The Wedding of River Song Review

Posted on January 27, 2022May 25, 2022 by guardion

The Wedding of River Song

Story 224, Episode 783, Series 6 Episode 13

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams

A weird, wacky episode is solid fun but has a rushed resolution while introducing further complications to the Eleventh Doctor’s mythos.

The Review

The Wedding of River Song features a crazy world where all of history has collided, Churchill is the Roman Emperor in modern London with a Silurian doctor, Dickens is talking on television, cars are being carried by hot air balloons, and the finale takes place in ‘Area 52’, a US installation in the Great Pyramids. All of this stuff is just absolutely absurd silliness, the kind of silliness only this show could pull off effectively. Just like Madame Kovarian, the Doctor is picked up by Amy and Rory wearing eyepatches so they can remember the Silence. For some reason, Amy doesn’t quite remember that this ‘Captain Williams’ is Rory, but whatever. Of course, River is in charge of the whole thing because she refused to kill the Doctor back in Utah so all of time and space is collapsing.

The problem is, this is the first finale ever to be just one part, and for all the hype around the Doctor dying it really ends up just as alternate timeline shenanigans. Knowing this going in I knew what to expect, but really, there should just be more here. The reveal that the Doctor survived by being inside the Teselecta comes extremely late in the episode and just feels cheap. Almost more critically, this is supposed to be essentially the first attempt at a real climatic story for River. It is completely clear why she loves the Doctor, she was raised on him, studied him, and he’s the greatest hero in the universe. So why does the Doctor marry her? Essentially out of obligation to get her to shut up and do her job and shoot the Teselecta Doctor to preserve all of reality. Is there any indication why the Doctor loves her? No, and there won’t be for five years until The Husbands of River Song.

Ultimately, there’s enough fun stuff here to make it a good time. ‘Live chess’ where the more you move a piece the higher the voltage is upped. The return of Dorium, who is now a head sitting a crypt kept busy through a media chip in his head and the wi-fi. Amy killing Kovarian for kidnapping her baby, and feeling remorseful even though it didn’t actually end up happening. Finally, the Question is revealed, the Question that has been hiding in plain sight all this time: “Doctor Who?” Of course, Doctor Who is the name of the show, it has been hiding right in the title sequence. For how big and daring The Impossible Astronaut was, this can’t help but feel like a bit of a step-down.

It’s all wild timeline smashing into each other fun, but doesn’t feel satisfying. Also, Amy and Rory still aren’t traveling with the Doctor, and we don’t even know what he’s up to. Kind of odd.

8/10 The Doctor marries River, we just wish we understood why

The God Complex Review

Posted on January 27, 2022May 25, 2022 by guardion

The God Complex

Story 222, Episode 781, Series 6 Episode 11

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams (River Song)

The Doctor confronts his own vanity in one of the best stories of the Matt Smith era.

The Review

First, a word on the mini-episodes First Night and Last Night which fit in here. They’re mainly silly little capers featuring multiple Rivers and Doctors. The Doctor picks up River for their first solo outing from her point of view, and Alex Kingston does a great job playing her more wide-eyed and younger. Things take a turn when a future Eleventh Doctor shows up saying he’s taking her to Darillium, the the last place River said she saw the Doctor before her death in the Library. We do learn later that the Doctor chickened out of it, and glad he did because that gave us The Husbands of River Song. Anyway, onto The God Complex where the Doctor again has to confront endings. It’s one of the best constructed sets in show history, an 80s hotel like The Shining but combined with the maze of the labyrinth in the Minotaur myth. It’s perfectly rendered, and Whithouse knows exactly what story he’s telling.

It’s a simple story at its heart, there are rooms that show everyone’s worst fears, and after seeing them people start to ‘praise’ the Minotaur which devours their souls. The turn comes when the Doctor realizes it’s not fear the monster is after, it’s the faith generated in a response to that fear. We have a gambling addict, a conspiracy theorist, and Rita, played beautifully by Amara Karan who falls back on her Islamic faith. Finally when it comes for Amy, her faith is in the Doctor, and the Doctor shatters it by telling her he always knew something bad would inevitably happen to her but he just wanted to be adored. Interestingly, Rory doesn’t have a fear, an impressive amount of character growth. The Doctor can no longer bear to keep risking the Ponds, so he gives them a house and pops off. Doing what? Saving them.

This is an episode that blows me away, but it is so smart and well-structured and envisioned with great consequences, I can’t fault it.

