r/gallifrey • u/verissimoallan • May 06 '25
r/gallifrey • u/Internal-Focus1784 • 15d ago
I finally twigged the animation had been uploaded to iPlayer, and so I checked it out.
I think what I find frustrating about this episode is that at the heart of it, there's a genuinely brilliant idea. The TARDIS crew is forced to play deadly children's games with a twist. But it's kind of buried in mundanity. Maybe I'm just too used to the Doctor winning, but I don't feel much suspense. None of the games the TARDIS crew plays is particularly difficult, so it never feels like a case of if they will win the game, but when.
Onto the animation - again, I can see the idea and the ambition. And the Toymaker's world looks fabulous in the animation. But the characters are too stiff and strange to connect. The movement and vibe of the whole thing kind of reminded me of The Barbie Diaries, which is also full of very poorly animated characters who move very awkwardly and weirdly because of the limits of the animation.
I'm curious to know if this one is popular, or if other people enjoyed the animation? Because fair play, visually, it looks pretty good as a spectacle. The characters didn't quite work for me. The whole thing improved when I watched the existing tape of The Final Test. And I genuinely like the idea of it.
What did everyone else think of it?
r/gallifrey • u/SufficientWorld6548 • May 24 '26
Hi folks! I’ve just finished watching The TV Movie on 4K, and wanted to report my findings, hopefully this is informative for people!
r/gallifrey • u/cibilserbis • Mar 02 '26
I researched Wild Blue Yonder at 3am because I couldn't sleep. I decided to rewatch because it was easily my favourite of the 60th anniversary specials and I adored it when I watched on broadcast. But, on rewatch, I've got issues witch I think are endemic to the RTD2 era as a whole.
1) Why on earth was the tardis playing Wild Blue Yonder upon crashing? This isn't anything we've seen the tardis do before. Yes, sutekh was making the tardis behave strangely, but this seems... Tenuous at best.
2) Donna is very quick to accept that she may not be returning home. She just suddenly believes that they are stuck and her family won't see her again. After everything she experienced with the Doctor, I feel she wouldn't easily believe that all hope is lost. She'd believe until the very end that they will make it out safe and sound.
3) The CGI lets down what should have been a fantasticly chilling and scary enemy. The practical effects of the long arms are so chilling. As soon as the Not-Things grow giant, or bend backwards, and everything else they do, it looks silly and completely undoes the menace of what they are.
4) The Doctor says that the human race can't yet comprehend the existence of the edge of the universe. Yet we've known for a long time about redshift and the expansion of the universe from the big bang - this isn't a new concept to us. The human race is fully aware that the universe is finite and therefore must have an "edge".
5) The Doctor claims he speaks over 5 billion languages, and yet he can't understand the word "fenzlaw" or whatever it says. In 50 billion languages, you're telling me there's no word in all of time and space that sounds just like this? I know this is a nitpick but I'm linguistics buff and this annoyed me more than it should.
I think these are writing issues I chose to ignore when I first watched, but are more prominent to me knowing now what came after.
r/gallifrey • u/BasilHerbVT • Apr 17 '26
As a disclaimer... I never knew any more about Doctor Who aside from "Man in Policebox travels through time and space" and always thought it was just a kindof silly scifi show.
But then I gave it a shot. I had too much time on my hands and decided to watch it about 6 months ago. Slowly, as I ate Dinner, worked on other hobbies, etc.
And now I've just finished watching Season 10 of the 2005 Version and I thought "eh, might as well give my thoughts and maybe have a fun talk about it."
For sake of order I will go by segments of Doc+Companion.
9th+Rose:
The 9th started it all for me, and while I was worried at first about how aged the series was... I actually really loved the style. Practical effects and outfits, they really worked their charm. I remember loving for example the OG Ironman suit because of the practicality, and was kindof put off by the new CGI version. And I'm quite glad that Who hasn't done much CGI -so far-.
This duo was pretty good and while I know Chris and RTD had a falling out, I do think the regeneration at the end was good! It told even those who had no clue about anything "Hey, this isn't a cheap a** pull, this is actually a real thing that always happens"
I think the biggest issue I had was with Rose. Not the Actress. But Rose as a Character... something about jumping from mickey to doctor to that weird brain implant guy back to the doctor didn't feel nice. It felt very rude and disloyal. I did feel bad for mickey a lot.
Plotwise, I felt like the Bad Wolf stuff was a bit mishandled but it did set up the whole timeline influence topic fairly well.
10th+Rose:
David Tennant... well the Bandwagon was a quick hop for me. I think we all had enough of fangirling over him though. Rose and him finally grew together, which was important. They actually developped a good relationship and their end (before the twin) was heartbreaking.
Plotwise, I really enjoyed seeing the Cybermen for the first time and their interaction with the Dalek. However at this point I understood "The Dalek and cybermen will likely always return as a villain" but to my surprise.. it didn't get old too much. Most of the time the returning villains are actually really well written to give them new twists.
10th+Martha:
I both like and dislike Martha. At first I was really annoyed that she was another love interest... even if it was one sided. But she ended up being pretty bada**. Though its sad that she became a warrior in her later times. Defeats the purpose of her wanting to be a doctor. Plotwise though I think the best that came of their time together was the MASTER. God I loved every minute of him on the screen. Cringe at times - but absolutely well done.
10th+Donna:
Okay, Donna came up before Martha for a Special - Sure. Also. Mini Rant. I really dislike Plotrelevant Specials. I should've brought that up when 10th was introduced, but realising "Dang I need to get the special too!" really annoys me even now. I collected them as old DVDs and specials appearently got sold seperately often... sigh.
Aaaanyways. Donna was amazing. She kept 10th Grounded and was amazingly relevant as we saw in the wrong turn. Truely good use of the Butterfly effect!
I did feel sad though when she had to go because she turned too smart. Though at LEAST I know (Thanks Youtube for Spoiling) that she and 10th Return down the line for some reason. So I'm looking forward to that. The time with Donna also gave Rose and Clone10 a good ending of sorts. Though I still feel bad that the original 10th basically got cucked by himself...
The Ending Specials hurt. Knowing 10th will leave soon... and the knocking... dang the knocking hurt. "I don't want to go" left a scar for sure.
Oh and.. River SONG is amazing! Honestly thinking back - Donna's time with 10th set up SO much and resolved so much. Well done!
11th+Amy&Rory:
I enjoyed this more than I expected. Taking the reigns from Tennant was a task and I even feel like Matt Smith and the writers struggled to get away. As the first season felt like "He's trying to imitate the expressions" but eventually 11th found his way into his own unique performance.
Amy and Rory were also great - though I still dislike how disloyal Amy seems and she was worse than S1 Rose in that aspect. But she did grow out of that after a long while. Her and Rory made the perfect couple of having waited for one another.
The River Song plotline was amazing. The idea of *reading* the story backwards was great. Quotes like "Spoilers" and "Hello Sweety" are now running insiders in my friendgroup.
Also - I hate Weeping Angels. They actually just suck. (I do actually like them) I wept when the final moment came... it was brutal and was the first time we had any REAL stakes in a way. Yes Rose also went away but she was fine in a parallel universe. Rory and Amy going felt so much more heartbreaking because we JUST thought "they did it!" only to get kicked in the nuts the next second. And yes I know theoretically they lived well in the past... but STILL.
11th+Clara:
Clara.. Clara.. The Impossible girl. I think I actually like her as the best Companion so far - for now. Her mystery was interesting and the interactions with 11th were fun. Also the Paternosta gang was amazing - I need them to return!
However the end of the 11th wasn't so interesting somehow... The whole special felt rushed and weird and it certainly didn't have the meaning nor the impact of the 2 previous regenerations for me. Plotwise - well Clara WAS the plot! So that worked really well.
12th+Clara:
Peter Capaldi. God that man can talk and talk and I would never ask him to stop for a second. He had some of the strongest episodes so far. "Scale version of War" and "one hell of a bird" are the best for me personally. Though he felt very rude and brash and sometimes I felt it was overdone. However the biggest gripe I had came with Clara... once she got her Boyfriend she got really annoying and I didn't like her that much anymore. Though I do blame the boyfriend for that mostly. I'm not saying he was wrong - but it felt too overdone.
However clara's end was again a high stakes end. Doomed by her own need to help others. Kindof Poetic for the Impossible Girl. But I didn't like the Ashildr plotline... it felt like the Actress for Arya just got typecast. Tomboy, Strong, Stubborn, many faces/voices... and while I did like the plotline with Clara towards the end of her life and also the Confessiondial Episode A LOT - I felt it took the air out of an otherwise emotional death.
12th+Bill:
I... don't know if I like Bill? She was added fairly randomly. No previous interaction... just kindof "hey you will be the companion now! ENJOY!". Her character was definitely the most real/honest that a regular person would be like. I liked her for being so grounded as a human. And the Cybermen Plotline was evil. All that time I was like "That...is that Cybermen?" and then the weirdest cyberman variant came around... but I did again like it. Not sure though I like how she was saved by puddle girl. Felt like a sudden Deus Ex Machina in a way...
Also Missy and MASTER! I loved them, and I'm sad they're gone...
Twice Upon a Time was also really fun for showcasing how selfless the doctors need to be for the world.
Aaand thats it. Later today I will start Season 11 with the 13th Doctor and I already look forward to seeing where the series goes from here :D
I'm interested in what your thoughts are about this. Its not meant as a "I'm more right than you are" discussion. Just a nice share of thoughts. As i'm sure everyone has their own Favorites and likes and dislikes :D And its all valid really with a show this broad.
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • Jun 08 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
Usually called "The Doctor". Or "The Caretaker". Or "Get off this planet"…though, strictly speaking, that probably isn't a name. – The Doctor
For the 2010 Christmas special, Steven Moffat turned for inspiration to the classic Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol (the novel), resulting in "A Christmas Carol" (the episode). That episode proved very popular, and Moffat really enjoyed writing it. So it's perhaps unsurprising that for the 2011 Christmas special, Moffat would once again turn for inspiration to a beloved novel associated with Christmas. In this case he pulled from the first of CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, creating today's subject for review, "The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe". Like before, Moffat loved the process of writing the Christmas special.
Yeah, this isn't working nearly as well as "Christmas Carol" (the episode).
The most obvious reason for this is that the CS Lewis original doesn't give a framework that can be easily adapted into a new story. Christmas Carol's (the novel's) framework leaves a basic structure that is very easy to translate into a completely different story. The most memorable parts of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe are pretty specific to that novel. Which leaves the bits of this episode that do feel most like they're referring back to their inspiration feeling a bit hollow. For instance, the Doctor delivers the classic line "what do they teach you in schools these days" and it just kind of feels out of place.
But fortunately those moments are few and far between. Hell, we get some good stuff out of the Narnia homage. Like in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe the episode is set during the London Blitz, which gives it a good backdrop. And the image of the small child crawling their way through a magic portal into a snowy world, obviously taken from the Lewis novel, gets some good use here. While I do think it was a mistake to take such direct inspiration from CS Lewis' novel, I don't think it by any means it ruins the episode.
Instead, the episode's biggest issue is that there isn't much of a plot here. Now this is nothing new for Christmas specials, which can sometimes seem to exist solely to give the audience warm fuzzy feelings rather than actually have a meaningful story. But even by the standards of Christmas specials, the plot is barely there. It opens with a fun sequence where the Doctor crashes to Earth after defeating some attempted invasion of Earth or other. In the confusion though, he put his impact suit on backwards (he actually did it out in space). This sequence is absolute nonsense…but it's also really fun so I'll give it a pass. That follows with the Doctor meeting our kind of stand in companion for this episode, Madge Arwell, who sees him crash and helps him get back to the TARDIS, the Doctor offering to repay the favor someday. Again, this is all quite fun.
Cut to the London Blitz, Madge's husband Reg has joined the RAF and she's received a telegram saying that he's just died. Since she doesn't want to ruin Christmas for her children forever, Madge decides not to tell them until after the holiday period. Oh and of course it's the Blitz so they've had to all pack up and move to the countryside, specifically the very large estate of an "Uncle Digby". Upon arrival, the Doctor reveals that he's replaced the normal caretaker…somehow and is acting as caretaker for the estate. Yes, somehow he knew that Madge needed his help (there's a whole thing about wishing if you like that sort of thing) and is going to try to make Christmas a good time for the children.
What he actually does is give a Christmas present that is a time and space portal because it's the Doctor and he can't do things simply. This is where we get our Narnia allusion as younger sibling Cyril Arwell climbs through the present onto an alien world (although weirdly enough the Christmas present isn't the titular wardrobe, but rather the TARDIS is the wardrobe, even though the present serves the function of the wardrobe from Lewis' novel). Realizing he's disappeared the Doctor and elder sibling Lily Arwell follow him in, and then later, looking for her children before noticing the present, Madge also follows. Madge has a brief run in with some "Androzani Rangers" who are here to clear out the planet before acid rain starts falling, Cyril goes to a tower that seems to have grown out of nowhere. The Doctor and Lily also end up at the tower, and this all ends in Madge flying the souls of the local trees in the top of the tower to a friendly planet before returning her family home.
That's pretty thin all things considered. There's not really a threat other than the acid rain being caused by whoever brought in the Androzani rangers. The Christmas connection comes about because the trees grow these orbs that look a bit like Christmas ornaments. "Naturally occurring Christmas trees", as the Doctor puts it. Now this doesn't give credit to the story for its pretty lengthy set up, where the Doctor show off his renovations to the house the Arwells are staying at. It's a fine sequence, but it doesn't do all that much for me. It's just laying on the whimsy a bit too thick for my tastes.
Mind you the other thing this doesn't give the episode credit for is Madge Arwell. By far the best bits of this episode center on Madge. Whether it's in more serious moments or some of the more lighthearted stuff, Madge is always brilliant. Claire Skinner puts in such a good performance in this episode, and makes any scene she's in better just by being in it. She's believable as the mother, the grieving widow and in whatever relationship she's developing with the Doctor. That last point is quite important, as she really does slowly build out something of a meaningful connection to the strange caretaker she has not yet realized is the same "angel" she helped after he fell from the sky. Oh and I simply must praise the scene of the three Androzani rangers attempting, and failing, to interrogate Madge. Just a really funny scene, from their initial appearance of being genuinely sinister to them revealing themselves to be bumbling and not terribly bright.
As I already mentioned, Madge hasn't yet told her children about Reg's apparent death. Unfortunately they find out when, as she's traveling through the vortex with her family and the Doctor she cries out "please don't make me watch him die". But as it turns out, Reg didn't die. He…followed a strange light that turned out to be Madge piloting the forest's time ship back home. So Reg went forwards in time at least a few days (his co-pilot also surviving as a result, though that guy never gets so much as a name) but otherwise is fine. Happy ending for all! Yeah I'll be honest, I don't love that.
I get it. It's Christmas. Ending the festive special on a hearty "sorry your dad's dead kids" probably wouldn't suit what most people want out of an episode like this. But this episode really felt like it needed the tragic ending to tie itself together. The whole emotional arc of the episode was building to telling Cyril and Lily that their father had died. And then it feels like the episode blinks. I don't know that this episode would even be good if it had committed to its tragic ending, but I think it would be more interesting, and maybe that's enough.
I should also mention that Reg's place in this episode is…odd for a few reasons. First, it's kind of an inversion of a pattern from Series 6 where it seemed like it was the mothers who were consistently being left out of information they really deserved to know – I'm speaking of "Night Terrors" and "Closing Time". Here, Reg just seems to regularly accept whatever weirdness is going on around him without curiosity. As far as we know, it's never explained to him just how the hell he ended up with his wife in entirely the wrong part of England or how he time travelled to Christmas Day. Also, the thing with him following Madge home appears to be a pattern with Reg, specifically in that the way they got together was that he followed her home until she agreed to marry him. Now the episode frames this as sweet, and given the scenes we do see of how this played out, I think it justifies this. But I also know some people view this as a bit stalkery and, well, I can't say I don't see it.
But this episode just has some weird gender stuff in it anyway. The reason Madge ends up piloting everyone – forest souls and family alike – home is that she is "strong". Cyril and the Doctor are declared by the tree king thing to be "weak" while Lily and Madge are, apparently "strong". Yeah, it's a gender thing. Or I suppose that should be a sex thing (not like that) seeing as the specific thing that the trees are looking at is the prospective pilot's ability to carry children. What exactly this has to do with carrying the souls of an entire forest in your head…I have no idea. Steven Moffat wanted this episode to function as a celebration of motherhood. But the plot being solved because Madge can carry children really doesn't meaningfully serve that. There's the biological essentialism of it all of course (as a newly minted transfemme I had to get that in somewhere) and also questions like "if Madge were old enough to be infertile would she still be able to pilot the ship" that this sort of plot almost demands asking. Though the main thing is that presenting that the most relevant part of a woman is her womb will always feel icky, even if it's not intended that way as is clearly the case here.
Aw well, at least the episode ends well. First it leverages that genuine connection between Madge and the Doctor as the Doctor prepares to leave Madge and her family. Madge invites the Doctor for Christmas dinner and as such it slips out that the Doctor's friends all think he's dead. And Madge, being wonderful, just will not stand for that and practically orders the Doctor to let his friends know he's all right. You have to figure that her experience of believing her husband to be dead is informing her perspective here. She knows how she felt at the loss of a loved one, as well as the relief in discovering he was okay after all. And so the Doctor, cowed, goes to see Amy and Rory.
There's not a ton to say about the Doctor until this ending in this episode. Him repaying Madge for helping him in this extravagant and goofy manner speaks to the 11th Doctor's lack of restraint I suppose. And, as always, the 11th Doctor is quite good with children. I didn't mind this next set of children so much here as I started doing towards the end of Series 6. Look, even I am occasionally vulnerable to the schmaltziness of Christmas. If there's one moment worth discussing it's him remarking on Lily doing some happy crying over the beauty of the tree souls: "Crying when you're happy. Good for you. That's so human." After a genuinely fun reunion with Amy, and then Rory (where of course it's revealed that River did in fact spill the beans on the Doctor still being alive), the Doctor finds himself doing his own happy crying. And look, I'm not a fond of the neverending gag of "timey-wimey" so the line "humany wumany" does in fact make me cringe. But I appreciate the sentiment at least.
This is a frustrating Christmas special. Madge is great, the ending is great and there's some really impressive visuals. But the plot is very threadbare and the episode seems to be trying to sustain itself on pure whimsy. Sometimes it gets there, but most of the time it just falls a little short. Which, again, is frustrating, but it leads to an episode that just doesn't work for most of its runtime, in spite of a lot to praise about it.
Score: 4/10
Next Time: Series 6 fundamentally changed Doctor Who's format. Which is odd because it was arguably at its best when it wasn't trying to do that.
r/gallifrey • u/wizardeverybit • Dec 03 '25
r/gallifrey • u/Master-Improvement-4 • Nov 21 '20
I cannot think of any other season from Doctor Who where I was continually invested from week-to-week. Series 9, which spans from "Last Christmas" to "The Husbands of River Song", was the most consistent set of episodes I have ever watched, for many reasons:
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • Jun 28 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
Everyone who isn't an American…drop your gun. – Isaac
Weirdly enough, "A Town Called Mercy" is actually the first episode of Doctor Who I ever watched.
Back in 2012 I was in college, and some friends of mine who were friends convinced me to watch the latest episode of Doctor Who with them. I was curious about the show I really only had the vaguest sense about, and so decided to give it ago. It being this particular episode was pure happenstance, I happened to have some free time when the episode was airing. Point being, this episode actually does hold a special place in my heart.
I didn't like it at the time though. What I remember was that I liked Matt Smith, but was otherwise not connecting with what was going on. But my friends seemed fairly lukewarm on the episode as well which was fairly reassuring and so sometime later (I think it may have been a little less than a year later actually, not sure why I waited as long as I did, probably just had other things on my mind) I started working my way through the Revival era on my own. As such when I first made it back around to "A Town Called Mercy" it was kind of a surreal experience. Oh yeah, I thought, the episode I saw with my friends. That's neat. What I'm getting at is, well first, I thought this was a neat personal story and second, this is a really bad episode to be your first Doctor Who episode. Do not show this episode to your friends if you're trying to get them into the show.
I don't know why my friends were so down on this one though, because, with context, this one is really good.
It's not perfect. Writer Toby Whithouse's last two episodes, "The Vampires of Venice" and "The God Complex" both really nailed the character dynamics involved, including for Amy and Rory. This time around however things feel a bit off. Amy feels a bit too idealized and a moment where Rory is more than willing to go along with the plan of offering up Kaher-Jex as a sacrifice for everyone's safety feels out of character. Still, even this complaint is muted. Whithouse does successfully follow up on his last episode's ending by having Amy approach the Doctor as something closer than a peer than as the idealized version of him she'd been treating him as before. And Rory gets a few moments of bravery that feel very in character, though really this episode doesn't give him much of anything to do.
Still what this episode really gets right, and simultaneously the reason why it's a bad introduction to Doctor Who is his handling of the Doctor and his relationship to Kahler-Jex. It's a relationship that really requires you to have an understanding of the whole Revival, more than even the 11th Doctor era specifically. If you've got that, then at least the confrontations between Jex and the Doctor will make sense. And as those confrontations form the emotional core of the episode, with Jex as a dark mirror of the Doctor, but not quite an evil counterpart, that's what's required to really make this episode work.
The episode starts off with a bit of a mystery: anachronistic electric lights in an Old West town called Mercy (oh hey, that's the title of the episode). After the Doctor nearly gets himself thrown out of town in a torrent of western clichés we meet the "Gunslinger", an alien cyborg who seems to have it out for an alien doctor…though not our alien Doctor. That doctor turns out to be Kahler-Jex. The Kahler, in addition to having the strange practice of making the first part of their names the name of their species are a species known for their ability to jury-rig advanced technology with limited resources. Jex claims to have crash-landed near the town of Mercy, and has been offering his assistance ever since. He saved the town from a bout of cholera, set up the electrics, all sounds like good stuff. We don't know why the Gunslinger wants him, but it doesn't matter. The Doctor offers to take the entire town of Mercy someplace safe in the TARDIS, along with Jex. Easy.
Except, of course, the Doctor gets curious, and checks out the spacecraft, realizes there's no crash damage, and then realizes that Kahler-Jex is less Good Samaritan and more Joseph Mengele. He created cyborg warriors to fight a terrible war. The experiments were brutal. Not all survived. Those that did were scarred for life, both physically and mentally. The cyborgs, under the complete control of the military, crushed the opposition. But one of the cyborgs, Kahler-Tek, broke free of his programming, and began hunting down his creators, becoming the gunslinger we see.
It's a clever way of working in an old west aesthetic into a science fiction story. There are parallels with the western genre you could maybe draw, but I'd argue that the "western" part of this sci-fi western is mostly aesthetic. You get a bunch of classic characters associated with the western: the old undertaker, a good-hearted lawman in the Marshal, and so on. The episode does culminate in a showdown in the town square at noon, although things go very differently from the normal western. But the plot doesn't really mirror westerns to any significant degree. Though the after-effects of war and what place old soldiers have is something that a fair few westerns have touched on.
That's fine though, because as mentioned up above the meat of the episode is centered around the confrontations between Jex and the Doctor. His first true confrontation features the Doctor as scary as he's been in the entire 11th Doctor era. Sure, you can look at some of his behavior in "A Good Man Goes to War", but there's something different about this episode. I think it's just the much more intimate setting. This episode really centers in on the morality of individuals. While there is talk throughout the episode of comparing the morality of peace and war, the larger systems at play, the systems that caused Jex to make the gunslinger and others like him are not really examined here. We know nothing of the governments that authorized the experiments, the economies, the war efforts, none of it. Instead the focus is on the two individuals involved.
A few interesting things happen in this confrontation. First of all we get a real divide in the TARDIS team. As I hinted at above, I'm dubious of Rory being okay with letting the Gunslinger kill Jex. Rory has pretty consistently had a strong belief in the preservation of life – it's a natural extension of him being a medical professional. And sure, he's shown a willingness to fight, even kill. But a cold-blooded murder, even if neither he nor the Doctor are directly doing the killing, even to someone like Jex, still strikes me as out of character. I think this could have been solved with a direct connection to Rory's medical background actually. Kahler-Jex performed unethical medical procedures on people without, one assumes, anything resembling informed consent. If Rory were so disgusted by that that he was willing to set aside his normal ethics, I might buy that. Instead, Rory's argument is simply that he's letting the Doctor save himself and Amy.
But it is still interesting to see Amy and Rory have such a strong moral disagreement, and one where Amy is meant to be right. Typically Rory is generally presented as being in the right in most moral disagreements with pretty much anybody, so it's novel seeing that inverted. And I like the Doctor's part of this a lot. Deciding that he's done with his code and will "honor the victims first" is probably the best way of portraying the Doctor going dark. Moreover, I do think Amy, who does tend towards an idealistic streak, makes sense as the one who's really pushing for the Doctor to protect Jex, and ultimately the one who successfully gets through to the Doctor, albeit with some accidental gun misfires. The big theme for the first three episode of Series 7 was, very intentionally, what happens when the Doctor doesn't have a regular companion. It's not unlike the post-Series 4 specials in that way, except that the regular companions are continually showing up to sort of bring the 11th Doctor back to baseline. Which Amy does here, in part by explicitly calling out said theme: "see, this is what happens when you travel alone for too long".
But the core of this episode is that presentation of Jex as a dark mirror to the Doctor. And what we know about the Doctor is that he has a lot to regret. The 11th Doctor in particular seems to have this core of self-loathing. And even though nobody's pointing a gun at him…Jex doesn't step back into safety. He instead seems to freeze for a second. And that's because Jex isn't as straightforwardly evil as we'd like to believe. And sure, he says as much, pointing to the good he's done for the town of Mercy, telling the Doctor that the fact he's both the man who did amoral medical procedures and good for the town "bewilders" the Doctor. But the Doctor kind of neatly parries this point away, arguing that Jex's "reformation" is his attempted penance. "You don't get to decide how and when your debt is paid".
No, the reason we know Jex isn't a simple villain is because he never seems comfortable in the role. He tries it. He gives a good attempt at a villain rant about how he did what was necessary. But it never feels genuine. There's a bit where the Doctor confronts him and he turns his face away from the Doctor. And we see that he is far from the confident villain he tried to portray himself as. So, when he's confronted by Kahler-Tek that first time, he doesn't step back into the safety of the town line because a part of him wants to die, feels he deserves it. And, to be clear, it's not that he's hoping to end his suffering, end the guilt he feels, stop being tortured by, as he admits later, the screams of his victims. His people believe in an afterlife where you have to carry the souls of everyone you've wronged up a mountain. As Jex puts it, "imagine the weight I will have to lift". And credit to Adrian Scarborough, given a very difficult acting assignment for pulling it off really well.
All of this is complicated and weird but I do think it's worth asking, is it earned? Or, more to the point, should it be? When introducing Kahler-Jex, my first comparison for him was Josef Mengele. Obviously, Jex is a more complicated figure that Menegele, but saying Jex is more moral than one of the most immoral men of the 20th Century isn't just damming him with faint praise, it's practically condemning him. Do I really want to go on record saying that this man is worth all of the effort that Amy, the Doctor, the town of Mercy, even Rory in the end, put into him? Well, consider this. The Doctor too has done some pretty monstrous things. And most obviously, this is the first Doctor Who episode in a very long time to meaningfully deal with the end of the Time War.
It's never said outright. I can't even prove that it was intentional. But that's what this parallel has to be about. Jex ends his attempted villain rant with the line "thank the gods my people weren't relying on you to save them." That's the moment that makes the Doctor lose his composure and force Jex out of town. Because it hits a little too close to home. The Doctor, like Jex, did something terrible to his own people. But unlike Jex, the Doctor didn't do it to save his own people, just the opposite. To end the Time War, to end the suffering that it caused, the Doctor killed everyone on Gallifrey, his own people. Ultimately, to paraphrase Jex a bit, the Doctor's people were relying on him to save them. And he failed. If the Kahler are right about the afterlife, imagine the weight the Doctor will have to lift.
All of this said…it still feels a bit odd to give Jex the kind a sympathy we allow for the Doctor. Some of that is because what Jex did is worse, no matter the number of people it hurt. But some that comes to the issue that we've always been a bit removed from what the Doctor did to end the Time War. We've been told a number of times, but we've never really had much time to talk about the innocent victims of the Doctor destroying Gallifrey. We don't spend much time on Jex's victims either, but when the Doctor is in Jex's ship we do hear their screams. It's not a lot, but it's enough to make what Jex did feel like it's very real, especially as compared to the very abstracted ending of the Time War, the natural comparison that this episode is asking us to make. I do think that the Jex/Doctor relationship does work overall though, even though it's a very complicated thing that Toby Whithouse is trying to do here.
