Going Through Doctor Who (Spoilers all Eps aired on BBC/BBCA)

[rushy]

The Hand Of Fear is a decent way to waste time, a story for a rainy day. There's nothing particularly substantial about it, but it's also pretty well made.

PLOT

After being hit by an avalanche of rocks in a quarry, Sarah discovers a petrified hand that possesses her and numerous other people around her to fill it with radiation to regenerate into Eldrad, the power-mad architect of Castria who plots to return to his would-be domain after millions of years.

ANALYSIS

Beyond the final few minutes, there's not much to say. There's nothing to complain about and nothing to praise either beyond the direction. The direction is great. The handheld camera movements create a very surreal atmosphere which at least makes the story memorable.

The plot makes little sense to me. A whole hand surviving the obliteration of a starship? If the hand was tough enough to survive, why nothing else? Or is the Nose Of Fear soaking up radiation on Skaro? Also, would a whole race really agree to kill themselves just because the living conditions suck? That's just nonsense(but made for a good reveal).

But let's talk about the last few minutes. I was a little thrown off by Sarah's random hissy fit until they revealed she wasn't planning to leave until the Doctor made her. That was actually kind of cute.
Also, is it just me or does Sarah seem a little mad at the end, talking to the dog and carrying a tennis racket and a teddy bear? Her clothes are bizarrely childish in this story as well. Did the clothes designers go on strike and Tom Baker stepped up to fill the role?

CHARACTERS

I have no clue why, but Possessed Sarah is spellbindingly sexy.
And on an unrelated note, Sarah's been acting very girlish these past two seasons, at least it seems that way to me. And I mean, GIRLISH. Like 10-year old girlish, with all the giggles and hissy fits and pouting and all that. It's just bizarre. Not that I mind, but it's just an odd acting choice on Sladen's part. It's kind of like Jo, but at least she was "kooky" from the start.

It took me a few minutes to recover from just how hilariously bad Eldrad's costume is(why do all the Bob and Dave stories have such horrid designs??), but I actually found her likable. I felt the twist coming a mile away, but her performance briefly convinced me it wasn't going to happen.

Then she turned into Stephen Thorne, who basically repeated his "parody of Shakespeare" performance from The Three Doctors, which was fun to watch at least.

I liked Professor Watson a lot. If it was still the UNIT years, I would've immediately hired him as a regular. He has a great chemistry with the leads and although he's a bit stubborn, he's ready to believe what he sees. He's like a combination of the Brigadier and that chap from The Sea Devils who worked for The Master. I also thought it was great we saw him call his family.

Dr. Carter was also really likable and it's a shame he died. He and Watson both didn't really spice up their roles, so to speak, but they gave it 100%.

NOTES

*I love the little "aww" Sarah makes when the Doctor throws the ring into the abyss. Like, "Aww, that was a nice ring. Why'd you throw it away?"

*Where did the Doctor get a fake ring anyway? He said something about being a magician, did he have a ring in his magician's kit or something? I didn't really get it.

*Since when is it a Time Lord's duty to prevent alien invasions? Isn't that exactly the sort of meddling that got the Doctor put on trial? I thought Time Lords didn't interfere in things.

*Why does the Doctor HAVE to obey the call to Gallifrey "as a Time Lord"? Does that mean that he now considers himself to be part of their society again? I know he doesn't want to piss them off again, but then why does he say "as a Time Lord" instead of "so I wouldn't piss them off again"? If it was another Time Lord duty like preventing alien invasions, wouldn't the First and Second Doctors have to obey as well? Why didn't the Time Lords try that?

*I've changed my mind about the second control room. I don't like it. It's dark and it's dead. It feels like they're huddling in an old cabin with no electricity(as far as I can tell, there is none actually. None of the buttons make sounds, the rotor is nonexistent and the doors are opened by the actors. I bet the scanner is opened by people as well. Just about the only cool things about it are the fact that the console doubles as a table and that the panels open up.

*Why is he using the second control room anyway? In the last story, it felt like he was testing it out for nostalgia or maintenance. It felt like a one-off. Why is he still there?

*Hey, it's Sarah's yellow rain jacket from Season 12 she's holding at the end!

*I know Sarah had that powerful ring, but it was ridiculously easy for her and the other fellow, Driscoll to gain access to a nuclear reactor.

*I love how Sarah knows the names of all the Doctor's tools whilst Clara is all "sonic screwdriver. Point and think, yeah?". Clara Os-win(ugh, that joke still hurts) Oswald will never have anything on Sarah Jane Smith.

BEST QUOTE

"Eldrad MUST(high-pitched) live." Could it be anything else?

CONCLUSION

Pretty good.

[rushy]

The Deadly Assassin has to be one of the biggest Doctor Who stories ever told. One would expect that the mythology of the Time Lords is revealed bit by bit by a multitude of writers, none of which have any idea what they're actually contributing, but no. Pretty much everything that the Time Lords and even the Master are came from this story.

PLOT

The Doctor returns to Gallifrey to investigate the upcoming assassination of the Lord President which he saw a precognitive vision of. He happens to be on the scene when it happens and realizes that the vision was sent as bait for him to be ensnared and destroyed at the hands of his own people.
The Master(hell yeah!) has returned at last to wreak revenge and all shall obey him...

ANALYSIS

Although parts of it were drawn out(like the scenes in the Matrix) and I don't think Holmes had to make the Time Lords quite as daft as they are here, The Deadly Assassin holds up incredibly well for such an outlandishly designed story. Moments, which at first seem like the writer's oversights turn out to be epic twists and it all fits together and more importantly - feels organic.

The lack of a companion doesn't really bother me beyond one or two scenes where Tom Baker just morosely talked to himself, but Spandrell and Engin work well as sidekicks for him. Still, I'd definitely agree that Baker's idea of a companionless show doesn't really work.

At first, I liked the Matrix, but the more it went on, the less consistent it became. It started out as this nightmarish world where everything is trying to kill the Doctor, but by the end, it was just him and Goth brawling in a forest.

One thing I couldn't understand about the plot is how all the Time Lords act like the Doctor is still a felon. I mean, sure, the CIA(wonderful Holmes) and their decisions might not get on with the people we see here, but how come we didn't see a single Time Lord who completely supported the Doctor's side of things. Partially out of, I dunno, old connections and partially because the guy saved the whole planet from Omega. Or was that covered up?

CHARACTERS

The Master! Oh, I am glad to see him again. Peter Pratt's take of him is obviously inspired somewhat by Delgado as he was the only template thus far, but he does portray him in a more unhinged, bitter manner. It's only a shame we couldn't see more of him(literally: his mask was great, but needed just a bit more work so he could move his mouth properly).