10/10 A pitch-perfect episode, and in another universe, a perfect departure for the Ponds

The Girl Who Waited Review

Posted on January 26, 2022May 25, 2022 by guardion

The Girl Who Waited

Story 221, Episode 780, Series 6 Episode 10

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams

A classic moral dilemma saddles the TARDIS team as Amy makes the mistake of pressing the wrong button.

The Review

The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to a relaxing planet, but it turns out there’s a deadly plague and the planet has been turned into a quarantine zone. Those with the virus are left in ‘compressed time’, and visitors can come and watch their doomed loved ones live their lives over a single day. Amy accidentally goes into one of these accelerated timelines, and when the Doctor and Rory meet up with her, it’s been 36 years and she is a bitter woman now. This is clearly Series 6’s budget saving episode, the sets are extremely bare and minimalist and there are no guest actors at all. In some senses, it allows us to focus in on Amy and the dilemma, in others, it limits the scope presented. I will say, the Doctor without his coat just wearing the suspenders might be Matt Smith’s best look in the role. The three main actors are all quite easy on the eyes in this one.

The dilemma is simple: is saving Amy and letting the Amy who lived for 36 years die a good thing? Old Amy agrees to come along but saying both Amys have to survive, and the Doctor tells her it can be done. Of course, he’s lying. The two key moments are when the Amys first communicate, and Amy says that Rory is the most beautiful man she’s ever met because of his sweetness and kindness. The other is when old Amy gets shut out of the TARDIS, and Rory chastises the Doctor for giving him an impossible decision that should be the Doctor’s. Overall, I don’t think it revealed too much more about Amy and Rory we haven’t already seen up to this point, but those scenes pack a punch. Sadly, we never see Rory explaining what happened to Old Amy to Amy. Some conversations are just too hard I suppose.

It’s an austere, money-saving morality tale lifted by sparkling dialogue and performances. Amy and Rory gets put through the ringer on this show, give them a break will you?

8.5/10 I think Amy can stop waiting now

Old Amy gazes upon Earth before her death

Night Terrors Review

Posted on January 25, 2022May 25, 2022 by guardion

Night Terrors

Story 220, Episode 779, Series 6 Episode 9

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams

Another stab is made at a story revolving around a scared child, and it works just about as not well as Fear Her.

The Review

The trouble with Night Terrors is not much really happens. A scared boy, George, sends the Doctor a message on the psychic paper to save him from the monsters. He lives in a shoddy apartment complex, and we’re initially introduced to his mom Claire but then she vanishes and the dad Alex comes in. The boy is scared of everything, and other people in the estate are getting sucked into what turns out to be a dollhouse in his cupboard for ‘things that scare him’. (Parenting note: do not put everything that scares your kid in one place because it will just build up in there). The Doctor talks to him, realizes he is an alien called a ‘Tenza’ that just wants to fit in somewhere in the universe and was scared of being rejected. Dad affirms he loves him, day saved.

The kid playing George does a fine enough job

So, what are Amy and Rory doing? They spend basically the whole episode in the dollhouse wandering around being scared and nothing of consequence happens to them. You could cut them out entirely and make this story twenty minutes and the overall plot wouldn’t change. There’s also the greasy landlord who has a dog on a literal chain he brings around at night shaking people down for the rent. Does he learn any lesson? No, not really. I do give the story points for the weird wooden dolls, and having Amy die this time briefly turning doll instead of Rory. Sadly, as Amy intones at the beginning of the episode upon seeing where the TARDIS has landed: this was a dull one.

Not Gatiss’ best work by a long shot, it’s pretty rough overall but has some style points I suppose.

6.75/10 The dolls are creepy enough

Let’s Kill Hitler Review

Posted on January 7, 2022May 25, 2022 by guardion

Let’s Kill Hitler

Story 219, Episode 778, Series 6 Episode 8

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams

One of the wildest episodes of Doctor Who has the Doctor come face to face with Hitler and somehow that’s not the crazy thing.

The Review

Mels, a character that totally makes sense

Let’s Kill Hitler never gets wilder than the beginning of the episode. Amy and Rory create a crop circle saying Doctor to draw his attention, and then their reckless best friend Mels shows up. Turns out Mels is the Pond’s best friend we’d never heard of, confusing the Doctor too. We get a very entertaining montage of her getting into trouble and setting up Amy and Rory. Then she forces the TARDIS to Berlin 1938 where they stop a robot full of tiny people from killing Hitler on accident. Rory gets to punch Hitler and put him in a cupboard, which is completely hilarious. Oh, and then it turns out this unseen best friend was the previous incarnation of River all along. It just doesn’t work, I get that Moffat was thinking of a way for Amy to be there for her daughter’s childhood but the whole thing kind of falls apart under its own weight.

