Doctor Who: Joy to the World

 "I don't usually live like this- one day, after another, in the right order..."

I love blogging Doctor Who.As far as this blog is concerned... well, that's how it all started with this blog. I was doing a Doctor Who marathon with a group of people on Outpost Gallifrey between 2008 and 2010, from An Unearthly Child to The Pandorica Opens, uploaded all my entries to this blog, and then... kept on going with new Doctor Who, along with soooo much other stuff. This blog has now been going for so long that Doctor Who comprises only a small part of it, but it will always be the beating heart of this blog.

This time I'm doing something different, though. Because yes, I watched this yesterday; yesI paid attention; but... I didn't take notes, as I almost always do, because I was with my family for Christmas. Also, while by no means further in that a couple of glasses of wine, I'd started on the booze. So this blog post is more of a memory test than usual, especially as I'm deliberately basing it on the one viewing and haven't read or seen any other reviews.

So... with one reservation, which I'll come too... i liked this a lot. It has all the wit we might by now expect from Steven Moffat, but also the brilliant concepts (the Time Hotel; using time and a suitcase to birth a star) and the very clever way it all fits together. It's standalone, funny, and the complexity is well explained and accessible for a slightly sozzled Christmas Day audience.There's Villengard, and a character who just simply happens to be a Silurian, but continuity does not loom large.

There's a heart tothis, though. Joy may seem in the surface to be nice and unthreatening, but her story is truly heartbreaking, and I loved Moffat's anger at the "one rule for me and one for thee" aspect of the lockdown parties. No doubt culture warring lockdown sceptics will decry this as "woke", whatever that is, but no one cares hat they think.

Nicola Coughlan is excellent.Yet, as ever, Ncuti Gatwa is simply superb. This is a very lonely Doctor who has just said goodbye to his companion and could do with a reminder that he needs a friend to travel with. Yes, I know; we've seen this before. But it's well handled here, with the Doctor taking the "slow path", as Reinette would have said, spending a year working in a hotel and making a good friend. and more than that... he learns again what friendship truly means. And the importance of chairs. That especially.

All this and a Mr Benn reference.

That said... the big reveal at the end that Joy and the others had become the Star of Bethlehem wasa bit much, one step too far. But it's Christmas, dammit. And this sort of episode is exactly what we need in this increasingly worrying world.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 4

 "I'm an avenging angel of dearth, from Newsnight. And you're Prince Andrew."

Wow. This episode is a tour de force of television scriptwriting and performance, and surely the extraordinary highlight of Karen Gillan's career so far. She truly is superb as Madeline here, as she finally and cleverly takes down Douglas, an unstoppable righteous force in an episode that brilliantly examines all of the issues arising from #MeToo. Wow.

So many elements here compliment the core message personally. We have the hapless, thick, casually misogynisic "comedian", tasked with coming up with "family friendly misogyny from a happier time". We have Douglas's increasing panic, followed by misplaced confidence. We have the slow destruction of Claudia's faith in her father. We have that gloeious confrontation between Madeline and Sheila in the ladies'.

And yes, we have Douglas cancelled, hot unfairly, because of a joke that truly was awful. There's nothing really unjust about that, despite the twist that his career ends because of an entirely separate joke for which he bears no real blame: the joke he did tell was inexcusable. And yet... Toby gets away with far worse, because Madeline, in a world of double standards, woukd bring herself down with him. And perhaps the point, the real point, as Madeline says, is that we men who are not like Toby really do need to step up.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 3

 "You do want the job, don't you...?"

Wow. This is a sudden, effective and blatantly deliberate shift of tone from the previous two epidsodes. And it's incredible.

The whole episode is a flashback to Madeleine's past, her first meeting with Douglas... and how she got the job. By the end, we pretty much know what Douglas said at the wedding, and how utterly unforgiveable it was.. And that isn't even the point.

The vast majority of the episode is a two hander between Madeline and Toby. Ben Miles is excellent but Karen Gillan is utterly sublime, playing the discomfort, fear and resignation of a woman who, despite her poise, despite being wise to the gaslighting, The script is outstanding here, showing us the horrible reality of #MeToo as experienced in reality by so many women. So many nuances are there in the script. The gaslighting, the power imbalance, the sheer horror.

And, in the end, Douglas opens the door, sees what Madeline is going through... and advises her, in those words we've heard before, that whatever she has to wade through, it's worth it.

Wow. This isn't the type of first class television I was expecting after the first two episodes. But it's certainly first class television.

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 2

 "They execute gay people and it won't stop raining!"

Two episodrs in... and this is wonderful. Rain in Dubai, the crap comedy writer, the awkwardness between Toby and the taxi driver. But mostly, it's the wit, and the characters. Oh, the characters.

Madeline is much more centtre stage this time. We get to see first hand how she manipulates Douglas. On this occasion he's gone in there all cross and about to demand she remove the tweet... and she gets him to retweet it. But the whole thing is a kind of fight over Douglas between Madeline and Sheila, both of whom want to prep him for the interview he's going to have to endure soon... and then we end with Madeline dropping that bombshell. She's an utterly fascinating character, with far more depth to her than initially meets the eye, and so much cleverer than everyone else.

