TV Review: Doctor Who – The Twelfth Doctor Era (2014-2017)

Original Run: August 23rd, 2014 – December 25th, 2017
Created by: Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: Murray Gold
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Alex Kingston, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Maisie Williams

BBC, 40 Episodes, 45-90 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

When Peter Capaldi was originally announced as the new Doctor on a television special, I was really optimistic and pretty damned pleased with the casting.

However, despite him being great and also being a pretty perfect Doctor, his material severely lacked when compared to what Matt Smith, David Tennant and Christopher Eccleston had to work with, before him.

Initially, I liked Clara a lot. However, she got terribly annoying by the end of her run as the Doctor’s companion. She started being a know-it-all and bossing the Doctor around, teaching him lessons. It got ridiculous and frankly, killed the show and everything that was once great about it. When she left after staying incredibly too long, I thought we’d get a cool, new companion.

In came Bill, a lesbian that you knew was a lesbian from the get go, that had to play up the lesbian thing so much, it’s all you really knew about her one note character. I thought that the actress, Pearl Mackie was okay, she was just given shit for material. I don’t care that she’s a lesbian and really, most people don’t. But when that is all your character is, you’re a shitty, basic character.

In the end, Bill actually got a compelling story but by then, it was too little, too late and she was gone.

There were also only a few really good episodes in this stretch. Most of them were either awful, boring or both. Usually, it was both.

You could tell that the budget was either cut or that the showrunners just didn’t want to put in much effort anymore, as many episodes were just characters trapped on a ship, or in a base or in some other basic facility with lots of hallways and control rooms of some sort.

There were some decent concepts and characters that popped in. I liked how the epic, long-running River Song story wrapped up. I also liked everything associated with Maisie Williams’ recurring character. However, these high spots were too far and few between and most of Capaldi’s run felt like monotonous filler.

However, things would only get exponentially worse once he left and we got the next Doctor.

Rating: 6/10
Pairs well with: The Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors’ runs.

Vids I Dig 867: TheGamerFromMars: The Destroyed ‘Doctor Who’ Episodes – Internet Mysteries

Vids I Dig 664: The Critical Drinker: Why Canon Matters

Vids I Dig 286: The Critical Drinker: The Timeless Children – The End of ‘Doctor Who’

From The Critical Drinker’s YouTube description: Grab absolutely any and all booze you have to hand, because you’re going to need it for this one. Join me as I review the disastrous season finale of Doctor Who.

TV Review: Doctor Who – The Eleventh Doctor Era (2010-2013)

Original Run: April 3rd, 2010 – December 25th, 2013
Created by: Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: Murray Gold
Cast: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Jenna Coleman, Alex Kingston

BBC, 44 Episodes, 45-77 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

When the era of the Tenth Doctor came to an end, it was a hard day. But then Matt Smith came on board as the Eleventh Doctor and right out the gate, even if I didn’t love him as much as David Tennant, he was, in many ways, an incredible Doctor.

I think the thing that makes this era of Doctor Who so damn good, is that the show had new blood calling the shots behind the scenes. Russell T. Davies moved on, the reigns were given to Steven Moffat and he did a great job in the first few seasons as show runner. Granted, his era went on for too long and it was pretty lackluster by the end but in the first two seasons of the Matt Smith era, almost every episode seemed to hit the right chords.

Additionally, this era had my favorite Doctor/companion relationship with Matt Smith’s Doctor and Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as the Ponds, Amy and Rory. Also, add in the great performances by Alex Kingston and this group of friends had the best ensemble chemistry out of any Doctor/companion/ensemble lineup in history. And really, it is absolutely the strength of that ensemble that makes this era so f’n spectacular.

Now once the Ponds leave the show and Jenna Coleman comes in as Clara, things sort of fall apart. Coleman was actually fun, in the beginning, and I liked her storyline up until Smith left Doctor Who behind. However, the second half of Smith’s final season, which focused on the Doctor and Clara instead of the Doctor and the Ponds, felt like a dark time in the show. I wasn’t sure why, at the time, but the tone was changing, leading up to Peter Capaldi’s run as the Twelfth Doctor and the era where the show really fell apart for me. In fact, it never really recovered after the exit of the Ponds, except for a handful of Kingston episodes after that.

