Doctor Who - Dark Water (S08E11)

"Work it harder make it better do it faster makes us stronger more than ever hour after our work is never over."

After a largely great season with relatively few missteps, one that has seen the show revitalised by a new face in the TARDIS and a more subtle approach to long-form storytelling, Doctor Who is faced with the daunting task of trying to end things on a good note. That's something the show has struggled with a lot in the past, particularly when it comes to two-part finales. The typical pattern (which could actually be applied to all two-parters) is that the first half builds to a series of reveals, and in so doing manages to be hugely fun and intriguing, then the second half has to resolve all of them, and winds up being a bit of a disappointment. Based on past form, I'm now really worried for the final episode of the run, because this first half was a blast.

Doctor Who - Flatline (S08E09)

Much of this series of Doctor Who seems to have been geared towards doing two things: deconstructing the idea of who The Doctor is, and finally figuring out how to develop Clara Oswald as a character. Both of those strands dovetailed rather nicely in this week's episode, but the latter one was particularly well served. Jenna Coleman has been on the show, either as Clara or as one of her various permutations throughout time, for over two years, but since she was more of a mystery to be solved in her first eight episodes as a Companion, there was rarely any sense that she was a real character. Coleman was always very good, but Clara never really had a strong identity in the way that Rose, Martha, Donna and Amy did. The Doctor's regeneration last year seems to have served as an opportunity for Steven Moffat and his writers to start more or less from scratch with the character, turning her into an assertive and dynamic figure, rather than one who simply delivers rapid-fire dialogue with consummate ease. It's been one of the most promising developments in a very promising run.

Doctor Who - Mummy on the Orient Express (S08E08)

Continuing a (probably) unintentional theme running throughout this series of Doctor Who, "Mummy on the Orient Express" starts out with a number of marks against it. The title is the obvious one, since it's built on a half-serviciable pun that is not quite as egregious as the one in "Robot of Sherwood", but only just, but more damning is the way that it starts out like any old episode. The cold open shows an elderly woman riding on a plush and fancy train getting killed by a horrifying mummy that only she can see, after which the camera pulls back to reveal that the train, despite its Gatsby-esque mid-'20s glamour, is actually traveling through space. Once the credits have played, The Doctor and Clara arrive on that same train, dressed up in their finest suit and elegant evening dress respectively, and reveal that the train is actually The Orient Express (or at least an Orient Express), and it becomes clear that they are going to get drawn into solving the mystery of what the mummy is and why it is killing people.

Doctor Who - Time Heist (S08E05)

Before we get down to the business of discussing this very, very good episode of Doctor Who, I just want to step back and examine an issue that has bothered me about the show in the past, and explain why the last few episodes have managed to sidestep it. A little over a year ago, when reviewing the Season 7 episode "Hide", I wrote about what I have come to think of as The Problem of Perspective, an issue which has plagued the show for years, but came to really dominate the Matt Smith seasons:

The Problem of Perspective is that if every episode is about a life-or-death struggle to save the Earth or the galaxy or the Universe then it gets harder and harder to care with each passing crisis. This is especially problematic where end of season finales are concerned; how can something be a climax when everything leading up to it is just a succession of climaxes? 

The show became too big. It too often revolved around stories in which The Doctor has to save the entire world on a weekly basis, and in so doing it squeezed out the smaller-scale adventures that the original series did so well. I mean, the small stories still involved intergalactic travel, life-and-death decisions and moments of terror, but they were often about trying to save a handful of people or thwart a relatively small scheme. You cared about whether The Doctor succeeded because even the lives of seemingly insignificant beings mattered to him, not because failure meant the end of the Universe.

Doctor Who - Listen (S08E04)

"Did we come to the end of the Universe because of a nursery rhyme?" - Clara

That line may be the perfect summation of the appeal and driving force behind Doctor Who in general, and the Steven Moffat era in particular. The Doctor is a protector and something of a superhero, but he's also an explorer. He's someone who has access to a time machine and has the entirety of existence at his disposal, and he has to make the most of it. In "Listen", the first out-and-out great Capaldi episode (and an episode that already seems destined to be canonised alongside "Blink" and "The Girl in the Fireplace" as a modern classic), Doctor Who explores that adventurous spirit, and how far The Doctor's inquisitiveness will take him, even if all that's driving him is a nursery rhyme and a general feeling of unease.

Doctor Who - Deep Breath (S08E01)

Last year was a pretty immense one for Doctor Who. It marked its fiftieth anniversary with the huge spectacle of "The Day of The Doctor", then had to say goodbye to Matt Smith, who left the series after three seasons. It was bittersweet because he was so great in the role and it was sad to see him go, but also because, as good as he was, it felt like he could have been even better if the show around him had been more audacious. Under head writer Steven Moffat, the show had lost the inconsistency that plagued its earlier years under Russell T. Davies, but it rarely hit the same heights that it reached when it was taking big, crazy risks that didn't always pay off. It didn't become boring, but it did lose its unpredictability, particularly as it tried to become more serialised in its storytelling, often at the expense of making good individual episodes of television.