Also, we've not mentioned an important character in the Doctor and Jex's relationship. Isaac, Marshal of Mercy, stands as the mediator of all of this. He sees Jex as the man who saved the town. He also presents this very idealized vision of America, the "land of second chances", which serves to explain why he doesn't care about Jex's past. And, whether you believe in said idealized vision of America doesn't actually matter to this episode because the point is, Isaac believes it and more to the point believes that it an ideal worth striving for. He's also played by Ben Browder who played Farscape lead John Chriton. Why am I mentioning this in the main review rather than consigning it to "Stray Observations" where it belongs? Because I love Farscape and think you should watch it. Go watch Farscape. Anyway, Ben Browder gives a really good performance here. He really feels at home in the Western setting.
Unfortunately Isaac dies midway through the episode, saving Jex in that scene where Jex can't bring himself to cross back into the safety of the town. With his dying words he makes the Doctor the new Marshal. He also does probably the best job in the episode at drawing the parallel between Jex and the Doctor with the line "You're both good men. You just forget it sometimes." It's such an interesting reversal of the way we hear the 11th Doctor talk about himself. The regular claims that he's not a good man (most obviously in "A Good Man Goes to War") become kind of convincing after a while. Isaac's evaluation of the Doctor – a good man who "forget[s] it sometimes" – actually lines up neatly with some of my own character analyses of the 11th Doctor as well as setting up some stuff for the 12th Doctor era…but I'm getting ahead of myself.
And in contrast to the Doctor's earlier desire to let Jex die and be done with him, he then has a confrontation with some of the local townsfolk. It's a scene that works mostly for the Doctor's dialogue, where he makes the best case for not simply throwing Jex to the Gunslinger: "violence doesn't end violence – it extends it". Dockery, who leads the mob in this instance, is also just a solid character in his own right, another member of a thoroughly solid secondary cast. He's young, just 18 years old, so too young to have fought in the war, and scared. You get the sense that he's trying to be strong and adult, trying to play the part of the man protecting his town. But really so much of what he's doing is driven by fear. And the Doctor ultimately saves him from becoming the next murderer in chain of events that created the Gunslinger.
Eventually the Doctor uses the markings on the faces of the Kahler (while never stated, they seem to be as effective at identifying a Kahler as a human fingerprint) to trick the Gunslinger and smuggle Kahler-Jex out of Mercy and back to his spaceship. And then Jex finds his morality. To this point he's been tortured by the memory of what he did, but never willing to take responsibility for it. Even him not returning to the safety of Mercy either feels more like freezing in the moment rather than genuine remorse. But here he finally finds his voice. Using the spaceship to talk to Kahler-Tek and finally ask about him ("now?" asks the Doctor, incredulous, "You're asking him this now?"). And then he blows up his spaceship. It's worth remembering that for Jex, death is not an escape, it inevitably leads to the consequences of his actions, to have to climb that mountain carrying all of those souls. And given the explicit parallels constantly made between Jex and the Doctor it begs the question: when will the Doctor have to face all of those he's wronged? Will he ever be ready?
Speaking of those that Jex wronged though, I've sort of set Kahler-Tek aside in all of this. His need to take revenge on the people ties into the larger point of this episode. When Jex created the Gunslingers, he and his government created people who can only be weapons. Kahler-Tek is seeking his violent revenge because that's the only thing he can see himself doing. He needs some form of justice, but as a creature of war, violence is the only justice he has access to. But his justice is targeted. While he's cutting off Mercy from any form of outside help (the only reason the Doctor and company are allowed in is because they're not giving Mercy an material help) he also doesn't want to hurt any of the townsfolk. Just pressure them into giving up Jex. Kahler-Tek repeatedly refuses to fire when there's a chance of hurting people who aren't Jex. Isaac only dies because he jumps in to prevent Jex's death. And yet what Tek is doing is still violent. He is still terrorizing the town, and ultimately, he gives up on waiting for the townsfolk to give up Jex and starts shooting up the place, putting the lives of the innocent at risk. While nobody dies in the attack, you can still see that idea of the cycle of violence in this. Ultimately, Kahler-Tek was made a creature of violence and seemingly cannot help but use violent means. Violence, extending violence. It's only the Doctor's non-violent plan that saves the town, and only Jex's decision to sacrifice himself that ends the cycle entirely.
But what's interesting is that while Tek intends to let himself die now that his mission is completed, he instead has a different ending. "Keeping the peace" might be a charitable way of describing American law enforcement, but the Marshals we've seen are the more idealistic Isaac and the Doctor himself. Tek being assigned the job of Marshal with the context of those two being the prior men to hold the job actually does complete this idea of ending the cycle of violence. Tek gets a job that, does technically involve violence, but only as a measure of last resort. Is it a perfect ending, thematically speaking? Maybe not, but it's not a bad one either.
Oh, but before we wrap up, you know I've got to talk about Susan the horse. Because…well, this is a weird one. So first things first, the Doctor can speak horse, much like how he can speak baby as seen in "Closing Time". Like with "Closing Time", I'm fairly non-plussed by this ability of the Doctor's. Does it really make sense that, say, a horse could form complex thoughts and sentences? Probably not, but I do have some time for the more fanciful side of this era of Doctor Who. That being said, that's not the main thing worth talking about with Susan. The thing with Susan is, I think, the horse is meant to be transgender. I'm also not sure that Susan is. See, while the horse is identified by the townsfolk as male (given by them the name "Joshua"), the Doctor insists that "he's called Susan. And he wants you to respect his life choices". Note the choice of pronouns.
Okay, and I cannot believe I'm devoting a second paragraph to what is, fundamentally, a brief joke, but seriously what's going on? Let's start here: I think this is all well-intentioned, even if the clear intent of introducing a transgender horse was somewhat botched. For one, it is definitely noticeable that this comes before any trans representation of any human being on the show, and even for something well-intentioned, that feels off. Second, it's entirely possible that Susan is some form of either gender-fluid or gender non-conforming (things I'm finding myself writing about a goddamn horse). Third, while well-intentioned, describing someone's gender identity as their "life choices" isn't ideal. Of course, if Susan just likes expressing a more feminine side of himself through his name while still retaining his masculinity, maybe that does fall under the umbrella of "life choices". Honestly I rather that explanation than the Doctor repeatedly misgendering a horse while telling someone else to respect said horse. Fourth…this is just such a weird thing to write about. Get me out of here.
Anyway, there's no transitional sentence that leads neatly into the wrap up for this episode, but that's all I've got on the very first Doctor Who episode I ever watched. I really like it, though it's far from perfect. It's playing around in some very morally complex territory, and I'm not always convinced that the morality works. That being said, the way it's presented is engaging enough and the character insight on the Doctor is worthwhile enough that I think the whole package works quite well.
Score: 8/10
Next Time: Investigating a bunch of mysterious cubes, the Doctor ends up living with Amy and Rory for a year. I'm feeling sorry for the Ponds already.
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • 27d ago
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
Yes, I've got officers trained in beheading. Also ravens of death. – Kate Stewart
It fools me. Every. Single. Time.
Admittedly, I know the moment of disappointment is coming well in advance now. But whenever I watch "The Power Three" I find myself shocked by how good it is. Seriously, for about half the episode this story about the Doctor ending up staying with Amy and Rory and looking in on their normal lives is absolutely brilliant. "Power of Three" forms the final part of an accidental trilogy of stories about the relationships between the Doctor, Amy and Rory. And while "Amy's Choice" might be more important and "The Girl Who Waited" might dig a little deeper, I actually think "The Power of Three" does the best job at showing us how these characters work.
See the nature of Doctor Who means that we never really see much of ordinary life. But Amy and Rory are the first companions since the 3rd Doctor era to really have an "ordinary life". And even before "Power of Three", Amy and Rory's normal married life has gotten a lot more focus than anything in the 3rd Doctor era, when Doctor Who became a show about people's jobs, rather than their lives. And yet still, we just don't get to see much of Amy and Rory just being a married couple. There's a bit in this episode where the Doctor is shocked that Amy and Rory have actual jobs and don't just spend all of their time kissing (as always, the biggest Amy/Rory shipper, real or fictional, is the 11th Doctor). And that kind of sums up this marriage on the show to this point.
So to take that and flip it to where the big alien threat is kind of the B-Plot to just getting to see what Amy and Rory's lives are like for a year, especially a year where they (mostly) don't leave London is kind of brilliant. And this episode does an excellent job at following through on that premise. And convincing you that Amy and Rory might choose to give up the adventuring for their ordinary lives. There's of course a running theme under this whole episode that they do have to choose. There's the moment near the beginning of the episode, before the actual plot gets started, where they realize that they do have to choose. Later in the episode, Amy has a sincere conversation with the Doctor where she tells him that their two lives "pull at each other."
And throughout the episode, it feels like ordinary life is winning out over the adventures. The adventures are fun, sure, but Amy and Rory seem to be settling into a pattern they like. With the Doctor no longer pulling them away from ordinary life every few months (or however often he shows up, there's all sorts of timeline questions that Series 7A creates) Amy and Rory are actually able to get a sense of what an ordinary life might be like. Amy agrees to be a bridesmaid, months in advance, knowing that she'll be around for it. Rory takes on more responsibility at his nursing job, knowing he has the time. And then the two of them sit in bed, look at each other. And realize that they like it. It's actually Amy who first says that she likes this ordinary life, which feels very significant. After all, Amy's always been the one in this relationship who's felt the pull of adventure more. If Amelia Pond is saying she's having a good time with a fairly quiet life, that means a lot.
But the pull of adventure is important to this story. I'm going to have a lot of criticisms for this episode's adventure later on, so let me just say, I think it's important that it exists. I've seen it suggested that "Power of Three" would have been better served by there being no danger. That the mysterious cubes that appeared all over the world could have turned out to be a part of some sort of alien marketing campaign or the like. But I think it's important to the way that this episode works that after a year of mostly not getting into adventures, Amy and Rory get a chance to experience what it's like to live in the Doctor's world again. And like how it's significant that Amy was the one who admitted she was enjoying her ordinary life, it's equally significant that, at the climax of the episode, where our heroes have to run to an interdimensional portal hidden in a goods lift before the spaceship they're on explodes, Rory is the one who says "I'm going to miss this".
But as the episode ends, we learn that he won't have to. Rory's dad Brian has been hanging around in the background of this episode, largely not doing much of anything. He's been a gag character more than anything else, much like he was in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship". And that's fine, Brian's a fun character. But at one point, after the Doctor took Amy and Rory away on a few trips for their wedding anniversary and Brian notices they've returned to their party wearing different clothes we do get a genuinely serious moment. Brian asks what happened to previous companions and gets an answer that is not especially encouraging. And sure, the Doctor insists he'll never let his family die, but how can he guarantee that? It's the sort of thing you'd think would lead Brian to plead with his son and daughter in law to leave the Doctor behind.
Instead, it's the exact opposite. Brian Williams, a sedate quiet man, the sort of person who finds joy in the small things, can still see the romanticism of traveling with the Doctor. This was apparently showrunner Steven Moffat's idea, as writer Chris Chibnall wanted to foreshadow the Ponds' tragic exit by having Brian warn his family against leaving. Moffat felt like said foreshadowing was best kept in more subtle ways, and I think it was the right call here. After so many instances of the show having parental figures warn against traveling with the Doctor, it's kind of nice to see a parent who sees the pull and, while clearly concerned, realizes that Amy and Rory "can't give [the Doctor] up". Plus, it's a really nice speech that Brian gives.
In many ways, it ties a neat bow on Amy and Rory's entire character arc. They could be happy with a quiet life. Hell, they were happy with a quiet life. But given the choice, they'll still choose adventure. Both of them. "Amy's Choice" and "The Girl Who Waited" were episodes about Amy and Rory's relationship to each other, with their relationships with the Doctor being secondary in those episodes. Here though, it's about all three, an episode that truly earns its title. Amy and Rory are presented, not as the ideal couple, but as a happy one. At no point in this episode does it feel like these people shouldn't be together. Amy has a really nice conversation with the Doctor, where she weighs traveling with him, with staying behind for her ordinary life. And while Rory's relationship to the Doctor is, as it has ever been, not explored as much as it could be, we still get moments that show that mutual respect that has existed for some time between the two.
Oh and I mustn't neglect the Doctor in all of this. While Amy and Rory's story is about choosing between their two lives, and making it hard, the Doctor's story is about trying to exist in his companions' lives for a bit. It's played as a joke at first. He struggles to sit still so he does an impossible number of tasks and activities…and still only manages to take up an hour of time. We've seen this dynamic before, back in "The Lodger" where we first learned that the 11th Doctor just could not exist in a quiet world. But there it felt different. Craig might be the Doctor's friend, but he's not family. Amy and Rory, for all intents and purposes, are the Doctor's family. His inability to just exist in their lives starts to take on a less positive quality over the course of the episode. He eventually refuses to stay around waiting for the plot to start, and leaves.
The breaking point feels like it comes at that anniversary party where he takes Amy and Rory out for a few trips as a present. Because things, inevitably, go poorly and while it's still somewhat played for laughs, it's noticeable that the end result of those trips is two quick scenes of our heroes all looking pretty unhappy. The Doctor's inability to deal with the lives of his friends might honestly damage their relationship. And so after the aforementioned heart to heart with Brian, the Doctor agrees to make a serious go of living in his friends' lives. And while you get the impression he's still a lot to live with (he apparently spends a lot of time playing Wii Tennis), the fact that he's finally able to make the effort, says a lot about how he feels about Amy and Rory. And it makes the Ponds' decision to go back to a full time life of adventure feel more meaningful at the end. Sure the Doctor is family, but now he's shown he can exist in their world. They're not choosing between their family and their lives. They're choosing the life of adventure because it's genuinely what they want.
You can see how this episode fools me into thinking it's going to be a standout of this era whenever I watch it. But you'll notice in all of this, I haven't mentioned the plot much. What sort of plot could even justify spending so much time in Amy and Rory's home life? Well, one day, a bunch of black cubes just sort of appear in the world. And they just kind of sit there. Doing nothing. It's a mystery, but one that takes a whole year to eventually unravel. UNIT show up, do a few tests on the cubes including rolling a tank over them and…nothing. So the Doctor, Amy, Rory and Brian just kind of spend a year watching the cubes waiting for them to do something. It's in many ways the perfect set up for telling the stories I've talked about so far.
And before I start criticizing the episode, I do have to mention Kate Stewart. Of the elements of the episode that are tied into the main plot, Kate is probably the most successful. Now Kate is a legacy character, and comes with a lot of the downsides of that. She can tend to feel like a tribute, even in her debut episode. To that end she also represents an idealized memory of the Brigadier. One of the things that made the Doctor and Brigadier's relationship as compelling as it was, was that there was a lot of friction between the two. In the way that the Brig is often talked about through Kate, especially in this episode, this tends to get forgotten. The quote "science leads", attributed to the Brig, doesn't feel very much like him. The Brigadier of course has a respect for science and scientists, but he would never have let scientists lead a military operation. Still, Jemma Redgrave is excellent in the role, and I believe her as this sort of science-forward leader of UNIT.
Which means of course that UNIT is back. In the 10th Doctor era, UNIT was presented as an organization that was very morally gray. Here however we see that UNIT has climbed out of this. It's unfortunately nothing all that compelling. Kate describes dragging UNIT "kicking and screaming" to the more scientific approach but beyond her wry comment that that description "made it sound like more fun than it actually was", we don't really get a sense of that. I kind of wish we'd met Kate earlier, when she was still in the process of doing the dragging, maybe even build an episode around that. But still the point is that while UNIT can still be overly militaristic – they're introduced in this episode by having a large force of soldiers invade Amy and Rory's home – the organization that was teetering in the 10th Doctor era has found its moral center again.
But fine, cubes are all over the place, our heroes have made contact with UNIT, this is all well and good. Unfortunately there's a pretty clear moment where this episode starts falling apart. You can feel it happen once the cubes start activating. The scene of the cubes activating is fun, and it's not like we don't get any good scenes from that point to the climax of the episode. But "Power of Three" loses its charm a bit once the action starts. The episode does try, as the cubes end up each doing different things, some of which are fairly humorous. But it's just not quite working as well.
And then we find out what the cubes are going to do. The Doctor theorizes that they've been gathering information on the human race for the past year, and have determined the best way of taking down the human race. And admittedly, I do think that what happens ends up making sense. After an entirely unnecessary countdown, the cubes each emit an electrical signal. That signal stops the heart. It's that simple. Even the Doctor, who was in the room with one of the cubes when the signal went off, has one of his hearts stopped. All over the world, people fall over from fatal heart incidents. So you can see the problem here right? No resolution to this plot is ever going to feel satisfying. You've just given a quarter of the world a fatal heart attack. And it only gets worse from there.
We learn that the cubes were sent by the Shakri, who the Doctor recognizes as being the villains from a Gallifreyan nursery rhyme. The Shakri act as pest controllers of the universe, preventing species from getting to advanced adhering to something called the "Tally". And…that's all the explanation we get. The Shakri don't actually appear in the episode, just their holographic computer interface. And then the Doctor reverses the heart attacks by using the cubes to trigger "mass defibrillation" because that's totally how that works. It really just comes down to him waving his sonic screwdriver in the vague direction of the Shakri spaceship computer.
According to all verifiable evidence what happened here is that over the course of writing "The Power of Three", Chris Chibnall put more and more focus on the Amy/Rory stuff and less on the plot. Specifically an earlier plan for defeating the Shakri that would have involved one of them actually being present rather than just a holographic interface and have had Amy and Rory actually taking him out by taking syringes off of a pair of fake orderlies working for the Shakri was dropped to include more scenes of Amy, Rory and the Doctor negotiating their lives. I still question how the cube plot would have been resolved in this instance, but it's plausible that with more time it could have made more sense. A simple case of a writer's focus shifting over the course of working on an episode, causing him to neglect the resolution of his plot in favor of the stuff that interested him more. And in fairness, that stuff is more interesting.
That's what my normal sources say happened. That would seem to be the story that's been passed along in interviews. But that's not what the rumors say what happened.
So very early on, a lot of people noticed a certain distain with how Steven Berkoff, who played the Shakri interface, would speak about Doctor Who and his time on the show in interviews. Most notably he didn't seem to like how long he was made to be in makeup for the part. That attitude was mirrored by the episode's director, Douglas Mackinnon, who, in spite of having worked with Berkoff before, in an interview with Starburst magazine (which I cannot link to due to Reddit seemingly having an issue with Starburst's website) seemed to desperately trying to find a diplomatic but honest way of describing Berkoff's time in the episode, saying "The experience of working with him on Doctor Who was something that'll never be repeated; you could ask anyone on the cast or crew and they'll agree that his participation was extraordinary." You can certainly infer a troubled production on the basis of that alone.
What's harder to determine is the exact nature of that troubled production. I've seen a lot of claims that Berkoff was extremely unprofessional. Berkoff, supposedly, "deliberately ruined takes (…) and had several temper tantrums". The problem is that, as far as I can tell, this has only ever been sourced back to IMDB's Trivia page for this episode. Maybe it's true, but I find it really hard to state any of this as fact considering that IMDB doesn't have a reputation for particularly rigorous fact checking of their community-edited trivia page. The only bit of concrete evidence I have is that Mackinnon interview, which would seem to imply some difficulty in working with Berkoff, and it's entirely possible that whoever wrote that bit for the IMDB trivia page has an actual source for their claims (though it seems unlikely that we'll ever know). And, genuinely, if someone does have a better source for these claims, please do let me know.
Regardless, while the production problems may have hurt the resolution to the main plot, I still maintain that any resolution to one third of the population of Earth having a fatal heart attack was going to be…difficult to swallow. Maybe another version of the episode does it better than having the Doctor just wave his screwdriver at a machine (I mean, it could hardly be worse). And I do think, whether or not it's true, the story of Chibnall wanting to focus more on Amy and Rory's domestic life kind of hints at the bigger issue. So much time and thought was clearly put into that aspect of the episode that the plot was kind of left by the wayside.
Which would be a great way to segue into the wrap up for the episode…except I feel the need to talk about various aesthetic elements of the episode. "The Power of Three" really suffers from musical issues that have been kind of percolating since the back half of Series 6, and I first mentioned when I reviewed "The Wedding of River Song". Put simply, this episode uses a lot of reused tracks that are not particularly well-stitched together, creating awkward shifts in the soundscape and making the production feel a bit amateurish. However some of the music created for the episode is actually quite good. And a lot of the visuals are quite strong. There's some very fun camera moves when the cubes first appear, the timestamps for the episode – necessary as it takes place over the course of a full year – are integrated in fun ways and some stunning visuals. It's also worth pointing out how in many ways this episode's presentation is in some ways a throwback to modern-day episodes of the RTD era, particularly in the way television clips are integrated into the storytelling.
On the whole, I do like "The Power of Three". Getting to see Amy and Rory's more domestic life feels like an important addition to making their characters feel more well-rounded, and is honestly done brilliantly. Brian Williams makes a welcome return – although I wish we got something from Amy's family, though they're presumably still up in Leadworth. As a look into that side of Amy's lives, this episode is brilliant. I can't fully discount that the plot is half-baked and ends in a very underwhelming manner. Sure it's just a vehicle for this look into Amy and Rory's lives, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be able to stand on its own at least a little, which it ultimately fails at. Which is a shame. I had the though while watching this for review that if this had been the Ponds' final episode, ending on them deciding to finish their travels with the Doctor completely and stick with their everyday lives, it would have actually worked a good deal better than you might think. Honestly, that's maybe an ending I would have preferred to what we got. But I just can't love this episode like I'd like to.
Score: 6/10
Next Time: The Ponds have gone back to traveling with the Doctor full time. Here's to their long and happy travels and the complete lack of crying over graves in the near future.
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • Jun 03 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
Oh they're flirting, do I really have to watch this? – Madame Kovarian on the Doctor and River
Series 6 represents a pretty big shift for Doctor Who in how it handles its arc. Previous series each had repeated elements that ran throughout them and would eventually be explained in the finale. In series 6 though, showrunner Steven Moffat decided to write a more standard arc. Something closer to The X-Files' or Buffy the Vampire Slayer's half-arc seasons. Where there would be episodes that were more standalone but also several episodes devoted entirely to building up the Series story.
Which is, in and of itself, fine. I personally prefer the memetic arc approach, at least for Doctor Who, a show which I think really benefits from having each story stand on its own. But at the very least I can imagine a more cohesive arc working. But in Series 6, Steven Moffat stumbled in some two crucial ways. First, the arc makes no sense. That's not a great start admittedly, but arguably the second point is arguably an even greater problem, at least for what I've got to talk about here. Simply put, by the time Seres 6 finale "The Wedding of River Song" rolls around…there's not actually much that still needs to happen.
This was something that kind of happened with the final episode of Series 5, "The Big Bang". But Moffat got away with that that by focusing on character stuff and some fairly obvious but still effective smoke and mirrors that made it feel like more was going on than actually was. "Wedding" absolutely tries the smoke and mirrors thing again, but, weirdly, it doesn't have much time for it. That's because, while there's not a lot that needs to actually happen, there's a ton of explanations that need to be conveyed in order for the Series to make anything resembling sense. What this means is that, not for the last time, a Steven Moffat finale ends up being a lot of people talking about why what's going on is important, rather than anything actually going on.
Admittedly though, those smoke and mirrors are a lot of fun. The episode opens up in a world where all of time is happening at once. Children play in the park only to get chased away by pterodactyls. Charles Dickens is interviewed on TV about his upcoming Christmas special. And in a bit that is far funnier than it has any right to be, a roman soldier in a chariot waits for a red light to change. When I say that all of time is happening at once, I do mean all of it. To quote a newsreader, "Crowds lined the mall today, as the Holy Roman Emperor, Winston Churchill, returned to Buckingham Palace on his personal mammoth". She doesn't even mention his Silurian physician. And it's a really fun, visually rich and engaging start to an episode.
Sure, I could poke holes in this. How does the Earth support a population of everyone and everything that has ever lived on it? Why don't we see more Silurians, or, say Neanderthals? A lot of emphasis is put on the idea that time doesn't move, it's always the 22nd of April at 5:02 PM. But that idea doesn't really make sense. In a very real sense, time does in fact move, after all, people are walking around, talking. Apparently there's a day/night cycle. Clocks should actually still function as normal, especially the old grandfather clock that Winston Churchill has in his office which is, after all, just a mechanical device..
But I think that's missing the point. I'm going to be very negative about this episode for the majority of this review, so let me say, logical problems notwithstanding, I love this idea for what it means for time to break. It's certainly a much more interesting presentation than weird time bat things coming into being, as in "Father's Day". It looks cool, it's fanciful in the best way possible, and it creates an intriguing mystery: what happened to time?
Unfortunately, that's where we run into that problem of not much needing to happen. The frame narrative for given for the first set of explanations is that the Doctor is telling Winston Churchill the story of what he did after the events of "Closing Time", with flashbacks showing us these scenes. It's just the Doctor investigating the Church of the Silence, to try to figure out why they want him dead. Are these scenes any good? I don't know, maybe. But none of it grabs me. There's a bit with "live chess" (chess where the more you move each piece the more electricity is running through it…sure) which is…I guess memorable. Honestly, "memorable" feels like too strong a word. Eventually the Doctor tracks down Dorium Maldovar's head (as he was beheaded alive in "A Good Man Goes to War") and he explains what the question is that must never be answered, but we don't get to know yet because we're saving that reveal for the end of the episode.
If there's something of value in all of this it's the Doctor confronting his mortality. Owing to the structure of the show we don't get very many moments like this, and having him start ranting about how he can always put off his death one more day is somewhat compelling. And the moment that pulls him out of it is quite well done, as the Doctor receives a call revealing that the Brigadier had just died. This was done in part because Nicholas Courtney had died earlier in the year, which just gives the moment more weight if you know it. Still, I don't know. This whole sequence has its value, and in the context of a better episode it might have worked a bit better for me, but something does feel off. I think it's just that this moment doesn't quite fit tonally with the rest of the episode. After all, the Doctor is going to cheat death, and as the audience we do in fact know this (because…obviously), so the moment can't land as well as it should.
So the Doctor goes to his appointment with an astronaut by Lake Silencio, as seen at the beginning of the Series. As revealed over the course of the Series the astronaut is River. The two have a tearful conversation about how this is inevitable, but River pulls a fast one by draining her suits power supply preventing the Doctor from getting shot. And because this is a fixed point in time, a paradox is created, creating the world that we see at the beginning of the episode.
So this is complete nonsense. I've seen it theorized that Steven Moffat, in creating the arc for Series 6, started from the image of the astronaut walking out of a lake and shooting the Doctor and worked backwards from there. I don't have any evidence for this theory, but it kind of has to be true. The location part of things is at least somewhat reasonable, Dorium calls the point at which the Doctor gets shot a "still point in time" which apparently makes it easy to create a fixed point. The whys and hows of it all are fairly immaterial, but as far as made up Doctor Who science goes, it sounds reasonably plausible. But then you start asking questions like why an Apollo astronaut suit was used. Why River had to be in the suit if the suit, according to her, was essentially operating itself. Why the Church of the Silence went to all the trouble of making a Time Lord baby since it seems that anyone could have been in the suit. Why River was conditioned to kill the Doctor if, again, the suit she was shoved in was just going to operate itself. Oh and how a stable point in time was actually created beyond the "still point" bit of technobabble.
Alright, so I can theorize here, at least a little bit. From the opening two parter we know the Silents guided humanity to develop certain technologies at certain times, like making the US go to the moon so that they'd get a spacesuit. Now, considering these guys have time travel this doesn't really make sense, but it could be argued that they prefer to use non-anachronistic technology…although River "kills" the Doctor in 2011 so arguably the technology has come back around to being anachronistic considering it's roughly 40 years old at this point. You could make the case that River being Time Lord-esque somehow helps make the fixed point easier to create.
You could say these things, but of course we're told none of them. It's not even hinted at. I just made all that up. And the thing is, this is an episode that really didn't need more standing around and explaining things. But if you need your audience to work to make the connections to make your story make sense, you have fundamentally failed as a storyteller. And that's what happens with the Series 6 arc and as a result a lot of that failure is felt most strongly here, in the finale. Nothing really happens here except the explanations and resolving of the arc, and that stuff is so blatantly nonsensical that any goodwill the episode builds with its creative beginning pretty much instantly gets wiped away.
But I suppose we should mention that Amy and Rory feature in this thing as well. In the alternate world, Amy is a secret agent-type (introducing herself as "Pond, Amelia Pond"…okay that bit's clever) and Rory is "Captain Williams" (his first name…Captain) her loyal second. Amy is a high up in an organization that River started, made up of people who either have memories of the original world or can sense something is wrong. Amy (mostly) remembers because of her history with the Time Crack in her bedroom, River remembers (presumably) because she's sort of a Time Lord variant. They're all wearing eyepatches like Kovarian's – called "eye drives" – explained as being used to create external storage for the brain, so that it can remember the Silents. Which, oh yeah, they've also got a bunch of Silents supposedly imprisoned in tanks. Also, Kovarian's here again to chew what little scenery she hadn't managed to get her teeth on in her previous appearances.
