Eleventh Doctor Review

Eleventh Doctor

Eleventh Doctor

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Madame Vastra, Clara Oswald

Matt Smith’s iconic performance as the Doctor portrayed an impossibly powerful, old character, who preferred to act absurd and silly to try and forget his dark past and nature.

The Review

Here’s the scores for the stories

Vincent and the Doctor: 10/10

The Time of Angels/Flesh and Blood: 10/10

The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang: 10/10

The Eleventh Hour: 10/10

A Christmas Carol: 10/10

The God Complex: 10/10

The Day of the Doctor: 10/10

A Good Man Goes to War: 9.5/10

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People: 9.5/10

A Town Called Mercy: 9.5/10

The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe: 9.5/10

The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon: 9.25/10

The Power of Three: 9.25/10

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: 9/10

Closing Time: 9/10

Hide: 8.9/10

The Rings of Akhaten: 8.75/10

The Angels Take Manhattan: 8.75/10

Cold War: 8.5/10

The Crimson Horror: 8.5/10

The Time of the Doctor: 8.5/10

The Girl Who Waited: 8.5/10

The Doctor’s Wife: 8.5/10

Amy’s Choice: 8.5/10

The Beast Below: 8.5/10

The Name of the Doctor: 8.25/10

The Bells of Saint John: 8/10

The Snowmen: 8/10

Asylum of the Daleks: 8/10

The Wedding of River Song: 8/10

Let’s Kill Hitler: 8/10

The Lodger: 8/10

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood: 8/10

Victory of the Daleks: 8/10

The Curse of the Black Spot: 7.95/10

The Vampires of Venice: 7.95/10

Nightmare in Silver: 7.5/10

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS: 7.5/10

Night Terrors: 6.75/10

For me, the Eleventh Doctor falls behind the Twelfth and Tenth in my reckoning of new series Doctors. I think a main reason for that would be how evasive he is as a personality, there are precious little times we get to see what the Doctor actually thinks and would like. The Tenth has several moments of morose vulnerability, and his ego crescendos in The Waters of Mars in a way that never happens for Eleven. The Eleventh Doctor in many senses is a narcissist, he runs away from death for 200 years, and he makes a last-ditch attempt to convince Amy to leave Rory and travel with him. He’ll even place a phone call to ensure Clara doesn’t leave his future self. In the end, him finally committing to defend Trenzalore is a fitting end. That said, the show has scarcely felt more magical than it did in Smith’s dynamite entry in Series 5, a mysterious wife in River, a fierce companion in Amy, and time-bending mysteries galore.

Now, his best moments.

5. “Take it all!” Much older than he was during his Stonehenge speech, the Doctor’s heart-wrenching pain as he pours out his life and existence to the Old God. It doesn’t work, but you can feel how the Doctor in purple has changed since we first met him.

4. The Doctor’s warming and introduction to Victorian Clara is the clear highlight of The Snowmen, as Clara pieces together his plan and gets introduced to the neon TARDIS in a stunning sequence.

3. “…ok.” It’s a small moment, but as the Doctor explains the plan to save Gallifrey with his past incarnations to the General, everything suddenly goes quiet and the General tells him to do it. The silent “ok” carries the weight of lives of guilt.

2. “Who da man!” Bursting onto the scene in The Eleventh Hour, no TARDIS, no sonic, the Doctor still gets it done and saves Earth from incineration. When Prisoner Zero mimics him, the Doctor doesn’t even recognize himself yet. It was a bit of a long day for him.

1. “Hello Stonehenge!” Although it turns out it didn’t work, the Doctor’s speech to his assembled enemies attempting to get them to flee solely based on his reputation is a tremendous piece of acting and where people fell in love with this Doctor.

