Day 859 - The Doctor's Wife

Imagine this for a moment if you will. You're watching a long running tv series which you have seen from the very beginning. The show has had many characters come and go but throughout all of this there have been two key characters running through the whole series. Two characters who are completely in love with each other. And throughout the years you've seen these two lovers travelling together, having crazy adventures and getting into many a dangerous scrape. And after all this, after 48 years (or in my case 859 days) , these two character finally speak to each other for the first time. I can't begin to describe how monumentally moving that is.

So the two characters I was referring to in case you hadn't guessed were the Doctor and the TARDIS. It's been known for a long time that the TARDIS is far more than a ship. I can remember way back to the time of the third Doctor when Captain Yates says to him "you speak about the TARDIS as though she were alive" to which he gives a knowing smile and says "yes I do rather don't I"

The Doctor has had many goodbyes over his time travelling with the many departures of his companions but as Amy says "it's always you two in the end isn't it, long after the rest of us have gone. A boy and his box off to see the universe". Although it's never stated in the episode the TARDIS is pretty much like his wife. His long term companion for most of his life.

The reason the Doctor can finally speak to his TARDIS is due to the nefarious schemes of the sentient asteroid known as House. Yes I'm away that that last sentence sounded a little nonsensical but bear with me. House eats TARDISes but before he can do that he must first take out the dangerous part of the ship, which is essentially its soul. He stores thus soul inside the now empty mind of Idris, one of the few people he has kept alive on his asteroid to serve him. 

Idris (I.e the TARDIS) is played brilliantly by Suranne Jones. She's every bit as mad as the Doctor himself and I love the conceit that it was never the Doctor that stole the TARDIS but the other way round. She was bored and wanted to see the universe so she stole a Time Lord and he was the only one mad enough.

The writing is also superb. Neil Gaimons first entry into the Doctor Who world. I must admit to knowing very little about him before this but the excitement that was caused by the announcement that he was going to writing an episode made me realise that he was something special indeed. Some of the lines he comes up with such as "I like biting, it's like kissing but there's a winner" are just incredible.

This is definitely an episode which improves after several viewings. Idris has a hard time getting her mind in the right order as she can see the whole of the time stream. As such she will suddenly come out with something which makes no sense at the time but makes sense later. At first it felt a little annoying because I wasn't following what was going on but when you realise it you neat yourself up as it's a really clever concept actually.

Some interesting points are also made which make you thing of the series in a whole different way. During one heated debate, the Doctor snaps at Idris that she has never been all that reliable and she didn't always take him where he wanted to go to which she replies "no but I always took you to where you needed to go!" which is a very good point actually. 

I haven't spoken much about Amy and Rory in this episode and that's because the focus is not really on them in this episode. In fact if I had to make any complaints about it I would have to say the scenes of them running around the corridors of a TARDIS now possessed by the House are a little dull. Although it is exciting to see TARDIS corridors again! They are a little bland but at least they don't resemble an abandoned hospital like in The Invasion Of Time!

As the episode comes to an end, Idris's body wears away and the TARDIS spirit returns to the ship but not before one last emotional exchange with the Doctor. It's not very often we see the Doctor cry but in this case it's completely understandable. I found it particularly moving when the TARDIS says there was one thing she never got to say to him to which he replies that the word she is looking for is "goodbye. Her response of "no, I just wanted to say hello. Hello Doctor, it's so very very nice to meet you". This really hammers home the point that this is a character who has travelled with all this time and finally they get to speak to each other. 

I must admit I cried a little at this. Like the Doctor, over the last 859 days I too have travelled with the TARDIS and to finally hear her say hello for the first time is quite a moment. This quest has been pretty crazy at times but as it nears it's end I'm feeling a little down about it I must admit. Only 41 days to go.

Day 858 - The Curse Of The Black Spot

After the complex and arc heavy two part story from the last couple of days it was nice to sit back and watch some simple adventuring on board a pirate ship.