Had the Eleventh Doctor’s run not have been so dark and almost depressing in the last eight or so episodes, it could have equaled and maybe surpassed Tennant’s run, overall.

Rating: 8.75/10
Pairs well with: The Ninth, Tenth and Twelfth Doctors’ runs.

TV Review: Doctor Who – The Tenth Doctor Era (2006-2010)

Original Run: April 15th, 2006 – January 1st, 2010
Created by: Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: Murray Gold
Cast: David Tennant, Billie Piper, Freema Agyeman, John Barrowman, Catherine Tate, Bernard Cribbins, Elisabeth Sladen, John Simm, Kylie Minogue, David Morrissey, Michelle Ryan, Lindsay Duncan, Noel Clarke, Alex Kingston, Penelope Wilton, Jessica Stevenson

BBC, 44 Episodes, 45-72 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

David Tennant is considered by most to be the best Doctor of all-time. He’s my second favorite after Tom Baker but his accolades and admiration are definitely deserved, as he took what Christopher Eccleston walked away from and turned it into something that was very much his and better than anything the franchise had done since the high point of the Tom Baker era, which ended in 1981.

The Tennant era of Who is the best era of the modern incarnation of the franchise. Sure, I love all the Doctors in different ways but this was the real peak for me since the show relaunched in 2005. Russell T. Davies just had a certain magic that Stephen Moffat, who took over with the Matt Smith era, could emulate and build from but had a much harder time at maintaining it and being consistent.

I just love this era of the show. It isn’t perfect, by any means and has a few hiccups, but overall, this was a great thing to experience. For other lovers of this franchise, this span in the show’s history is almost like a love letter to you. It taps into the spirit of the original shows much better than the Eccleston stuff and it brings back some key elements that were missing in the first season, most notably the Master and some of the more famous alien villains.

Furthermore, Tennant has great chemistry with every single person that they paired him with. His relationship with Rose got heavier and more intimate than it did when Eccleston was in the role. His time with Martha was great and you hurt for her and for him, as he continued to mourn the great loss he felt with Rose. The Tennant team up with Catherine Tate as Donna Noble was the best part of the show but once that relationship extends into the Doctor also having a bond with her grandfather, Bernard Cribbins’ Wilfred Mott, it got even better. You also got to see Tennant work well with David Morrissey (the future Governor from The Walking Dead), Kylie Minogue, the former Tom Baker companion Sarah Jane (played by Elisabeth Sladen, once again), Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) and a slew of others. But it’s his chemistry with the John Simm version of the Master that really showcased how good both men are.

I adore the Tennant years on Doctor Who. It is the best run of the modern era… period. Although, Matt Smith’s run after this was pretty darn good too and even if I didn’t like a lot of the Peter Capaldi stuff, I did love Capaldi’s Doctor. But David Tennant’s run will be a near impossible feat to try and top.

Rating: 9/10
Pairs well with: The Ninth and Eleventh Doctors’ runs.

Film Review: Daleks’ Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D. (1966)

Release Date: August 5th, 1966 (UK)
Directed by: Gordon Flemyng
Written by: Milton Subotsky
Based on: The Dalek Invasion of Earth by Terry Nation
Music by: Barry Gray, Bill McGuffie
Cast: Peter Cushing, Bernard Cribbins, Ray Brooks, Jill Curzon, Roberta Tovey, Andrew Keir

AARU Productions, British Lion Films, 84 Minutes

Review:

“[over the radio] Surrender now and you will live. Resist and you will be exterminated. Show yourselves in the streets immediately and obey the orders of your masters, the Daleks!” – Dalek

I know that these non-canonical Doctor Who movies get a really bad wrap, as they exist in their own universe and ignore some of the established continuity of the television show, but I have always liked them for what they are, B-movie sci-fi adventures with hokey effects and the legendary Peter f’n Cushing as this version of The Doctor.

Like its predecessor, this theatrical and colorized Doctor Who adventure is a remake of a famous Dalek serial from the William Hartnel era of the television series. Where the first Cushing movie was a re-imagining of the first ever Dalek story, this picture is a re-imagining of the second Dalek story. Where the first film took place on the Dalek homeworld of Skaro, this one brings the Daleks to a future version of Earth, where they have invaded and conquered humanity. The Cushing Doctor and his companions have to outwit and outright battle the Daleks in an attempt to survive the proceedings and to return to a much safer place like the Earth of their present time.

