Who Reviews The Claws of Axos by Matt Rabjohns

One of the first very good things to come from this story is actually within its first minute. The axons are shown to us for a brief instant in their natural, ugly tentacle form, and the score that accompanies the scene pretty much tells us these things are lethal. But UNIT and even the Doctor don't know this at once. So we are at once feeling anxious as to what these minging things could want with the Earth.

​

The second thing I love about this story is yet again the third Doctor's stance against the political high up big wigs. And here that big wig is Chinn. I just relish the sparring matches the Doctor has with idiots like these in the show. It is one of my favourite traits of the Third Doctor. His indignation and despair at the actions of UNIT and the Brigadier always raise a grin too.

​

Roger Delgado is simply fantastic again as the Master, and we are treated to a little more of the Doctor and his history. We also are treated to a rare glimpse of the Doctor's more conniving and devious play, when we think he may just be abandoning earth for a moment to its fate held in the Claws of Axos. But the Doctor is an alien, and here an alien bereft of his freedom. That we know by the end of the tale that he has not turned a wrong un but is simply deceiving Axos is absolutely hilarious!

​

The Axons themselves are superbly realised. The first time I saw them I knew they would long be one of my favourite alien menaces of the show. I love the idea of them fooling the human race with their passive looking gold skinned forms, and then later changing into frightful masses of alien writhing tentacles. They are a fearsome foe and I can’t believe that they never returned to the TV show after this debut story. ​

​

I'm not sure as to the credibility of Bill Filer's accent but he's a brilliant character too. But I find that Jo is strangely side-lined and mostly forgotten in this story, and she doesn't really get all that much to do and that’s a bit of a shame as Katy is so good. Although its great seeing her lose her rag at that stuck up Chinn.

​

The ending of the story is a little strange too. I would have thought a nuclear power complex would have gone off with far more than just a little bang that it does at the end. Or are we to believe Axos had started to drain its total output and all the dangerous particles had already gone? It’s not well explained and feels a bit unbelievable. And if it didn’t, why is there no fallout from the explosion either? This is a sadly weak plot point that lets down an otherwise hugely entertaining story. Or did the Doc try something in the TARDIS to extricate the harmful stuff before the whole complex went up? I wonder. Plot niggles sometimes do annoy you a lot, don’t they?! ​

​

But this ending doesn't overtly ruin the whole story. It’s still action packed and filled with superb characterisation and acting. And one must also praise the originality of the space ship design, its exterior and its interior. It all looks very organic and very very plausible as an alien parasite. The design team really did well with this story indeed. ​

​

Bernard Holley also must be mentioned as his Axon Leader performance is stunning. He makes a real threatening menace and there's plenty of nuance and brilliant touches to his performance. Axos is given such a believability by his performance alone. This is his finest performance in the show for me.

​

I also love the amusing final scene and the story ends with another of my all time favourite Third Doctor lines. He is still irate at the TARDIS not being able to properly leave Earth and he turns his berating this time on his own people. "It seems that I'm some kind of galactic yoyo!" is simply the best ending line of a story ever in the history of the show in my opinion!

Michael Ferguson has a reputation for his stories being full of great action, and he does not disappoint here. The story is stylishly directed and we get the best from every single character. This is yet another firm success story for him. He was a brilliant director and directed some of the best shows of the series. The Claws of Axos stands as a fitting tribute to just how good his stories were from his director's chair. The Claws of Axos is also very colourful and some of the psychedelic effects are amazing to see on screen. Definitely gives the story its own ripe flavour. ​

​

This does not feel like a debut story from Bob Baker and Dave Martin. It’s very very strong and overall is extremely good indeed. It bodes well for these two chaps future in the show!

A very nearly perfect 9 out of 10 from me!

Reviews Fragments by Tony J Fyler

Tony Fyler goes back in time.

Great drama, and great TV, is all about character. But character is what the events of life dictate about us all, rather than a linear explanation of why we act the way we do. By the time Fragments hit screens as the penultimate episode of Torchwood, Series 2, we’d been with our familiar team of alien investigators for what felt like a long, relatively comfortable time. While knowing the dangers they faced were great, we had confidence that ‘Torchwood was ready’ to take on whatever came. Hell, even technically being a dead man didn’t seem to put Owen Harper down. 

We had little idea what was coming.

Before it came, and our familiar, safe Torchwood team was put through the wringer, losing Tosh, and Owen, and even in Series 3 losing Ianto, there was Fragments.

We’re not sure whether the characters of our Torchwood regulars were backstoried in the minds of Russell T Davies and Chris Chibnall before the series began, or whether Fragments was written to give them all backstories that fit the characters we’d come to know. Either way, it works extremely well, feeling right but also giving us in several cases an additional twist on what we thought we knew about our team.

The premise of Fragments is simple – an everyday investigation of alien life signs leads the team to a horrible trap, each of them discovering a bomb that drops a sizeable bit of building on their heads. In their unconscious states, we see the backstory of how they each came to be recruited to Torchwood, these ‘fragments’ of their lives being directly responsible for their current predicament.

Fragments is essentially a gift. We’re near the end of the second series when it comes – if we were going to drop out of our affiliation to Torchwood because we didn’t understand the way each of the team were recruited, we’d have done it a long time ago. But still – Fragments gets the majority of its action, the majority of its reason for being, from showing us these slices of backstory, almost as a reward for liking the team as they are, and, though we didn’t know it when it was broadcast, perhaps as a way of deepening our emotional investment in the team before everything began to change, with major characters being killed off and the safety of the Torchwood world vanishing forever.