The ship is stranded in calm waters and each time one of the crew is injured in anyway, right down to the smallest of cuts, a black spot appears on their hand and a ghostly siren appears to snatch them away. No wonder most of these pirates have such glorious beards as I imagine shaving would be a terrifying affair knowing what would happen if you slightly nipped yourself with the razor!

A bit of an odd one really. I quite enjoyed it having not seen it in quite a while but there wasn't really anything that stood out to me that much that I can talk about. Amy gets to dress up as a pirate and have a bit of a sword fight which is pretty cool. Poor Rory is marked for death straight away and ends up falling over board and drowning before Amy can resuscitate him. I'm not sure how many times Rory has died so far. I think this is possibly his third death. He died in Amy's Choice, Cold Blood and now he's died here.

The truth is revealed that an alien ship is also trapped in the same space as the pirate ship and everyone on board is dead. The siren is a type of doctor who is taking any of the humans who are ijured and treating them on board the alien ship. With all the crew taken, and with his son unable to leave the alien ship without dying, the captain decides to sail off in the space ship instead. Quite how this pirate captain is suddenly able to fly an alien space ship is a little vague I must admit.

Nope, I can't really think of anything else to say which is a shame because it's not really a bad episode. Oh well, I'm sure I will have a lot to say about tomorrow's episode, The Doctor's Wife!!

Days 856 to 857 - The Impossible Astronaut / Day Of The Moon

Steven Moffat can really come up with some fantasic ideas for aliens and monsters. It's in this two part story that we are introduced to the Silence, a race of aliens that have the ability to edit themselves out of our memory. What a brilliant idea. You only remember them whilst you are looking at them. As soon as you turn your back you forget that they were ever there. As such they have been able to live on our world for centuries, planting ideas into the minds of the human race so that we develop in a way suited to their purpose. And just look how creepy they are! You could have one in your house and you wouldn't know because you'd keep forgetting you'd seen it!

Quite a large part of this episode was filmed in the desert landscape of Utah which looks amazing! The show has clearly come on a long way from using the same old quarry in Britain again and again. 

This story also sees the start of a series long story arc. At the very beginning of the episode we see the Doctor shot by someone dressed up as an astronaut. The Doctor is dead. But this is a future Doctor so when Amy, Rory and River meet him again they have to keep the secret from him that they have just witnessed his demise. Again this is another brilliant idea. The future Doctor has summoned them all together, including his past self! When the past Doctor calmly steps through a door into the cafe where the others are trying to pull themselves together after seeing him die, their faces are hilarious. It makes it more funny because they are really pissed off with him for what he's done but can't tell him what it is.

River and the Doctor's relationship is explored in more depth. We still don't know who she is but it is clear now that they are travelling in opposite directions through their relationship. As River says "every time we meet, I know him more, he knows me less. I live for the days when I see him..but I know that every time I do, he'll be one step further away from me". This is an example of why I love science fiction. It can explore how relationships and emotions would function in some truely bizarre circumstances. This is further highlighted at the end of the two episodes when River snogs the Doctors face off as he drops her back in prison. She seems confused as to why this has startled him until he reveals that that was the first time they kissed from his point of view. At which River realises that is her last kiss with him.

Throughout this two part story there is a mystery developed as to the identity of a little girl who is being menaced by a "space man". She later appears trapped inside the astronaut suit before escaping. Amy discovers a picture of herself inside the little girls room so there must be some link between them. The biggest mind blowing moment comes at the end of the two episodes where we skip ahead 6 months to see the little girl stumbling through the back alleys of New York. A homeless man ask her is she is alright to which she replies that she is dying but it's okay because she can fix that. And then she starts to regenerate!!!! WHAT.....THE.......HELL???? This totally blew me away when I first saw it and I still get chills from it now. The music adds so much to the scene as the refer nation energy starts to glow around her. Well played Mr Moffat...well played indeed sir!

