Testimony Of A Lackluster Doctor Who Christmas Special: "Twice Upon A Time"

The Good: Performances are good, Some of the jokes land
The Bad: Dull plot, Forced sense of conflict, Many of the jokes do not land on a character level, Failure of chemistry
The Basics: "Twice Upon A Time" is fairly pointless, nostalgic Doctor Who that belabors a character conflict that cannot possibly go in a surprising direction.


One of the worst aspects of changing the actor who plays The Doctor in Doctor Who is that who the new Doctor is rapidly becomes the most spoiled information in science fiction at its time. While that might not usually be an issue - and the announcement of Jodie Whittaker being cast as the next Doctor was made months ago - it usually means that the final episode of the current Doctor must be treated with some finesse. After all, Doctor Who viewers already know who to look for at the episode's climax, so the episode's writer and director has to make it interesting to the viewer to get there. Sadly, for Steven Moffat's final episode as showrunner for Doctor Who, "Twice Upon A Time," he forgets all about subtlety and finesse.

Instead, "Twice Upon A Time" quickly establishes a ridiculous premise that the viewer knows cannot possibly come to pass as Peter Capaldi's Doctor refuses to Regenerate. "Twice Upon A Time" attempts, vainly, to get the viewer to believe that Capaldi's Doctor might well be the final incarnation and that rather than regenerate, The Doctor is ready to die. The instant failure of suspension of disbelief quickly turns to a joke-filled love note from Steven Moffat to his own prior works as "Twice Upon A Time" packs in references to prior Doctor Who episodes Moffat wrote and/or produced, like "Into The Dalek" (reviewed here!), "The Pilot" (reviewed here!), and - most recently - "The Doctor Falls" (reviewed here!). Despite the flashback nature of the very opening of the episode, "Twice Upon A Time" picks up right after the final scene of "The Doctor Falls."

The First Doctor, following an incident with the Cybermen, takes the TARDIS to the South Pole, where he refuses to Regenerate. There, he encounters the latest (Peter Capaldi) incarnation of The Doctor outside his TARDIS. The First Doctor, considering death instead of Regeneration, seems to be enough to stop time for everyone but the two Doctors and a confused World War I Captain who suddenly appears there. After a brief flashback to explain how the Captain arrived at the South Pole - after encountering a mysterious, glasslike form of a woman - the two Doctors and the Captain retreat to the TARDIS, where the First Doctor is critical of its style and upkeep. The TARDIS is abducted and taken aboard another ship. The First Doctor leaves the TARDIS and is miffed by how The Doctor is referred to as The Doctor of War. The current Doctor, recognizing the reference and Bill, who appears from a room on the ship, leaves the TARDIS and begins to question his Companion.

Bill is confused when she cannot find Heather (who she recalls rescued her from the Cybermen). The Doctors investigate the ship, which belongs to the Testimony. The Testimony is a time-traveling library that goes into the past and extracts people in the moment of their death, downloads their memories, stores them and then returns the significant individual to their moment of death. The two Doctors, Bill and The Captain retreat to the First Doctor's TARDIS, where they begin a quest to find who the Testimony's template is based upon. To that end, they travel to the center of the galaxy to access the biggest database in the galaxy and The Doctor encounters "Rusty" the Dalek who rejected the rest of the Daleks. There, The Doctor learns about Testimony and he and the First Doctor return to Earth to face their destiny.

"Twice Upon A Time" hinges a lot on the viewer having an expert level knowledge of Doctor Who which, admittedly, I do not. As a result, I feel unqualified to discuss the quality of David Bradley's performance. Bradley mimics some of the obvious mannerisms of William Hartnell's Doctor - based on the archive footage I've seen in prior episodes and clips - but whether Bradley gets the character's voice and attitudes right is something I am not qualified to evaluate. The unfortunate aspect here is that the First Doctor spouts a lot of racist and sexist lines and mannerisms that might have been a sign of the times in the early 1960s when the show began, but make no sense for a character from Gallifrey. Unless when The Doctor was born on Gallifrey black women were maids, for example, some of the jokes fail to land on a character level.

Even as a person only marginally fluent in the current (2005 and up) Doctor Who some of the episode's "big surprises" fail to land. The identity of The Captain is hardly surprising and outside his lineage and being miffed when The Doctor references "I" after referring to the World War, the character is somewhat pointless in "Twice Upon A Time." The Captain's presence is an obligatory nod to the history of the franchise, as opposed to a vital character in his own right.

"Twice Upon A Time" belabors the humor while poking fun at inconsistencies and issues within Doctor Who. The First Doctor calls the sonic screwdriver absurd and questions how The Doctor could wear sunglasses indoors. The Doctor repeatedly crow's Missy's early line "you know who I am" to the First Doctor and Moffat and director Rachel Talalay use the opportunity to play with un-armored Daleks. But the First Doctor's sexism and the jokes predicated on outdated attitudes quickly wear thin.

Thematically, "Twice Upon A Time" is all about people who are too afraid of death desperately trying to run away from their inevitable mortality. The First Doctor and The Captain are not ready to die and are afraid of what might come next and The Doctor recognizes that his life is on an exceptionally short fuse and he tries to solve one last mystery before his death. But the significance of any discussion of mortality and acceptance of it is lost because the viewer already knows The Doctor's decision. In fact, we know the First Doctor's decision (to regenerate), that Bill is already dead, and that the Captain is not a significant enough character to care about his impending demise. So, "Twice Upon A Time" ought to be The Doctor's acceptance of life and his determination to regenerate and continue, but it meanders around fairly pointlessly until it gets to where it always had to.

The theme of "Twice Upon A Time" offers a natural opening for David Tennant's Doctor to make an appearance and it is disappointing that he is only in archive footage. Tennant's Doctor essentially begged for more time before his end and thematically, that fits "Twice Upon A Time" exceptionally well. The lack of an appearance by River Song - technically, she never dies, so that makes sense, save that Moffat already brought an image of her back once following her demise - is similarly disappointing.

Finally, the plot conceit of "Twice Upon A Time" builds into something painfully familiar. The "tour around the Best Of" idea wears thin and when a long-gone character appears, it quickly reminds viewers of just how limited Steven Moffat's writing has become. The "dead character living for an adventure" conceit was, essentially, the whole concept behind Clara's final exit with Ashildr.

The result is that Moffat guts much of his own creation on his way out. After finding amazing chemistry for The Doctor and Bill, they return stiff in "Twice Upon A Time" and the regeneration into the first female Doctor occurs without any reference to Missy or commentary on why The Doctor would regenerate as a woman this time (did it just not occur to him before?!). The result is something of an obligatory bridge episode that lacks a spark or genius and merely muddles through to the inevitable.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Tenth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other Doctor Who Christmas episodes, be sure to check out:
"The Return Of Doctor Mysterio"
"Voyage Of The Damned"
"Last Christmas"

3.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and season reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Endings Are Such Sweet Repetition When "The Doctor Falls"

The Good: Decent performances, Ties the season together well, Good effects, Good character moments
The Bad: Repetitive plot and character elements from other Steven Moffat works
The Basics: "The Doctor Falls" puts Bill in mortal peril and The Doctor, Missy, Nardole and The Master in a situation that might spell all their doom.