One really cool thing about this movie is that it also stars Bernard Cribbins, who would go on to play the much beloved companion Wilfred Mott from the David Tennant era, some forty years later. In this film, Cribbins plays a beat cop that stumbles into the TARDIS and ends up in the future with the Doctor and his other companions: Louise, his neice, and his young granddaughter from the first movie, Susan.

This film has a larger budget than the first one and its apparent, even if this feels like an old B-movie. Where the first one was on closed sets in a bizarre forest and a Dalek fortress of boring corridors, this one took to the streets of London and felt much more like it was on location in the real world. Granted, I liked the vivid and otherworldly feel of the previous picture.

Still, this one is a bit better. It feels more refined and even though Cushing was ill during filming and it was rewritten to use his character less, the other characters held their own and made the film a worthwhile experience for fans of this sort of thing.

This was originally supposed to be the middle chapter in a trilogy of Dalek movies but it did not get a sequel and would be the last of the non-canonical Doctor Who stories.

Rating: 7/10
Pairs well with: Dr. Who and the Daleks and the William Hartnell era of Doctor Who.

TV Review: Doctor Who – The Ninth Doctor Era (2005)

Original Run: March 26th, 2005 – June 18th, 2005
Created by: Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber, Donald Wilson
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: various, Murray Gold (since 2005)
Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Billie Piper, John Barrowman, Camille Coduri, Noel Clarke, Bruno Langley, Penelope Wilton

BBC, 13 Episodes, 45 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

It has been a while since I’ve watched the Eccleston era of Doctor Who but I wanted to go back and start with the 2005 revival series from the beginning.

This is certainly the best place to start with modern Who but the beginning of any Doctor’s run is still a decent starting place. However, Eccleston’s debut is more pivotal than David Tennant’s, as it helps to establish Rose Tyler and her friends and family into the Doctor Who mythos, as they do carry over into the show when Tennant takes the reins from Eccleston.

The show starts off with a bang and features an episode with the evil Autons, a classic Who alien race that was always cool to see on screen but have not returned to the show since that first episode of the revival series.

The show then goes on to reacquaint us with what Doctor Who is and how the Time Lord operates in this vast universe, throughout all of time and space.

We meet new aliens but we also get reacquainted with the Daleks in three episodes. The first of which, being titled just Dalek. Still, to this day, it is one of the best episodes of the revived Doctor Who series.

Apart from Rose Tyler and her family of characters, we also get to meet Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, who would also play Merlyn in Arrow and other CW shows revolving around DC Comics heroes. Harkness was so popular, actually, that he would get his own spin off show, Torchwood. Harkness is also one of those characters that fans have been clamoring for the producers to bring back. In this season of the show, Harkness is at his best.

All in all, this is a pretty good revival of the long running show. This season isn’t as good as what was to come with David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor) but it was a good foundation for the iconic series to return. Sadly, Eccleston left after these thirteen episodes but that also gave us Tennant, so I can’t be completely broken up about it.

Rating: 7.5/10

Film Review: Dr. Who and the Daleks (1965)

Release Date: August 23rd, 1965 (UK)
Directed by: Gordon Flemyng
Written by: Milton Subotsky
Based on: The Daleks by Terry Nation
Music by: Malcolm Lockyer, Barry Gray (electronic music)
Cast: Peter Cushing, Roy Castle, Jennie Linden, Roberta Tovey

AARU Productions, British Lion Films, 82 Minutes

Review:

“How interesting! This is most interesting!” – Dr. Who

Dr. Who and the Daleks is a pretty interesting piece of pop culture. Really, it is an adaptation of the Doctor Who episode The Daleks. It was made in color and released theatrically but this Dr. Who, is not the Doctor Who.

Horror and sci-fi legend Peter Cushing plays this version of the Doctor but he is not an alien Time Lord, he is a human scientist that somehow built his own TARDIS. This isn’t canon with the rest of the Doctor Who mythos but it did get a sequel, which was also an adaptation of a classic Doctor Who episode featuring the Daleks.