Doctor Who - The Time of The Doctor

Coming a little over a month after the "The Day of The Doctor", one of the most triumphant episodes of the revived Doctor Who's run, "The Time of The Doctor" always ran the risk of being overshadowed by its bigger, flashier and considerably more expensive forbear. (I mean, seriously, some of the effects in this episode, particularly the early scenes inside the Papal Mainframe, looked like they hadn't been properly rendered.) It's unfortunate that it had to come so soon after the 50th anniversary spectacular, because any episode in which The Doctor regenerates from one actor to another should be given due weight and consideration, and it's a shame that Matt Smith's departure had to happen in the wake of something so widely celebrated. (Even if, considering that he took over the part from the wildly popular David Tennant, it feels appropriate that Smith's departure is affected by him as well.)

Doctor Who - The Day of The Doctor

Before we get down to the business of saying what happened in this Very Special Episode of Doctor Who, let's stop for just one second and acknowledge how insane it is that not only is Doctor Who fifty years old, but that it is something people are celebrating. When the series returned a mere eight years ago, it's reputation had sunk to an utter low. It was a campy irrelevance that had been all but abandoned by the BBC, destined to be forgotten by all but its most ardent fans. Much like The War Doctor (John Hurt), it was a secret to be hidden away and ignored, at least as far as executives were concerned. Hell, the thirtieth anniversary was marked by one of the most legendarily terrible things to ever air on British television. All credit should be given to Russell T. Davies and his team who, despite a run that was of incredibly variable quality, successfully resurrected an icon of British science fiction and took it to heights of popularity unimaginable in 2005. To go from that to having a global simulcast of an episode on television and in cinemas is truly unprecedented.

Doctor Who - The Name of The Doctor (S07E14)

Before we get into the finer points of dissecting this episode of Doctor Who, it's worth establishing that the episode exists in two states in my mind. In one part, it exists as a single, fun episode of television with all the accompanying thrill and peril of your average Doctor Who episode. In the other, it exists as both the culmination and justification of a troubled, often frustrating run of episodes. It's important to point out this dichotomy because it cuts to the heart of why this episode was simultaneously one of the best of the recent half-season, and also why it was also deeply problematic and exacerbated a lot of the problems that have irked me about the show this year.

Doctor Who - Nightmare in Silver (S07E13)

One aspect of Doctor Who that I haven't really touched upon this year is the visual style. This is partly because there is a general tendency to view television as less visual than film since it's a writer-driven medium rather than director-driven one. This is more than a little wrong-headed, obviously, because they are so similar, but the quicker production schedules and generally lower budgets of television means that it takes something special - a Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones, for example - to really stand out as something that needs to be discussed in terms of its direction. It's also in part due to the fact that, as I've mentioned in the past, the show maintains such a generally high, professional sheen over everything that it's rare to see something that really stands out as exceptional about the way the show is put together. Generally, it's the performances and the writing that draw the attention, not the direction.

Doctor Who - Hide (S7E10)

When I wrote about "The Bells of Saint John", I cited Doctor Who's recent settling into a trend of bland consistency as one of its major problems. I stand by that as one of the overarching problems it has, but another, more insidious one is what I have come to think of as the Problem of Perspective. By way of explanation, let's jump back in time a little to "The Wedding of River Song", the finale of the lumpy but largely successful sixth season. The episode ended with The Doctor faking his own death, making it seem as if he had been killed in the process of regenerating. In the last scene of the episode, he said that he did this because he had become "too big" and needed to return to the shadows. Both at the time and now, I think that was a rare instance of self-reflection not just from The Doctor as a bombastic, forward-moving character, but also on the part of Doctor Who itself.

Doctor Who - Cold War (S7E09)

One of the more publicly-touted creative decisions that Steven Moffat made going into the seventh series of New Who was to shift away from big arcs and to focus on single, high-concept episodes. High-concept, to paraphrase Don Simpson, basically means that an idea for a story can be reduced to such a level that it can be held in the palm of your hand. An easy example would be the sheer number of action movies whose premises can be summed up as "Die Hard on a [insert location or mode of transport]."

Doctor Who - The Rings of Ankhaten (S7E8)

The power of love is, in addition to being a curious thing, a plot device that Doctor Who likes to fall back on in those moments when an interesting premise flames out or the writers seem to have written themselves into a corner. It's not a bad plot device, either. I mean, it would be a terrible one if Doctor Who was a terribly cerebral series intent on creating works that can stand up to forensic levels of scrutiny, but it isn't. And trying to make it so would be like, I don't know, explaining that Jedis can move things with their minds because they've got some magic blood disorder; making sure everything is airtight and logical removes a lot of the fun from a big, daft adventure series. Having said that, there's a difference between having all the people on Earth wish The Doctor back to his full power in "The Last of the Time Lords" and using a leaf to defeat a giant soul-eating star. There's matters of scale to consider.

