Can You Hear Me? - Review

Not with your finger jammed in my ear'ole I can't...
I liked this episode for the most part, though there were some aspects which didn't work for me at all. I was particularly happy with the set-up, which is also what Praxeus had going for it last week. We were presented with a mystery and had to try to work out what was going on, and how seemingly unconnected things might be linked. It all fell apart with last week's story when the mystery was finally explained, but here the resolution to the mystery worked out okay.
Negatives out of the way first. The whole Aleppo thing was a pointless diversion. There was absolutely no reason for part of the story to be set there. The god-like immortals were attacking people in present day Sheffield, and that's where they eventually decided to go once the female one had been freed. Why also attack people in 14th Century Syria? The Doctor's section of the set-up could just as easily have been somewhere else in the city in the present day. Also, I very strongly doubt that the phrase "mental well-being" was ever uttered by anyone in 14th Century Aleppo, no matter how advanced the attitudes of medieval Syrian physicians were to public health.
Initially, the finger thing was weird and creepy, but the more you thought about it the more stupid it looked - especially when you see racks of fingers on the space platform. Surely there was a better way of getting this across. There are going to be helluva lot of "fingering" jokes about this episode, which it could well have done without.
Something else which annoyed was the use of the sonic screwdriver to first of all free Rakaya, and then to trap her and Zellin. The people of the two planets had to crash their worlds together to trap her, yet the Doctor did a quick wave of the magic wand to break her out, then put her back in again.
Good things included the focus on the companions and some much needed character development, though I feel this is all very late in the day. We should have had something like this last series. I did feel at times that Chibnall was stealing from one of his own stories here - The Power of Three. That focused more on the companions, and the people they had left behind, and featured the companions beginning to question their lifestyle and how much longer it might last. Back then, this was immediately followed by their departure. Could something like this be about to happen? Won't be next week - but probably in Episode 10. Whilst Whittaker has been talking of late about this not being her last season, Cole and Gill have been talking as if they are looking for other work recently. Either both are leaving, or there is another long gap between seasons planned.
Other positives were the villains themselves. Ian Gelder was excellent as Zellin, and even Clare Hope-Ashitey impressed despite only appearing towards the end. It was nice to hear the Eternals, the Guardians and the Toymaker mentioned. And no, Zellin and Rakaya aren't Eternals themselves, as some fans are claiming. He clearly talks about them as if he isn't one of them.
I also liked the use of animation to show their history (even if it was inspired by the Deathly Hallows). This could have been a rather dull bit of exposition.
Nice to see the Doctor being duped again, thinking she's on a rescue mission when she's actually helping a villain break out of jail.
I've noticed that one particular vlogger has started referring to Lectures instead of Episodes. (One of those who really hates the series in its current incarnation, but will insist on watching it just so he can publish negative reviews of it). This week's theme was obviously mental health, and it's not the first time the programme has tackled this subject. Nearly 10 years ago Vincent and the Doctor tackled depression, and also included a message about help-lines during the end credits, so I don't feel that this story should be attacked for covering similar areas. On the whole I think it was handled sensitively.

What's Wrong With... The Crusades

There really isn't very much to say about this story, regarded by many as the best of the historical stories. Performances are fine across the board - even Hartnell managing to steer clear of noticeable fluffs. It has been argued that, when playing against a strong stage or screen guest artist, Hartnell always managed to raise his game. Here, he has Julian Glover to play against. Apart from some business with a cloth merchant, the script is also firmly on the heavy side - both in tone and in content. There's not much larking about in this episode. All the guest cast play this like it's Shakespeare, and writer David Whitaker has looked to the Bard when scripting his dialogue for them.
We could mention the blacking-up of some of the characters - like Bernard Kay portraying Saladin - but this was par for the course in 1965, and so only appears reprehensible when viewed from the present. Things only really changed in this respect in the 1980's, as more opportunities arose for actors from diverse ethnicities to gain more prominence in British drama.
If there is anything wrong with The Crusades, then it's in its historical accuracy, but even here Whitaker has got most of his facts right. Like Eric Morecambe's piano-playing, he has all the right notes - just not necessarily in the right order. For instance, Sir William des Preaux really was abducted and held hostage by Saladin's forces, but here Richard comes up with his plan to marry his sister to Saladin's brother Saphadin after this event, whereas he had already decided on this plan two months prior to the events of this story (said to take place in November 1191).
The version of Richard we see here is the romanticised one, such as seen in some of the adaptations of Robin Hood. He comes across as a man who longs only for peace, contrasted with the belligerent Earl of Leicester, and he longs to return to England. The Doctor fails to mention that when Richard recently captured Acre he slaughtered thousands of Muslim prisoners of war. Richard didn't speak English, and actually loathed the place - much preferring his French kingdom. He spoke French, and chose to be buried in France, and hardly set foot in England. There is no sign either in this story of Richard's ill health - he had been suffering from crippling scurvy for months.

