That Was The Year (and the Smith Era) That Was 31.12.13

So that was the 50th Anniversary year. Some highlights. Some disappointments and frustrations. Lovely to see 9 lost episodes return - especially Troughton ones. Lots of things were advertised at the beginning of the year, then we had a long wait for them to actually take place. The series returned in the spring - and proved to be very patchy. It was also the second half of the series that started the year before, rather than a full new season.
In the summer there was the Prom - which sold out very quickly. The bulk of the celebrations were reserved for just one week in November. The convention also sold out very quickly, despite being held in a large venue over three days. Doctor Who then took over BBC TV and radio for a few days. An Adventure In Space And Time was certainly a highlight. The Day of the Doctor could easily have proved an anti-climactic disappointment, but managed to succeed. That Five Doctors (Rebooted) piece really ought to get a DVD release somewhere. My biggest disappointment was The Time of the Doctor, which was just too rushed and tried to do too much.
And what of the Smith era as a whole? Here's my view.

The Eleventh Hour: Off to a great start - very good. Loved little Amelia, but Amy as a kissogram says more about the writer than anything else.
The Beast Below: First evidence that Moffat could write rubbish. Smilers visually great but totally underused.
Victory of the Daleks: One of the worst Dalek stories ever, in my opinion. Falls apart as soon as the Ironsides get blasted. The plasticky, gaudily coloured wheelie-bin New Paradigm represent the trashing of a design icon. At least they have the good grace to clear off 10 minutes before the ending.
The Time of Angels: Things start to get better. Welcome back River Song.
Flesh and Stone: Ruined for me by that ending. Amy is eager to have sex with a relative stranger on the eve of her wedding. And I'm supposed to like this person?
Vampires of Venice: Okay, so long as you don't examine it too closely. Whithouse does like his alien-infiltrated schools. Nice to see Rory join the team.
Amy's Choice: I liked it. Toby Jones' Dream Lord should come back.
The Hungry Earth: A Pertwee greatest hits package. Not content with trashing the Daleks, Moffat ruins the Silurians. Turns them into bog-standard lizard people. Uses the fact that people might confuse them with Davros to excuse the absence of the third eye. Ridiculous.
Cold Blood: Nope. Still don't like the new Silurians. Rory's death undermined by his previous demises. Proof sit-com writers aren't necessarily good drama writers.
Vincent and the Doctor: Thank goodness for Richard Curtis. Emotion returns to Doctor Who. Brilliant performance by Tony Curran.
The Lodger: Funny in places but ultimately inconsequential. Gareth Roberts simply reuses an old DWM comic strip idea - where Ten stayed with Mickey Smith. For a programme with a huge children's following, the headbutting nonsense was positively irresponsible. Certainly not deserving of a sequel I would have thought...
The Pandorica Opens: Very good. Brilliant cliffhanger. The Doctor's challenge to the assembled aliens hovering above Stonehenge is one of the era's defining moments. Shame the Alliance, when they reveal themselves, prove to be a wee bit bargain basement.
The Big Bang: Excuse me, but is this really the second part of Pandorica? It's as if we're watching an entirely different story. Timey-wimey gone much too far. There's clever-intelligent, and clever-smartarse. This falls into the latter camp for me.

Death of the Doctor: Smith's Sarah Jane Adventures appearance. The return of Jo Grant. Loads of classic series references and a strong RTD emotional core. Brilliant.
A Christmas Carol: Despite the near absence of the companions, I really liked this. What flying sharks have to do with Christmas I know not, though.