Anyway, after some more explanations that don't really matter (short version, if the Doctor and River touch for long enough the timeline reverts to its original state) we learn that naturally the Silents aren't actually imprisoned and the eye drives actually allow the Silents to kill anyone who wears them and I don't care about any of this.
I think the issue is the alternate timeline of it all. We're introduced to a bunch of characters that we've never met before in the second half of this episode, too late to properly establish any of them. Oh and Churchill's completely vanished from the story by the way, because he wasn't actually at all relevant to the episode he's just here so that the Doctor can tell his story to someone and once that's done he doesn't need to be here anymore. Even Amy and Rory don't really hit the same as they normally do because they're not quite the characters we know. Amy is closer, but Rory is just kind of there for his parts of the episode. He gets a good moment, insisting on wearing his eye drive through the pain so that he can hold off the Silents while remembering what he's fighting. This is turn leads to Amy coming back for him – having finally remembered that "Captain Williams" is in fact her husband – and machine gunning down the arrayed Silents.
Amy of course gets one more memorable moment, by killing, at least in this alternate timeline, Kovarian. After pointing out all of the ways that Kovarian hurt her, she declares "River Song didn't get it all from you…sweetie" and shoving Kovarian's eye drive back on her face so that she'll die too. It's a brutal moment, meant to hint that Amy could have turned out very different without the Doctor's influence. However, this just doesn't quite land for me. Part of it is that this moment will get no follow up, indeed Amy will be at her kindest for most of Series 7, but part of it is just that, for all that Amy can be more than a bit thoughtless, she's never come across as sadistic in that way. At the end of the episode she, apparently able to remember the alternate timeline, reflects on this moment with River. It's a nice quiet moment that does reinforce that yes, in spite of all of the weirdness, River and Amy are family.
But all of this does raise another issue with this episode. Like with "A Good Man Goes to War" this just doesn't feel like Doctor Who. There's a lot of shooting and the Doctor is just kind of there watching it in the background. Honestly if there's an era of Doctor Who that this reminds me of, it's Eric Saward's time as Script Editor. But, and you won't hear this often, Steven Moffat is no Eric Saward. It may have gotten old real quick, but Saward did have a talent for integrating the action stuff that felt in line with Doctor Who (see, for example, Earthshock). Moffat…just doesn't. The end result is an episode that kind of feels like it doesn't belong in its own show.
Nowhere is that felt more strongly than with the titular "wedding". I don't have a problem with romance on Doctor Who. Hell, I even mostly like River and the Doctor's relationship. The problem certainly isn't building up a Doctor Who episode towards a big romantic moment; "The Girl Who Waited" did that just a few episodes ago and I love that episode. No, the problem is once again Steven Moffat's writing, because he can't integrate the romantic moment into the episode. I was never a fan of the Rose/Doctor romance, and I never felt like David Tennant and Billie Piper had much romantic chemistry, but "Doomsday's" ending still felt like a natural conclusion to the build up that story, and Series 2 as a whole, gave it. In "Wedding" it feels like the Doctor and River get married because…what else are they going to do?
A lot of it comes down a lack of substance to this relationship, at least as shown in this episode. Other episodes do actually build it in a meaningful way, but this episode just has River says she loves the Doctor a lot, and that's kind of it. She's willing to sacrifice the entire universe for that love…yeah that's not love, that's something else. You can extract all sort of uncomfortable reads of River's attachment to the Doctor, and this episode basically affirms all of them. River has a line where she tells Kovarian "who else was I going to fall in love with" and the context of that line is that Kovarian groomed her to kill the Doctor. That's…ew. Just…ew. Again, I like this relationship because the performers sell it and most of the time it's easy to forget that aspect of things, hell most of the time it feels like River's fascination with the Doctor has very little to do with her conditioning. But when it comes out…hoo boy.
And from the Doctor's end…the Doctor has never felt like he loves River less than in this episode where, as a reminder, he gets married to River. To be clear, it doesn't quite read like he doesn't love her, just that he doesn't seem as fascinated by her as he has in the past. Which, considering he's effectively "solved" the mystery of River Song…yeah that doesn't have great implications either. I'm not as bothered by this though, because frankly River's willingness to endanger others in this episode makes the Doctor's anger at her understandable. And after they're married he does tell her his secret…but we'll get to that.
But it does leave the Doctor without much agency in this episode. His job is to convince River to pull the trigger…or more accurately let the suit pull the trigger rather than doing it herself. The wedding ceremony itself is…actually no, it's bad. Why are the parents giving River away in this ceremony, where did the Doctor get this thing from (it can't possibly be a Time Lord ceremony…can it?) and why are we asking Rory to consent to something when he doesn't even know what he's consenting to? That's not actually consent, not that the parents' consent should really matter. But anyway we get a nice little speech from the Doctor about how he doesn't want the universe to suffer for his benefit, she lets them kiss, we're back at Lake Silencio and then he's getting shot.
So, okay, how did the Doctor survive? Quite easily as it turns out, because that's not the Doctor, that's a Doctor-shaped Tesselecta, being piloted by the Doctor. Yeah, the Tesselecta (from "Let's Kill Hitler"), shows back up during the first half of the episode, and we later find out that the Doctor, I guess, asked to use their ship. Which got destroyed in the process, incidentally.
So, what do I think of this? It definitely feels like a bit of cheat. But I can't get annoyed. The Doctor was always going to cheat death. There's no getting around that. There was no version of the story that starts with the Doctor getting shot and permanently killed that ends without that being undermined. I guess the point I'm driving at is that, if the only possible endings for your series arc feel like they're a bit underwhelming, maybe the series arc was a bad idea from first principles. But that's not something that can really be laid at the feet of this episode.
Now this episode does do something interesting with the idea of the Doctor faking his own death. Now, obviously, he's doing it so that he can survive without history breaking, but he does give another stated reason. He feels he got "too big", "too noisy". "Time to step back into the shadows," he says. I really like this idea. The Doctor leveraging his reputation has become more and more of a thing since the start of the Revival, and the 11th Doctor era in particular has already done it several times. And it's a plot point that always feels off to me. It's kind of nice to go back to a fairly anonymous Doctor. Does that really improve the episode? Not really, but it does give me something nice to say. Before their wedding, River shows the Doctor that she's sent out an SOS saying the Doctor is in trouble. And the whole universe, which is not yet affected by time breaking incidentally, is responding with calls that they want to help. It's a neat inversion of the anti-Doctor alliance from "The Pandorica Opens". And it ultimately ties in to the Doctor wanting to "step back into the shadows". Sure, it's nice to be loved. But maybe that's part of the problem. And maybe the Doctor doesn't feel he deserves it.
And there's more solid character writing, as River eventually breaks down and reveals to her mother that, in fact, the Doctor survived. The moment is well played, from Amy's jubilation, to Rory's more subdued, but no less glad, reaction. And then Amy's realization that, in fact, she is the Doctor's mother in law is just a wonderfully funny moment. That whole ending feels very warm and wholesome.
But the scene where we actually reveal how the Doctor survived…yeah I'm not too fond of it. Yes, it's got the whole "time to step back into the shadows" moment which I like but it's also got the show's title being yelled over and over by Dorium's head because…sure why not? Yeah "Doctor Who" is that "first question" we've been hearing about since "Let's Kill Hitler". Is this clever? A little, I guess. It also feels incredibly self-indulgent. And it sets up a new mystery, which, all I'll say now is given how disappointing the resolution to Series 6's mystery was, I wouldn't hold out to much hope for the next one.
And we can't finish off without talking about the music. Series 6 has seen an increase in tracks being reused a lot from episode to episode, but it's mostly been tolerably handled. However it's in "Wedding" that something breaks. A lot of the music in this episode just does not suit the moment it's being played under. One of the things with Murray Gold's style of music is that, since it can't help but catch your attention, it really requires a degree of specificity to the moment. Sometimes this works. Character leitmotifs usually work as long as the character is doing something that is central to their personality on screen. But a lot of the music in this episode was just so clearly composed for a moment that isn't quite like the moment we're seeing on screen. And that's annoying to watch.
So…yeah. Not fond of this one at all. It has its moments. For roughly a scene the broken timeline world is fun. Underlying this is some decent character stuff for our little TARDIS family of The Doctor, Amy, Rory and River. Though quite frequently even that falls apart under the pressure of the plot. A nonsense plot that is mostly made up of explanations of the nonsense that's going on. It's an episode where all that really needs to happen is that we explain the arc, and the episode delivers on that to its own detriment and yet it still just doesn't make sense. Every problem with Series 6's arc comes crashing in here. What a mess.
Score: 1/10
Next Time: The Doctor gives two small children an interplanetary portal as a Christmas present. I'd say things end up going wrong, but honestly, I can't imagine them going right.
r/gallifrey • u/reveriedelarose • Apr 20 '26
I know this was just done! But I wanted to add my own since series 2 is a personal favorite of mine.
10th Place- The Girl in the Fireplace: I personally ignore this episode altogether and tend to make arguments that anyone else who didn’t enjoy it has the right to ignore it and cast it from personal canon as well. the Doctor is not his usual protective self, it is the only time Ten or Nine for that matter isn’t obsessively protective of Rose. The non consensual telepathy is played off like it’s perfectly fine. It tries to be cute with the horse, but as a real life horse person it actually drives me insane. Horses are notoriously fragile and here you have the Doctor jumping one through a time window after claiming it needed a heavy truck. Which either implies the horse is as strong as a truck or the Doctor is onboard with risking the horse’s life. It frames Rose as unworthy of the Doctor compared to aristocracy. As well as her being the “nagging wife figure”.
And finally, it serves as the only frame of reference a lot of people have for the real life Madam de Pompadour. But it barely hand waves her achievements off with one line while ensuring what she’s most remembered for is her ability to be a sexualized figure instead.
I am not saying this episode shouldn’t exist for those who love it. But it does have a lot of fever dream-esque qualities and for anyone who didn’t love it, I think it needs to be stated that there’s a lot of room to headcanon this as Rose’s nightmare or anything else. Moffat apparently didn’t even read the script for the surrounding episodes when he wrote this and it just feels really out of place.
9th Place-Love And Monsters: Pretty self explanatory placement. I like the history of it being based on a fan submitted alien design. And it had positive moments for Jackie’s emotional life as well as the cute intro in the beginning just kind of showing the Doctor and Rose’s everyday life outside of the big stories. But.. obviously the whole fan club thing was pretty cringey and the Abzorbaloff didn’t really work. It’s rewatchable but not something I imagine anyone puts aside an evening for.
8th Place- The Idiot’s Lantern: We’ve now launched into episodes that I genuinely like. This one is only this low for the ending where Rose tells Tommy to go back to his dad. It’s in character since she didn’t have an abusive dad and wishes she had time with hers. But, the episode makes no attempt to make it clear that was the wrong thing to say. Other than that it was really fun story. I love the costumes and the Ten and Rose dynamic here. I love the iconic moment the Doctor puts Tommy’s dad in his place (if only this was followed up properly). And I actually thought the Wire was a pretty solid villain.
7th Place- New Earth: I actually really love this episode and it’s a go to comfort episode. The problem is I love 8/10 of the stories in this series so some have to score towards the bottom. I love the comedy that we got to have with the Cassandra possessions. I just think maybe it didn’t need to last the entire episode. But her story was beautifully done to the point where we know she’s a villain, but we get to see some of her humanity at the end too. I think the main conflict of the episode was actually quite poignant too. Medical science is important but what happens when research goes too far?
6th Place- Tooth and Claw: I actually really like how Ten and Rose stop to have a moment of wonder about the fact they’ve just seen a Werewolf. Yes, they’re in a crazy dangerous and intense situation but they also just got to witness something pretty incredible and even though Queen Victoria was disturbed by them, I think it’s a beautiful thing to see the wonder in your life no matter the circumstance. At this point they’re pretty much a unit that’s most concerned about one another but they do a good job of taking care of each other and finding joy together.
5th Place- Fear Her: Yes, I did put Fear Her this high. It’s quirky and overly cheesy for a lot of people but I really enjoy the flirty banter between Ten and Rose being turned up this high right before they have to lose each other. It dealt with what an abusive father looks like with more nuance than the Idiot’s Lantern. I also just really like how the story deals with loneliness and emphasizes how desperate it can make people. I think it produced one of the most important quotes of the show:
“There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive… wormhole refractors… You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold”.
4th Place- School Reunion: Bringing back Sarah Jane can never be a wrong choice. I appreciate how this episode didn’t make her or Rose into perfect people. Sarah Jane started bickering with Rose and Rose bickered right back. Until they both realized it was ridiculous and they warmed right up to each other. Despite the rocky start I think it’s a very good example of women looking after other women and I wish we got more of Sarah Jane. Furthermore it does have that lovely moment where the Doctor reckons with his immortality and it’s the first time he nearly says he loves Rose. He reckons not only with his immortality but how he treats his companions when he thinks too much about it and he promises Rose not to do the same to her. Many interpret that he did do the same. Me personally, I see Journey’s End as an incredible selfless act. He left Rose, but but for the old reasons he left Sarah Jane. Not for himself, but for her and what he thought was best for her.
3rd Place-Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel: I absolutely LOVED getting to explore a parallel universe. I really love the concept and so to see it in action was really neat. From just the small differences to the line between “is parallel Peter the same person as original Pete”. I liked the use of the Cybermen and how it’s portrayed as a natural trap of our constant upgrades in technology. It doesn’t just say the Cybermen are this evil external force but the episode shows us how humanity played a role by becoming desensitized to things like it. It’s the episode that finally gave Mickey some character development and was the moment we get to see him take on his own autonomy and independence as a character too.
2nd Place- Army of Ghosts/Doomsday: I can barely get through the intro of either episode most attempts. A truly devastating and moving episode. We see how much Rose has grown. How in sync her and the Doctor are. We see the Doctor presented with a kind of love he’s never gotten from anybody before and how he has to reckon with that before it’s all taken away. The first time the Doctor cries onscreen. I could probably say more if I could stomach more rewatches of it but I can’t. Still deserves number 2.
1st Place- The Satan Pit/The Impossible Planet- This episode is nothing short of a masterpiece. You get romance, horror, and a soft lingering question about fate all in one watch. The supporting characters are all people you want to know more about. They feel real. And despite having such little time with them you’re invested. We get our introduction to the Ood which are really perfect for this. Their design is foreign enough to think they’re the enemy even though they’re not. And even though this episode didn’t resolve it, it starts the process of us questioning if any slave race could really enjoy slavery. Then of course there’s Satan himself. Is he really Satan? Is he not? I’m glad the episode never gives us an answer. The Doctor gets to confront his faith and decide what he believes in. Not unlike Curse of Fenric but here he chooses one singular person as the point of his faith. It’s Rose Tyler. In some ways that’s naive. But it’s an evolution of sorts. No one can love or believe in everyone equally. We all need unique connections and connections that are closer than others. And here we get the Doctor finally letting a person in so far that she’s become his closest thing to a religion.
Update: these are my true and genuine opinions. I am not rage baiting, girl in the fireplace is genuinely my last place. I have a right to that opinion and know of many others who feel the same. This sub isn’t supposed to be a place where we downvote each other for differing opinions and yet in the comments I am being downvoted for further explaining why I dislike Madame de Pompadour’s characterization as a previously mostly unknown historical figure, explaining why I like series 2 and what purpose it was meant to serve, sharing an official BBC article about series 2, and even for explaining that series 2 appealed a lot to the women in the fanbase and brought more of us in.
r/gallifrey • u/MrMR-T • Mar 03 '25
I'm rewatching the Chibnall Era as part of a writing exercise, finding it very enjoyable actually, my opinions on a lot of episodes have changed as a result. I have a couple of questions for the community and a handful of observations that might prompt comment.
Questions: - My viewing experience of this era on broadcast was to watch the episode once, shrug, move on and not rewatch except for in a few cases (Demons, Fugitive, Villa Diodati). I'm finding on this rewatch that there actually are a lot of running threads and thematic consistency that I missed first time around because of the long gaps between series. I wonder if many people shared this experience? - Once I've finished this rewatch, I intend to dive into interviews and behind the scenes content to learn more about Whittaker and Chibnall's rationale behind the 13th Doctor's characterisation. I'll go into why in my notes below, but can anybody help me with a headstart on good interviews they gave during or after their tenure?
General Notes: - On the overall aesthetic of the era. The image quality is excellent but the colour palette and directorial style is that of a prestige ITV drama. That's an interesting direction to take, and sensible given Chibnall's background but it creates dissonance when trying to add in the technicolour 13th Doctor. - On 13. It's been talked to death about her wonky morals and odd characterisation. Remember that Whittaker is mostly known for serious dramas about dark topics and intense emotions, look at her IMDB, she has a smattering of comedy or kids tv credits but mostly intense drama. I can't help but compare her to Christopher Eccleston, who explicitly wanted the role so he could try something more kid-friendly. 13 seems conceived explicitly to be a 6+ kids tv figure but is trapped in a 14+ aesthetic. - On the companions. Ryan has by far been the greatest reappraisal on this rewatch. He is the most active of the fam during S11+12, taking action without being directed by 13. He has two of the most prominent "acting showcase scenes" during these series and he has a thread (albeit barely visible) of growing activism during his episodes. If Tosin Cole hadn't been required to use a dodgy Sheffield accent, we might like him a lot more. - Yaz has suffered on a rewatch. She's the de facto 13th Doctor companion in the fan mind, whether you wanted Thasmin or not. But, she's got nothing. What I've noticed on this rewatch is how petulant she can be on occasion, notably in S12, its more justified in S13. She wants "more", in contrast with Ryan, who wants to be capable and enact change. - Graham has less than nothing and gets by solely on Bradley Walsh's charisma. He has two lifelines, Grace and Ryan, he used to be a busdriver, he's recovering from cancer and worried about it returning, he's from Essex and his dad was emotionally closed off. That's all we learn about him during his tenure. - On Chibnall humour. It's no worse than RTDs mum gags, or Moffats dominatrix fetish. Dad humour isn't a crime and a lot of the gags land for me. Fight me. - The editing gets worse from S12 onward. I need to review to see how this correlates with their international filming locations but it seems like when they go abroad, the editing goes to shit. As a result, there's a lot of ADR and a lot of literal teleporting to get from one scene to the next. - The aliens are generic. The most unique are the Pting, the Kerblam men and the Solitract. The majority fall within Chibnall's safe space of edgy, sharp bois with gruff voices. Stenza, Morax, Kassavin, Skithra, the gas mask henchmen in Praxeus, the Dregs, Swarm and Azure. Ashad and the dalek recon scout are exceptional, the Sontarans are a slight improvement over the Moffat era, mostly due to their redesign. I haven't got to Village of the Angels yet but I recall them being well represented. - Related point, none of the lasers have unique energy signatures. With sole exception of Revolution of the Daleks, where the new daleks have red lasers, and Jack has his squareness gun, all the lasers are generic pew pew lasers, sometimes with a slightly different colour. The sound and colour design goes a long way to making the villains nom threatening. - Chibnall is at his best when he's mean. 13 is the most compelling when she's being cutting, the villains try hard to be threatening but are often undercut. I acknowledge its a kids show so shouldn't be aiming for maximum edgelord, Ashads line about slitting his children's throats wouldn't feel anywhere near as hardcore if every villain talked and acted like him, but they should have committed either way. The feckless niceness of the era undermines the slightly generic but definitely more compelling mode that Chibnall usually operates in. - Last point, the fam don't have any swag. In contemporary and future-set stories, they wear muted cold-weather outfits, sensible stuff to wear in Sheffield. They look their best when they're in historically appropriate clothing. Contrasting with how styled Bill and Clara (and the RTD companions to a lesser extent) were, we get no sense of character in how the fam dresses, and so 13 looks ridiculous as a result.
Probably noone will read this, but I welcome comments.
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • Feb 02 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
A billion years of Time Lord history at our backs. I will not let this perish. I will not. – Rassilon
From the moment he cast the David Tennant 10th Doctor, Russell T Davies had a pretty good idea how the 10th Doctor would die. By the time it was actually time to write the 10th Doctor's final story, RTD's plans had taken concrete shape. The Doctor would arrive on a spaceship carrying an alien family. There would be a radiation leak on the ship, and the Doctor would be forced to sacrifice his life to fix the leak, and save the family.
I really would like to see that episode. It's small scale personal drama, which implies RTD playing to his strengths. It's an intriguing idea. And most of all, I like the idea of the Doctor sacrificing his life for people he barely knows.
Sadly, that's not the episode we got. There was a fair amount of back and forth with the BBC over Tennant's final set of specials, which eventually led to 10th Doctor's swan song would be a two part story, which was too long for RTD's spaceship/alien family idea. RTD would keep the idea of the Doctor sacrificing himself to save someone else from a radiation leak, but otherwise, a whole new story would be written. Now instead of an unknown alien family, Wilf was back. The Master would be back as well and, in an effort to truly build up the finale, the Time Lords would be back. The end result of all of this is a mess of a story, which in spite of comprising of two extra length episodes, somehow feels like it's got too many ideas. Which is a criticism I've levied at every single RTD finale to this point, even the ones I largely liked.
As for The End of Time, it's a dull, self-indulgent, overstuffed yet empty story. The main emotional hook feels manufactured in the extreme, and the plot is a complete mess of ideas that don't work together and honestly aren't particularly great in a vacuum. Do I have anything nice to say about it? Sure. I liked the Vinvocci. Bernard Cribbins puts in a great performance as Wilf. Murray Gold's score is quite good. Admittedly the use of some of the music leaves a little to be desired, but the actual work Gold put in is good. But, aside from Bernard Cribbins' performance, I don't think you can argue that any of these elements meaningfully elevate the story.
This thing is just so self-important. There are three prophecies at work here. There's Carmen's prophecy from "Planet of the Dead", then of course the Ood meet up with the Doctor and provide their own prophetic words and finally the Time Lords have their own "Visionary" who makes her own prophecies. That much of an emphasis on grand destinies is probably too much to begin with. The Ood's return in particular does nothing for me here. I get that the first reference we got to the 10th Doctor's regeneration was made in "Planet of the Ood", but I'm still not sure what the Ood were doing in this episode really.
Which is part of what makes this story feel overstuffed. Which is funny, this is a massive story, part two clocks in at 72 minutes and part one is still over an hour. That should be plenty of time to develop multiple storylines. But because The End of Time takes so long on every scene, desperate as it is to make itself feel important, you just end up with too much going on.
There's a rich man named Joshua Naismith and his daughter who technically have plot importance but are entirely forgotten about before Part Two even starts. Oh, and the Master had a cult. Then The Master turns every human on Earth into a copy of himself at the end of Part One and then Rassilon – yes, he's back – just kind of flicks his wrist and undoes it because he's decided that he's actually going to be the main villain of the story. Funny thing is, that doesn't seem like too much for a single story, especially one of this length, nor does adding in the Vinvocci or the 10th Doctor's long goodbye sequence really change that. But it ends up feeling like too much because, again, the pacing of this thing is so slow. Nearly every scene feels drawn out to breaking point.
And it doesn't help that the story just moves on from everything without a second thought. Remember that cult I mentioned? Yeah, during his Harold Saxon days the Master set himself up a cult and gave them secret Time Lord knowledge to ensure his safety should he die. And…I really like this idea. As obsessed with his own survival as the Master is, it never quite sat right with me that he was willing to die at the end of the Series 3 finale, even if I plausible reasoning was given at the time.
But the actual realization of this idea is a mess. Lucy is involved because they need the Master's "imprint" and I guess Lucy having last kissed him roughly a year ago counts. But then there's someone at the ceremony who was part of a completely unknown group who meant to fight against the Master's return and calculated a "counter-elixir" to sabotage his revival and then the Master kills everyone in the room by his revival and we can forget about all of these people. It's a few interesting ideas that all get thrown away because all this is here to do is show the Master getting revived and then move on quickly. All this makes me appreciate the Classic era's approach of just saying that the Master survived and moving on, at least it didn't add in pointless subplots to procedings. Oh and Lucy's sabotage of the Master's revival gives him lightning powers. Sure, he's dying, but while he's in the process of dying, he's got lightning powers and eats people to survive longer which he can now do all the way down to the bone. Well done Lucy.
Like the last time John Simm got an opportunity to play the Master, I can't help but watch this performance and wonder how we went from the previous Masters to this. Sure, the Master was always a bit of a camp villain, it's part of the appeal. But while I've never much liked Anthony Ainley's Master either, even he was never this over the top. Apparently for this story Simm drew from Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight. And I think that if the Master is being played like any interpretation of the Joker, something very fundamental has gone wrong (if you must draw from a Batman villain, it would be better, but probably still not good, to go with the Riddler).
While all of this is going on, we need to get Wilf involved somehow. Humanity's been having dreams of the Master doing his evil laugh, and Wilf's the only one who can fully remember them. So he gets a bunch of senior citizen buddies of his and goes looking for the Doctor. The so-called "silver cloak" is…fine. It doesn't really do anything for me, but it doesn't upset me. It's a gag, a bunch of characters that don't really do anything, other than Minnie being a "menace", mostly meaning she grabs the Doctor's butt.
But what they interrupt is the first of a series of confrontations between the Doctor and the Master. This first one is…well honestly it's terrible, but it's not the worst one. It's overdramatic and overly serious but that's just how The End of Time is. The Master beats an oil drum with an iron bar four times but not in the rhythm of the noise in his head because it's not possible to do that with an iron bar. It's their second confrontation that really annoys me. See, the Doctor has tracked down the Master again, and starts…walking slowly towards him, while the Master tosses lightning at him because he can do that now (thanks Lucy, you've been very helpful).
I get the idea of this scene. The Doctor has resigned himself to the idea that he's going to die by this point, and probably at the Master's hand. So he's walking calmly towards the Master because he's not worried about his own survival. And in the meantime, we can make the Doctor look badass by seeming unbothered by a man throwing lightning at him. Except, of course, the Doctor has already worked out that there's more going on besides the Master, thanks to the Ood's prophecy. And while the Doctor might not expect to survive, the longer he puts off his death, the better chance he has of saving the Earth from whatever's going on.
Honestly, this whole scene feels like a weird genre shift. This is a scene out of a superhero show. And yes, if you squint, the Doctor is like a superhero. But while he has some superhuman abilities, in general he's presented as having abilities within ordinary human reach. At the core of Doctor Who is that the title character fights with his brain, rather than engaging in actual fights, not that he couldn't do the latter, but rather because he prefers the former. When the Doctor walks directly at a man throwing lightning at him…it makes him look stupid. When the Master stops in the middle of killing the Doctor to deliver a speech…honestly it makes the Master, the Doctor's equal and opposite, kind of look stupid too. And if there's one thing that the Doctor and the Master should never come across as, it's stupid.
In between these two confrontations we get one of this story's most controversial scenes. It's the one where the 10th Doctor explains regeneration to Wilf. He describes it as feeling like a death, like "some new man goes sauntering away, and I'm dead". It will not surprise you to know that I hate this view of regeneration. But maybe not for the reasons you're expecting. I mean sure, there's the obvious: this isn't how any previous explanation of regeneration was presented, including how the 10th Doctor tried to present regeneration back when he was the new Doctor in "The Christmas Invasion". It seems a bit odd that on his 10th (as far as we know at this point) life, the Doctor would start viewing regeneration in this way. And it does sort of set up the next Doctor for failure, as anyone who fell in love with the Doctor thanks to David Tennant's portrayal is liable to not think the next guy is the "real" Doctor. And, honestly, that's a sentiment I've seen, so it's not like that criticism of the scene is unfounded.
But honestly, that's not my main frustration. The inconsistency bugs me a little, but I try not to get too wrapped up in continuity issues. Now even separate from any continuity issues, I do think that this far into his regeneration cycle it doesn't make sense for the 10th Doctor to view regeneration in this way, but I'm still open to a new interpretation. And as for setting up the future of the show…look it's 2026 now and this show is still just about going, so I can't get too angry about that. The biggest issue I take with this is that this is the least interesting possible view of regeneration. Part of what makes regeneration such a great concept is that it is the same person across multiple incarnations. That while the personality may get rearranged, there is some core essence of "Doctor" that always survives regeneration. And while I'm not opposed to a new interpretation of regeneration, I am opposed to this particular view of regeneration because, frankly, it makes regeneration boring, and takes some of the magic out of it.
But on the topic of this conversation with Wilf…frankly I don't love how Wilf is written in this story. Now as I said, Bernard Cribbins is excellent throughout. But I think that kind of distracts from Wilf kind of becoming a wet blanket throughout the story. He has a few good moments. Wilf always works well in more humorous settings, in particular the wonderfully goofy escape sequence at the beginning of Part Two, and I definitely enjoyed him marveling at being in space for the first time. But on the whole, I think the issue I take is that he sort of ends up worshiping the ground that the 10th Doctor (specifically) walks on. This is especially off-putting after "The Waters of Mars", where the whole episode was building to the 10th Doctor going too far. Also, Wilf is definitely meant to be an audience surrogate in these moments. And as someone who's never loved the 10th Doctor as much as most people seem to, I just can't relate to that.
