Doctor Who - The Next Doctor

This year’s Doctor Who Christmas Special was expected to throw up a few surprises – and boy it did!

With everyone on the internet arguing over who ‘The Next Doctor’ is, nobody really noticed that there was a story to be told. Those that had bothered, had dismissed it as a remake of the Big Finish audio ‘The One Doctor’, where a man pretends to be The Doctor to make himself some money.

Thankfully, RTD came up with his own idea, as we learn that Jackson Lake (David Morrissey) stumbled across some of the Cybermen’s ‘Info Stamps’ and they made him believe that he was The Doctor, thanks to the information stored on them. It was a good plot, far better from what we suspected and the marvellous acting of Morrissey, made it all the more better.

The main plot of the story has a number of Cyberman, who escaped from the void as it ‘blew up’ during the events of ‘The Stolen Earth’/’Journey’s End’. They find themselves trapped in Victorian England and they have enlisted the help of the much-scorned Miss Hartigan (Dervla Kirwan) to help them infiltrate London and build something...

This something turns out to be a ‘Cyber King’, which is a giant robot-cum-factory. It rather spoiled the episode for me, even though this is Doctor Who, some things should not be done! Although the CGI and sound affects were top notch, it seems that pleasing Christmas audiences with things like this has priority before the actual storyline. Still, it wasn’t as embarrassing as the Queen from ‘Voyage of the Damned’!

However, apart from that, I did thoroughly enjoy this story. The performances of everyone involved was top notch, with Morrissey and Tennant working together, brilliantly once again after their stint in the BBC drama ‘Blackpool’. Velile Tshabalala was also great fun as ‘Rosita’ but I really did think that Dervla Kirwan was a little bit underused. I thought that we should have heard more of her back-story, which apparently involved her being a matron in a workhouse but she got peeved at everyone. It didn’t really make sense to me, especially with it being set in Victorian times, some of the language and set pieces all sounded a bit modern to be honest.

Overall, the episode is a lot of fun that doesn’t really add to the mythos of the show. I do hope we’ve seen the last of the Cybus Cybermen, at least for a while, as I’m hoping for the return of the Mondas Cybermen. Although I would love to see a ‘Cyberman War’!

8/10

Next Time: We’ve got a bit of a wait until the next episode – ‘Planet of the Dead’, which hasn’t even started filming yet!

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 7 - The Unicorn and the Wasp

A giant wasp, a vicar and a brassy thief known as ‘The Unicorn’, all of whom are playing out a game. No it isn’t a seedy club, it’s the latest Doctor Who episode!

‘The Unicorn and The Wasp’ is set in 1926 as The Doctor and Donna gatecrash a garden party - they run into Agatha Christie (Fenella Woolgar). Its worth mentioning that Felicity Kendal (The Good Life and other various crap comedies, which Americans seem to find funny), Tom Goodman-Hill (The druggy copper in ‘Ideal’ and the bumbling government bloke in ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentleman’) guest star alongside Christopher Benjamin, who previously appeared in the classic Doctor Who episodes, ‘Inferno’ (as Sir Keith Gold) and ‘The Talons of Weng-Chiang’ (as Jago).

The episode itself is almost a parody of the ‘murder mystery’ genre, keeping with the Agatha Christie theme. It’s definitely the most comedic 45 minutes of the new series and this episode benefits from that refreshing change.

The story, thanks to its ‘Cludeo’ plot, centres around the murders of a number of characters. When it seems that one of the guests can turn into a ‘Vespiform’ to kill, none of the guests have a decent alibi.

Enter Agatha Christie. Fenella Woolgar plays her magnificently and at times upstages The Doctor, which is very rarely done. Apparently, Fenella had met the Grandson of the novelist, to get a feel for the character. Credit must go to the writer of the episode, Gareth Roberts, for doing a great job with this as well.

Top moments include, everything with Agatha in, The Doctor getting poisoned and Donna trying to help him. The Flashbacks of Colonel Hugh being a dirty old man and The Doctor in a Belgian forest!

However, the monster’s transformation has been criticised by the fans. Although I have no problem with it to be honest. It is an alien wasp after all!

