We finally officially meet the real Clara, who charms in a pretty by the book plot line.
The Review
Clara meets the Doctor for the first time
At last, she’s here, the real Clara Oswald has stood up. This is the best spot to watch The Inforarium with the red intro and the Doctor’s tweed, an amusing clip of a man repeatedly forgetting the Doctor. The Doctor meeting Clara as a child is maybe a bridge too implausible, but the dramatic irony is delicious. I’m not sure the Doctor would get so obsessed he’d paint Clara as he does in a monastery, but it works. By this point Matt Smith’s mannerisms are getting a bit old, but I do like the new purple look he goes with. Every time Clara flirts with him, I love how flustered he gets. The real winner here is Jenna Coleman whose talents will become quite clear throughout her tenure. There’s not too much on the page for Clara, but Coleman paints a picture of a precocious but still a bit naive woman.
Miss Kizlet at work
The plot of the story is very early 2010s, wi-fi is evil and it’s taking over the world. It hasn’t aged that great, and doesn’t really make wi-fi that scary if a ‘spoonhead’ has to walk behind you to hoover you up. Miss Kizlet played perfectly by Celia Imrie is the sharp cold businesswoman behind the whole operation, and is always a treat when she is on screen. The final reveal is that she is working for the Great Intelligence, who has now gone through the Second Doctor stories. The Doctor (well a duplicate of him) rides a motorcycle up the side of the Shard, which would be cool if the effects were better. There’s not a huge sense of danger, but the performances by Smith and Coleman are interesting enough to keep us moving along.
The Bells of Saint John has the un-enviable task of introducing Jenna Coleman for the *third* time, but she’s precocious enough to make us like her.
8/10 Never clicks into being a great story, but it’s a good one
The Eleventh Doctor is somehow the least likely and most likely Doctor to have a motorcycle
A brand new era of Doctor Who begins with a Victorian Christmas spectacular that fails to be interest-grabbing.
The Review
The Paternoster Gang, explicitly named the reference for Sherlock Holmes
The Doctor has retired to Victorian London, refusing to help people after losing the Ponds. It’s a sad way to see the Doctor, but it makes sense after how long he traveled with them. The two prequels The Great Detective and Vastra Investigates don’t really add much to the story. It was a great idea to return to Madame Vastra and Jenny, as well as throwing Strax in the mix. The Paternoster Gang all play well off of each other, and it is always a delight to get lines like “I’m a lizard woman from the dawn of time and this is my wife.” Matt Smith does a fine enough job being the moody Doctor, and seeing him slowly break back into the role of being the heroic Doctor is fun. Once he gets dragged into the mess with Clara and the Intelligence, he has to come along. If only the actual threat in this story carried more weight.
Clara’s splinters are way more flirtatious than the original, subconscious maybe
We meet Victorian Clara, who is a fun precious woman who moonlights between flirting as a barmaid and being a prim and proper Governess. I wish we got more of Jenna Coleman pretending to be prim and proper, because she could play a great archetypical fun Victorian nanny. The scene where we see the new TARDIS interior is beautifully done, and the best shot of the episode. Unfortunately, Clara doesn’t get too many scenes with the Doctor because she falls from the TARDIS cloud and dies (somehow not squishing unrecognizably). The villain is Dr. Simeon, played morosely by Richard E Grant who has helped form The Great Intelligence, which is a fun obscure villain to bring back. So obscure the Doctor can’t immediately remember it despite inspiring The Web of Fear. The whole story just feels kind of blah, Victorian Christmas has been done with The Unquiet Dead and The Next Doctor, another Clara before the real one is necessary to establish a pattern for the Doctor but becomes a bit tiresome. Oh, and the Intelligence is defeated just by children crying. Despite all the glamor, I wish there was more under the hood in this one.
The Snowmen has an air of ‘been done before’, and we all realize of course the Doctor will return and of course something is up with Clara. It’s not bad by any means, but feels unfocused.