This is masterful storytelling, and halfway through the series we still don't know what Douglas' joke actually was. But the whole thing is engrossing. The entire cast shines, but Karen Gillan, Alex Kingston and Ben Miles are utterly superb. The real star, though, is the script. Steven Moffat can sooo do comedy thst makes you think.#

Is it me, or is Douglas inexorably headed towards absolute doom?

Douglas Is Cancelled: Episode 1

 "That's not ambiguity.That's plausible deniability."

Yes, I know, I've sort of had to temporarily pause my ongoing series that I'm blogging in order to frantically catch up with The Boys after three episodes bloody landed at once. Now ITV have gone and released a new comedy drama by Steven Moffat, so my schedule lies even more in tatters. Grr.

I must say, though, this first episode is bloody brilliant. The premise seems very ho-hum and meh: a news presenter is overheard telling a sexist joke at a wedding and suddenly his career is in the balance. At first glance it looks as though we're in for a tiresome, heavy-handed rant about "cancel culture"... but of course, not.This is Steven Moffat, and he's much cleverer than that.

What's particularly clever is the actual joke itself is held back. It's "Schrodinger's joke". We end the episode on tenterhooks not kmnowing how bad it is or how bad things are.

Hugh Bonneville is excellent as the eponymous Douglas, and so is Karen Gillan as his subtly clever co-host Madeline. But utterly standout performances from Ben Miles as the most cynical producer, and Alex Kingston as the gloriously weary Sheila, utterly steal the show. This is clever, witty, topical (we get lines like "I work with people who hack your phone") and very thoughtful comedy drama. I'm hooked.

Doctor Who: Boom

 "Keeps you dying. Keeps you buying."

Phew, I've finally seen this, after twenty-four hours of feeling like I'm in that episode of Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? that everybody remembers. This may happen a few more timnes this series but, well, let's just say that Doctor Who may be vastly important, of course it is... but some things matter musch, much, more.

Anyway, Steven Moffat is back and this episode is a thing of wonder. It's very high concept- the Doctor saves himself, Ruby, the Anglican Priests around them and indeed much of the planet- all whuile standing on a landmine and incredibly close to death- and, incidentally, Ncuti Gatwa's performance here, the right, Doctorish type of fear, is acting perfection. Yet, by Disney standards- there's a lot of CGI- this episode, with its small cast and small stakes, feels like it was the season cheapie. But then so was Blink, and, well.

This is Moffat at his very best- not spread thinly as showrunner but able to focus all his Moffaty goodness into forty-four minutes. As we expect, the plot works like clockwork and has a highly satisfying resolution. Yet, in other respects, this is different, and perhaps deeper. And everybody does not live.

It's 3,082 years after Ruby's birth (Late 51st century? Time agents, Boeshane Peninsula and Magnus Greel?) , a timeframe Moffat likes to play with.The Anglican priests are back... but this time there's an attempt to almost explain them with the line that priests not being soldiers isan unusual "blip". There's an ambiguity about religious faith- on the one hand, it can dull sceptical thinking, yet on the other it can comfort- which doubtless reflect's Moffat's own thoughts, an atheist, but certainly not a "New" one.

Yet the central conceit here (SPOILER KLAXON!!!) is deliciously and unashamedly political: an arms corporation that keeps casualties at the most proftable level, and a war against a phantom enemy purely so that said corporations can supply weapons. The ultimate end result of unregulated corporate greed run amok. 

There's not much arc stuff here- Villengard and the Anglican soldier priests aside, both Moffat creations of old- but we get that snow with Ruby again: all very "Bad Wolf". And it's good to see Varada Sethu from Andor. But sometimes a good standalone episode, or indeed a great one such as this, is just what the Doctor ordered.

Inside Man: Episode 4

 "How does anyone ever get murdered? There's so much admin!"

There so much about this episode that's great. The above line and, indeed, most of Mary's dialogue, which straddles that line between humour and horror. The way a random woman gingerly steps over the trail of blood after Mary is run over. Mary's desperate and almost comical confrontation with Beth. Poor Ben, Harry becoming increasingly unhinged. Grieff's slow acceptance of his fate. That surprising coda with Janice asking Grieff to help her to murder her husband.

But, surprisingly, we aren't told why Grieff killed his wife. Sequel hunting, or a statement that some things are unknowable, as Grieff tells Harry his usual monologue about how all of us, given sufficient desperation, are potential murderers? Probably the latter., as Grieff is, by his own admission, somewhat pressed for time.

This is a satisfying, entertaining finale, with exquisite performances from, in particular, Lyndsey Marshal, Stanley Tucci and David Tennant. Most of all, it's satisfying, in this final episode, to see how Steven Moffat can write himself seemingly into a corner and then seamlessly out of it. Good stuff.

Inside Man: Episode 3

 "Much be so much easier."

"What must?"

"Not believing in Hell."

This is the hardest decision I've had to make for a quote for ages. That says a lot. 