Captain Jack’s tale is redolent with verve and attitude as he wakes up after his fourteenth death in the space of six weeks in Victorian England, confronted by a pair of diabolical Torchwood ladies who view aliens as an immediate threat to the Empire, and who shoot if not first then sooner or later, with none of Jack’s qualms about the correct treatment of alien species. Going right back to Torchwood’s roots as laid down in Tooth and Claw, the Who episode that saw the Institute established, these are not particularly ‘nice’ operatives, even by 21st century Torchwood standards, and their approach to recruiting Jack is very much in the ‘we’ll shoot you if you don’t’ school of diplomacy. Through the handy expedient of a creepy kid with a gift for fortune telling, Jack learns he’s going to be waiting over a hundred years for the return of ‘his’ Doctor, and his need to make a living makes him sign on with the original Torchwood crew. Flash forward and we see Torchwood Cardiff at the turn of the millennium, its then-leader despairing having seen the future and understood that his team aren’t ready to cope with what is coming. He’s killed them all, and once Jack arrives to ask him awkward questions, he turns his gun on himself, leaving Jack in nominal charge of the Cardiff hub, facing the task of rebuilding it from scratch, as well as burying his friends. With so much to do in the space of one episode, Jack’s story is possibly not covered with the kind of depth that hardcore Harkness fans would prefer, but then, the story’s called Fragments, rather than The Illustrated History of Jack Harkness. Besides, when your character’s immortal, you almost don’t want to know everything – you want room to dream up other adventures, as indeed was done in Children of Earth. The fragments we get are pivotal in terms of his Torchwood story – we get to see how he joined, and how he took control of the Cardiff hub, delivering tantalising glimpses of other Torchwood teams that we’ve never known.

Toshiko’s story is perhaps the oddest of the tales in Fragments, showing Tosh under duress, stealing plans, making technology that shouldn’t exist for people who threaten her hapless mother as a way of putting pressure on our resident tech genius. It’s probably closest to the sort of thing that could happen in real life, but almost because of that, it feels out of kilter. It does though give Tosh a chance to shine from which she normally demurs. If Jack was a reluctant recruit to the Torchwood team, for Tosh, it’s a case of biting his hand off because the alternative is to be forgotten, locked away without trial, denied her basic human rights in, rather worryingly, a UNIT prison. It’s slightly sad though that Toshiko appears only ever to have been valued – by the thugs who threatened her mother, and by Jack – for what she can do, rather than necessarily who she is.

We know a little of Ianto’s backstory already because it became necessary in Cyberwoman, but here, we get the beats played out – his essential stalking of Jack, trying to get a connection to the Cardiff Hub. We understand why already – he’s keeping his semi-Cyberised girlfriend Lisa alive somewhere, and needs the resources of Torchwood if he’s ever to stand a chance of restoring her humanity. But it’s here that the most rewriting of history seems to take place, establishing a slightly awkward, sizzling chemistry between Jack and Ianto from the beginning that didn’t seem to be there in Series 1 as we watched it. A handy pterodactyl capture and a couple of sassy comments about each other’s appearance shouldn’t really cut it as the key points of an origin story, but the lingering sizzle between these two characters as they’re written in Fragments pulls it through and pulls it off.

If Tosh’s backstory is the oddest of the bunch, it’s Owen’s that’s the most surprising, and yet when you understand it, it serves the fundamental purpose of backstory well, letting you click things into place and think ‘Oh, of course – well, that explains a lot.’

Owen as we’ve seen him is a fairly cynical, life for the moment kind of man, but he wasn’t always that way, Fragments tells us. Once he was on the verge of happily married life – or at least married life, the happiness soured slightly by a mysterious case of early-onset Alzheimer’s in his fiancée. It’s here that the world of personal tragedy and the world of Torchwood overlap callously, as Owen’s fiancée dies on the operating table, taking her surgeons with her. Jack arrives, explaining it wasn’t Alzheimer’s but an alien parasite. He retcons Owen and makes the whole thing go away – except Owen’s love and anger are too strong to let his ghosts lie, and he hunts Harkness down, demanding answers, demanding healing, demanding the truth. It’s a story that makes us teary-eyed for the usually acerbic Owen, and makes us like him for an entirely different set of reasons to the ones we normally use.

Fragments ends, after all this, on an oddly inconsequential note – Captain John reappears (always a pleasure to see Spike (sorry, James Marsters) to claim the credit for planting the bombs, and to tell Jack he’s working for Gray, Jack’s brother, who wants a little more than a word for what he sees as Jack’s betrayal in leaving him in danger on their home world. Yes, technically, it’s another fragment, but it feels relatively lightweight after everything we’ve seen, and would probably have worked better in a private scene between Captain John and Gray, as a foreshadow of the chaos and destruction to come.

Fragments is by no means an essential episode of Torchwood. What it certainly is though is a rich one, a bag of backstory sweeties for the ardent fan, and the last Torchwood of its type – the type we’d grown so used to after nearly two series. After Fragments, we discover that Torchwood may be ready – but readiness comes with an awful cost attached.

Reviews To The Last Man by DJ Forrest

Written by Helen Raynor

Directed by Andy Goddard

Broadcast 30^th January 2008

In the usual complicated way that Torchwood and Who writers tell a story, such as the story of Captain Jack Harkness, this is a story of Thomas Brockless a man brought from 1918 to the present in order to be used to save the universe from impending doom at some point in the future.  The story also tells of Toshiko’s love for the defrosted soldier and how deeply emotional the final few scenes were when they had to say goodbye.