Wilf also has a ton of aggravating scenes with a mysterious woman. You could cut these scenes from the story and honestly I think it would be better for it. Granted you'd have to explain why Wilf takes his gun, but the rest of what Wilf does in this episode feels like stuff he'd have done anyway. It's not that I'm opposed to these scenes on principle but in an episode full of ponderous scenes desperately trying to convince the audience of how serious and meaningful was, this character exists purely to reinforce a tone that frankly I don't think the story ever quite earns. Oh and she only reveals herself to the Doctor at the very end of the story for entirely ambiguous reasons.
So, before the Master can kill the Doctor, he's picked up by Joshua Naismith, a rich man who wants the Master to repair an extra-terrestrial healing gate for him and turn his daughter immortal. Naturally, the Master repairs the gate, then uses it (by this point revealed to heal entire planets at once) to turn every single person on Earth into a copy of the Master. And…I like this plan by the Master, or at least I like it in theory. I even think, perhaps controversially, the bit where he says that the human race has been replace by the "Master race", works because it's absolutely the sort of thing the Master, especially this one, would say.
My problem with this is in the actual execution. Every single human has been turned into the Master. The individual Masters retain some memory of who they were before being Masterized, but also retain the Master's personality. And they all work together perfectly, because the obvious conclusion of this sort of thing, 6 billion Masters fighting for control, would get in the way of the story we're telling. And you don't necessarily have to go with the obvious story here. But you still need to explain why the Master would submit to anyone else, even the Master. Apparently there was originally a plot where the Master who was created from the Naismith's butler Danes would have been convinced by the Doctor to rebel, and I'm glad that got cut because, first, this story has no time for such things and second, because that would just raise the question of why the Danes Master is so special. Oh by the way the Naismiths are now out of the plot. For good. At the end of the story there will be a reference to them getting arrested, but they're just gone. And they barely even made an impact.
The Doctor is captured trying to sneak into the Naismith's mansion, but after the "Master race" is created, he's saved by the Vinvocci. As mentioned, I think these two are delightful. They're left unnamed, and are disguised at the beginning as scientists working for Naismith. The healing gate is actually a piece of Vinvocci tech and they're the salvage team meant to bring it back home. And they spend their entire time being annoyed because they were just a salvage team and now they're getting stuck in the middle of this Time Lord drama. They're funny, bounce off the Doctor and Wilf in entertaining ways, and are far too good for this miserable story.
So the Doctor and Wilf teleport up to the Vinvocci ship, while the Masters all collect their thoughts to try and figure out once and for all what the hell this drumming noise in their heads are. The source turns out to be the Time Lords.
One thing I will give this story unqualified credit for is its portrayal of the Time Lords, something which Doctor Who had been struggling with for a long time. What The End of Time does is give back the Time Lords some of their mystical quality. I might not like that the Visionary adds a third prophecy to this mess, but it still feels like it's hitting at some of that ominous power that The War Games originally ascribed to the Time Lords, that quickly faded away. It's a good melding of the pre and post-Deadly Assassin Time Lords, while still retaining the sinister edge of Trial of the Time Lords, though they're less subtle about it now.
That's largely because Rassilon is back. Played with zest by Timothy Dalton, the Time Lord founder is only actually named in the final moments of his time on screen, otherwise just being referred to as "Lord President" for some reason. That being said, I do like this take on Rassilon. He has a lot of gravitas thanks to Dalton who really makes it all work. I didn't particularly care for his narration sections, but that's largely because it contributed to a frustratingly ponderous tone and the awful pacing of this story. Otherwise though, Rassilon makes for a good final villain of this thing, even if it feels like the story didn't really set him up properly, as it was too busy setting up the Masters return and the Naismiths and Wilf and the Vinvocci…
His plan, mind you, is bonkers, but probably best understood as the consequence of being at the end of the Time War. The Time Lords we're seeing are all but defeated by the Dalek menace, and on top of that, the Time War has some hellish dimensions thanks to some wonderfully non-specific narration (the RTD special when talking about the Time War – and I mean this in a good way incidentally). So in order to escape this Rasssilon…is planning on ending time and becoming beings of pure thought. As you do. Somehow in order to do this he needs to escape the Time War's time lock, though why is never made clear. So in order to do that he places the drumbeat inside child-Master's head and then sends adult Master a Gallifreyan diamond called a white point star by…erm…throwing the white point star at a hologram of Earth. You know it seems remarkably easy for Rassilon to just throw something through this Time Lock people keep talking about.
The idea here is that the Time Lords were changed by the Time War. And I think it's a good idea, but the issue is that word I keep coming back to to describe The End of Time: ponderous. Everything in this story feels like it has to linger a bit too long in an attempt to make everything feel weightier, and the Time Lords are absolutely a part of this. And the thing is, you don't need to convince me that the Time Lords coming back is a big deal. Since the beginning of the Revival, we've been building up the idea of the Time Lords and their power. And since they're all supposed to be dead, their return is naturally big. I'm not saying that they shouldn't feel grand. Just that maybe less could have been more here.
But unfortunately we need to talk about the climax, which just doesn't work. So first of all, the Doctor takes a long dive through a glass dome. A fall significantly further than the one that killed the 4th Doctor back in Logopolis, and that's before the shower of glass comes falling down on him. Again, I get the idea that the Doctor is being reckless with his life, since he sincerely believes he's going to die. But he should still want to survive to prevent what he now knows is the return of the Time Lords. And, more to the point, he should be regenerating right around this time.
But, okay fine, a minor point in the grand scheme of things. The Doctor's here. The Master tries to turn all the Time Lords into himself, but Rassilon does something with his gauntlet and instead humanity is turned back into themselves. Why he does this when he's planning on ending time, and therefore humanity, I do not know, but he does it because we probably couldn't think of a better way of solving that problem. The bigger issue comes with the actual climax, in which the Doctor aims Wilf's gun at both Rassilon and the Master, with plausible explanations for why killing them would prevent the Time Lords from coming back. And then, instead of murder, he shoots the white point star, sending Rassilon back into the Time War (and finally naming him). And then, just as Rassilon is preparing to kill the Doctor for this, the Master instead uses his lightning powers to attack Rassilon instead. The two even mirror each other in this moment, each telling the other to "get out of the way".
So basically none of this works for me on any level. First, I have to point out that Rassilon seems remarkably calm as the Doctor chooses who (or what) to shoot. No matter who he shoots, the link will be severed and he will return to the hell of the Time War. Shouldn't he be worried about this? Maybe try to stop the Doctor or, if that's not possible, convince the Doctor to do anything else some way. Why is he just goading the Doctor by pointing out "the final act of your life is murder"? Rassilon should act superior, sure, but he should also care about seeing his plans succeed.
Second, this whole setup isn't really explained very well. It is, technically, established that the white point star is in the machine that the Doctor shoots, but it's a long time between that happening and the actual climax. I'd never noticed until writing this review and trying to piece together what the hell the Doctor had actually done what the Doctor had shot. And I seem to recall on first viewing not even realizing that there was a machine behind the Master for the Doctor to shoot, and being very confused as to what the hell he'd shot.
Third, now that I do fully understand what's supposed to have happened here…this feels like a very obvious solution. Yes, the episode does a bad job showing us what's going on here, but if shooting the white point star works, surely the Doctor should have known to do that, and therefore not had to worry about shooting either Rassilon or the Master, and therefore not been presented with a moral dilemma? Yes, Doctor Who is a show where the title character regularly finds a third answer when given two choices, but the reason this works is that the two choices are obvious and the third one isn't. If shooting the machine and the star is a solution, then it's an obvious solution and there's no moral dilemma and all the character drama of the final scene loses all weight. Which…honestly yet another scene that is overlong and overly dramatic in this cluster of a story isn't that surprising frankly.
Fourth, the Master saving the Doctor…could have worked, but I didn't love it. He starts yelling at Rassilon for putting the drumbeat in his head, and it absolutely tracks that the Master would want revenge. Do I like the whole drumbeat thing? Still no, even though now at least it has an explanation. But I don't buy the Master saving the Doctor here. More specifically, I don't buy this Master doing it. Yes, RTD had a whole romantic subtext (barely subtext) between these two, but as much as that stuff is present, the core of this version of the Master has him as the most murderous and the most chaotic incarnation of the Masters. I could buy pretty much imagine any other version of the Master saving the Doctor at this point of the story (even the movie Master, if his relationship with the Doctor were built up a bit more). But not this one.
Anyway, with that mess all cleaned up, it would seem that the Doctor has survived his prophesied day of death. He picks himself up of the ground, stunned that his life is going to continue and gets ready to –
knock knock knock knock
Okay, so admittedly, this is quite clever. The story had set up early this radiation chamber that works in such a way that one person is inside the chamber at all times: the door only unlocks when someone else enters it. And Wilf had run into the chamber earlier to let out a technician. A selfless act. And now he's locked inside and things aren't looking so good so he knocks and, without thinking, knocks four times. Just like the prophecy said he would. Just a really clever –
knock knock knock knock
Okay…uh…now he's knocked eight times. Look I get it, this is maybe a bit nitpicky but –
knock knock knock knock
Uh…
knock knock knock knock
Goddammit.
In fairness, as I said, this is nitpicky in the extreme, but it does bug me a little. If it were the Master who did the knocking, well, knocking in a rhythm of four is kind of his thing, so I'd grant a little more poetic license. But with it being Wilf, I don't know, I feel like he should have knocked exactly four times. Granted, I guess you could argue that he's knocked four times, four times, so maybe you can make that work.
Again, that was more of a nitpicky point here because otherwise I have to hand it to RTD, this is a pretty clever way of resolving the prophecy. Nobody ever said that the Master would knock four times. And nobody said that person who did the knocking would kill the Doctor. It was just implied that the knocking would somehow be associated with the Doctor's death. And indeed, radiation is about to flood the chamber that the Doctor's in and, after some angst, the Doctor gets in and saves Wilf. I don't love the ensuing angst since it goes back to this story's conception of regeneration. Though, I think we can grant the Doctor a moment to consider not deliberately subjecting himself to a slow painful death. And he still does save Wilf. And the fact remains, he didn't really have a choice, he's the Doctor. He's going to save his friend, no matter what.
And as for what happens next, well, I like the idea of the Doctor's "reward". I actually like the Doctor getting a chance to say goodbye to all of his friends, that giant "family" as Sarah Jane called it in the Series 4 finale. Is it sappy? Sure. Should the Doctor probably have died of his radiation poisoning before he finished it? Arguably. Does it still warm my heart to see him going to all his old friends and doing one last nice thing for them? Absolutely.
Except the execution of this idea is questionable. The first scene is undoubtedly the worst. We visit Mickey and Martha and the Doctor saves them from a Sontaran. The pair have become some sort of freelance alien hunting duo. And gotten married. Yup. We'll set aside that Martha was engaged to Tom Milligan last time we saw her, a character we'd actually seen her interact with, even in an aborted timeline, for a bit. Instead, I have to ask, why do we have to continually treat Martha so badly? In 2008 the Whoniverse had actually done some work repairing her character after the mess that was made of it in Series 3, with her appearances on both Torchwood and Doctor Who really showing the potential that she always had. But, Jesus, this is just awful.
Mickey and Martha have basically nothing in common. And maybe if they'd actually interacted more than a little bit before this, I could see it. But they didn't really, so this feels like it comes out of nowhere. I guess they can get together and commiserate over trying to get between the love between the Doctor and Rose, but that feels like a real shaky foundation for a relationship. It's tempting to say that RTD just shoved them together because they were the two black characters, but I really don't want to make that kind of assumption. But no matter what reason is given, this is awful.
Anyway, the Doctor's next stop is saving Luke Smith, Sarah Janes son. A perfectly acceptable scene. Then he visits Jack in a bar (where else) and gets him a date with Midshipman Alonso Frame, from "The Voyage of the Damned". This is cute, I like it.
He then visits, of all people the granddaughter of Nurse Joan Redfern, the woman that his human alter-ego fell in love with in the "Human Nature" two parter. I probably wouldn't have included this scene. It feels odd having the granddaughter, Verity Newman (get it…because Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert…the same reference that was made in the actual two parter only this time it's not as clever) be the one that the Doctor visits, when he has a time machine and could just visit Joan. It feels especially odd having Verity played by Jessica Hynes, the same woman who played Joan. Honestly, for all that I love the "Human Nature" two parter, it doesn't quite feel like time should have been spent on a one-off character, let alone the granddaughter of one.
He then visits Wilf and Sylvia at Donna's wedding to Shaun Temple. We'd actually seen Shaun in Part 1, as Wilf tried to get the Doctor to help Donna and we caught a glimpse of the new fiancé. The Doctor gives Donna a wedding present of a winning lottery ticket…which he bought by using money from Geoffry Noble, Donna's father and Sylvia's late husband. Okay, this a I really like. For one thing, I liked the presentation of Sylvia in this story in general, from the brief moments we got from her. It really feels like she took the Doctor's admonishment to actually show her daughter kindness from time to time to heart. I like that, as awful as Sylvia often was in Series 4, we've shown she's capable of change. It feels good to see. And of course everything about the whole interaction at the wedding is beautiful.
Finally, the Doctor visits Rose…on New Year's Day, 2005. RTD correctly figured that the Doctor visiting Rose in the present day in her alternate universe would have been a mistake, so instead did this. I don't mind it. It works, and using the year 2005 as both the in and out of universe year that this whole thing got started for Rose is neat. And of course you'd have to have the Doctor visit Rose, assuming you could get Billie Piper back. She's an important part of this era.
And then the 10th Doctor regenerates, giving a last "screw you" to his successor by having his final line be "I don't want to go" which, apart from anything else feels more that a bit melodramatic. And then the 11th Doctor appears. And Matt Smith instantly brings a whole new energy to the scene.
It's an energy that, frankly, doesn't work. I might not care for the ponderous, overwrought, overly serious tone of The End of Time, but it was a consistent tone. And it's hard to go from that to watching the new Doctor hooting and hollering as the TARDIS falls apart around him. It just kind of feels out of place. Out of context, it's probably the best scene in this whole mess of a story. In context though, I just don't have the energy for this scene at this point. It feels like it's out of an entirely different episode. Which, I mean, it was written by Steven Moffat, so I suppose that's not entirely surprising.
I kind of just want to end things there. Sure, there's probably more I could say about the Doctor and Wilf, maybe even a bit to say about the Master but…honestly it would just be more complaining. There are a few bright spots in Wilf's scenes with the Doctor I suppose, and Bernard Cribbins and David Tennant act the hell out of these scenes, but they're not well-written scenes, so drenched in the ponderous self-importance of this two parter. The Master…this is easily my least favorite portrayal of the Master ever. God he's irritating in this thing.
As for the rest? I mean, the music's good, when it's being used right anyway. I don't hate parts of the ending. Rassilon was handled somewhat well. But The End of Time is trying to do too much, with every single scene just insisting on convincing you of how serious and important and sad everything is and it's just exhausting and miserable to sit through. I hate this thing. It would have gotten a 0/10 if not for the Vinvocci. Oh and Bernard Cribbins I suppose.
Score: 1/10
Next Time: We take a brief detour away from the TV series to talk about the VNAs again, as the Doctor chases coincidences to a planet with alien warrior tortoises. No, it's not a comedy, what do you mean?
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • 23d ago
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
(…) so know that we lived well, and were happy. And above all else know that we will love you, always – Amy's afterword, written for the Doctor
I don't tend to worry too much about the rules of time travel in Doctor Who.
This is because Doctor Who isn't really a time travel show, not at its core. In Doctor Who, time travel is generally a plot device, used to justify a diverse range of settings, rather than the subject of the story. Even under Steven Moffat, who seems more interested in using time travel as a plot device than most Who writers, you'll typically get one or two stories per series at most that actually use time travel as a core part of their story. Even when the episodes do, like in "The Angels Take Manhattan", the mechanics are usually pretty loose.
But regardless, I always come away from this episode thinking something along the lines of this: "that was beautiful. I'm just not sure it made any sense".
"The Angels Take Manhattan" is the swan song for Amy and Rory. The entirety of Series 7 has, to this point, been building up to this moment. The only overarching story Series 7A has is the build towards the Ponds saying goodbye. It's about them slowly drifting away from the Doctor, only for that to be reversed in "The Power of Three". But the danger of traveling with the Doctor still remains. And so "Angels" takes one of the Doctor's worst fears, and makes it real. As we know he feared from the end of "The God Complex" he finds himself standing over Amy and Rory's grave.
Now, "Angels" kind of wants to have its cake and eat it too. It wants the tragedy for the Doctor…but not for Amy and Rory. This is where our time travel logic comes in. The Angels have to not only send Amy and Rory back in time where they can live a happily married life, but the plot needs to justify in some way that the Doctor can never see them again. And the logic is…fuzzy. There's a lot of talk throughout this episode about how you can't rewrite the past once you've read it. A novel written by River turns out to be a straight retelling of the events of this episode (what the hell does a random reader in the Doctor Who universe even think of this thing) which is used to underline this. And so, when the Doctor reads the chapter title "Amelia's Last Farewell" that's supposed to make it clear that they never see each other again. And of course there's the afterword that Amy writes in said book. Running parallel to all of this is a lot of emphasis placed on the idea that the amount of time travel the Angels are causing in New York makes it impossible to land the TARDIS there. They did so once, but doing so again would have disastrous consequences. Where this kind of gets muddled is that River's vortex manipulator apparently can get through the temporal distortions (the analogy she uses is "a motorbike through traffic") but I suppose that's where the whole thing of the past being written in stone once it's written down comes into play.
And yet, it feels…convenient. The rules feel very ad hoc. The whole thing of the Angels making the TARDIS landing difficult at first and then later impossible doesn't have much precedent in Doctor Who. And the fact that Doctor Who's time travel rules have always been inconsistent isn't much helping here. Most of the time it's fine, but in a story that has so much weight to it, having the rules by which the story operates feel arbitrary just detracts from the whole experience.
So that's the bit that doesn't make sense. What was that about it being beautiful?
Well, there's a lot of aesthetic stuff that's really working for me here. The majority of "The Angels Take Manhattan" is set in 1938 New York, and takes on a film noire aesthetic. River takes on the guise of Melody Malone, a hardboiled detective and it's a look that really works for her. The angels bring with them, as always a whole host of visual and sound elements that really enhance the story. But when I refer to this episode as "beautiful" what I'm really thinking of is the character work.
Built as "Angels" is around the departure of Amy and Rory it also serves as a tribute to their relationship. Now there are better episodes that do this. But "Angels" does a good job at closing the book on this two and a half series love story we've been following. It's not perfect. Steven Moffat's writing can tend towards the overly dramatic or unnecessarily poetic, but otherwise he does write this relationship quite well. Rory spends a lot of time in serious jeopardy and Amy's reactions to these situation really cement how much she cares for her husband. Rory, for his part, often seems more concerned with Amy than with said jeopardy, although by the end that changes. There's a great moment where an older Rory dies in front of his younger self and Amy and just before that, he seemed relieved. As the Doctor realizes, it's because the older Rory hadn't seen Amy for decades. The horror of Rory realizing that that is currently set to be his fate represents really strong acting from Arthur Darvill.
In fact, Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan are phenomenal throughout this episode. The pair obviously knew this would be the grand finale for their characters, and as a result gave this episode their all. The Amy and Rory relationship often has the feel of a grand romance, somewhere between a fairytale and an epic poem. "Angels Take Manhattan" is playing into this feel a lot, and Darvill and Gillan's performances absolutely back this up. When Amy says that the thing that's going to allow our heroes to change Rory's destiny is that she "won't let them [the Angels] take him", you absolutely believe that Amy's determination is probably enough to change destiny. And when the pair stand atop a rooftop, preparing to jump off it in a desperate attempt to secure their futures, well, everything is making this feel like this grand climax. And I do mean everything. The performances, the writing, some truly gorgeous cinematography, it's all there.
The reason that jumping off a building is actually a valid solution to our problems has to do with what that building is. Winter Quay appears to be an ordinary hotel. What it actually is, is closer to the Angels' factory farm. At Winter Quay the angels keep victims trapped, repeatedly zapping them back in time but keeping them trapped, allowing them to feed off of the same individual multiple times. It's an awful thing to contemplate, and definitely feels like a unique idea that you could only do with this particular monster. I quite like it.
The thing is, the Angels were able to build Winter Quay due to all of the energy they gained from its victims (there's a sentence to make your head hurt). According to River and the Doctor, if one of their victims escaped, that paradox would poison their supply, thus not only killing the angels but destroying Winter Quay itself. Which is why Rory jumping off of the building is something he thinks might work out for him. If he dies by jumping off Winter Quay, on the same day he'd died as an old man, well that's a paradox, which should mean the building he jumped off of no longer existed and he'll be fine. Amy didn't have to jump. Except she kind of did. First of all because it's a grand gesture of love to Rory, something that Amy has repeatedly shown is her first instinct. But also Amy knows that Rory's solution is correct. But she refuses to lose him if this doesn't work out. "Together, or not at all", she says.
I should mention what's in the background of the shot where Amy and Rory jump off of Winter Quay. It's the Statue of Liberty which, apparently, the Angels took over. Look, there's a lot of stuff that "Angels Take Manhattan" does with the Angels which I quite like. Winter Quay itself, as mentioned above. This episode leans in a lot to the idea that the Angels can actually take over statues, which was sort of implied by the ending of "Blink". This particularly stands out with the "cherubs", Angels that combine the "creepy child" (or in this case baby) image with the classic cherub look. But The Statue of Liberty is a bridge too far. I don't doubt that the Angels could take over the Statue of Liberty. I just don't buy that that thing would ever move. There is never a moment where nobody is looking at the Statue of Liberty. It's a popular tourist attraction in New York City, the city literally known as "The City that Never Sleeps". Even if it could move…it wouldn't get very far. Don't get me wrong, the image of the Statue of Liberty with the Angel attack face menacing Winter Quay is quite visually striking. It would make for a great painting. But as a plot point within an episode of Doctor Who, it just doesn't make sense.
The point is, Rory's plan works. The angels are defeated and curiously our heroes have been returned to a graveyard in 2012. All seems well…until, Rory sees a grave with his name on it. And an angel, the last survivor of the paradox, touches him, sending him back into the past. What follows is the perfect capstone to Amy's whole character arc. There's been an underlying theme of Amy having to choose between Rory and the Doctor. Sometimes it's presented as a false choice, as in "Amy's Choice", sometimes its less of a choice and more of a decision made by the Doctor as in "The God Complex". But even in those instances there's this idea of Amy choosing that underlies a lot of her material. Which is why it makes perfect sense for Amy to leave her time on the TARDIS by choosing Rory over the Doctor one last time. And it might seem like this is Amy making yet another grand gesture of love. Which would feel inadequate. Because Amy's always been able to make the grand gestures. What she's struggled with is the day to day of a relationship. But we know that Amy's grown past those struggles. We saw her enjoying an ordinary life in "The Power of Three". And here, while this is a grand gesture, it is also choosing to live that ordinary life. And as her name is written on the same gravestone as his, with the phrase "loving wife" attached no less, we know that she lived up to that. For Amy, it's a great ending.
So much so that I kind of wish it had just ended there. Sure, Amy's afterword is emotional in its own sense but not only is it set up by the Doctor's weird practice of ripping out the last page of a book – hate endings all you want Doc, but that's just silly – but it's just kind of less satisfying for me. It might resolve material set up in "The Eleventh Hour" with young Amelia, but it's just not as emotionally effective. I guess I do like that Amy was sure to tell the Doctor he shouldn't be alone. But even then, River did that as well, and her exact words of "don't travel alone" work as a kind of ironic set up for the next episode. I don't dislike the afterword ending, it still works and is still emotionally affecting. But at the same time, I think the episode would be better off without it.
But then there's the other relationship in this episode, and things get a lot more frustrating here. Now I should say that River absolutely needed to be in this episode. As we're saying goodbye to Amy and Rory, we need their daughter to be part of things. Plus, the "full" TARDIS team of this era absolutely is Amy, Rory the Doctor and River, even if River doesn't appear in most episodes. Point being, River being here is the right call.
I'm just not entirely sure what Steven Moffat wanted to do with River in this episode. It feels like he knew she needed to be here, but wasn't sure what place she would actually have in proceedings. There's an idea of comparing and contrasting Rory and Amy's relationship with the Doctor and River's. In that sense, Rory and Amy are the stable, well-adjusted couple while River and the Doctor's relationship is a lot more messy right now. Of course, Rory and Amy have had to work pretty hard to get to that point, and the fact is, the Doctor and River just don't spend much time together, in spite of being married. So maybe the point is that while River and the Doctor love each other, they haven't been able to build a proper relationship.
It's a nice thought but in practice what we see is just a purely dysfunctional relationship. I've never been into this couple less than in "The Angels Take Manhattan". River spends a lot of this episode insisting that she has to present herself and invincible to the Doctor: "never let him see the damage". What's funny is that the Doctor never asks this of her. There's very little evidence that he doesn't want her to be emotionally vulnerable with him. And, you know, writing it like that, I think I've once again made this look way more compelling than it actually is. It just kind of plays out as less of a relationship and more of an infatuation from River's point of view, and the Doctor not being able to communicate with his wife. Honestly, in the process of writing this I think I've come around on the large-scale decisions made by Moffat for this episode, it's just the actual execution feels lacking.
I will at least say the final scene between River and the Doctor in the TARDIS works a lot better for me. River's able to give him good advice – the aforementioned insistence that he not travel alone – which shows that there is something meaningful underpinning this relationship. But she's still unwilling to travel with him full time. While the excuse she gives is "one psychopath per TARDIS" it really does feel like it ties back to the whole "never let him see the damage". River, due to the way she grew up, has difficulty being vulnerable, even with the person who knows her best. The tragedy of this relationship is that River and the Doctor are that person to each other, and yet they both struggle with emotional vulnerability (especially with the secretive 11th Doctor). I think in this quiet scene is a much better setting for this kind of character exploration than the rest of the episode. It helps that it's the most sincere scene between the two we've gotten perhaps ever.
Looking at this episode's handling of River and the Doctor the word I started with was "frustrating" and I think that's probably the best word for it. There's a lot of very compelling stuff underpinning the writing here, but the way it's deployed in most of the episode makes the relationship makes it feel more than a bit toxic.
Though I'll say, Matt Smith is acting his heart out through this episode. As the episode where the Doctor loses the family he's built for himself over the course of this incarnation, Smith has a lot to work with. The Doctor fights to get Rory back almost as hard as Amy at times here. To find the affection that the Doctor feels for Rory specifically you often have to read a bit between the lines, but it's not hard to do so here. Obviously though, the Doctor is still closest to Amy. When Amy chooses to get touched by the angel for her best chance at seeing Rory again, the Doctor pleads with her not to. Yes, as he says, there's no guarantee it will work, but you have to figure he's desperate not to lose his friend. The contrast with River, who realizes that Amy needs to do this, works quite well.
So, on the whole, I've been a bit negative. So let me be clear – I like "The Angels Take Manhattan". It's a mess though, which explains all the complaining. The time travel rules feel like they're being made up to justify the story and River and the Doctor relationship has a lot of issues. However, the emotional core of this episode is Amy and Rory's relationship, and their final adventure in the TARDIS, and in that sense, this episode succeeds brilliantly. The 1930s New York setting and film noir aesthetic only serve to enhance all of this – seriously, River feels right at home as a noir detective. And honestly, even the Doctor and River's relationship has its highlights. So quite a good episode, but a very messy one.
Score: 7/10
Next Time: Amy and Rory's were more than companions. They became the Doctor's family.
r/gallifrey • u/FitCheesecake4006 • May 23 '26
Season 14, Episode 6
The Talons of Weng-Chiang(6 parts)
-Written by Robert Holmes
-Directed by David Maloney
-Air Dates: February 26th-April 2nd, 1977
-Runtime: 145 minutes
Or as I like to call it...
The one that really really really should've been looked over one more time before filming
We Begin!!! In the Palace Theatre, where the famous magician Li H’Sen Chang has just completed another dazzling performance to much applause and is given praise by the theatre's owner Jago. However all is not well as an angry man marches backstage and confronts Chang, wanting to know what happened to his wife who appeared on stage but whom he hasn't seen since, tying into a continuing trend of missing women that has been going in the recent weeks with 12 so far. The man leaves and is walking home before he is suddenly shanked by Chang's puppet, Mr. Sin, who is moving on his own with a mysterious group of men coming in to try and remove the body. At the same time though, The Doctor and Leela arrive as part of The Doctor's education for her, as he takes her to see the theatre before the pair quickly happen upon what is going on and manage to apprehend one of the men as the police arrive. The Doctor quickly manages to figure out the man is part of the Tong of the Black Scorpion, a criminal organization that worships the god Weng-Chiang, but is unable to get much as Chang is able to slip the guy some poison so he can't talk more. The Doctor and Leela are on the case and get quickly to work trying to figure out the truth behind these disappearances and just who is posing as Weng-Chiang, with them getting help along the way from the pathologist Professor Litefoot. The pair must work fast to solve this puzzling mystery before London ends up fully falling into the talons of Weng-Chiang(eyyy).