There's a lot of quotable, philosophical dialogue here. But it all emerges from the characters. Harry's police interview is so very cringe. But it exposes Harry. He's a bad man, and a good man. He acted with dselfish desperation towards Edgar, and did not, as he tried to claim, protect him. Yet Edgar watched, and thus funds, child porn. And, let's face it, that suicide note wasa spiteful act of vindictiveness aimed, unknowingly yet culpably, at an innocent teenage boy.

Beth is interrogated, too, on the ethics of her trade as a voyeuristically morbid crime journalist by hardened criminal Morag- who adopts the moral high ground. And Grieff, faced with an actual execution date, reacts not with dignity but with an unexpected desperation. He wants to live, after all. And, despite the fact he mutilated his wife's corpse, apparently the retrieval of her head will explain things. Hmm.

This is building up for a huge finale, with Janice's very justifuable mind games and the horrifying cliffhanger, with Ben locked in the cellar with Janice as the carbon monoxide slowly kills them... and it was Harry who did this, so his wife would not. Because he loves hisfamily so much that he would take their place in Hell. That he would actually download child porn- an evl act in itself, funding more child abuse- to save his son.

This is deep, clever, fascinating. And memory sticks are indestructible, right?

Inside Man: Episode 2

 "There's no reason this has to be uncivilised..."

Look, I really like this programme. Indulge me, and let's pretend, for a couple of minutes, that flash drives are indestructible, ok? It's gripping and fascinating look at how an ordinary "good" person, such as Harry the vicar, can be driven to bad things an, inexorably, to what seems like the inevitable murder of Janice. No doubt, towards the end, we shall hear how Grieff murdered his wife. One thing is certain: Stanley Tucci is simply brilliant.

Yet was Harry, the "dark vicar", ever such a good man as he appeared? Yes, he's doing all this for his son, and he's trapped: even the accusation would ruin Ben, even if he were ultimately acquitted. And yet... I'm not a religious man, but what he does to Edgar in the chaurch, making him confess before God so he can record him, gaslighting and manipulating this rather simple man- yes, I know, a nonce- for his own purposes... I have no concept of blasphemy, personally, but there's a lack of integrity here. And Janice says she never really liked Harry. Was he ever as good a man as he seems?

His wife Mary is fascinating, too. Clearer about what must be done to save her son, yet not really wanting to murder Janice. And Janice is clever. The 9pm Skype call tomorrow will lead, inevitably, to her murder and ther ruin. So she seeks to divide and conquer, offering them both- separately- the chance to postpone that call... in return for an offer. She's very clever.

So, of course, is Grieff, who is truly compelling. Superficially, with his cases- such as the case of the week here- he's Sherlock, but in terms of his character he's very different. He is comforted by the ;prospect of punishment for his crime in a way which is actually rather self indulgent: if he isfulfilling a useful function, one which must inevitably save lives in the fullness of time, what is the social utility of killing him? Will his death not just punish the innocent? Such are the moral contradictions of judicial killing.

And such are the moral quandaries of this programme. Yes, Moffat's clever in an Agatha Christie sort of way, we know and love that. But here he is, on msainstream telly, being brilliant with theme and character. This is outstanding telly.

Inside Man: Episode 1

 "Anyone can wind up in this place..."

One might say, in some ways, that there is much we might have expected from Steven Moffat in this, his long-awaited new drama.There's a character- Jefferson Grieff- who is superficially similar to Sherlock in how he solves crimes. Paul McGuigan directs. It's all very clever, with different plot strands interconnecting at various points. David Tennant star as Harry, our likeable vicar protagonist. Lydia West and Dolly Wells are well known for starring in work by Moffat and his mate RTD.over-complex.

Yet this is not, as no doubt some are saying, just Moffat doing his usual tropes. It is not, as no doubt some are saying, confusing and over-complex. Just pay attention. It's all there. And it's much more than a puzzle box, this is about something.

Harry is a good man, a husband, a father, a lynchpin of his community. So when his verger, with his overbearing (and violent) mother asks him to take from him a drive with "porn", he sees this as a trivial matter. And yet-this being the central premise- a good man can become a murderer, given the right circumstances.

We have a parallel in Jefferson, who seems to have murdered his wife and believes he deserves his upcoming execution. As various conversations hint, he was also a good man who made a wrong decision, and somehow became a murderer. He accepts his fate, and whiles away his time in Death Row solving crimes. Yet the Sherlocking is superficial. The point is that this is a man who has done something evil, though not an evil man. And he accepts the consequences with integrity. Not just death, but to be hated. He actively dissuades Beth from ewriting about him positively. His ideas of "moral worth" are fascinating.

Janice, too, is clever and highly principled, as we see in the opening train scene. And so the terrible misunderstanding is set up, where she finds the verger's child porn, believing it to belong to Harry's son. Harry panics, handles things badly... and Janice ends up locked in the cellar. This is brilliant writing, and acting.

And so we face the consequences. Harry's horrified wife. And the confrontation with Janice, who fully realises the only possible fate for her is to be murdered as Harry, though a good man, has no other way out. But she will not make it easy...

And Beth is on the case. This is superb stuff.

Dracula: The Dark Compass

“I knew the future would bring wonders. I did not know it would make them ordinary.”