8/10 The memory worm gag with Strax is great though
It looks cool, but can you believe snowmen eat people?
Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Clara Oswald (sorta)
We meet a whole lot of Daleks, an intriguing soufflé girl, and rush an entire plot about divorce.
The Review
Insane Daleks
The pitch for Asylum of the Daleks is irresistible: every Dalek variety ever in one place, all insane, what’s not to love? Despite how slickly produced the story is, it kind of falls flat. The main problem is The Daleks never provide any menace. We get the Dalek Parliament which is of course a fun idea, but nothing much comes from it. Those Daleks are all asking the Doctor for help (which Defender of The Daleks will do again but earlier for the Doctor), so they’re not after the Doctor. The insane Daleks are too brain-scrambled to do anything and come across more as old broken Daleks than vicious crazed lunatics: not what I imagine to be the desired look. The biggest legacy of this story is a brief return to Skaro foretold in the spooky prequel, and the Dalek puppets inhabiting people. Those are scary and effective, including the fact that people don’t even know they are Dalek puppets. Still, the whole idea of a Dalek asylum is kind of wasted: The Witch’s Familiar will do this better.
The Ponds having marriage issues
The real big mistake in this story is introducing Amy and Rory getting a divorce, and dealing with it all in the same story. Even for people who watched Pond Life it comes seemingly completely out of nowhere. Eventually the truth comes out that Amy was going to let Rory go so another woman could give him children. Heard of adoption? It’s baffling to me to introduce this major stress in their relationship, and then in an admittedly well-acted scene the two are finally honest with each other and it works itself out. I’m not intrinsically opposed to an arc of Amy and Rory having relationship issues, but maybe that should’ve been an arc throughout an entire season rather than just in one episode. They also don’t really do much to contribute to the plot at all, but it’s fun seeing Amy in heavy moody make-up I guess.
Oswin Oswald, the soufflé girl
The best part of this is a classic twist as Jenna Coleman shows up way earlier than advertised as Oswin, a young flirty woman seemingly trapped in the Dalek ship. There are lingering questions, mainly the Doctor wondering where she gets milk for a year for her soufflés. It turns out ‘exterminate’ slowed down sounds a lot like ‘egg stir’, explaining the soufflés which is some impressive wordplay. Tragically, Oswin is actually a Dalek and is so powerful she was fighting back. If you didn’t know the news that Coleman had been announced as the new companion, she’s just another guest character and your shock will take place later on. It’s fun, but it’s not enough to save a bizarrely structured episode. Hey, at least we get all The Daleks wondering ‘Doctor Who?’ after Oswin wipes their database of the Doctor.
Amy and Rory are getting divorced for some reason, and insane Daleks end up not being all that threatening.
8/10 Cool visuals keep it from going lower, but just a weirdly out of sync episode.
Stories 260-262, Episodes 823-825, Series 9 Episodes 10-12
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Clara Oswald
In what may be one of the most impactful Doctor Who stories ever, we find out what it truly means to be the Doctor. From the streets of London, to a far-flung castle prison, to Gallifrey itself, this story is about the Doctor.
The Review
The Mayor
First off, Rigsy calls the TARDIS, he has a new tattoo on his neck…that’s counting down. He joins the Doctor and Clara, and they set off on a mission to find a hidden street in London. The sequencing is a load of fun, and includes Clara loving being on the edge of death. They find it, a street that is a refugee camp for aliens being run by Ashildr…who else? Apparently Rigsy murdered a woman, and he’s been sentenced to time-based death by spiritual raven.
The Truth is Uncovered
The Doctor works out that Ashildr has framed Rigsy for some reason, because he knew him. Clara takes the countdown to death from Rigsy, because it will force Ashildr to retract the sentence. Using the prophetic nature of the murdered’s daughter, they learn that the woman Rigsy killed is still alive. To get her out, the Doctor has to get a teleportation bracelet stuck to him, but there’s bad news…Ashildr can’t save Clara.