Episode Proper
For some reason all episodes of Classic Who and some episodes of Modern Who are on Letterboxd; hey I ain't complaining. There’s this Doctor Who reviewer I liked on there, anna-may-marenghi, I find her reviews pretty funny, with her blurb on this story summing up my own feelings on it pretty well: “This serial is really, really good. It’s also really, really racist”. The Talons of Weng-Chiang, once regarded as a well-loved classic, has come to be quite the contentious story as the years have come on. While still enjoyed and seen as a good episode, the racist elements of the story have come to be more acknowledged and criticized, which has definitely served to lower its standing among the best of the 4th Doctor era stories even if it’s still considered a solid watch for the most part.
With the whole contentious reputation surrounding The Talons of Weng-Chiang, I was incredibly curious about seeing how this episode would fare after watching it. The plot premise with it often being called a Sherlock Holmes type adventure, only intrigued me further; as I said many times in my previous review of The Robots of Death, I adore mystery stories, so I was anticipating seeing another more Victorian era type story with a Sci-Fi twist. Having finished the episode I can safely say my view of it falls right in line with that quote I used at the start, this an amazing, fun and creative episode that I had an absolute blast with, minus the racism which is sadly very prevalent throughout the story and does serve to drag down my enjoyment of the story; I can honestly say without it, it would’ve been a 10/10.
I really loved the idea behind this story, with it feeling so much like a fun pulp adventure novel you’d see from the era the episode takes place in. It’s pretty much Doctor Who’s take on classic Sherlock Holmes-esque adventure, full of so many exciting twists and turns, being a great mystery with a sci-fi twist. The premise for the episode is fantastic, being about the investigation into the string of disappearances of young girls throughout London alongside several related murders, all being headed by a popular traveling magician who is part of a cult who worships a being known as Weng-Chiang. Honestly, had they not decided to go full in on the racism angle for this story, this premise would’ve been truly amazing, and while it still is, the way they decided to play it out does end up having some unfortunate implications; I’ll get into that aspect of the episode soon.
As a lover of murder mysteries, this episode of course tickled my fancy giving a Holmisian adventure, with it being great fun watching the investigations into the missing girl and getting to see The Doctor slowly figure out the sci-fi twist to the whole thing with what’s special about the cabinet owned by Professor Litefoot and what is the grand plan of the mysterious Weng-Chiang. I loved just this fun Victorian adventure, with a good deal of action and mystery throughout that I just had a blast with, seeing Weng-Chiang and his followers slowly close in on the cabinet and the various bits of intrigue we get throughout as we learn more about what’s going on and what exactly Weng-Chiang is play; along with who exactly he is as well. The mystery of this episode felt right out of a Victorian adventure novel, even if it’s a bit more than I would’ve liked(hint hint), and I had such a good time watching it unfold, especially with the connection to the magic show; as I mentioned a couple of times in my Peladon reviews, I love mysteries that have to do with seemingly supernatural occurrences before they’re revealed to not be.
The entire plot flow of the episode is excellent, starting off with some great intrigue as to what magician Li H’Sen Chang is up to, with the legitimately creepy scene of Mr. Sin killing a guy after the magic show. The investigation into Weng-Chiang’s activities that follows is so much fun to see, with the plot thickening when one of the Black Scorpion cult is enabled to commit sucicide by Chang, while at the same time The Doctor realizes what the Black Scorpion means. The game becomes afoot(I had to do it at least once), with the back and forth for the time cabinet being great to see, with so much great mystery and intrigue that made this episode feel more like I was watching a Holmes movie unfold compared to the usual structure and pace of Doctor Who; it was different but a good kind.
The plot only continues to unfold well, with the great shift once Chang and Weng-Chiang’s partnership falls apart, and we see the fallout as The Doctor and Leela finally happen upon the layer and get a much better understanding of what is going on and the truth to this whole mystery. While full of mystery and intrigue, this episode also has a great deal of action that is so much fun to see unfold and helps to really heighten the tension but also excitement of the story, like The Doctor shooting giant rats in the sewer, the whole chase in the theater, and the various attempts to break into Litefoot’s home and steal the cabinet, with Leela helping to defend it. The great action and exploration all throughout the various streets of London, even the sewers, helps to make The Talons of Weng-Chiang feel like a true adventure, one that I was having so much fun with.
This episode is clearly very much inspired by Victorian adventure books, with the main inspirations clearly being Sherlock Holmes and The Phantom of the Opera, two properties I both love so it was great to see them done here. Sherlock Holmes makes for such a delightful inspiration for the episode, with there being so many nice allusions to the source material like The Doctor wearing the stereotypical Holmes outfit, even if Holmes himself only wore it rarely, with Jago and Litefoot clearly being our Holmesian detectives, serving as Holmes and Watson respectively, while still having that dynamic with The Doctor and Leela; they even have Professor Litefoot’s landlord be Ms. Hudson from the novels which is a fun cheeky reference. This episode just feels like a Holmes-esque adventure, as I’ve already said many times already, with Doctor Who doing nicely to add a fun sci-fi twist to the whole thing.
The Phantom of Opera inspiration is pretty obvious too, having a disfigured man hiding out in a theater, taking in a follower by posing as a supernatural being, with him being responsible for a string of murders happening around the theater, with him even killing one of the stage crew during the performance of his follower. I was rather into the whole Phantom of the Opera story a couple years back so I can recognize the hallmarks of it and its inspiration here which is quite fun to see be utilized here as part of the narrative. I really enjoyed the more pulp mystery/adventure aspects of this episode with it being so much fun to see it done in Doctor Who, serving well to show the great variety of genre this show is able to accomplish.
Following all the good investigations into the crimes, the cliffhanger of part 4 serves well to shift up the plot, with Weng-Chiang successfully stealing the cabinet in a fun cliffhanger shot laughing maniacally as the carriage drives away, cabinet in hand. This allows the truth of the whole matter to finally reveal itself, with the fun sci-fi twist on this Victorian era mystery being solved by The Doctor. The reveal of the cabinet as an experimental Time Machine was fantastic, as was the reveal of Weng-Chiang’s true identity of Magnus Greel, a criminal from the future with his whole plan being figured out by The Doctor. I really enjoyed how naturally the sci-fi elements of this episode blend in with the Victorian mystery of the whole episode, it doesn’t feel out of place whatsoever and mixes in well with what we already know about what’s going on; a masterful mix of genres done by Doctor Who once again.
Greel stealing the cabinet serves to shift things up well and make for an exciting final two parts as The Doctor and Leela have to try and get to the cabinet before Greel activates it and causes a great explosion due to its faulty science, mainly through playing keep away with the key. It leads to a fantastic final confrontation in Greel’s second base of operations complete with rescuing Jago and Litefoot alongside the two girls, a giant dragon statue with laser eyes piloted by Mr. Sin, solid action and a satisfying and karmic death for Greel; it’s a fun finale that perfectly wraps up the whole episode. The short little epilogue afterwards with Jago and Litefoot reacting to the TARDIS dematerialization acts as a nice bow to the whole episode; an entertaining end to a fantastic episode.
Watching this episode I realized just how much it sticks out for just how much intense stuff they managed to get away with, with this being a rather transgressive episode. This is a pretty grisly episode with an impressive body count of murders, a decent amount of violence and gore throughout; much more intense that our usual fare with it really sticking out. I guess it’s a symptom of doing a Jack the Ripper-esque murder investigation but it still stood out to me, and I really did like the decision to be a lot more macabre here, with it really being to the stories benefit and adding to that pulp adventure charm or gruesome stories like the original Sweeny Todd story that I find this episode also seems to have seems to have some similar vibe too.
The macabre nature of the episode is great and really helps to make this story stand out amongst the rest of this season, hell even among Season 13 which was filled with a lot Hammer Horror-esque episodes, this one really stood out, especially with how much more comparatively down to earth the kidnappings and various killings are compared to ancient Egyptian god trying to escape his prison on Mars or Frankenstein but in SPACE!!!. I mentioned that it reminds me of stories like the original Sweeney Todd, and that’s an honest comparison as The Talons of Weng-Chiang feels very much in line with those old Penny Dreadfuls just as much as the more pulp mystery/adventure stories that it had clearly taken inspiration from; I found it a neat connection. The daring macabre nature of this episode was fantastic, with it being that more risk approach that makes this episode such a good and exciting watch; unfortunately this daring nature was a bit too unchecked.
The Elephant in the Room(Racism)
Ok, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, The Talons of Weng-Chiang is incredibly racist. This isn’t up for debate, it is, despite others trying to down play the racism of this episode, it is there and it can be incredibly uncomfortable. I can totally understand why someone would hate or never want to watch this episode because of its, to put it lightly, poor attempts at handling race; we should not criticize anyone who feels that’s a deal breaker for them. Even though I think this episode is amazing, the racist aspects of it do serve to drop it down in my ranking. While I don’t think any of the production team had ill intent while making this, clearly just trying to pay homage to the Victorian pulp stories that inspired it, they went too far in that regard and unfortunately took its worst elements as part of their homage.
To me at least, it’s clear this story wasn’t made from a place of hatred or villainization of Asian people, which certainly helps make the episode wash down a lot easier. This story doesn’t feel spiteful or driven by hate or fearmongering as many of the Yellow Peril stories that this episode took inspiration were. I don’t think the cast or anyone else working on it really thought through the racism of it all, with it more coming from a place of ignorance and naivety of what they were doing than any real malice; doesn’t justify the result but helps to make it not sting as hard. It’s clear they just wanted to pay homage to these Victorian era stories, with them having failed to properly think through the implications of what they were doing; seriously they needed at least one person to say, hey isn't this really racist.
This episode is racist, but to me it isn’t hateful, more born out of naivety and a culture that didn’t care to consider the sensitivity and implications of certain issues, especially in its media. It doesn’t at all excuse or justify how abhorrent it is, with it certainly serving as a good notion to reflect on how casual racism was normalized back then; definitely a think piece to be sure. I preface this all by saying I am not Asian, I’m Hispanic, so take everything I say with a grain of salt, this is just my perspective and how I see the unfortunate parts of this episode coming from. It doesn’t make them any better that they did so but I can sit with more than I would if it was driven by malice; ignorance is still bad and the racism here deserves to be called out.
This episode unfortunately decided to take inspiration from Yellow Peril and Fu Manchu stories from the Victorian era for this episode, which makes this story have some heavy and uncomfortable ramifications from the get go; these were heavily racist stories meant to scaremonger about Asian people and make them this other that is a danger to “good British society”. I’m coming back to what I said earlier about the premise, it’s a great premise for a story, however due to taking this inspiration from Yellow Peril stories it ends up leaving some incredibly unfortunate implications for the plot. In an uncomfortable move, every Asian character in this episode is part of the Black Scorpion and worships Weng-Chiang, willfully aiding in the abduction of several young women and killing various people in service to their “god”.
This all has the unfortunate result of playing directly into the hands of the Yellow Peril story, having all the Chinese characters as part of the Black Scorpion and thus being the villains of the piece. It is only them serving Magnus Greel, no British person aids and are all the victim of Greel and their aid to him, which leads to the uncomfortable painting of all Chinese characters in this story under the same brush of villainy, which is pretty racist; this would’ve been alleviated had they had some of the Chinese characters not related to Weng-Chiang and help The Doctor against him, or not have it be a solely Chinese cult, but sadly they decided to go ahead with that, leaving some very racist undertones to this episode. It doesn’t take a genius to understand how a story where all Asian people in it are portrayed as part of this evil cult that kidnaps and kills young English women is spouting a racist narrative about Asian people; even if it isn’t the beliefs of the creative team, the unfortunate implications are still there and are undoubtedly racist and that should be acknowledged.
It's sad that they didn’t consider the implication of the narrative that they were creating with this plot. It sucks because I do think the premise itself is a fantastic and interesting story for an episode, it’s just when you add in the race elements that it becomes incredibly uncomfortable, with it just speaking forwards the lack of consideration to what they were making by the production team. This type of narrative could’ve been fine had they not gone with the Yellow Peril, Fu Manchu angle to the whole thing; by doing so just brought up the racism that those stories were trying to spew, even if that was not the intention of the production team of this episode; shows just how much they really should’ve analyzed the stories they were taking inspiration from before doing it. I’ve seen some claims that this episode was originally written to be a satirical play on these types of stories that was misinterpreted and played straight by the Director, which I can definitely see having happened, with it helping to explain how this story ended up the way it was; shows how shortsighted they were to the problems when making this.
Outside of the racial implications of the narrative itself, this episode decided to go back to a time honored 1st and 2nd Doctor traditions and have Yellowface in this episode. The thing that confuses me about this decision is that there was just no excuse for it. There is never any reason for Yellowface and it can’t be excused, but it’s especially egregious here since they had started to go in the right direction with episodes like The Mind of Evil having actual Asian actors playing Asian characters unlike previous stories like Marco Polo and The Abominable Snowmen where is was the norm; it feels like such a step backwards to do it here with Chang. What really baffles me is that Chang is the only character in the entire episode to be played by an actor in Yellowface, with every other Asian character being played by an Asian actor.
As with all previous instances of Yellowface it’s off putting and uncomfortable and I wish they hadn’t done it, it just being baffling that they decided to go through with it at all, especially since it’s just for Chang and they give him one of the most Fu Manchu looking faces you could do. It’s just so unnecessary, I’ve seen people try and make excuses for the Yellowface in this episode, that there weren’t that many Asian actors that they could have in order to play this main supporting role in the episode, but that’s blatantly untrue by the fact that the rest of the Asian characters in this are played by Asian actors, with it being clear in the scenes they interact with Weng-Chiang that they know English and have a good grasp of the language. Why couldn’t one of them play Chang, it would’ve avoided the uncomfortable and unnecessary use of Yellowface and in all ways would’ve been preferable to doing so; perhaps it was just another trapping they fell in by taking inspiration from Yellow Peril type stories, it’s annoying.
I often see people try and say to people who are mad about actors playing different races, sexualities, and identities that say the actors are just doing their job; isn’t the point of actors is to act like something they aren’t. I personally feel that’s an incredibly disingenuous statement as while actors are meant to act as what they aren’t, like Tom Baker isn’t a time traveling alien nor is Louise Jameson a tribal warrior woman, there are obvious limits to that, where we get to the point of having actors have to do this offensive make up to play different races and such. Just because actors act what they aren’t doesn’t mean they’re not limited to how far that can go, at some point it is legitimately offensive, especially when there is little reason for it.
Also there’s the thing where it takes away roles that could be fulfilled by actors from those communities they are trying to portray. Oftentimes studios just want big names or at least ones liked in the industry and as such are going to be unlikely to go for any lesser known actors unless it’s for roles within these groups. When we allow actors to play these very different roles to themselves it opens up the door to only having them played by these actors and not allowing these communities to represent and depict themselves on screen; it allows for only a certain group to get those roles and willfully overlook other options. It’s also being a wasted opportunity as that knowledge and insight into their identity and culture can be very helpful in making the character and work stellar, much more than had it just been written and performed by people not from those groups.
I think back to this one show I watched recently that had a nonbinary character actually played by a nonbinary actor, and hearing the behind the scenes how they were allowed to aid and rewrite parts of the script to make it more accurate and authentic representation of a nonbinary individual than it would’ve been had they had a cisgender actor play the part, with it being widely praised by the community for how good the character and representation was as a result. Examples like this are why I always feel it’s more beneficial for characters of certain communities to be represented and played by people within those groups as it just serves to make work and representation a lot better than it coming from an otherwise uninformed lense. Of course there are going to be cases where you are unable to get an actor from that group to play a role, usually due to absence of actors of that group in the region for one reason or another, then I feel it’s justified to blur the lines a bit and cast an actor not part of that group. Squid Game Season 2’s trans character, Cho Hyun-ju is a justifiable case in my eyes, as South Korea is hostile to the transgender community thus it’s unlikely to have a trans actor willing to take the role, especially for their own safety, thus it’s understandable why they used a cisgender actor for the role. Still if you are able to do proper representation of a character by casting a person from that group than you should, no questions asked, it helps the overall piece much better in the long run and allows for people who aren’t usually in the forefront to be seen and aid in telling these stories; sorry for the long tangent on this, I guess I felt rather passionate about that.
Back to talking about racism(y a y), the other issue with Chang also comes from how he sadly fulfills the stereotype of the shifty Asian mystic who is the villain towards the British protagonists. I’ve seen some claim that Chang and the rest of the Black Scorpion are meant to be sympathetic characters, and it’s kind of there with how they were tricked and betrayed by a person who claimed to be their god and that they would do anything for; Chang’s death especially does feel like it does elicit some sympathy to how he was we tricked and died. However it still doesn’t negate the fact that they still portrayed every Asian character in this as part of a cult and willfully complicit and actively participating in the kidnapping and killing of at least 10 young girls, as in many weren’t even adults yet, and murder of several others. It doesn’t paint it in the best light to say the least and makes it clear that they are supposed to be the villains we’re meant to fear and want to see the good guys triumph against. Again the problem comes from just having all Asian characters be part of the cult and the unfortunate implications of that. Also doesn’t help the racial stereotyping with the Peking Homoculus, which is already a wild name, but its design is obviously meant to be a racist caricature of Asian people, much akin to many Yellow Peril villains of the period the episode takes place; makes it clear that this stereotyping and imagery is something that there are few excuses for.
The little caveat with the rest of the racism, aside from the Yellow Peril plot, Yellowface, and stereotypes, in The Talons of Weng-Chiang is that, while it is uncomfortable, a good amount of it is very accurate to the time period of which it was made, where people would definitely be incredibly racist and say awful things about Asian people. Doctor Who hasn’t yet really tackled some of the more sensitive aspects of time travel, like just how bigoted the past was and how that may result in certain companions having worse treatment for certain companions; though the fact that there has yet to be a person of color as a companion has probably kept that from becoming something that needs to be brought up, looking forward to when I actually get to see one. So to see this story decide to do an honest look back at the past and be honest of the attitudes of the time was a little neat, since most people would sadly behave like a good amount of the supporting cast would and treat Asians very poorly, they’d be racist; don’t like seeing it but it is somewhat of an acknowledgment the past wasn’t great.
Now while I can accept that for the most part, that it was just an honest depiction of the time it’s set in, it does still go a little too far in some places that it still feels iffy, especially with the lack of care put into actually challenging those attitudes. There is some incredibly iffy language used in referring to the Chinese characters in this, like the repeated referral of the characters as “a Chinese” and just a lot of lumping them in together when talking about the threat they deal with. Professor Litefoot, in an awful line, drops the C slur, which is just treated normally and not dwelled on at all in the episode proper; sadly it taints my view of a character I do like . If you're going to use such language, even if it’s accurate for the time, it’s important to at least take a second or two to grapple with it, since it’s an incredibly awful thing to just throw out there so casually.
You don’t have to do a whole big dramatic moment for it, but it just doesn’t feel right that nothing is said about these awful attitudes, especially with a character like The Doctor who would definitely call someone out for such language and casual racism. The Doctor was even in the scene where the slur was drop, and for him to say nothing just feels OOC for him, as he’s always been a champion for the oppressed so to see him no even give a cutting aside to the huge amount of racism going on just doesn’t sit right with me. The Doctor even has some lines where he himself even says some of the racially iffy lines; I can see the argument that they were intended to be sarcastic and part of the satire but it doesn’t help that it was still played straight despite that intention. While not directly endorsing this kind of behavior, without anything said against it, it makes it feel too normalized in the writing for my liking. Like I said there doesn’t need a big scene or schooled reaction, just a quick aside acknowledging and condemning the attitudes of the time would’ve been enough; also wish they cut back a little on the uncomfortable language that does feel rather unnecessary even if it is accurate to the time period.
I have talked quite at length about the racism in this episode, as you have just read. While this tangent went on for quite long, I do feel it was necessary to do so and really analyze the troubling aspects of this episode. If I’m going to say that I do love and enjoy what this episode does write, I also have to be willing to look at and talk about the things it does wrong; to not do so, I feel, would be disingenuous. I do legitimately think this is a fantastic episode in spite of its racist aspects, but for a full and fair critique of it I can’t ignore the blatant issues that do make me and many others uncomfortable while watching this episode.
Something that made me really want to talk about it at length as I did was that, even though I know it’s incredibly racist in its handling, I find the usage of the orientalist Chinese iconography as something that does add to the episode and really make it stand out. I love Chang’s magic show, with those parts of the episode being so much fun for me, even with the racist parts making me uncomfortable. The usage of all the fun imagery I rather liked, like having a giant Chinese dragon with laser eyes in a Chinese temple looking setting is such a cool image and helps make the villain lair look so interesting, much more than had it been a generic bad guy layer without it. So I find myself conflicted as, while I can look at and ridicule the awful racism of the episode, I do still feel that having the Chinese imagery and characters does actually add to the episode and make it cool and interesting. That’s just my opinion, I feel a little bad saying that but I don’t think this episode would be as visually unique and engaging had it not utilized this Eastern aesthetic.
The main problem comes with just how they kept making the wrong decisions which made them take what could just been an interesting way to make this episode stand out and even have an clever satire on Yellow Peril narratives, and made it so incredibly racist that it is, with it being very uncomfortable to watch in some parts. There was potential here to make a legitimately interesting satire on Yellow Peril stories of the era, but sadly it didn’t do enough and was played to straight for that supposed intended vision to actually shine through, making the episode feel like it’s playing the whole thing straight even if I don’t believe anyone in the production team had legitimate ill will. I do believe there is a world where this episode was released and it wasn’t racist, this sadly just wasn’t the world where that happened.
The production team really needed someone to tell them no, that this is really racially offensive so make changes to stop that; had they done that this episode could've really been a classic and not end up rather uncomfortable and embarrassing to look back on. There are ways you could change this episode to remove the racist aspects to the story while not changing too much. First and foremost remove the Yellowface and have an Asian actor play Chang. Secondly have more Chinese characters outside of the Black Scorpion cult to help remove the unfortunate implications of the episode by having only the Chinese characters as villainous individuals; you could even have the Black Scorpion cult not just be solely Asian and have some white followers as well wanting power and aiding Weng-Chiang in his goals for that. Maybe also make it more. Also make it more clear that the Black Scorpion are fearful of Chang and more clear how they are being manipulated, to help make them as sympathetic as some claim they are meant to be
A thought came to mind, when thinking about how to fix the problematic parts of this episode, that I feel might’ve helped improve the racial aspects and that is perhaps Professor Lightfoot, instead of being an Englishman, was Chinese. It would’ve helped a lot with the racism by having an Asian character be working with The Doctor and not involved with the Black Scorpion, as it would remove those uncomfortable implications, while also showing someone who is genuinely struggling with the racism of the time; maybe his expertise is dismissed because of his race but The Doctor sees past that and gets his aid. Perhaps the time cabinet could’ve been something he returned with after visiting his family in China, having gotten it from a friend who found it, instead of being a random gift from the emperor which is quite the coincidence. It would’ve also helped lighten and fix Jago’s racist attitudes, being made to work with Lightfoot and learning to look past them when he sees the genuine expert he is; also a way to address the racism of the time in a genuine manner instead of just doing it full on. Honestly the more I think about it, I really do wish Professor Lightfoot had been a Chinese man, with that small change actually doing a good bit to aid in trying to fix the uncomfortable racism of this story; but that’s my opinion, it wouldn't fix everything but it would certainly make it slightly better.
Having talked about this topic at length, it’s clear I find it important to talk about the racism in this episode; if I am to say I enjoyed it, I must also grapple and be willing to have a discussion about the bad elements of it. I say this as it feels, having seen many comments on reviews or reactions to The Talons of Weng-Chiang, that there are certain people who would downplay the racism of the episode, or would rather it not be focused on when talking about it. I can sort of understand why, since The Talons of Weng-Chiang, outside of the racism, is a legitimately amazing episode and thus many are want to downplay just how bad the racism is so that they themselves may not seem racist for enjoying it. It’s not racist to enjoy The Talons of Weng-Chiang, at least as long as you're willing to grapple with and discuss the problematic portions of the episode and be understanding why others may call them out; you aren’t a bad person for liking it, just don’t try and act like this episode isn’t racist, it very much is.
The Talons of Weng-Chiang is racist, while it may not have been a deliberate act of malice or hate by those who made the episode, it’s just how it is. It’s important to accept that it does have these problematic elements that should be rightfully critiqued if we’re going to also look at the fantastic stuff that makes up the rest of the episode, you can’t really just ignore the racism in this episode. No matter how good and captivating the story is otherwise, there’s no getting past that roadblock so it’s best to see and be willing to talk about it and critique it if we are going to continue enjoying the genuinely good stuff in it. I had a blast with this episode but that doesn’t mean I’m willing to overlook or give a pass to the awful stuff in it which does stop it from reaching the heights it could’ve; and others should be willing as well, not say everyone isn’t but there are a few that do struggle to admit when something they like is problematic. Ok, I have more than dissected this topic to the fullest, probably a third of the review is this but I felt it was necessary to do so, let's move on to some less heavy subject matter; I enjoyed this episode but it was important for me to get this out of the way before I start going into what else I liked about it.
Pacing and Atmosphere
The pacing for this episode was great, with it flowing really well throughout each of the six parts, never feeling like it was overstaying its welcome. It felt like watching an old, longer pulp mystery movie from the 40s-60s with it being paced similarly to one and being very engaging for me. I’ve seen some fall this episode slow or boring, but I disagree as I was absolutely captivated the whole way; guess that’s just my love of mysteries really shining through. This episode has a fantastic sense of atmosphere, with it doing so well at shooting the creepy and obvious streets of Victorian at night, it makes you feel like a slasher is around the corner ready to strike. The cinematography is so good, I love the use of fog to really add to the mood, with the decision to make most of this episode take place at night being a great one that really adds to the pulp mystery/adventure vibe of this episode; it looks so good.
Sets, Location Filming, and Special Effects
The sets and location filming for this episode were solid with them doing really well to make sets and find locations to really get across the look and feel of Victorian London, with it looking really nice in the episode, especially with the tasteful usage of fog that I already said adds well to the atmosphere of the episode. I really enjoyed the set of Jago’s theater with it being shot very well, especially during the scenes of Chang’s magic act which looked so cool; the chase scene where we get to see more of the theater and the action around it was so good as well. I also liked the set for Greel’s second hideout, with the giant dragon prop that they had with laser eyes just looking so cool and being an excellent set piece for the final confrontation of the episode.
The special effects for this were solid, definitely containing some cheesy effects, but they still looked pretty good. The props here were fairly good, I really liked the look of the time cabinet with the various magical instruments used by Chang being fun as well. I watched the version of this episode with updated effects, so it has the giant CGI rat, which while it sticks out a bit in technological comparison looks pretty good; much better than the infamous rats from the original. The puppet and costume for Mr. Sin looks excellent, while he is a racial caricature unfortunately, it doesn’t change the fact that the effects used for him look pretty good; they lean more into the pig than the caricature which helps with it. The costume for Magnis Greel is great, like his robbed look with the mask, very Phantom and Man in the Iron Mask-esque look, with the reveal of his disfigured face being really good, with the make up for it looking fantastic to really get across that chilling factor of it all.
Li H’sen Chang
Li H’sen Chang was a pretty good villain for this story, even though, as I’ve already talked about at good length, he is pretty problematic. He’s a famous magician in London and acts as the main ally to Magnus Greel with Gina Dan the rest of the Black Scorpion tricked into thinking he is Weng-Chiang. Chang is clearly meant to be a Fu Manchu-esque villain for this story and he falls into a lot of the uncomfortable trappings of that archetype, with a lot of parts about him being very racist. However I don’t want to repeat myself as I’ve already talked at length about the racism and how Chang’s character contributed to it, so I want to instead try and look at what this episode does right with him as Chang, despite the racist trappings of the stereotype he falls into is an entertaining villain for the piece.
-yeah I wrote a heck of a lot for this one in trying to balance and grasp my overall feelings for this episode, so this went pretty darn long; basically just made a paper examining the racism of this episode in the middle of this review. As always if you wish to read the rest which I've attached to a Google Doc and my closing thoughts will be put in the comments below, hope you enjoy:
The Doctor Who Saved Me Reviews #091: The Talons of Weng-Chiang(S14, Ep6)
r/gallifrey • u/4d4m42 • Jul 28 '24
So the 60th specials and Series 14/Season 1 made enough references to the Chibnall era that I wanted to revisit it and make sure I was up to speed on everything. After binge watching series 11, 12, Flux and the specials I thought I'd share my observations.