The Impossible Astronaut: Dreadful title, but an intriguing story. Love Canton. Great new monsters. The "the Doctor really does get killed, honest..." bit doesn't convince for a second.
Day of the Moon: Just about pulls it off as second parts go. Great cliffhangers - little girl regenerating and the "is she / is she not" pregnant bit.
Curse of the Black Spot: How can you get Pirates and Doctor Who so wrong? By making the "monster" a misguided medical hologram. That's how. Rory's death (again) totally undermined by the fact that this chief writer has destroyed Death as a threat for the sake of some cheap gags.
The Doctor's Wife: It will, deservedly, be remembered as a highlight of this particular era. Lots of lovely references to the story of the Doctor's ongoing relationship with the TARDIS.
The Rebel Flesh: Strong start to a two-parter.
The Almost People: Story flags a bit. Ultimately wasn't quite strong enough to sustain two full episodes. Good cliffhanger ending, mind you.
A Good Man Goes To War: Very good, though I do wonder why Captain Jack, Martha, Mickey weren't called upon when the Doctor needed help. Flags up Moffat's aversion towards reusing elements from his predecessor's era - which I put down to a certain insecurity complex. Moffat is also determined to make this the story of River Song this season. At least the new "old friends" are quite entertaining.
Let's Kill Hitler: River's story fully explained (almost). Shame we see so little of Mels. Hitler appears only long enough to justify that attention-grabbing title. According to the most recent SFX Magazine specials, Hitler features in quite a lot of time travel stories of the last half century.
Night Terrors: Gatiss maintains his losing streak. The Peg Dolls are a wonderful design / concept, but the story boils down to some sentimental rubbish.
The Girl Who Waited: Another gem. Other writers seem to manage the emotional depth that Moffat's efforts lack.
The God Complex: I rather liked this.The idea that the labyrinth of the hotel should ultimately have a full-blown Minotaur in it is a bit unimaginative. You've got to applaud any story that references the Nimon at the end of the day.
Closing Time: God, this is awful. Worst Cyberman story of all time. Yes, even worse than Nightmare in Silver which is saying something. Worse even than The Wheel In Space or Revenge of the Cybermen. And Silver Nemesis. Seems Cybermen can now be killed by the power of "love". A pale shadow of the series 5 episode, which I only just tolerated. Sentimental clap-trap. So far Moffat has trashed the Daleks, the Silurians, and now the Cybermen on his watch.
The Wedding of River Song: Visually quite stunning, with lots of little references to previous stories, but where does it actually get us? The "Doctor" that was killed was really a robot copy. Lots of things happen, except they occur in an alternate time-line. What really happens to Kovarian? Are River and the Doctor really married? How can things that happen in this timeline be taken as having happened in the "original" timeline in the subsequent series? As a series finale it is really a triumph of style over content.

The Doctor, The Widow And The Wardrobe: Worst Christmas Special to date. Doesn't even feel like a Doctor Who story. No real threat or menace whatsoever. Companions side-lined again. Totally underused (and poorly written) guest artists in the Androzani tree-harvesters.
Asylum of the Daleks: A bit of a disappointment this was for me. I read all this stuff beforehand about old Dalek props being used - and then we never really saw any of them. Biggest annoyance was when the Doctor went into the "intensive care section" - i.e. Daleks who had encountered him on Kendal - sorry, Kembel, Spiridon, Exxilon etc. And they're all RTD era bronze Daleks! And to think they had real props from some of those eras in the studio at the time... "Clara" makes her surprise first appearance.
Dinosaurs on a Spaceship: A pretty enjoyable romp. Rory's dad joins the series in what will be the eleventh hour of the Ponds' tenure. David Bradley makes for a great villain. A cold-blooded Doctor.
A Town Called Mercy: That cold side to the Doctor continues. Not a bad story.
The Power of Three: The last days of the Ponds. The overarching plot is a bit rubbish, good only in that it introduces us to Kate Stewart of UNIT. It's the incidental stuff between the Doctor and the Ponds, whilst they're waiting through the "slow invasion", that the story is really all about.
The Angels Take Manhattan: A good atmospheric story for the Ponds to bow out on.

The Snowmen: A Christmas Special that manages to get the balance right - between fan pleasing and accessibility to the general audience. The return of the Great Intelligence - but no Yeti! Yet again emotion is a weapon of sorts - tears destroying the titular monsters. Another false start "Clara".
The Bells of Saint John: Not the strongest opener to a series (or half series) ever. A contemporary version of The Idiot's Lantern really. We finally get to see the real Clara.
The Rings of Akhaten: Generally derided for its lack of any real threat. It does have its moments. Some striking visuals. A grandstanding performance from Smith.
Cold War: Lots of people liked this but I found it entirely derivative. A mix of the original Ice Warrior story with Dalek, and lots of submarine movie / Alien cliches. Don't like what they did with the Ice Warriors at all. That's four classic monsters trashed so far.
Hide: Much better effort. Scary in places. Let down by the resolution(s).
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS: The least said the better. A huge disappointment.
The Crimson Horror: At last Gatiss gets some of his mojo back. Doctor Who's answer to Carry on Screaming.
Nightmare in Silver: Terrible. Annoying kids. Cliched soldiers. Great new Cybermen introduced just to be underused. The emotional "Mr Clever" Cyberplanner is dreadful in concept and delivery. Proof Neil Gaiman can also churn out rubbish.
The Name of the Doctor: The series finally comes good in the end. Excellent. Almost an anniversary story in its own right.
The Day of the Doctor: Builds well on the previous story. Only real failing is that the Elizabethan Zygon sub-plot is a bit of a waste of time.
The Time of the Doctor: Some good elements, but a disappointment overall for me.

I have said before that I have always found Matt Smith to be a good Doctor. I don't think, however, that he will necessarily be counted a great one in the grand scheme of things. I believe he has too often been let down by the material he has had to work with.
Anyway - time to look forward. New Year, New Doctor. Maybe more lost episodes recovered?
Happy Hogmanay to you all.