We also see here the second introduction to the Master-Doctor rivalry. In the Pertwee era, the Doctor and the Master are both pretty chill each other until they absolutely need to take action. This "frenemies" concept is what the new series would really take advantage of. However, in this version, the Master just hates the Doctor's guts. No Cyber-armies for you, Tom.

Goth is a very confusing character. I mean, Bernard Horsfall is as awesome as ever, but is he the same Time Lord who put the Second Doctor on trial? If he is, it's very strange that he never refers to it(he's even astonished by the Doctor's TARDIS) and I also can't really see him turning powerthirsty. And if he isn't, why cast the same actor?

Both Spandrell and Engin are very strange characters for Time Lords, but they're also entertaining and refreshingly direct. A great pair and a great set of minds for the Doctor to bounce off of.

I also loved the pompous Runcible(although his "Time Lord TV" was just too stupid to be taken seriously on any level) and his sort of-familiarity with the Doctor.

Borusa was great, too. The "9 out of 10" scene was brilliant from top to bottom.

NOTES

*Why did they bring back the Tissue Compression Eliminator(the shrinker device used briefly by the Master in Terror Of The Autons)? Who would've guessed that? He only used it once, it's not exactly his calling card. Maybe a Jon Pertwee dartboard? Or the Delgado theme tune(that they used to death during the Pertwee era, I might add)?

*Also, the return of the Eliminator shows an adherence to continuity I have never seen from the classic series before. Like, wow. We are talking about the same show that introduced the Dalek and UNIT timelines.

*I hated the reveal that Goth was also in the Matrix. They built up how he controls this place and conjures up all these people to kill the Doctor and then it just turns out to be him in a hunter's outfit. Boo.

*Why is the Master wearing that horrible cloak? Surely disfigurement would mean you'd want more comfort? I'd be rocking silk if I looked like he does.

*Another reason to hate the secondary console room: the nameless multicolored buttons. I could at least live with it if they weren't set up perfectly. Like, imagine your keyboard. Imagine if the whole QWERTY-etc line was all yellow. Then the ASDFG-etc line was red. And then the ZXCV-etc line was blue.

*So, how exactly do Rassilon and Omega fit in with each other? Omega harnessed the power of black holes and yet here we see that Rassilon constructed the Eye Of Harmony? Did Rassilon inherit his stuff? Were they co-workers? Rassilon was supposedly the First Time Lord, so did he have anything to do with Omega getting stuck in the antimatter universe?

BEST QUOTE

"He'd delay an execution to pull the wings off a fly." - the Doctor describes the Master.

CONCLUSION

An important step in the history of Doctor Who. And a damn good story.

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The Face Of Evil is a solid, but unremarkable story that doesn't really make much sense.

PLOT

The Doctor lands on an unknown planet and is captured by savage people who believe him to be "the Evil One". Teaming up with a young woman from the tribe named Leela, he escapes and discovers that the planet is home to two races... both descendants of a survey team whose computer was driven mad by the Doctor by accident long ago.

ANALYSIS

Basic question: why did the survey team forget about their past? If it was ever explained, I completely missed it. Xoanon mentioned experimenting on them and living out his torment on them(which is absolute nonsense), but they never explained how it actually all worked. Nor did they explain in comprehensible terms why the Doctor needed to resort to telepathy to fix a computer.
At least the story is completely watchable and not just because of Leela's... you know.

CHARACTERS

Tom Baker, as I am told, loves to break the fourth wall. He already sort of did so in The Deadly Assassin, but this is his first talking to the camera moment. I don't really mind, because having Tom Baker talk to me as if I was the companion feels both surreal and awesome.
Maybe his ideas for the show were good after all.

Can I just say how happy I am that a leather-bikini-wearing Louise Jameson is now a regular?

Two memorable faces from The War Games return in this story, one being Colonel von Weich(the guy with the scar) who now plays the superstitious Neeva and his political opponent Kalib, who was the really southern guy who flirted with Lady Jennifer. Both of them are far less memorable here. I needed the Wiki to know it was actually these two.

In a wonderful turn of events, Tom Baker semi-plays the role of Xoanon and does it wonderfully, twisting his performance as the Doctor in a chilling fashion. The cliffhanger where Xoanon screams "Who am I?!"(not Baker's voice at that point) is easily one of my new all-time favourites. So friggin' creepy.

And the Tesh. Right, that covers them.

NOTES

*Did anyone else think the Doctor was talking to his future self before Xoanon revealed that he was sending his toys to the Sevateem's village?

*The Doctor says that Xoanon developed two personalities: his own and the Fourth Doctor's. But why are there a multitude of voices then?

*Is Leela's "you like me" supposed to be romantic? Cause that's the vibe I certainly got.

*I love how the Doctor refuses to let her into the TARDIS. Like, "What is this nonsense? You're not from contemporary London, you're a guest star playing a savage! I'm not taking you with me!"

*All that whining about needing his companions in the new show and he just doesn't care here. And given that Clara only probably meets him every 50 years, I'm not surprised. He just wants to make them think they're special. Whilst, in reality, he has spent half of his life on some privately owned planet filled with pairs and pairs of round things, only waking to the call of the midlife crisis every now and then.
The Time War granted him the biggest pension in the universe and he just hasn't told anyone yet.

*For all the talk about how the Doctor doesn't remember his age, the new series tries its hardest to give him one, has anyone else noticed that? It just strikes me as kind of odd. It's currently 2500, by-the-by. Also, if the War Doctor was 800 in The Day Of The Doctor, that means it took the Ninth Doctor 100 years to check himself out in a mirror. Also, since the Tenth Doctor lived only 7 years, that would make him the George Lazenby of the Doctors, wouldn't it? Why the heck did the Moment pick him? Bah, another time, another review.

*Tom Baker was apparently originally supposed to use a knife in the scene where he threatens the Sevateem with a jelly baby, but he refused. Hats down to the man.

*Also, this is the first time he's had jelly babies since Robot. I kind of expected him to use them more often.

*How did the Tesh carve the Fourth Doctor's visage into the mountain?

*How come the Tesh simultaneously understand science and yet cover up all the computer banks and stuff with clothing?

*If this takes place generations after the survey team landed, how is all the machinery still working?

*The only criticism I have about Leela is that she has a very silly-sounding name.

CONCLUSION

Meh. Not bad, but not standing up to the quality of the stuff we've had recently.

[rushy]

Well, this is embarrassing... I'm sorry I haven't updated this recently. I'm almost through The Robots Of Death though and I'll be sure to see The Magician's Apprentice soon(though I won't review that until I've seen the second part).

Good news is, though that the prologues were both fantastic and I've finally gotten really into Capaldi's Doctor(who pretty much turned out to be another wacky Moffat Doctor, just like all the others, but it's better than last series' mess), Missy and all the rest.

Not Clara though. She's still the worst. And I'm not sure about Maisie Williams either. Haven't seen her in Game Of Thrones, but in the awful trailers, she was basically a Clara clone, so... hopes up?

See you soon, guys.

[rushy]

The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar is a pretty great start to the season and probably the most meta Doctor Who story ever told(apart from The Feast Of Steven of course).

PLOT

Davros is dying and the Doctor returns to Skaro to check up on him. Ever observant, Missy and Clara join him to help, but it turns out to be even worse than they feared...

ANALYSIS

The first thing I can say is wow. Doctor Who is finally delving into meta comedy(something parodying itself). It's that old. Well, I'm all for it. At least it's fun(unlike most of Series 8).

Given the number of new series cameos in this story, I'm suspecting it may be the 10th anniversary special. I don't think it is, but if they're not going to treat the rest of the season like this, I'm going to take it as that, because the amount of stuff they bring back, apparently just for kicks is insane.

But basically, yeah, this story is either the 10th anniversary special or Moffat just going "hey, wait a second, I'M in charge of Doctor Who. I can make him play a guitar on a tank! I can get Davros to regenerate! PARTY!!!"

I like to think it's the second, because this story... guys, THIS STORY.

CHARACTERS

One of the best things about this is the way they've made Peter Capaldi finally completely click as the Twelfth Doctor. His cold and rude Doctor never really properly worked for me last season as it seemed a completely random U-turn from a character who's been fairly consistently developing from Eccleston to Smith. However, here I caught that connection once more as the Doctor goes even crazier than when he wore bow-ties.

Now, here's how I see this development: from Series 1 to Series 5, the Doctor recovers from the Time War and becomes a gradually lighter figure(with some mood swings in the Tennant era). Then, in Series 6, this goes into overdrive and he basically becomes Superman, which is reversed in Series 7, where in The Day Of The Doctor he gets back on track. Series 8 is another mood swing and now, he's gone completely bonkers. I didn't think that was possible after Matt Smith's Willy Wonka turn, but he's an even bigger madman in a box now. How the next guy is gonna follow this up, I have no idea.

Michelle Gomez as the Master is basically Anthony Ainley 2.0, just like John Simm was Roger Delgado 2.0. I don't find her character insulting anymore, as she fits into the tone.(whereas in Series 8, it was a bit weird). I'll never call my favourite though, sorry. She's just a bit too out there for me to enjoy fully(which could be said for most of what Moffat's written these last few years).

Julian Bleach returns for another magnficient performance as Davros. Now, I would've liked it far, far, FAR better had they actually killed the character off and shaken up the status quo for a change... I loved the idea that Davros is so, so ancient he's finally kicking the bucket and the scenes between him and the Doctor were the best ever. Like, this is totally the best Davros story, if ONLY he'd had the decency to die. Although I suppose the same could be said for Genesis Of The Daleks.

Jenna Coleman has gone back to her Day Of The Doctor levels of irritating for me. Like, she's not the worst thing in the world anymore, but she still sort of makes me grate my teeth. The scene where she was stuck in the Dalek was actually pretty intense though. I would've loved it had the Doctor just left her there and she was never seen again. What a great finale that would've been.

Colony Sarff... meh. Cool, but nothing much to tell.

NOTES

*That electric guitar playing, the sunglasses... this is the Twelfth Doctor we never knew we wanted. And he is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Completely ridiculous, of course, but c'mon, this is legendary. It's time to live a little.

*Davros opening his eyes... that hurt. That was perfect. Why couldn't he have died in this story?!?!?

*Why were the classic Daleks around? Like, seriously. Think about it.

*I really liked the way they resolved the cliffhanger from last episode, although I'm a bit confused by the "mercy" ending. How did it actually affect Davros's character?

*But the biggest question of all is how much the Doctor's regeneration cycle was affected by Davros's meddling. He was being drained for quite a few minutes. I'm pretty sure we lost one Doctor there, at least(probably not, but still... I was expecting them to comment on that).

*How did Davros survive outside of his chair? Maybe I missed something(Colony Sarff?), but in Genesis Of The Daleks, he was supposed to be dead after 20 seconds without his life support system.

*The scene where the Doctor was bossing the Daleks around in Davros's chair was awesome.

*The sonic sunglasses idea is pretty neat(and wonderfully easy for kids to emulate, me included), but having him flick them out every episode from now on... I don't like that. It's just too cheesy for full-time replacement.

*How can the TARDIS scatter itself? I thought the HADS system meant moving the TARDIS in full.

*In the Maldovarium, why is the Ood's translator glowing the whole time? I thought it only glowed when they talk.

*Why does the Supreme Dalek have three lights? I don't remember him having those in The Stolen Earth.

*The idea of the Dalek casing translating everything the occupant says made for a great scene towards the end, but other than that, I hate it. It removes the humor(the only reason anyone will ever watch this again) of Daleks with regular speech, plus... why would the Daleks need that?

*For once, just for once, Moffat explains away one of his disrepancies, that being the Dalek who screamed for mercy in The Big Bang. Thanks, Steven, you've made my day.

*Clara's skirt is hideous. And clashing.

*"Dark Lord of Skaro"? Huh?

BEST QUOTE

"Of course, the real question is... where did I get the cup of tea? Answer? I'm the Doctor. Just accept it."

CONCLUSION

If you ever want to have a laugh about Doctor Who, you no longer need The Curse Of The Fatal Death.

[rushy]

Mesa back! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry for the lack of updates recently, been very busy trying to get my digital life back on track, plus there's been a lot of irritating things in real life too, but I finally finished The Robots Of Death!

PLOT

The Doctor and Leela find themselves on a sandminer populated by a sparse crew and robots. When the crew start getting murdered one by one, the group turns on one another. The robots however, continue to follow their orders to the letter...

ANALYSIS

Whilst the story succeeds in creating a creepy atmosphere and the Agatha Christie whodunnit gimmick is much better utilized than in The Unicorn And The Wasp, it's let down by a plot far too complicated and bizarre for its own good. Often I found myself completely bewildered by what was going on and the characters weren't all that great either. Oh yeah...

CHARACTERS

Leela continues to grow on me with a great mixture of innocence and savagery. She's just a joy to watch.

Unfortunately, beyond her and the Doctor, there's not much else. The villain, Taren Capel is completely two-dimensional("I like robots... a LOT! Revolution! Humans suck!"), the initially fun, Blackadder-esque Uvanov pulls a 180 and becomes a boring old guy in part four and none of the others are really memorable either.

I guess the lady(whose name I fail to recall) was nice...?

The robots were great villains, obviously stolen by RTD for Voyage Of The Damned and who can blame him? Equally, D84 was a great hero(although the explanation behind his presence on the ship was lackluster at best). Altogether, they were easily the best part of all this, being creepy as hell when evil and cute as hell when good. You have to question the logic of robots who look like that, though. Who designed them?

NOTES

*The evil robots' red eye effect is great, but also having it appear in the needle thing was too much.

*Also, the first time the needle was used against the robots was cool, but it was used again and again for some reason and became just a random weapon everyone seemed to have by the end.

*What's the story behind the blue-eyed robots?

*If Capel was so obsessed with becoming a robot, why didn't he just turn himself into a cyborg or something? The make-up he wore by the end was just ridiculous.

*I know the Doctor simplified the explanation behind the TARDIS interior dimensions, but it took me a long, long while after the episode before I finally got it.

*Lolz, that silver bandage.

*I want to meet a guy called Laserson.

*The costumes in this story are completely inappropriate for sandmining, even if the whole crew work inside the ship. Couldn't the production crew have dug up the stuff they had in Colony In Space?

*I don't really mind the Doctor getting it wrong with the bumblebee thing. Time Lords aren't infallible.

*Is it just me or is Tom Baker aging really fast?

BEST QUOTE

"You said I had to keep it going up and down!" - Leela.
I know, there's many great quotes in this one, but most of them were in dialogue and the inverse ratio line is too cliche.

CONCLUSION

The intent is good and there's a lot of great interactions, but the story is just all over the place and becomes a slog as time goes on. Not one I'd go back to.

[rushy]

Woops, ended up double-posting!

[rushy]

Woops, ended up triple-posting!

[rushy]

Under The Lake/Before The Flood is flawed, but entertaining experience and almost feels like someone slammed the RTD and Moffat eras together.

PLOT

Part 1(the RTD section): After discovering a mysterious spaceship, the inhabitants of an underwater base come under attack from the ghosts of their dead teammembers and it's up to the Doctor to figure out what's going on.

Part 2(the Moffat section): To figure out what's going on, the Doctor and two of the crew travel back in time to a fake Soviet town in Scotland, where a hulking alien named the Fisher King escapes from his ... erm... he escapes and starts plotting a plan to create ghosts that would repeat the sequence that doesn't need to be repeated since it's already transmitting to summon forth his armies that may or may not be composed of ghosts. Also, he's a robot fish. In a church.

ANALYSIS

The first part of the story is great, a callback to the Tennant era, which frequently had episodes featuring future human colonies or spaceships under attack(not to even mention the Troughton era). The characters are solid, the threat is good, the cliffhanger is phenomenal... and then the second half is just all over the place, unnecessarily complicated and timey-wimey.

If Whithouse had just managed to restrain himself(or Moffat, since the two worked on the script together) and kept the story in the base, the tension could've built up more and the enemy could've been stronger. Also, it would've been nice to not act like the Doctor's this big protector of time, he's not. He's a meddler who knows exactly how to get it right.

CHARACTERS

Ah, Clara from Series 8! I have missed you(not)! Back again with the uncompromising and selfish demands. She might just be my least favourite companion of all time. She just might.

I really enjoyed Cass's character in the first part. She was a deaf person, but it wasn't a big part of the story or anything. Just deaf. They didn't call any attention to it, didn't show it as a weakness or a superpower(well, a bit, but not much), she's just deaf and an interesting and relatable character to boot.
At least, until she went all whiny in the second half, throwing herself at Lunn and complaining about Clara. I mean, yeah, Clara sucks, but she hadn't done anything to her. Seriously, why can't anyone just trust anyone in this show?

Another really well done character was Bennett, a mild-mannered, but strong scientist, who questioned the Doctor's morals for actually legitimate reasons. I'm really glad he survived and was actually hoping he would end up as a companion. He could've been someone whom the Doctor could rely on and respect and actually learn from, as opposed to the wildly inappropriate Clara.

The Fisher King was only in the episode for about five minutes and I guess he was telepathic since the only thing he did was rattle off a lot of facts about the Doctor.

NOTES

*Why do all the fangirls die? First Osgood, then O'Donnell.

*Why do the ghosts not carry tools properly?

*O'Donnell's excuse for coming along, "I had to keep an eye on you." is ridiculous. Bennett didn't even want to go! You forced him. Seriously, did Moffat write the second episode?

*The reason why this review is so late is because I get the episodes exactly one week later. It's a pain, I tell you.

*Name-dropping Rose, Martha and Amy was one of the most gratuitous continuity references ever. I might have to make a whole new section in the reviews for those at some point.

*So, apparently the Doctor hasn't met "the Minister of War" yet. Sounds cool.

*How does O'Donnell know about Harold Saxon? Shouldn't that be super classified? I get that she used to work with UNIT or something, but still, everyone forgot that except a few select people and she just happens to be privy to the information? Who is she to know all that stuff about the Doctor?

*One of the few saving graces of the second part was the whole Beethoven thing. I love fourth wall breaking.

*The guitar rock theme is a big improvement. Why couldn't they just keep it, like when they jazzed up the RTD-era intro in Series 4?

*The underwater base was very reminiscent of the one from the Adventure Games, The Shadows Of Vashta Nerada(upcoming!)

CONCLUSION

Falls a bit flat at the end, but it was still a fun story.

[rushy]

The Talons Of Weng-Chiang is a fabulous Victorian adventure and a return to the wonderful, nuanced stories we saw in the previous season. It's a terrific romp.

PLOT

On their way to the theatre, the Doctor and Leela get embroiled into the plottings of the mysterious Weng-Chiang, who is trapped in Victorian London and is attempting to obtain the coroner professor Litefoot's Time Cabinet in order to escape back to the future(happy BTTF day!)

ANALYSIS

It's simply astounding how much quality this production oozes out of its every moment. Every character is played perfectly, every bit of dialogue is full of wit, balanced perfectly with a quaint charm. The direction is so good it almost hurts(edit: Just checked the Wikipedia, and of course it's our old friend David Maloney at the helm. I should have known). Everything is taken into account, every camera move is masterful. The new series has so much money going into it... why can't it achieve the same thing?