Steven Moffat's run as showrunner of Doctor Who has been an erratic one. While a lot of fangirls came to love him, I was not a fan of Matt Smith's tenure as The Doctor. I was actually super-excited by Peter Capaldi being cast as The Doctor, but his three season run as The Doctor, which was separated by (essentially) a year off while the production team tried to figure out its next direction, was marred by pretty terrible writing. So, there was something of a "fuck you" quality to Steven Moffat's final season as showrunner as the writing suddenly got good and the production team finally figured out how to write and develop Peter Capaldi's version of The Doctor. Moffat's penultimate episode writing and executive producing Doctor Who with Peter Capaldi as The Doctor is "The Doctor Falls."

"The Doctor Falls" follows immediately upon "World Enough And Time" (reviewed here!) and it is impossible to discuss without some references to where the prior episode went. After all, "World Enough And Time" put The Doctor, Nardole, and Bill on a massive alien ship near a black hole and when Bill became separated from the others in a section of the ship moving at a radically-different rate of time, she falls prey to one of The Doctor's worst enemies.

"The Doctor Falls" opens with a tremendous burden upon it. "World Enough And Time" returned The Master, the John Simm version of The Master, to the Doctor Who narrative and because he came in so late in the prior episode, there was no burden in that episode to explain how The Master appeared. Missy has perfectly good reason not to recall being on the space ship in the form of The Master, as she has had more than a thousand years of being isolated wherein she has been able to dwell on many other things. But The Master in "World Enough And Time" defined himself as being the "former prime minister." How The Master ended up in deep space after being killed in "Last Of The Time Lords" (reviewed here!), but before being resurrected for "The End Of Time" (reviewed here!) bears an explanation and as "The Doctor Falls" opens, Doctor Who is stuck trying to make a satisfactory explanation for how that could occur. "The Doctor Falls" manages to remind viewers that The Master was not previously killed; he just went off with the Time Masters and his end was left vague before he popped back up as Missy. "The Doctor Falls" creates a new, weird, problem when it puts into play yet another TARDIS. The Master, after returning to Gallifrey, got his own TARDIS. So, despite there being a TARDIS graveyard in a prior episode, the implication that The Doctor's TARDIS was the last one, by the end of "The Doctor Falls" there are three in play in our universe - The Doctor's, Ashildr's, and The Master's. More satisfying than the explanation of how The Master got away from Gallifrey, "The Doctor Falls" closes the loop on The Master/Missy and the Cybermen. When Missy was first introduced, she was using Cyberman technology in her bid to take over Earth using the dead; how she got that technology makes perfect sense given where "The Doctor Falls" leaves The Master.

Picking up on level 507 of the ship, the humans on the colony ship are living in a holographic simulation of farmland on the solar farm level. They are using proto-Cybermen who have made it up to that level as scarecrows to keep the children from wandering. Back on the bottom level, The Doctor is confronted by The Master and Missy, having just learned that Bill has been transformed into a Cyberman. When The Master and Missy attack The Doctor, he has just enough time to reprogram the Cyberman computer to recognize Time Lords as eligible for Conversion. As the Cybermen converge upon the heroes, Nardole manages to get all of them away with Bill's help.

Reaching Level 507, Bill wakes up in a barn where she is alarmed by how the colonist children are terrified of her. She looks in the mirror and is confused by why she appears to be a Cyberman. Together, Bill, The Doctor, Nardole, Missy and The Master prepare Level 507 for a Cyberman siege as they skyrocket up to the level. But, as the Cybermen invade, The Master and Missy betray The Doctor and they have an escape plan on The Master's damaged TARDIS on the lower levels of the ship. In stopping the Cybermen, Nardole reprograms the holographic fields as weapons and evacuates the humans to a higher level. That leaves The Doctor and Bill to thwart the invading Cybermen, but The Doctor is wounded and his life hangs in the balance with no way out.

"The Doctor Falls" is quite good, especially as it winnows The Doctor's allies down. Ironically, as the episode began, I found myself rooting for Nardole and being surprisingly impressed over how vital the character managed to become. Matt Lucas rose to the occasion of being a full-fledged Companion and it was nice to see him become something more than a punchline.

The irksome aspect of "The Doctor Falls" is that Peter Capaldi's version of The Doctor suddenly becomes indispensable and incredible . . . right around his apparent end. The other disappointing aspect of "The Doctor Falls" is Steven Moffat's repetition for his own ideas. The moment Bill appears on Level 507 looking like Bill, it is hard for the seasoned Doctor Who viewer not to see exactly what is going on. Steven Moffat used the exact same reversal with (proto) Clara when she was introduced in the "Asylum Of The Daleks." It is tremendously disappointing and obvious to see Bill given the exact same arc with her new Cyberman body and The Master and Missy doing their usual betrayals of The Doctor.

In a similar way, Moffat wusses out on resolving Bill's character arc. Moffat seems terrified about giving a character a bad end . . . so he again recycles his own material. Fans who saw how Clara was ultimately written out in "Hell Bent" (reviewed here!) will instantly feel a sinking feeling the moment Bill sees her love interest from "The Pilot" (reviewed here!). Moffat's penchant for reusing material is disappointing in "The Doctor Falls."

That said, Pearl Mackie does incredibly well as Bill. Mackie might be working off a script that is familiar to Doctor Who fans, but she performs the material in a way that suddenly makes those who refused to invest in her character (Mackie was spoiled early on in the season as being a one-season Companion) completely care about her. Bill believed in The Doctor and she got screwed; her character was barely around long enough to learn about Regeneration - The Doctor never satisfactorily explained to her The Master. Bill's sense of hope is heartbreaking and Mackie lands the moment of epiphany.

Peter Capaldi's version of The Doctor is everything fans have wanted from him in "The Doctor Falls." Viewers are likely to wonder where the hell Moffat's talent was for giving Capaldi's character a unique voice up until this point.

All that said, "The Doctor Falls" is a powerful set-up for Peter Capaldi's final bow as The Doctor . . . and it is enough for fans to hope that Capaldi's leaving with the arrival of a new Executive Producer is a fake-out, much like the BBC did when announcing Jenna Coleman's departure an entire season in advance of her actual leaving.

For other Doctor Who season finales, please check out my reviews of:
"The Parting Of The Ways"
"The End Of Time, Part 2"
"The Big Bang"

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Tenth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

8.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and season reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

What Is So Bad About Doctor Who Season 9.

The Good: The performances of Peter Capaldi, One or two moments of character
The Bad: Dull plots, Lackluster performances, Ridiculous character directions, Preponderance of gimmicks, Agonizing "resolution," Absurd conceits
The Basics: Doctor Who takes a dive, but Peter Capaldi gives it the old college try when the ninth season wanders into a pointless point.


When Peter Capaldi was announced as the next incarnation of The Doctor on Doctor Who, I was incredibly excited. After all, Capaldi is an incredible actor and my thought was that even if Doctor Who's executive producer and chief writer, Steven Moffat, kept churning out wishy-washy crap (i.e. the Impossible Girl conceit, Sudden random prophecies concerning The Doctor, etc.), Capaldi would find a way to make it work. After Capaldi's decidedly erratic debut season (reviewed here!), Capaldi managed to prove me both wrong and right with the ninth season (series, for the Brits) of Doctor Who.

