TV REVIEW: Doctor Who - The Zygon Inversion

As The Zygon Inversion opened on a clone of Clara (Jenna Coleman) firing a missile at the plane holding The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and Osgood (Ingrid Oliver), with the real Clara trapped beneath London in a weird pod prison thing, you could be forgiving for thinking this was going to an all-out battle, let’s all shoot at each other and set things on fire sort of an episode. But it really, really wasn’t. Clever, topical and stridently anti-war, this was Who with a message, and it worked.

According to The Doctor, what people should do ‘in the first place’, before they even think of fighting, is talk. And The Zygon Inversion very much practiced what he preached. Apart from a spot of parachuting and a few unfortunate incidents later on, this episode consisted, almost entirely of talking. Not managing to thwart Bonnie/Zygella from firing the missile, despite giving it a damn good try via their psychic link, Clara found herself locked in a battle of wills with her counterpart, whilst The Doctor and Osgood tried to find their way to her. And that was where the battle of wills really started, as The Doctor effectively refereed between leader of the Zygon rebels Bonnie, and UNIT leader Kate (Jemma Redgrave). 

But we’ll come to that.

Meanwhile, the doubling provided a great opportunity for Jenna Coleman to flex her acting muscles. I have a slight theory that she’ll be one of those sort of characters where as soon as she’s gone, we’ll realise how great she was. She’s a grower.

And I know I say it every week but I’m going to do so again. The show continues to be genuinely laugh out loud funny. I’m not sure it’s ever been that until this series, but I like it. A lot. Much of it comes down to the fact that Capaldi’s excellent delivery makes everything feel a little unsteady and unpredictable. In the heavier scenes, this can be electrifying. In the funnier moments, it’s just plain hilarious. ‘Ah London… what a dump!’ being one such example. Both he and the writing work together to take you in directions you never expected to go, all in the space of a line.

There’s a splendid mythology developing around UNIT now, as we re-visited The Black Archives. They always felt a little bit shoe-horned in before, but now they have more of a proper place in the story arc. Speaking of which, is there anybody on the planet who doesn’t completely love Osgood? No, thought not.

We saw more of the same themes throughout the episode as we’ve seen all series, as we met more hybrids and pairings, particularly evident when Bonnie completed the broken Osgood pair, as well as this episode and its predecessor’s titles. Not to mention the ongoing trope of The Doctor solving the problem by talking, at length. We saw it with Davros way back at the start of the series, with The Woman Who Lived and now with Kate and Bonnie, as they both quite literally stand with their fingers on the button, ready to destroy each other.

Whole essays could be written on that scene. I’ll restrain myself, but between the powerful anti-war and pro-immigration messages, the memory wiping, Capaldi’s even-more-excellent-than-usual performance and the striking image of the pair (another one) of the red and blue boxes, we’d have enough to talk about for hours. As it was, it was yet another example of Capaldi’s brand of Doctor. His power is very much in his words – and he intends to use them. The result was seriously powerful stuff.

Others have commented that these last two episodes have been a little boring, perhaps slightly pedestrian, as The Doctor rode in a plane not the TARDIS, and two policeman who weren’t policeman walked slowly down a road and didn’t actually attack anybody…But to do so is to miss the point. They were always supposed to be a little quieter. The Zygons aren’t particularly scary, which is why ‘the enemy within’ angle works so well. And that’s what gave the episode its message – we all just want to get on with life, but disillusionment happens, and we need to talk about it, not just blow each other up like ‘screaming kids.’

And with that much emotional clout, surely the show can only keep getting better and better?

Becky will be here to tell you next week.

P.S I concur. *Applauds for Action Rebecca Front*

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TV REVIEW: Doctor Who - The Witch's Familiar

Not to intentionally start on a negative note, but The Witch’s Familiar was always going to be a bit of an anti-climax after last week’s excellent series opener.

Fortunately, however, the episode was good enough in its own right that said anti-climax is really just a side note – one of a few small niggles in what was otherwise a really rather good episode of Doctor Who.