Being a trained assassin, the new River who’s never heard that name before, kisses the Doctor and poisons him. The whole plot of the Doctor dying just doesn’t land, because earlier in this season we already saw him die and know it’s not going to happen now. The other component is the ridiculous Teselecta, a time traveling justice robot from the future that punishes history’s worst criminals who always got away with it. A robotic Amy is pretty fun, as are the ‘anti-bodies’ that kill unauthorized people…which seems pretty unnecessary. River sees the Doctor work hard to save Amy and Rory, and realizes she’s his future love River so gives up all her regenerations to heal him back to life. It’s all a bit too much, we don’t really believe the Doctor is dying so we’re not worried River saves him.

The emotional beats don’t make a lot of sense, so River is still trained to kill the Doctor, mad that he didn’t do stuff like stop the Titanic and the Nazis? We don’t really get much examination of that, even with the Teselecta. Amy has far more concern for Melody than Rory, I get that Rory is trying to be mature and comforting but just because he’s a guy doesn’t mean he should care less about his daughter. River thinks the Doctor is attractive, fair enough, but is convinced to save him because the Doctor tells her something about River. What it could possibly be, we don’t know? Oh, and the whole Nazi thing is played for laughs which is about the only way it could be played, but overall: odd choice! It’s supposed to be a fun romp, but there’s too much weirdness going on.

This episode has an impressively amusing opening and just starts to crumble under its own weight by the end. Not a great sign.

8/10 Alex Kingston does have a great performance though

A Good Man Goes to War Review

Posted on December 25, 2021 by guardion

A Good Man Goes to War

Story 218, Episode 777, Series 6 Episodes 7

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

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

A massive reveal drops in a story that examines the Doctor and his actions in a way no story to this point has. Many, many questions remain unanswered, but you can’t help but be swept along.

The Review

Demons run when a good man goes to war. The Doctor started out as just a man unable to control his time machine, careening from place to place, doing his best sometimes just to stay alive. Centuries later, he is something rather different, a legendary, hallowed figure, with an entire army under the auspices of the Papal Mainframe here to take him on. As River asks the Doctor, did he ever expect he would turn out like this? Why the Church is after the Doctor is never answered, what plans they have for Melody Pond, Amy and Rory’s daughter, is never answered, but in this episode, we don’t need those answers. The existence of this group determined to defeat the Doctor raises questions for him and us about just who he is.

Would you like me to repeat the question?

The opening to this episode is excellent, starting with Rory boarding a ship and demanding Cybermen tell him where his wife is as the Doctor destroys the legion behind him. Dorium Maldovar is back, and an excellent presence, telling Kovarian and her troops just how afraid of the Doctor they should be. We’ve seen that blue box popping up in various odd places, and when it finally comes for Dorium the silhouette of the Doctor is scary. A young woman, Lorna, is here to see the Doctor because she remembers him as a great warrior. We think the Doctor won the day, but it turns out the real baby Melody has been taken, Amy was caring for Flesh. It’s a loss.

At the end, the reveal comes from River that she is Amy and Rory’s daughter. It’s a cracker of a reveal, Lorna is from a forest and stitched Melody Pond in her people’s language. The only water in the forest is the river, so it comes out as ‘River Song’. It’s an absolute whopper of a reveal, and one of the best in show history. Sure, her being the Doctor’s wife: easy to guess. No one saw this coming though. Despite all the questions left unanswered, this story is an exciting thrilling one with a dark emotional core and a stunning conclusion. It also introduces us to Vastra, Jenny, and Strax, Vastra feeling just like she’s known the Doctor forever. The reunion of Amy and Rory is also incredibly sweet.

The lack of answers to the overall anti-Doctor plot should’ve been a red flag for the rest of Series 6. Here, it just feels us excited for me. Good men don’t need rules, and today isn’t the day to find out why the Doctor needs so many.

9.5/10 I’m a sucker for stories like this that just pour on excitement

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People Review

Posted on December 19, 2021 by guardion

The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People

Story 217, Episodes 775-776, Series 6 Episodes 5-6

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams

A textbook moral dilemma unfolds in a story that while a bit odd in places, is well-served by some great performances, especially from Matt Smith.