Peter Capaldi's performances are about all that works in the ninth season of Doctor Who.

But, alas, even Capaldi's acting abilities prove unable to turn shit into gold in the current season of Doctor Who.

The ninth season of Doctor Who suffers from the exact same problem as the forthcoming Star Trek television spin-off (bear with me a moment!). The next television series in the Star Trek franchise was announced with much fanfare just a few months ago and the information about it was stark, simple, and direct: There will be a new Star Trek series premiering in 2017 and it will be made available exclusively through the CBS pay-to-stream service. What is the new Star Trek series? We don't know, but we know how we plan to make money off it. We have no ideas for what the show will be about, but we're ready to make it the flagship of our new service (Paramount absolutely failed with that approach when it launched UPN with Star Trek: Voyager). To bring it back to the ninth season of Doctor Who: when the ninth season of Doctor Who was announced, all the buzz about it was that the season would be made up of two-part episodes. We have a structure, but not a genuine story idea or character arc. This is what they described brilliantly on Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (reviewed here!) as the continuation of the one-sheet world ("I think we'll do the Green Lantern [as a movie] - I can see the one-sheet now. Don't worry that we don't have a story . . ."). The ninth season of Doctor Who is all about gimmicks and structure, style trumps substance and the executive producer and the BBC hope the audience has become too stupid to notice.

Sadly, for Doctor Who, we have not.

The ninth season of Doctor Who is one, long, jerking back and forth and all around about Clara Oswald dying. Rewatching the season, which follows on a season where it was widely advertised that Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) would be leaving the show, it becomes very clear that while Coleman was enticed to remain with Doctor Who, Moffat did not know what he wanted to do with her . . . so, he constantly teased viewers with the idea that she could die at any moment. In one two-parter, she is stuck in a Dalek and there's the possibility the Doctor himself will kill her, in another The Doctor abandons Clara in an isolated base filled with what appear to be ghosts that could easily kill her. Clara is captured by The Mire, then the Zygons replace her, and then she appears to be infected with something that might well turn her into hardened eye mucus (if that whole adventure even actually happened!).

The entire season is not about exploration or character development, it is structured around the "will they or won't they" of killing Clara.

And then they don't even have the balls to make it stick.

The problem, from the very beginning, is that Steven Moffat created a character who is, technically, impossible to kill. The whole idea of the Impossible Girl is that one incarnation of Clara Oswald traveled up and down The Doctor's timeline, constantly rescuing each and every incarnation of The Doctor from being exterminated by The Great Intelligence. It is why alternate versions of Clara appear to Matt Smith's version of The Doctor before Clara Oswald does. To carry the conceit to the only logical conclusion, it does not matter if Clara Oswald is The Doctor's Companion or not; present and future versions of The Doctor will encounter versions of Clara Oswald who will save his life or alternate versions of Clara Oswald will continue, behind the scenes to save the life of The Doctor and his Companions. In short, it doesn't matter if the Clara Oswald from "The Bells Of Saint John" and beyond lives or dies; we've already seen two others die and she keeps popping up, thanks to the events of "The Name Of The Doctor."

So, by the time Clara Oswald's arc is resolved in the ninth season of Doctor Who (and it's anything but resolved), it's virtually impossible to care.

And, if it seems odd to review the ninth season of Doctor Who with so much focus on Clara, such is one of the fundamental issues with the season. The ninth season of Doctor Who is mired in The Doctor being completely overshadowed. Missy returns to steal the spotlight, Maisie Williams plays a character and Game Of Thrones fans cream themselves watching the show each of the four times she pops up, Clara is menaced, A gimmick is thrown in, and serious fans roll their eyes because the consequences of "Listen" (reviewed here!) become more and more impossible to generate [and yes, I read the comments people send in. In "Listen" Orson Pink references "someone in the family" as a time traveler, but Danny Pink never time traveled, Clara was not, apparently, pregnant with his child, and Danny Pink was an orphan without any in-episode siblings, so "Listen" is one dangling loose end or just another by-product of shitty writing and poor overall narrative construction!]. And the longer the season goes on, the more viewers wonder "what the hell ever happened to The Doctor wanting to find exactly where Gallifrey ended up after the events of 'The Day Of The Doctor'?" And when that question is answered, it is just one of the many anticlimaxes in a season that is devoid of cleverness, substantive character development, and constructive continuity.

The ninth season of Doctor Who shows just how bad the show can be when it is built around a marketing gimmick; may the executive producers of the forthcoming Star Trek spin-off take heed!

For more information on the content of this season, please check out my reviews of the episodes contained in it at:
"The Magician's Apprentice"
"The Witch's Familiar"
"Under The Lake"
"Before The Flood"
"The Girl Who Died"
"The Woman Who Lived"
"The Zygon Invasion"
"The Zygon Inversion"
"Sleep No More"
"Face The Raven"
"Heaven Sent"
"Hell Bent"
"The Husbands Of River Song"

2.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Undermine All Emotion: "Hell Bent" Is Another Dismal End For Clara Oswald.

The Good: Moments of performance, Moments of character
The Bad: Narrative makes no sense, Undermines all emotional resonance for viewers, Lack of significant character moments, Abysmal continuity
The Basics: "Hell Bent" has all sorts of people who can't remember things telling a story that brings Clara Oswald back, yet again, from the dead . . . sort of.


It has been, almost inarguably, a rough season for Doctor Who. As the season reaches its peak, fans - rightfully - were split on the direction of the series. For those who suffered through "Heaven Sent" (reviewed here!) - an episode whose sole purpose was to move The Doctor from our universe into whatever pocket universe Gallifrey was placed as a result of the events of "The Day Of The Doctor." The thing is, the much-neglected search for Gallifrey that seemed to be the purpose The Doctor was given coming into the tenure of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor is troubling to fans who have stuck with the continuation of Doctor Who that began in 2005.

The whole concept of the quest to find Gallifrey exists in conflict with what The Doctor told The Master in "Last Of The Time Lords" (reviewed here!); to release Gallifrey from its time lock would bring with it the Daleks and thousands of other nightmares that were trapped by the way The Doctor ended the Last Time War. So, as "Hell Bent" begins, attentive viewers have to be concerned by The Doctor arriving at Gallifrey. If Gallifrey has evolved past the final day of the Time War, then it would explain why Timothy Dalton's character from "Last Of The Time Lords" is not around in "Hell Bent" and would allow for the Gallifreyans to evolve beyond where they were when last we saw them. And if the billions of years The Doctor spent in "Heaven Sent" in his Confession Dial's scenario getting from Earth to Gallifrey were only a function of the Dial's pocket universe, then The Doctor is not likely to find his people to be at all reasonable or likable. So, "Hell Bent" has a lot of potential at its outset.

Sadly, so much of that potential is squandered in "Hell Bent" and after two years of anticipation for what would happen when The Doctor found Gallifrey, The Doctor's homeworld is almost incidental to the episode of Doctor Who.