Wot - No Emperor Dalek?

A good / bad surprise this morning when I received the latest Doctor Who figurines from Eaglemoss. Bad, in that the promised Emperor Dalek is still nowhere to be seen. The delivery earlier in December had an insert which stated that there was a "production problem" with this larger scale item, but it would be sent out next time. This problem seems to be continuing.
The good thing about today's delivery is that it comes three days earlier than I expected it - and included is the first of the rare Daleks only available to subscribers. This is the Dalek Supreme from The Daleks' Master Plan. It has its own little magazine to go with it. It marks the first figurine not to come from the post-2005 series. As you can see, the two main figures are of a Silent and the Timothy Dalton Rassilon. Shame the latter does not look too much like him. The next release after Rassilon will be Ood Sigma.

Musings on The Time of the Doctor

I must admit I came away from my initial viewing of last night's Christmas Special feeling a little underwhelmed. The negatives stayed in the mind more than the positives. That might be because there were quite a few negatives on show.
First of all there were all the loose ends that needed to be tied up. Too many going back too far in my opinion. I'm sure half of the programme went over the casual viewer's head. As such, as a Christmas Special which is supposed to appeal equally to the "We" and the "Not-We", I don't think it succeeded.
The plot The crack returned, and this time it is being used by the Time Lords to send out a message for the Doctor. Gallifrey is stuck in its pocket universe from last episode, and the Time Lords already want to come home. Problem is, their message has actually brought loads of enemies to the planet where the crack is open - which just happens to be Trenzalore (last seen two stories ago but first mentioned at the end of Series 6) where the Doctor expects to die. If the Doctor says his name, the Time Lords will return. The Papal Mainframe (Series 6 again) needs to stop this as the Time War will start up all over again. A schismatic group, lead by Madam Kovarian, breaks away to make Series 5 & 6 whilst the Doctor sends Clara back to Earth so he can protect the dozen or so Trenzaloreans from attack for several centuries. (Wasn't Tessa Peake-Jones totally wasted in this?). Most of the action takes place off screen. The TARDIS pops back to Rose Tyler's first block of flats to pick up Clara so she (and we) get an update on what is going on. The Doctor promptly sends her back to Christmas dinner once this has been achieved. On one of Clara's visits, the whole regeneration limit thing gets discussed.
The Daleks finally destroy all the other aliens (off screen) and take over the Papal Mainframe (off screen). Alex Kingston is busy making Arrow so Orla Brady's Mother Superious, Tasha Lem, takes her role.
Clara tells the Time Lords to cool it and go away for a bit longer. They take the hint and, by way of thanks to the Doctor, give him a whole new regeneration cycle through the crack. He can't blow up the TARDIS again (RTD already did that) so instead the Doctor uses his regeneration energy to blow up the Daleks. He reverts back to his younger self, to draw the thing out longer than it needed to be, then just turns into Peter Capaldi.
I mentioned story arcs the other day. I have absolutely nothing against them - but if not handled properly, as I said before, you get the tail wagging the dog. Some story telling suffers. I liked RTD's arcs, because they were subtle. Hardly anyone even noticed "Bad Wolf" until it got scrawled onto the TARDIS in the fourth episode. The Doctor didn't even comment on it until the penultimate story of Series 1. "Torchwood" references were more shoehorned into Series 2, but "Mr Saxon" was more subtle again. The odd poster, a couple of mentions of the name, and references to the forthcoming general election. Things only move up a gear from The Lazarus Experiment onwards. The arc in series 4 was a mixture of seemingly unrelated things - vanishing bees, lost planets and the Doctor-Donna. Then it was "He will knock four times...".
I sincerely hope that next year we will get some straight-forward, linear story-telling. I am also hoping that having an older Doctor will mean a more straight-forward Doctor-Companion friendship. I am thirdly hoping that we have a companion who actually travels in the TARDIS full-time. Unless it means more Sheila Reid, less domestic please.
Talking of companions, wasn't Handles just a surrogate companion - someone for the Doctor to exposit to because Clara wasn't there?
Other negatives? A bit too rushed. The monsters had no more than cameos. A wooden Cyberman just seems stupid and gimmicky - like a stone Dalek. (Still, it will keep Character Options happy). I still think it was a mistake to have Smith leave so soon after the 50th Anniversary story. Amy's journey should have ended with the Eleventh Doctor's. Capaldi didn't get the chance to make any sort of impact.

Must admit that Karen Gillan's appearance was lovely - it was more of an emotional moment than Smith's departure for me.
The very best thing in The Time of the Doctor was Smith himself. I loved his older versions. He's been a very good Doctor, often badly served. I'm glad he got some excellent material to work with last night, though the overall story just didn't quite do it for me.