We eventually learn that it was the Vicar ‘Whodunit’ and that he is the son of a Vespiform who had his wicked way with Lady Eddison (Felicity Kendal) 40 years ago in India, the mucky cow! So after more or less solving the mystery, Agatha gives chase to the Vespiform, after learning that it was her books that gave the wasp the information to kill. But its Donna, who continues her murdering streak (after killing that poor fat woman in the opening episode) by throwing the necklace, which our Thief – The Unicorn (Felicity Jones) was after, into a lake. The link (which had materialised between Agatha and the Vespiform) was severed but Agatha was to lose her memory and go missing for 10 days. Which is what happened in real life, apart from the alien wasps of course!

As an episode, it’s a lot of fun, not to be taken too seriously. It’s certainly better than its series 3 counterpart, 42, anyway!

8.5/10

Next Time: The Doctor and Donna visit the largest library in the Universe, which seems to be deserted. I wonder if they mean the centre of London? You’ll be met with the same level of friendliness anyway.

As mentioned, it was more of a comedy this week, which is precisely what's on next week, as its Eurovision! Which means no Doctor Who for 2 weeks. Cheers BBC, what do we pay our TV licences for again?

'Silence In The Library' Trailer

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 6 - The Doctor's Daughter

By the time young, teenage Doctor Who fans had wiped away the stickiness from their television screens, thrown away those tissues and unlocked their bedroom doors, we had witnessed a momentous occasion in Doctor Who.

Georgia Moffett, the real life daughter of Peter Davison, plays ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’. Picking up right off from last week, The Doctor’s severed hand is the reason they land on the planet Messaline. We learn later that it had locked on to Jenny’s DNA, much later from when they arrived. Confusing? You bet!

You are in either two camps with this episode. You either love it or hate it! Personally I think its okay, I neither love it nor hate it (I’m awkward that way)! There where some great moments. The Hath where brilliantly done, Donna (again), Martha and Tennant, especially, have easily justified RTD’s casting abilities.

But it was Ms Moffet that really impressed. She is most notable for playing the tearaway daughter of Insp. Sam Nixon in The Bill and daughter of Ozias Harding (or Coronation Street’s serial murderer ‘Tricky Dicky’ - Richard Hillman, if you prefer) in ‘Where The Heart Is’. So I suppose playing The Doctor’s daughter was a stroll in the park!

But wasn’t she good? As the episode went on she grew more and more into the role. I don’t know what the future holds but I’m sure she’ll be back. Before anyone even attempts to ask, no she isn’t the mother of Susan! As she was ‘born’ as a result of the actions of Tenth Doctor, the first Doctor wouldn’t know anything about it.

The episode itself was done well. I suppose it could be confusing if you haven’t seen much of Doctor Who. All this ‘timey-wimey’ nonsense! The planet holds two factions of people. Humans (again!) and fish-humanoids called ‘The Hath’. Both these factions had been at war for generations, in search of the ‘source’, which would give them control of the planet.

Unknown to them of course, they had only been at war for a week. The heavy dead count and a readily available cloning machine, meant that everyone barely survived 12 hours. Credit must go to guest star Nigel Terry as Cobb, the leader of the humans, for a great star turn.

As Magnificent Martha catches up with D+D and Jenny, they smash the ‘source’, which turns out to be a device to make the climate on the surface of the planet, breathable. But as Cobb thinks he has the last word by shooting Jenny, its David Tennant who shows precisely why he is considered to be one of our best talents. His emotional speech was perfectly delivered, I suppose Stephen Greenhorn (the writer) deserves some praise too!

So as this series keeps up this consistent run, I’m excited! I’m sure the future of Jenny, who sort-of regenerated just after The Doctor left, has already been planned by RTD.

8/10

Next Week – Donna, a working class London girl, pretends she reads Agatha Christie novels and watches those boring murder mysteries on ITV!

'The Unicorn and the Wasp' Trailer

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 5 - The Poison Sky

I’ve got nothing but praise for the second part of this story, everything just seemed to be right. From the episode title to that ending, everything was as perfect as a Doctor Who episode should be.