Friday the 20^th was circled as the day of the thawing out of Pvt. Tommy Brockless yet it puzzled me as to why they hadn’t stated which month this was, although given the level of stories from the tie in novels, I suppose giving a month threw it a little for the writers.  So I decided for my own piece of mind, as after an extensive search of the internet for matching Japanese art calendars drew a blank that the only other option was to find out when the episode was originally filmed and count back.  So I did.  And I’m satisfied enough that I have the correct date for the episode.  The episode itself was broadcast on the 30^th January 2008, but the actual filming was 9^th May 2007, coincidentally the same day as much of the filming for ‘Adam’ was done.  So if anyone on the set owned a Japanese calendar, given that not many people tend to keep back used calendars, then the only other possible month available for Friday the 20^th was April 2007, 19 days earlier, as it happens. 

There is also a continuity flaw with this episode that was blindingly obvious and I’m surprised nobody noticed before editing, or perhaps it was but it was too late to do anything about it and they hoped nobody would notice.  Sorry guys!  It was the scene where Tommy chases Toshiko along the Penarth pier and she drops her shoulder bag, but in the next scene which is when Tommy grabs her and lifts her off the ground, she’s suddenly got the bag back around her shoulder, yet there’s no way she would have had time to pick it up and do that. 

The story itself is centred round Toshiko Sato and Tommy Brockless.  For Toshiko this was the highlight of her year, for when she wasn’t trying to gain some kind of recognition from Dr. Owen Harper, she was choosing what outfit to wear for the thawing out of British soldier Pvt. Tommy Reginald Brockless.  And given her track record for relationships, this one wasn’t going to be putting the world in danger....oh wait....hang on, maybe.

Tommy was brought from the past in order to save the future and each year when he’s defrosted he learns something from that time, such as when the war to end all wars ended, when the next one started and so on.  He learned also about fashion especially the women’s so when the mini skirts became fashion, he obviously enjoyed that period a lot!

Towards the end of the episode it did make you think how you would react, either as Toshiko or as Tommy.  For Toshiko had fallen in love with Tommy and although in years past he would return to the chiller for another 12 months, this time he would cross the threshold and never return, he could never write her a letter and they would never ever meet up again. 

For Tommy, the thought of returning to 1918, back to the hospital, knowing that the recent memories would return him back to the shell shocked soldier, (try saying that with a mouthful of marbles) destined to return to France and the trenches must have been terrifying.  You could sympathise with his reasons for not wishing to return, but there was a double whammy, he had to go back, because if he didn’t, the chain reaction of the time shift would mean more of the past would erupt into the present and it would never stop. 

The scene in the Radiology room of St Teilo’s hospital for me was possibly the saddest part of the story, as I put myself in Tommy’s shoes, a terrified young man desperate to remain in the present, where he could start a life with Toshiko. 

But what if Torchwood couldn’t return to 1918 using the psychic projection, what if once Brockless had crossed the threshold that was it?  Could they really stand to lose Captain Jack Harkness who was intending to return to the hospital if Owen hadn’t have stopped him, and who might have been one of those soldiers who were shot for cowardice during that time? He certainly showed levels of disgust and emotion during the time he spoke with Toshiko about the contents of the instructions that Torchwood 1918 had left. 

Even in the hospital ward with Gwen, Jack held deep feelings about the War, and we’re aware of his conman days, so there were levels of time within both wars, that Jack was a part of, as we remember the conversation on Malcassairo in ‘Utopia’ with the Doctor. ‘World War One, World War Two....’ so was Jack a soldier then? Or had he been in love with a soldier who had faced one of Haig’s firing squad?  I guess we’ll never know.

I can think of no greater madness than to run across No Man’s Land where you’re cut down by gunfire from the opposing side, I don’t blame anyone who wanted to turn tail and run away from that.

Tommy, despite using the Rift Key, recovered enough to be sent back to France, to the front line, where sadly he suffered from shell shock again and was shot by firing squad.  Although it wasn’t stated in the episode, it is written in the Torchwood Encyclopedia that Pvt Thomas Reginald Brockless was posthumously pardoned in 2006, which prompted me to look into this a little further.

During the Great War, 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers suffered from shell shock and were shot by firing squad.  Britain was apparently one of the last countries to still label soldiers suffering from shell shock as cowards.  John Major back in 1993 had emphasised in the House of Commons that to pardon the soldiers would be an insult to those who had died honourably on the battlefield. 

In 2007, the Armed Forces Act 2006 was passed.  It allowed soldiers to be pardoned posthumously although in section 359 (4) it states that the pardon “does not affect any conviction or sentence.” 

By coincidence we reviewed this episode in November, and in light of Remembrance Day, we will always remember those who lost their lives, not just from the enemy but from their own side.

We will never forget.

Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_at_Dawn_Memorial

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armed_Forces_Act_2006#Pardon

©BBC Torchwood 2006

Torchwood The Encyclopedia ISBN 978-1-846-07764-7

The Definitive Guide by Gary Russell

Cover art by Nikki Forrest

Who Reviews Into The Dalek by Jeffrey Zyra

By Phil Ford and Steven Moffat

“I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek.”

The 12^th Doctor Peter Capaldi has his first encounter with the Daleks.  Well it was inevitable that he would as every Doctor has faced the blobs encased in Dalekanium.  We didn’t have to wait long as in the second outing for the 12^th Doctor we get to see that meeting in the little bit different type of story and I do mean little as Into the Dalek actually takes us inside a Dalek.