Merry Christmas to one and all!

Festive Greetings & Happy Holidays to you all. I'm at work today - and won't get home until well after The Time of the Doctor has aired. Probably won't watch it until after The Tractate Middoth and Mark Gatiss' M.R. James documentary on BBC 2 (you've just got to have ghosts at Christmas).
I will therefore be posting my musings on Smith's final adventure on Boxing Day rather than tonight.
Enjoy the day.

That Was The Week That Was 22.12.13

Relatively quiet at the moment. Last year, this blog's first Christmas, I was a bit overly zealous and committed to a Christmas Who-related post every day of December up to 24th. If you are new to the blog, go back and have a look. (Saves me trying to come up with a couple of dozen more items...).
For younger readers, let me reiterate, Santa does not normally employ flame-throwing trombones or mortar-firing tubas. He does not help alien invaders. Usually.

A couple more images released from The Time of the Doctor the other day - explaining Moffat's reference to it containing nudity. A clip from the family Christmas dinner sequence was also released.
I am a bit puzzled by the news that the Region 2 DVD release of this story (due on Monday 20th January) is going to contain Smith's three previous Christmas outings as extras. I would have expected most people to own versions already - either the single releases or as part of the box sets. I've actually got two versions of A Christmas Carol already - as the single issue has the first Smith Prom concert on it, which wasn't on the subsequent Series 6 box set.
The Region 1 release won't be out until 4th March, and doesn't have these other episodes, but there are three documentaries - which also feature on the Region 2 release.

The most astonishing thing about the winners of the Blue Peter "design a sonic device" competition was that a kid today knows what a lorgnette is. My faith in the British education system is restored. Either that or those daytime antique programmes have a younger following than I thought. This particular item sounds a bit more Vastra than Strax, however.
Lastly, no news from the recent BFI "Missing Believed Wiped" event. At least nothing concrete as far as Doctor Who is concerned. There was a very strong hint, however, that something might be announced next year.

That BBC America extended trailer...

The new, longer, trailer - courtesy of BBC America. One week to go until that Trenzalorean folk dancing. Good to see Sheila Reid back. Loved her as Etta in Vengeance on Varos. Love her as Madge in Benidorm. Like I've said before - the Davros of that comedy series. The sociopathic nature, the parchment skin, the mobility scooter instead of a wheel-chair...
Big dislike: yet another oldest, bestest friend of the Doctor who was only invented five minutes ago. For goodness sake, Moffat, there's 50 years worth of genuine old friends of the Doctor. Use some of them, and stop being so insecure.

What a difference a regeneration makes...

Is it just me, or is there something a wee bit underwhelming about the forthcoming departure of Matt Smith? I know that The Time of the Doctor has had a lot of popular monsters thrown at it, has explosions, and will have some sort of emotional impact, but when we consider Smith's popular appeal then publicity is certainly rather low key.
I have thought for some time that to leave so soon after the 50th Anniversary was a big mistake - especially only four weeks after, and with no further televised adventures. In a way, the Anniversary has hijacked Smith's departure. The general public is a bit Who'd out.
Compare with Tennant's departure. (Some would, of course, argue that went a little too far in the opposite direction).
Tennant's last year was the Specials Year - each one turned into an event. The viewers were starved and so avidly lapped them up. The finale was an epic two parter spread over Christmas and New Year. DT appeared everywhere. Chat shows, game shows, comedy specials, radio and TV interviews. He hosted as well as guested. I read somewhere recently that he appeared 70 times across TV and radio over the Christmas period. Plus, Doctor Who got the BBC idents.
Smith's last series was split in two - the second half (decidedly patchy) shown back in the Spring. The Day of the Doctor was as much about the other Doctors - Tennant and Hurt especially - and the legacy of Hartnell etc. as it was about Smith. In a way, I don't think he has been all that well served this year. Overall, he might have had 4 years, but there have only been 3 series. No Specials Year for him.
(Personally, I think the Ponds' arc should have been carried on, had they known Smith was going so soon after. Do you recall when ST: DS9 introduced a new, highly annoying, Dax in the final season? Almost wrecked the momentum of the final year and ruined the emotional impact of the original Dax's demise. Clara has always felt a little like that to me).
There's something a bit rushed about it all. Simply tying up loose ends. Story arcs. The tail wagging the dog. Smith was eager to move on, so Moffat is quickly getting things ready for the new guy. Seems a shame, somehow, that the Doctor gets a new purpose in life, and we get that wonderful ending we saw to TDOTD, then - suddenly - one quick, hour long, adventure and he's gone.
Anticlimax. That's the word I'm looking for...