The Review

Raquel Cassidy has an all-time guest performance

I wasn’t expecting too much revisiting this story for the first time in eight years, but I was very pleasantly surprised. The conceit is in the 22nd century, the Flesh has been discovered, programmable matter. In an old island monastery, workers pump acid controlling these Flesh avatars as the frequency of fatal accidents is quite high. A solar storm hits, and those Flesh avatars no longer fall apart when not being controlled, they’re here, permanently, with the exact memories and personalities of the originals. So, what do you do now? The best crew/Flesh avatar member is Cleaves, played expertly by Raquel Cassidy, the leader of the group. She’s a cynical woman, but it turns out she’s only that way because she’s dying of an inoperable blood clot. Without Cassidy’s performance, this story would suffer as she expertly portrays both Cleaves.

The next best performance falls to Sarah Smart as the enigmatic Jennifer who instantly is attracted to Rory but ends up becoming the most radical Ganger, horrified by the ill-treatment of the Flesh. It’s an intentionally unsettling performance that gets ruined by some very bad CGI when she just turns into a Flesh monster at the end. The weakness come in the other three, the male crew members, who never really quite form into shape. The story also doesn’t have two of each person survive, with two Gangers and one human in Cleaves escaping unharmed. The Doctor drops them off at a press conference which is a hopeful ending that they’ll change the world, but just feels kind of off.

So, what holds it all together? Amy and Rory are fine, but the star is Matt Smith. Evasive as ever, the Doctor gets a Ganger double in the second part, and Smith plays both Doctors with a hidden malevolence that is just creepy. Not every Doctor is as dark as the Eleventh is at his core, and it serves this story spectacularly. When it’s revealed the two tricked everyone into thinking which is which, it’s a startling moment revealing Amy’s prejudice toward the Ganger Doctor was actually aimed at the Doctor himself. Of course, this is even more ironic once we learn Amy was just inhabiting a super-advanced Ganger and is actually being held prisoner about to give birth. The tension is always brooding in this story, and the philosophical questions remain relevant.

While the Twelfth Doctor acts cold and distant, at his core he’s a sweetheart. I think the opposite is true for the Eleventh Doctor, and Matt Smith shows that perfectly in one of his most successful performances.

9/10 It’s maybe a bit padded, but we’re seen classic Who around here, we can handle it

Amy about to give birth is genuinely icky

The Doctor’s Wife Review

Posted on December 6, 2021December 19, 2021 by guardion

The Doctor’s Wife

Story 216, Episode 774, Series 6 Episode 4

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams

Finally the Doctor gets to talk to a TARDIS in an episode that feels a bit lacking but provides plenty of emotional moments.

The Review

For reasons I understand, this story is hailed a classic. Neil Gaiman, one of the best genre writers of all time writing a story where the Doctor and TARDIS get to meet? With Suranne Jones putting in a fantastic performance as the confused mad-cap TARDIS? The Doctor is drawn by a Time Lord distress call to a planet called House in a pocket universe that it turns out feeds off TARDISes and has killed ‘hundreds’ of Time Lords in hopes of seeing Time Lords to apologize to them. This episode connects to the RTD legacy more than any Smith episode to date, the Time War is brought up for the first time in his era, and when an Ood gets atomized, the Doctor says it’s another Ood he failed to save. Combine that with a Matt Smith performance, and there’s great stuff going on here.

I just feel there is an element of cheapness to this story, a lot of it is Amy and Rory running down bland corridors, and the set design like the previous episode seems to say ‘we still had to save money’. The voice of House is done well by Michael Sheen, but is too often disembodied and feels somehow apart from the episode. I think this one could’ve been even better. Finally, as good as Jones is, the TARDIS being all over the place in talking dents some of the emotion. Still, it’s there, her sad final goodbye, and also telling the Doctor she always took him where he needed to go. The end of the Doctor bouncing around in the control room fits right at home, and is sweet and beautiful. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good episode, but for the occasion could’ve been more.

I think it’s a bad sign that an episode so momentous, so one of a kind in 58+ years of Doctor Who feels not very memorable to me. Gaiman’s busy schedule stops his episodes from succeeding to his talent

8.5/10 The Doctor meets the TARDIS in an episode that’s disappointingly straightforward

The Curse of the Black Spot Review

Posted on December 4, 2021 by guardion

The Curse of the Black Spot

Story 215, Episodes 773, Series 6 Episode 3

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: Amy Pond, Rory Williams

A low-key episode, The Curse of the Black Spot makes the most of what is a pretty straightforward story.