Ascension Cybermen!

In an unusual move the BBC have issued images of the new look Cybermen which are due to appear in the Series 12 finale a couple of weeks early. We only get face and head / shoulder shots, but they are enough to let us see what's new about them, and what might have stayed the same. The bodies don't look like they've changed all that much, but you'll notice in the image below that some little spikes have been added to the shoulders, and the shoulder sections are bigger. The main change is with the helmet, which now has a face very similar to the Cybermen which appeared in The Invasion and Revenge of the Cybermen. What's more - the ear muffs are back. I think they look great, but we do need to see the whole costume to get the full look.

What is hugely significant about these images is that they bear no resemblance to the damaged Cyberman seen previously in the series trailer...

As you can see from this close-up shot, there is definitely a human left eye visible - suggesting that someone is wearing this like armour, or it is some kind of half-human / half-Cyberman construct (as in more hybrid than they usually are). If the latter, then this might still tie in with the Frankenstein / Mary Shelley story (Episode 8). The full version of this Cyberman glimpsed in the same trailer did show a body made up of different Cyberman versions, such as a Mondasian arm - so the alternative is that this relates to the fact that this Cybermen originates with the end of the Cyber-War (Episode 9) when they are simply using whatever parts they can get hold of.
It has also been announced that Ian McElhinney (Game of Thrones, Krypton) is in the finale, along with Steve Toussaint.

Series 12 Update & The Faceless Ones DVD (updated!)

The last Doctor Who Magazine before the series ends hit the shops today, and it gives us some scraps of information about the remaining four episodes.
We already know a bit about this week's episode - Can You Hear Me? The synopsis states that it involves something from beyond space invading people's dreams, and some of the action takes place in 14th Century Aleppo. According to DWM this might be a Doctor-lite story, concentrating more on how the nightmare being affects the companions, who each get their own sub-story. No mention of Grace, but Ryan's friend Tibo (seen in Spyfall Part 1) appears, as does Yaz's sister. I can't help but be reminded of the Sarah Jane Adventures story The Nightmare Man.
The main guest actor, Ian Gelder, plays who I assume to be the villain of the piece - a character named Zellin. Despite Gelder voicing the Remnants in Series 11, who first mentioned the Timeless Child, it's claimed that this character has nothing to do with them.
The 8th episode is The Haunting of the Villa Diodati. Anyone who knows anything about the origins of Frankenstein will know that this confirmed the long-rumoured Mary Shelley story. DWM implies that this is a creepy ghost story, with no mention of Cybermen. The rumour had always been that the Mary Shelley story would feature at least one Cyberman - the parallels between the Cybermen and Frankenstein's creation being obvious. It might still be that there is a Cyberman in this story - possibly that "Lone Cyberman" Captain Jack referred to - leading into the two part finale.
Lili Miller is Mary Shelley, Maxim Baldry is Dr John Polidori, and Lewis Rainer is Percy Bysshe Shelley. Jacob Collins Levy is also in the cast - presumably he's Lord Byron.
The last two episodes have separate titles, despite being another two-parter - Ascension of the Cybermen and The Timeless Children.
The first part promises the closing days of a long-running war between humans and Cybermen. Julie Graham, previously seen as villain Ruby White in The Sarah Jane Adventures, guests. The title is odd - being just another way of saying the already used The Rise of the Cybermen - and it's set at the end of a Cyber-War rather than the beginning. Presumably this is all to do with Jack's warning about a dying empire being reborn.
We are promised that the final episode will answer at least some of the questions surrounding the Timeless Child. It promises some space opera and lots of Cybermen.
For fans of the Classic Series, the new DMW also has a couple of items on the late 60's script editor Donald Tosh, and the first half of a Timothy Combe interview.