After (doing the obvious) smashing the car window, to save Bernard Cribbins, (the best ever guest star in Doctor Who!) The Doctor heads back to the UNIT base and Donna heads to the TARDIS.

But as the Doctor tries to plead with the Sontarans, Mad Martha helps them to ‘transmat’ the TARDIS onto the Sontaran ship. Of course, The Doctor had all this planned, as was the glimpse of Rose on the TARDIS monitor, I think!

This episode was a reference heaven. From a mention of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart being a ‘fine man but he’s stuck in Peru’ to the Rutans and The Doctor’s ‘Are You My Mummy’ quip. It was all there!

Sadly Doctor Who still can’t do soldiers. British soldiers always wear their berets in the correct manner and never ‘retreat’ – they ‘withdraw’! By comparison, the Sontarans were done brilliantly. I enjoyed the interaction of them and that war chant, I think that Helen Raynor has finally shown us what the Sontarans are really about.

I don’t know what kind of home video RTD has got of the head of BBC commissioning, but the effects are once again, simply breathtaking. All those wobbly sets and plastic Dinosaurs are a thing of the past!

Back to the episode, as The Doctor twigs that Mad Martha, isn’t Martha and Donna goes around whacking Sontarans. Luke ‘the boy genius’ finds out that the Sontarans don’t need him and as The Doctor builds an ‘atmospheric converter’, in record time (?), he sets fire to the sky, removing all the poison gas, which as engulfed the earth.

The Doctor wants to become a suicide bomber but its Luke who transmats to the spaceship and replaces The Doctor, to blow up the ship and himself.

A wonderful two-parter, one which I’ll be watching over and over again. The Sontarans where simply superb and credit goes to Christopher Ryan.

9/10

The ending was unexpected to say the least. The Doctor, Donna and Martha being trapped in the TARDIS as it sets off into space. Who is waiting, yep, it’s The Doctor Daughter, but is she? Well, yes, she’s actually the Daughter of 5th Doc Peter Davison. I can see this is going to get confusing!

Next Week: The Doctor’s Daughter is set to become the ‘most perved’ by Doctor Who geeks, young and old!

'The Doctor's Daugther' Trailer

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 4 - The Sontaran Stratagem

I generally judge a good Doctor Who episode on how much I can moan about it. In this instance, it was almost a perfect 45 minutes of Doctor Who!

Okay, despite the UNIT boys wearing their berets wrong, I found it thoroughly entertaining! I’m not sure what Ryan Sampson was playing it, with that accent, but he played the kid-genius-you-just-want-to-slap, with perfection!

That’s where the story begins. Basically the kid genius has designed these new carbon-cutting devices, which have a free sat-nav system and clothes vouchers, apparently. Yep, you’ve guessed it – Primark! Anyway, despite being a qualified Doctor for less than a year, UNIT officer Martha Jones rings the Doctor to help out.

It was a rather clever plot to be honest. Gone are the days where the aliens would just turn up from nowhere without any explanation of how they got there. This is a lot better.

We learn that Martha is now engaged to Tom Milligan (the bloke who helped her out in ‘The Last of The Timelords’). I say engaged, I reckon she’s got some blackmail on the go, as he won’t know about the whole ‘lost year’ thing! So after a few well placed awkward moments, our trio head to a mobile base, which has been set up outside the ATMOS Sat-Nav factory.

The factory’s workers don’t seem to be in control of their capabilities, so Martha investigates. The Doctor goes to find Luke, where Ross’s (the young solider) description of the academy (which Luke runs) as a ‘type of Hitler youth camp’ is bang on. I suppose the Catholic Church have their pick of future Pope’s then! Donna buggers of home for a chat and a brew with ‘Gramps’!

Back to Luke’s, where The Doctor stumbles across a teleport and is transported to the Sontaran ship but as he quickly travels back, he is followed by their leader – General Staal. I was mightily impressed with these Sontarans, in fact, I would go as far as saying they are the best ever! The Doctor and Rambo Ross escape and as Staal fails to kill them with the Sat-Nav, they arrive at Donna’s house.