The Review

This story is much maligned, and truthfully I think undeservingly show. I think the biggest issue is that this plays more like a Fifth Doctor story than a modern story, and probably would’ve been better in that era (see Enlightenment). The sets are cheap and barebones, somehow even the Doctor and Avery in the TARDIS is cheap. The plot is simple, a Siren is abducting Henry Avery’s men at the sight of blood, but it turns out she’s an alien hospital interface trying to help them. There are other oddities, the biggest being the Boatswain just gets taken by the Siren completely off-screen which made me check that I didn’t miss anything. I think after the bombast of the last two episodes, this mediocre one stuck on one pirate ship for most of the time really raised the ire of people.

That said, there are some great emotional moments in this episode. It’s close to heavy-handed, but Avery’s son getting taken by the Siren because he just couldn’t let go of a piece of treasure he had looted is a good parable. There is also genuine emotion with Amy having to do CPR on a drowning Rory, thinking she is going to lose him but Rory barely pulls through. There’s good stuff in this episode, but it does drag a bit, even for 45 minutes, which is never a good sign. Still, I think it is unfairly maligned, even if it ages worse the more you think about it. It does have Karen Gillan dressed like a pirate though, so who am I to judge?

The rep as a disastrous episode is undeserved, but it’s certainly not a great one. Also way to do a stealth prequel to The Smugglers from the 60s.

7.5/10 Shoutout to the atmospheric prequel to this episode

How long has Avery’s son been stowing away? Weeks? Months?

The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon Review

Posted on December 4, 2021 by guardion

The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon

Story 214, Episodes 771-772, Series 6 Episodes 1-2

Doctor: The Eleventh Doctor

Companions: River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams

An incredibly ambitious opening two-parter takes the show to America, introduces one of the great villains in the series, but leaves us with even more questions than answers.

The Review

Has there been a more explosive opening to a Doctor Who season? I can’t really think of it. The Doctor summons River, Amy, and Rory to a lake in Utah where an astronaut walks out of the water and shoots him stone dead. Then, the Doctor, two hundred years younger, turns up. It’s bold, audacious, and exciting, and the story basically doesn’t let up as we go to 1969 and meet American FBI agent Canton Everett Delaware III in the Oval Office where he is talking to none other than President Nixon. As shown on a creepy prequel Nixon is getting phone calls from a scared little girl direct to him, wherever he goes. Canton places his faith in the Doctor and they find said girl in the astronaut suit in a NASA warehouse, and in twin reveals that are a bit too big, Amy says he’s pregnant and shoots the girl. The only flaw of this story is it feels like there’s a bit too much going on, which will only get worse this season.

The Silenced are very X-Files in design, and super creepy

Oh, am I forgetting something? We meet the Silence, an incredibly creepy alien all dressed in black suits who no one can remember seeing when they look away. How you can fight something you can’t remember? We find out in the second episode, opening with a lengthy cold open of the characters covered in tally marks across the US. The Silence are a very creepy villain, and are responsible for the little girl in the astronaut suit who ends up escaping. It’s all building up to the Moon landing, where the Doctor inserts a recording of one of the Silence that Canton shot saying ‘you should kill us all on sight’. Their powers of suggestion then lead to humanity…I guess murdering all of the Silence? I assume some escaped. The story never really reckons with the idea that all of human history has been subtly nudged along by the Silence, for reasons still unknown. The scenes of humans turning and finally seeing the Silence that were always at the corner of their eye is great though.

So, where does that leave us? We learn our friend Canton was kicked out of the FBI for wanting to marry another man, but he gets to parade around a very unconfident Nixon which is amusing. River is…interesting in this one, she actually has genuine chemistry with the Doctor here, and is sad that the next time she sees the Doctor he’ll know her even less. Knowing what we know about how Series 6 wraps up, taking some serious acting skills by River here to sell everything. We get a very sweet moment when Rory realizes yet again that yes Amy loves him, not the Doctor. Amy is somehow both pregnant and not pregnant, and saw an eyepatch woman in a door somehow. Oh, and the little girl ends up regenerating. It’s just a whole lot, and the cavalcade of mysteries stops this from being a perfect story. Still, it’s very entertaining with incredible imagery and a fabulous villain.

It’s bold, audacious, and overstuffed, which is the Series 6 motto. I actually think a ton of different plot lines like Flux is a bit easier than a ton of different mysteries. We’ll see how it develops.

9.25/10 The scene where the Doctor knows everyone is keeping a secret (his death) from him and wants to know if he can trust them is incredible from Matt Smith