Sometimes the Eleventh Doctor era got too complex, with relationships not quite as well defined as I would’ve hoped. For being known as the fairy tale era, the man at the heart of it was surprisingly dark and manipulative. With its emphasis on River, putting the Silence front and center as the arc villains, the Eleventh Doctor era feels weirdly divorced from the rest of the show when the Twelfth Doctor would heavily feature UNIT and the Master again. Still, pound for pound, this grades out as the strongest overall era of the show. Series 7 is definitely weak, but consistently fine enough to keep it holding this title. From the tears of Vincent van Gogh, to a heart-stopping 52nd century showdown against Weeping Angels, to the return of Gallifrey, Moffat brought the excitement.

8.726/10 A full letter grade decline

2013 Specials Review

2013 Specials

2013 Specials

Doctor: War Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor, (Eighth Doctor)

Companions: Clara Oswald

The two final 2013 Specials pack a solid punch to memorialize the landmark 50th Anniversary and bring the 11th Doctor’s era to a fine conclusion.

The Review

Here’s the scores for the stories

The Day of the Doctor: 10/10

The Time of the Doctor: 8.5/10

With all the pressure on him, Steven Moffat completely delivered on the 50th Anniversary. Uniting Tennant and Smith was a ton of fun, and bringing in John Hurt to represent the classic style Doctors was an inspired idea. Doctor Who is about second chances and the Doctor gets to finally save Gallifrey. The Time of the Doctor is less successful as several dangling threads have to be hastily dealt with, but still served as a fitting end to the Matt Smith era.

9.25/10 Moffat pulls a rabbit out of his hat to deliver when he needed to

Series 7 Review

Series 7

Series 7

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Madame Vastra, Clara Oswald

Series 7 features an epilogue for the Ponds, and then gives us a total refresh with Clara Oswald, who shows great promise but is frustratingly underdeveloped.

The Review

Here’s the scores for the stories

A Town Called Mercy: 9.5/10

The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe: 9.5/10

The Power of Three: 9.25/10

Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: 9/10

Hide: 8.9/10

The Rings of Akhaten: 8.75/10

The Angels Take Manhattan: 8.75/10

Cold War: 8.5/10

The Crimson Horror: 8.5/10

The Name of the Doctor: 8.25/10

The Bells of Saint John: 8/10

The Snowmen: 8/10

Asylum of the Daleks: 8/10

Nightmare in Silver: 7.5/10

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS: 7.5/10

For many people, Series 7 is where the show started to run out of steam, and it does give that feeling. The unique structure does it no favors, you begin with the tweed-wearing Doctor and the Ponds and end with him wearing dark purple and with Clara Oswald. There is a common theme that Matt Smith lost it in this series, and I honestly have to disagree. It’s certainly less electric than his incredible debut in Series 5, but suiting an incarnation now centuries old, the Eleventh Doctor of especially Series 7B feels lived in. I also think his purple ensemble might be my favorite Doctor outfit of all time, formal and whimsy perfectly mixed. The real miss is that Clara Oswald just feels underdeveloped, partly because once we get to the original Clara it’s the third time we’ve met Jenna Coleman and we’re kind of done with it. Still, the power and knowledge imbalance between here and the Doctor and the viewers makes it for awkward viewing and her relationship with the Doctor is essentially ‘flirty’, which is new and different than the puppy-dog love of Rose but still not enough. Thankfully, it will get better. Lastly, a lot of the scripts just aren’t that great. Explosive episodes billed as rehabilitations of the Daleks and Cybermen fall flat, and the Weeping Angels lack their previous punch. Series 7 isn’t a disaster, but it does feel like a show in need of a creative retool.

8.527/10 A disappointing series that goes back to the bag of tricks and finds little new to do

The Name of the Doctor Review

The Name of the Doctor

The couple in Trenzalore

Story 239, Episode 798, Series 7 Episode 13

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: River Song, Madame Vastra, Clara Oswald

Series 7 comes to an end with an odd episode acting as a finale to several arcs we didn’t know we had.

