Big Finish Reviews+ The Twelfth Doctor Chronicles by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s running off with Captain Eyebrows.

Unless or until Peter Capaldi joins the crew at Big Finish, and probably even after that if David Tennant’s anything to go by, Jacob Dudman will be the Big Finish Twelfth Doctor.

He’s played him now in a couple of Short Trips, and if there’s a tinge on Ten underneath the sighing weariness of Twelve, that’s not a problem – in fact, it’s almost spot on for the character himself. With Dudman’s Twelve joining his Ten and his Eleven in a set of Chronicles, Big Finish is taking a big leap – Short Trips are one thing, but the Chronicles are something entirely else. In the first place, they’re multi-cast adventures, and in the second, they have more time, and a broader scope with which to show off the Twelfth Doctor’s personality at various points in his life – but that comes with more opportunities to get things badly wrong.

Would you want to be on the wrong side of those eyebrows?

So there’s more bravery than might be immediately apparent in taking on the voice of the Twelfth Doctor in something as long and full-on as a Chronicles box set.

No pressure.

This first set of Chronicles is a fairly neat summation of the Twelfth Doctor’s time, at least prior to his meeting Nardole, sitting still for several decades at a university, teaching Missy about compassion, getting involved with Bill and spending the majority of a series waiting to die.

There’s a celebrity historical story with some creepy invasive blood and a bunch of really determined rats in Crimea. There’s a school trip with a difference as Danny ‘PE’ Pink tags along for a ride and gets involved in alien M.A.S.H. There’s a solidly confusing timey-wimey story with soldiers from the past besieging a castle in 2015. And there’s Osgood’s dream come true as she gets to take a trip in the box and ends up being just a little bit Bond.

Sound like fun?

Let’s see.

The Charge Of The Night Brigade by David Llewellyn takes the Twelfth Doctor to the Crimean War, to Mary Seacole’s ‘British Hotel.’ For those who need the Wikipedia version, she was a British-Jamaican contemporary of Florence Nightingale, in much the same line but with added succour for the spirit through food, rest and a relatively comfortable recuperative environment, rather than just strictly medical repair. Also, known to be a bit of a tartar.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Twelfth Doctor takes to her immediately, though it takes her rather longer to warm to Captain Eyebrows, and he has to prove his worth to her before she throws in her lot with him against a new and extra creepy danger.

The story itself is a straightforward body-horror tale to ease us into the set – an infection that isn’t an infection, a blood sample that reacts to investigation, possession, gestalt rat-creatures, one of the most scary single ideas in the history of Who – meat and drink to David Llewellyn, to be fair, and meat and drink too to fans of the grimmer tone of some early Capaldi stories. There are callbacks to The Waters Of Mars and to James Herbert’s seminal horror shocker, The Rats, while also resonating deeply with the early Capaldi tone of anti-war sentiment at all costs, and particularly the futility of innocent lives thrown away fighting conflicts that on the grander scale are utterly pointless. In fact, you could argue that’s a theme of this set – its anti-war credentials run through the four stories, albeit you might have to squint a bit to see them in the fourth story.

Mandi Symonds adds her voice to the first episode as Mary Seacole, but most of the rest is delivered by Dudman, as both Twelfth Doctor and narrator, as well as the supporting characters who make the story work. Symonds gives a welcome up-turn in tone too, a sharpness to contrast with he Twelfth Doctor’s exhaustion, and hope, and strange, alien humour. She shows the shift in Seacole’s attitude towards the lanky Scottish interloper as he proves to be the only one who can actively help her with the outbreak of a strange new sickness.

Without spoiling the plot for you entirely, the theme of The Charge Of The Night Brigade is all wrapped up in the continuation of war, the ever-constant resurgence and return of power-hungry madmen and egotists, and the sacrifice of innocent lives to achieve their goals. It’s a melancholy theme for a melancholy Doctor, but Llewellyn and Dudman together show a recognisable Twelfth Doctor being dark, mysterious, hurt, uncertain and yet doing the best he can to solve a horrible problem, to save lives, and to make a positive difference. His is a light that shines through the baggage of himself, which isn’t an easy thing to portray if you’re originating the character, let alone if you’re stepping in to a well-worn pair of shoes and trying to recapture that essence, but Llewellyn and Dudman together give us a Twelfth Doctor in the Crimean War that retrospectively adds lustre and heartbreak to his final on-screen adventure against the backdrop of the trenches of World War One. If you have a fear of rats, this one’s going to drive you screaming up the wall. If you love the Twelfth Doctor, you’ll hear him here, living again in the audio medium and still working out how to be the Doctor, how to be a good man, and what such labels even mean when you’ve lived as long as he has.