Wow. Well, I suspect that won't have pleased everyone as much as it pleased me. Moffat's clever structural games and Gatiss' fondness of allusion don't appeal to everyone as much as they do to me. Personally my only concern is that a programme broadcast on the first three days of January could plausibly end up as the best thing on telly in 2020. The episode, and the series, really are that good. And it's not all clever plotting, or smirking when we hear good old Bela echoed in "Children of the night- what music they make". It's also horror, and real, effective horror at that. And heart. Lots of heart. For the record, the end made Mrs Llamastrangler cry.

It's a bold move to properly resolve the cliffhanger at the end of the first episode at the start of the third. It is, though, perhaps even bolder to invite comparisons to Sherlock by fast forwarding to the present day. It's lovely to have, though, after the initial excitement with the helicopters, some time to breathe, and to allow Dracula to acclimatise himself to the twentieth century, a time of wonders for him, where even a poor household has access to untold wonders, and even to chide us on how we take all this for granted.

It really should be an obvious, tired cliche to have Zoe Helsing be a great grand-niece of Agatha who happens also to be played by Dolly Wells, but it somehow isn't, because blood is lives, everyone is drinking each others' blood, and we can be poetically ambiguous about which Van Helsing is which. Likewise, the conceit of having the Jonathan Harker Foundation (nice bit of misdirection with Jack's phone) wanting Dracula for his blood is only really there for characters to meet each other so the plot can happen, but it allows us to meet this version Renfield, played with comical panache by Gatiss, yet again getting away with cheekily writing himself a fun character to play. And it's clever how we see Dracula scoff at the notion of rights- he's a vampire aristocrat, so he's all about blood; he and the probably-going-to-be-reshuffled Jacob Rees Mogg should get on well- only for Renfield to use his legal rights to get him freed.

Alongside Claes Bang, though, the other star is Lydia West as this version of Lucy Westenwra. She may have been bloody good in Years and Years but she's bloody extraordinary in this, perfectly playing the nihilistic charm of the bored, beautiful hedonist. Her dialogue tempts fate, of course- "I'll sleep when I'm dead" and "everyone smiles when you're pretty" are both dead giveaways if you're paying attention. And Dracula soon ends up giving her a regular thrill be feeding off her in at least a bit of a gesture towards Bram Stoker's novel. And yes, of course the feeding is a not-very-subtle metaphor for sex. We expect no less.

But the horror of this conception of the undead is present too, with Dracula calmly informing Lucy that exactly nine occupants of the graveyard are "suffering" in their coffins- and one horrific undead child has managed to get out. The reveal of what it looks like is superbly done.

But the real horror is for Lucy- not her rather erotic and cheerfully longed-for death; not the existential horror of being undead; not even the unimaginable torture of being cremated while conscious. No; it's the fact that she's disfigured, and simply cannot live without being beautiful.

But the ending is not hers; it belongs to Agatha/Zoe, who ends by confronting Dracula over his fear of facing death, the common thread that binds together his weaknesses. I'm not sure this quite works if you look too closely, but it's so artfully done that we don't particularly care. And that final scene of Dracula and Agatha dying together, erotically, with death and orgasm literally metaphors for each other... that's romantic, and perfect. Because the reason why this is sublime, and Twilight is shite, is not that vampires shouldn't be romantic. They absolutely should. But the romance must always be twisted, never vanilla.

Dracula: Blood Vessel

“The sophistication of a gentleman, Agatha, is always a veneer...”

Ah. It's good to get another Moffat/Gatiss season to binge on, or savour, as one's lifestyle permits- these episodes are bloody ninety minutes long, you know.  But this is another good one. Not as good as the opening episode, granted, but it wouldn't be; middle episodes rarely are.

What this episode manages to do is take the somewhat claustrophobic premise of Dracula's long sea voyage from the Balkans to Whitby and construct a taut little thriller which, for those of you reading this who are Doctor Who fans (and I suspect many of you are), tends to evoke the mood of Horror of Fang Rock, except with more blood. Much more blood. I don't recall this aspect of Stoker's novel being so heavily focused on in any previous screen version, although the brief scenes in Nosferatu are certainly iconic.

It is, of course, a relatively cheap episode but one full of wit, incident,  scares, suspense and (thank whatever gods may happen to exist) Dolly Wells once more as the supremely quotable Sister Agatha. It's also full of a splendid cast which, as many of us are indeed Doctor Who fans, includes both Catherine Schell (still a beautiful woman, probably) and Sacha Dhawan, who is having quite the month.

The mystery of Cabin 9 is nicely handled, and the various passengers all have their little secrets and peccadilloes. The plot is awfully clever but, again, is restrained; this isn't Sherlock and there are more jump scares than narrative tricks. The narrative tricks are there nevertheless, though, and we get a superb twist at the end, as Sister Agatha manages to bury Dracula beneath the waves (shades of the Angel season four finale) for longer than he thought...

A rare vintage indeed. To be savoured.

Dracula: The Rules of the Beast

“I’m undead. I’m not unreasonable...”