As with Series 8, we’ve had an early appearance here for classic enemies the Daleks, albeit with a twist, as Davros (Julian Bleach) emerges as more the star of the show than his creations. Picking up pretty much exactly where The Magician’s Apprentice left off, The Witch’s Familiar (I’m with Becky on the series titles!) sees The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) still trapped at heart of the Dalek empire, with no sonic screwdriver, no TARDIS, no friends and, or so you’d think, no hope.

Except of course, he’s The Doctor, and his loyal friends Clara (Jenna Coleman) and er, well Missy (Michelle Gomez) too I suppose, aren’t too far away, having ejected themselves from the compound after Missy saw through its spaceship disguise. Whilst The Doctor chats with his nemesis Davros, providing us with some of the most compelling dialogue we’ve seen in recent series to boot, Clara and Missy steal their way action-movie style through the Dalek sewers in an attempt to rescue him.

Said dialogue provided ample and interesting opportunities for the ‘What makes a good man?’ question to come up again, and what that means when you can quite easily time travel back to the past and not save the life of a small boy who will go on to murder billions – to pluck one example totally at random. Both Capaldi and Bleach handled it magnificently. Capaldi in general has really settled into the role in this second series. Now that he’s not in anybody else’s shadow but his own, a new confidence is emerging, symbolised rather well by his new shades (more on those later). And despite such serious and poignant considerations going on in the foreground – it’s marvellously good fun.

There were laugh out loud moments peppered through the episode, “The only other chair on Skaro”, “Course, the real question is ‘Where did he get his cup of tea?’” and the now infamous “pointy stick” to name but a handful. Michelle Gomez’s continued presence no doubt adds to this general atmosphere of amusement, with Who now unimaginable without her.

She also provides an interesting contrast with Jenna Coleman’s dutiful Clara, who can’t help but come across as much more than a walking hairdo next to her eccentric antics. What Missy is really up to though, remains to be seen. The fact that you can’t help but watch her from the edge of your seat is in part due to the brilliant energy of her performance, but also because at any moment she could drop the mask and dramatically change the status quo. Or you know, just find a new pointy stick.

The episode’s most memorable moment for many will be that of Clara trapped inside the Dalek, itself in many ways a call back to Soufflé girl, and through it our learning about how Daleks translate and channel their emotion into killing. Turns out “Exterminate” isn’t just a catchphrase, it’s their way of re-loading. Who knew? It also gave her a much needed angle, in what was otherwise fast becoming a tea party of The Doctor and his biggest nemeses.

We learn too, that Missy has, or at least had, a daughter at some stage, which, coupled with her seemingly genuine efforts to save The Doctor, leave us wondering just how many gaps need to be filled in our knowledge of their friendship, as opposed to what we already know about how many times they’ve tried to kill each other. Hopefully this reference means we’re going to find out more.

On the downside, I’m not sure quite how to feel about the ‘wearable technology’ instead of the screwdriver. It all felt rather too James Bond for my liking, much as I do like the sunglasses as a fun accessory. The sewers were a bit mad, too. Interesting idea to have decaying Daleks down there, but I couldn't quite understand why they were so angry. Surely, as Daleks, they would understand that they are ultimately just expendable killing machines? And with the spirit of self-sacrifice for the Dalek cause which so many of them have shown over the years, you'd think they'd understand that it's all for the greater good of Skaro? Or maybe this is all part of the development of their emotional side, hinted at frequently in this episode.

Will the show continue down this intriguing vein of balancing on knife edge between fun and sinister? Will we find out more about The Doctor and Missy? What will Clara’s hair be doing next week?

Becky will be with you for all this and more.

-Jen

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TV REVIEW: Doctor Who - The Time of the Doctor

With the dawning of the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth hour, Matt Smith’s time as The Doctor has drawn to a close. Which leaves me with the unenviable task of attempting to summarise one of the most complex episodes in Doctor Who history, ‘The Time of the Doctor’, lest we all spend the next few weeks completely and utterly bamboozled.