War Wounds, by Mark Wright is that most unlikely of things – a trip to an alien planet with the Twelfth Doctor and Danny Pink.

No wait, come back!

The dynamic between Danny Pink and the Twelfth Doctor was among the oddest ever depicted on the show – a character loved by a companion, but who hated and mistrusted the Doctor’s motives in taking people away, while the Doctor himself took a distinct dislike to Danny because he’d once been a soldier. All in all it was somewhat forced, a way of taking the ‘human connection’ element of previous characters like Jackie Tyler, Francine Jones, Sylvia Noble, and Rory Williams and turning up the heat and the antipathy until it boiled. But whereas all of his predecessors found a way to make peace with the Doctor and his adventures, Danny Pink never really did, and only once he’d been turned into a Cyberman did the Twelfth Doctor actually seem to learn any respect for him.

As such, he’s perhaps an odd character to bring back for an adventure alongside the rangy, insulting Time Lord, especially when you know going in that if it’s to fit with the established on-screen arc of their relationship, it’s either going to have to confirm both characters in their mistrust of one another, or it’s going to have to involve a reset button.

We won’t tell you which it is, but certainly one of those things happens here. Mark Wright takes us into a story that is basically an alien episode of M.A.S.H, a film and show already well noted for its anti-war message. As such, pitch the ex-soldier, still haunted by his wartime actions, and the ex-warrior, still haunted by his, into a field of relatively pointless imperial conflict and you have an interesting situation to begin with – the war is admittedly futile, except inasmuch as it stops the advance of a despot, which the Doctor would perhaps usually have been all over. Here, we see him in triage mode – relatively quickly moving to a field hospital, patching up patient after patient after patient, irrespective of their combatant status or the side they’re on. It’s a chance for Danny to see a different side to the Twelfth Doctor, and when one particular patient turns out to have political significance, it’s a chance too for the Twelfth Doctor to reassess the one-time soldier who’s become a teacher, a passer-on of knowledge (in a somewhat ironic foreshadowing of the Twelfth Doctor’s own career). It will surprise no-one that they each more or less insist on taking the wrong and unhelpful lessons from this experience, but there’s perhaps a little melting in their attitudes as they each begin to appreciate the complexities of each other’s positions, before it all goes necessarily wrong.

What War Wounds ultimately gives us is an anti-war treatise that jives neatly with the M.A.S.H ethos and that of the early Twelfth Doctor, more information than we got at an early stage of Danny Pink’s on-screen life about the specifics of why he quit the army, and why he still sees it as a worthwhile thing, even if it’s no longer something he can personally bring himself to do, and a multi-layered tragedy. There’s the tragedy of war, absolutely, the almost mundane horror of bodies needing to be patched up or needing to be disposed of because, as Doctor puts it, ‘someone wants a bigger garden.’ But there’s also the tragedy of the friendship that could have been between the Twelfth Doctor and Danny Pink if only either of them had ever really managed to get over themselves and see the truth of the other, rather than taking opposing positions in relation to Clara Oswald’s destiny. That sometimes being a good man, woman, human, reptile or superintelligent shade of the colour blue means picking up a gun to defend the innocent is something Danny Pink believes in fiercely. That it’s something the Doctor has already had to do, and that it’s something from which in this spiky incarnation more than most he is fleeing from is a tragedy of timing that means the two will never become the friends they could have been. Mark Wright, with War Wounds, delivers a script which shows us the potential that’s lost, while giving Samuel Anderson and Jacob Dudman some room to really play their roles.

When Lizbeth Myles writes a story, one thing you can be absolutely sure of is good characterization. Her entry into his box set, Distant Voices, is no exception to this rule. We don’t actually think Lizbeth Myles could write a poor character if she tried.