Opening in Nevada, The Doctor enters a diner where he encounters a woman who appears to be Clara and he begins to tell her the story of his return to Gallifrey. Flashing back to Gallifrey, The Doctor stops his approach to the Capital City and, instead, heads to his childhood house. The Doctor has a bowl of soup and rejects the appearance of the military, a General, and, ultimately, The President and his firing squad. When the soldiers refuse to execute The Doctor, The Doctor deposes The President and disbands the government on Gallifrey. The General allows The Doctor to seize power because of his fear of The Hybrid, which is said to bring about the destruction of Gallifrey.

To protect Gallifrey, The Doctor is allowed the use of an Extraction Chamber. In it, he pulls Clara out of the moment of her death in order to get information from her about the Hybrid. Instead, though, he takes the General's firearm and helps Clara escape the Extraction Chamber. They escape to the cloisters that house the Matrix, the Gallifreyan computer that generated the Hybrid prophecy, where The Doctor hatches a plan to escape Gallifrey and save Clara's life. To that end, he takes a newly-stolen TARDIS to the end of time where he encounters Me and is faced with a difficult choice over what to do with Clara.

"Hell Bent" calls to mind the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Life Support" (reviewed here!) where one character is agonizingly killed over and over again. Between that and the old phrase "It's hard to say good-bye, if you won't leave," it's pretty easy to sum up "Hell Bent" as something of a waste of time for fans of Doctor Who.

"Hell Bent" is an annoying impossibility and one that is overly complicated for what it is. The episode feels like it could be a pilot episode for a spin-off (one made impossibly problematic for a pragmatist if Maisie Williams is not done growing up!) or is a complicated revisiting of Clara's death while completely copping out on the emotional ramifications of Clara's death. But, from a narrative perspective, "Hell Bent" is an irksome impossibility; The Doctor is telling Clara the story of his saving Clara's life . . . but he only has the vaguest recollection of who Clara was. The specifics of this adventure are so ingrained with Clara that The Doctor should be unable to tell even a fraction of the story.

Beyond that, "Hell Bent" once again buggers the entire concept of Clara as the Impossible Girl. The first moment The Doctor walks into the diner, viewers are given hope that The Doctor is encountering another version of Clara from somewhere else in The Doctor's timestream. Before The Doctor encountered Clara, he encountered Oswin and a Clara who was killed by the end of "The Snowmen;" as the Impossible Girl, Clara Oswald journeys all through The Doctor's timeline and saves his life from the attempts by The Great Intelligence to kill him all along his timestream. So, the hope viewers have at the very beginning when Clara first appears that the diner's waitress is a different iteration of Clara is a rational one. Sadly, Steven Moffat goes for flash and ridiculousness over sticking to his own conceptual narrative. Instead, "Hell Bent" is a poor explanation for why The Doctor and Clara do not appear to recognize one another at the outset of the episode.

Much of the beginning of "Hell Bent" hinges on the Matrix prophecy of the Hybrid. Like many Doctor Who prophecies, the Hybrid is created as a matter of plot convenience and pops up into the narrative only when it is needed. In other words, it is not like there is a long prophecy about The Doctor that was revealed ten seasons ago and viewers can slowly piece together and become concerned about. No, suddenly, everyone in power on Gallifrey is terrified about The Hybrid, even though we've only heard reference to the Hybrid once or twice before (and never in the Gallifrey episodes since the 2005 continuation began).

So, the plot of "Hell Bent" is pretty much nonsense and fans of Doctor Who are likely to roll their eyes the moment mind wiping comes into the episode as a conceit (did Moffat think viewers skipped the season with Donna Noble?!).

All "Hell Bent" truly has going for it are moments of character and a few key moments of performance. The character elements are undermined because when one rewatches the episode, the narrative conceit means that the moments of character make no genuine sense; The Doctor cannot tell the story with key moments of emotional depth when he doesn't actually remember them.

In the Cloisters, as The Doctor and Clara work a secret escape hatch, Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman give truly great performances. They have the chance for one last, truly emotional scene together and it plays perfectly because of the depth of the emotion they play. Capaldi plays the scene as a person who waited four billion years to see his Companion again and Coleman plays the moment with such appreciation and sadness that one is almost sad to think that Clara might die . . . yet again.

Maisie Williams steals the climax of the episode as Me. She has some wonderful facial expressions and delivers many of her lines with a gravity that is appropriate and severe. For sure, it makes no sense that Ashildr could actually have a nose ring, but Williams's performance is enough to make one overlook the make-up problem.

The Doctor has been trillions of years into the future, but in "Hell Bent" the scale is made in billions of years and that seems like another detail in an episode that doesn't care about reason, specificity, continuity or reason. The episode attempts an emotional tug and it fails; making for an ultimately unsatisfying final send-off for a character who can always be brought back.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Donald Sumpter, please check out my reviews of:
Game Of Thrones - Season 2
Game Of Thrones - Season 1
The Constant Gardener

3/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Doctor Who Mood Piece Is "Heaven Sent" On Engaging The Viewers!

The Good: Mood, Performance, Initial cleverness
The Bad: Virtually devoid of plot, Character does not genuinely develop after the first revelation
The Basics: "Heaven Sent" takes a moody, philosophical approach that places The Doctor in a hopeless situation that mirrors his sense of loss.


As fans race to the end of yet another season of Doctor Who, many are feeling a bit stabbed in the heart by the events of "Face The Raven" (reviewed here!). Given that it is the first part of the story continued in "Heaven Sent," it is impossible to discuss the latest episode without some allusions to events in "Face The Raven." The climactic event of "Face The Raven" was, supposedly, the death of Clara Oswald. I write "supposedly" because the whole ridiculous notion of the Impossible Girl precludes a full and complete death of a Jenna Coleman character. When Clara Oswald became the Impossible Girl, she went all along The Doctor's timeline to save him from the Great Intelligence in The Doctor's past, present, and future. The only way for that to truly work would be for other versions of Clara to pop up from time to time. Perhaps, next week Clementine Ozark will save The Doctor's life on one of his many adventures through time and space. Regardless, just as Clara popped up in other iterations prior to The Doctor officially meeting her, the show would lack a certain symmetry if she did not surface again to keep guiding The Doctor through his adventures.

That, however, does not happen in "Heaven Sent."

Indeed, "Heaven Sent" reminds viewers that the climactic event of "Face The Raven" was not necessarily the apparent death of Clara Oswald, but rather the fact that Mayor Me had been employed by some heretofore unknown person or force to abduct The Doctor after cutting him off from his access to the TARDIS.

Opening with The Doctor materializing in a chamber that has Gallifreyan control panels set in what appears to be a castle, The Doctor vows to find whomever it was who abducted him, if they had anything to do with Clara's death. He then begins exploring the castle. The Doctor reasons that he is in the same time frame and only a light year away from where he was with Clara and Rigsy. There are screens throughout the hallway The Doctor finds himself in and he quickly realizes that they are transmitting what the wraith (or Grim Reaper without the scythe) is facing. Backed into a corner, The Doctor admits he is afraid and time appears to stop (as evidenced by the flies that precede the Wraith freezing in front of him). The entire castle reconfigures itself and The Doctor finds himself safe in a bedroom.