Update:
Tucked away in the forthcoming releases column is the release date for The Faceless Ones DVD / Blu-ray, which Amazon and Zoom haven't got yet. It said Monday 9th March, but today (7th Feb) it has now been confirmed as the 16th March. Typical BBC - it's been delayed before they've even published the release date. The cover has also been released. The next issue of DWM will have a feature on the animation for its missing episodes.

Season 26 Blu-Ray Box Set - Review

I received this the day it was due - Monday 27th January. The reason I'm reviewing it now, 8 days later, is because I've only just finished working my way through it. Considering this season consisted of only four stories - 14 episodes in total - there is a heck of a lot of material on this set.
We'll get to the Extras shortly, but first a word or two about the stories themselves. Everyone knows that Season 26 is when Doctor Who finally got its groove back, after a rather disastrous few years - only to be cruelly scrapped by a BBC that had fallen totally out of love with it. We'd already had a failed attempt at cancellation between Seasons 22 and 23. The latter, and Sylvester McCoy's first season were not terribly good. Things started to look up with Remembrance of the Daleks and the arrival of companion Ace. This final season of the Classic Era is very much her season - with three of the four stories forming a sort of character arc for her. Things kick off with the one that isn't really part of that arc - Battlefield. It's a so-so story, which even its writer doesn't think much of. This was mainly because he was forced to expand it to four parts when it had originally been intended only to be a three-parter. I should say at this point that the only story I watched of this set in the format in which it was broadcast was the last one (Survival). Give me a Special Edition and I will generally choose that over the broadcast version every time (due to new VFX or additional scenes reincorporated). This box set offers you the chance to see up to three different versions of some stories, and Survival was the only one that didn't offer that choice. These Special Editions aren't always tidied up for HD, so I will revisit the set soon to watch the upscaled broadcast versions.
I won't pretend that I fully understood Ghost Light on first transmission. Even today, after reading so much about it and just having watched an extended cut of it, there are still some elements which aren't ever properly explained (e.g how can stuffed and eviscerated animals make noises, and why do their eyes glow? Why does the candle suddenly flare?).
Best of the bunch for me is The Curse of Fenric (the story that gets three different versions). Probably the best of the McCoy era. Survival lays a lot of the groundwork for what what was to come with Rose in 2005. Writer Rona Munro intended it to be set in a run down urban landscape, which would have been so much better than the rather leafy suburban setting she was given.
Even with the rather weak Battlefield (which at least has Nicholas Courtney's Brigadier in a prominent role) it's a good, solid set of stories.

Onto the Extras, of which there are many. The original DVD release of Survival had a second disc of material on its own - including the documentary "Endgame" which tells the story of the demise of the series and the immediate aftermath, with contributions from some of the people who had killed the show. This, and all the other VAM from the original DVD releases, is all present and correct in this set. The Seventh Doctor's "Tomorrow's Times" and "Stripped For Action" features have been moved to this set, seeing as how it sums up his era. As this rounds off the whole Classic Series, the Blue Peter documentary ("Who Peter") is included as well.
All stories get a "Behind the Sofa" feature. In the past this has been split between two groups on the sofa - the main set being people who were there at the time, and a second set of people representing other eras of the show. Here the action is split over three sofas. On Sofa 1 we have McCoy and Sophie Aldred, on Sofa 2 we get new writers Pete McTighe and Joy Wilkinson, and on Sofa 3 we get companion actresses Anneke Wills, Sarah Sutton and Janet Fielding. Either 2 or 3 we could have done away with, as it means we don't actually get to hear much from McCoy and Aldred.
The Curse of Fenric is another original DVD release which had a whole extra disc of bonus material - but no Making-Of documentary. This is remedied by a new doc, directed by McTighe. McCoy, Aldred and Tomek Bork (Commander Sorin) revisit the locations from the story, interspersed with some talking heads. On visiting the church they are reunited with Nicholas Parsons, who had played the Rev Wainwright. This was rather poignant, as Parsons had just passed away a day or two before I watched this.
There's quite a lot of location and behind the scenes footage for all four stories, plus we get two Convention panels - the one for Fenric, previously released, and one with just McCoy and Aldred from 1993.
The final disc has two main new features. Matthew Sweet conducts a lovely interview with Aldred, recorded when she made the Blu-Ray trailer. For me, the highlight is "Showman" a feature length biography of John Nathan-Turner. It's worth buying this set for this alone. He was a very divisive figure, and could be particularly nasty at times - themes not glossed over in the documentary - but you cannot help but feel sorry for him by the end of this. His was ultimately a tragic life, after so much promise. We hear about his childhood and schooldays, move into theatre and then to the BBC. Things build towards his annus mirabilis - the 20th Anniversary year, with The Five Doctors and the Longleat event. Everyone agrees - including himself in an archive interview - that this is when he should have walked away from the programme into something else, soap opera or light entertainment. By allowing himself to be talked into staying on Doctor Who, because he was doing so well with it and he was still enjoying it, the seeds of his downfall were sown. His treatment by the BBC after the series was cancelled really makes you angry at them, and heartbroken for him.
Lots of photos from his life, and loads of archive footage, including convention appearances, illustrate this sad tale. It's an excellent piece.
Next up we have Season 14, due in April (so expect it in June)...