CHARACTERS

Weng-Chiang/Magnus Greel is portrayed by Michael "He who controls the Spice, controls the universe" and although his character is completely different, his performance is just as captivating.
Unlike the calm Sutekh, Weng-Chiang is a complete lunatic, spitting out fury with every line. But instead of coming across as over-the-top(read: Omega), Weng-Chiang is actually kind of likable. Spice plays it in a way that makes you feel for this guy, because he's raging against things he cannot change, choosing to ignore reality for his own delusions and that's very human.
Very interestingly, Weng-Chiang originates from the 51st century and is avoiding Time Agents(Big Finish, I expect a Harkness-Greel crossover from you!).

He is assisted by the honorbound genius Chang(a magician) and his creepy as hell pig robot Mr. Sin(we're getting into Moffat territory here with that guy).
Chang is a particularly interesting character and very well played by John Bennett. He is led primarily by honor and when Weng-Chiang lets him down, he succumbs to death in an opium daze. A wonderful send-off for a wonderfully mysterious man.

Jago, the boisterous circus director and the mild-mannered, but moral Litefoot make such a wonderful double team, easily the best one Robert Holmes ever concocted.

I also really liked poor Casey, the circus handyman and his relationship with Jago. It's a shame he died. He was such an honest bloke.

NOTES

*The key to the Time Cabinet looks like candy.

*This story is bizarrely racist and not racist at the same time. The Doctor casually(and unironically) refers to the Chinese as "little people" whilst Chang comments that "I believe we all look the same to you." Just weird.

*The story could've been tighter, to be honest. I feel like they made it longer just to make it feel more like reading a book and so they could squeeze money out of the whole thing(which I don't blame them for). The whole giant rat thing came out of nowhere. What even happened to those?

*Why is the Doctor so shocked about how beautiful Leela looks in the dress? He's never reacted this way before and she's not even showing any skin!

*What exactly WAS Mr. Sin? If he had a pig's mind, how was he able to think? How did he end up with Greel anyway?

*And if Mr. Sin was such a bloodthirsty monster, why did he agree to work as Chang's ventriloquist dummy?

*And what was with the blood on his hand? Did he go out on nightly murder sprees? Was he hurt?

*When the Doctor empties his pockets, one of the first things he takes out is a piece of red piping, which I'm pretty sure he also had in his pockets in Genesis Of The Daleks.

*Just checked online and it turns out the guy playing Mr. Sin is the same who played all the Oompa-Loompas in the Tim Burton Charlie And The Chocolate Factory!!

*He also plays Scotty's hilarious midget friend in the new Star Trek movies!!

*AND he appeared in Return Of The Jedi as one of Jabba's band members! Holy pancakes, that's what you call a resume!

*I've talked a lot of praise for Weng-Chiang, but there is one thing that lets him down: his facial make-up. Now, it's only seen in one scene(apart from that, he always has a mask on), but doesn't look scary at all, it looks like he has a lot cream on his face to be honest. Even his facial expression is kind of hilarious. It made for a good cliffhanger though.

*Speaking of cliffhangers, one of my favourites yet is the one where Weng-Chiang disappears into the night with the Time Cabinet. It's just excellently executed and right at the proper time too, when it appears everything is safe and the Doctor and Leela are alright.

BEST QUOTE

"Sounds healthy, but exceedingly dull." - Professor Litefoot's reaction to hearing Leela is from a place that doesn't know tobacco.

CONCLUSION

A spectacular romp with a splendid, authentic-looking production. Atmospheric and creepy, yet never fear... Jago and Litefoot are near!

[rushy]

Horror Of Fang Rock is a classic scary story with all the hallmarks apart from wasteful gore. There's psychological tension, a terrific location, memorable and likable characters and a creeping atmosphere. It could be the best Fourth Doctor horror story yet.

PLOT

The Doctor and Leela find themselves in a lonely lighthouse in the middle of nowhere. However, as they soon discover, it's less lonely than they'd prefer... soon they are joined by a motley crew of stiff-lipped upper-class gentlemen and a spooky alien foe...

ANALYSIS

It strikes me now that Horror Of Fang Rock is extremely reminiscent of the classic Troughton-era Base Under Siege stories. Although the characters are a bit more complex than the formulaic "crazy commander" types the Second Doctor ran into and the setting is historical, the whole serial is confined solely to the lighthouse which serves as the base.

The alien's intent, build-up and silly appereance harkens back to The Krotons, which itself was a very generic representation of the Troughton era and the story concludes with the Doctor building a make-shift doomsday weapon that instantly neutralizes the threat, a trademark of the late 60s-early 70s era.

CHARACTERS

The lighthouse crew are all lovable in their own way with a chemistry that's practically spin-off material(Big Finish!). Ben is a slightly arrogant, but clever engineer who's seen a few things. Vince is the young whittersnapper in training who tries to do things right(and almost serves as an extra companion in the story) and Reuben is the superstitious, slightly grumpy old man. They all bounce off of each other in a wonderful fashion and I wish we had seen more of them.

After the shipwreck, we're also introduced to the slimy, ever-irritated Lord Palmerdale who's been robbed of the chance to make a hefty profit and tries as hard as possible to get in the Doctor's way so he could escape. Despite this less-than-admirable character, the actor's performance is quite likable, in a "love to hate" kind of way.

He is accompanied by a world-weary co-conspirator who tries to stop him to save his honor(being a retired colonel), but ultimately succumbs to his greed as well at the very end. Another great performance.

The only ones really lacking are Palmerdale's secretary, a parody of weak-hearted women who need to be rescued and the Rutan itself, horribly designed and not really memorable in any way.

NOTES

*The Rutans' very appereance is a nice bit of continuity: they are the enemy the Sontarans fight in an eternal war.

*Did anyone get what the poem at the end was about?

*We never saw the Doctor clean up the lighthouse. Does that mean it's full of corpses, including one alien?

*Why did the Doctor say the colonel died with honor?

*Jeez, Leela is quite dagger-happy in this one. I mean, she always is, kind of, but the Doctor really should do some more schooling. They wouldn't dare have a companion who throws knives into people's backs nowadays.

*What were the chances that both the colonel and Lord Palmerdale were carrying diamonds around?

*And why does the Doctor drop them? I get that they're not valuable to him, but he has big pockets! Why doesn't he just keep them in the TARDIS? If he needed them here, he might need them in the future!