This movie gets a pretty bad rap but I think it’s just because it exists as its own thing. Truthfully, it isn’t that bad, if classic cheesy science fiction is your thing. It certainly looks better than the Doctor Who that was on television, at the time. This is in color, unlike the show and it is actually pretty damn colorful, almost like an Italian giallo film from the late ’60s or early ’70s. There is a great vivid use of colored lighting between the emerald green petrified forest to the hokey yet opulent looking base of the Daleks. Plus, the Daleks are colorful and each seems to have its own unique visual flair. Even the humanoid aliens were colorful.

This is the type of film you’d expect to see pop up on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 but it would definitely be one of the better films they could feature. The former MST3K guys who run RiffTrax recognized this, as they did lampoon this film and its sequel.

I have always really like Dr. Who and the Daleks. I get why other people don’t but I feel as if they aren’t giving it a fair shot because it has major differences with its source material. The film, like the show, is full of fun and adventure and well, it has Daleks.

Rating: 7.25/10

Film Review: Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983)

Release Date: November 23rd, 1983
Directed by: Peter Moffatt, John Nathan-Turner, Richard Martin, Pennant Roberts
Written by: Terrance Dicks, Terry Nation, Douglas Adams
Music by: Peter Howell
Cast: Peter Davison, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Richard Hurndall, Tom Baker (cameo), William Hartnell (archive footage), Anthony Ainley, Janet Fielding, Mark Strickson, Carole Ann Ford, Nicholas Courtney, Elisabeth Sladen, Lalla Ward (cameo)

Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 90 Minutes (television), 102 Minutes (extended edition)

Review:

“A cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.” – The Master

While this was not a theatrical movie, it was a feature length special episode of Doctor Who and treated like a feature length production when it came out. It was created to celebrate the show’s twentieth anniversary and for only the second time in history, it teamed up multiple incarnations of the Doctor. This was also the biggest Doctor team up of all-time.

I want to treat all these feature length special episodes as films as opposed to just episodes mixed into the long running show. There are several of these and I want to review them separately, as their own bodies of work.

I was fortunate enough to see this one on the big screen, courtesy of RiffTrax. Now while it was a riffed version with hilarious commentary from some of the former cast members of the original Mystery Science Theater 3000, it was still an amazing experience seeing classic Doctor Who on a thirty foot screen. Especially a story that featured five Doctors.

While this isn’t particularly great as a film on its own, it fits beautifully within the Doctor Who mythos and is one of my favorite Doctor Who stories of all-time. Sure, it really only features three actual Doctors, as the First Doctor is not portrayed by William Hartnell, except in the intro as archive footage, and the Fourth Doctor really just has a brief one scene cameo and is really left out of the story. But all five of the Doctors are represented in some fashion.

The bulk of the acting duties falls on Davison (the Fifth), Pertwee (the Third), Troughton (the Second), Hurndall (as the new version of the First), Ainley (The Master), as well as some of the Doctor’s most famous companions: the Brigadier, Sarah Jane, Susan Foreman, Tegan and Turlough. Lalla Ward’s Romana II also cameos alongside Baker’s Fourth Doctor.

The story is a bit strange but that’s sort of the norm for old school Doctor Who, back in the days before the franchise had any female fans. But any excuse to bring multiple Doctors into an adventure, always works for me. Essentially, there is a big conspiracy and all the Doctors have to work together in order to save themselves. Each Doctor also has a companion from their runs as the character.

The special effects are on par with what was the standard for television show. It is low budget British television science fiction, so one has to sort of look passed the imperfections and hokiness and fill in the blanks with their imagination a bit. But this is always what I loved about classic Who. As a kid, it introduced cool concepts, with cheesy effects and it made my imagination run wild.

This story also features the Cybermen, a Dalek, the Time Lords and the super dangerous Raston Warrior Robot, who is a dude in a silver leotard and helmet that dances around, teleports and shoots spears.

The Five Doctors is far from perfect but it is a hell of a lot of fun for those who are fans of the original Doctor Who series, way before the 2005 revival. This is also my favorite of the multiple Doctor stories.

Rating: 7.25/10