Well, obviously, this is going to be clever, awesome and very literate indeed; it’s written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. You don’t go into a first episode from them and expect it to be rubbish- and it certainly isn’t. I’ve only seen the first episode thus far, but it’s a superlative but of telly without a doubt. Yet it wasn’t quite what I expected.

I’m not saying the structure of the story isn’t clever. I’m not saying the dialogue isn’t witty. But both, while masterfully done, are notably restrained. This isn't Sherlock, it's horror. It's jump scares, horrific concepts (Here, some people just randomly become undead when they die, some become vampires, and only a select few retain their sentience after a while. Most just scratch at their coffins. And this is a secret known to gravediggers around the world. Shiver.) at a Dracula, in Claes Bang, who may very possibility be the very best screen Count ever. And yes: I'm saying this in a world where Christopher Lee once walked, and realise what I'm saying. Bang is that good.

John Hefferman is ideal as Jonathan Harker, too, but the other standout performance is from Dolly Wells as the drily witty Sister Agatha- the hero, I suspect, of the series; her surname at least gives strong indications. She is, I suppose, our Peter Cushing- a deliciously quotable nun who has, perhaps, lost her faith but who is determined to understand, and combat, the undead.

It's 1897- the year Bram Stoker's novel was written, although not when it was set. The action is split between Transylvania and Budapest, both still part of a Habsburg Hungary. This is literally a tale of the Gothic- Dracula is an ancient horror from an old, labyrinthine castle in the wild east of Austria-Hungary, planning to move to the more "modern" England to kill, feast and be replete.  The episode is, I think, set up for this- an origin story of sorts, loosely following the early parts of the novel.

The plot begins with nods to past iterations- the scene where Harker and Dracula meet is very Bela Lugosi, right down to the "I never drink... wine". But we soon depart from this to a narrative with twists and turns which satisfyingly surprise us without ever becoming overly labyrinthine; we shall leave that to the castle's architecture. We have suspense, scares and just one little Doctor Who in-joke; we are introduced to our new Count and his world, and is good. Mrs Llamastrangler and I are hooked.

That cliffhanger, though....I don't care about Mina, but please let Sister Agatha live.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time

“You’re the first Dalek that ever got naked for me!”

It’s a brave move to start the Christmas special, where a greater number of viewers than usual are watching, many of them digesting large late lunches and just a little bit on the merry side, with “Previously on Doctor Who...” and a load of monochrome clips from 1966. But Moffat, in perhaps the last script he will ever contribute to the programme, dares to do it. Right after bringing back the Cybermen from The Tenth Planet he shows us bits of the story. Then William Hartnell morphs into an outstanding David Bradkey and, for the next hour, everything is brilliant.

There’s a lot more going on than a multi-Doctor story, of course, but it’s a joy to see one from the man who penned Time Crash. The repartee between the two Doctors is magnificent, and the running joke of the new Doctor’s admonishment of the old Doctor’s casual sexism is both nice social commentary and a nifty bit of foreshadowing. Yes, I raised an eyebrow at how the old Doctor- refusing, like the new Doctor, to renew himself- had a flicker of modern day orange regeneration energy, but some things are inevitable. But there are things to squee about- the old TARDIS, inside and out, “the Ship”. And, after all these years of Doctors with a number as a prefix, it’s great to see the Doctor again.

It’s an indulgence, perhaps, for Moffat’s old mate Mark Gatiss to be cast in his swansong, but appropriate; he excels as a man snatched from the point of death and knowing he must return. And it’s inevitable, appropriate and cleverly done that Bill should return. And the seeming enemy is linked to the Weapon Forgers of Villengard- a lovely little reference to The Doctor Dances and Moffat’s first ever story for Doctor Who. Then again, I’m tempted to see the plot resolution- there’s no real baddie, just a rather nice scheme to duplicate the Matrix on Gallifrey and ensure the memory of everyone who has ever lived is uploaded just before the point of death- as being a call back to the sort of plot Moffat used to write in the early days.

It’s nice to see the Doctors discuss their mutual fears of their impending regenerations, and it’s great to see the truly wonderful chat between Bill and the old Doctor; never mind what he was running from when he stole the TARDIS; where was he running to? The answer is that he wanted to find out why it was that good prevails, and he doesn’t understand that the reason is him, the wandering God, the perfect encapsulation of the outgoing showrunner’s philosophy.

We also get the return of an old friend from Into the Dalek, references to RTD’s old stomping ground of New Earth as a nice little tribute to Moffat’s predecessor, and of course a great big tribute to the Hartnell years to make clear that Moffat is in no doubt as to what he is; a custodian, standing on the shoulders of others, making his own huge contribution, and handing the show on to others. He’s undoubtedly a name to be spoken of on a par with Robert Holmes. If we never see him on the programme again, we shall miss him. And let us not forget the sheer personal sacrifice of dedicating seven very busy years to Doctor Who. Steven Moffat, we salute you.

There’s a nice further twist, of course- the Captain is one Archibald Hamish Lethbridge-Stewart. But then it’s on to the regeneration- with touching goodbyes from the uploaded memories of Bill, er, Nardole, and Clara, who manages to restore the Doctor’s memories. It’s a nice little update of the farewells from a Doctor’s companions prior to regeneration that was so fashionable in the ‘80s.