Yes you read that right.  The Doctor and Clara go inside a Dalek after being shrunken down to size and inserted into the eye stalk.  Yes this has been done before somewhat in “The Invisible Enemy” as The Doctor and Leela went into the Doctor but those were just clones.  Still the premise is the same and if you’re new to Doctor Who just think “Innerspace” the mediocre movie starring Dennis Quaid as this is the same premise.  But imagine all possibilities of going inside a Dalek.  This filled me with excitement as this has never been done before.  Oh sure we have seen what the occupant looks like but this time we are going to get to see what makes it work. 

Well we do in a way. We get to see the Daleks anti bodies fight off an infection and where his memories are stored but more or less that is it.  The visuals of the inside of the Dalek are pretty cool but not too mind blowing.  I did find it funny that the protein that the Dalek feeds on was a pit of water.  Well not much you can do with that for a visual so a dip in the water is called for.  It did look like they were sliding down a water slide though. One of those crazy ones you see on Extreme Waterparks.

“Into the Dalek” was more enjoyable for me than Deep Breath.  I really enjoyed this story as it made me stop and think about The Doctor and his way of handling the situation and what the writers were trying to accomplish.  They went for something different and something that has not been done before and with Doctor Who that is kind of difficult because of the longevity of the show. I mean how cool was it to have The Doctor and Clara shrink down and go inside the casing of a Dalek.  I thought it was pretty cool.  Into the Dalek also developed Clara more and you see her now standing up to The Doctor more and challenging him when she knows he is wrong.  Case in point when he gives up on Rusty (Dalek can I call you Rusty. Love that line.) When he goes bad again and Clara challenges him into doing something instead of just giving up.  “What did we learn here today?” is what she yells at him and that makes The Doctor change his mind about the situation and act. If he was good once why not again and that is what Clara makes The Doctor realize. Clara is beginning to become quite the good companion who is beginning to not back down from this harsher Doctor.

“Into the Dalek” did seem a bit familiar to me.  While watching it I was reminded of the 9^th Doctor story “Dalek’. It did as you could see similarities to it right from the get go. I mean a Dalek locked in a room hooked up to wires. “Into the Dalek’ seemed familiar with the same type of message that a Dalek cannot be good and that the Doctor is filled with a lot of hate towards them and that a Dalek cannot change.  The morality story is not a bad one to rehash from time to time as it is good to see The Doctor get called out by his enemies from time to time.  Plus it is his hatred for the Daleks that causes the good Dalek from being truly good as he ends up feeling what The Doctor always feels towards them.  So in essence The Doctor does not make a good Dalek but instead makes one in his image filled with hatred towards the Dalek race.

“Into the Dalek’ introduced us to Danny Pink.  We find out that he is a former soldier and that he might have killed someone who wasn’t a soldier.  Not much is revealed about him yet but it is evident that he will be Clara’s boyfriend who may cause a rift between her and The Doctor.  Danny is a soldier and when The Doctor and Clara were leaving the rebel ship Journey Blue asks to come along but the Doctor declines to take her.  She is a soldier and The Doctor will not take a soldier as a companion.  So now we have something to watch for in the coming episodes.  I think this could be good having some friction in the TARDIS as it would make things interesting as it would not be the same old same old.  I think I will like seeing this dynamic situation unfold in the coming weeks.

Missy makes a return.  This time she is sitting at a table offering tea to the dead Gretchen in Heaven.  Now hopefully this will not be a weekly occurrence.  Once in a while to remind us that she is there will be fine but every week can get old fast.  I do like the mystery of Missy.  To me it seems like she is collecting people that died for The Doctor either as witnesses or something to use against him.

‘Into the Dalek” for me is a really good Dalek story.   I could say it was one of the better ones from the NuWho era of Doctor Who.  It had a strong story and lots of Dalek action to keep everyone happy.   I mainly liked the fact that this was a different type of story and not the same old type of Dalek story that we have been served so many times in the past.  Even though it was a mini clone of “Dalek” that was ok as it was handled very well and you can tell that this Doctor is much darker and has an edge to him that can turn people off.  So far I have warmed up to this new Doctor as the show needs an edgier Doctor and hopefully the stories are as good as Into the Dalek.

Grade A –

Who Reviews A Deeper Breath by DJ Forrest

I know that a lot of people are not fond of Steven Moffat as a writer, and during the Matt Smith era there were a lot of negative comments regarding the stories for each episode.  I have to admit also that there are some stories that still don’t make much sense to me but no doubt at some point, when I re-watch them they will eventually make some kind of sense.  I hope!

Well, given that this again is Steven Moffat at the helm, I sat with the family and watched the 12^th Doctor in action.  And you know something, I bloody loved it.  There was something familiar however about the way it began.  It was almost as if the 12^th was the older version of the 10^th, babbling on as he does, collapsing and spending the first portion in bed.  But Capaldi wasn’t for staying in bed, he was doodling on the floor, he was out on the roof tops, he was beckoning the dinosaur back to him, he was investigating why the dinosaur internally combusted, he was in the water, then in an alley way staring at his face in a broken mirror, wondering where he’d seen that face before. 

And I recall shouting at the television “Caecillius’ and ‘John Frobisher’.  I suppose you have to wonder how the regeneration faces are chosen, something of which we’ve never really thought about.  But they would have to have come from somewhere.  So that was a good explanation, and ties up one of those lingering questions about Capaldi appearing in Doctor Who prior.

It was also great to see the Clockwork droids, although these were different to the droids on the ship the SS Madame de Pompadour.  These were from the sister ship, SS Marie Antoinette.

There were a lot of moments during the episode that not only had the Doctor recalled seeing them before, but so had I.  It’s been nagging that garden, I’ve seen it before, and if I’m not mistaken I’m sure it was during the 10^th Doctor era, but I could be mistaken – I often am!