Meanwhile back at the base, Martha is kidnapped by the badly dressed soldiers and cloned, into ‘Mad Martha’ (I presume)! You would of thought that being on the run for a non-existence year, Martha would be more cautious, wouldn’t you? So as our MM totally ignores the Doctor’s warning, she lets events take their place and the sky is filled with poison gas, from the ATMOS machines. And as Bernard Cribbins steals the show again (It’s them aliens Donna!), he is trapped in one of the poisonous cars…

I hope next weeks’ will be just as good. I’ve normally panned Helen Raynor’s episodes, but she’s done a good job here! The effects where superb once again, it was nice to see the old Sontaran spaceships! And did anyone notice the ‘Turn Left’ references? You heard it here first, folks!

9/10

Don’t forget to watch the confidential too, they are very informative! And can I just say – Helen Raynor – any chance I could take you out for a drink?

Next Week – General Staal is caught in his underpants, ‘up to no good’ with Donna’s Mum.

The Poison Sky Trailer

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 3 - The Planet of The Ood

The Ood return in this one part story, set on the ‘Oodsphere’. Last seen in ‘The Impossible Planet’ and ‘The Satan Pit’, the Ood are a race of squid-type humanoids who are quite happy to be slaves for the humans. In this episode, ‘Planet of The Ood’, we learn all about the Ood and why they are in captivity.

The Doctor and Donna land on the beautiful ice world, where they find a dying Ood who seems to be suffering from the telepathic state in which the Ood in the previous stories suffered from and subsequently attacked the humans. They then infiltrate the base, ran by Blackadder’s Tim Mcinerney.

It seems Captain Darling has spent the last 15 years sat in a dark room eating cakes but in this episode, he arrives to sort out the Ood’s ‘red-eye’ disease. Of course everything goes tits-up as the Ood break out and wage war on the dopey humans. Darling is concerned that the whole warehouse of Ood, ready to be shipped across the galaxy and sold, is contaminated.

After a decent start, I was quite disappointed with the episode. They seemed to be preaching an anti-slavery message. I don’t think any kind of political statement has any place in Doctor Who, some of the time they obstruct the story. Most of the time, it’s a load of bollocks! Something which had me up in arms, was the bit where The Doctor asked Donna ‘who do you think makes your clothes.’ Well Doctor, is it the everyday, working class peoples’ fault that some poor foreign mush isn’t paid much for making clothes? Who do you think made your suit and the coat Janis Joplin ‘gave’ you? I bet it was some poor alien bastard with 160 kids to feed!

Then the bit where Captain Darling turned into an Ood was a little bit OTT and put me off the entire episode. It wasn’t that bad, well not in a Torchwood way, anyway! It seemed the episode was building up to something that wasn’t there. The Ood quote at the end had me thinking though. Lets hope that The Doctor’s ‘song’ will last for a while longer! We are getting through The Doctors too quickly!

However, lets go over the good points: Donna keeps on improving, not sure about the West Ham quote though! The Ood looked great, the battle scenes were terrific and that scenery was just magnificent. Now if only they could have kept away from the ‘Slavery is wrong’ theme!

6.5/10

Phew, lets end on a good note. THAT TRAILER FOR NEXT WEEKS LOOKS AMAZING! ROLL ON SATURDAY!

Next Week: Jamie Oliver is revealed to be an undercover Sontaran warrior and he has been secretly plotting to be making our kids grow up into little weaklings, by eating crap food.

'The Sontaran Stratagem' Trailer

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 2 - The Fires of Pompeii

Well, what can you say about this episode? Visually it was stunning, the story was well written, the acting was top notch and the story shifted from comedy to a scary moment, like only a Doctor Who episode can.

Filmed on location in Italy, The Doctor and Donna think there’re in Rome but in fact they are in Pompeii – on the day it’s buried in ash. Add to that the molten lava monsters and a sisterhood that suspiciously reminds you of the Tom Baker serial ‘The Brain of Morbius’, means we are set for a good ride.