Goodbye Clara…
Clara convinces the Doctor that everything will be okay, walks out, and is killed. That’s it. Dead. She’s gone. To add insult to injury, the Doctor is teleported away. The first episode of the story really succeeded in being a well-paced, great mystery, supported by more furious acting from Capaldi. Narratively, Clara’s death just makes sense. It’s heartbreaking, but it’s how it has to be. Then things starting getting even better.
The Veil, it never gives up
The Doctor is alone, trapped in a castle haunted by a slowly moving monster who will kill him with a touch. It never stops, inevitably the Doctor will die. Frequently consulting his memory of Clara, he reasons that the monster stops with confessions about the ‘Hybrid’ that will re-arrange the castle. The episode is one hundred powered behind Capaldi, who acts his ass off. It is enthralling, and the Doctor finds an escape behind twenty feet of super-hard rock. All he needs to do: confess one more.
The Long Way Round
Eventually, the Doctor pieces it together: he’s been here before, thousands of times, and died every single time. But each time he’s punched the rock, inching closer to breaking it. When he dies, he creates another copy of himself from the teleport, and after billions of years punches his way through in one of the show’s most triumphant moments. The other side? Gallifrey. The Doctor tells a boy to warn the Capitol: he’s back.
Rassilon, now former President
Rassilon wants him dead, and the Doctor goes to his ‘family’, and refuses to lay down his arms until he convinces everybody to banish Rassilon. He convinces the General that Clara can help with the Hybrid, so they take her and instant before her death, and the Doctor shoots the General, and goes rogue to save Clara. Breaking all his rules, he runs to the Cloisters to break into the Matrix. All to steal a TARDIS, grab Clara, and run to the end of time where she should be brought back to life.
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
At the end of the universe though, Ashildr was waiting for him. They chat about the Hybrid, and bounce around some ideas, but the main result is the Doctor promising to wipe Clara’s mind to save her. Clara hears it all and switches the memory device to work backwards to try and convince the Doctor not to save her. They end up gambling on who’s mind will be erased, and it’s the Doctor’s. It brings us to the frame story of the Doctor telling this tale to Clara in a Nevada diner, but when we thought Clara couldn’t remember: it was the Doctor.
Clara Who: Episode One
Clara walks into a backdoor where Ashildr is in there with the stolen TARDIS console. The restaurant phases away, leaving the Doctor his old TARDIS, where Rigsy’s graffiti of the dead Clara’s face allows the Doctor to piece together what happened. While Clara and Ashildr go off on their new journey through time, the Doctor goes off as well. This finale seemed like it would be about Gallifrey, and explosions, but it was about the Doctor…and now that includes Clara.
The Doctor’s TARDIS
Really, this story was great from start to finish. The opening frame was expertly done, and had a gut-punch ending. Capaldi pretty much acted the entire middle piece by himself, an amazing story of perseverance, escaping an inescapable problem. From there, we conclude with the Doctor going to great lengths to save Clara, and ultimately giving her new life while losing her. All along, Clara was very similar to the Doctor, and as her tenure on the show continued she became almost his equal. And now she is.
There may have been a bit of pacing issues, but superb writing, direction, and acting, acting, acting, made this a finale to remember. This episode was Doctor Who at its finest, and wrapped up an amazing run. From uncovering a mystery in London, to dying for billions of years to punch through rock harder than diamond, to meeting the end of the universe to save one life…Doctor Who has never been better.
9/10: Clara gets the greatest exist for any companion, and the Doctor finds a bit of humanity perhaps. Remember, when the TARDIS appears, it may now be Clara and Ashildr to your rescue.
It’s the 38th Century, and we’ve finally found a way to conquer sleep. But what if sleep is saving us from something far more dangerous?
The Review
The Man Behind Morpheus
This episode uses entirely perspective-based camera work, either from the point of view of some characters or from security cameras. It creates a very unique effect as the Doctor and Clara stumble upon a rescue team, and a base that is being overrun by sleep dust monsters. You know, the stuff that gets in your eye? Semblances to the Flood aside, and weirdness of the idea aside, it somehow worked.