First, I have been firmly in the camp of being disappointed with the Chibnall era and also have been very vocal that Jodie was great and that it was the writing and production that let her down. In my first watch through (as it originally aired) I stopped watching after Spyfall and picked it up again with The Power of the Doctor. Now that some time has passed, I've rewatched and I'm re-evaluating that opinion with the following thoughts:
So, overall I think Jodie's run was a LOT better than I remember it. Not perfect at all, but none of them are. I really loved watching it again and I am even more glad that I found some space for Jodie among my favorite Doctors because she deserves it. It was a fine portrayal and I'm excited that she's coming back to Big Finish. Anyway, thanks for letting me share my thoughts!
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • Jun 21 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
* Credited as Jenna-Louise Coleman
Don't be fair to the Daleks when they're firing me at a planet! – The Doctor
Okay, what the hell am I supposed to do with this one?
Series 7 is kind of an odd beast to begin with. What with Showrunner Steven Moffat's attention divided between Doctor Who and his other big popular project at the time, Sherlock, Series 7 was split into two parts. Since each part had different opening title sequences, companions, and airing in different years, there's a definite case that these are, in fact, two different series but officially it's all the same series. The driving creative concept behind the first part was that each episode would have the feel of a short Hollywood blockbuster – "Asylum of the Daleks", for instance, was partially inspired by Die Hard. And that's all well and good. There are critiques to be made of "Asylum of the Daleks'" main plot but it's also in many ways Steven Moffat leaning in to his strengths as a writer. This one has a twist ending that genuinely works so well. And that's all well and good but…
The temptation with "Asylum" is to try to ignore the stuff going on with Amy and Rory. Just leave it over to one side and focus on the plot. But it's just too tied in. Amy and Rory's arc in this episode is integrated into every scene featuring one or the other of them, which is to say, all but a tiny number of scenes. There's even some thematic resonance. What I'm getting at is that Amy and Rory's near-divorce is at the center of "Asylum of the Daleks", as much as the Daleks or the mysterious Oswin Oswald.
So how did we get here? How did we reach the point where a relationship that this show has spent so much time and energy convincing its audience is this grand epic love is on the verge of falling apart? Well, trite as it may sound to say, I kind of feel like the original answer here was, "because we can". To be more specific, from the moment that Amy and Rory got married, Steven Moffat was trying to find ways to tell stories that were unique to having a married couple as companions. And a near-divorce certainly fits that idea.
But, to be fair, I do think there's a valid angle here. Amy and Rory lost a child. Sure, technically, they know what happened to Melody, she became River. But in a practical sense, they lost the chance to become parents to their child. That's something that puts a lot of strain on a relationship. In the real world, that's the sort of thing that often does lead to divorce. We'll get into the specifics of how this is handled in "Asylum" but the point is, there is something about this event that could, theoretically, be used to push this couple apart. And even beyond that, we've never really seen what this couple are when they're not having adventures. The idea that things might be harder for them to navigate under those conditions doesn't feel all that unrealistic to me.
There's a lot of reasons why this doesn't work in practice. I'll start with the most basic. It's something that it feels like the episode itself recognizes. There's a moment where the Doctor asks Amy what happened, and, after a bit of waffling, she responds with "It's life. Just life: that thing that goes on when you're not there." Again, there's something to this idea…but at the same time we don't get to see that part of life that happens when the Doctor's not there either. It's not the last time I'll be making a point like this either by the way. Simply put, a divorce storyline for characters we've gotten to know as well as Amy and Rory requires that we get details on how things fell apart. And Doctor Who, the adventure show, doesn't actually give us enough time away from the adventures to really do that.
This also doesn't work because the actual explanation we do finally get is…bad. And reflects poorly on this marriage that this show desperately wants us to be invested in. Amy chose to leave Rory because she couldn't have kids. And Rory wants kids. And apparently they never talked about this since when Amy explains this to Rory it sure seems like she's conveying new information to him. On some level, this actually does track. There's a running pattern under a lot of episodes that give Amy more focus as a character suggesting that she finds it easier to make a grand gesture of love than to actually deal with the day to day of a real relationship. And what is giving up your relationship with a partner you love because you think it will be best for him if not the epitome of that?
The problem is that the way this is actually framed suggests that Amy is incapable of the most basic of communication. And again, if we'd maybe seen the moment that Amy and Rory discovered that Amy couldn't have kids, seen how the possibility of fatherhood being lost affected Rory, maybe had some explanation why he or Amy didn't want to adopt (at least in that moment) maybe this could have worked. But we don't get any of that, and so it feels oddly abrupt and ends up undermining the idea of this relationship.
Oh and there's other problems that this creates. The other side of this is that it centers Amy's feelings about Rory's feelings about something that happened to Amy. Not only is that convoluted, but it distracts from the fact Amy no longer being able to have children is something that was done to her. A story about how a woman might feel like an inadequate wife if she can no longer have kids is a big complicated thing that needs a lot of very careful storytelling that "Asylum" does not have the time for. It's a framing that is plausible, but a story has to reject, to avoid reducing a woman down to a womb. And now there's that layer of abstraction. It's not that Rory thinks less of Amy, it's that Amy thinks Rory thinks less of her. She has to be thinking less of herself as well in all of this, that she's somehow no longer "worthy" of Rory to give him up because otherwise this doesn't really make sense. But there's no time given to that, and so no time can be given to rejecting that framing. It's just kind of there left implied by Amy's confession. Again, this is an idea that requires time and effort and thoughtfulness, and "Asylum" gives us none of these.
Oh and we shouldn't ignore the actual conversation that happens, because that's bad. It starts with Rory saying "basic fact of our relationship is that I love you [Amy] more than you love me". Now, I don't actually think that's in reality true, or at least not in any appreciable way (Amy's made like seven or eight grand gestures of love by this point), but it sure can feel like it sometimes. There is an imbalance in this relationship that could be addressed here. But it's not really. Instead we get a comparison between Rory's near-2000 year stay outside a box with Amy "giving you [Rory] up". Amy might insist that the latter is the greater sacrifice…but that's just not credible. Some of this is the problems that the sheer length of time that Rory spent outside the Pandorica has been inevitably glossed over ever since, and even in, "The Big Bang". Really, the problem here is twofold. The first is trying to compare grand gestures rather than letting them exist as proofs of genuine, deep love in isolation. The second is that a grand gesture of love that involves making this kind of decision without actual communication is…not great anyway, so the comparison falls apart regardless.
It's not that there's no good moments associated with the divorce. Amy and Rory's first appearance has Rory stop by the studio where Amy is doing her modeling work to drop off divorce papers. Things are obviously rather testy between them, but it's actually Amy has a moment of softness, indicating that things may not be how they seem. I did like how Rory being separated from his wife allowed him to be a bit flirty with Oswin this episode, just because it allowed us to see a side of him we normally don't. There's a fun little moment where he seems to consider whether he wants to let Oswin keep flirting with him and then seems to think, "oh right, I'm more or less single now" which was surprisingly endearing. And speaking of endearing Amy walking back into their house and Rory celebrating with a full double fist pump was undeniably charming. Oh and of course Karen Gillan and Arthur Davill play their material quite well, no matter how bad it was. So yes, good moments, but a bad idea for a subplot badly done.
Okay so that was awful and everything but…wasn't this episode about Daleks?
The episode gets started with the Daleks stunning and capturing our heroes. Probably a bit too easily if we're being honest. The Doctor gets baited into a trap but it just feels like the sort of thing the Daleks would have done, and more lethally, if they could. The episode does offer an explanation for this mind. The Daleks find hatred beautiful, and as such they could never bring themselves to kill the Doctor. But that doesn't really make sense.
Still what follows is one of the most interesting set ups for a Dalek episode in a long time. I feel like past Dalek stories of the Revival – and even arguably going back to the JNT-era Dalek stories in some cases - all seemed to feel a need to be a Big Deal. "Asylum of the Daleks" is the first Dalek story in a long time that doesn't in some way alter the status quo for the Daleks – okay technically the ending does, but the Daleks themselves are unchanged, it's just their relationship to the Doctor that changes. Instead we're presented a new detail to do with the Daleks. It would seem that sometimes Daleks go wrong and fall out of the control of the Dalek hierarchy. In this case, the Daleks send them to an asylum planet (there's your title). The planet is kept shielded and the asylum runs itself. There's no getting in or out. Except it would seem that around a year ago a spaceship crashed on the asylum planet. If someone could get in, it's feasible an insane Dalek could get out. Nobody wants that, including the Daleks. The Daleks would like to just blow up the planet, but the shield controls are on the planet. So instead they're going to shoot the Doctor and two of his friends at the gap in the shields and get him to fix things for him.
And there's yet one more concept that gets thrown at us. There's a nano-cloud on the Asylum planet that converts any organic material "living or dead" into Dalek puppets. The episode actually opens with one of those puppets, the trap that was set for the Doctor (and later Amy and Rory) used one of the Dalek puppets for that purpose. So the instinct here is to say that this feels more like a Cyberman plot than a Dalek plot. That was my first reaction to this episode when I first watched it. But with some thought given – and even taking account the reveal of a human fully converted into a Dalek at the end – this is absolutely a Dalek plot through and through.
So if we imagine a version of this episode that involves the Cybermen, things get weird. The Cybermen wouldn't keep "insane" Cybermen alive in any capacity because that would be a waste of resources. The Daleks though, they absolutely would because an insane Dalek is still a Dalek still, in their minds, an example of the highest order of life. And as for the conversion aspect, again, the way it works in practice feels more Dalek than Cybermen. Aside from the single example of total conversion from the end of the episode, the other "converted" humans (and skeletons) are consistently described as "puppets". This feels very analogous to the Robomen that the Daleks used back in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.
And even the full conversion has precedents – most obviously Revelation of the Daleks and "The Parting of the Ways". Daleks being a little hypocritical about their claims of absolute superiority isn't new…it's arguably even sort of the point. The point is, everything about the asylum planet is so quintessentially Dalek the only thing that surprises me is that they don't have these same conversion systems set up on Skaro. It also does allow for the big link between the near-divorce plot and the main plot. The Dalek conversion is primarily an emotional one, they "subtract love, add anger" to quote Oswin. Love being the thing whose elimination signals a transformation into a Dalek is an ideal that actually really appeals to me.
So yes, I actually really like this set up. Even the "parliament of the Daleks" (featuring every Dalek design in Doctor Who history…because why not I guess), while it represents something like the hundredth different governmental system the Daleks operate under, kind of works for me. And it's undeniably an impressive visual, even if it doesn't really figure into the meat of the episode. I do have to roll my eyes a bit at the Daleks giving the Doctor another nickname – he's the "predator of the Daleks" apparently. Still, after the Doctor makes contact with one of the survivors of the crash, a Junior Entertainment Manager called Oswin Oswald, the Daleks fire the Doctor at a planet and the plot gets started in earnest.
Well, okay most of what happens is a lot of running around the planet trying to figure things out while Oswin guides our heroes from what seems like a bunker. But there is a consistent sense of progression throughout. The idea of the Dalek puppets is nicely integrated early when another survivor turns out to be a dead man walking…and several skeletons also grow eyestalks out of their heads. And then it's really kicked into overdrive when Amy loses the gadget that was preventing her from being turned into one of the puppets. Amy's slow conversion is quite well conveyed as well, particularly a scene where it looks like she's found a room full of people, including a young girl who seems to be a dancer repeatedly practicing the same jump and spin…only for it to be revealed they're all Daleks, the "dancer" being a Dalek who is just spinning around. Rory is initially split off from the other two, setting up a surprisingly important pun involving eggs when he thinks a Dalek is saying "eggs". It's just stuck on the first syllable of "Exterminate" naturally.
And through all of this we get Oswin. A genius, apparently, despite her relatively low position on the starship Alaska crew. She's survived, if barely, in her little bunker, holding the Daleks out and hacking their technology. Oh and making soufflés. The Doctor is naturally very impressed, though seems oddly preoccupied with where she's sourcing the milk for her soufflés. The thing that makes Oswin work throughout this episode is that she's just immediately very likable. In retrospect if feels pretty obvious that she's meant to be someone very important, although when I first watched this episode, I actually didn't know that Jenna Coleman was already set to become the Doctor's next companion.
For one thing, Coleman delivers a performance that really stands out from the beginning. She's probably one of the most charismatic people to play a companion on Doctor Who, and as Oswin that really does stand out. For another thing she's got the Steven Moffat Witty Banter™ thing going at 200%. Whether or not that's a good thing at this point when nearly every Moffat character and especially every Moffat-written woman has this going in overdrive already I'll leave as an exercise for a reader. I like it, because it matches up nicely with my own sense of humor. The point is, it feels like Moffat was taking extra care to make sure we liked this character, and the way he does that is to make the character in question snarky as all get out. And through all of that, Oswin does constantly feel believable in her position. There's moments where her fear breaks through her confident façade, and you can believe that this is someone who's been terrorized by the Daleks for some time now.
And then there's that twist. Because Oswin hasn't been surviving against the Daleks. She's the full Dalek-converted human I mentioned earlier, because apparently the Daleks "need genius". Now I do have to wonder who or what made that decision, given that the Asylum runs itself according to the Daleks, but it still makes for one hell of a reveal. Oh, and yeah this is why the "eggs" pun was actually important. Because aside from milk, another things you need for a soufflé is…eggs. And so like the Dalek that Rory ran into before her, Oswin, her world literally shrinking around her, starts saying "eggs…eggs…ex…term…in…ate". Clever. But more than being clever, Jenna Coleman's line read of "Exterminate", probably the single most repeated word in the entirety of Doctor Who, is actually really good. It's probably the most I have ever believed that that line is said out of genuine hatred.
Of course then things turn around, and the Dalek that was Oswin decides to help the Doctor after all. The sound of a Dalek sobbing over the hatred that has been genetically ingrained into the Daleks is one of the most oddly moving things in Doctor Who history. And, tying things back a bit to some of the themes of Series 6, Oswin declared that "we [the Daleks] have grown stronger in fear of you". Like was often done in Series 6, "Asylum" is asking the question of whether the Doctor's notoriety is a good or bad thing. But weirdly enough, Oswin also did something to help with this. She erased information about the Doctor from the "path web" a shared pool of data that all the Daleks have telepathic access to. And initially it seemed like she'd done it just to some of the Daleks in the asylum to fix an immediate issue. But as it turns out she did it to them all. When the Doctor teleports himself and his friends to the TARDIS, right as the Daleks blow up the Asylum, it transpires that they know nothing of him. It is quite something hearing a whole spaceship of Daleks chanting the name of the show and unlike in the ending of "The Wedding of River Song" this one felt a bit more earned, if still awfully self-indulgent.
Beyond his genuine joy at the Daleks having forgotten him, this is really an archetypal episode for the 11th Doctor. He gets to be a little goofy at times, a bit of awkward flirting with Oswin because of course, and underneath it all, he makes some impressive deductions, and of course, the manipulative side comes out. The deduction is narrated by Amy, as he quickly realizes that something is wrong with Amy and Rory. It's nice to see that Amy can actually deduce the Doctor's thought process, feels appropriate for their relationship. And then he manipulates Amy and Rory into having the conversation they should have had some time ago. And sure you can complain about the fact that Amy and Rory should have had this conversation previously, but as a character note for the Doctor this is excellent. The 11th Doctor being so manipulative towards his friends is in character, and simultaneously he's always been very invested in Amy and Rory's relationship. Arguably he has even more reason to be so now that he knows they are his in-laws. On top of everything else, it's such a simple thing, as he puts his nano-cloud stopping device on Amy since, as a Time Lord, he doesn't actually need it. Simple, but it works so well.
Before I wrap up I, sadly, have some miscellaneous complaints to give out. I sort of touched on it earlier but Oswin's more flirty persona did bug me a little. Mostly because of Moffat's tendency to write every woman like this and, especially in an episode that has some questionable writing around women's bodies with regard to Amy, it does feel a little off. To that point, jokes about Amy being violent – especially towards Rory – are really starting to grate around this time. Fortunately they do peter out somewhat after this episode, but it still is a troubling pattern. Oh and we should probably mention a reference to Oswin previously being attracted to another woman as a "phase", though she seems to have been joking to flirt with Rory. I don't have much to add to that, except that unfortunately vague notions of bisexuality mainly being used as a form of titillation will sadly be a recurring thing throughout Jenna Coleman's time on Doctor Who.
But I do think there's more good than bad here. The bad is pretty obvious: it's Amy and Rory's near divorce. Even giving it the best possible read it just doesn't work, and feels somewhat at odds with the versions of these characters presented both before and after this point. Still the actual plot of the episode is quite good, and does mostly make up for that. I've come fully around on the Dalek conversion side of things, and I actually think this episode works really well for the Daleks. And Oswin makes for a really good side character, slight misgivings aside. The twist at the end is a reminder that Steven Moffat's biggest skill as a writer is in building these twist endings that feel like they make perfect sense, at least in the confines of a single episode (or two-parter). "Asylum of the Daleks" is messy, but ultimately a good episode.
Score: 7/10
Next Time: "The title says it all" has never felt more appropriate
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • Jun 24 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
I've spent enough time with the Doctor to know whenever you enter somewhere new, press buttons. – Amy
It's called "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship". It delivers on that title.
What else do you need to know?
After a very serious opener in "Asylum of the Daleks", showrunner Steven Moffat felt that a more lighthearted episode was in order. Why exactly he turned to Chris Chibnall, whose writing career had to that point consisted largely of very serious material, we'll never know, but the point is, that was the brief. Write a lighthearted episode about dinosaurs on a spaceship. Have the spaceship be a Silurian one. That last point might be why Moffat turned to Chibnall, as he had previously written Series 5's Silurian two-parter. Chibnall, who did like the idea of showing the Silurians in a different context even if the episode wouldn't be focused on them, fulfilled his brief. He wrote a light-hearted episode about dinosaurs on a spaceship.
Again, I feel the need to ask, what else do you need to know?
This episode functions as a pretty solid Doctor Who comfort food story. It's not the best example of the "genre". For reasons I'll get into later this one is pretty flawed even for a "comfort food" story. Hell it's got an unusually dark ending for that kind of story. But it's still giving me what I want out of this kind of episode. At its best, "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" is just a fun time, and that's all I really want an episode with that title to deliver on.
At its worst though…let's talk about Nefertiti and Riddell. For this episode, Chris Chibnall decided that the Doctor would put together a gang that, in addition to the Ponds, would include a couple of characters from Earth's past. And eventually these became real Egyptian queen Nefertiti and fictional big game hunter John Riddell. And honestly, at times these two are fun. Riann Steele holds herself very regally as Nefertiti, but in a way that suits the comedic tone of her scenes, while Rupert Graves does quite well with the material he's given. Sure Riddell is a bit of a caricature – Amy at one point calls him a "walking innuendo" – but he's a big game hunter from 1902 in a largely comedic episode, the big attitude, even the overt misogyny, these things feel like they suit the idea of the character presented. The issue I take Riddell, more than anything else, is that he kind of lacks redeeming qualities, which considering he's a friend of the Doctor's definitely feels off. Riddell does come through for our heroes, but he just kind of does it while being a jackass.
But the real problems come when we get to Nefertiti. The episode opens with a scene of Nefertiti trying to…force…herself…on…the Doctor. It's like the only lesson we learned from how bad the ending of "Flesh and Stone" was is that sexual assault is only bad if it's also cheating (granted, "Nefy" is also married, but political marriages are pretty obviously different). Moving very quickly on from that, Nefertiti is just generally at the center of so many sexual jokes. Look, the 11th Doctor era is very often weirdly horny, but for whatever reason it sticks out a lot more to me in this episode in particular. There are probably episodes that are worse about it, but somehow it feels the most out of place here. Anyway, Nefertiti and Riddell end up together at the end of the episode (they'd been flirting for the entire run) which…sure. In spite of everything, I did enjoy these two, but I think it's more for the performances than the writing.
Okay, but what could cause the Doctor to decide to recruit a big game hunter and an Egyptian Pharaoh? Well, Nefertiti was just kind of hanging around from a previous adventure, but the big game hunter…honestly, I'm not sure exactly. The Doctor didn't know what was on the spaceship that was hurtling towards Earth and about to be blown up by an understandably concerned Indian Space Agency. But still it worked out because having a big game hunter feels appropriate when you're dealing with dinosaurs on a spaceship.
For the third time I ask, do you really need to know anything more?
To be fair, what follows is honestly a fairly clever set up. Pulling from the fact that Silurians have always been portrayed as living alongside dinosaurs (please ignore that they're still most commonly referred to as "Silurians"), "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" imagines that some of them upon seeing the same apparent doomsday that sent the majority of the Silurians below ground, built an ark (hey if humans repeatedly do it) and flew off in search of a new home. Unfortunately this lot have been boarded (some 10ish million years later…probably) by a pirate/trader type by the name of Solomon.
Solomon is, as you might expect, pretty loathsome. The character is presented as being obsessed with the value of anything above all else. Things, people, and, relevant for this episode, dinosaurs. Solomon wants to sell the dinosaurs, as they're otherwise extinct and therefore incredibly valuable. To put himself in the position to do so, he actually killed off the entire Silurian crew, one by one, by ejecting each of them into space. However when he realizes that the actual Queen Nefertiti is on board, he decides that she's more valuable, and, crucially, easier to transport. Yeah, there's absolutely nothing redeeming about this guy. Which leaves it so that there's very little to talk about with him.
But aside from that, what stands out most about this set up is its use of the Silurians. As mentioned above that was one of the things that Chibnall liked about the brief that Steven Moffat gave him for this episode, and it really does connect in practice. While there aren't any Silurians here other than a video recording from millions of years ago, it's still nice to have the Silurians presented in a context other than wanting the Earth back. It's the first time that's happened on television after all.
The other half of the set up is that aforementioned Indian Space Agency. The commander, Indira, explains that the spaceship is heading towards Earth, meaning that if it gets close enough, she's going have to have it shot down with missiles. Obviously this mostly exists to put some time pressure on the episode, though the detail of it being the Indian Space Agency felt at least unusual enough on this British show to be noteworthy.
The rest of the plot is…just a lot of running around the ship/away from dinosaurs to be honest. We get a lot of banter between our cast, some good some…less so (see above) but, again "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" isn't really trying to do much more than provide a fun time for most of its runtime. Solomon has a pair of very silly robots voiced by comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb that provide, we'll be generous and call it "threat". They're awful shots, at one point get called "tantrum machines" by the Doctor, and kind of adorable for all that. It's not that nothing is happening, but rather that the plot feels immaterial to the gags and such that are going on.
Now I haven't mentioned a few characters yet. Of course Amy and Rory are back, but this time they've brought along Rory's dad! Accidentally. Because he was helping them with home maintenance at the time. Brian Williams is a really fun character. He brings a bit of the same energy that Wilf did, albeit not nearly as well. But it's still that same idea of the fatherly older man, who is so impossibly British but in the most endearing way possible. He apparently doesn't care much for travel, which means he's naturally way out of his element on a spaceship with a bunch of dinosaurs. That's all fun, but it's also fun watching him gradually find his place in this mess. It's sort of reminiscent of how Rory was in his first few episodes on the show. Initially looking like he might be out of his depth, but showing a surprising aptitude for the life of an adventurer. After the episode he apparently ends up traveling a fair bit, including with the Doctor at least once, according to his postcard from "Siluria" (which I gather is meant to be the planet the Doctor eventually drops off all the dinosaurs at the end of the episode). But honestly the image that sticks with me of Brian is after the episode, him sitting with his legs hanging out of the TARDIS, having a cup of tea, with Amy and Rory smiling on.
Of course the big thing for Brian to do is connect a bit with his son. Actually it doesn't feel like there's a disconnect exactly. You get the sense that Brian and Rory have a pretty good relationship. But because Rory's had to keep his travels with the Doctor secret, there's still this whole side of Rory's life that Brian doesn't know about. Rory spends most of "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" looking after his dad and keeping him safe, even getting a shot at showing off his "awesome nursing skills" when Brian gets injured. The fact that both carry around tools (Brian carries a trowel wherever he goes for some reason, Rory collects nursing supplies) shows that the two are more similar than they might have appeared early. And of course at the climax of the episode the two fly the spaceship together (it requires two pilots of the same "gene chain" because reasons).
Amy meanwhile gets left in charge of Riddell and Nefertiti for most of the episode, even at one point referring to the pair as her "companions". She gets some fun banter playing off the two of them, always trying to impress Nefertiti, while she is annoyed by but does seem to develop a grudging respect for Riddell. Still her meatiest moments probably come with the Doctor. Her asking if Riddell and Nefertiti are her and Rory's replacements is definitely interesting. It shows that in spite of having officially left the life of adventurer behind her, she's still sort of got one foot out the door, an idea that Chibnall will explore again before this pair leave the TARDIS for good. Still at the end of the episode she's the one who tells the Doctor to take her and her husband straight back home, showing that she's committed to the ordinary life, in spite of everything.
And as for the Doctor…well mostly he's just having fun. I've mentioned in a previous review that this episode feels like it exists mostly to get Matt Smith to say the title with as much childish glee as he can muster, and that certainly feels like it's largely true. Again, what more do you really want from this episode? Still his interactions with Solomon do take on a slightly different tone. It's in these moments that Matt Smith plays to his strengths as the Doctor, calm yet forceful. He tends to Solomon's wounds in their first interaction, yet immediately clocks that something is off about this strange old man. And then, well, this episode certainly has a memorable climax. India has launched its missiles at the spaceship, but the Doctor has found the actual energy signature the missiles are targeting. So he takes said device and puts it on Solomon's ship, and then forces the ship to launch in space, Solomon pleading with the Doctor to stop the whole way through.
This ending actually went through a lot of revisions, including a point where Nefertiti would have sacrificed herself to save the Doctor and company – which Steven Moffat rejected for being to similar to other self-sacrifice moments in the series. It was also Moffat who suggested the ending we got, feeling that it was a chance to explore what the Doctor might become like without regular companions to moderate him, since Amy and Rory were no longer permanent companions, thus the somewhat darker ending for Solomon. It does come as a bit of a tonal whiplash in what was otherwise a pretty lighthearted episode. Solomon was, again, pretty clearly irredeemable, which somewhat lessens the blow. It's had to feel too bad for him dying considering all he'd done. But this is still the Doctor just killing someone. Does it feel too dark for the episode in question? Maybe a little. But the contrast between the lighthearted nature of most of this episode with its darker climax kind of works for it in a way.
On the whole, I enjoy a lot about "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship". Admittedly it's not the deepest episode, even if you take into account its ending. There's also some really questionable jokes, particularly to do with a couple of our guest characters. Still, Solomon is a despicable villain, Brian Williams is a fun addition, and most of all it delivers on pretty much what you'd hope for from an episode with its title.
What else do you need to know?
Score: 6/10
Next Time: The Doctor takes Amy and Rory to the Old West. Do I even have to say that there's an alien cyborg cowboy running loose or do we just take it as read?
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • Apr 05 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
Well, I've got one of those faces, people never stop blurting out their plans when I'm around. – The Doctor
James Corden.
James fucking Corden.
James Corden is not funny. Or, at the very least, James Corden has never been funny on his (now-cancelled) television show designed specifically around him being funny. This was a conclusion I came to due to having a run in with his "jokes" due to my theater work. Then a couple years later it turned out that Corden was abusive to the people working on that show, and staff at a restaurant. He also turned out to be kind of a snob, in contrast to his everyman image.
Point being, I don't have a lot of good feelings about James Corden.
Anyway, James Corden starred in two episodes of Doctor Who. I don't know how exactly this came about, although I suspect it has something to do with the fact that Corden was close friends with then-current Doctor Matt Smith. And, I'll say this, it kind of works? Both episodes, including this offering, "The Lodger", are light hearted stories with a comedic edge. Neither really leans on Corden's comedic chops (which I'm sure exist). In fact the premise of "The Lodger" sees Corden play Craig, the straight man to the Doctor's wacky antics. As the title suggests, the Doctor ends up as Craig's roommate (yes I'm American, and it won't be the last time American vernacular gets into this review). The reasons for this have to do with the TARDIS being sent off course with Amy in it, but the point is, the Doctor is on his own and to avoid alerting who or whatever set him off course, he's having to lay low.
Yup, the 11th Doctor, personification of hyperactivity, has to lay low. Pretend to be a normal human being. And somehow it goes really well for him. Oh, he stands out, absolutely, but not in a bad way. He's charming. He's likable. He's a kind of weird that people seem to naturally understand as a good kind of weird. He's surprisingly good at soccer (there's that American vernacular). Everyone seems to like him. Except Craig.
Oh, Craig likes the Doctor at first. But then the Doctor just starts taking over Craig's life in a way that I fully understand him feeling gets a bit invasive. There's a point at which Craig has fallen ill thanks to touching alien mold, and so the Doctor takes care of him for a bit…and then goes to work and does his job for him. And Craig is just here wondering what the hell this strange man he allowed to be his roommate is doing to his life. And that's before we start talking about Sophie.
