Doctor Who - Series 7 Part 2

By the way, dear everyone who's bitching about Peter Capaldi being to old to play the doctor and everyone who's bitching about the people who're bitching about Peter Capaldi being to old and the people that Peter Capaldi is neither black nor a woman, I have a message for you. Now where were we?

The Snowmen: You've always got to get into the spirit for the christmas episode.  It should be enjoyed as all christmas things should be enjoyed, half drunk and full of turkey.  Moffat Era christmas episodes have been unanimously better than Davis era though.  This sees the return of an old baddie and some wonderful monsters.  It's also when the Oswin plot really starts to kick into gear.

The Bells of St John:  Good fodder, but probably the weakest of the great intelligence episodes.  Still, Clara's proper characterisation begins here.  Points lost for lame concept of ghost wifi networks showing up, but gained back for the emotion controlling iPad.  Not a bad start.

The Rings of Akhaten: Now, we're in proper classic who territory here but with a budget the classic could only dream of.  Wacky strange plot, more aliens than you can shake a stick at.  Could have been longer.  In my opinion, this series suffers from a lack of two parters.

Cold War: The highlight of the series.  Tense, tight, well paced.  42 minutes will breeze by as this plays out in front of you.  If you watch one episode from this series, make it cold war.

Hide: I think Stephen Moffat made a deal with the devil.  He'd get to preside over some of the best episodes of Doctor Who, as long as he made sure that one or two scared the living shit out of everyone.  This is one of those and it's awesome for it.  Also, wonderful shift from horror into sci fi and bizarrely, into a love story.  Great episode.

Journey to The Centre of the TARDIS: With a premise like that, there's simply no excuse for being as boring as this episode is.  Everything starts well, with excellent performances all round, but ultimately the Tardis's time and space warping possibilities aren't used well (see the doctors wife for a good example) The twist isn't as great as they seem to think and the ending gives complete karmic houdini to the villains.

The Crimson Horror: Mark Gatiss brings his love of Sherlocke Holmes over to Doctor Who.  Your enjoyment of this episode will hinge on your enjoyment of the doctors supporting cast.  I for one, absolutely love Vastra, Straxx and Jenny.  Excellent performances from the villains and a wonderful feeling of adventure to the whole thing.

Nightmare In Silver: This was probably the biggest disappointment for me.  I am a huge huge Neil Gaiman fan and consider his debut in doctor who to be one of the best standalone episode to be amongst the best ever written, new or old.  But this episode... the pacing is all off.  There's almost no second act to the episode which makes the climax feel sudden and anticlimactic.  There were so many good ideas here, focusing on one would have made for a masterpiece, particularly the doctor/cyberintelligence subplot.  Frustratingly disappointing.

The Name Of The Doctor: Here at last.  Season Finale time.  To be honest... a little bit of a damp squib.  The prophecy of Trenzalore is less than satisfyingly concluded and Clara's mystery, while very well handled, is essentially the same as Bad Wolf from Series 1.

So Matt Smith's era is coming to an end and unfortunately, it comes to an end on a week point.  The second half of the series definitely picked up from the first but overall the show just had that feeling of losing its way.  There seems to be an effort to move away from the fairy tale stylings of the past two seasons back to the Davies style.  This would be annoying, since I'm of the opinion that the show has been much stronger under Moffats reign.

Peter Capaldi is an interesting choice.  By appearance and age alone, he's going to have to bring drastic change to the character, I doubt we'll see as much of the boyish clowning we seen from Tennant and Smith.  But that's not a bad thing.  In fact, that ability to evolve is possible the greatest thing about the show.  So I look forward to Capaldi and wish him the best of luck.

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Posted in: Doctor Who, Review, Series 7, Series 7 Part 2, TV, TV Review