When the Wraith appears again, The Doctor realizes that his tormentors have read nightmares from very early in his life and they have planned this for a long time. Leaping out a nearby window, he goes to a safe place in his mind and constructs a scenario for surviving, diving into water below the castle. Leaving the water, The Doctor finds a room with clothes drying by a fire. The Doctor continues through the rooms of the keep, pursued by the spectre, interacting with an unseen version of Clara in his mind. He makes a few discoveries until he reaches an impenetrable wall, is zapped by the spectre and restarts the nightmare. And he just keeps going through it, chipping away at the wall.

"Heaven Sent" relies entirely on the performance of Peter Capaldi and he pulls it off. The Doctor mumbles to himself and gears himself up for a conflict before anyone or anything else appears to him. The result could be crappy and expository, but Peter Capaldi completely lands it as organic; his character working through his analysis and challenging his unseen adversary. Throughout "Heaven Sent," The Doctor is on his own and returns in his mind to the TARDIS; he interacts with the Clara in his mind to deduce what is happening to him. The chalk boards are instantly reminiscent of the way someone on the outside communicated with a sleeping person in "Last Christmas" (reviewed here!). The technique manages to stay fresh for the duration of "Heaven Sent."

The effects in "Heaven Sent" are decent, up to and including the music. "Heaven Sent" is a mood piece. The Doctor is living his nightmare as his fear of death and underlying insecurity about not being clever enough is expressed through conflicts with his own nightmares. The visual and sound effects help establish and enhance that mood.

The Doctor realizes very early on that the whole purpose of the place his is in is designed to frighten him. The Wraith pursuing him, the time loops that take him back to the beginning, they are all supposed to play upon his fear. He realizes this fast (where was that cleverness an episode earlier?!) and the rest of the episode is spent with him chipping away at the "diamond wall" where the Wraith catches him and sends him back to the beginning. The episode then is more about mood than plot and, for a change, the mood carries the episode well-enough to be watchable.

It says something about how low the bar has been set for episodes this season when that is enough. "Heaven Sent" eventually sets up the next episode, the season finale, but it takes a hell of a long time to get there.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

5.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Contrivances, Countdowns, And Companions "Face The Raven."

The Good: Decent-enough performances
The Bad: Terrible character development, Awful plot
The Basics: One of the worst-conceived traps in Doctor Who is executed to further a production demand in "Face The Raven."


Doctor Who has been having a rough time of it of late. The two-part episode concept for the current season has had remarkably erratic results and after "Sleep No More" (reviewed here!), the show had to do something big to win back the audience it isolated with a pretty lousy concept episode (which defied their two-parter pattern). "Face The Raven" makes the attempt to make Doctor Who great again. The episode makes the attempt by bringing back popular characters from prior episodes and it fails because of its insane number of contrivances.

"Face The Raven" is a trap episode that is built upon the most flimsy of circumstances that on the first viewing, I was absolutely dumbfounded by the needless complexity of the methodology. Doctor Who is a time travel show and whenever there is a ticking clock episode - which "Face The Raven" certainly is - neglecting the time travel element seems particularly . . . stupid (the professional in me wanted to write "questionable," but when you have the means to travel unrestricted through time and space, it is just stupid not to use it). "Face The Raven" has one real purpose and to get to it, the writer, director and executive producer of the episode/series take the most ridiculous direction and never question it, which is painful to watch and hardly redemptive of the show.

The Doctor and Clara rush back into the TARDIS after Clara recklessly endangered herself and The Doctor. Rigsy calls the TARDIS and tells Clara he needs help; he's gotten a tattoo on his neck that is counting down! Rigsy tells Clara and The Doctor that he is missing all memories of the prior day and that he missed work. After determining that Rigsy encountered aliens during his missing day, The Doctor, Clara, and Rigsy begin searching maps for a street that once existed and no longer appears on the maps. Comparing the maps to an overhead view of London, The Doctor narrows down the potential location of the hidden street.

Finding the hidden street, Rigsy, The Doctor and Clara enter an alien sanctuary right in the middle of London. They also encounter Ashildr with fifty minutes left on Rigsy's counter. The counter, they learn, is a death sentence from Ashildr - who is the Mayor of the sanctuary - because the day before Rigsy appeared to kill one of her citizens. Witnessing what happens when the counter goes down to zero, The Doctor and Clara become terrified for what will happen to Rigsy. Clara learns that the countdown can be transferred and because she is under Mayor Me's absolute protection, she takes Rigsy's countdown. But Rigsy is a pawn in a larger trap and transferring the countdown to Clara has unintended and disastrous consequences.

The whole premise of "Face The Raven" is bafflingly stupid. When The Doctor and Clara arrive to find Rigsy and his countdown tattoo and understand that he had a missing day the day before, they run off looking for trap streets and streets missing from the maps. Rigsy tells The Doctor and Clara that he left before dawn and his clock on his neck is at over 500 minutes. Why, then, don't The Doctor and Clara simply go back a day and tail Rigsy after he leaves the house? All they have to do is find the cause of the tattoo and how to get it removed and bring that knowledge with them back to the next day. That would not disrupt Rigsy's timestream in any way and it solves the problem.

So, what follows is a needlessly complicated solution to a ridiculously simple problem. The trap that Ashildr lays is based on a number of ridiculous conceits. It comes down to the idea that a key will be turned and that The Doctor would actually be the one holding the key. It's like the jailbreak scene in Skyfall (reviewed here!), which hinges on so many impossibly timed events as to be ludicrous when one actually looks at it.

The truly disappointing aspect of "Face The Raven" is how it entirely undermines the character of The Doctor. The Doctor is anything but clever in the episode. He does not scan the stasis pod with his sonic sunglasses, despite having several minutes left on the countdown, which would make that a sensible precaution.

The return of Rigsy from last season's "Flatline" (reviewed here!) is an odd choice for Ashildr. Rigsy is like one of any of a hundred people to pop up who survived encounters with The Doctor and The Doctor is not sentimental enough to care about Rigsy more than any other non-Companion he has encountered. Why The Doctor calls Rigsy a friend feels forced . . . especially when it was Clara who gave Rigsy the phone number to the TARDIS.

Ashildr, last seen in "The Woman Who Lived" (reviewed here!), has become truly menacing and further consideration about that makes the character seem somewhat ridiculous. Ashildr wanted to leave Earth and protect the planet from The Doctor. How Ashildr actually encountered so many aliens is entirely questionable - are they seriously supposed to just be leftovers from prior, foiled, invasions?! Jen tells The Doctor that Mayor Me is afraid of something, but the founding of the street seems like a ridiculous contrivance for the character. Long before she would have had to barter for the safety of the street, it seems like Ashildr would have asked any one of the aliens for help getting off Earth, which was her desire when last she was seen.

Jenna Coleman gives a good performance opposite an equally good Peter Capaldi. The last ten minutes of "Face The Raven" might not entirely justify the rest of the episode, but they are easily the high point of the episode. It's almost like writer Sarah Dollard wrote the final scene and then tried to write her way back to how the characters got into the scene and failed utterly.