The Review

The secrets get revealed

This is an odd story to be sure, one that feels like it could’ve been the final one for the 11th Doctor and brings together an intriguing mix of characters. She Said, He Said is an enticing prequel as Clara and the Doctor interrogate the other separately saying they now know their secrets. Clarence and the Whispermen provides some much needed context to how the story unspools. We get the Paternoster Gang back in a background role, but it turns out less is more as they’re all pretty great here. There’s a weird bit where it is teased that Jenny is dead but she gets revived whatever. The first story arc resolved is that of the Great Intelligence, who is here and back to exact vengeance on the Doctor by going in his time stream and destroying him simultaneously. I appreciate bringing back such an obscure villain but we are given no particular reason to care about the Intelligence, and he’s pretty much a nothing-burger. At least the Whispermen look cool.

River Song after death

River Song gets dropped into this story, interestingly a post-Library version of her. Vastra arranges a temporal conference call which is a fun idea I’d like to see again. With how distinct Series 7B had been and no mention of River it’s a bit surprising this episode functions as a goodbye for her. When the Doctor reveals he can always see her and loves her, it is genuinely a touching moment, the most touching between Matt Smith and Kingston. That’s not the most out of nowhere arc, which would be this renewed interest in what the Doctor’s name is. Most of the action takes place in the ruins of the TARDIS on Trenzalore where the Doctor’s grave lies after a terrible war. The Great Intelligence needs someone to say his name to get in, River does, etc. I think out of universe this was hyped up a lot, and technically Series 6 ended with ‘Doctor Who?’ as a question, but other than one mention in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS the Doctor’s name has hardly been an arc. Still, it’s almost all worth it for the trick I’ll discuss later.

Clara in the Doctor’s life

Of course, the one arc we knew was that of the ‘Impossible Girl’, how could Clara exist multiple times. The opening of the First Doctor stealing the TARDIS and meeting Clara followed by her edited into classic Who is exhilarating. The real answer is deceptively simple, she jumped in the Doctor’s time stream to stop the Intelligence from killing him. Logically it sticks the landing, emotionally Clara has still not matured enough in her relationship with the Doctor to make it feel like a big payoff. We do see through Vastra stars going out without the Doctor’s heroism, and Strax and Jenny vanishing (though it seems Vastra would always have been pure). At the end, we get the also unrelated reveal of John Hurt as the War Doctor but with some classic Moffat literalism. Just as ‘the Doctor takes a secret to his grave, it is discovered’ meant the grave, the story’s title meant the name of ‘the Doctor’ and Hurt broke the promise. In many ways, it’s pretty a gloomy episode, in the dark at the Doctor’s grave with River finally fading away. Day and Time build upon it in important ways, but Name still manages emotional resonances we weren’t expecting.

Several story arcs get unexpected conclusions, and the obvious one gets a fun nostalgia-fueled one (I mean come on, seeing the Doctor finally stealing the TARDIS is great). It’s the most low-key finale in the new series, but the underdeveloped Doctor/Clara relationship means it doesn’t land as hard as it could. Thankfully, her and River will both get much better farewells, but this one isn’t bad at all.

8.25/10 Think there could’ve been more done with the Great Intelligence here

Yes I know Paul McGann, but John Hurt as the Doctor ruled. I miss that man.

Nightmare in Silver Review

Nightmare in Silver

The Doctor vs. Mr. Clever

Story 238, Episode 797, Series 7 Episode 12

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Clara Oswald

An attempt to make the Cybermen scary again goes awry with an episode that shows Neil Gaiman did not have a lot of time to rewrite.

The Review

The Cybermen

The idea for Nightmare in Silver was simple, the Cybermen weren’t scary anymore, so we’re going to turn to Neil Gaiman to make them scary. Well, it doesn’t work. This story was not meant to originally be where it slots in now, which we’ll get to later, but Gaiman fundamentally goes the wrong direction with the Cybermen. Now they have super speed, can ‘upgrade’ people on the fly with Cyber-mites, detach body parts, swivel their head around, etc. The Cybermen were never a threat because of how powerful they were, it was what they represented: abandoning basic humanity in conquest of technological advance. Starting with the Cybermen housing skeletons of the dead in Dark Water and refined further in World Enough and Time and Ascension of the Cybermen, the new series has learned from this mistake and focused on Cybermen body horror. The super-powered Cybermen here though, still lead to a miss of a story.