Day 855 - A Christmas Carol

The first Christmas special for Matt Smith's Doctor and I have to say that this is without a doubt my favourite of all the Christmas specials. It's exciting, heartbreaking and just utterly utterly mad!

So as you can probably guess from the title, this is a take on the popular Christmas tale, A Christmas Carol. Amy and Rory are trapped on a spaceship caught in the atmosphere of this planet. The ship is going to crash one hour. The only way this can be prevented is to use a machine which tames the skies. Unfortunately this machine is owned and controlled by Kazran Sardik, and he couldn't give a single crap if the ship crashes. After several attempts to persuade him to help fail, the Doctor comes up with the genius plan of travelling back through time to visit Kazran as a younger man in order to try to prevent the events which led to him becoming such a bitter and nasty old man.

The way this is done is just brilliant. The future Kazran finds that his memories are starting to change as the Doctor rewrites his life. As Kazran states to Amy when talking about the Doctor "I'd never met him before tonight, now I seem to have known him all my life"

Kazran's business is money lending, a business that he inherited from his cruel father. As insurance they take one of the family members from the family the loan is being made to and keep them in a kind of freezer chamber where their bodies are suspended in time. It's from here that we meet Abigail played by opera singer Catherine Jenkins. I was a little dubious when I heard she was cast in the Christmas special but she's actually amazing in the part and it helps of course that she is an excellent singer as the role includes several parts where she is required to sing, which is just beautiful.

So the young Kazran releases Abigail from the ice with the Doctor and this starts an annual tradition that every Christmas Eve the Doctor will return and him, Kazran and Abigail will go off on adventures for one night only. This goes on for several years until Kazran and Abigail have fallen for each other. Which is pretty bad as Abigail reveals to Kazran that she was on the verge of death when she was frozen and the number on her ice tomb indicates how many days she has left. This number now being at "1". This turns Kazran into the bitter man that we see in the future and it does make us think quite badly of the Doctor. As Kazran says "I would never have met her if the Doctor hadn't rewritten my whole life to suit himself" It also leaves Kazran with the devastating decision in that he knows he has one day left to spend with the love of his life, so he can't bring himself to let her out for that final day. 

On top of this great story we have the sheer madness of the planet itself! It's a world where fish can swim in fog and the bigger the fog the bigger the fish. This means that you have sharks swimming through clouds! It shouldn't work because it's insane but it does work somehow. 

I love this episode so much I just want to watch it again now!

Days 843 to 854 - The Sarah Jane Adventures (Season Four)

 

"Come along Smith!" Sarah Jane meets yet another Doctor in this penultimate season of The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the story which features the Doctor has to be one of the highlights of this season. More on this later.

The season starts strongly with a terrifying (honestly for kids tv his is bloody creepy!) story called The Nightmare Man. Julian Bleach guest stars as said Nightmare Man which I think makes him one of the only actors to have appeared in all three shows of Doctor Who, Torchwood, and The Sarah Jane Adventures. He gave a suitably manic portrayal of Davros in Doctor Who and he plays an even creepier character who haunts Luke's dreams. 

As a kid I was always terrified of Freddy Krueger, and whilst the man in this story is not horribly disfigured nevertheless some of the dream imagery used still gives mes shivers. As well as creeping out I must admit that this story made me cry a little as this is effectively Luke's goodbye story as he leaves to go off to university. The scenes between him and Sarah Jane are fantastic and beautiful and you really feel how much both characters have developed over the last few years, Luke growing as a human and Sarah Jane finally discovering what is is like to have a family.

As mentioned previously, the other highlight of the season is the third story called Death Of The Doctor. There are so many moments in these two episodes to please the geeky fans like myself, the main one being the return of Jo Grant! (I've met Katy Manning who plays Jo, I may have mentioned this before..)