But the Doctor must die alone. And, ancient though he is, and weary of mourning so many friends and loved ones, he convinces himself that the universe sort of needs him and, after a brief farewell speech that owes a fair bit to Terrance Dicks he finally regenerates. The regeneration itself is awesome, but so is Peter Capaldi. Magnificent, and one of the great Doctors. And then... Jodie Whittaker gets to utter just two words and her first thirty-odd seconds are very, very Matt Smith.

Magnificent. Truly magnificent. Although I have no idea what the slightly sozzled not-we made of that...

Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls

"Is it wrong that I..."

"Yes, very!"

Wow. That was an emotional rollercoaster and no mistake, and probably the best Doctor Who season finale since the institution started back in 2005. It's also an episode chick full of fan lore, Moffatisms and, well, stuff. There's a lot to talk about.

We begin with a typically Moffat pre-titles with fields, skies, farmhouses and horse-driven carts all inside the same spaceship (a Moffat trope right from The Time of Angels), and the terrifying spectacle of partly cybernised people being used as scarecrows. The Doctor, Nardole the Master and Missy share a few witticisms before they, and Cyberman Bill, end up together in the farmhouse where the two Masters exchange some glorious dialogue in some truly joyous scenes while Bill (shown as she sees herself) comes to terms with the awful body horror of what she has become. These two sequences showcase two separate types of superlative writing prowess from the Moff.

There's a superb reason why they can't all return to the TARDIS- time dilation; if they travel the full 4,000 miles then the Cybermen will have had millennia to prepare, so there's nothing for it but to sit and wait for the inevitable assault, and for the Doctor to be heroic for the sake of it- "without hope, without witness, without reward." The Doctor gets another one of those magnificent soliloquies that Peter Capaldi first showed himself to be so good at with The Zygon Inversion, and it's interesting to see that the Master doesn't care but Missy is, at least, equivocal.

So the Doctor and Bill, who knows her humanity is slowly being eroded and doesn't want to live without being her (there's a thought, and a horribly modern one- Cybermen as a metaphor for dementia), agree to the suicide mission of staying behind to blow up with the Cybermen while Nardole gets everyone away to survive for a while until the next attack.

The Masters get a delightfully mad ending as Missy fatally stabs the Master with a hug and he shoots her after she reveals she's off to join the Doctor. The Master is off to his TARDIS to regenerate; she is apparently too dead to regenerate, as some ways of being killed, apparently, just arbitrarily do that. This is fooling no one, of course; the Master's been deader than this. (S)he'll be back.

So we come to the Doctor- also fatally wounded, although we saw a flicker of regeneration energy even earlier- and Bill in their last stand against the Cybermen, some of whom, disappointingly, have "evolved" to be more modern like and use the existing costumes. But we get a moment of pure fanwank as the Doctor names "Telos, Voga, Planet 14". There's also an earlier bit of retcon that makes me uncomfortable while we're on the subject of fanwank; the Doctor seems to say that the Cybermen arose independently on "Mondas, Telos, Earth, Planet 14" and, yes, Marinus, in a bizarre and gloriously fanwanky reference to the DWM comic strip The World Shapers, penned by Grant Morrison, no less. Not sure I like this suggestion that not all Cybermen are fundamentally Mondasian, and the idea seems to contradict dialogue in Tomb of the Cybermen anyway.

Still, Cyberman Bill dies and... Bill still exists, because of some clever and retrospectively well-seeded long term plot cleverness from way back in The Pilot meaning Bill gets to be herself again and travel the universe in a puddle with the girl she loves. It's clever, it's superbly written, it made Mrs Llamastrangler and me cry and it's essentially brilliant. But, well, it feels like a cop out. After Clara this is twice in a row that Moffat has stepped back from properly killing off a companion at the last minute and it feels like a lack of bravery. Perhaps I'm being unfair; it's still rather brilliant, and would probably feel different if it wasn't for Clara, not to mention that a companion dying would have overshadowed a busy episode. Nonetheless, there's a slight feeling of cop out.

And so we come to what all the signs are telling us is a regeneration; the Doctor recites his predecessors' last lines, he's lying in the TARDIS as he was at the end of The Tenth Planet, the Cloister Bell is sounding. And yet the Doctor is resisting regeneration through sheer willpower and has, I suspect, been doing so for quite some time. And then Moffat throws a curveball as (in the Doctor's head?) the bloody first Doctor appears, played by David Bradley. This is, to put it mildly, hugely exciting, and may indicate that the Christmas Special may be a leisurely examination of the concept of regeneration, i.e. mortality, casting the Doctor as a kind of Scrooge figure? Whatever, I can't wait.

And yes, I know I have a couple of little criticisms, but they in no way detract from the sheer brilliance and genius of one of Moffat's finest pieces of writing. Yes, like all prolific writers he has his tropes, but that's a strength, not a weakness. Steven Moffat is right up there with Whittaker, Holmes and Davies as one of the finest writers ever to grace this programme.

Doctor Who: World Enough and Time

"Hello. I'm Doctor Who."

Wow. Not sure what the Andrew Marvell quote has with anything, and I did English at uni, but this episode is extraordinary from the initial teasing (apparent) regeneration sequence, with us knowing full well that Peter Capaldi is around until Christmas, to the final, utterly wrenching body horror of our discovery that Bill has been turned fully into a Tenth Planet Cyberman.

The episode starts, though, with a few minutes of fantastic dialogue between a TARDIS crew that has never had such chemistry, and the addition of a seemingly reformed but utterly magnificent Missy is the icing on the cake. Her dialogue is witty, metatextual and glorious. But then the storytelling is equally and non-linearly magnificent as the Doctor tests out Missy's Doctoring skills with a distress call from a 400 mile long ship falling into a black hole, where time passes more slowly at one end of the ship than the other. We get alot of necessary exposition, Bill fulfilling the companion's narrative role here, as the Doctor explains his history with Missy in flashback, Bill gets shot, and... for those of us who've listened to some Big Finish, it all goes very Spare Parts, in the best way possible.

This is, of course, revealed to be a Mondasian ship, and the (ahem) genesis of the Cybermen, as it's very nicely put by John Simm's Master, superbly revealed after having played a friendly character in prosthetics all episode long without fooling me. It's all done quite brilliantly, and John Simm's Master looks positively Delgado for the first multi-Master story. The implausibility of Mondas being Earth's twin planet is nicely glossed over too. Thi is an episode to truly remind us of Steven Moffat's considerable talents.

All this and we get Venusian Aikido too. We're being spoiled. This is, and I know I keep saying it, extraordinary even by the very high standards of what we can surely start calling the best season since Season 27.

Doctor Who: The Pyramid at the End of the World

"We must be wanted. We must be loved. To rule by fear is inefficient."

In just a couple of episodes the character of the season has shifted smoothly into what looks much more like an arc- or mini-arc at least- and there are ominous signs that this Doctor's days are numbered, as he first appears with a monologue which, I suspect, applies as much to himself as the situation as he ponders mournfully that "The end of your life has already begun", surely referring to more than the juxtaposed footage of two scientists having an off-day. This kind of thing is our first hint that Peter Harness and Steven Moffat (he'll be missed) have excelled themselves here.

This is a sequel both to last week, when we discovered how the monks have been running a deeply accurate simulation of Earth in order to conquer it, an to the Zygon Invasion two-parter which established both the fictional nation of Turmezistan, a (presumably) Central Asian hotspot where war threatens to break out between the USA, China and Russia, and the precedent that the Doctor is President of Earth during alien invasions, a conceit that saves us so many potentially tiresome scenes of the Doctor not being believed by the authorities. It's also nice to see a doing over of Bill's date with Penny, this time interrupted not be the Pope but by the Secretary General of the United Nations.

The big visual centre of the episode is, of course, the 5,000 year pyramid that has suddenly appeared, at an acute global flashpoint, but it's really all about ideas, as all the best ones are. The conceit of the doomsday clock helps to mount the tension, as does the monks' confident assertion that force is not necessary as they will simply be invited to assume absolute global power. The alternative is that life on Earth will soon end "by humanity's own hand"- and the truly clever bit is that the threat of nuclear war is just a very big red herring; there's a reason why we keep following those two scientists and their increasingly bad day.

All this is narrated superbly in a tightly written and philosophical script, and I love the concept of the threads.

An added layer of brilliance is that the monks need the true consent of someone on Earth with power- but any motive other than love won't work, and the supplicant summarily dies. And so we come to the deliciously horrifying ending; the doctor tracks down the lab in Yorkshire, saves the world, but is doomed to die because he's blind and can't use the combination to escape from the airlocked room. At last he has to confess to Bill that he's been blind, he's been lying to her, and her response is to surrender Earth to the monks and save the Doctor's sight, and his life. The moment arrives with a crushing inevitability and leaves us waiting impatiently for next week.

Wow. This season!

Doctor Who: Extremis

"Do not, under ANY circumstances, put the Pope in my bedroom!"

This is something of a gear-changing episode, obviously. shifting suddenly from story-of-the-week mode into a much bigger foregrounding of the season arc in ways we both did and didn't expect. It's also perhaps our last chance to get one of Moffat's "clever" episodes while he's still showrunner and without a season finale looming. The result is a triumph on those terms, yes, but also in terms of both character and spectacle.

The episode concerns a text, the Veritas, within the Vatican's secret library of forbidden texts (yes, that old stand-by), the Haereticum, which causes everybody who reads it to kill themselves. This is, as you might imagine, rather concerning to our red-hatted friends, so much so that the Pope himself personally arrives to ask for the Doctor's help, leading both to the unfolding of the plot and comments from the Doctor about his old 11th century friend Pope Benedict IX (a real person, incidentally) being a "lovely girl". And it's also an irresistible chance to have Bill's date with a lady she rather fancies being rudely interrupted by said Pontiff emerging from the TARDIS. It's a great start.

But all this is juxtaposed throughout by scenes of the Doctor setting out to execute none other than Missy by Max from Humans, ending with his sabotaging the execution to be non-fatal. (We can't have the Doctor endorsing something as barbaric as capital punishment, and nor can River Song, who conveniently sens Nardole with a message to that effect which also happens to explain how Nardole happened to be travelling with the Doctor- but didn't the Doctor resurrect him?) The result of all this is that Missy's 1,000 year sentence takes place not, as originally intended, with her being dead, but with her being the mysterious figure the Doctor's been guarding in the Vault and, yes, as fans we were sort of expecting this, but we should remember that the general viewer probably hasn't.

Oh, and the Doctor begins and ends the episode still blind. It seems that they're running with this.

The big reveal is, I think, not supposed to dwell on the metatextual angle which is, if anything, downplayed, but the horrible truth is that the world is literally not real, just a very good simulation created by a badass-looking race of alien monks who are practising their invasion of the real Earth- they are literally all just characters in a video game. It's a glorious and very Moffat idea, good enough to mean that we necessarily have a great big reset button being pressed as the simulation Doctor warns the real Doctor that the monks are coming next episode. This already impressive season has, if anything, just got even better.

Doctor Who: The Pilot

"Why do you run like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like a penguin with its arse on fire."

Well, that was an unexpectedly fun, and genuinely scary, season opener from Steven Moffat. You'd be forgiven for expecting his last season of Who to be somewhat tired, but there's life in the old Doc yet. This is a genuinely creepy episode, with the central idea- a sentient puddle that doesn't show your mirror image but your real image- being so very Moffat in the best possible way. The episode is shot like a horror film, with plenty of shocks and scares. And Bill is a superb character- likeable, superbly portrayed by Pearl Mackie and, in a nice meta touch, as sci-fi literate as we are.

Despite the Daleks and, indeed, the Movellans (these aren't Destiny of the Daleks models, but who's to say it's the same Movellan War?), the season opener wisely eschews continuity, rather heavy of late, in favour of a new start. Some time has passed for the Doctor, who has spent the last five or seven decades doing a Professor Chronotis at a fictional university in Bristol. The introduction to this is wonderful; Bill enters an office, complete with sonic screwdrivers in a cup like pens, and photos of Susan and River Song. The Doctor then proceeds to handwave this young person with a dead end job into a place at the university and a possible future; social mobility in action at a time when we need it most.

I love the way Bill's sexual orientation is handled- mundane, normal, some people are gay, move along. This kind of subtle kick against heteronormativity can be just as radical as anything that seems to shout more loudly. Bill's home life, with her mum Moira's various lovers, is nicely sketched with a similar subtlety.

The way the adventure follows Bill's POV obviously calls to mind Rose, but then this sort of companion introduction story has become almost a trope in itself. Certainly Bill's introduction to the TARDIS's dimensions is the most fun iteration yet, but this is something that will never get stale. It's a nicely balanced episode with pace, wit, scares, action and, well, Bill gets a Dalek on her first go. And heartbreak. And the only exciting time she's ever had. And, eventually, the promise of more. I can't wait.

Sherlock: The Final Problem

"I wrote my own version of the nativity when I was a child. "The Hungry Donkey". It was a bit gory. But if you're gonna put a baby in a manger, you're asking for trouble."

I've not been quick in blogging this episode so I've not failed to notice the divided reaction which seems, anecdotally, to be more negative than not. And one of the main criticisms I hear- that this is yet another non-whodunit- is a valid one in that Moffat and Gatiss are certainly not writing what their audience wants and expects from Sherlock. But here lies, I suppose, the question: are writers mere hacks hired to give an audience what they want, or are they artists who may transcend such considerations? There is, of course, no easy answer, and I do not claim to be firmly on either side. But I will make the obvious point that giving the audience what that want connects very awkwardly with giving them surprise and unexpected events. I will also note that I enjoyed this episode very much. And that Mrs Llamastrangler was deeply affected, to the point of tears at the end.

This episode is a series of interlocking puzzles and fun little intellectual games, all with a touch of the macabre, but it is of course really about the character stuff, an excuse to explore the psyches of not only the fascinating Eurus but also Sherlock, John and the pleasingly foregrounded Mycroft.

If there's a disappointment it's the relative lack of Moriarty, whose games from beyond the grave do not come close to living up to expectations and whose screen time is painfully limited. But Eurus is a superb creation and Sian Brooke gives an incredible performance. It's so very clever that, after all the misdirection hinting at a third Holmes brother called "Sherrinford", this is simply the name of the prison where Eurus does her Silence of the Lambs stuff.

There are clever nods to The Musgrave Ritual and The Three Garridebs, but here we are quite moving away from a Holmes canon that the series may have outgrown. Certainly, each character- including Mrs Hudson, Molly and Lestrade, gets what would work as a final scene, suggesting that this may have been intended as a possible finale. I suspect no one connected with the show really knows whether or not Sherlock will ever be back, what with everyone being so very busy, but that this was designed as a fitting finale if need be. I hope it isn't, and I'm sure the creators do too. After all, we end with Sherlock and John both back in 221B Baker Street, and The Dancing Men...

And yeah. Mrs Hudson vacuuming to "The Number of the Beast". Awesome.