"Face The Raven" is very much a set-up episode and it is designed to make viewers believe something that makes absolutely no sense. Clara is the Impossible Girl and viewers have seen multiple incarnations of her already. The concept of the Impossible Girl has long plagued the writers trying to reconcile it with the constraints of a show that puts her and The Doctor at risk constantly, but the attempted finality of "Face The Raven" has the feeling that the writers and producers just decided to give up on the idea, as opposed to actually reconcile it.

Regardless of where Doctor Who goes after "Face The Raven," the show's new direction will be built on a deeply flawed premise and that hardly makes for compelling viewing.

For other works with significant Companion moments, please check out my reviews of:
"Rose"
"Doomsday"
"Last Of The Time Lords"

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

3.5/10

For more Doctor Who reviews, please check out my Doctor Who Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Worst. Episode. Yet. (Ever?) "Sleep No More" Guts Doctor Who.

The Good: Nothing.
The Bad: Lame plot, Lack of character development, No significant performance moments
The Basics: "Sleep No More" might well be the worst episode of Doctor Who since the show returned in 2005.


Sometimes, there are things that are sophisticated enough to be worthy of a complicated evaluation that one looks at from many different angles. Then, occasionally, there are things that are simple and do not require much in the way of review. The Doctor Who episode "Sleep No More" is definitely the latter. "Sleep No More" is the Doctor Who equivalent of The Ring (reviewed here!).

Coming at an indeterminate time after "The Zygon Inversion" (reviewed here!), "Sleep No More" might ultimately be significant if it is followed-up upon. The episode might be an annoying "necessary evil" episode as the only real take-away from the episode is that Clara Oswald is now on a ticking clock for her death.

"Sleep No More" follows a rescue crew arriving at the Le Verrier Space Station around Neptune in the 38th Century. The rescue crew encounters The Doctor and Clara, who arrived at the station and soon they are on the run from sandlike creatures that digest their victims. Running into a safer room, they unearth Rassmussen from a Morpheus pod. The Morpheus pods were engineered to make it so humans only had to sleep for five minutes a day. The Doctor, however, realizes that the Morpheus pods have disastrous consequences, including generating the creatures that are stalking everyone on the space station. As The Doctor and the members of the rescue team try to flee the station, The Doctor realizes that everyone who uses the Morpheus pod might be infected with something horrible and that the dust on the station is actually spying for the horrific entities.

"Sleep No More" is a "recovered footage" style episode and that does not make the episode any better. Instead, the episode is a cheap combination of The Ring and The Blair Witch Project (reviewed here!). The episode employs shaky cameras and assumes viewers won't notice for quite some time that there are camera angles and eye lines that do not fit any characters, banking on the revelation that the dust "sees" everything. It doesn't exactly explain how the dust - which is explained to be the optic nerves of the Sandmen - makes video recordings.

So, there is an explanation, explained in the episode's final moments, but it is ultimately unsatisfying and counter-productive (i.e. if a parasite needed to gestate in people who watch the footage, why would you include in the footage any sort of truth about the parasite that someone who watched might use to try to defeat said parasite?). So, the direction is pretty terrible.

The acting in "Sleep No More" is bland and there are no moments that require any talent from any of the performers. Similarly, "Sleep No More" is utterly devoid of significant character moments.

And there's truly no more that needs to be said about it; "Sleep No More" is a terrible episode with contrived adversaries, horrible direction and nothing to recommend it.

For other works with Reece Shearsmith, please check out my reviews of:
The World's End
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

0/10

For more Doctor Who reviews, please check out my Doctor Who Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

High Minded Antiwar Bore On Doctor Who: "The Zygon Inversion!"

The Good: Morality, Direction, Performances, Moments of character development
The Bad: Light on character development, Pacing
The Basics: "The Zygon Inversion" resolves the events of "The Zygon Invasion" surprisingly well!


Every now and then, I have a truly fascinating experience with something I review. That happened today with my review of the latest episode of Doctor Who. The new episode is "The Zygon Inversion" and it is a direct sequel to "The Zygon Invasion" (reviewed here!). It is also, in many ways, that episode's opposite. While "The Zygon Invasion" left me excited and challenged and cursing Doctor Who, I was easily able to admit that the episode was not particularly good (in the course of reviewing it, I kept lowering my ultimate rating of the episode). In other words, I enjoyed the episode on an aesthetic level, but not an intellectual one.

"The Zygon Inversion," on the other hand, I found well-constructed, clear and philosophically important. But, it bored me. Part of the problem is the impact of the set-up episode on "The Zygon Inversion" and it is impossible to discuss "The Zygon Inversion" without some references to how "The Zygon Invasion" ended. "The Zygon Invasion" climaxed with Clara being exposed as a Zygon infiltrator who claimed Clara was dead, shooting at The Doctor and Osgood's airplane. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart was "killed" off in a virtually identical way to Dr. Garner in the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.L episode "Devils You Know" (reviewed here!) two weeks before, leaving genre audiences feeling pretty insulted by two of their favorite shows (and, hey, odds are running pretty high that The Walking Dead is playing the exact same card tonight!). So, going into "The Zygon Inversion," viewers had a pretty good idea that The Doctor would figure out how to save Clara and Kate would be proven to be still alive; all that we had as far as dramatic tension was the reveal of how the obvious plot events would play out.

And the writers and director Daniel Nettheim do a pretty decent job of playing the various elements out. "The Zygon Invasion" might have been an insipid set-up, but "The Zygon Inversion" is an inspired use of the elements left in play.

Opening with Clara waking up in her own nightmare, she begins to realize the connection between her and the Zygon infiltrator goes both ways. Clara is able to exert influence over her doppelganger long enough for The Doctor and Osgood to escape the plane before it is shot down with the replicant's second shot. As The Doctor and Osgood regroup, Clara manages to use the Zygon's body she is tethered to to send a text to The Doctor. Bonnie, the Zygon with Clara's form and memories, continues her relentless hunt for the Osgood Box.

As Bonnie searches for the Osgood Box, The Doctor calls the Zygon high commander and gets Clara to reveal through blinking where she is being held. After a side trip to a hospital where an exposed Zygon is killing people, The Doctor and Osgood make it to the underground facility where Clara was being kept in a Zygon pod, where they are reunited with Kate. But the Doctor and Osgood are too late; Bonnie interrogated Clara to learn the location of the Osgood Box and took Clara with her. The two sides converge in the Black Archive under the Tower Of London where The Doctor has to talk Kate and Bonnie out of activating their Osgood Boxes!

"The Zygon Inversion" is philosophy-heavy and it reminds viewers of some of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Peter Capaldi invites comparisons to Patrick Stewart for the way Capaldi's Doctor suddenly becomes a very talk-heavy philosopher. The world stands on the brink of destruction and a rousing speech is used to change the world. And it works. Peter Capaldi pulls off the emotion of a serious motivational speech without the wit or rancor that has defined much of his tenure as The Doctor so far, while still making it seem like he is the exact same character as he has played for the past season and a half.

The real performance victory in "The Zygon Inversion" comes from Jenna Coleman. Coleman plays both Clara Oswald and Bonnie and she makes both roles pop. As Bonnie, Coleman is able to play menacing, strategic and cold; as Clara, she plays very energetic and alive. There are quick intercuts between Bonnie and Clara at various points in the episode and Coleman's performance is so masterful that just watching the eyes of the person on screen, the character is obvious.