Seeing Jo and Sarah Jane together on screen is fantastic enough as it is but then the Doctor himself turns up! This is the first time Jo has seen him for nearly 40 years and when she discovers that he is now travelling with Amy and Rory, a married couple, she is a little hurt as she only ever left the Doctor because she got married. Its interesting to see what happens to the people whose lives have been touched by the Doctor and seeing Jo and the Doctor together again is great.

The season finale is a little bit of a let down. A new woman appears on the street who seems to be fighting aliens just like Sarah Jane is but seems to be much better at it as Sarah Jane starts to discover her memory and abilities are fading. It's really quite poignant as Elizabeth Sladen who played Sarah Jane must have been quite sick herself at the time, she died about a year after this, so when Mr Smith scans her and tells her she is very sick indeed you can't help but feel a little emotional. Of course it turns out this new woman is an alien and actually there is nothing wrong with Sarah Jane.

However, the series ends with Sarah Jane saying how fit and well she feels and how she feels like she can go on forever...sadly this is not the case and the next season of The Sarah Jane Adventures would be cut short by the tragic loss of it's star Elizabeth Sladen. 

Well I'm thoroughly depressed now! Matt Smith's first Christmas special to look forward to tomorrow at least!

Days 841 to 842 - The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang

Well..the universe ended. And that was the cliffhanger! Usually the cliffhanger is the Doctor or one of his companions in mortal danger *cough Drangonfire!* but Steven Moffat doesn't think that's good enough so in his first season finale he decides to end the entire universe! In fact it's worse than that. Not only has the universe ended but it never existed in the first place! 

The first episode sees the Doctor puzzling over what great evil could be lurking inside the Pandorica, a box said to hold the most terrible creature in the universe. In fact the whole thing is a trap and an alliance of all the Doctor's greatest enemies have got together to seal him inside the Pandorica. Now the cool thing is that they aren't sealing him in there as revenge for all the times he has thwarted their plans, they are sealing him inside because they think he is the cause of the cracks in the universe and ultimately the person who will cause the destruction of the universe. So technically they are acting for the good of us all. Which is nice of them.

Unfortunately by locking him away he is unable to help River who has been trapped inside the TARDIS which is about to explode which erases the universe from existence. I can't emphasise that enough. The cliffhanger is as follows. The Doctor is locked in the Pandorica, Amy is dead, River is trapped in the TARDIS which then explodes and then we pan out to see the Earth in space as every single star around it blows up. How can you follow that???

This is one of the amazing things about this story. A lot of finale second parts have felt like a bit of a let down after the big build up of the second part but instead here the second part builds even further on the awesomeness of the first part.

Back in modern times the Earth is the last light to go out and this world is quite different from our own. The idea that there was once stars is deemed to be a myth, only young Amy still believes in their existence which leads to a funny reference to her Aunt worrying that she will run off to join a star cult "I don't trust that Richard Dawkins" Brilliant! 

The resolution to the story doesn't feel like a cheat which some have done before and it's quite emotional when the Doctor starts to relive various moments from earlier in the season as his life starts to unwind. Back in Flesh And Stone there was a moment when the Doctor took Amy's hand (during the scene where she could not open her eyes or the weeping angel would take her over) and whispers to her how much he needs her to trust him and that it's important that she remembers what he told her when she was little. When this scene was shown back in Flesn And Stone many people thought there had been quite a big continuity error as the Doctor was suddenly wearing his jacket again despite the fact he lost it earlier in the episode and is not seein wearing it later. But this was no error but a clue of what was to come as this was one such moment when the Doctor is travelling back along his own time line. The next time he sees Amy is as a a little girl and this is when he tells her the thing he needs her to remember. As she sleeps he tells her all about the days she would have had with him and that even though they will now never happen she will still dream of them. He tells her how he stole (or borrowed!) the TARDIS "brand new and ancient and the bluest blue ever"

When first viewed this scene just seems like quite an emotional goodbye between the Doctor and Amy, the companion he will now never have as he accepts his fate to be erased from history. But on the day of Amy's wedding the old saying of "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue" takes on a whole new meaning!