Clara with a gun

Gaiman wrote this story for Amy, and once you know that you can’t help but see how Clara’s dialogue would make much more sense coming from Karen Gillan. She’s a lot more aggressive and detached than Clara normally is, and it sticks out like a sore thumb as she only gets this way for good by Series 9. The children she babysits, Angie and Artie, come along, Artie does next to nothing while Angie is an annoying teenager who storms into a barracks demanding entertainment because she’s bored. The Doctor has a mind-showdown with a Cyber-planner called Mr. Clever which gives Matt Smith very fun moments playing a sinister Doctor. Still, isn’t the whole Cyberman thing that they don’t have emotions? Mr. Clever is flowing with them. Warwick Davis is a highlight as the Emperor in disguise, but this leads to a way too easy ending as everybody just gets insta-teleported as the Cybermen are imploded on the planet. Oh, and the whole tonal dissonance of taking place on a ruined theme park doesn’t help either. Don’t get me wrong, Nightmare in Silver is still watchable, but it’s quite disappointing.

Seriously, just read the lines blind and you’d guess this was a story with Amy circa Series 5. The Doctor also says Clara is in a ‘skirt that’s too tight’, which is just uncomfortable for everyone involved.

7.5/10 Still very watchable, but a lot to be desired

Emperor Porridge

The Crimson Horror Review

The Crimson Horror

The Doctor with rubber skin

Story 237, Episode 796, Series 7 Episode 11

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Madame Vastra, Clara Oswald

The Crimson Horror brings back the Paternoster Gang and gives us a story that is almost perfectly camp but falls short.

The Review

Strax joins the gang

It’s little wonder why there was such demand for the Paternoster Gang to have their own spin-off, because you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a backdoor pilot. The Battle of Demon’s Run: Two Days Later shows how Strax survived: he simply was wrong that he was dying. The Doctor doesn’t appear for 15 minutes and Clara not for 18, the first third of this story is the Paternoster Gang doing their thing investigating Sweetville in Yorkshire. Vastra is always well played by Neve McIntosh, but you have to love Dan Starkey’s Strax who somehow makes a painful ‘TomTom’ GPS joke with a young boy be not completely cringe-inducing. In fact, the member of the gang who we get to see the most is Catrin Stewart’s Jenny, who proves to be a very capable detective and fighter. Yes, Catrin Stewart is attractive, but the Doctor kissing a married woman and the sonic making an erection joke as she reveals a leather outfit is just ridiculous. The Doctor and Clara end up dominating the back half of the story, leaving the gang disappointingly a bit in the dust.

The crazy Miss Gillyflower

Mark Gatiss has written a lot of Doctor Who and never quite managed a classic, but this could’ve been the one. The episode is really close to being perfectly camp centered around Diana Rigg’s incredible performance as insane old woman Miss Gillyflower who is in a symbiotic relationship with ‘Mr. Sweet’, a prehistoric leech on her chest. She plans to kill all of humanity and restart with perfect people she is keeping safe in weird hermetically sealed glass jars. She has brutal experimented on her daughter Ada (played by Rachael Stirling, Riggs’ actual daughter) leaving her blind, who helps lead to her downfall. If this episode more fully leaned into and pulled off the Victorian satire, it could’ve been perfect. Instead, it’s still a fun watch, but has some pretty frustrating moments. Hard not to smile at Clara’s reaction to the Doctor telling her ‘you’re the boss’, and then getting found out as a time traveler which is a fun story that’s never happened before. All in all, I enjoyed it but could’ve been better.

“You know what these are? The wrong hands!” Seriously, you can tell why Diana Rigg was a legend with her perfectly absurd performance here.