The rest of the performers are good, with Ingrid Oliver and Jemma Redgrave making their recurring guest star roles of Osgood and Kate, respectively, seem effortless to play.

The pace of "The Zygon Inversion" is a little slow and the episode has the feeling of being stretched to meet a minimum time requirement. The whole diversion at the hospital feels very much like filler and for an already short episode, that makes it somewhat less enjoyable.

The result is an episode where the parts work much better than those in "The Zygon Invasion," but the episode feels more tedious and mundane. Still, "The Zygon Inversion" uses the elements left to it well enough that it is far easier to recommend than its predecessor.

For other works with characters who have been replaced, please check out my reviews of:
"In Purgatory's Shadow" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"The Man In The Yellow Suit" - The Flash
"Face My Enemy" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

8/10

For more Doctor Who reviews, please check out my Doctor Who Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Defy The Paradigm, Fall To It In "The Zygon Invasion!"

The Good: Good performances, Good set-up
The Bad: Character interpretations, Plot turns typical
The Basics: "The Zygon Invasion" starts with so much potential before becoming just another Doctor Who invasion story.


Often, before I sit down to review something that is part of a long-running series, I find myself writing about where the work is before specific component I am reviewing. So, when I sit to write a review of something like an episode of Star Trek or something from the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Doctor Who, I try to purge myself first of an preconceptions I might have in advance. In the case of Doctor Who the show has hit something of a conceptual wall for me. Before watching the episode entitled "The Zygon Invasion," I started to think about how many episodes the series has done devoted to attacks on Earth and invasions.

Seriously, writers and producers of Doctor Who, I get that you want to make the show something people care about and it's hard to write shows that make people care about other worlds more than their homeworld - especially when viewers have the sense that they'll never see a specific alien planet again - but Doctor Who invasion storylines are becoming incredibly tired. Every couple weeks an alien race or evil mastermind invades Earth and tries to take it over only to be thwarted by The Doctor and whatever Companion he has at the time. But here are the things about that: 1. There are billions of habitable planets in the known universe; at some point all of these idiotic Doctor Who villains have got to hear about The Doctor saving Earth and figure "there are easier places to conquer than that place where we and everybody else fails every single time!," and 2. In the quest to make an "alien invasion of the week" storyline work, the writers have gotten particularly lazy of late in Doctor Who, failing to make a compelling reason for why the aliens have to have Earth specifically. Say what you will about "Partners In Crime," but he episode made sense - the Adipose needed a nursery planet filled with fat, so they made a subtle invasion to spawn the next generation.

"The Zygon Invasion," then, is burdened from the start with making the viewer care outside the novelty of the return of beloved characters Osgood - who was killed off in "Death In Heaven" (reviewed here!) - and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart. The episode heavily references the 50th Anniversary Special "The Day Of The Doctor" and it is virtually impossible to discuss "The Zygon Invasion" without some references to that. The name is something of a misnomer; the episode focuses on the consequences of attempting a peaceful resettlement on Earth for the alien Zygons and a splinter faction that breaks the peace. It makes for a more compelling story than the average alien invasion. . . at least at the outset.

After a recall of the peace treaty worked out with the Zygons with the help of the three Doctors, Osgood and the duplicate of Osgood makes a video recording to detail elements of the treaty should the peace break. As part of the treaty, twenty million Zygons were allowed to settle on Earth and take human form on the condition that they live out their lives in peace. The Osgoods mention a device left by The Doctor as a failsafe should the peace ever be broken and it is clear that both the Zygons and humans are worried about the actions of lone rogues who might make things worse for the rest of the world. Flashing to the present, Osgood flees a Zygon attack long enough to contact The Doctor and let him know the nightmare scenario has begun. The Doctor stakes out the Zygon leaders on Earth before finding out that they intend to deal with the rogue elements on their own. Moments later, the Zygon rogues kidnap the Zygons who are in human form and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart of U.N.I.T. learns that Osgood has been captured and that the identities and locations of the twenty million Zygons on Earth have been exposed.

Clara and The Doctor visit the Zygon polyp on Earth when the Zygons contact U.N.I.T. With the Zygon High Command murdered, the leaders of the splinter group demand that the Zygons on Earth be allowed to live in the open. While The Doctor travels to the U.N.I.T. base in Turmezistan, Clara discovers a Zygon base underneath her apartment complex. In Turmezistan, U.N.I.T. troops encounter people they recognize who claim to be hostages who have been replaced by Zygons back in the U.K. The Doctor finds Osgood there and learns the new rules for how the Zygons are able to operate on Earth (they no longer need to keep the humans they replicate alive after they get all their backstory from them). Working on the three fronts, The Doctor and his associates attempt to stop a full Zygon conquest of Earth.

"The Zygon Invasion" manages to turn the standard invasion story on its head pretty effectively until near the end. The invasion has already happened and the story is much more involved with characters wrestling with the insidious nature of shapeshifters living on Earth. The Zygons are presented as a diverse race in "The Zygon Invasion," which is not something Doctor Who frequently does. Most of the alien races The Doctor encounters are either individuals or treated as representative of their entire race. There is a political schism in the Zygons that reads as very realistic in "The Zygon Invasion."

Unfortunately, "The Zygon Invasion" degenerates into exactly what its potential seeks to undermine. The Zygons become yet another alien invasion force without distinction or a unique characterization. Their "need" for Earth is not explored in any compelling way and the show degenerates into a particularly straightforward shapeshifter story.

That said, "The Zygon Invasion" makes humans into utter morons all of a sudden. If the aliens in Doctor Who are frequently treated as idiotic for continuing to attack Earth for no specific reason ("The Zygon Invasion" does not make any sort of compelling argument for why the Zygon splinter faction can't or won't just leave Earth for another planet where they can live happily out in the own), the main characters of Doctor Who rather abruptly turn into similar idiots. Kate Lethbridge-Stewart journeys to Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico by herself and The Doctor flies off without any known quantities to Turmezistan. Clara comes closest to being smart by palling around with a U.N.I.T. commander.

Smart shows tend to make a basic protocol for uncovering shapeshifters. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "The Adversary" (reviewed here!) Dr. Bashir comes up with a blood test for shapeshifters, which allows them a decent initial safeguard. Even that episode falls down a little in that the hunt for a lone shapeshifter has people pairing off. The buddy system is good, but ideal shapeshift protocol would be making a test, confirming humans and sending units of four out (people sleep in pairs with an overlap where all four are awake for eight hours). That's solid tactical thinking, at least for the start of an invasion involving shapeshifters. Doctor Who's U.N.I.T., which is supposed to be a military organization designed to combat alien threats has no clear protocol in "The Zygon Invasion" and thus comes across as ineffective, pointless, and - at its worst - stupid.