Focusing on the life and experiences of a tour guide at a regional British tourist attraction (spoiler alert – no Judoon were harmed in the making of this audio), Distant Voices has a distinctly Sapphire And Steel vibe – Cameron, a font of all knowledge about Rochester Castle, is corrected beyond the point of vexation by a mysterious white-haired Scotsman when she tells a tour group about a siege of the castle in the run-up to Magna Carta. Not one for hanging about, Myles escalates us quickly from Cameron (played with highly likeable companion-gusto by Emily Redpath) hearing voices, seemingly of ghosts from 1215, to sudden mistfalls that isolate Rochester in time, to the 13^th century intruding into the 21^st, and from there, to important decisions that will dictate the future of Cameron’s life, as well as, just possibly, life for everyone in Rochester, the world, and the universe of space-time.

Distant Voices covers its ground at impressive speed, while never rushing too fast to let us engage with Cameron and the series of dilemmas that slam into her life the day she meets the Doctor. And that’s really the vibe here – while she’s eminently likeable and a solid potential companion, Cameron is someone to whom the Doctor, among a whole series of other unlikely events, happens, an event with consequences, rather than necessarily a lifelong friend. For all that, Lizbeth Myles delivers a story that bowls along, gives us some solid historical peril, turns a corner that puts everything in a new light, and ends on a satisfying, semi-melancholy but distinctly ‘right’ note. As with the first two stories, the notion of war and casualties is prevalent here, and there’s actually more going on than historical armies besieging the modern ruins of a castle, but here, more than in the first two stories, the Twelfth Doctor is able to handle the idea of war as a universal reality, while still raging and mourning for the innocents caught in its crossfire. Of all the stories in this set, this is probably the most richly enjoyable, and it’s one you’ll return to for the chemistry between Dudman’s Twelfth Doctor and Redpath’s Cameron.

Having said that, step forward the unstoppable double-act of Una McCormack on writing duties and Ingrid Oliver, bringing everyone’s favourite UNIT-geek Petronella Osgood back to the Twelfth Doctor’s world in Field Trip. Joyfully, unlike her TV appearances, this time Osgood’s not just a clever part of the UNIT team. This time, the Doctor comes to pick her up specifically for her first assignment in space and time – it’s Osgood’s dream day out.

Except she quickly realises that adventures in time and space don’t necessarily conform to the skillsets she has. While the Doctor tells her he needs her specifically to deal with some politicians, it’s not long before she’s running along unnervingly high things, mingling with spies, hacking casino programmes and breaking the bank, all to try and stop a modern, technically bloodless form of warfare – the warfare of enforced commerce, uninvited access to markets, and the turning of an otherwise quite happy planet full of people into little more than relentless consumers. Recent Bond movies have shifted away from megalomaniacs in lairs to unscrupulous business moguls, and that’s reflected here as ‘Nella, Petro Nella’ steps into the field, to help the Twelfth Doctor stop just such a ruthless market-leader.

There’s something altogether glorious about hearing Osgood and the Twelfth Doctor finally gad about the galaxy, fighting corporate crime, and Petronella’s particular skillset does come in handy in an early stage of the adventure. But it’s actually hearing her step outside that comfort zone into the busy, dangerous world of corporate espionage, and still nail it that makes us high-five the imaginary Osgood in our own heads. Everyone who’s watched Osgood or listened to her in the UNIT box sets has always known she’s better on a much broader scale than she realises. There’s joy in hearing her prove that at least a little to herself in this story, which means we leave the box set on a real, smiley high.

The Chronicles of the Twelfth Doctor, Volume 1 is more or less a must-buy – it’s a collection of gorgeously written previously unseen adventures for the Grumpiest of the Time Lords, that blends variety of story with several slices of his life and the moods of each of them. It leaves the way clear for plenty more sets in the Chronicles series at various other points of course – adventures with Nardole, adventures with Bill, adventures with Missy even? – and it proves the case for writing more adventures in this series. Unless or until Peter Capaldi joins the crew at Big Finish, his seat in the Tardis is being kept wonderfully warm for him by Jacob Dudman, and the writing his Doctor is inspiring is second to none.

Big Finish Reviews+ Dead Media by Tony J Fyler

Tony’s on his Walkman.

Delivering a first person audio story about the audio medium has been done before, and with great effect – if you’ve never heard the audiobook version of Dead Air, by James Goss, go and hunt that down immediately.