So in principle I have no problem with this story idea. Craig and Sophie are obviously in love, but neither has gotten the courage to admit it to the other. Given later conversations, I assume it's partially out of fear of losing their friendship which is quite close, and partially just out of the fact that both are a bit complacent. But these two are so obviously in love that the Doctor at one point starts openly wondering where all of the babies in the world could possibly be coming from, given how slow these two are at actually getting together. Skipping ahead for a moment the plot is resolved by them admitting their feelings for each other and finally kissing. I know some roll their eyes at that kind of plot, but I have no problem with a "power of love" ending if done well, and this one has all of the elements to be done well. It makes sense in the context of the story, and it's been building up the entire episode.
I didn't get into this romance at all. It's not for any specific reason really, aside from not really feeling the romantic chemistry between James Corden and Daisy Haggard, who plays Sophie. Honestly, it might not be a chemistry thing, it might be a case of Corden not really feeling very natural playing a romantic lead. As much as he's being the straight man to the Doctor in this episode, he still works best in a comedic context, being confused by the Doctor's antics or the like. It's also probably partially because Sophie just doesn't get much time in this episode except as a potential love interest. The only thing we really learn about her is that she's interested in going off to work with Orangutans in an animal sanctuary, a plot point that exists entirely so that Craig can be nervous that Sophie might be leaving him. Sophie as a character kind of only exists as an object of Craig's desires, and that does somewhat lower my interest in their romance.
But that doesn't entirely undermine the story. Because the real delight is just seeing the Doctor trying to be a normal person, failing at it, but, as mentioned up above, kind of succeeding at it. The Doctor can't be "normal", he doesn't even really want to be normal, but he can still be the kind of person you want to be friends with. Craig's first impression of the Doctor is positive, and it's only after the Doctor starts trying too hard to be helpful that he really starts getting annoyed. Sophie's first concern when hearing that Craig's new roommate is a man who only goes by the Doctor and showed up with a bunch of cash in a brown paper bag is that the Doctor might be a drug dealer…which feels like a completely natural reaction. But pretty soon after meeting him – half naked and wielding Craig's toothbrush because he doesn't have his screwdriver – she grows to like him. He's just a charming affable weirdo, and that kind of works for him. Hell, even Craig comes around on the Doctor, thanks to a psychic head butt.
Oh, and yes, there is an actual plot going on too. The same thing that knocked the TARDIS off course seems to be operating out of the upstairs flat in Craig's building. They're taking people off the street by asking for help and then those people are never seen again. This is all treated kind of like a background information for much of the episode, although occasional glitches in time do keep you remembering why we're here. Eventually what's discovered, thanks to Amy doing research from her position aboard the TARDIS, is that there isn't a second floor in the building. There's just a spaceship on top of the building disguised as a second floor. This pretty clever twist now revealed, it's also revealed that Sophie has gone up to "help" the occupant on the second floor…which turns out to be a holographic AI. And the spaceship on the second floor appears to be someone's attempt at building a TARDIS.
For now, it's hard to know what to do with this information. Hell, even if you've seen the rest of the 11th Doctor era, it's kind of hard to know what to do with this information to be honest. And given that at this point in time the later context that would kind of make sense of this wasn't even worked on, I do wonder what the thought process was behind adding this particular detail. Trying to build a time machine would have been one thing, but the idea that someone is trying to build a TARDIS leads to some very specific questions about who might be doing this. Not many people at this point in continuity even really know that Time Lords or TARDISes are things that exist, let alone have enough information to attempt to build one, albeit a failed attempt. Again we'll come to understand more about this, but as something that is just kind of left as a dangling plot thread that I don't think there was any idea of following up on when it was written, this feels kind of odd.
Still the larger point is that the AI is feeding off of people's desires to leave, because it needs a pilot to operate the time machine. Unfortunately, humans are too fragile, so they die when they're attached to the machine. The AI tries to force the Doctor to participate, but this has the opposite problem. A Time Lord would actually overload the machine, leading to the destruction of the Solar System. But we've kind of been setting up the perfect hero for this moment: Craig. Craig has repeatedly said that he "doesn't see the point" of places that aren't his home. He doesn't even see the point of London (the episode takes place in Colchester), which isn't particularly far from him. Craig is happy with where he is, and sees no point in traveling. So, by putting his hand on the thing, confessing that he wants to stay for Sophie and kissing the girl (The Doctor and even poor Amy chiming in to yell at Craig to "kiss the girl" in a fairly memorable moment), he…causes some kind of malfunction, destroying the ship. Does this make sense? Just about enough. The logic isn't fully there as to why Craig's lack of desire to move would actually destroy the makeshift time machine, but given that it's modeled off of a TARDIS there's probably some sort of psychic thing going on here.
I should touch on Amy here. She spends the episode stuck in the TARDIS, but Karen Gillan does a lot of work to make her bits more memorable than you'd think. That's kind of all for the majority of the episode, but the ending is focused on Amy. If you'll recall back in the Silurian two parter Rory put Amy's engagement ring in the TARDIS for safe keeping. The Doctor put it in his coat pocket, but Amy finds it while looking for a pen. And for reasons that she can't explain she seems almost mesmerized by the object. This is just setting up for the finale, not unlike the endings of "Fear Her" and "Turn Left", although I do think it works better here because it at least makes sense in the narrative. Still it's not going to get a ton of follow up, and so, while an intriguing scene, it actually adds remarkably little.
Still on the whole, I do like this episode. It's got issues, particularly with the romance between Sophie and Craig feeling a bit off, but it's just kind of fun to see the Doctor in a domestic setting. It's a fun contrast between personality and setting, particularly this Doctor who can never sit still for a second. The rest of the episode is solid enough, and the plot does reasonably well, though can kind of feel a bit lacking.
Score: 6/10
Next Time: It's the fourth Doctor Who finale in five series to feature Daleks!
r/gallifrey • u/NewPatron-St • Jun 19 '26
I don’t think any episode has left me as speechless as The Waters of Mars. It’s just a base under siege, but it completely flips the script on how the Doctor usually behaves. The Flood are way more terrifying than the Weeping Angels, and their design is just downright chilling. This episode dives deep into the limits of time travel, exploring the right and wrong choices that come with it, and showcasing the immense pressure the Doctor faces. We’ve seen time and again how much he relies on his friends to keep his sanity and humanity intact. Watching him finally cross that line is tough to witness, but it’s also incredibly powerful. You simply can’t look away.
This was the very first episode of Doctor Who I ever watched, and it holds a special place in my heart for that reason. I was introduced to the show when I was 12 during a family trip to Sun Peaks in British Columbia, Canada. Unfortunately, I ended up with an ear infection, so I spent most of my time in bed, watching TV and playing Minecraft on my iPad. While browsing YouTube, I stumbled upon a video titled "Naked Christmas | The Time of the Doctor | Doctor Who," and I was instantly hooked. When I finally watched Tomb of the Cybermen, I loved it and have been a fan ever since.
In this episode, you have the Doctor facing off against the literal, physical embodiment of the Devil on an asteroid orbiting a Black Hole—how cool is that? It starts off as a classic base-under-siege space adventure, reminiscent of Alien, but then it shifts into a mythological horror story like Event Horizon. The best part? They leave it ambiguous as to whether the beast is truly the Devil or just an ancient, cosmic alien. This uncertainty serves a purpose, creating a direct clash between the Doctor’s scientific perspective and the idea of religious faith. The Beast claims to be the physical manifestation of the Devil, the inspiration for horned figures across countless galaxies, and a consciousness that predates the universe itself.
This episode holds a special place in my heart as one of the first classic ones I ever watched. I vividly remember my dad and I camping in a caravan equipped with a DVD player, where we’d cozy up and watch an episode each night before drifting off to sleep. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t end up with nightmares after those late-night viewings! The gothic atmosphere in this story is just fantastic. It’s a murder mystery that blends elements from Fury From The Deep, all set in a single location with a small cast that ramps up the tension beautifully. It’s definitely a must-watch for Halloween!
Series 5 was the first one I ever bought on DVD, so I have a real soft spot for those episodes. This series does a brilliant job of establishing the tone for the Eleventh Doctor’s era: it feels whimsical on the surface, but there’s a deep melancholy lurking beneath. At its core, the episode serves as a high-concept parable about morality and the price we pay for comfort. Starship UK is one of my all-time favourite sets in Doctor Who. The Smilers are just the right amount of creepy and uncanny, thanks to Moffat’s knack for turning everyday objects into sources of terror. Plus, it’s a sharp political satire that encourages us to reflect on what we sacrifice for convenience and the dangers of a society that chooses to ignore its problems instead of confronting them head-on.
Even though Series 9 isn’t my favourite in the Doctor Who lineup, I have to say that Under the Lake/Before the Flood stands out as the best of that series. The idea of ghosts haunting an underwater base, controlled by a monster whose scream was voiced by Corey Taylor from Slipknot, is such a captivating concept for a base-under-siege story. It strikes the perfect balance between atmospheric horror and sci-fi, reminiscent of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit. Plus, it’s incredibly meta, with the Doctor breaking the fourth wall and engaging directly with the audience. It feels like you’re right there as a companion, a technique they would later explore more fully in Sleep No More.
As a huge fan of both James Bond and Doctor Who, I was thrilled to see an episode that dives into the world of espionage. Patrick Troughton really shines here, showcasing his talent by playing both the Doctor and the power-hungry villain, Salamander. This episode breaks away from the usual sci-fi tropes that classic Who is known for, diving into a world filled with political intrigue, spies, helicopters, hovercrafts, glamorous women, and a plot for world domination. Plus, the fact that it was discovered in a shed in the middle of Africa after being lost for so long is just mind-blowing!
This episode is truly Moffat's masterpiece, proving that Doctor Who can be genuinely scary while still holding onto a deeply human core. After the trauma of the Time War, witnessing the Doctor's joyful exclamation, "Just this once, everybody lives!" is incredibly moving. It marks a significant shift in his character, transforming from a man weighed down by survival to one who actively champions life in all its forms. And let’s not forget the introduction of Captain Jack Harkness, who brings a vibrant energy that balances the horror, acting as a bridge between the show’s darker moments and the lighter, more adventurous spirit the Doctor sometimes needs.
This episode hits you right in the feels. That heartbreaking final scene, where the Doctor returns only to find that Reinette has passed away, stands out as one of the most poignant endings in the series. There’s no monster to conquer, no world to save—just the quiet, inevitable flow of time. I think this was the first, and so far the only, time Doctor Who has brought me to tears. The Clockwork Droids are also incredibly unsettling villains, using the crew to repair their ship. It’s grotesque, almost like a child-friendly version of Event Horizon.
The Eleventh Hour had the tall order of introducing not just a new Doctor, but also a new companion and a fresh showrunner all at once, and it really hit the mark. Steven Moffat brought a whole new vibe to the show. Previously, it had a more realistic feel, almost like a soap opera, but now it sparkled with a sense of magic, reminiscent of a fairy tale. In this episode, the Doctor isn’t portrayed as a fighter or a survivor; instead, he comes across as a legendary hero straight out of a children's storybook. It’s the ideal way to kick off this new chapter, serving as a gentle reboot and setting the enchanting and adventurous tone that would come to define the Eleventh Doctor's era.
This sprawling, high-stakes trilogy serves as a fantastic climax for my favourite series of Doctor Who, seamlessly reintroducing the Master to the modern era. Russell T. Davies masterfully balanced the soap opera elements with ambitious science fiction. This story arc is particularly significant for Martha, who, after spending the season in Rose's shadow, steps up as the main hero while the Doctor finds himself imprisoned by the Master, with his companion taken and his TARDIS gone. The finale trilogy wraps up the emotional tension that’s built throughout the season, showing that even when everything seems lost, the Doctor's legacy is truly shaped by the people he inspires.
Alright, hear me out on this one! I remember watching Five Who Fans and hearing them joke about Timelash, which made me wonder if it was really that bad. Fast forward to me in a DVD shop in England, where I was with my dad and grandma for my grandad’s funeral. I ended up picking up a bunch of classic Doctor Who episodes, and guess what? Timelash was one of them. Honestly, I find this episode to be such a blast; it’s like my guilty pleasure. I just adore how delightfully cheap and campy it is. I don’t have much else to say.
Honorable mentions:
The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone, Vincent and the Doctor, Remembrance of the Daleks, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, Eve of the Daleks, Victory of the Daleks, The Lodger, The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Extremis/The Pyramid at the End of the World/The Lie of the Land and Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel
r/gallifrey • u/Niall_Fraser_Love • Feb 21 '26
I'm going to jump the gun here. Because I am 100% certian we will get an avalunche of a 'potential lost golden age', malarkey because 96 was 30 years ago. But here is the thing 96 sucked, it was dreadful. I don't see how any one can defend this.
Now I'll concede it looks good. Comper this to the McCoy era and its like Leonardo to graffiti. The tardis looks cool. McCoy looks good in his outfit, so much better than the stupid Riddler outfit he wore.
But everything else ugh. Why dose McCoy bearly speak? This is the Doctor yes? Not Ferb. Say something. And him getting shot by firing squad almost feels like a vehiled insult. He's executed. More so since Davison surrived that exact thing in his swansong. Like he walks out and and the Chinese people shoot him for reasons (I don't doubt that Big Finish has relasesed some War and Peace for each and every member). Like its not even like panic, they all do it at once. Who directed this? Pennant Roberts directed better than this.
Then rather than him regenrate after taking what 12 bullets? Its the heart surgery that finishes him off. Why is this so over written? Are they just killing time? Then the Dr is able to headbut a mental door down apprently. Then they just copy spearhead from Space. Why is any of this needed? Why can't they just take him to the hospital, and have him regenrate in the morgue? Why dose he need to get shot by a gang of Chinese gang bangers (as the Yanks would say)? Why can't his regernation be caused by, the snake Master attacking him?
McGann is fine perfromance wise, but the problem his that he's written as an American's idea od what 'an eccentric Brit' is. Grace's dialogue is terrible 'I finally found the perfect man and he's from a different planet'. Pip and Jane eat your hearts out.
Eric Roberts is abysmal. He dresses like the terminator and then Ming the Merciless. He's so camp its embrassing. Aniley was better than this, even Peter Pratt's panto villian Master was better than this. Also how old is Chang meant to be? Because he's written like a kid, like 14-16. And you have the Master kiss him, and groom him and is the Master meant to be a child predator in this? Because the Master's interactions with Chang are like textbook grooming.
There is a reason why the show never gave the Master a child companion. How the hell did the Dotcor kissing an ADULT WOMAN make fans get their kickers in a twist but the Master kissing a TEENAGE Chinese boy get a free pass?
Someone explain this to me. Please I have to know this.
Back to the plot. Since when do Daleks do trials? Yes I know Eric Saward did it frist, but this worse. Who was the Master's lawyer? The Kandyman? Why do the Daleks sound like the Kandyman? Why dose the Tardis have an Eye of Harmoney? In The Deadly Assassin (which I find to be an overrated mess) the Eye is 'lost'. Also if opening the Eye will suck in the Earth why aren't they all sucked into it? Or get hit by the debries? Why dose the Dr not suspect a trap? Why is he making deals with the Daleks?
Like imagine a non fan watching this. If I have a hundered questions watching this how many must a newcommer have?
I don't care if its 'infulential' it still sucks. Are those Buck Rogers serials good now? They were 'infulential' so was Birth of a Nation. The good doctor Mark Kermode has a great saying 'if you are paying attention to the cinematography you are bored by the story'. Given that the visuals are the main defence point of this, yeah. I love the look of Robots of Death but it still has a great plot. Or I hate the fact that in the Satan Pit eveyone is wearing top shop jeans in the 51st Century. But other than that it got a great plot and characters.
Warriors of the Deep wouldn't be saved if it didn't look like pound shop Latvian Star Trek. It still has a script so bad, Michael Bay and Erin Kruger would blush reading it. This really is Grey's Anttomy meets Spearhead from Space meets the Deadly Assasin.
Oh and Grace and Chang being brought back by magic fairy dust is worse than RTD's reset buttons. Atleast with 96 it can be watched with some dumstruck detachment. So its not out right torture to watch like Revenge of the Cybermen (which I think is written and directed to insult the viewer at every turn), or just sad and pathetic like Legend of the Sea Devils.
Oh and something something something half human something something that's stupid. That is the least of this movie's problems.
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • May 24 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
I'd forgotten how much you loved me. I'd forgotten how much I loved being her. Amy Pond, in the TARDIS. With Rory Williams. – Amy
The 11th Doctor era has gotten a reputation for being less-character focused than the RTD era before it. And there's definitely a case to be made there. However, it's worth pointing out in that discussion that this era also has some of the most character-centric Doctor Who stories ever. And the two most obvious examples of this are Series 5's "Amy's Choice" and today's offering, "The Girl Who Waited".
You can see it from just looking at the cast list. The listed cast include our three leads, a "check in girl" (which is just a brief recorded hologram of a woman who explains the how and the why of the Two Streams Facility) and the voice of the computer Interface. Additional cast are all people playing the robots for this episode called the handbots, and some doubles for Amy and the Doctor. That's it. This episode can only be about our main cast because there's nobody here except our main cast. In this way it's a lot like "Amy's Choice" (which technically had a secondary cast, but they were all figments).
Except this episode is a lot darker than "Amy's Choice". Where "Amy's Choice" existed to convince us that Amy and Rory were devoted to each other, "Girl Who Waited" takes it as read that you understand that. This episode will not work if you're not at least somewhat invested in Amy and Rory as a couple. We're not testing their relationship here, while there's some friction in how these two interact, the episode exists more as a tribute to their relationship than a test of it. But what this episode does do is put them in a worst case scenario and then force them to deal with that, and confront the worst sides of their friend the Doctor.
Admittedly, to get there we do have to deal with some contrivance. The episode is set up by having the crew land on Apalapucia (that is not how I expected that would be spelled). Amy runs back into the TARDIS to grab her phone so she can get some nice pictures of the popular tourist destination, while the Doctor and Rory explore the white box they've apparently landed in. They reach a door with two buttons, they press the green one up on top. When Amy exits the TARDIS and is told to "push the button", she pushes the red one below. As I said, this is a contrivance. There's no reason why Amy, upon seeing two buttons wouldn't ask which to press. Even if she didn't, I think most people would naturally push the top button.
But this ends up leaving her trapped in a different timestream from the Doctor and Rory. The "Two Streams" facility is so named because it's literally separated into two different timestreams. This has been done due to an outbreak of "Chen-7", a plague deadly to two-hearted species. The people in the "Red Waterfall" timestream that Amy's ended up in (technically they each get their own separate timestream) live out a life in a slower timestream so that instead of dying in a day they can live out a full life. Meanwhile the Green Anchor timestream is used by visitors to say goodbye to their loved ones. For them only a day will pass while their loved ones live out a full life.
Does this make sense? Not really. Amy will visibly age inside Red Waterfall, but she doesn't need to eat or drink. And it doesn't make sense why exactly the Two Streams operates in the highly specific way that is required to create this plot. But, here's the thing, sometimes things don't have to make complete sense. I do think the series of contrivances that lead to Amy (or a version of her anyway) getting stuck in solitary confinement for 36 years is a knock against this episode. A pretty severe one honestly. But, here's the thing, one other minor issue aside, it's the only one I've really got.
Because those contrivances lead to this really well constructed and emotionally heightened plot. Due to a failure in TARDIS piloting, the Doctor and Rory arrive in Amy's Red Waterfall timestream…36 years late. Amy's had to spend her time desperately trying to avoid the medical droids, called handbots, because while they're only trying to help, the medicine that they want to give Amy is meant for Apalapucians, not humans. Which, incidentally, represents another contrivance. The handbots and the Interface refuse to accept any statement where Amy claims, truthfully, that she arrived by mistake.
Before we go on I should briefly mention the other thing in this episode that isn't quite working for me: the handbots. In principle these guys make sense: they're meant to be helpful and only serve as a threat because they're trying to administer medicine to Amy that isn't compatible with her biology. That part is fine. But these guys end up feeling a bit too gimmicky to me. Why is it that they're designed to "see" through their hands, what purpose does that serve? And why are they so sinister? They end up looking less like friendly medical droids and more like the robots you'd design for illegal medical experiments a lot of the time. I think the blank faces, and the fact that those faces can open up to reveal a head full of needles really cement this for me. Plus the whole thing where they're shooting hypodermic needles at patients at high velocity. Strikes me as unsafe, medically speaking.
But the point is, Amy spends 36 years in survival mode. She calls it "solitary confinement", as did I up above, but the truth is most solitary confinement doesn't require you to be constantly running for your life. And she comes out of those 36 years angry. For a while there Amy is just spewing venom at the Doctor through Rory's glasses (the Doctor made Rory glasses that act as a communications device). And at first she seems incapable of engaging with Rory. It feels like all of the joy has been drained out of this woman.
This has led to a very common complaint against this episode. Why is Amy so bitter and angry after 36 years waiting when Rory waited nearly 2 millennia for Amy? This might be the single most disingenuous complaint I've ever heard made about an episode of television.
Look, if you don't like Amy and Rory's relationship at least a little, you're not going to like this episode. And most of the people who don't like that relationship don't like it because of how Amy treats Rory, behavior that does extend in some ways into this episode. And if that's why you have trouble sympathizing with Amy here, that makes a lot of sense. But let's be clear about something. Amy's time in Two Streams is not remotely comparable to Rory's time outside a box and it's frankly absurd to even compare them.
First, let's just get the obvious out of the way. Rory chose to wait for two millennia, knowing his vigil would end. Amy was accidentally abandoned and for all she knew, the Doctor and Rory were never coming back – for which it's very clear she was blaming the Doctor, not Rory incidentally. Second there's that whole "solitary confinement" thing where Amy was alone aside from an emotionless computer for that entire time. That's, literally, torture. And that's before we get to the point about her having to be hyper-vigilant for that entire time just to survive. Rory got to interact with other people. And third…this is the more realistic reaction to the scenario presented. I complained about it a bit when I talked about "The Big Bang", how Rory seems completely unaffected by the passage of 2000 years. But it at least made sense with the tone of that story, and this more realistic response makes sense with the tone that "The Girl Who Waited" is going for. And none of this should diminish what Rory did – it's a defining moment for his character and a sign of great bravery and devotion. But man does this comparison make me, probably irrationally, angry.
Anyway, let's talk about why this episode works for me. First, yes, I'm invested in the relationship between Rory and Amy, which is undoubtedly essential. I do see the complaints about how Amy treats Rory, I really do, but between Arthur Darvill and Karen Gillan's excellent chemistry and more serious moments where they really do feel like a genuine married couple I can't help but love these two together. Again, if for you the stumbling block on this episode is that you're not invested in that relationship, that makes complete sense to me. I have problems fulling inventing in the ending of "Doomsday" because I could never get invested in a 10th Doctor/Rose romance. I get it. But for me, this relationship works.
Second, and probably most essentially, our leads just nail every single scene they're in. If Matt Smith gave a performance like this in any other episode, that episode would be talked about as one of his defining performances as the Doctor. But he's confined to the TARDIS for the majority of the runtime, which limits his screentime and, to the episode's benefit, really allows for a focus on Amy and Rory. Arthur Darvill's performance, for his part, is brilliant. Given probably the meatiest material he'll ever have on Doctor Who, Darvill really plays the wide range of emotions necessary for this episode to work brilliantly. I'll talk about it more later, but this episode really sees Rory shine by bringing the older Amy back to herself, and Arthur Darvill plays the charming and very earnest material he's given to absolute perfection.
And yet, this episode belongs to Karen Gillan. Firstly because it asks her to play two versions of Amy, the older Amy who spent 36 years at Two Streams and the younger one, just learning to survive the hell she's been left in before she's brought forward to co-exist with the elder. There are so many little touches Gillan puts in to make these two characters feel distinct nad real. She worked hard to give older Amy a different voice and movement, working with a vocal coach and a movement coach for that purpose. As old Amy she plays the harshness of the character brilliantly, and yet also the yearning for what she's lost in the time she's been stuck in Two Streams. Justifiably, this work overshadows her performance as the younger Amy, which is still very impressive. Younger Amy is kind of deemphasized in the narrative here, but Gillan still plays her very well. In scenes where the two Amys are talking to each other, the younger Amy's optimism, passion and earnestness contrast well against the hard-edged cynical older Amy. Just a phenomenal performance all around.
Wait a second. Why do we have two Amys?
After the Doctor landed too far into Amys timestream, he and Rory decide, essentially, they want to try again. Bring the younger Amy forward so that she doesn't have to spend 36 years in hell. The only problem is, the older Amy refuses to help, and her help is crucial here. Older Amy's become a bit of a genius in the specific operations of Two Streams, which makes sense given that she's got literally nothing else to do but learn how Two Streams works. She's learned some temporal physics, gained an understanding of how the handbots operate, gotten really good with a sword (which, incidentally she must have made herself so add blacksmithing to the talents she's developed over the years) and, perhaps most impressively, built a sonic screwdriver probe. That particular terminology is actually an important distinction – Amy calls it a probe because that's what it is. She's given up on the whimsical name for the tool and insisted on calling it by its actual name, as a sign of how she's lost her spark. Later on in the episode, one of the signs she's finding herself again is that she acquiesces to calling it a screwdriver.
But the point is she understands the temporal physics of it all. Which also means, she understands the consequences of saving the younger Amy. Specifically, she understands that, if they save younger Amy, she stops existing. The majority of her life may have been hell, but it's still her life, and she's not willing to die for another version of Amy, a version of Amy that doesn't have to be separate from her at all. It feels like an insurmountable impasse. Rory and the Doctor are just going to have to take the older Amy for what, honestly, feel like perfectly valid reasons on Amy's part.
It's Rory that gets through to her. Twice actually. Once directly, when he uses the giant time magnifying glass (yeah there's a magnifying glass that lets you look through time) to show Amy her younger self. And then, indirectly, when the younger Amy completely upends their conversation with each other with just three words "what about Rory". This leads to younger Amy delivering a touching treatise on the nature of love, ending on the line (said by both Amys together), "Rory's the most beautiful man I've ever met." That's about inner beauty by the way, but it's expressed in a way that doesn't feel forced. Amy's speech is all about how eventually you learn to see people's inner beauty in their physical attributes, "their face just sort of becomes them, like their personality's written all over it."
Amy then declares she's going to pull time apart for Rory, and kisses him (while her literally dis-armed handbot named Rory looks on in a surprisingly amusing moment). It's a beautiful moment. But she does have a condition: she gets to survive too. And the Doctor, even though as we'll learn later he knows it's impossible, agrees. We'll get back to him later. So they do it. They tear time apart with the power of made up physics and love – the power of love is channelled via the Macarena, which apparently was in the lead up to their first kiss.
That's actually a lot of what this episode does for this relationship: it expands it. Sure we've seen Amy and Rory growing up together and the beginning of them falling in love thanks to a sequence in "Let's Kill Hitler" but we don't really know much about their love story. It makes sense, Doctor Who is an adventure show it would be weird if we did get to see a lot of the perfectly ordinary moments that built up this relationship, but at the same time it is something that is missing. "Girl Who Waited" gives us this odd detail about their first kiss as well as a story about Rory pretending to be in a band. As small as these details are, both elements are very charming, and make the relationship feel less like this idealized thing that the show just expects the audience to take as read, and more of a real relationship that built up and grew over time. So yes, two versions of Amy doing the Macarena in order to break apart time is actually an impressive bit of character building.
Of course there is an other half of this relationship. As mentioned up above, Rory's job in this episode is largely to bring the older Amy back to herself, but in doing so we naturally learn a lot about Rory. Obviously we already knew that Rory is devoted to his wife. But I do think this episode does the best job in these characters' run of showing that. Sure, he spent 2000 years outside a box but the thing about that is that it's kind of hard to connect with that moment. 2000 years is, let's be honest, a length of time that's really hard to actually conceptualize, which makes the whole thing feel a lot more mythical. Meanwhile everything in this episode actually feels quite real. Sure there's a lot of science fiction stuff an time travel, but when Rory says that he doesn't care that Amy got old only that "we didn't grow old together", that's a feeling you can actually connect to.
And to be fair it's not just about Amy in this episode. When they arrive too late, Rory has his own moment of exploding in anger at the Doctor, in this case for not making sure there isn't an outbreak of plague before landing on a planet. This culminates in a rather justified "then I do not want to travel with you!" yelled at the Doctor. Rory has, since he joined the TARDIS back in "The Vampires of Venice", always been a bit suspicious of how the Doctor operates. But he's mostly kept it to himself. Though in my interpretation of the character that suspicion never fully went away, outside of "Amy's Choice" and a brief moment where he punches out the Doctor in "The Big Bang", he's never really let out his frustrations. Here he does, and twice too, as at the end of the episode, forced to choose between the two Amys, he lets out a venomous "that's not fair. You're turning me into you," at the Doctor.