There were nods right across the board in this episode, a nod to Roger Lloyd Pack when the Doctor explained to the droid about it being like a broom.  It was no longer the original broom, it had changed it had upgraded so many times; it could no longer be classed as the original. 

I was a little thrown over Clara’s reactions to the Doctor, especially given her title of the ‘Impossible Girl’ who had been there during each Doctor’s journey, somewhere.  Here was Clara who had seen the man she loved change from the young man with old eyes to the old man, with a Scottish accent and angry eyebrows! Rose Tyler had seen her Doctor, the man who had grabbed her hand in the basement of the store she worked at and told her to ‘Run’, who turned into a skinny man in a suit, all smiles, with big hair and ‘no second chances’ attitude. 

The phone call from Trenzalore nailed it and it was nice to see Matt, that fond farewell, from the graveyard of the Doctor. 

I liked the nod to Sarah Jane Smith as the Doctor misses by miles at taking Clara home, by landing the TARDIS in Glasgow. 

The story was brilliantly executed, the dialogue fantastic, and the comedy elements, they were pretty predictable but delivered well.  And for once, I understood the entire story, so does this mean that Moffat took all those comments on board from the fans and finally listened?

The steam punk fan made design of the titles worked fantastically for the episode.  Although many noticed the music, I hadn’t noticed much of a difference.  I suppose after a while you get used to the title music unless they add a heavier beat to the intro.

I look forward to the second episode with excitement as my favourite villainous characters are back.

If you loved the return of the Time Lord and would like to voice your comments then why not post below, or write an article about your feelings at Capaldi becoming the 12^th Doctor.  Did you love the episode or loath it? Whatever your opinions about Capaldi, the storyline, the characters in general, why not drop us a line, the usual method – Facebook, Twitter or email us at projecttorchwood@ymail.com

Who Reviews Last of the Time Lords by Tom Clarke

The thing I love about this episode, in my opinion, is the time gap between this episode, and the previous part of the “Utopia Trilogy”, The Sound of Drums. (I like this episode, but I wouldn’t put it in my top 10 for a few reasons, but we’ll get to them later. For those of you that haven’t seen the episode, don’t worry, there won’t be major plot spoilers and I won’t discuss the end of the episode in great detail.)

It takes place an entire year after that episode. It gives the characters like Martha to travel around the world without wasting much episode time. Even then, this episode is slightly longer than the others. Only by about 5 minutes, and there is a shorter 45 minute version of the episode, but I prefer the 50 minute version. See, the 45 minute version doesn’t miss any major plot points, it doesn’t miss out large chunks of story or any great, action packed moments. It does, however, miss out a scene where the Master dances with Lucy, and I like that scene, because it sort of gives Simm’s Master some more character. He doesn’t care about what is going on and that he is destroying the world. Speaking of Simm, he stole the show, he is by far my favourite Master, next to the classic Delgado Master.

Martha has travelled the world in the year that the Master was taking control, sailed the Atlantic, walked across America. This is, however, where my problems with the episode come in. The story of the episode was fine, but it was mainly the other characters that I didn’t like, mainly because they didn’t do much or I just don’t like them. I can’t say much about Martha, because I just find her boring as a companion. She’s the main focus of the episode as well, like “How is she going to stop the Master?” and such. Captain Jack does absolutely nothing in this episode except *spoiler* destroy the Paradox  Machine. The Doctor didn’t need to be aged. I guess it adds a certain suspense, and we would be missing a great scene from about 20 minutes from the end, but in the end, it added nothing to the story. Also, speaking of “the older Doctor” something that happened at the end of the episode I didn’t like, and I’m not really spoiling much here, and the word is “Faith.” When it’s used correctly, it’s great, but the way it was used at the end of the episode, sort of ruined it. Didn’t ruin the scene, I just found that part a bit disappointing. Those are the main problems I have with this episode, and another thing I did like is the “cliff-hanger” if you could call it that, that relates to The End of Time (Part 1).  I liked the Toclafane, and the nice little story as to what they really are, and finding out Captain Jack’s ultimate destiny was great, but it left me wanting to know more, and we (as of August 2014) still don’t know.

But anyway, I disagree with (most) of the reviews online calling it “a waste, terrible, boring, anti-climactic, etc”. I found it to be enjoyable for the most part, with only a few little gripes and nitpicks here and there. In my opinion, it is the worst of the Utopia trilogy, but it’s still not terrible, it’s not un-watchable.

Who Reviews The Gunfighters by Jeff Zyra

Written by Donald Cotton

Directed by Rex Cotton

Broadcast 30^th April – 21^st May 1966

“So fill up your glasses and join in the song. The law’s right behind you and it won’t take long. So come, you coyotes and howl at the moon, Till there’s blood upon the sawdust, In The Last Chance Saloon.”

Following the events of The Celestial Toymaker The Doctor apparently has a toothache.  So he sets off to find a dentist. Well he lands at the western town of Tombstone home of the OK Corral. Roaming around the town are the likes of The Clantons, Wyatt Earp, Johnny Ringo and Doc Holliday.  The Doctor proceeds to find Doc Holiday and to get his tooth fixed while Steven and Dodo try to blend in.  What happens next is quite comical as the three travelers get caught up in the shootout at the OK Corral.

Ok. Well this one is a winner.  The Gunfighters is one of the worst Doctor Who stories ever.  EVER!  It is dull and boring and it has one of the worst songs ever and it keeps being played over and over again throughout all four episodes.  God that song is so awful and it would have been better if they played it only once at the beginning of the story. What is worse Steven and Dodo start singing it also.  The story is pretty inaccurate also.  I mean the events of the Gunfighters are very loosely based on the events that took place at Tombstone.  But I guess if you are working on a BBC budget and it is a studio based story then you are limited.