This story also features the return of River Song. In the Angel two part story she mentioned that she will see the Doctor again when the Pandorica opens so it is becoming clear that they are travelling in opposite directions through time. This will be explored to heart breaking conclusion in later stories. River does tantalisingly reveal that she may be married...interesting..

So that was it, the first season for Matt Smith aka the eleventh Doctor was done. Tomorrow I will be starting season four of The Sarah Jane Adventures. 

Day 840 - The Lodger

 

With the TARDIS send spinning off through the vortex without him, the Doctor needs to find out what is causing the interference preventing the ship from properly materialising and in the process becomes a lodger to Craig, played by James Cordon.

A bit of a rom-com episode with Craig and his friend Sophie being absolutely useless at admitting their true feelings for each other. I mean if even the Doctor, with his lack of social awareness, can see it then it's staggering that it takes them so long to admit their love for each other.

So many funny moments in this story, just what was needed after the rather heavy episode from yesterday. I love the way the Doctor takes a massive swig of wine before casually spitting it back out into the glass with it not being to his taste. The third Doctor would certainly not approve, he was a man who liked his wine if Day Of The Daleks is anything to go by. Unfortunately for the eleventh Doctor we will later discover that he hates wine as it doesn't taste anything like the gums which is a fair point I suppose.

We also get a scene of the Doctor playing football! I remember seeing pictures of the football game when this episode was being filmed and just assumed that they were from a bit of down time between filming scenes. The Doctor couldn't possibly be playing football. I suppose the fifth Doctor was partial to the odd game of cricket so it's not that unusual. Matt Smith is obviously a very good footballer, I believe he was planning on that as his career before an injury ruled it out. But seeing the Doctor playing football I just couldn't stop thinking that this is supposed to be the same man as played by William Hartnell and I certainly couldn't imagine him darting round a football field!

This episode was great and it's a real showcase for Matt Smith and his version of the Doctor. It's interesting that I really can't see any other Doctor in this story, except maybe Tom Baker. Any other Doctor would have seem to have more awareness of how humanity socialises and it's the eccentricity of the Doctor as he has to get used to living a normal life that makes this episode so much fun.

840 days done, with just 60 left to go. The final two months of this epic two and half year challenge. The end is in sight!

Day 839 - Vincent And The Doctor

As the title suggests, the Doctor and Amy meet Vincent van Gogh. 

There's the general run around and alien shenanigans that we are used to but the very heart of this story comes down to the fact that the Doctor meets a monster he cannot defeat, the depression of his new friend Vincent. It's pretty hard hitting having such a terrible mental illness shown at tea time on a Saturday but it's played perfectly.

So the Doctor takes Amy to an art gallery where the works of Van Gogh are held. After noticing an alien creature lurking in the window of a church in one of the paintings the Doctor demands that they travel back to find out what it is. Soon they befriend Vincent who is a struggling artist with no one appreciating his work. There are some great moments of comedy which arise from the fact that the Doctor and Amy know how important his paintings are whilst everyone else, including Vincent himself, puts no value on them. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there are some great funny moments as this story was written by Richard Curtis.

The alien creature storyline is fairly boring I'm afraid but that almost doesn't matter because it's the relationships that form between Vincent, the Doctor and Amy which make this episode shine. Vincent speaks of many Doctors trying to help him and the Doctor witnesses one his bad moments when Vincent is screaming in bed, clearly deeply troubled.

One of my favourite scenes comes near the end with Amy, the Doctor and Vincent lying down together in a field gazing up at the stars whilst Vincent narrates how he sees the sky with its deep blues and the wind rushing through the sky. The Doctor clearly admires the beautiful way that Vincent views the world.