It’s The Flood/Sleep Dust
People fall one by one, gravity shields fails, the Morpheus inventor is found, killed, then survives again. The cameras are tiny pieces of the sleep dust monsters. At the end, the inventor is revealed to have been in cahoots with the monsters, and is killed by Ngata, the only rescue team member who lives.
The End?
But the twist is that the inventor was making a great story for people to watch this ‘found footage’, and it contains a digital bug that will make more sleepy creatures. And the Doctor doesn’t know. And that’s it! Really, the episode kept me guessing the entire way through, and had an ending that left it completely wide open. The Doctor loses! The end! I thought the cinematography was fun, the fact that the monsters win was fun. Overall, I was quite entertained.
Although moving a bit fast, and with some bizarre villains (although the ‘Mr. Sandman’ song for the sleep-destroying Morpheus chamber was cool), Sleep No More proves to be another great episode. And in the end, the bad guy wins! The Doctor so often has his pawns, but in this episode he was thoroughly made one.
9/10. ‘Found footage’ makes for a fun departure for normal Doctor Who, and the Flood actually wins this round.
Story 258, Episodes 820 and 821, Series 9 Episodes 7 and 8
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Kate Stewart, Clara Oswald
The Zygon peace treaty has been broken, and now the Zygons aim to wage war on all of humanity. The only hope for both sides in the Osgood Box, said to have the power to end the war…for good.
The Review
The original Osgoods aka Peace
The Doctor gets the call: the shapeshifting Zygons have violated the ceasefire and waging open war. Soon things become clear that it is a splinter group tired of being forced to live in humanity, and Clara and the Doctor get roped in with UNIT. Kate goes to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico where she is ambushed by a Zygon who has wiped out the town. The Doctor goes to some foreign country where soldiers are lured to their deaths by Zygons, but he finds the surviving Osgood (Missy killed the other) and a prisoner.
Bonnie, Zygon general
The whole time in London, Clara has been helping UNIT find the Zygon base, except she’s actual the Zygon Bonnie, leading them into a trap. She then fires an RPG at the Doctor’s plane, but interference from Clara’s subconscious gives the Doctor and Osgood time to escape. The race is on to get to the UNIT Black Archives and the ‘Osgood Box’, and all five major players reach the Box, will boxes. Two boxes, two buttons inside, all varying levels of everybody dies.
Peter Capaldi gives the speech of his life
There, the Doctor gives one of the show’s best speeches. He talks about his past as a warrior, and just how awful war is and how many lives it ruins. The delivery is so incredible that it causes both Kate and Bonnie to back down. Bonnie ends up becoming the new second Osgood, and the Zygon peace is restored. So much happened, and so much amazing.
Clara and a Zygon in awe
The build-up in the story is perfectly executed, and the threat of the Zygons seems very real. Osgood, Clara/Bonnie, Kate are all very well realized, but as usual the Doctor steals the show. His speech against war is so impassioned and brilliant, it will easily be held in the annals of great Doctor moments. There have been many alien invasions of Earth in Doctor Who history, but the Zygon Invasion of 2015 may be one of the best.
The Zygons return from the 50th Anniversary, and an episode with many parallels to recent debates on immigration will thrill anybody. With great writing, direction, and acting, this story is another classic.
9.8/10. Series 9 is proving that Doctor Who is maybe the best it ever has been, night in and night out.
Doctor Who returns to the Mountain Time Zone, this time to New Mexico!
Stories 256 and 257, Episodes 818 and 819, Series 9 Episodes 5 and 6
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Clara Oswald
The Doctor remembers who he is in a small viking village, and ends up causing a tidal wave affecting all of humanity. Also this ended up getting classified as two different stories.