*How does the Doctor end up in a situation where he has to hide in a bed with curtains twice in a row? First The Robots Of Death and now this? Was it a running joke or something?

*Why does the Rutan take so long to get up the stairs? And how come he comes after already been threatened away with fire?

*The Rutans not coming back ever because their mothership was shot down(yeah, maybe not now, but never?) is as believable as the Sontarans not coming back ever in The Sontaran Experiment.

BEST QUOTE

"When you've seen one Rutan, you've seen them all."

CONCLUSION

A great Doctor Who horror classic with style.


Now, I forgot to talk about this at the end of the last review, but let's take a look back at season 14. I thought it was good. Definitely not the string of jackpots that was season 13, but keeping the level of quality production we've seen lately. There were some problems with plot development, but I could go back to any of these.

Also, we now have a new producer - Graham Williams. It's a shame that Hinchcliffe(with Holmes) pushed himself so far he had to be removed, but there's no hiding the incredible work he did in making the programme a serious, intellectual piece of television whilst retaining its light, child-friendly core. Many Doctor Who fans look back on the classic series and immediately think of Hinchcliffe's years, I'd say and for good reason: nobody did it better. Many did it great, but nobody did it better.

[rushy]

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived is a painful reminder that nothing is perfect. Series 9 was halfway to a perfect run and NOPE. There's always a stinker, isn't there?

PLOT

The Doctor and Clara have to defend a Viking village from invading... um... Viking aliens when the foolish Ashildr pushes them too far. After losing her life as a result, the Doctor uses the alien Vikings' gadgetry to turn her immortal. Um... overkill much?

ANALYSIS

The first half is a fun little runaround, nothing too serious and ends with a fantastic explanation for the Twelfth Doctor's face. But it's let down by what has to be one of the dumbest and most recycled storylines ever conceived: Ashildr.

Let's start with the fact that immortality has been done before, not just with Captain Jack, but with Clara herself. Yeah, she's technically not immortal, but The Name Of The Doctor makes it pretty clear that billions of her incarnations hover around at least the first eleven Doctors, always in the background.

Second of all, none of this was necessary. If the character of Ashildr had died, it would've been a sad end to what started out as a really nice one-off character. The only reason she became immortal was to give the Doctor his second eternal stalker.

Apparently, her purpose now is to clean up the mess that the Doctor "always" leaves behind... except he almost never does. Most of his adventures end with the Doctor having saved the planet. He doesn't leave because he's running from something, he leaves because the job is done. Anyone with a time machine would go after this.
The way the characters describe the Doctor, you'd think he was a pet whom people have fun with and who brings them joy and yet they have to clean up the poop he makes. It is so, so, so stupid.

One of the few interesting qualities about immortal Ashildr is that her memory is extremely faulty, something that I always imagined should've happened to the Doctor, Time Lord or not. If he's had so many adventures, why haven't they blurred in his head yet?

Of course, this good part was almost overshadowed by the insane amount of vitriol she had for him. I get being left behind for a thousand years is a little bit annoying, but then she pulls some feminism crap on him based on a joke he made? Also, the whole "lives are so short" thing is kind of daft as well, considering that even if you do live forever, time still passes slowly. 50 years for an immortal is the same 50 years it is for a human. They might eventually forget, but it's still 50 long years.

CHARACTERS

You thought I was done ranting about Ashildr? The character is practically a carbon copy of Clara. She even looks almost exactly like Jenna Coleman, right down to her costume and hairstyle. Her thing is demeaning the Doctor for having his own methods for doing things despite hers not being any better, hell, she even acts more immature than he does. "You're not my dad." Did the word dad even exist back then?

Ah, I almost forgot... despite whining ENDLESSLY about how everyone dies around her, she doesn't figure out who to give the other "immortality chip". Suuure. Didn't she have children? What happened to him? Or the other people she hooked up with over the years?

To sum things up, Ashildr is a mean-spirited, irritating feminazi and another classic Moffat woman(he invented the character and probably her plot arc too) for the records. Moving on.

This may sounds incredible, but for the first time, in this episode of all places, I finally bought the Twelfth Doctor-Clara relationship for the first time. Their reunion at the end of the episode(albeit with the irritating reminder of the upcoming Class show) was genuinely touching and felt real. There was no bantering or competing, they were just two old friends together again. When I watched that scene, I actually felt something akin to what the Doctor feels: that Clara has been around for so long and has been his friend that she has slightly dwarfed her predecessors... but the clock is ticking and in the end, even she has to leave...

Sam Swift is a fairly fun character and whilst watching, I actually predicted they'd give him the immortality chip. And while they did, of course they decided to ignore that by saying it's out of power, although at least they admit here that the Doctor doesn't actually have a clue what he's saying, something that, as we remember, Series 8 Twelfth is particularly prone to.

Really, that's this story's entire problem. It's so Series 8. It has the same awfully written melodrama that made Series 8 such a horrible slog to get through. Doctor Who is so awful nowadays that the only way we can enjoy it is watching it burn in its own absurdity and self-awareness. As an audience member, I am hungry and the show is feeding me itself since it has nothing else to provide anymore.

Viking aliens... yeah, I won't even touch that.

Clayton was a charming little character, completely oblivious to his surroundings.

NOTES

*The Doctor uploading a Yakety Sax-themed version of the attack on the village was hilarious.

*Just like in Deep Breath, the appereance of a previous Doctor in a flashback is great... but at the same time, so weird. Apart from photos in the background or a random bit of archive footage, this sort of thing never happens. The Doctors always exist in their own little worlds. But yeah, the Tenth Doctor and Donna showing up was a terrific little moment.

*She's still fighting on... the DoctorDonna.

*I find it cute that people thought the sonic sunglasses were gone forever after "Odin" broke them. They're sunglasses people! Sunglasses! Why are they so hard to swallow? It's just another type of sonic. It's an aesthetic change!

*Be honest people... wouldn't this story be much cooler if Sam Swift became immortal? 1000 years and Ashildr falls in love with a drunk slacker. It was practically gift-wrapped to you!

*How did Ashildr know exactly what selfie to hide in?

*Also, wouldn't it be awesome if it turned out Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright are immortal because that's the only other two people the Doctor couldn't bear ever losing? To those of you who are confused, let me remind you: in the Sarah Jane Adventures story Death Of The Doctor, Sarah Jane looks up on all of the Doctor's companions after meeting Jo Grant and discovers that Ian and Barbara haven't aged since the 60s for an undefined reason.

CONCLUSION

Doctor Who isn't the question anymore... it's the punchline.