There are similarities between that Tenth Doctor story and this Twelfth Doctor Short Trip from John Richards. During his time at St Luke’s university in Bristol in Series 10, but seemingly before he meets wide-eyed inquisitive chip-doler Bill, the Twelfth Doctor finds himself getting involved with the university’s Audio-Visual Club. He goes to them in search of that once ubiquitous, now increasingly obsolete device, a cassette player, having discovered a curious tape in the Tardis during the rigorous alphabetization of his Jelly Babies, and having nothing of his own on which to play it since that mad girl with the baseball bat blew it up. Or was that the Cybermen…?

Anyhow, in search of a tape deck, he meets Petra – quantum physics student by day, Audio-Visual Club geek by any remaining time, and also, tech lead on the university’s podcast, ‘The People of St Luke’s.’

When they play the tape, things get increasingly creepy and odd and nostalgic, but also – be warned – increasingly complicated. When echoes are not exact echoes, what are they? Big Finish is good at messing with your head through sound – you could say it’s the company’s stock in trade – but here, the majority of the scares are delivered both on the page and through Jacob Dudman’s performance.

And key to the emotional and science fiction dramas here is one key question - if there’s something trapped on a tape, is there a reason it’s trapped on there?

This is an interesting story of the Twelfth Doctor’s particular fallibility, his judgment forever trapped between trying to be a good man and actually being one, and how it can sometimes lead him into trouble, and sometimes cost the lives of those who stand close to him without his particular Time Lord advantages. He even references a couple of prior instances here – it was he who brought the Mandragora Helix to Earth in his fourth incarnation, and he who brought the Family of Blood to Earth in that thing that we all thought was his tenth incarnation but was technically his eleventh, which we still insist on calling the Tenth Doctor because names and stuff. The one that looked a lot like David Tennant. Alright, the first of the ones that looked a lot like David Tennant *Shakes fist at sky, yells names of two former showrunners in head.*

The point stands though – on the day the Doctor gets things wrong, he has a tendency to get them really wrong, and people tend to die as a result. So, if you see something trapped, and you let your own sense or memory of what being trapped was like affect your judgment, you could well unleash the end of the world based on little more than your need to see things free. While Dead Media came first, a very recent example of this same syndrome in the Doctor’s psychology of course was seen in Can You Hear Me? – egged on by Graham, the Thirteenth Doctor freed a sadistic god from the prison in which it was perfectly effectively trapped, and then had to undo her own rash action before the universe could sleep at night.

Here, there’s a ‘monster’ that isn’t one, but whose existence in our universe is a danger to itself and others, let loose in our dimension because the Doctor had memories of working for UNIT and trying everything in his power to break free of his exile. There are consequences here too, and if the Doctor succeeds in putting things right, it’s important to note that there are some consequences you can’t undo with a wave of your screwdriver and a heartfelt apology.

In terms of the delivery of this story, Jacob Dudman’s some sort of joyous vocal freak of nature, adding a third New Who Doctor to his repertoire, and for all it begins with a voice that sounds more like an exhausted Tenth Doctor than a realistic Twelfth, the longer you listen, the more Twelvish it becomes, so you’re completely along for the ride long before the end. There are challenges to the delivery in the way this story is structured too – rather than, as with the likes of Best Laid Plans, allowing the narrator to be omniscient, and the Twelfth Doctor merely a voice to be dropped into, here, the whole thing is in the first person, so it’s the Twelfth Doctor from start to finish, doing impressions of other voices along the way, like the Twelfth Doctor doing impressions of Petra from Port Talbot in Wales. Oh, the fun of accents.

Nevertheless, Dudman perseveres and delivers a strong vocal performance which, as mentioned, convinces more often than it doesn’t.

There are moments as we hurtle towards a solution to the problem – ideally one that doesn’t result in reality being torn to accidental shreds – when a basic grounding in either quantum physics, audio-visual engineering or ideally both would come in handy, and the solution that’s found is decidedly heavy on the geek. Because the Doctor’s relating these events in the form of a podcast, it’s probably also the only Doctor Who adventure to be interrupted by adverts for Bristolian kebab shops. Yes, really – one of the sheer delights of this story is the notion of Captain Eyebrows being forced to read out soulless advertising copy as if it has even the slightest tangential meaning or relevance to him. Bliss.