The most touching scene comes at the very end of the story when the Doctor takes Vincent to the future so that he can see just how famous and popular his works become. For a man who has struggled to be appreciated it all becomes to much and he breaks down in the gallery after kissing the curator who has been so kind about his work. The curator is played by Bill Nighy who for some reason is uncredited in the story. His double take as he walks away, suddenly realising that he may have been speaking to Van Gogh himself is hilarious!

After showing Vincent the future, Amy is convinced that he will now live a happy life and his premature death by suicide will have been averted. Unfortunately upon returning to the present day they discover that nothing has changed and Vincent still took his own life. This really gets to the heart of the matter of what depression is. It's not just a case of "cheering someone up". As the Doctor puts it:

The Doctor: "The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things"

Depression a bloody awful illness. As Vincent bid goodbye to the Doctor he admitted that even though they had fought demons together and won that on his own he feared he would not do so well.

The Curator: "to me Van Gogh is the finest painter of them all. Certainly the most popular, great painter of all time. The most beloved, his command of colour most magnificent. He transformed the pain of his tormented life into ecstatic beauty. Pain is easy to portray, but to use your passion and pain to portray the ecstasy and joy and magnificence of our world, no one had ever done it before. Perhaps no one ever will again. To my mind, that strange, wild man who roamed the fields of Provence was not only the world's greatest artist, but also one of the greatest men who ever lived."

Days 837 to 838 - The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood

I was so excited for this story when it was first broadcast! The return of the Silurians!

They had only appeared in two stories during the classic run of the series and their first encounter with the Doctor (in his third incarnation) during his time working with UNIT ranks up there as one of my all time favourite stories.

As villains go, the Silurians are a pretty interesting threat to the Earth. Well first of all, can they really be called villains? The Silurians are the original inhabitants of the Earth who went into an artificial hibernation when they believed that the moon was an object heading for a collision with the planet. After an over long sleep they are now waking up to discover that the apes have evolved into humans who have now taken the planet as their own. So I suppose technically we are the invaders.

What makes stories with the Silurians interesting are the moral dilemmas that come from their existence. Generally there are a group of Silurians and human who want to enter into a peaceful relationship and share the planet. Unfortunately there are always bad people on both sides who feel the need to destroy the other race.

In this story, the Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in a small Welsh village in the near future where a mining operation is in place to drill deeper into the ground than ever before. Surely they haven't seen Inferno as if they had they would stop the drilling straight away! Unfortunately the drill wakes up a race of Silurians who think they are being attack and take counter measures against the people at the drilling operation.

The redesign of the Silurians is a good one but I am disappointed that apart from being green and scaly they pretty much share no resemblance with the creatures from the classic series. It's explained away as them being from a slightly different strain of the race which is fair enough I guess. What does irritate me a bit though is that they are hardly referred to as Silurians! Instead the Doctor insists on referring to them as Homo-Reptilia which just sounds daft to me! Silurian is a much cooler name if a little inaccurate.

As with other Silurian stories we are covering some of the same ground but its played out in a nice enough way. Amy and Nasreen (the lady in charge of the drilling operation) set out to negotiate with the head of the Silurians as representatives of the human race. I'm not really sure how much authority they hold to be able to do this but the scenes between them are pretty good anyway.

One Silurian is being held above ground by the humans whilst the Doctor heads underground to rescue the humans held captive. Unfortunately the Silurian being held by the humans is particularly blood thirsty and is looking to start and all out war between the two races. As such she manipulates the humans into killing her which does sort of screw up the negotiations between the two races a little.

The sting in the tail of this story comes at the very end. Escaping through the Silurian caves, the Doctor, Amy and Rory suddenly come face to face with the crack again. Rory is shot and the energy from the crack surrounds him erasing him from history. This is a fairly tragic moment as Amy desperately tries to hang on to the memories of him before they are stolen from her.