The Review
Odin is outwitted
Captured by vikings, the vikings, the Doctor, and Clara are instantly greeted by Odin who takes up viking warriors to his sky ship and murders them. Clara and a young girl, Ashildr, survive and challenge Odin and his Mire warriors to a battle. The Doctor tries to teach the dopes left to fight, but it doesn’t work. Until he talks to Ashildr, where he comes up with a complex plan on the spot using electric eels to down Odin and the Mire. Clara records them running from a fake serpent to Benny Hill music.
The Doctor and Ashildr
Ashildr died defeating Odin, and the Doctor agonizes about it. He realizes he took Caecilius’ face to remind himself to always save people, with a flashback to the 10th Doctor and Donna no less. He uses tech to repair Ashildr, but she is made immortal. In the next episode the Doctor appears in the 17th century and runs into Ashildr. She is desensitized to the world and callous, but the Doctor helps her steal an alien amulet from a home.
Ashildr and the lion…person
Ashildr is using the amulet to help a fire-breathing lion man go home, and she’ll go with him. She goes to Sam Swift’s execution to kill him to open a portal with the amulet, and does it even as the Doctor tries to dissuade her. The lion guy is calling an invasion, so the Doctor has her use her second immortality thing to save Swift and the save the day. Ashildr says she’ll protect the Doctor’s ‘Leftovers’, and when the Doctor re-unites with Clara sees her in the background of a selfie Clara took.
The Doctor creates an immortal, maybe two, and has to leave her alone as she’s too similar to himself. The stunning reversal with the ephemeral love from Clara clashing with the infinite coldness of Ashildr sets up a debate on immortality’s merits.
9.5/10. A few minor rushed points in the first episode stop Series 9’s perfect streak, but make no mistake, another slam dunk.
Story 255, Episodes 815 and 816, Series 9 Episodes 3 and 4
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Clara Oswald
Another two-parter sees the doctor confront one of the most insidious situations he’s ever faced, deep underwater in 22nd Century Scotland.
The Review
The Doctor’s deductive reasoning
Deep underwater, the Doctor and Clara find a base with scared crew members. For good reason, the base is infested with ghosts trying to kill them after they found a spaceship on the lakebed with strange writing. The first part of the episode, the annoying Pritchard is drowned by the ghosts, and the Doctor tries to think about how this situation can be. The ship had a pilot locked in stasis, and a missing power cell. And the whole ghost thing.
Tivolis, open for enslavement
The ghosts are repeating the same phrase, but the Doctor, O’Donnell, and Bennett are separated from Clara, the deaf Cass and her interpreter Lunn. The Doctor goes back to before the flood that the base is built in, while his ghost appears to Clara, signaling his future death. In the 80s the Doctor finds that the ship is a hearse driven by the future first ghost carrying the body of the Fisher King.
The Fisher King
Communicating with Clara, Doctor sees his future ghost, and gets a list of their names. Returning to the 80s, the Fisher King killed the undertaker and then O’Donnell. Bennett and the Doctor try to leave, but the TARDIS won’t let the Doctor. The Doctor decides to take on the Fisher King and floods the base with one power cell, and jumps in the stasis chamber to awake in the 22nd century and trap all the ghosts in the chamber they can’t pass through with his ‘ghost’, a hologram.
Lunn, Clara, and Cass
There is SO MUCH MORE I didn’t even cover like the words in the ship being an eye worm that sticks in your mind. The whole episode was dramatic, tense drama, that provided the Doctor with one of the most impossible situations I can remember. A healthy dose of bootstrap paradox, and Peter Capaldi acting out of mind, and you have another classic right after the last one. Toby Whitehouse does it again!
The opening to Before the Flood has a 4th Wall breaking explanation of a bootstrap paradox involving Beethoven ending with a rock version of the theme song. Yes.
10/10. Now I know I just gave the preceding story a 10/10, but I always try and think about things I would’ve changed about the story for why it would be not be a 10, but this story had it all.
Story 254, Episodes 814 and 815, Series 9 Episodes 1 and 2
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Kate Stewart, Clara Oswald
After a long long wait Doctor Who is back in Series 9! Old faces meet for the first time in a spectacular two-parter story.