What I do not understand is why The Doctor would go to Tombstone to have his tooth fixed.  Didn’t the TARDIS have some sort of medicine for that or some future Timelord tooth fixer? Plus he goes to see Doc Holliday who at the time of the OK Corral gave up being a dentist and was a renowned gambler and gunfighter.  He would not have been my first choice to get my tooth fixed especially if I had a time machine at my disposal. 

The Gunfighters is just plain hard to watch.  The story goes in all directions and tries to be funny.  At least I hope that was their intent. Plus it is very dull and lacks much of action until the end when you get to the shootout.  Which I have to say is pretty lame in itself.  It just wasn’t a well written story. The scenarios were just awful with The Doctor being mistaken for Doc Holliday was just lame. You would expect Wyatt Earp to know what one of his best friends would look like.  Well if you want to see what a Doctor Who story should not be and want to watch in utter horror then The Gunfighters is for you. If you want to keep your sanity then just skip over this one and watch The War Machines which would make your brain happy.

Grade F

Who Reviews The Chase by Jeff Zyra

Written by Terry Nation

Directed by Richard Martin

Broadcast 22^nd May – 26^th June 1965

“I shall miss them. Yes, I shall miss them, silly old fusspots.”

Imagine being chased through space and time.  Imagine the ones chasing you are your most hated enemies The Daleks.   The Daleks have discovered time travel and are now hunting The Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki all through time. The TARDIS crew is being chased all around to the Mary Celeste, to a monster themed fun house, to The Empire State Building in New York City USA.  The Daleks are relentless in their pursuit until the final showdown on the planet Mechanus with the Mechanoids. 

The Chase isn’t one of my favorite Dalek stories.  Even though it has a good ending as Barbara and Ian finally get home the whole story could have been better if it was shorter.  Coming in at 6 episodes it does contain a lot of filler.  In my opinion it would have been better served as a 4 part story as the first two and last two episodes were done really well and I found to be very entertaining. It’s just the middle two stories were just bland and well stupid. I know they needed to create the illusion of a chase but some of the scenarios were quiet stupid. Mainly the Empire State Building scenes with future companion Peter Purves doing a really bad impression of someone from Texas. 

Terry Nation tries to use the same type of storytelling that he did with The Keys of Marinus.  While it worked with Keys of Marinus as every episode gave us a different scenario to find a key.  The Chase it didn’t really work as it just seemed too stupid.  The running around was boring actually even though they were trying to be cutesy i.e. The Mary Celeste.  But what was actually really stupid was the fun house.  I just find that scenario hard to take that you would think The Doctor would figure it out.  I mean they are robots saying the same thing over and over again. Plus I thought the Daleks were intelligent beings and they should have figured it out.

The fight with The Daleks and The Mechanoids was pretty good.  It was good seeing the Daleks meeting their match against another robot type species.  The only problem is that they were kind of bulky and well really round.  They were supposed to be a villain for The Daleks but never caught on in the TV show.  They did however have a prominent role in The Dalek comic strip of the 60’s.

The Chase does have some fine moments.  This story also is the last one to have Ian and Barbara as companions as they leave for home in the Daleks time machines. You can see that The Doctor doesn’t really want them to leave.  You can see it in his argument with him.  Then when they leave you can see him sad and lonely as he really got used to and enjoyed their company. It is quite a touching scene as the original companions leave.  So The Chase while it does have some historical value in the shows history it just isn’t a really good Dalek story even though the premise is pretty good just not executed well.

Grade C

Who Reviews The Ark by Jeff Zyra

Written by Paul Erickson & Lesley Scott

Directed by Michael Imison

Broadcast 5^th – 26^th March 1966

“The success of all we stand for, everything aboard this spaceship is suddenly endangered by the strange fever. A fever brought by these strangers in our midst!”

The Doctor and Steven and new companion Dodo arrive on a strange place which doesn’t make much sense with the types of animals living together.  Dodo has a cold and is sneezing all over the place. The problem is its 10 million years into the future and the Earth is falling into the sun.  The ark is the last survivors of earth and they have cured the common cold and have no immunity to fight it off.  So it’s up to the Doctor to make the cure and save the humans and The Monoids.  After saving everyone the TARDIS lands them 700 years into the future but on The Ark.  This time things are different as The Monoids have enslaved the humans.  The cold and remedy somehow mutates The Monoids and they have a higher intelligence and a very evil persona at that. As they want nothing more than to have the planet to themselves and wipe out the humans forever.

The Ark is two stories combined to make one story and I found the second story to be better than the first. The Ark is a pretty decent science fiction story and I do like the idea of the cold killing the humans and making them doubt their mortality.  You would have thought they would have scientists on board for such things as they are traveling through space and would be encountering tons of germs in space.  The way the humans try and deal with it is a tad strange. From the start we are to believe they are peaceful people but their first instinct is to kill The Doctor, Steven and Dodo.  Very typical scenario and there is always someone to rise up and take the opposite view.

Finding the cure for any disease, in this case the common cold is a science fiction standard that has been used tons of times from Star Trek to any show that deals strongly in science fiction.  In The Ark I just didn’t care for this part of the story as it appeared the Doctor found the cure pretty quickly and well you knew he was going to find a cure.  The second part of the story was another stalwart in science fiction the oppressed people being held as slaves.  This time it’s the humans as The Monoids have enslaved their human masters as The Monoids were once the servants of the humans.