[rushy]

"Doctor Who is so awful nowadays that the only way we can enjoy it is watching it burn in its own absurdity and self-awareness."

Okay, I take that back. It's just that I'm wishing so hard for the show to improve after the horror show of Series 8 that anything reminding me of it drives me crazy.

The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion is Doctor Who's second "international story", the other being the Series 6 premiere. This format... I can take it or leave it. On one side, I like that Doctor Who is expanding and instead of the usual studio-bound atmosphere, there's a realistic sense that the Doctor is only one man in a huge world. On the other, Doctor Who seems to lose a part of what makes it Doctor Who. It becomes more like a crime thriller with aliens in it.

PLOT

When the human-Zygon peace starts to crack, Osgood(the surviving one) calls the Doctor back to Earth to help UNIT and the rebel faction reconcile.

ANALYSIS

That scene in the Black Archive. It might just be my favourite moment of the new series. And for a show that I no longer entirely respect, written by a writer that I definitely don't respect, that says a lot. No jokes, no hypocrites, no flippancy. Whatever brought this scene about(probably the ongoing immigration issues that are too real to make fun of), I'm thankful. I'm not saying I want the issues to exist of course, I'm just saying that I'm thankful it's given us something like this, so no flaming please.
Ditto for the 1970s oil crisis that gave us the Pertwee classics. Whatever positive can be taken out of these things, it's worth taking.

Is this a classic? Sort of, maybe. That scene pushes this story much, much higher than I would've originally put it. The main theme here is paranoia and hatred towards what we don't understand. My first reaction was to shun the story for being another "love is the key, but humanity doesn't understand" type. I hate stories that tell us how much we suck. UNIT seems to be Doctor Who's go-to for "stupid apes" and "pudding brains" who just want to shoot aliens, even in the RTD era, because they are its closest consistent representation of government and as well all know, the government is always greedy and dumb etc etc.

But this story HAS a moral center. Kate Stewart doesn't push the button. Neither does Bonnie. The Doctor finally earns their respect by showing them just how much more he has suffered than they have and how pointless the whole thing is. That shows a level of maturity I thought the show had long abandoned.

Steven Moffat has redeemed himself.

CHARACTERS

Peter Capaldi's acting in the Black Archive scene... my God, he deserves an award for that. For a moment, I saw the First Doctor in his eyes. Not the rapscallion who drank cocoa and got married, but an unimaginably old and burned-out spirit that has survived every form of torture and is still here to help. I saw the Fourth Doctor. Not the grinning giant having a ball in Victorian London, but a shrivelled, terrified man. Once he was a father and grandfather. Now he is neither, but he is still a doctor.

But now, onto a lighter subject... you can imagine my bemusement as I watched not one, but two Jenna Colemans having a mental catfight. Oh good grief. I thought Bonnie was a really great villain and Coleman did a terrific job in making her creepy(even though, oddly enough, none of the Zygons actually act like she does... why is it always only when they're in human form that they don't snarl?)

So... Kate's assistant stayed dead? THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES!!

The weakest character was Osgood, unfortunately. I like the actress and the fangirl idea(and the fact that the Doctor is a fan), but I got a really pretentious vibe off of her in this episode. They are ridiculously over-exaggerating her importance to the peace. Note that she had next to nothing to do with actually keeping the boxes away from the Zygons and UNIT. Also, those last lines... yeah, that's something real people would say.
Also, about the question... I think the remaining copy is Zygon. They're keeping her memory alive by taking her image.

NOTES

*I get that Bonnie and Kate have been convinced not to attack each other, but how did they calm down the UNIT and Zygon forces?

*The only reason the Zygons were cooperative in The Day Of The Doctor was because they had no memories. So what was to prevent them from immediately breaking the treaty after that?

*Isn't it funny how, in a way, the Doctor has been dealing with this treaty from before the Time War even ended?

*Also, remember what I said about the flashbacks in the previous Capaldi review? Now we have Tennant and Smith(and Hurt) in the opening. Just like that. I will never get used to that.

*LOL Kate just shot the Zygon in the face. Epic cliffhanger resolution.

*I think this is only the third time the Doctor has been driving in a car... the first was World War Three and the second was The Sound Of Drums.

*I love that they made fun of the insane President Of The World concept from the Series 8 finale. The Doctor just has his own giant plane now. Lolz.

*Neat James Bond reference with the Union Jack parachute. Nobody does it better.

*The Doctor has question mark underpants? That's brilliant!! They have to be seen and then mass-produced in shops!! I wish they'd actually told us why he has them, though.

*The Doctor's first name is Basil. (His second name is Fawlty Junior. Admit it.)

*How exactly did UNIT smuggle 20 million Zygons to Earth? Did 20 million people give consent for aliens to use their image? Did nobody notice the large amount of twins showing up?

*And where did the 20 million Zygons even come from? They came to Earth via paintings and there were only a few Zygons per painting(unless the paintings were MUCH bigger on the inside, Mary Poppins style). My point is, this large a number was never implied in The Day Of The Doctor.

*Why does Bonnie act confused when she finds Clara in the pod? In fact, why even reveal Clara at all? Just get the Zygons to attack the UNIT soldiers!

*At one point, the location titles spell UNIT as Unit. Oops.

*I'd like to know where the name Bonnie came from. Just... why would she keep such a silly name? Commander Bonnie, for real?

*How many times has that memory thing in the Black Archive been broken already?

*Whatever happened to the bloke who's been working in the Archive for years and never knew?

*A few days ago, I had my first-ever jelly babies. They're an acquired taste, but I've grown really fond of them. Still prefer gummy worms, though.

*Sooo many Clara-is-leaving references this series. I wish they'd stop hyping it up so much. It's kind of annoying when a large chunk of her time spent in Doctor Who is taken up by references of her leaving. If Eccleston was the Doctor now, every single one of his episodes would foreshadow his departure.

*I'm still confused by the decision to use Zygons as major characters. They were a one-off, disposable villain in the early 70s. For the life of me, I can't see how they became so popular, especially given that they look really ridiculous.

BEST QUOTE

The whole Black Archive scene, of course.

CONCLUSION

It wasn't a story I really enjoyed, but I'm glad that it led up to Doctor Who's most mature five minutes ever.

[rushy]

K-9!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Invisible Enemy is a wonderfully imaginative story that for once, did justice to Bob Baker and Dave Martin's vision.