Praxeus - Review

Frankly, I'm not entirely sure why it took two writers to deliver us Praxeus. Chibnall's inclusion in the opening credits did make me think that we might get a little bit more story arc development. As of last night I was sure a lot of people tuned in because of the big revelations of last week - and would have been disappointed to see no mention of them whatsoever. However, on seeing the overnight ratings for Praxeus I don't understand what went wrong. 240,000 less people tuned in.
This was a perfectly okay story, but hardly a classic. There are obvious comparisons with Orphan 55 which I should get out of the way right from the start. As with that earlier episode, there were rather too many people cluttering things up. We could easily have done away with the Peruvian ladies, or the astronaut and his husband, without damaging the main plot - probably the former, as the inclusion of the astronaut at least kept us guessing for a while that he might have brought the alien infection down with him when he crashed. As with Spyfall, we had a lot of globetrotting - which again wasn't totally necessary. Back in 1970, The Silurians managed to convey the potential dangers of a global pandemic without setting foot outside Marylebone Station. We also had the big environmental issue - this time specifically plastics in the world's oceans. At least this time the story didn't preach to quite the same extent that Orphan 55 did. Two stories in the same short season, so close together, on the same theme was a mistake. In my review of Orphan 55 I mentioned that I believed that we fans are a generally enlightened lot, who already care about such things - so it was merely preaching to the converted. Defenders might argue that Doctor Who is a family show, watched by a lot of children, but I'm afraid under 4 million viewership probably means it is primarily fans who are watching - not a sizeable general TV audience. (If you want an environmental message to reach the widest possible audience, then you have to somehow get it into Love Island or I'm A Celebrity... Good luck with that...).
I could say a lot of nice things about the various exotic locations and sets - but if you're looking at the scenery then the story has big problems. I could comment on how nasty the deaths were, as people became petrified before exploding - except Quatermass did it far more shockingly back in 1979 (the John Mills one).
We didn't even get any decent aliens - just human-looking / human-sounding ones.
If you really wanted to do a story about the pollution of the Earth's oceans, then that should have been a job for the Sea Devils. They live there, after all, and we could have heard about the problem from their perspective, rather than listen to another lecture from the Doctor.
One of the best things about last week's episode was seeing the Doctor put on the back foot - not knowing what was going on for a change. Last night, we were back in know-it-all mode, which I find increasingly annoying.
Looking at some comments on-line today about this story, I see some people seem to think that having a married same sex couple is enough to render this story some kind of elevated status. Lesbian and gay couples get married all the time. It happens. Get over it. If you think that people should get a special pat on the back for including this then you aren't paying very much attention to the real world, or to dozens of other TV programmes, including soaps, which are already showing this.
I can just picture the writers sitting back when they had finished, smugly thinking how enlightened they were...
If all this sounds as if I hated Praxeus, that's not the case at all. Honest! I just found it ordinary.