I found this part of the story more interesting as The Doctor was more like the one we have seen through this era.  I did like it when they were on the planet Refusis and the concept of the invisible Refusisans.  Well it was a good way for the BBC to save money on that story instead of making a new alien.  The second part of The Ark actually wasn’t that bad with Steven looking for the bomb on the ark.  But it was a bit of a letdown with the ending as the Refusisans were strong enough to carry that huge statue to the airlock and just throw it out into space.  But when you look at it the second part was predictable as you knew the humans would end up freeing themselves from The Monoids and starting their new life on Refusis.

The Ark is not an altogether bad story as it is pretty simple to watch.  Plus if you pay close attention you will notice that the eye for the Monoids is in the mouth of the actors.  Yes it is right in the mouth.  I always found that to be quite comical.  So for some simple science fiction The Ark is one to watch again.

Grade C

Reviews End of Days by Patsy Newton-Carline

In 'Captain Jack Harkness' we visited the Ritz Palais de Danse - neither in 1941 or in the 'now' was it ever a dance hall - the Ritz has too much style and class!

Then we discovered the real 'Captain Jack Harkness', having a drink with his team and who else - our Jack, who has been here before and knows that by tomorrow night, the real Jack will be dead!

I found the relationship between the 2 Jacks to be both moving and enlightening - the real Jack finally acknowledging his sexuality, having found someone who understands, our Jack - they share, very publicly some tender intimate moments, then they must part - our Jack knowing it will be forever and we clearly see his very human pain. So he takes Jacks name and rank and we gain some insight into his close bond with humanity and the earth - much like the Doctor, and it helps to explain his trust of and faith in his team at Torchwood.

And so - to The End of Days.........

Which takes us to a darker place......

Owen, against both orders and common sense, has opened the Rift to recover Tosh and Jack - but you cannot control what comes through and the world has become a terrifying place to be.....

Bilis is using visions and even murder to destabillise the team - and he's succeeding.... Owen has broken and the rest follow shooting Jack and opening the Rift, letting through Bilis's god, the Great Devourer, Abaddon, that will destroy all humanity. And of course they will depend on the weakened, barely restored Captain Jack to save the world - to clear up their mess!

This episode clearly shows what happens when those you trust and have faith in fail that trust - and also Jacks faith in humanity and his dedication, like that of The Doctor, to save the earth, to persistently try to save us from all threats - and ourselves!

And when Jack takes on The Great Devourer and defeats it and is lying quite perfectly and immaculately dead, Gwen recovers her faith and waits patiently for his recovery, finally giving him a Princess Kiss, you know the one - you end up either with a prince or a frog or in this case an immortal gay time-traveler!

I have to say if I was Jack, even without the Doctor needing help, I would have legged it anyway - ungrateful little Erks!

Hmmm, yes well this seems to have turned into a bit of a rant about the inhumanity & lack of trust & faith generally demonstrated by humans - but you must admit that in this episode the team, at least, seem to have earned it!!

Any more rants? Well yes, a common one & I hate to say guys, when it came to 'background /atmospheric music' - you blew it - during one of Owens deeply felt spoutings, we only found out what he was going on about by rewinding & bringing up the subtitles! Please remember more than 50% of the population has less than perfect hearing - so before release to the world of Woodies in future, please get your Nan (or me if you don't have another Nan handy!) to view it, under her normal viewing conditions - you know - comfy chair, bowl of nibbles, box of chocs, bottle of wine/gin & tonic - whatever floats her boat, or, failing that, put a small amount of cotton wool in each of your ears & see what you miss! Actually in this instance, Owens speech(?) would have been more dramatic without background music!!

And finally - The Great Devourer! Yes, well, I took one look & I was Hammered, (House of Horror Hammered, that is!) ........ I mean, guys, it really was a bit Dennis Wheatley, admit it!

And finally final, are we the only ones to notice that Owen has been moonlighting - in the movies, no less - we spotted him playing a hit man in Red 2 - under a false name & wearing what may well have been a borrowed body and in posher clothes! Anyone who hasn't seen it, go and Google 'Byung Hun Lee' & flip to images - oh, boy!

Well, bye for now - we must do this again soon! 

Luvnhugs to Woodies & Whovians everywhere

Who Reviews Day of the Doctor by Jeffrey Zyra

Written by Steven Moffat

“Gallifrey Falls No More.”

It is finally here.  Doctor Who’s 50^th Anniversary special has finally aired and we finally get to see what John Hurt’s Doctor is all about.  All the speculation and hypothesis that have been going on since “The Name of The Doctor” have been at a fever pitch and the debates and discussions have heated up on social media over the course of the summer and fall can now end.  We have our answers at last. “The Day of The Doctor” has happened and we have all seen it but was it what we expected? Was it worthy of the hype?  Will it go down in anniversary fame as “The Three Doctors” and “The Five Doctors” before it or did it crash and burn and disappoint like the 25^th anniversary story “The Silver Nemesis” and nothing for the 30^th and 40^th?   Well it sure did not disappoint as “The Day of The Doctor” turned out to be my favorite anniversary story ever.

I usually write my reviews right after I watch the episode.  Except if it is a two part story then I wait till the whole story airs and review it at one time.  “The Day of The Doctor” was the exception as I’m writing this after I have watched it for a second time.  After watching it there was a lot of discussion with my friends at the party and I knew that I would need some time to recover from the euphoria of watching it.   I was pretty jazzed up and really excited for what I had just seen and my emotions were all over the place that it would be better to write this later when I was thinking normally.  Or in my case as normal as I think most of the time, well, some of the time I guess. 