All that said, the climax of "The Zygon Invasion" gives viewers some hope for fans of Doctor Who who have been trying to reconcile issues from Peter Capaldi's first season. The episode "Listen" (reviewed here!) created a storytelling knot that Doctor Who fans have been trying to reconcile since "Death In Heaven." Clara and Danny Pink have descendants and his death in "Death In Heaven" has left viewers waiting for the other shoe to drop. Viewers have been waiting for the explanation of how Clara and Danny could have spawned a line that would lead to Orson - waiting for the retcon or the announcement that Clara is pregnant. "The Zygon Invasion" allows viewers the first glimpse of real hope in the idea that a Zygon replicant of Danny Pink was killed and that Danny might be alive in a Zygon containment facility somewhere.

Viewers who are so engaged, though, are likely to be disappointed by "The Zygon Invasion" in that it characterizes Peter Capaldi's version of The Doctor as less-than the David Tennant version of The Doctor. Doctor Who has done replicants, back in "The Sontaran Stratagem" and The Doctor's reaction throughout "The Poison Sky" is troublingly different.

That said, the performances in "The Zygon Invasion" are all good. Ingrid Oliver once again makes Osgood interesting and watchable. Jemma Redgrave returns as Kate, but does not seem nearly as efficient or professional. The character defects are unexplainable given how Redgrave once again slips into the role. Peter Capaldi is fine as The Doctor, but it is Jenna Coleman who has the performance of the episode, though it comes late enough in the episode that it can't be discussed in the review.

Ultimately, the episode is initially engaging before becoming utterly typical, which is a bit of a disappointment for those still sticking with Doctor Who.

For other works with shapeshifters, please check out my reviews of:
"The Search, Part II" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"Who Is Harrison Wells?" - The Flash
"Colony" - The X-Files

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

5.5/10

For more Doctor Who reviews, please check out my Doctor Who Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Quietly Exploring The Consequences Of Doctor Who With "The Woman Who Lived!"

The Good: Excellent acting, Good character work, Decent pacing
The Bad: Somewhat obvious plotting
The Basics: In a rarity for Doctor Who, The Doctor finds that the woman he made immortal is hardly living her life in a way he would approve in "The Woman Who Lived!"


Every now and then, there is an episode of television that is overwhelmed by the guest star or stars that appear in it. While sometimes the guest star is done as a cheap promotional ploy - Robin Williams and Billy Crystal appearing for an otherwise unrelated teaser in an episode of Friends comes instantly to mind! - the BBC is generally outside such concerns. But even the BBC is not entirely immune. The big casting news for this season of Doctor Who was the appearance of Maisie Williams in two of the episodes. The second episode Williams is featured in is "The Woman Who Lived."

"The Woman Who Lived" is the second part of the story that began in "The Girl Who Died" (reviewed here!) and the common element between the two episodes is the character portrayed by Maisie Williams. It is impossible to discuss "The Woman Who Lived" without referencing how Williams's character of Ashildr was left at the climax of "The Girl Who Died." As the name of the prior episode suggests, Ashildr died in the episode, but The Doctor resurrected her using an alien medical kit. The net effect was that Ashildr was left immortal and The Doctor and Clara went on their way.

Because of the mediocre nature of "The Girl Who Died," my expectations going into "The Woman Who Lived" were rather low. Fortunately, this was an episode that became an entirely pleasant surprise as a result.

On a lonely road in England, a carriage is held at gunpoint by a lone rider on a horse. The rider is identified by reputation as The Nightmare and they do not come alone - as the glowing eyes of the Nightmare's companion help scare the occupants of the carriage into acquiescing to the highwayman's demands. But the robbery is interrupted by the arrival of The Doctor, who literally walks through the carriage with a scanner, looking for a piece of alien technology. When the carriage moves along, The Doctor confronts The Nightmare and discovers the highwayman to be none other than Ashildr, now going by the simple name Me.

Me fills The Doctor in on her activities since the last time he popped into her timeline to observe her setting up a leper colony. Me is now after a rare gem that one of the locals has been bragging about and The Doctor suspects that it is the alien artifact that he himself is after. The two team up to rob Lucie Fanshawe of the gem. But after recovering it, The Doctor learns that Me is not working alone and her companion represents a danger to Earth that The Doctor must stop.

"The Woman Who Lived" is a quiet, character-centered episode much like the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode (reviewed here!) that works best when it is tightly focused on consequences of past actions. Consequences are seldom explored in a compelling way in Doctor Who. Die-hard fans might argue that many of The Doctor's actions in the Last Great Time War have real consequences that resonate throughout the first several seasons of the rebooted Doctor Who, but the truth is, those consequences never truly stick and they get rewritten over and over again with a sense that becomes nonsense when one tries to create any sense of continuity (just look, for example, at the Daleks!). "The Woman Who Lived" is all about consequences and it works for that.

The Doctor made Ashildr immortal and tried to provide for her by giving her the option to make another person immortal as well. While The Doctor accounted for loneliness, he did not factor in the boredom a smart person might face with 800 years in times before humans developed interesting technology or could easily get away from an area they felt trapped! Me complains to The Doctor and she has a very simple, reasonable solution: to be able to leave Earth with The Doctor after they recover the gem. She just wants off Earth and that makes a lot of sense.

The Doctor is unsettled by Me and Peter Capaldi plays that quite well. It's unclear why he rejects taking Me with him, especially given that he could easily wait until his relationship with River Song has run its course in his timeline before taking up indefinitely with Me. The only other aspects of "The Woman Who Live" that do not truly work are the caper scene and the overly complicated explanations. The Doctor seems surprised that Me knows he came in a ship and is "the one who leaves;" but Ashildr spent time with Clara and it seems reasonable that they talked. Plus, Ashildr's people found The Doctor at the TARDIS and it seems reasonable some of her people told her about it. The break-in of the Fanshawe house seems utterly ridiculous. The pair lights a candle and talks while inside a chimney, both of which would carry sound and light . . . and Mr. Fanshawe awakens ridiculously easily in a manor house that would have carried the sound of the servants moving around and was probably not modern weathertight.

The minutaie falls away against the strength of the performances by Peter Capaldi and Maisie Williams. "The Woman Who Lived" is the reason Williams was cast; Ashildr might have been a simple, unremarkable character who baffled viewers as to why The Doctor bothered to save her, but Me is clever, smart, and Williams infuses her with the appropriate amount of sadness to her. Williams and Capaldi have excellent on-screen chemistry in the episode and "The Woman Who Lived" leaves fans hoping that after Jenna Coleman's inevitable departure, and after The Doctor's tenure with River Song, the writers will have The Doctor revise his final monologue to Me and take her as a Companion.

Ultimately, "The Woman Who Lived" does what good science fiction is supposed to do: it makes a statement on the human condition and relationships, using the fantastic setting or concept to make those statements. The Doctor is seldom reflexive, but "The Woman Who Lived" forces him to put a face to his actions and beliefs and it becomes an engaging hour of television. In fact, "The Woman Who Lived" does what ignoring Danny Pink('s death) has failed to do this season, which is show compelling repercussions for the way The Doctor moves through the Universe. And the episode proves that mining that territory can be pulled off exceptionally well with the right talents in play.

For other works with Gruffudd Glyn, please check out my reviews of:
The Martian
The Theory Of Everything
Thor: The Dark World

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

8/10

For more Doctor Who reviews, please check out my Doctor Who Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |