Doctor Who: Last Christmas

"So that's 22 million children per hour. That's impossible! So, obviously, I've got a second sled?"

Could this be the best Christmas episode ever? It really could be, although I'm glad that an episode questioning the existence of Father Christmas happens before my daughter is born. We combine the real strengths of Moffat's storytelling- an imaginatively conceptual monster that revolves around our perception of it and intricate plotting- with real heart, wit and fun. Naysayers beware: this blog post will consist of 100% gushing.

I love the whole concept of dreams within dreams, and the dream crabs themselves, which look like face huggers from Alien (as we're told, by Michael Troughton's Albert!) and always attack you when you think about them (that is sooo Moffat), anaesthetising you with nice dreams as they melt your face off. Lovely.

Oh, and Santa is in it. With all the best lines. Nick Frost is perfect casting, and all the scenes with Santa and the elves are hilarious, leavening what could otherwise be the grimness of the base under siege format.

The plot is a marvel to behold and, wonderfully, any conceivable plot hole can be justified that the whole thing (including the very end of Death in Heaven) is a dream except the last few minutes. It's not a dream without dramatic consequences, though; the Doctor and Clara finally admit that they lied to each other and parted for absolutely no good reason. Oh, and we seem to get to know Shona suspiciously well for a one off character. Could we be seeing her again?

(Shona, incidentally, gets the best metatextual moment of the episode as she wakes up in her drab flat; her Christmas to-do list includes three DVDs- Alien, The Thing from Another World and Miracle on 34th Street- which are the clear influences for the episode. Nicely done.)

Obviously, Clara dreams about Danny (will he stay dead?) in a lovely character scene in which Danny, wonderfully, insists that he didn't die saving the world; he died saving Clara. The rest of us were just along for the ride. And Moffat cruelly wrong-foots is at the end, showing the Doctor returning to an elderly Clara (nice age make-up for once), having squandered the chance forever to travel with her again. But this is all a dream; the Doctor and Clara get a second chance, and we end with them travelling together again.

A really nice touch here, incidentally, is the fact that the Doctor can't tell the difference between old and new Clara. Another nice touch is the description we get of the Memory Crabs: "We're getting hacked. The visual input from your optic nerve is being streamed to their brains". I have to marvel at how Moffat, as he did in The Bells of St John, describes an alien threat perfectly in terms of very contemporary technology. The only death (Albert) is shown figuratively by having him pulled into a screen, some excellent nightmare logic. And the Doctor has a line in the sand: "Santa Claus does not do the scientific explanation."

Best Christmas episode ever!!!

Doctor Who: Dark Water

"My heart is maintained by the Doctor!"

Wow. Just wow. This episode has two jaw-dropping moments. One of them (spoiler alert!) is the revelation that Missy is the Master, but my wife worked that out years ago. No, the big reveal is what the Cybermen are up to- the idea of the dark water showing only organic material and so hiding the Cybermen is clever. I only knew for certain when Murray Gold gave us that snippet of the Cyber theme and those doors closed, showing those Cybermen teardrop eyes. It's all cleverly done, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger as The Tomb of the Cybermen becomes The Invasion.

Moffat has a lot of fun with the afterlife as bureaucracy, and the casting of Chris Addison was a masterstroke. I enjoyed the Thick of It in-joke, too, with the line about all the swearing on the Doctor's psychic paper. But the ultimate revelation of the afterlife just being a bit of the Mayrix from Gallifrey is awfully, ingeniously clever. As is the idea of all Earth's dead being turned into Cybermen.

Just as important, though, is Clara's emotional devastation at Danny's death, enough to make her threaten the Doctor into helping her. He helps her, clearly, out of love, although he would never admit that. And the last conversation between Clara and Danny is both devastating and masterfully written.

At the back of my mind is the slight criticism that the Doctor would never have been present for any of this if not for the coincidence of Danny's death, but this is superb. And the parallel cliffhanger, with Danny about to sign away his emotions, is the perfect end to an extraordinary episode.

Doctor Who: In the Forest of the Night

"It would be slightly awkward if the world were destroyed at this point..."

I'm glad I delayed blogging this episode (I sprained my ankle rather badly last night in the Pets at Home car park and have spent a surreal couple of hours, in a wheelchair, in A&E- it's a long story), as it only occurred to me this morning that the whole episode, superficially a bit like Kill the Moon in its use of a big natural phenomenon as an apparent but not actual threat, is in fact entirely about William Blake's The Tyger. 

Not only is there the episode title, and the appearance of a single tiger, but we have innocence (the children, sort of, but at least Maebh), and different kinds of life experience (the Doctor, Danny, and Clara in-between. I'm nowhere near enough of a Blake scholar to prove much further; for that, I suspect you may wish to look up the excellent Phlip Sandifer's blog review as he is very well versed in Blake indeed, and there's no way I'm looking at his review until mine is done.

This is an excellent script from Frank Cottrell Boyce, whom I mainly know from 24 Hour Party People. The scenario is weird enough to give us a vivid pre-titles spectacle of London landmarks among bagsy a great forest, mysterious, and perfect as a way to bring Clara, the Doctor, and Danny together. The Gaia-like conclusion, that the sudden appearance of trees is nature's way of protecting the planet from asteroid impacts, is ingenious (what about the impact at the end of the Cretaceous, though?), and the way that "Class project- save the Earth" involves the kids is cute but just manages to avoid being too trite. This is a script that manages to be both intelligent and kid-friendly, however, and this is a very good thing. Long live quality children's telly.

I note that, once again, the Doctor explains to Clara that, although they may have seen many parts of the future, they still may never come to pass. This, again, echoes Kill the Moon and, again, uses much more evocative and poetic language than simply referring to "fixed points in time". I'm impressed.

This is also a great episode for the characters, and I don't just mean the Doctor's splendid declaration that "Even my incredibly long life is too short for Les Miserables". Yes, Danny finds out that Clara has been continuing to travel with the Doctor, butchers philosophical about it; all he wants is the truth. And Danny is very heroic here, his first thoughts being for the children even in the face of certain death. And, in declining the chance to see the solar flare, he explains that "I don't want to see more things. I want to see the things in front of me more clearly." He's a wise, damaged man who has seen and done terrible things in war, and who has had enough of excitement. He just wants to cherish the world he knows and to love Clara. It's a touching viewpoint, and a powerful critique to the ideology of the Doctor and, indeed, the programme.

The trailer for next week looks a bit spoilerific but I, for one, can't wait for what looks like a truly epic finale, a two parter as in days of old.

Doctor Who: Flatline

"Could you not just let me enjoy the moment of not knowing something? I mean it happens so rarely."

Hmm. This episode wasn't bad. It was really quite good, in fact. So please don't take this the wrong way, but... wasn't there a touch of Fear Her about this? The setting, the two dimensional baddie, the fact that its a season cheapie- there are s lot of similarities. Still, Fear Her was cack, and this was bog standard. 

Yes, the conceit is great: two dimensional baddies. And it's fun to see the TARDIS shrunk, and all the cool things they do with it. More fundamentally it's good to see things being done with its dimensions for the first time since, really, Planet of Giants. 

Still, I like Rigsy, and I like the fact that we're rooting for the kid on community service and left in no doubt that his supervisor, definitely the UKIP voting type, is an arse. 

The character star stuff is good, too; Clara hasn't told Danny that she's still travelling with the Doctor! And, with the Doctor stuck in the shrunken TARDIS, she gets to spend an episode being the Doctor, and doing it well. More interestingly, as explicitly acknowledged in the dialogue, she gets to see things from his point of view, an interesting counterpoint to their big row in Kill the Moon.

Still, not an awful lot to say about this one. It was quite good, but you can tell the crew are thinking about the big stuff at the end of the season. What's this about Missy "choosing" Clara...?

Doctor Who: Mummy on the Orient Express

"Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose."

What a brilliant episode. This script from newcomer Jamie Mathieson has everything: a brilliant scary premise; a solid plot with a satisfying resolution; and some satisfying character development for both the Doctor and Clara.

The whole thing looks good, too. The Mummy looks amazing, by far the scariest monster we've seen for ages, and it looks as though this was done by good use of prosthetics, rather than the recent overuse of CGI. Good. The 1920s sets and costumes are fantastic, of course, but you expect that with the BBC. The cast is, again, superb, with Frank Skinner standing out (and I noticed, as Mrs Pitt in the pre-credits sequence, Janet Halfrey from The Curse of Fenric). And the nice metatextual touch of having the 66 seconds countdown appear stylishly onscreen as the Foretold bears down upon its victim is not only brilliant but enhances the fear factor hugely.

Every beat of the plot is perfect, with revelation after revelation. The overall shape of the plot is satisfying and, for me, far from predictable. Even the fact that the premise of the story was mentioned by Matt Smith at the end of The Big Bang is satisfactorily explained, and simultaneously fulfils a nice little character point between the Doctor and Clara.

I noticed, though, that the ultimate identity of "Gus" is left as a mystery...

Clara is still upset with the Doctor, and intends this to be her last trip with him. The first scene between them has them speaking to each other but, McLuhan-like, not communicating, and this is reflected in their phone conversation later in the episode.

The Doctor's cleverness is well and truly highlighted here, but insensitive bedside manner, his alien Aspergers tendencies meaning he just doesn't "get" feelings or small talk, is foregrounded here as never before. Several times this season we've seen him calmly telling people that he can't save them but he wants them to do something for him while they're dying so he can save others later. Here we have a premise where he does that again and again and again.

And yet...just when he's about to do the same to Maisie he does something different, behaving like a true hero and taking her place, defeating the monster in 66 seconds ("Are you my mummy?") while being incredibly Doctorish. Clara warms to this, and chooses to believe that the Doctor was only choosing to seem heartless for Gus' sake. And she sees, interestingly, that he's probably addicted to peril. 

For the moment, Clara is mollified enough (and Danny understanding enough) for her to keep travelling with the Doctor. I don't think the rift is even close to permanently healed, though. And I'm sure that the Doctor's insensitivity is something set up to be slowly developed in the way Colin Baker's Doctor was originally supposed to.

The future looks interesting. But, here and now, this is an outstanding piece of television.

Doctor Who: Kill the Moon

"That's what you do with aliens, isn't it? Blow them up?"

Hmm. I didn't much like this one, and yet it got all the big things right. I loved the plot, I loved the beats of the story- and yet it didn't quite come off. The problem, I think, is that both the setting and central conceit with the fixed point in time just feel like a retread of The Waters of Mars. It must be said, too, that, yes, I quite like the more slowly paced style of this season, but this episode dragged.

It's the Moon (played by Lanzarote) in 2049 and not, as some reading pre-publicity would have up believe, Sarn (played by Lanzarote). People have stopped going into space because they can't be arsed, a bit like The Seeds of Death. Things have been getting desperate, the moon had been getting heavier and disrupting gravity, and all humanity has to play with is one antique space shuttle, the last few nukes and some piss-or astronauts. It's a very unglamorous future. 

Meanwhile, at Coal Hill School, the Doctor decides to take young Courtney Woods to the Moon to cheer her up, as you do. Clara is not entirely sure this is wise. The Doctor advises Courtney that there's to be "no hanky-panky", as JN-T once famously declared. Oh, and later on the Doctor gives us a Troughtonesque "When I say run, run." And Courtney became President of the USA and "met this bloke called Blonovitch". Lots of references to old stories, and the reason I mention them is to point out that they are not particularly from missing episodes, contrary to many current online theorists who suppose that this season is full of clues to a forthcoming announcement of missing episodes by Philip Morris later this year. That may or may not happen, but im very sceptical about any clues being inserted into the season's scripts. It just ain't happening, folks.

On a more contemporary note, Capafdi's Doctor is forever being asked "Who made you the boss?". And the bacteria-spiders look good, although in close-up it's a shame they used CGI instead of a model. 

The central moral dilemma- the moon is an egg, and humanity has the moral dilemma of actually killing the innocent baby or risking extinction, is not one I can identify with, though. What parallel with any real world dilemma is there here, exactly? And arguably Clara is wrong: surely the extinction of billions of humans and an entire planet justifies the unfortunate sacrifice of one life. 

I don't blame Clara for lashing out at the Doctor and storming out of the TARDIS. She confides in Danny Pink, with his warning from last episode about the Doctor being a dangerously charismatic officer coming home to roost much sooner than expected. But, as Danny points out, she's angry now. How will she feel when she calms down? I don't think this is the end of her arc. This feels like unfinished business. And the scene also hints at unexplained depths to Danny Pink- again.

Jenna Coleman, incidentally, is amazing here.

This is probably my least favourite episode of the season so far, then- derivative, and based on a moral dilemma too far removed from anything that could possibly happen to possibly bear the dramatic weight that's been placed upon it. That's a problem.

Doctor Who: The Caretaker

"Human beings have incredibly short lifespans. Frankly, you should all be in a permanent state of panic."

I'm sure this episode is going to divide opinion as much of this season has, being that the (excellent) alien menace is somewhat in the background while the foreground is firmly hogged by the relationship drama between Clara, Danny and the Doctor as disapproving father figure. Well, I loved it, and as far as I'm concerned this continues to be the best season since the days of Christopher Eccleston. All this, and a ridiculous number of tributes to An Unearthly Child too.

We begin with the juxtaposition of Clara's exciting adventures "eloping" with the Doctor and her rather more traditional dates with Danny, setting us up for an episode in which Danny and the Doctor meet- and that, rather than the brilliantly designed and scary-looking Skovox Blitzer, is what the episode is about in a joyous mix of romantic comedy and serious drama as befits the talents of Gareth Roberts although, once more, we get an "and Steven Moffat". 

The long pre-credits sequence is brilliant and ends predictably but perfectly on the revelation of the school's new caretaker in a way which reminds me of the beginning to School Reunion. But this, of course, is Coal Hill, and not only to we have Clara and Danny as the Ian and Barbara of 2014 but also a policeman going into a junkyard for which I'm fairly sure I could guess the postal address. Even the junk inside recalls the scenes inside 76 Totters Lane half a century ago. But this policeman is not so lucky, and ends up in the afterlife/promised land/ Worldsphere. Policing just ain't Dixon of Dock Green any more.

The Doctor's prejudices ("I hate soldiers. Don't you just hate soldiers?") are obvious during his first meeting with Danny, and he never shakes off the idea that an ex-soldier must be thick and therefore a PE teacher. The script deliberately paints him as both unlikeable in the wrong, and takes care to portray Danny as nice, reliable, brave and, well, Ian Chesterton-like. Danny is, of course, right to finger the Doctor as "officer class", someone who can inspire his men to do what needs to be done, and he's also right, after earning the Doctor's grudging respect by saving the world, to warn Clara not to let him push her too far, or they're finished. 

This is both blatantly foreshadowing something for later in the season and a shrewd character analysis of the Doctor. Of course this veteran of the Time War is a soldier, and his prejudice is simply self-loathing. Indeed, we examines these themes with Tennant during Season 30, with his aversion to guns, soldiering and UNIT being foregrounded. And yet he went to his final battle with Rassilon armed with Wilf's gun, symbolising that, much as he may hate it, deep down, this Time War veteran is very much a soldier.

On a lighter note, we also get to meet Courney Woods, the disruptive pupil of whom we have heard before; I'm sure we haven't heard the last of her. The parallels to one Susan Foreman are obvious, and I love the way she immediately vomits after the Doctor shows her the stars.

This episode is superb, but I fear there will be many who dislike it's strong focus on the arc plot and the foregrounding of character drama over monsters and danger. I hope I'm wrong. Time to brave the internet...

Doctor Who: Listen

"Fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly..."

Nice little tribute to Terrance Dicks there.

Hmm. Bit of a curate's egg, this. There are some clever character moments and nice twists, as one would expect from Moffat, and some brilliant use of structure. The artistry of the writing is really something to admire. And yet...

It wasn't scary. We were promised a scary episode, but what we got was a well-worn and old Moffat meme; the things in the corner of your eye. And,  after working with the Weeping Angels and the Silence, it falls flat here. We've seen all this before. Ultimately the episode's central trick fails. And all of the positive comments that follow should be taken in that light. Listen just doesn't work.

Still, there is a lot of great character and arc stuff here. Clara and Danny are clearly meant for each other- we even meet their descendant- and the interesting parallel between these two Coal Hill schoolteachers and their predecessors from that early evening in the Autumn of 1963 is deliberately foregrounded by their bonding over Courtney, a puzzling pupil in the tradition of one Susan Foreman. Perhaps the irascible first Doctor of every regeneration cycle needs a couple of Coal Hill teachers to humanise him. The old ones are the best. And don't think I didn't notice the line "Fear makes companions of all of us." It's a cleverly done parallel.

Moffat, he of Coupling fame, is of course brilliant at the relationship comedy stuff, and the scenes between Clara and Danny (Samuel Anderson has great comic timing) absolutely sparkle. But the elephant in the room is again Danny's military background, something traditionally set against the Doctor's supposedly strict no-guns approach (although he seems to have had no problems shooting Ogrons in Day of the Daleks and Frontier in Space) and presumably a reason for the Doctor disapprove of Clara's new boyfriend when the time comes.

Except... this episode deconstructs all that. The parallels between Danny and the Doctor are clear enough anyway, but the final scenes really hammer it home; the little boy sleeping in a barn outside the children's home, alone, is not Danny but the Doctor, and the presence under his bed is only Clara, once again inserting herself into his timeline. 

The Doctor, it seems, wanted to be a soldier before joining the Academy, and many years later he would return to that same barn, wearing John Hurt's face, to make that fateful decision during the Time War...

As an episode in itself, this fails. As a piece in a wider arc, it's brilliant. I can't wait to see where this is all going; the arc and character stuff seems to be nuanced, well-constructed and confident in a way we haven't quite seen before under Moffat, fantastic though his era has been thus far; I suspect that, this time, deadline pressures have been absent. This season is on course to be bloody good. It can absorb a failed experiment like this episode.

Doctor Who: Into the Dalek

"Fantastic idea for a movie. Terrible idea for a proctologist."

Peter Capaldi's tenure can now claim two excellent episodes in a row; in hindsight this is both a far better story and a far better study of our new Doctor than was The Beast Below.

The plot is, obviously, Fantastic Voyage, but we also get a bit of Doctor/Dalek moral comparison that both evokes Dalek and gives us an interesting study of our new Doctor, who may not be a good man but is, perhaps, a "good Dalek"; he may be on the side of good, but that doesn't make him nice. Indeed, he says of Clara that "She cares so I don't have to." And yet... this new Doctor is not too alienating; he's witty, and just vulnerable enough. This is  The Twin Dilemma done right, and Capaldi simply shines. So does Moffat. He seems to have a far clearer idea of what he wants to do here than he did during Matt Smith's early stories. 

There's also some nice arc threads being laid down. This Doctor, even more than before, doesn't like soldiers... and Clara, the Doctor's moral compass and the person, clearly, whom he most respects, is obviously set up to begin a relationship with a former soldier, and one with a troubled military past. That'll be interesting.

Also, of course, we see Missy again. She seems to be collecting people in her "Heaven" who have died because of the Doctor. Interesting. She's obviously a big, mysterious part of this season. And Missy... Mistress? A female Master? Or just clever misdirection? We shall see. 

I have to praise the effects here, too, which were outstanding, and the performances in general. This is also the best Dalek story in ages, and the first in ages to actually be about them. They work best when treated as a dark mirror of the Doctor; mirrors of the Doctor seem, so far, to be something of a season motif. 

So, Robin Hood...