8.5/10 We get close to perfect parody, but settle for just a fun story.

Clara gets exposed

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS Review

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

The exploded engine room

Story 236, Episode 795, Series 7 Episode 10

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Clara Oswald

The journey ends up being a disappointment as some terrible acting and lack of budget wastes the leads.

The Review

The Doctor and the brothers

The promise to this story was vast, finally, an exploration deep into the TARDIS which we never get to see (outside of lots of hallways in The Doctor’s Wife). Instead we mainly just get…more hallways. Seeing the Eye of Harmony is cool, but that’s really about it. The story is the Doctor puts the TARDIS’ shields down and it is grabbed by the Van Baalen Bros mining rig which for some reason causes the TARDIS to basically explode, which makes next to no sense. To make matters worse, the three Van Baalen Bros are all played by actors who just aren’t any good at all here. The third one is the worst, and he is just unceremoniously killed off. Their plot is that they tricked their amnesiac younger brother into pretending he was an android for fun because they’re terrible people. It makes no sense and to call it crude is an understatement.

The Doctor coming clean to Clara

Fortunately, this episode is not a complete disaster because Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman turn in their best performances so far in Series 7B. Smith is all sorts of Doctor-y, loopy and silly but switches to deadly seriousness when trying to save Clara. For her part, Jenna Coleman (in an absolutely stunning dress) feels much more like a whole character as Clara than she did even a few stories ago. She has no trouble standing up for herself, but doesn’t aggressively go after the Doctor like Amy might’ve because she’s more cool under pressure. The Doctor finally confronts her and Clara assures him she doesn’t know anything about the other Claras, and the Doctor accepts it. Unfortunately the story ends with the entire events getting erased so neither of them even know they have that conversation. All in all, it’s a frustrating story that could’ve been a classic and instead is a dud.

Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS underdelivers in a big way, despite maybe the best Doctor/companion outfit combo ever.

7.5/10 Matt Smith and Jenna Coleman manage to salvage this one

Do you feel safe?

Hide Review

Hide

Welcome to Caliburn House

Story 235, Episode 794, Series 7 Episode 9

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Clara Oswald

Hide gives a ghost story that is also a love story, and the best Clara to date.

The Review

Emma faces off the ghost

This story is absolutely seeped in the 70s to great effect, there’s something about old analog technology with hunting ghosts. It’s a story in two parts, the first is traipsing around a spooky old house as we meet the two ghost hunters: Emma and Professor Alec Palmer. Jessica Raine gives a wonderful performance as the psychic Emma, who isn’t sure the professor is in love with her or not. Clara has an excellent conversation with her while the Doctor talks to Palmer, and we learn about his interests in ghosts from feeling guilt about his role in the war. The weak part comes in the sudden cut where the Doctor visits Earth’s life-cycle in the TARDIS, and suddenly completely cracks the mystery saying ‘hey it’s a future time traveler in a pocket universe’. That transition is the weak point of the story, but thankfully the second part is also a lot of fun.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist

This story continues Clara and the TARDIS’ animosity. I watched Clara and the TARDIS before this, and both that story and this one have a more fully-formed Clara. We learn more about her through her actions than just being told like in the Rings of Akhaten. The Doctor gets stuck in the dying pocket dimension, and she convinces the TARDIS to go save him. The villain is supposedly a creepy bone monster, but it turns out there was a second one stuck in the house and it just wanted to be reunited. There are sort of two endings, one when the time traveler is revealed to be Emma and Palmer’s descendants and then the Doctor helping out the monster. Really, what elevates this story from Cold War is the style is just as good, but Clara feels a lot more fleshed out. Funny that Neil Cross wrote this and The Rings of Akhaten.

Hide improves the vibes with a ghost story that turns out to be a love story.

8.9/10 I’m sticking with the stinginess on the 9, but the best 11/Clara so far.

The crooked man

Cold War Review

Cold War

He’s right behind me, isn’t he?