Dead Media is a story that delivers the complexity of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor to a tea – it’s grumpy, and offhand, and almost dismissive, but it’s all of those things in a way that makes you love it, and him, and the way he misses the little things in life while focusing on the bigger picture. It’s a story that’ll spark a desire in you to go back and watch Capaldi at work, reminding you of just how staggeringly good he could be – which is probably as much of a compliment as John Richards and Jacob Dudman are looking for. Between them, they bring the Twelfth Doctor joyously, grumpily back to life, and give us an adventure during his life at St Luke’s with a poignant moment of self-realisation at its end. He might be there guarding Missy in her prison, but perhaps, just perhaps, the period of enforced stillness will have a positive impact on his own persona too.

Who Reviews The Pyramid at the End of the World

“Bill, what have you done?”

By Peter Harness and

Steven Moffat

“The Pyramid at the End of the World” is the second part of three of the story that features The Monks and their attempt to take over the world.  This story was co-written by Peter Harness and Steven Moffat and it more or less sets up what will happen in the next story “The Lie of the Land” which will be written by Toby Whitehouse and is the conclusion of this three part story.  Like what I wrote last week I really cannot grade this story until I see all three parts but so far I liked “Extremis” a lot better than “The Pyramid at the End of the World”.

While “Extremis” gave us the setup for this story and introduced us to the new threat of the Monks we see in “The Pyramid at the End of the World” the power of the Monks and how they plan on taking over the world.  The way they planned on doing it I thought was pretty clever.  They wanted someone to ask for the Monks help and in exchange for their help the Monks would get the world.  But the person asking for help had to be sincere and really mean it.  Which we found out from the first four really weren’t and were just doing it as a sense of duty. But the problem lies with Bill who really meant it.  Since The Doctor had already foiled the Monks plan by destroying the bacteria it would cost him his life as he was still blind.  Letting Bill know this and the fact that she loves The Doctor as a friend she asked the Monks for the Doctor to get his eye sight back in exchange for the Earth.  While The Doctor is saved the Earth now belongs to the Monks.  Thus setting up the next episode and have us all guessing some more about how The Doctor is going to save the day yet again. 

“The Pyramid at the End of the World” didn’t really offer up anything that we haven’t seen before in Doctor Who except we got a different spin with the Monks being the protagonist.  We had the usual stupid military method that has been done for ever on Doctor Who and yet again we see them fail and fall flat on their faces.  We see the companion do something incredibly stupid to turn the tide for the bad guys which is nothing we haven’t seen before and of course we have some scenarios that are a lot simpler to resolve but yet are made more complicated by the writing which is a staple of Steven Moffat’s writing.  For instance why would a facility that specializes in harmful bacteria have a ventilation system that would release the bacteria into the atmosphere without a proper filter system or at least an incinerator to burn the air before it is released?  In the real world it would be but I guess for the sake of the story it can get a pass.

One thing I am glad that is finally resolved is the Doctor being blind.  I really did not like how long they kept the storyline going but seeing how it was resolved made sense in a way but I just did not care for the blind Doctor all that much and thought it went on a tad too long.  The thing is you knew it would be a stupid decision by the companion to help get his sight back.

“The Pyramid at the End of the World” isn’t the best story of this new series it is the weakest but in all honesty it isn’t all that bad as Steven Moffat has written worse stories than this one.  In any other series this would be one of the better stories but in a series with so many really strong stories this one just falls a tad short.

Who Reviews Oxygen by Jeffrey Zyra

“Tell me a joke before you leave.”

Written by Jamie Mathieson

Space Zombies! I’m not a big fan of zombie movies or even zombie television shows so when I saw the trailer for Oxygen I was a bit hesitant if I would like this particular story at all.  Well once I finished watching “Oxygen” that was not the case at all.  I really enjoyed it but not necessarily for the zombies; luckily, they were not featured much, but for the overall message and what happened at the end.  

Here we have a story about corporate greed as they deem that their workers are useless and cost them money.  In fact to help the cost production they make their workers’ pay for their oxygen.  Not only that but the corporation also has it that it is more cost efficient to have the spacesuits kill their occupants and do the work themselves without having to pay for the oxygen at all.  This is pretty evil and not at all surprising as big companies are always looking for a way to cut costs and to incorporate this type of scenario into a Doctor Who story is pretty brilliant and works really well in this format.

What I really liked is how vulnerable The Doctor is even before he loses his eye sight while saving Bill from suffocating in space.  He loses his sonic screwdriver early on and has to resort to using his wits to get out of the situation he is in and to save all the people that are left.   I really like it when the writer eliminates the sonic screwdriver from the story as I feel it is used too much and often is used as the solution to the problem.  But so far in this new series it has been used in limited capacity and that The Doctor has to use his brain just like he did in the Classic Series. 