Doctor Ruth - idle speculation

So... Chris Chibnall says that Dr Ruth is categorically a Doctor. RTD lied. Moffat lied.
Ergo, we can't necessarily read anything into what Chibs says.
The press has been trumpeting the first black female Doctor, so for Chibnall to backtrack on this would be a huge mistake.
Ergo, she is a Doctor.
The big questions is: what kind of a Doctor?
Before we look into this, let's look at the story so far:

• The First Doctor is the First Doctor. The Time Lords said so in The Three Doctors, and subsequent stories confirmed this (such as the Eleventh believing he was the last, but getting a new regeneration cycle at the conclusion to Time of the Doctor).
• The Second Doctor.
• The Third Doctor.
• The Fourth Doctor. Things go slightly awry here, as The Brain of Morbius seems to imply that there were other, male, Doctors prior to the First Doctor - but only 8 faces are seen. This might be the first clue as to Dr Ruth's origins.
• The Fifth Doctor.
• The Sixth Doctor.
• The Seventh Doctor.
• The Eighth Doctor.
• The War Doctor - so actually the Ninth Doctor.
• The Ninth Doctor - who's technically the Tenth Doctor.
• The Tenth Doctor - who's technically the Eleventh Doctor.
• The Metacrisis Doctor - who's technically the Twelfth Doctor.
• The Valeyard - who is said to come between the twelfth "and final" incarnation of the Doctor (in this regeneration cycle?). That "and final" opens a whole can of worms, as he could come from anywhere after the twelfth - which is actually the Metacrisis Doctor - so another possibility for Dr Ruth's origins.
• The Eleventh Doctor - who has now become the Thirteenth Doctor.

And relax...

• The Twelfth Doctor is actually the first of the new Doctors - or the Fourteenth Doctor,
• And the Thirteenth Doctor is the second of the new Doctors - or the Fifteenth Doctor in old money.

Three possibilities are apparent from what is already canon. The first is what we have been hearing about lately, rumour-wise, and there really were Doctors before the First. Philip Hinchcliffe and Robert Holmes certainly wanted to imply this, and everyone adores them, but present day fans might not be so accepting...

The Cardiff DWAS local group request a meeting with Chris Chibnall...

Now Hinchcliffe and Holmes at that time weren't arguing for a whole new regeneration cycle - that only came later when they were running out of Doctors thanks to Holmes' own self imposed "12 Regenerations" limit. They simply thought that the Doctor could have lived a lot longer than we had seen on TV, and there were some prior to William Hartnell.

If Chibnall is going to go down this road to damnation, then he could argue that he is merely following in the footsteps of giants - just as he has been doing for all of this series so far with its blatant RTD and Moffat steals... (God forbid anyone should ever accuse Chris Chibnall of originality).

The second opportunity to slip Dr Ruth in comes with the Valeyard. What if she is what used to be he? The Valeyard is an intermediate Doctor, but a Doctor nonetheless - and potentially one that can regenerate. Dr Ruth is rather aggressive and violent, which is more fitting for someone like the Valeyard. 

The third opportunity is the Metacrisis Doctor. What if he wasn't as human as everyone thought, and regenerated into Dr Ruth? This would tie in with the other main speculation that Dr Ruth derives from an alternative universe, as we know that the Metacrisis Doctor was sent off to Pete's World with Rose. In The Rise of the Cybermen, the Doctor seemed to be saying that the Time Lords transcended these dimensional barriers - so weren't bound by them, and the Doctor is the only UNIT member not to have an evil doppelganger in Inferno. An alternative universe Doctor is still a Doctor.

There is still one further option, which is a little bit "out there" - so naturally I think it might be possible...

What if it isn't Dr Ruth who's the alternative one? What if it's Thirteen herself?

What if, when the Doctor regenerated at some point, the Doctor(s) we saw were the alternative universe ones, split off in some way, and the real Doctor who started with the First, as played by William Hartnell, went on to become Dr Ruth?...

People commented at the time that there didn't seem to be much character development between Missy and the Sacha Dhawan Master - so maybe this is an alternative Master. Gallifrey might still exist in our universe and only be destroyed in the alternative one - or vice versa.

Who knows, the Doctor's next regeneration might be a realignment, when we get the Doctor we were supposed to get - rather than the one we got...