Doctor Who - The Bells of Saint John (S7E7)

This remake of Quadrophenia is pretty bitchin'

There's been something off about Doctor Who for quite a while now, and up until this episode I had not quite been able figure out what exactly the problem is. Most of the elements that make the show great (or which can make the show great when it's working at the top of its game) are still present and correct; a thoroughly likable, engaging lead in Matt Smith; witty, playful writing; a sense of scale and ambition that tends to be in short supply in populist science fiction shows, let alone ones made on the typically frugal budgets of British television. Despite this, I've found myself less drawn to the show over time, and whilst I still like individual episodes, often a great deal, my attitude towards the show as a whole has cooled somewhat.

Doctor Who - The Snowmen (S7E6)

Merry Christmas, kids! This year, your present is CEASELESS NIGHTMARES!

Ever since "The Christmas Invasion" ushered in the tradition of Doctor Who Christmas specials, the series has struggled to deliver episodes that match the wit and invention of its non-seasonal outings. At this point, being disappointed by the Christmas special seems as much of a tradition as the specials themselves. Personally, I've never found the specials to be as good or bad as a lot of the fans do, but as just mediocre-to-good episodes that get a lot more attention paid to them because they air apart from the rest of the series. Even last year's much maligned "The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe" struck me as fairly innocuous, rather than something to get angry about.

Doctor Who - The Angels Take Manhattan (S7E05)

 

Though the five-episode mini-season of Doctor Who that ends with "The Angels Take Manhattan" (but more importantly, will they take Berlin?) has had a few bright shining moments, it's largely felt like it was laying the groundwork for future stories rather than focusing on those being told in the present. Appropriate given the nature of the show, perhaps, but it hasn't made for the most satisfying run of episodes. After last season established that The Doctor was hitting the reset button on himself to counteract the way in which he had become "too big" - a criticism that could also have been levelled at the show itself - these episodes had to show what the ramifications of that might be. As River revealed in this episode, in addition to wiping The Daleks' memories of him from their collective database in "Asylum of The Daleks", The Doctor has been removing himself from every information source in the galaxy so that he will be able to operate under the radar again. It's that freedom that allows him to sit in Central Park with Amy and Rory, reading detective fiction and drinking coffee. Of course, trouble always finds The Doctor, and soon a Weeping Angel zaps Rory back to 1938.

Doctor Who - The Power of Three (S07E04)

A, let's face it, pretty easy visual approximation of my feelings whilst watching this episode.

There are two kinds of Doctor Who episode. Actually, that's so reductive as to be a lie: there are as many kinds of episode of Doctor Who as there are species in the universe that The Doctor has saved and/or doomed. However, when it comes to the typical construction of the show, there are two broad types: episodes that are carefully built around a core concept (think of "The Girl In The Fireplace" or "Blink" for great examples of this), and ones in which a couple of cool ideas are thrown out there whilst the plot merely acts as a way of connecting the disparate elements together. Both approaches produce good and bad episodes - heck, last week's "A Town Called Mercy" was one of the best the show has done in a while and was a prime example of the latter - but, in general, the former are consistently better because science fiction as a genre benefits from attention to detail, and ensuring that all the elements of the plot fit together in a way that fundamentally works.

Doctor Who - A Town Called Mercy (S7E03)

I've mentioned in the past that Doctor Who has a somewhat volatile, bordering on manic depressive attitude towards its own tone. Since the show has such a broad canvas - i.e. the entirety of space and time - it can weave sharply between tone, style and genre without ever losing its identity: As long as The Doctor is in it, pretty much everything else can change. In keeping with this idea, the show shifts from the silliness of "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" to the altogether more serious tone of "A Town Called Mercy" with a whiplash-inducing suddenness.

Doctor Who - Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (S7E02)

We can say this much for “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”, it certainly featured dinosaurs, and they were definitely on some form of interstellar transport. Keeping with the traditional structure of following a thematically and dramatically heavy episode with a comparative bit of fluff, this week we saw The Doctor, Amy and Rory (as well Rory’s dad (Mark Williams), a big game hunter (Rupert Graves) and Nefertiti (Riann Steele) because why not?) travelling aboard a mysterious vessel heading on a collision course for Earth. Rather than let the ship be destroyed, The Doctor and his gang get on-board in the hopes of diverting its fatal course, in the process discovering that it is home to dinosaurs, comedy robots and Solomon (David Bradley), an old man who views everything – be it object, animal or person – purely in terms of monetary value.

Doctor Who - Asylum of the Daleks (S7E01)

The sixth series of the rebooted Doctor Who had its ups and downs. The show has always been inconsistent, so this was nothing new, but for his second series as showrunner, Steven Moffat experimented with a number of ideas which, whilst ambitious, often didn't work. The introduction of stronger serialisation concerning the creepy and mysterious order known as The Silence gave an undoubted drive to the show, as well some really quite startling images, it also made the typical structure of the show (a heady mix of standalone episodes and ones which move the greater plot forward) feel more awkward than usual. It didn't help that the series was split in two, so any momentum built up over the mostly excellent first seven seemed to have disappeared by the time the spottier last six aired.