The Review
Davros: the deadliest person ever to live
It starts with the Doctor meeting a young child on a battlefield, and preparing to save him before realizing: it’s Davros. The Doctor leaves the child and centuries later as dying Davros sends snake-man to find him, giving us a look old friends the Shadow Proclamation and the Sisterhood of Carn. Clara is teaching when she notices that the planes in the sky have stopped. This leads her to UNIT which leads her to Missy with the news: the Doctor is dying and she has his confession. They go to the middle ages to find him.
A fourteenth-life crisis
The Doctor is rocking out with future technology, and when he hears of Davros’ summons decides to go. There the Doctor is trapped on a rejuvenated Skaro, and has to see Clara and Missy vaporized. Of course they’re fine: Missy explains how in a brilliant flashback where she shows the Doctor avoid crisis. While the Doctor temporarily steals Davros’ chair Missy takes Clara into the sewers of dead liquified Daleks and has her jump in one to get back into Skaro to track down the Doctor.
Davros rejuvenated
The Doctor is put back with Davros, and Davros emotionally convinces him to use some regeneration energy to keep him alive a bit longer. It actually works on all Daleks, but even the dead ones which vastly outnumber the living and attack them. Missy is unable to get the Doctor to kill Clara in the Dalek, and with sonic sunglasses the Doctor and Clara and back in the TARDIS. The confession dial is a secret for another time, but the Doctor survives the first meeting of the Master and Davros.
Missy works her charm on some Daleks
The pacing in this story is as good as I’ve ever seen from Doctor Who, and kept you thrilled from start to finish. The highlight again was Michelle Gomez who continues to play Missy so well I want her to appear as often as possible. Julian Bleach turned in another fined performance as Davros, and the regulars continued to impressive. This episode was Doctor Who distilled to its core: funny, thrilling, and with the charm that only Doctor Who can provide.
The Master AND Davros in the same episode! Even the 50th Anniversary didn’t have that! If Series 9 holds to this quality this will the best series ever.
10/10. I’ve never given one of these before, but I honestly cannot think of a flaw. This story is Doctor Who at it’s absolute best. And this was only the intro story!
“It’s Christmas, the North Pole…who you gonna call?”
Story 253, Episode 813, 2014 Christmas Special
Doctor: The Twelfth Doctor
Companion: Clara Oswald
Santa Claus, eleves, facehuggers, a polar base populated with four frightened explorers, a wily magician, and a grieving schoolteacher. Merry Christmas!
The Review
The Dream Crabs
This Christmas special is a crazy one, and it starts with Santa re-uniting Clara and the Doctor. They all head to a polar base where dreamcrabs are terrorizing the explorers. Before long, Clara’s in a dream where she’s alive living in a perfect life with Danny. The Doctor rescues her, and then starts to realize that they are all dreaming from when Santa first showed up, as he can’t be real. Out of that dream, the Doctor starts to head out, until Clara reminds him that they saw Santa at her house. So, they’re still dreaming.
The Doctor goes full Inception
One of the explorers dies, but the other three escape into their real world. Soon, the Doctor and Clara do as well, and the Doctor finds an elderly Clara. It looks like the end for Clara, but there was one last layer, and soon the Doctor and Clara are off on more adventures. There’s some really good ideas in the episode, but something seemed missing the entire time. The whole episode felt dreamy, which I guess was the point.
Clara is still grieving
Some episodes just have the spark that makes it exciting, but this episode just didn’t do it for me. It’s a clever premise, but I never truly felt worried. The ending as Clara joins the Doctor again had infectious excitement, and has be excited for the future. It was a decent episode, but only that. Can’t wait for Series 9 though, and very happy Clara’s staying. To adventure!
An Inception/Alien mash-up provides new life for the Doctor and for Clara. Not a bad way to spend Christmas day, but it isn’t a classic.
7.5/10 Am I still dreaming?
Santa’s a manifestation of our subconscious’ desire to be saved from face huggers
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 