I really enjoyed the overall story for “The Day of The Doctor.”  It was really good and pretty interesting and kept me on the edge of my seat.   What made it so enticing was trying to predict what would happen next.  What would the three Doctors come up with to first stop the Zygons and then what would the two Doctors do to stop the War Doctor from destroying Gallifrey?  The solutions Steven Moffat came up with was pretty good and it showed us a part of the story from The War Doctor’s eyes as he was learning who he becomes and what his actions do to his future incarnations. 

Seeing Joanna Page as Queen Elizabeth wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.  I deduced that they would be tying up the loose end that was mentioned in “The End of Time” and why she hated him in “The Shakespeare Code”.  It was just funny to see what led to all of that in the 10^th Doctor’s era.  Finding out that it was a mistake just made it pretty funny and at least now we know.  Joanna Page was pretty good also even if I’m not familiar with her as I never watched Gavin and Stacy.  But she did pretty well and was pretty funny as Elizabeth the First.

I really liked the interaction between David Tennant and Matt Smith.  The chemistry was really good and in typical Doctor action they tried to one up the other.  It was good seeing the two Doctors picking on each other and it was really good to see the tradition made famous by Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee continue on in the new series.  That was always a highlight of past multi Doctor stories and seeing the two compare sonic screwdrivers was pretty funny and classic.

I enjoyed seeing the Zygons back.  First time we have seen them on TV since the Tom Baker story “The Terror of the Zygons” back in 1975.  At first when I heard they were going to be in “The Day of The Doctor” I thought they would only have a token appearance.  Glad my theory was wrong as it was good to see them have a part in the story and are important to the final solution in a small way.    I really liked how they were used and seeing them again after so many years was itself a treat as they have been constantly being near the top of favorite villains fan polls for a long time and they do have a pretty good fan following so it was good to see them return.  Plus the Zygons are David Tennant’s favorite creatures so maybe that factored into it but I doubt it. 

The Time War scenes were spectacular.  For a long time I’ve been wondering and speculating about this period in the Doctor’s time line and now we get to see a small part of it.  Even though it was the end of the war it was good to see the Daleks who are also celebrating a 50^th Anniversary this year.   What we see is a Doctor who is tired and sick of the war who leaves a message for both participants.   It is interesting to see The Doctor grab a weapon that would destroy his planet.  It is very unlike The Doctor to resort to this type of solution.   This where the story really gets good as the Moment is a weapon that has a conscious.  Played perfectly by Billie Piper the weapon acted like a ghost of Christmas future showing The Doctor what his consequences would do to him.  I really liked this part of the story as it gave us a new dimension to watch when they were battling the Zygons.  All this led to the Three Doctor’s going back to the time where the War Doctor presses the button on the Moment which will result in the destruction of Gallifrey.   This was a pretty powerful scene as we see Clara really comes into her own.  She is the one who convinces The Doctor’s or more specifically the 11^th Doctor.  She was able to make them change their minds and come up with a new solution.  It was a solution where The Doctor is not a mass murderer but a saver.  The Doctor saves Gallifrey instead of destroying it by putting it in a pocket universe.

Now I don’t believe this is a reset switch as we have seen Gallifrey before trying to break free from that pocket dimension. If you remember we see a Gallifrey with Time Lords still alive trying to come back and destroying Earth in the process back in “The End of Time.”  Now if Gallifrey had been destroyed by the Doctor’s then that moment would not have happened.   Steven Moffat gave a way for The Doctor to remember them and to search for the Time Lords to bring his planet back to the new series but in their proper space and time. 

John Hurt was really good as The Doctor.  He gave us a sense of experience and to a point was the straight guy to the comedic styles of David Tennant and Matt Smith’s Doctors.  It kind of reminded me of William Hartnell a little bit from “The Three Doctor” but just a little.  John Hurt had really good chemistry with David Tennant and Matt Smith that you wish they had longer together.  His performance was magnificent and it made me wishing we had a series for his Doctor.    I really ended up liking The War Doctor as he had a certain aspect to him that just made him likeable.  Probably the hurt on his face and in his eyes of what he has seen during the war.  Plus he did have that Doctor quirkiness and personality to go with all that and it was something different.

Now for the fanboy moments. There were a lot of them that just made me emotional and happy to be a Doctor Who fan. Now I have been a Doctor who fan since 1981 and for most of my life I have watched the show and I love it.  Now I had a feeling the Classic Doctor’s would not be in the show.  Realistically they are a lot older and well that would be too much for one story.  But what they did when they went to save Gallifrey by using old clips of the older Doctor’s was such a classy move and I totally loved it.  All The Doctors uniting at the end to save Gallifrey including the new Doctor Peter Capaldi for a brief cameo.  That sequence of events was really amazing and awesome and the fanboy in me screamed with delight.  It made this older Doctor Who fan happy. 

What really got me though was the inclusion of Tom Baker.  Seeing him as the curator and talking to Matt Smith as the 4^th Doctor really made the Anniversary Special for me.  It was such a special moment seeing the oldest and longest serving Doctor, who at the time of the 20^th declined to be in The Five Doctors, in the show again.  It was a great moment and he sure has not lost any of that charm that has made him the best Doctor ever.  I was grinning with delight and was extremely happy that Tom Baker was in it. To me it felt like a nod to the fans of both series and it was just a special moment that we will be able to watch forever.

Then there was the end when Matt Smith goes out of the TARDIS and stands with his former selves.  That was truly spectacular even if the other Doctors faces were paintings. I just loved that moment and it was a great way to end a wonderful anniversary special.  Steven Moffat delivered an amazing story that will go down as his masterpiece.  “The Day of The Doctor” was a wonderful story for the 50^th and one that was worth the wait of a year for.

Grade A+