Phil Davies guest stars as a soothsayer, a creepy one at that! He tells The Doctor ‘she is returning’ and Donna has ‘something on her back’. Oh and the bees keep disappearing too! Hmmm I think we may be on to something, in terms of a story arc!

One great concept with Doctor Who, is that they can play around with historical events without spoiling them. Apart from The Doctor being responsible for many disasters, such as the great fires of Rome and London and now Pompeii!

So as Phil Davies is working with our rock monsters, no not McFly – they’re rubbish, to take over the world, The Doctor and Donna are stuck in the middle, as they try to investigate and quickly, as the mountain is about to blow up!

The plot becomes quite simple in the end, with everything fitting nicely into place. But one criticism I do have is the continuation of ‘The Doctor is God’ theme. What with Christianity becoming more maligned and ignored in this day and age, we really don’t want Doctor Who to become a rallying point for Atheists.

Apart from that, it’s an excellent episode. The next episode – Planet of The Ood, looks good. Lets hope it can fill out that promise!

9/10

'Planet of The Ood' Trailer

Doctor Who Series 4 Episode 1 - Partners In Crime

The long wait is finally over! After spending Christmas with Kylie, not literally, I can’t afford her, we arrive in the ever-so familiar surroundings of London and Catherine Tate’s Donna.

Now yours truly wasn’t happy when the news was announced that the world’s oldest teenager (no not Sophie Aldred!) was going to be back. I don’t like Catherine’s ‘humour’ at all. That said, after this episode, I’ll give her a chance!

The episode opened up with David Tennant’s Doctor investigating a company that sells diet pills. Donna, who has spent months tracking down ‘weird going-on’ in the hope of finding The Doctor, is also there. But our main characters keep missing each other, it was quite amusing stuff.

Eventually the pair meet, on the run from villous ‘supernanny’ Miss Foster (Sarah Lancashire). She is behind the plot, which involves making seriously cute creatures called ‘Adipose’, out of human fat.

The episode has spilt the fans into two. Those who love it and those who dislike it. Personally I love it. I shuddered when I first saw the Adipose and wondered what was going through RTD’s head. But the Adipose weren’t overused, in fact they weren’t really the villains. Expect cuddly Adipose’s, coming to a shop near you this Christmas!

It was a decent start and the 8 million viewers certainly was a great start. Lets hope that it can be sustained. The episode also had a new opening theme. It was similar to the one used for Voyage of the Damned but tweaked a little and it was a lot better! The affects also keep getting better. Apparently the Adipose where made using the same technogly that was used in the Lord of the Rings films. Thankfully the Adipose where a lot better than anything in LOTR!

Catherine Tate did look a lot better since her last appearance. David Tennant was at his usual best, Sarah Lancashire was a convincing alien-nanny but it was Bernard Cribbins that stole the show. Every scene he was in was fantastic. The last scene of the episode was pure Doctor Who magic. You won’t get that in Star Trek!

And how can I forget the surprise appearance of Rose*. No one but the actors and some of the production team, knew about it. What a fantastic surprise! Sadly, the newspapers seem determined to spoil everything else but lets hope they haven’t. As for the reason she was there and why she disappeared? I’ve no idea, isn’t that wonderful? We’ll have to wait to find out!

(*Scroll down to see her return!)

8/10

Next is the ‘Fires of Pompeii’, an episode shot entirely on location in Italy. The trailer looks spectacular but will it live up to the hype?

'The Fires of Pompeii' Trailer



Rose Return's Clip

It's Back!

Just five days to go until the new series of Doctor Who and I’m so excited! This series promises to be yet another epic following on from last years’ Master story arc will this year’s top it? Lets hope so.

Catherine Tate joins the Doctor, as dippy Donna, on board the TARDIS in episode opener ‘Partners In Crime’, which will be screened on BBC1 at 6.20pm. Don’t miss out (Raquel if Corrie’s in it!).

You’ll be able to read my thoughts on each episode as they air and I might have something else planned as well! I bet you’re on tenderhooks, aren’t you? Ok, maybe not!

But for now here are some previews of series 4, enjoy!

Preview 1



Preview 2



'Campire' Trailer