Story 234, Episode 793, Series 7 Episode 8

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Clara Oswald

Cold War re-introduces the Ice Warriors and gives us one of the most realistic settings in show history.

The Review

The submarine crew

The most impressive part about Cold War is the set, something that we don’t say much about this show. Set on a Soviet submarine in 1983, everyone in the cast is repeatedly soaked, and it’s not just make-up. Jenna Coleman must’ve been shivering. The close-quarters hallways and constant alarm lights make this one of the most believable ‘base under siege’ stories. All the crew are obviously played by British actors, but it is made clear that they think the Doctor and Clara are both speaking Russian. Liam Cunningham cuts the figure of Captain Zhukov, and we also have David Warner as kind of a hippie professor figure (I think he could’ve used his skills better). They’re not the most memorable crew, in-fact I barely had remembered anything about this story before watching it again, but in the moment combined with the sets they’re effective.

The true face of an Ice Warrior

This story also gives us the Ice Warriors back, well, only one Ice Warrior, the apparently legendary Skaldak. After the Soviets attack him, he declares Earth forfeit and plans to start a nuclear holocaust using the submarine. The Doctor tries to talk him down but it is not working. I thought there was a disappointing end when surviving Ice Warriors come and retrieve him, but it turns out Skaldak still could’ve shot the missiles remotely but chooses not to. As far as the Doctor/Clara pair, there’s no references to the Impossible Girl so a bit of the weird vibe is gone, but Clara still feels shockingly underwritten. There’s not really anything here specific to her character, though she’s definitely more agreeable than most of the recent companions would’ve been in this situation. We will continue to monitor the vibes. Also, the TARDIS is really at the South Pole? And we don’t know how they get back to it? In 1983?

Cold War impresses with a beautiful set, but a relatively straightforward plot.

8.5/10 If this was the classic series we could’ve gotten six parts out of this one

Cool ship at least!

The Rings of Akhaten Review

The Rings of Akhaten

Lonely God vs Old God

Story 233, Episode 792, Series 7 Episode 7

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Clara Oswald

The Doctor gives an all-time speech and we meet a beautiful alien civilization despite the Clara vibes still being off.

The Review

River and the 7B Doctor!

This is a good point to fit in Rain Gods, and I think the River/Clara parallels are important. Both are women who are a mystery to the Doctor, but there is a big difference: River knows things about the Doctor he doesn’t know yet so the relationship still feels equal. Here, Clara doesn’t know anything about the Doctor but we open with him stalking her timeline as she grew up. Not only is Clara disadvantaged to the Doctor, but to the audience too. So, despite how cheerful, empathetic, and down for adventure Clara is, the qualities that over time would confirm her as in my mind the show’s best companion, here the whole relationship just feels wrong. Instead of the usual Doctor and companion discovering themselves, Clara just feels undercooked. Compare her to the Amy of The Beast Below and there’s no contest on who feels like the more complete character.

Looking at the assemblage of aliens

It’s a shame, because this had a chance to be an all-time episode. We get a Star Wars-esque assemblage of aliens which is just a lot of fun, and a beautiful setting of civilizations on rings surrounding a massive sun. The Doctor and Clara arrive as the young Queen of Years sings a traditional lullaby, but we quickly learn that she gets sacrificed to satisfy an ‘old god’. At first we think it’s a mummy in a glass case, but it turns out the old god is the massive sun, a parasite that feeds on stories and objects of emotional value. The image of the Doctor standing up to the massive sun is beautiful, and he tries to satisfy it by offering up all his history. In a good twist, what does it in is an old leaf Clara has that led to her parents meeting each other because it contains infinite possibilities that destroy the old god. This episode has its detractors, but it’s just about classic Doctor Who, beating the day by a speech. It definitely has some of the most memorable visuals.

The Rings of Akhaten is a beautiful story on paper, but a bit of a struggle because of the still weirdness with Clara.

8.75/10 The Clara situation holds back what had the potential to be an all-timer

I mean, how cool of a scene is this?