Along with his new friend Handles, a friendly severed Cyberman head, The Doctor begins the special hour long episode flitting between different ships orbiting an unknown planet, from which an, also unknown, message is being continually broadcast. After visiting both the Cybermen and Dalek ships, as unsuccessfully as would be expected when unwittingly carrying broken parts of the occupants, The Doctor heads off to Earth to pick up best pal Clara (Jenna Louise Coleman). She, meanwhile, this being a Christmas special, is attempting to roast a turkey for the family she suddenly seems to have. After a brief stint of pretending, badly, to be Clara’s boyfriend at her behest, the two set off in the direction of the mysterious message. Handles suggests that the planet is in fact Gallifrey, an idea The Doctor naturally and passionately rejects having previously locked Gallifrey safely into a time pocket outside of the Universe. Next, he and Clara are invited onto a church spaceship run by cool space lady Tasha Lem (Orla Brady). Having somehow secured the unknown planet, Tasha asks The Doctor if he fancies having a butchers before anybody else does. Naturally, he does.

On arrival, he and Clara find themselves in a snowy town called Christmas, again, it’s Christmas Day, people! It appears that no one in this town can tell a lie, although this potential plotline is quickly dropped. They follow the message to the town’s church tower, and find a crack in reality through which, it transpires, the Time Lords of Gallifrey are asking the question ‘Doctor who?’ over and over. It is a request for him to speak his real name and thereby confirm his presence and location. However, this confirmation would bring the lost Time Lords hurtling back into the present Universe, causing all manner of timey-wimey chaos, not to mention re-starting the Time War, especially with all those spaceships hovering just above the planet. Alarmed, The Doctor asks Tasha to tell him what planet they’re on. By now, of course, it can almost be nowhere but Trenzalore, the planet The Doctor is buried upon. Tricking Clara in returning to Earth, The Doctor spends the next 300 hundred years of the siege as a sort of stalemate sheriff, protecting the townspeople from attack, whilst simultaneously refusing to answer Gallifrey’s message.

Keeping up?

Eventually, having grabbed on to the TARDIS like Captain Jack Harkness before her (I miss him), Clara arrives back on Trenzalore, to find a visibly aged Doctor who knows he has now used up all his re-generations, and doesn’t, ironically enough, have much time left. Back on the church ship, now ominously named The Church of the Silence, Tasha explains that Madame Kovarian (eye patch lady, remember her?) broke away from the main Papal Mainframe, and attempted to kill The Doctor to prevent the siege ever happening – hence River Song and the original appearance of The Silence etc etc. Tasha then turns into a Dalek having had her consciousness invaded by the tricksy blighters. Eventually, after a little more to-ing and fro-ing which as far I can see was wholly unnecessary, a frail and elderly Doctor faces his old enemies in a sort of last stand. A distraught Clara pleads into the time crack, asking the Time Lords to save their old countryman one last time. Fortunately, they send a last bit of regeneration energy through the sky, allowing The Doctor to defeat the Daleks and pop back up in the TARDIS as his younger self, just in time to say goodbye to Clara, as well as a hallucination of Amy Pond (Karen Gillan).

Finally, he regenerates into a bewildered and slightly manic looking Peter Capaldi, who, worryingly, begins his tenure by asking a terrified Clara if she knows how to fly the TARDIS. And so the thirteenth age begins.

Phew. For a moment or two there I didn’t think we were going to make it through all that. Which, funnily enough, is almost exactly how I felt when watching the episode. All plot holes and references to prior events felt at best, shoe-horned in for the sake of wrapping them up. At worst, they were damaging to the episode's plot, taking attention away from Matt Smith’s exit and totally ballsing up his one chance to say goodbye before the start of Capaldi’s reign. Smith has been a fine Doctor, playing the part with a lovely mixture of playfulness, mischief, bravery and brains. It's shame the episode appears to have been planned out without nearly half as much care and attention as Smith has put into his performance week after week. In fact if it wasn’t for the lynchpin of Clara Oswald, the whole episode would have spun off into a vortex of confusion faster than an out of control TARDIS. Thinking back to David Tennant’s final moments as our Gallifreyan hero, I can help but think it’s a shame Matt Smith didn’t get the same treatment. Sure, the re-appearance of Amy and young Amelia was tear-jerking, but only for about ten seconds, that being the only breathing space Moffat’s over-full episode was left with.

