love it and I was a little disappointed about that. But then, I watched Forest of the Dead. Forest of the Dead is a story that improves massively after watching The Husbands of River Song - it feeds into it beautifully providing the kindling for the fire that will later develop. Seeing River's final speech to the Doctor is something that's so much more heartbreaking when you know everything that's come before, and the beautiful tones of their relationship. And seeing the Doctor save her drove me to tears, becoming, for one brief moment, recognisably the future Doctors that I would love as some of the outright best in the entire series. And I can't help but thank this blog for giving me that opportunity of re-evaluation.

And that's where this story ends. With the happiest regret that I've ever had.

Day 825: Hell Bent

If Heaven Sent is all about a Doctor Who story that's completely unique but still acts like a Doctor Who story, then Hell Bent is about a Doctor Who story that retreads a lot of ground and is very much not a Doctor Who story. I don't mean that in a bad way, because it's clearly what the episode is aiming for. The Doctor behaves ridiculously un-Doctorish throughout the episode, shooting people, and ignoring all advice because he's being so driven to save Clara's life, even when it's occasionally clear that she doesn't particularly want to be saved. It's an effective counterpart to the ending of Capaldi's first series, which based itself around Clara trying to save Danny Pink's life, and how the Doctor was forced to act as the Clara's moral compass in these dark times, whereas here Clara acts as the Doctor's compass (that observation comes courtesy of my mother, whose attitude to Doctor Who criticism involves her saying "Can I just say" at some volume, before continuing to re-affirm her misguided belief that the best Doctor Who story of all time is The Lazarus Experiment).

But, of course, where the story really picks up is towards the end, where the Doctor attempts to wipe Clara's memory so that the two of them will no longer be able to be such a dangerous force throughout the Universe - after all, we're now seeing the lengths that the Doctor will go to to save Clara, even when she's dead. And this memory wipe is an unquestionably awful thing, and I would be more than willing to declare this episode awful because of it. But Moffat does something truly good. He makes Clara say no, and he makes the Doctor listen to her. By allowing the companion to have voice, to be able to take their own death on their own terms and not just allow for the Doctor to do everything, it means that the story openly advocates for a position of equality within the TARDIS.

And, of course, that's the way that it's always been aboard the TARDIS with Clara; ever since her first story she's been seen as more or less an equal to the Doctor, which is what makes her a fundamentally interesting character. And seeing her reaffirm that equality by mutually deciding with the Doctor that one of them must lose their memory and the process should be done through some Russian Roulette style gambit where both are on the same footing. It's effectively covering the same ground as Journey's End, but in such a different and more powerful way that creates overall better drama for the characters and doesn't leave a nasty taste in the mouth.

And thus ends the era where Capaldi spends his time with Clara. Not with an explosive bang, but with something all the more powerful - a conversation. There's still one more thing left to cover though, so for one last time, We've Got Work To Do!

Day 824: Heaven Sent

It's hard to believe it, but after producing at least one Doctor Who story a year since 2005 (save for 2009), Steven Moffat still has the capacity to provide something completely unique and unlike anything else that's been seen in Doctor Who before. Because that's what Heaven Sent is. It's a beautifully unique story that somehow manages to still be a recognisable Doctor Who story. And it is, in my personal opinion, one of the most powerful episodes of Doctor Who ever produced.

Heaven Sent works as a story because it never loses sight of its goal. This goal being that we have to follow the Doctor as he figures out what is happening in his impossible situation and then watch as he figures out a solution to the impossible problem or, as is put in the episode, is able to win. And this goal is a fairly basic goal, one that's behind most, if not all, Doctor Who stories. So Moffat, in order to make things interesting, adds enough dressing to keep the situation unwinnable, such as through making Capaldi's Doctor the only character, which keeps him from making allies or having an extra voice to discuss the problem with. Also, Moffat's decision to make the entire setting a literal puzzle box, with the rooms in the castle resetting and the layout changing when the Doctor figures out the ideal solution to the puzzle adds a further layer of mystery to the impossible goal, and continues to drive the Doctor to need to solve it, and by extension, we as the audience need to see him solve it.

And what ends up making the story interesting, above all else, is that it puts serious doubt on the Doctor's ability to 'win' the situation. This has happened before, it's a staple of a good many Doctor Who stories that we have to have some doubt about whether the Doctor can survive or not. But what makes Heaven Sent so different is that the doubt is coming from the Doctor. We see him go through the entire story becoming less and less confident in his own abilities as he begins to crave what he perceives to be the sweet release of eternal sleep. And when he realises that his method of winning has caused him thousands upon millions of years of sorrow, anguish and torment, he goes through so much mental pain and suffering, only to be spurred on by an image of Clara to go forth and win. And so, he does.

The final sequence in the castle is a masterpiece of editing and direction. Despite being constrained to showing the same sequence over and over again, through careful choice of shots and a nice decision to compress the sequence more and more as the years pass, it becomes a triumphant and powerful scene, something that reinforces this idea of the Doctor overcoming obstacles to win. And, notably, he does this on his own terms, deciding to brute force his way out of the castle rather than reveal the true identity of the Hybrid to the Veil. It's all something that proves to be absolutely fantastic, and leads into the finale - which quite notably, has something that has been in Doctor Who before and that really means a lot.