PLOT

The Doctor and Leela respond to a distress signal from Saturn's moon Titan in the future and find the place invaded by the Nucleus, a viral lifeform that takes hold of the Doctor and forces Leela to use the TARDIS and take him to a nearby hospital where the eccentric professor Marius creates clones of the Doctor and Leela to go into the real Doctor's brain and defeat the Nucleus all whilst other infected crewmembers from Titan invade the hospital.

ANALYSIS

There's an enjoyable innocence about The Invisible Enemy, an almost childlike imagination. The Doctor is infected by a virus? Send in mini-Doctor and mini-Leela! Professor Marius needs a companion? A talking dog made of metal!

It doesn't aspire to give a message or to scare, it just aspires to entertain on the most basic level and in spite of some cheesiness(the "TARDIS trained" joke at the very end was particularly eye-rolling), it succeeds. It's just the sort of thing you'd put on when you don't want to think about anything, but it's not brainless either.

To be honest, the only things that really bothered me about this story was that it was so consistent as to be mostly forgettable and that the ending was a bit iffy. The Doctor just locks the Nucleus into a room and blows up the entire moon(surely destroying the facility would've sufficed!).

Also, one of the most crucial plot elements is that the Doctor removes a part of the TARDIS - the dimensional stabilizer and has Marius use it to diminish the clone versions of him and Leela. Yet this object is almost never referred to, meaning that by part 4, I was completely confused when they mentioned it.

CHARACTERS

Why does Leela have Force Sense? I get that she has some warrior's instinct thing, but in every story now, she keeps "sensing evil" even before the TARDIS lands. It's daft. She's also a lot more sarcastic than she used to be(must be Tom Baker's bad influence...)

But never mind that, K-9 IN DA HOUSE!!! I bloody love K-9... even if his motor was unexpectedly loud and annoying... and he has ticker tape sprouting from his face, making it look like the Nucleus-infected make-up got caught in it... but still. K-9. The most adorable companion ever. Ilovehimlovehimlovehim.

Frederick "Discount Jack Nicholson" Jaeger returns for one final go as the slightly crazy, but kindhearted professor Marius, head of the space hospital(I forget the name). Since dogs aren't allowed, he had to build himself a robot one. And that robot one is sooooo cute I can't even... *FOLLOWING TWENTY PARAGRAPHS EDITED OUT FOR REASONS OF SANITY*... although I'm not sure why K-9 would say he doesn't have emotions. He emotes all the time.

The infected are led by Lowe, played by Doctor Who stalwart Michael Sheard. He's actually really good as a villain, despite looking and sounding like everybody's favourite grandpa. There's a nice urgency and threat to him.

NOTES

*Very nice to be back in the original console room again. It's also been redecorated again, the roundels are glowing and there's the huge viewscreen from the secondary room. It's starting to shape up to the perfect 1980s console room we see in The Five Doctors(which, in case you didn't know, was the first classic Who story I saw, minus the TV movie. That's why I know what the console room will be like).

*I'd just like to re-iterate how silly the ticker tape is on K-9. It looks like he has a moustache drooping off.

*People seem to slag the pre-broken wall a lot and it is a pretty big error, but to be honest, I doubt most viewers would immediately focus on it. I didn't even notice it until I read reviews online.

*What happened in the third episode's cliffhanger? The Doctor and Leela reach the Nucleus, suddenly everything goes explodey and the clones have disintegrated, but the Doctor's voice is whispering "Tear ducts..." and then the Nucleus emerges? I get that the Nucleus got out via the tear ducts, but how did he know to do that? How was the clone Doctor able to whisper when he was disintegrated? And why did his and Leela's hair survive the disintegration? Or was that their clothes?

*Even if Leela knew the coordinates, I find it a bit difficult to believe she of all people can pilot the TARDIS. Maybe that was just the code for "TARDIS autopilot".

CONCLUSION

It was filler, but I don't mind it at all. I could watch this again any day.

[rushy]

Despite building some clever intrigue, Sleep No More was just a mess. And not a very exciting one at that.

PLOT

The Doctor and Clara find themselves in a space station that's been conquered by sleep dust creatures, created by the mad scientist Rassmussen to TAKE OVER DA WORLD!! Yeah, unless it's the guy from The Underwater Menace, no craps are given.

The episode is constructed in a found-footage format, but it turns out to be a play engineered by Rassmussen to turn viewers into sleep dust monsters. He manipulated the Doctor and everyone else to partake in a story. I think.

ANALYSIS

Besides the outdated story and the found footage gimmick, this episode just wasn't really enjoyable. Much of the humor didn't seem to have a punchline(or more likely, I just didn't get it), the characters were not the strongest, the whole thing took place in dark, shadowy space and every five minutes, there would be a new shocker twist. I wouldn't be surprised if several viewers just threw their hands up and said "don't get it, screw you."
Even I had to go over the ending twice just to understand what happened.

Personally, I feel the story would've worked much better had it relied on psychological horror a la The Blair Witch Project and would either have not shown the monsters at all or at least kept them entirely silent. I mean, why would sand creatures scream anyway?

Also, it would've been another nice twist if there was no musical soundtrack accompanying the "found footage".

CHARACTERS

Reece Shearsmith's performance as Rassmussen brings to mind Gibbis from The God Complex. He looks and sounds harmless and annoying, wears nerd glasses and everything, but he's rotten to the core. Literally, as it turns out in the end.

His creatures, the Sandmen, aren't very interesting. They only speak in the end through Rassmussen so what we're left with are "childlike" gunk monsters who scream and punch stuff. Oh, da horror. Maybe if they were completely silent like actual sand, they'd be scarier. Sentient sand that works like actual sand would be creepy.

The only other characters worth something in this episode were Grunt, a slow-witted clone trooper(ha!) who dies saving the other worthwhile character whose name I fail to recall. The other one had a character arc where he learns the value of friendship. And then dies. So that sucks.

Yeah, I really don't care about this one.

NOTES

*Apparently Mark Gatiss wants to write a sequel to this story in Series 10. Even though I disliked this episode, I think it was pretty well set up for a sequel and I'd really like to see where he takes the Sandmen. Hopefully it will make more sense without the found footage gimmick. Looking back, I do understand exactly what happened, but unlike most episodes, you have to work it out.

*I'd like to re-iterate though, that that doesn't make this a good episode. It wasn't. It wasn't good entertainment, just a good set-up for a sequel.

*I have to admit I did like the opening since it's the first time we see the traditional "Doctor and companion find themselves on a ship" opening through the eyes of the supporting cast. It made them look a lot more suspicious and ridiculous.

CONCLUSION

This is one of those middle episodes that you never watch again.