Now with him losing his eyesight and having to depend on others is something new and different that will be explored in more than in just this episode as it appears he will still be blind in the next story “Extremis”.  With him losing his eye sight I’m wondering if this has something to do with his upcoming regeneration.  They have been saying his regeneration is not traditional and I wonder if something triggers it to repair his eyes.  We have seen in the series trailer two scenes in which we see him in the regeneration yellow light.  But of course this could be nothing at all but a red herring and I’m looking into things that are not there.  But that is the fun thing about being a Doctor Who fan and the way we speculate about the show. 

I have to say that Nardole didn’t grate on my nerves in “Oxygen”.  In fact he was pretty good and we sort of learn a little bit more about him.  We find out he was left in charge to make sure that The Doctor guards the vault and to not leave Earth.  We learn more about why as The Doctor made an oath and it appears it might have been a future version of The Doctor or perhaps that was just The Doctor being silly and rebellious to Nardole.  Anyway it will be all revealed in time and it will most likely not be what we expect. 

Five stories in and I’m still loving The Doctor and Bill relationship.  It reminds me of The Doctor and Ace at the end of the Classic Series.  It is really good pairing and the chemistry between Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie is brilliant.  Plus the writing so far this series has been perfect also as that has helped in in the development in their relationship.  Let’s hope Moffat doesn’t screw it up later in the series. 

So far five stories in and the writing has been really good.  Series 9 I did not watch all the stories a second time.  I think I can count on one hand how many stories from the last series I have watched twice.  So far with series 10 I have watched the stories more than once and I really have been enjoying series 10 so far and Oxygen keeps that going as it was a really good story that also ends on a cliffhanger. Lots of good elements for Oxygen but the one thing that I could have done without is the suits being a bit too smart and the explanation of Bill not dying was a bit erratic and not really explained all that well.  So her air was low and not enough for a lethal dose but what about the other crew whose air was that low?  Guess they did not have the main character shield working. In all a really good episode that has kept the wave of good stories going.

Grade B+  

Who Reviews Extremis by Jeffrey Zyra

“Doctor, will you read the Veritas?”

Written by Steven Moffat

Extremis is the first part of a three part story that is penned by Steven Moffat while the next two episodes will have different writers along with Steven Moffat.  I have to admit that I had to watch Extremis a couple of times to figure out what was going on as it was a typical Steven Moffat story with a lot of stuff going on.  In fact that is one of the reasons to watch it again as there was a lot going on that you definitely didn’t pick everything up on first viewing.  You might not get everything on the second viewing either but anyway Extremis was a better story than anything that Steven Moffat wrote for last season.

With Extremis I don’t really hate it nor do I really like it as it is the first part of three but if this was a standalone story that was leading into a story that came later on in the series then yes this was a really good story.  But I cannot really rate it until I see all three parts but from what I saw with Extremis I liked for the most part.  It was pretty entertaining and did open up possible scenarios that haven’t been done in Who before. For example the whole world inside a computer program with the simulants start killing each other when they figure out that they are just a simulation.  It has been done before in science fiction shows but not so sure it has been done in Doctor Who before.

I really liked the Missy storyline.  In that storyline we finally get to see who is in the vault.  For once it was not an over dramatic reveal or saved for the end of the series.  I really liked how we found out with The Doctor having to make a promise to watch over Missy’s body for 1000 years.  Plus, it was also clever if pretty predictable of a way for him to save Missy from death also.  Rewiring the machine of execution was predictable but really that was probably the right choice Steven Moffat could make in that scenario.  It also raises some questions too. Will the Doctor in the next two parts of this story free Missy from the vault to help with the impending invasion from The Monks?  Or will she just be in there giving him advice and not have much of a presence?  I’m sure we will find out in time but I wouldn’t be surprised if she ends escaping at some point. 

It will be interesting to see what happens from Extremis and how the next two stories will tie into it.  I really liked The Monks and how they are planning on taking over the Earth from the simulations but did they have to run it for over 2000 years?  I’m hopeful that we can get a new reoccurring villain from this story as that is something that the show needs.  So far, this story has started off pretty well and Extremis was one of the better Moffat stories and let’s just hope that the next two stories will be just as good. 