Day 823: Face the Raven

This was a hell of a lot tougher to watch than I was expecting it to be. On first viewing, it's a fairly nice and unassuming episode, up until Clara's death, of course. It's an episode with an interesting premise, a fairly non-threatening plot (sure, one character's life is constantly in danger, but the danger is a known quantity that can be prevented - contrast this with Sleep No More where the danger is ever -present and could take out any of the characters at any time). But then Clara makes a mistake which costs her her life, leading us into a very emotionally charged finale as the Doctor seeks to get his vengeance. So it's a fairly nice and interesting episode to watch for the first tine, and certainly one of my series highlights.

On repeated viewing, however, it becomes so much more difficult to look at. Every time Clara smiles, or does some dangerous activity just for that rush of adrenaline or because she knows that it's what the Doctor would do, your heart sinks ever-further into that state of dread as you know that we are rapidly approaching her end. The scene that I found particularly hard to watch was that when she took the burden of the death sentence away from Rigsy, cementing her death in the story out of some desire to do what the Doctor does, but a lack of understanding as to how the Doctor operates. It's an uncomfortable scene, and hangs over the rest of the story like an unwelcome shadow.

And when Clara's death does come around, it has the potential to be awful. A cheap death would undermine the character, and make the story seriously not worth watching. But, instead, what Sarah Dollard does is write a death that feels perfectly real for Clara. It's a death that is based entirely on a decision that she made, and one that she's made whilst trying to emulate the Doctor (as she's done previously in stories like Flatline or Under the Lake/Before the Flood). Doing this also means that her death doesn't feel cheap, it's perfectly integral to the story and the way in which Clara's character has been developing, meaning that it works better than, say, a scene right at the end where Clara is shot, out of nowhere, by some leader out of spite for the Doctor.

And more than allowing for the death to feel real for Clara in terms of where it fits in the story and her character arc, it also allows for her to accept the death with dignity. We get her saying goodbye to the Doctor and telling him not to get angry (which is, of course, an instruction that he'll follow to the letter) and then she goes off and faces the titular raven. There's no crying from Clara about her dying in her prime, she doesn't desperately run away from her death, she just accepts it with a quiet dignity. It makes the death feel more powerful and real, and adds to the weight of the story. It means that it's a difficult episode to watch, but is ultimately very satisfying because of it.

Day 822: Sleep No More

OK, I've got to be honest: Sleep No More does nothing for me. The gimmick of the episode, i.e. that it's all based around found footage, isn't something that particularly excites me; I'm not a big fan of horror, and I'm even less of a fan of found footage movies. I'm also not that interested in the setting either; the low lights and minimalistic design just makes me feel a little bit bored rather than allowing me to get excited in the plot. And the story's not something that I'm a fan of either, it just doesn't gel for me. So, weirdly, when I saw that this episode was getting a bit of a beating from the fan community, I was incredibly angry. Because even if I don't like Sleep No More, I am very willing to defend it for what it is.

Even though there are plenty of things that I don't like about this story, there's quite a bit that I do appreciate as something really fantastic. For instance, I love that the viewer can deduce the story from the camera alone, because of the shifts in POV to Clara (and to a lesser extent Professor Rassmussen). When I first watched it, I put it down to directorial incompetence on behalf of director Justin Molitnikov, and decided that I would try to ignore it. But then, as the story progressed, I began to question whether Molitnikov could really be that incompetent, and it dawned on me that it was done on purpose, due to Clara being infected by the Morpheus machine. And that's kind of a fun thing to experience as a viewer, the ability to figure something out before any of the characters can, just because you've received vital information that they don't have yet.

But, beyond that, I think the reason why I'm so keen to defend Sleep No More is that every criticism that I have about it boils down to "It's not my cup of tea". I may not be a big fan of this episode, but I don't think it's particularly bad. And beyond that, I'm very sure that there are plenty of people who watch this episode and think that it's fantastic, and all power to them, they're allowed to think these things. And I guess what this comes down to is to ignore 'received fan wisdom' and to just go out and experience Doctor Who for yourself and try to love as much of it as possible. That attitude has certainly made the last 800-odd days all the more bearable.

Day 821: The Zygon Inversion

The Zygon Inversion will be remembered for one thing and one thing alone: the speech. Found in the video above, it is perhaps the most powerful moment ever broadcast in the history of Doctor Who. It's a man shouting and begging at two sides of a warring conflict to stop fighting, and seek the peaceful alternative. It's about always recognising that something like a genocidal war is always the worst case scenario and you should avoid it at all costs.

It's a speech that proved to be surprisingly topical - even as the story was being filmed it was generally known that it was going to reflect what was happening with the Islamic State situation, what was not known was that a short while after this story was broadcast, an attack was launched in Paris that captured the world with both solidarity with the Parisian people and fear that this would prove to be a catalyst to instigate another war. And the speech proved to be a weird cultural touchstone, something that people turned to and considered as a rousing voice in the overall fight between sensible diplomacy and hate filled fighting. Even today, a few months after broadcast, particularly considering that certain politicians are making their mark on the world through hateful, vile, warmongering statements, and watching this speech brings up a horrible image of what could happen if any of these people could be put in charge, their fingers hovering over buttons which could destroy the world.

And of course, the other big reason why this speech will be remembered is Peter Capaldi. Because no matter how good Peter Harness and Steven Moffat's writing is, as well as Daniel Nettheim's direction, Peter Capaldi surpasses all of that with the performance of a lifetime. It's such a passionate and powerful performance that I have no qualms about saying that it brought me to tears, and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not alone in that regard. So, honestly, sit down and watch this speech. It's pretty much perfect.