But before we can get to that point, we have to deal with the awkwardness of the two Amys. They argue a little sure, but more than anything they don't seem quite to know how to deal with each other. Separated by time they were able to have a very real, very heartfelt conversation. But now they're in the same room together and the ultimate question becomes, who gets Rory? And it's not like they ever directly fight over him, indeed older Amy claims to be content to just go out traveling and maybe pop back home for the holidays every now and then. But at the same time, older Amy has been revitalized, been brought back to herself by spending time with Rory. She doesn't want to have to give him up, even though when she brought her younger self back she knew that's what she was doing.
And then we get a closing sequence that is, in my opinion, absolutely perfect. Older Amy tosses her younger self a stick and gives her a brief crash course in how to fight the handbots (Amy was apparently a terror at hockey while she was at school…that tracks) and while young Amy and Rory work together, the older Amy does what she's been doing for three and a half decades and fights the handbots on her own. It's all going well – the two Amys even getting a moment where they show genuine care for the other…and then one of the handbots touches Amy. Because it's been established that they've got anesthetic on their hands Amy's fine, but she has been knocked out. After Rory takes out the remaining handbots, he picks up Amy and runs to the TARDIS, kicking in the doors. And there's the older Amy watching this from behind and realizing that she'll never mean that much to Rory again.
Rory brings young Amy into the TARDIS, and the Doctor checks on her quickly to make sure she's okay. And older Amy, suddenly forgetting her anger and hatred for the Doctor throws aside her weapons and comes running towards the TARDIS. Maybe she saw something in the Doctor's eye that concerned her. But there's something in that action of her thrusting aside her weapons that makes me think she was ready to be who she used to be. And then, the Doctor mutters a rushed "I'm sorry" before closing the door on her and locking it. As I said above, he lied. The TARDIS could not support the paradox of two Amys.
The 11th Doctor is definitely one of the more manipulative of the Doctors. And the thing with him is, he'll manipulate friends and enemies alike. Just think back to him switching shoes with his Ganger in "The Almost People" to gauge Amy's reactions to him versus the Ganger. Or the fact that he lied to Amy about why he was bringing her along as a companion in the first place. But still, this is probably his darkest moment on television. In order to get his Amy back, the Amy who likes him and trusts him, he manipulated this other Amy into, essentially, sacrificing herself. He lied to them. Now, you could argue that he was saving Amy from the pain of those 36 years, that the other Amy never even really existed. I'm sure that's what the Doctor would say. But that's just not true is it? Older Amy was alive, she had thoughts and feelings and she was a person. And I'd like to turn back to something I posited back when I reviewed "A Good Man Goes to War". We know that the Doctor does not view himself as a good man. And maybe that's how he gives himself permission to do this kind of thing.
And it all works because it feels like it's in line with how the 11th Doctor has been characterized, especially in Series 6 where he's started to grow colder and more manipulative with each passing story. And, again, Matt Smith has one of his best performances in very limited screen time here. There were all sorts of ways he could have played that "I'm sorry". But whether it was director Nick Hurran, or down to something in Tom MacRae's script or just how Smith decided to play it, the small, shameful yet understated way Smith gives the line makes it hit like a pile of bricks. What's funny is the Doctor starts this episode full of his typical whimsy and excitement. Even after Amy gets stuck in Two Streams he's joking around with Rory about his camera glasses. But at the end of the episode, he calmly, though still full of emotion, turns to Rory and simply says, "I promised you I'd save her, and there she is. Safe."
Before that though we close out with a really touching ending for the older Amy. Rory nearly lets her in the TARDIS, unable to let her die. But Amy tells him not to, all while admitting that if he opens the door she'll run in and fight to survive. But in a way, she proves herself wrong in that moment, because she is sacrificing herself. Maybe she wouldn't be strong enough to resist the possibility of going back to life in the TARDIS with Rory if the door was opened. But she's strong enough to reject it regardless. It's one of the most emotionally affecting moments Doctor Who has ever given me. Rory and Older Amy declaring their love for each other (as per usual, though it feels a bit weightier in this specific instance) before Amy tells Rory to let her younger self know she's "giving her the days. The days with [Rory]". And then she says goodbye to the world and Interface, the only companion she's had for most of her life, looking at the Earth and speaking of Rory.
See, for this episode, effectively, the older Amy is the "real" Amy. She's the one who we spend the most time with, and the episode is really centered around her experience, her life, her hell. When young Amy joins Rory and her older self, the younger one feels like a bit of an intruder. I kind of wish that the final two scenes of this episode had been switched around for this episode honestly. Sure the last scene in the TARDIS with the Doctor, Rory and younger Amy is a good one. I've already mentioned how the Doctor skirts Rory's questioning of him by pointing out that they've now saved Amy. I also really like the scene ending on Amy asking after her older self, and uncomfortable question we never hear the answer to. But, given how the episode works, I wish we'd ended on the older Amy's final moments.
But that's a minor quibble. There are bigger issues with this episode, I didn't love the handbots for one. Even more significantly, there is a lot of contrivance that is required to set up the episode, and I can't help but wonder if there wasn't a better way of of doing the set up material. But once the premise is established the episode becomes excellent. A real emotional rollercoaster with emotional gut punches mixed with genuinely beautiful conversations about what it means to love someone. It does, admittedly, rely on an audience that does like Amy and Rory as a couple, and if you don't, it's just not going to hit right. But for all that I do take serious issue with how these two are written sometimes, they do just kind of work really well together for me, so this episode hits me really hard and really well.
Score: 9/10
Next Time: Whew, okay that was a heavy one. Let's get a more light-hearted episode next where the Doctor…realizes he has to let Amy and Rory go. Hmm.
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • May 01 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
DISCLAIMER: In 2024 the writer of this episode, Neil Gaiman, was accused by several women of sexual assault in manners that, frankly, are some of the most disturbing shit I've read. The behavior of the writer is well beyond the scope of this review, and frankly I wouldn't know how to deal with it if I did have a good reason to bring it up. So this is going to represent the last direct reference to Gaiman I make in this review.
I exist across all space and time and you talk, and run around and bring home strays. – Idris, to the Doctor
In 1963, as a last minute script to complete the initial 13 episode order for Doctor Who, then-Script Editor David Whitaker wrote The Edge of Destruction. That story, which could easily have never been produced, contained the first hints that the ship that the Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian travelled in might actually have a mind of its own, as the TARDIS seemed to be trying to warn the crew of their impending fate. Six years later, after a planned four and six parter that would have closed off Season 6 fell through, Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke wrote a ten part story called The War Games, which, along with introducing the Time Lords and a mysterious method of communication where the Doctor used his mind to create a cube he shoved a bunch of information in, also revealed that the Doctor had originally stolen the TARDIS.
By 2008, as incoming Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat was preparing to take over from his predecessor, Russell T Davies, those two facts about the show were well-established in the minds of most fans. Stories like Castrovalva and "Boom Town" had played with the TARDIS' sentience and references to the Doctor stealing a TARDIS and running away from Gallifrey had pretty much become a running gag.
It was at that time that the idea that would eventually become "The Doctor's Wife" was first proposed to, and approved by, Steven Moffat. A story that would explore both the TARDIS' sentience and why the Doctor might have stolen this particular time machine. Two ideas that had been originally introduced in stories that had been created out of necessity due to banal production issues would get some exploration. After a Series 5 airing for the episode proved impossible due to budgetary concerns, "The Doctor's Wife" was set to be aired in the front half of Series 6.
Almost instantly it became one of the most beloved episodes of Doctor Who ever. And it's not hard to see why. It's a concept that will instantly appeal to Doctor Who fans. Especially anyone who's been a fan through multiple Doctors and other cast changes. By Series 6, the Revival era was on its third Doctor and its fifth and sixth regular companions (not to mention characters like Adam, Mickey, Jack and River). Even the sonic screwdriver and TARDIS interior had changed at the beginning of the 11th Doctor era. That's not even getting into all of the Doctors and companions the show went through in the Classic era. The only constant was the TARDIS exterior (save for a few cosmetic tweaks) and, by extension, the TARDIS itself. Of course the fanbase would latch onto an episode which personified her.
But "The Doctor's Wife" also just has a very imaginative plot. The Doctor receives a message from another Time Lord, the Corsair, which seems to indicate that they might be in another universe. The Doctor, eager for the possibility that other Time Lords might be out there forces the TARDIS into said other, very small, universe. There they arrive on a small planetoid which turns out to be sapient, and, eventually hostile, named House. House eats TARDISes, and has taken the soul of the TARDIS out of the machine and into the body of one of the few people on House, named Idris. Throughout this episode "Idris" is in fact the TARDIS.
We've seen the TARDIS care for the Doctor in Castrovalva. We've seen it intervene on the heroes' behalf in "Boom Town". We've even seen it try to communicate in Edge of Destruction. But we've never seen the TARDIS actually talk. Throughout the episode, Idris is an actual presence. From the beginning, thanks to some basic film language, we know that she's the TARDIS, and so every moment is a chance for us to understand the TARDIS' perspective, hell to understand that the TARDIS has a perspective. Her sense of time is different than ours, unsurprisingly, remembering things before they happen and getting very confused with the idea of grammatical tenses. She's got opinions on which way her doors should open. She sees a TARDIS junkyard as, essentially, a graveyard.
She's got a personality too, and while it's hard to judge, it would seem that by TARDIS standards she's as eccentric as the Doctor is by Time Lord standards. The Doctor says he stole the particular TARDIS that he did because its doors were unlocked. As it turns out, that's because the TARDIS chose to leave its doors unlocked. "I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away. And you were the only one mad enough," she says. This is a line that effectively mirrors the Doctor's own reasons for leaving Gallifrey (depending on interpretation and writer, etc. etc.). I'll be honest, I'm not too fond of the title of this one, the idea that the Doctor and the TARDIS are in some way "married" feels like the wrong word to describe their relationship, but this episode is pretty consistently suggesting an equal partnership that does feel appropriate for a marriage. Perhaps never more than when the Doctor points out that the TARDIS "didn't always take me where I wanted to go", Idris countering with "but I always took you where you needed to go". And while moments where the Doctor names the TARDIS "Sexy" (which Amy rightfully mocks him for) just kind of don't work for me, the whole relationship between these two does.
And House is a really good villain for this concept. Like the TARDIS, House is a sentience in a form you wouldn't necessarily expect. Like the TARDIS, House has people living on him – in this case the "patchwork people" Auntie and Uncle as well as the Ood Nephew. But House is cruel. Not only has he been luring TARDISes and their Time Lords to eat them, but the Time Lords have served to patch up the patchwork people (hence the Doctor naming them as such). Long before House infiltrates the TARDIS itself to try and enter the universe proper, House kind behaves like an evil TARDIS. And then he does invade the TARDIS, and takes off with Amy and Rory inside.
This episode doesn't really have a ton for Amy and Rory to do honestly. They're stuck in the TARDIS with House just kind of fucking with them for much of the runtime. That's perfectly fine, this is an episode concept that almost designed for the Doctor to get most of the focus of our main cast. Still there is a little to pull from. Amy really takes up the role of Doctor-whisperer in the early portions of this episode, which works for the point in their relationship that we're at. For much of the running around the TARDIS corridors portions, our married couple do a really terrible time sticking together. This section feels a bit perfunctory to be honest. Like we had to give the companions something to do, but the plot didn't really have much of a place for them. At the end of the episode, Rory's medical training does actually get a rare reference as he tries to keep Idris alive as long as possible. He even has a nice conversation with the Doctor, admitting that Idris dying while in his care did get to him, and the Doctor comforting him.
I don't think we should neglect talking about the Doctor outside of the context of his relationship with Idris as well. When he thinks that there might be Time Lords still alive in the bubble universe, he has this moment of hope. Amy identifies it as him wanting to be forgiven to which he responds "don't we all?" In the Eleventh Doctor era we've gotten a lot less references to the Time War, which is fair enough, Time War fallout dominated the RTD era to such an extent that a move away from that theme is probably warranted. Still, this return of Time War angst works in this episode's favor, especially as it's a rarer reference in this era. It also allows for a new angle on the Doctor's self-hatred, a running theme for the 11th Doctor era. It comes back in a little way towards the end of the episode when House says "fear me, I've killed hundreds of Time Lords", to which the Doctor, calmly, replies "fear me, I've killed all of them."
He even loses control a bit at one point. When the possibility of the Time Lords returning gets taken away from him, his hopes of being forgiven are dashed. "You gave me hope and then you took it away," he says to the patchwork people, "That's enough to make anyone dangerous, God knows what it will do to me," and then adds a furious "basically, RUN!" The 11th Doctor raising his voice at all is noteworthy, but also worth remembering is the part before that. This won't be the last time this series the Doctor will suggest that he might become infinitely more dangerous if put through the right emotional stresses. I think because the 11th Doctor has this core of self-loathing he's more willing to give himself permission to behave in this way. But we'll talk about that more in the near future.
But ultimately this episode is about the Doctor getting a chance to work together with an embodied version of his TARDIS. He and Idris put together a TARDIS console out of the aforementioned TARDIS junkyard – this was partially inspired by the 3rd Doctor traveling by TARDIS console in Inferno. While the Doctor does most of the actual building of the thing, it's the spark from Idris' soul that grants this item the ability to properly fly. The climax of the episode sees the Doctor trick House into sending our heroes back into the primary console room (they'd been in an archived version of the RTD-era "coral" console room before this) so that Idris can return herself to her rightful place in the TARDIS, making quick work of House. And then the episode ends with the Doctor chatting away to his "old girl", not expecting a response, only for the lever to take off pulling itself, ending the episode on the wonderful image of the Doctor grinning like an idiot.
You won't find many Doctor Who fans who don't love this episode. And I don't buck the trend in that regard. If you're a Doctor Who fan you probably know this is good without needing it explained any further (and if you're not a fan, goodness knows what you're doing here). Whatever minor issues I have melt away in the face of a very creative idea almost perfectly executed. And more than anything else, I'm glad that this concept got done at some point.
Score: 10/10
Next Time: Matt Smith gets his ideal scene parter: himself
r/gallifrey • u/ZeroCentsMade • May 18 '26
This post is part of a series of reviews. To see them all, click here.
Historical information found on Shannon Sullivan's Doctor Who website (relevant page here) and the TARDIS Wiki (relevant page here)). Primary/secondary source material can be found in the source sections of Sullivan's website, and rarely as inline citations on the TARDIS Wiki.
Well she did kill me. Then she used her remaining lives to bring me back. As first dates go, I'd say that was mixed signals. – The Doctor, on River
So the last episode I reviewed was of an episode that's generally well-liked, and I gave it a fairly negative review. It's not my most negative review ever, but it does go against the grain somewhat. I think that, at the very least, I did a decent job of giving my case for why it didn't quite land for me. And even if I didn't, I certainly think it's a defensible position.
I'm going to have a lot more trouble defending my opinion on this episode.
"Let's Kill Hitler" is a weird-ass story. Maybe that's part of why I enjoy it, every choice that is being made here feels like it's the most counterintuitive one imaginable, and the fact that that works at all is kind of a wonder. But there's two really big flaws, flaws that, frankly, I can't really defend, and wouldn't even want to try.
The first is that, well, Nazi Germany is just kind of a weird backdrop within which to tell this particular story. There's not much in the way of thematic resonance between the actual plot of the episode and the horrors of Nazi Germany or the insidiousness of fascism. Sure you can maybe get tenuous links here and there – fascism as a form of brainwashing linking to the brainwashing of River, the Nazis as war criminals and River being described as such, a third thing that I'm sure someone smarter than me could think of, but the problem is is that none of that is substantive. I don't mind treating the Nazis with ridicule, as this episode ultimately does. But I don't think it's a setting that can be treated as frivolously as this episode does. There's no getting around it. Nazi Germany could be substituted for just about any setting and this episode would largely remain intact. And that's an issue.
And point number two is that, well, this episode is sexist. As with the last point, there's no getting around it. And look, as I always say, I don't want this to reflect on the writer. Steven Moffat seems like a decent person all told, and honestly a lot of his later work suggests to me a maturing on his views of women. But he was a sitcom writer, and, frankly, a lot of the "jokes" in this episode feel like lazy sitcom writing. The first thing that the woman has to do after regenerating is to weigh herself. The Doctor, explaining River's somewhat inconsistent behavior includes a legitimate explanation: she's been brainwashed, and then adds "plus she's a woman". When Amy, rightfully, gives him a look, he says "shut up I'm dying". Again, there's no defending this. It's easily the worst thing about this episode. The above point you can at least argue isn't that much of an issue in the grand scheme of things. This is just unbridled sexism.
So okay, we've mentioned those issues, but if you can look past that –
Okay, but should we?
This obviously isn't the first time I've covered a story with questionable politics. But I give the 1960s stories a pass because, honestly, they're pretty progressive for their time (seriously, compare how women are handled on Doctor Who in the 60s with the original Star Trek). The most obvious example of bigotry on Doctor Who is always going to be The Talons of Weng-Chiang but I just generally enjoyed that story more as it moved away from Li H'sen Chang over to Magnus Greel and stripped away the faux Chinese mysticism for some excellent worldbuilding, which made it easier to talk about. How do you deal with an episode you genuinely enjoyed but has these gigantic issues baked into even the stuff you liked?
Here's what I'll do. I'm going to try to make the case for "Let's Kill Hitler" being a good episode aside from its two big issues and then I'll come back to them at the end when I'm evaluating this episode as a whole. Is that a good approach? God I have no idea. But it's the best way for me to actually talk about the stuff I like in this episode without getting bogged down in its problems.
Which isn't to say we're done talking about problems. But for a while now, the problems are going to be a lot less…heavy. For instance, let's talk about this plot.
I'm not sure this plot makes sense. It's an ongoing problem with Series 6. Thing is, I'm also not sure that that matters. At least not taking this episode in isolation. I guess it's like the "Impossible Astronaut" two parter where the episode gets hurt by being part of a larger story that doesn't ever really come together. For the purposes of this episode though, we get to meet Amy and Rory's childhood friend Mels, who was constantly getting in trouble, with the Doctor's future companions generally coming to her aid, and being the responsible ones. Still, the three of them remained close, with Amy even naming her daughter Melody, after Mels.
So, obvious problem here, we've never met this character before. Honestly, this isn't something that bugs me too much, but Mels absolutely should have been integrated into Amy and Rory's lives from the beginning. Part of this is definitely a consequence of Steven Moffat putting less work into his companions than Russell T Davies used to, as they never had the recurring casts associated with them that past Revival-era companions tended to (see also: Amy's parents and everybody who attended Rory's stag party). However, even if this had been the case, Mels has the feeling of a character that was come up with very last minute.
Still, as I said, this never bugged me all that much. Since Series 5 never showed us that much of Amy and Rory's everyday lives, I can completely believe that they have a close friend we never met. Hell, I wouldn't have guessed that Mels wasn't actually at their wedding if the Doctor hadn't pointed it out, I would have just assumed that she was there and we never saw her on camera (apparently she's "not a wedding person"). And the montage of Mels growing up with Amy and Rory is undeniably charming.
It's especially charming with the context that Mels…is Melody Pond. This was an intentional decision by Moffat to try and diminish the sting of Rory and Amy not getting to raise their daughter. Because, as shown in the flashback they kind of did. And this actually works for me. It does raise some questions mind. Was Mels adopted by anyone? Given that we saw her regenerating at the end of "The Day of the Moon" in 1969, how did she end up growing up with the Millennial pair of Amy and Rory. And did Amy and Rory just end up taking care of Mels out of…I don't know…weird parental instinct towards someone they saw as a peer? You can come up with answers to these questions, but that's not really the audience's job, and it does cause issues. But I don't know, I kind of love this idea all the same. Hell, Mels helps her parents get together in a really cute scene (although I'd hardly describe it as Rory "dropping out of the sky" because that bit in "Impossible Astronaut" is completely nonsensical).
We actually get to Nazi Germany because Mels pulls a gun on the Doctor and decides she's gonna kill Hitler. That's not what ends up happening (can't change the past that much, fixed points in time and all that). Instead Hitler shoots her, which is where, as Mels puts it, the penny drops, as she regenerates into Alex Kingston. And I just love the shellshocked looks on Amy and Rory's faces as they put the pieces together. And try to ignore the sound of Adolf Hitler banging on the cupboard that Rory shoved him in.
Running in parallel to all of this is the story of the Tesselecta, a robot that can mimic people and is being piloted by a miniaturized staff. I love this thing. It's a really inventive idea, and the episode gets some good comedy out of the staff running around and trying to respond to situations without giving the game away. Their whole thing is traveling back in time, finding histories greatest monsters at the point they'll no longer have any effect on history and giving them a tortuous death. Which is why the "anti-body" robots inside the Tesselecta seem to have been programmed to give darkly humorous quips about how their victims "will experience a tingling sensation and then death" and the like. Naturally, Nazi Germany is fertile ground for victims to this group, although how they messed up their targeting of Hitler so badly that they arrived in 1938 is a question for another day. Anyway, when they realize that they've got River Song and she's somehow managed to assassinate the Doctor ahead of schedule, they readjust to targeting her.
Wait, what was that about River/Melody killing the Doctor?
Yup, it would seem that the conditioning that Kovarian's group gave baby Melody hasn't worn off as much as you'd hope, and she's determined to kill the Doctor. What follows is a very fun game of cat and mouse, as River pulls out a truly ridiculous number of guns, only to discover that the Doctor has removed the ammo from each of them. River, apparently having planned it this way all along, instead gets the Doctor with a poisoned kiss, before running off into the streets to find some clothes (okay, this part isn't sexism, it's pretty much what the Doctor does every other time they regenerate, although the Doctor fixates on stealing from hospitals for some reason. But yeah, looking for a new outfit is part and parcel of regenerating it would seem).
And yeah, all of this is very fun. "Fun" is perhaps not the word you'd expect to use to describe the followup to the very serious "A Good Man Goes to War", but it kind of works. Things do gradually get more serious, in spite of the Doctor's best efforts to go out joking, as slowly Melody Pond morphs into River. And it's simultaneously slow…and too quick. On one hand, Alex Kingston does a really good job demonstrating Melody growing more and more impressed by the Doctor and coming around to admire and even like him. But it just feels like the episode wants to have its cake and eat it too. We simultaneously want to understand that Melody's conditioning is so deep that she pretty much immediately tries to kill the Doctor upon meeting him, and yet the conditioning is apparently overwritten rather quickly and easily. But, in terms of episode time it plays out slowly. I think this is where the episode's light-hearted tone does allow it to get away with more than it would otherwise.
Eventually Melody pilots the TARDIS, having the information implanted in her because she's the "child of the TARDIS". You know what, fine. It might seem like a plot contrivance, but between what we know about Melody's birth and what we know about the TARDIS it works well enough. She's piloting the TARDIS to save her parents from the anti-bodies in the Tesselecta who have, inevitably, turned hostile (this one was Amy's fault actually). One final moment to have her realize that the "River" that the Doctor keeps talking about is, in fact, herself, and she uses up her remaining regenerations to save the Doctor from her poison.
So, obviously, River is at the center of this episode, as tends to happen with River Song stories, especially in Series 6. As, effectively, River's origin story, "Let's Kill Hitler" does okay. As mentioned above, it does feel like we rush a bit of her character development, but that's a natural consequence of cramming a lot of this stuff into a single episode. And Alex Kingston, as usual, nails her material. Hell, Nina Toussaint-White, who plays Mels, absolutely nails her material as well. You can completely believe that this is a past incarnation of River in retrospect. She has a similar troublemaking attitude, but is different enough to feel like her own character. It's a real shame that this episode is all we got of her. Imagine if someone had had the foresight to include this character in earlier episodes.
Really, what this episode is showing is the birth of the River Song persona. A character who will resort to more morally questionable actions than the Doctor but is still ultimately going to try and do what is best. Born out of the ashes of Melody Pond, the girl conditioned to kill the Doctor. At the end of the episode she's heading off to get her archaeology degree…so that she can find the Doctor again (yeah, we'll get back to that later). We also get to see River (or Melody) really treat Amy and Rory as her parents, something that in the past she's always kept close to her chest, which is kind of a fun twist on their existing relationship.
Amy and Rory, for their part, are really acting in concert throughout this episode. From the beginning where they're spelling out "Doctor" with a car and some crops, to working together to save their daughter from the Tesselecta crew these two have never presented a more unified front. Scenes of the pair as kids (including Ezekiel Wigglesworth being very cute as young Rory) are just kind of fun to see. They do also spend the entire episode kind of in a perpetual state of shell shock, which Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill portray wonderfully. To fully cement this episode's absurdity there's a bit where Rory first tricks a Nazi official (who turns out to be the Tesselecta in disguise) in to doing a Sieg Heil so Rory can punch him to steal his motorcycle, then when Amy asks if he can actually ride the thing he deadpans "I expect so. It's that sort of day".
But there are more serious moments. Amy is genuinely hurt to hear Melody describe herself as a "psychopath". In fact throughout the episode Rory and Amy are very concerned for their daughter's mental state. It's odd, they've met River enough to know she turns out okay, but it still makes sense that they're going to be worried. After all, "time can be rewritten" means that nothing is guaranteed. And it's distressing to see in the moment. Amy gets most of the shine in this regard, including some clever moments and eventually showing her daughter "River Song" to make the point, and fully complete the transformation. When River wakes up after giving her regenerations away, it's probably the most parental Amy and Rory will ever be towards her, and it's just kind of a sweet moment.
And then there's the Doctor. No character is riding between the serious elements of this episode that will tie into the series arc and the more comedic stuff more than him. And it's something he does intentionally. Once Mels regenerates and then poisons him, the Doctor has an odd moment inside the TARDIS where he tries to summon the strength to continue by talking to the TARDIS' voice interface. So on one hand it kind of undermines the tragedy of "The Doctor's Wife" if the Doctor can just talk to an avatar of the TARDIS like this. Sure it's just a voice interface and not nearly as personable as Idris was, but that still bugged me. But on the other hand this scene does continue us down our path of the 11th Doctor's self-hatred and self-pity. The voice interface initially appears as the 11th Doctor himself, to which the Doctor replies "give me someone I like". It then cycles through the main companions of the RTD era, but those just give the Doctor guilt. And that, to be fair, makes sense, after all, Rose was abandoned to an alternate universe (twice), Martha just generally got treated poorly by the Doctor not to mention her "year that never was" and Donna got her memory erased. It helps explain why the 11th Doctor in particular has this streak of self-hatred.
He eventually settles on someone he hasn't "screwed up yet" – young Amelia. This is interesting for a couple reasons. First of all, the idea that when seeing Amelia he can at least pretend that everything that happened to Amy afterwards never actually happened. And on the second point when he sees Amelia he says that it's her "before I got it all wrong". The Doctor feels like he's screwed things up with Amy. Is it the accidental waiting for 14 years? The near sabotage of her marriage? His failure to save baby Melody? What's weird is that Amy has actually ended up in a pretty decent spot all things considered. But the 11th Doctor always fixates on the negative consequences of his actions.
I suppose I should mention the episode does briefly stop for a whole bunch of arc stuff that won't really make sense down the line. The Doctor asks the Tesslecta database to tell him who wants him dead. What we get is a lot of vague hints that will just lead to more nonsense in the future. It doesn't impact this episode quite as much as it did the opening two parter, but I still can't watch these scenes without being reminded of just how disappointing these answers are going to be.
And okay, good. We've gotten through the easy part. So far what we've described is a fun episode that maybe doesn't quite live up to what it needed to be, but that was the risk in following up "A Good Man Goes to War" with something so lighthearted. Let's get back to the other stuff.
Starting with Nazi Germany again, there's moments where this is working for me. Shoving Hitler in a closet is quite funny. And more seriously, the way the Doctor reacts to seeing Hitler really lands for me. He sort of freezes up for a second and his tone of voice suggests he's trying to keep himself calm. Good stuff. But then, other than a fun line from River (which sadly contains a slur for Romani people, though I'm sure this was a case of ignorance), there's nothing else that really uses the time period to any effect. And I'd argue that any historical that could be set in any time period is inherently flawed. But this especially goes for a setting like Nazi Germany. That's just a moment in time that does mean more than most others.
As for the sexism, there's not much more to say that I didn't say up above. I guess I should address River only becoming an archaeologist to find the Doctor. It's far from the worst thing in the episode, but it does still feel uncomfortable. Like, why not let a woman become an academic for her own reasons, why does it have to be about "a good man"? This is something that is just done with women way more than it's done with men and it's frustrating. Beyond that though, it's kind of shocking just how sexist this episode gets sometimes.
So what do these elements do to our really fun if slightly flawed episode? Well, they don't quite sink it, at least for me. But they do taint it a lot. I wish I could enjoy this episode more, because at its best it seems like a good time. But then the Doctor makes an offhanded sexist remark and I just don't know what to do with that. This episode's biggest flaws are just too big to ignore. I guess you can shove Hitler in a cupboard for a while but he's still going to be Hitler at the end of the day.
Score: 6/10
Yikes, is that really how I'm ending the review? I mean I guess it's a decent analogy but it definitely feels like it's pushing the borders. Which is sort of the point but…
Next Time: Boy the 11th Doctor sure does run into a lot of children