It was an exciting start to Capaldi’s career in the TARDIS, true, but overall it was a badly paced, impossibly complex and deeply unsatisfying ending to the storyline of Smith’s Doctor. And he deserved better than that if you ask me, and I'm still a Tennant girl at heart.

Jen

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TV REVIEW: Doctor Who - Hide

On first look, it was easy to mistake this week’s episode of Doctor Who as something more in the way of supernatural than scientific. Whilst this isn’t necessarily a new theme for the show, it is the first of its kind in rather a while.

‘Hide’ told the story of the creepy Caliburn House, dwelled in by Professor Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott), his assistant Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine), oh and their friendly neighbourhood ghost. Only, it doesn’t seem quite so friendly. Naturally, The Doctor (Matt Smith) and plucky Clara (Jenna Louise Coleman) wade in to investigate, finding bits of the house that are colder than others, hearing odd voices and having their hands held by unseen beings. It’s worth mentioning at this point that Grayling is psychic, and is consequently picking up on a disembodied voice crying for help, in a rather nice twist on the usual scenario of The Doctor himself hearing said pleas before racing to anybody and everybody’s assistance. This being an episode of Doctor Who, however, naturally the ghost, or ‘ghast’ as everybody insisted upon calling it for reasons I never quite understood, was SPOILER ALERT not a ghost (or ghast) at all, but a time travelling lady caught in a shrinking ‘pocket universe’ whilst simultaneously being chased by what is quite possibly the ugliest alien in the show’s lengthy history.

The episode moved neatly from old school ghost story to quirky science fiction tale, a transition foreshadowed from the off by Clara introducing the two of them as ‘the Ghostbusters’ at the start of the show. There were also a couple of surprisingly touching stories of the ol’ romance genre running through ‘Hide’, the first, between Professor Palmer and his sweet yet talented assistant, and the second of a much more, er, ugly alien nature. Whilst heart-warming storylines in their own right, the romantic threads of the episode gave us all a well-earned break from our perpetual analysis and wonderment along the lines of WHO ON EARTH (nearly got through the review with that pun, then)  IS CLARA? WHAT is Clara? WHEN will we find out? Do you even KNOW, Moffat?  Which was nice, as all that shouting at your screen can become tiresome. Not least for your neighbours.

Performance of the week award goes to Jessica Raine as Emma Grayling, convincingly portraying both the doting assistant and tortured psychic elements of her character. Smith and Coleman were on form too, with the latter really settling into her sparky, quick witted role, and developing a charming relationship with the haughty TARDIS, despite this episode allegedly being the first one she actually filmed as the companion. Dougray Scott was also on hand to provide a brooding, almost Gothic sort of hero, initially appearing oblivious to both his own feelings and those of his assistant, but turning out to be something of a sweetie pie the second Grayling was in danger. 

If I have a criticism of the show, and what would an Assorted Buffery review be without a niggle of sorts, it’s that there was a little too much going on for me personally. Neil Cross’ plot had just a few too many lines, any one of which could have provided the crux of the episode. To name a few, we had the Professor’s role in WWII and The Doctor’s awareness of the two of them, the ghost-ghast, the time travelling lady, the pocket universe itself, the fact that it was shrinking, the monster, the second monster, the monster love story AND the family connections at the end. Phew. It all flowed nicely enough and didn’t feel jumpy, unlike several other Doctor Who episodes I could mention, but and call me boring if you will, the time traveller being stuck in a pocket universe which can only be accessed by a psychic was plot enough, thank you very much, especially with it shrinking. The presence of the monster as well felt a little overkill in places, even though the overall arc of the show did work very well.

All in all, however, a really rather nice, fun episode.  Particularly enjoyable as we suspect that it won’t be long until the questions start to be answered, and things all get a trifle serious again…

Doctor Who is next on tonight, 6.30pm. Look out for Becky’s review.

      Jen

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