Who Reviews Knock Knock by Jeffrey Zyra

“This is the part of my life you’re not a part of.”

Written by Mike Bartlett

“Knock Knock” is mainly about Bill and her friends looking to rent a house while at university. They were not having any luck until an older man offered them a house for rent that was cheap and had enough bedrooms to accommodate everyone. But of course if it’s too good to be true it genuinely is as The Doctor who is helping Bill move in is instantly alerted to something not right about the house.  The Doctor senses something alien and as usual he is correct as the whole house seems to be alive and it’s alive and infested with alien bugs.  The creepy thing is the house won’t let you leave and it seems to open up the walls and sucks you in. 

Haunted houses have been a Doctor Who go to for many years mostly in the new series with stories like “Blink” and “Hide” and “Ghost Light” from the classic series.  “Knock Knock” is the latest entry in the haunted house Doctor Who style story and this story was pretty creepy.  I really liked the creepiness of the story as it added to the paranoia feel the story was already conveying.  “Knock Knock” was just a perfectly executed story that was scary but the ending was a bit sad and I wasn’t expecting that and that added to the quirkiness of the story also.

David Suchet plays the landlord who seems to be hiding a secret that lives in the tower of the house.  At first we are to believe that he is protecting his daughter but what The Doctor discovers is the woman that is made entirely of wood is his mother.  What is sad about this story is that The Landlord is keeping his mother alive for over 70 years using the alien bugs and killing the college kids that he rented the house to.  As The Doctor said a son would do anything for his mother and The Landlord sure did take it to the extreme.  What was also bitter sweet was the realization on his mother’s face when she found out what he did and then decided to end it all by killing her son and herself while freeing Bill’s friends.  That moment was pretty sad especially seeing The Landlord crying that he didn’t want to go.

I really enjoyed the performance by David Suchet as The Landlord.  I’ve been a fan of his ever since I saw him on Agatha Christie’s Poirot and was really excited that he would be in an episode of Doctor Who.  He really shined as The Landlord as he played him creepy and also very emotional when he was confronted by The Doctor about what he did to keep his mother alive.  A really great performance from a really great actor and it was good to finally see what David Suchet could do in Doctor Who.

So far we have been getting more inklings as to who or what may be in the vault.  This time we actually see The Doctor go into the vault with some takeout and we also find out that he put a piano in there also.  I’m guessing at some point we are going to find out that it is one of the incarnations of The Master.  But then again maybe it will be someone entirely different but I’m still going with The Master but not sure which one it could be.

“Knock Knock” was a really good and scary story that was a much need change of pace from what we have had in the past couple of seasons.  It still disappoints me that they didn’t go in this direction sooner than staying so long with the Clara show.  You really get to see what Peter Capaldi can really do with some contemporary stories for once instead of heavily arc driven ones.  “Knock Knock” is another great Series 10 story and one that will stand the test of time.

Grade A –

News Happy Birthday Peter Capaldi

Peter Capaldi is our 12^th Time Lord and will be gracing our screens soon – we can’t wait!

Happy Birthday Peter

Did you know on this day in 1973, Episode  2 of Planet of the Daleks was broadcast?  It was Season 10 and starred Jon Pertwee as the 3^rd Doctor with Jo Grant his companion.

Writer was Terry Nation and David Maloney the Director.

A Thal Commando team discover an immense Dalek army hidden beneath an ice volcano, on Spiridon.

In 2007, the 181^st story Gridlock was broadcast.  It starred David Tennant as the Doctor with Martha Jones as his companion.

Writer Russell T Davies and Director Richard Clark.

The Doctor returns to New Earth in the year five billion and fifty three and to the city of New New York.  All set to show Martha the future he’s horrified to see the city choking under its own exhaust fumes in a traffic jam going nowhere.

Celebrating their birthdays with you are: Sarah Michelle Gellar, Adrian Brody, Robert Carlyle, Julie Christie, Anthony Hall, and Chris Langham.

Resources:

©BBC Doctor Who 1963

Mark Campbell (2000) Doctor Who Pocket Essential Guide

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Planet-Daleks-Classic-Novels/dp/1471346560/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397467676&sr=8-2&keywords=Doctor+Who+planet+of+the+daleks

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Dvd-Files-Manhattan/dp/B008R6P43M/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1397467709&sr=8-5&keywords=Doctor+Who+Gridlock