Even more worrying for the Doctor, the shrapnel that he manages to pull out of the crack, in an effort to ascertain what caused the explosion which led to the cracks in the first place, turns out to be a piece of his own TARDIS. Oh dear indeed!

Overall I quite enjoyed this two part story. I wouldn't say it was as good as the very first Silurian story but at least it's not the abysmal Warriors Of The Deep! No Myrka in sight thank God!

Day 836 - Amy's Choice

Getting really bored of writing about Doctor Who now! The watching of it is fine but this blog is starting to overwhelm me a little it must be said. Oh well..if a jobs worth doing then its worth doing quickly and half heartedly so here goes...

Ok before I start I will point out that at this moment of being really fed up of writing this I really appreciated how my blog decided to completely delete this whole entry just as I was finishing it! Arghhhhh! I thought it was quite a witty entry too. It's almost like this blog now has a lost entry just like the lost episodes of Doctor Who, except of course no one is clamouring to read the fabled lost entry in quite the same way as people are praying to one day be able to watch Marco Polo. Right I really am starting this entry this time..again!

The episode is actually pretty damn good and I'd say it grows on you the more times you watch it for reasons I will go into later.

The basic premise is Amy and Rory are back living in Leadworth having left their days of adventuring through time and space behind. Amy has got pregnant and Rory has grown a pony tail which is nice for him. The Doctor drops in to pay them a visit and soon they are all passing out on a bench in the middle of the village. They then wake up back in the TARDIS convinced that what they have just witnessed was all a dream. However they then fall asleep in the TARDIS and find themselves back I'm the village. This of course leads to the question of which world is the real one and which is the dream?

It's like that story of the man who had a dream he was a frog. When he awoke he didn't know whether he was a man who had dreamed he was a frog or a frog who was now dreaming that he was a man. That's cool, I like that a lot.

Soon both worlds are being haunted by an apparition known as the Dream Lord who seems to be the one playing the game with the heads of the Doctor and his companions. He seems to take particular delight in torturing Amy into choosing between her two men and that really is at the heart of the matter. In the world of the village Rory has everything he wants. He has the women he loves safe and sound and a baby on the way. He wants this world to be the real one. Then there is the TARDIS and the world of the Doctor. It is up to Amy to make the ultimate decision of which world is real and is so doing is making a choice between her future husband and the Doctor.

The reason I see this as an episode that grows on you is down to the mystery of who the Dream Lord is. It is made clear early on that he is a character who knows the Doctor very well and therefore when I first watching this my fan brain was going into overdrive about all the various characters from the shows history he could turn out to be. Therefore when the truth is revealed and we find out that the Dream Lord is actually a creature from the Doctor's own mind brought into being my some psychic pollen then it all feels a little disappointing. However on future revisitations of the episode, when you know who the Dream Lord is from the start it's actually very well played. The scenes between the Dream Lord and the Doctor are fantastic and it's clear that it's the Doctor's own self loathing. Ring brought out of himself to taunt him.

It's also the turning point for Rory and Amy. When Amy thinks that Rory is died (score that one up as death number one for Rory. He'll have several!) then she realises what she has to lose and how much she loves him. Sounds soppy I know but it works really well in the episode.

Also given that you could argue that Matt Smith is actually the 12th Doctor and we know that the Valeyard was formed somewhere between his 12th and 13th incarnation then could the Dream Lord be the Valeyard?? Probably not but it's fun to think so.

Day 835 - Vampires In Venice

I'm afraid to say that this is one of the weaker episodes of this series so instead of talking about it let's play a game!

Sometimes when I'm bored, I like to take two television programmes or films and try to find the connections between them by linking which actors have appeared in both. The reason I'm thinking of this now is that the woman who plays the lead vampire in this story also played Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies. There really are an incredible amount of overlap between the two. So here goes..

Well first of all, two Doctors have been in Harry Potter, David Tennant and John Hurt!

John Cleese plays Nearly Headless Nick in Harry Potter and appeared in a cameo role in the 70s Doctor Who story, The City Of Death. Warwick Davis, Roger Lloyd Pack, Imelda Stauntan have also featured in both.

Michael Gambon (Dumbledore himself!) will be appearing in the Christmas special that I am soon due to watch.

The following episode to Vampires In Venice features a villain known as the Dream Lord as played by Toby Jones. Toby was the voice of Dobby the house elf in the Harry Potter movies!

It's quite a fun game. You should try it.

Anyway, moving on to the episode in question (oh Mark Williams has been in both too!), Rory comes on board as a companion after the Doctor picks him up in the middle of his stag do. I always feels sorry for Rory. He completely dotes on Amy and she treats him pretty badly really. This is something that will at least get explored in more detail in later episodes.

Before watching this episode I watched the mini episode which fits in just before it when the Doctor decides to collect Rory and send him and Amy off on a romantic trip together. This mini episode is great and examines why the Doctor feels the need to travel with companions. His explanation is awesome when he goes on to describe how he sometimes struggles to see the wonder in things when he has already seen so much. In order to get some of this awe back, he brings people along on his journeys so that when they see it, he sees it too. I know how he feels. If there is a film that I absolutely love but have seen countless times then I always enjoy watching it with someone who has never seen it before because I get to feel some of that excitement again like I felt when I watched it for the very first time.

Julian Glover!! He was in two Doctor Who stories and was the voice of Aragog in Harry Potter. He was also in Star Wars. Now there's a whole new game!

Days 833 to 834 - The Time Of Angels / Flesh and Stone

"What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels."

I love that quote so much. Steven Moffat can tell a good tale! 

So as the title suggests, this story sees the return of The Weeping Angels from the ever popular episode Blink from season 3. This story also features the return of the mysterious River Song. This time we are meeting her earlier in her life as she is not yet the professor that we met in the library story. The Doctor tries to do a runner when he first meets her as he is afraid of getting tied into her as ke knows her eventual fate is to die in the library. It's also weird to see River interacting with Amy given what we later find out about their relationship.

This time the Angels are not quite at their full strength and it is necessary for them to absorb the radiation of a crashed spaceship in order to rebuild themselves. The crashed spaceship is call the Byzantium which is really cool because in the library story when River met the tenth Doctor she asked him "have we done the crash of the Byzantium yet?" which makes you wonder how far in advance Steven Moffat had plotted out her story.

What's also cool about this story is that the crack returns and features quite heavily in the second part. It's sort of become tradition that a word of phrase is repeated throughout the series and then tied into the season finale such as "bad wolf" or "Torchwood". Given this then it was expected that we wouldn't see the Doctor noticing the crack that was following them until the end of the season so it's pretty thrilling to see him slowly turn round to discover the huge gash in the wall of the ship in the same shape as the crack in Amy's wall. We also discover how this crack has been slowly erasing things from time and from people's memories. This explains why Amy doesn't remember the Daleks or indeed how the people of Victorian Londom don't remember the giant cyber king that trampled half the city in the 2008 Christmas special! I'm not sure if Steven Moffat is having a dig at Russel T Davies here but the way he is erasing parts of his stories or feeling the need to explain away some of the problems with them is quite funny.

This two part story is superb! It feels so much like a proper suspenseful movie. And I like how each episode has its own feel about it with the first episode being mainly set in the caves leading up to the crashed ship and then the second episode mainly featuring the ship and the forest inside it.

I think I enjoyed this episode more this time than I did in first broadcast for two reason. Firstly because I generally enjoy Doctor Who more the second time round as the first time I'm just to excited by new Doctor Who to appreciate what is actually going on. The second reason I enjoyed it more this time can be explained in two words... Graham Norton.

Poor Graham Norton. It's not his fault but he has nearly ruined two episode of Doctor Who. When the show first came back in 2005, Norton was fronting a show immediately before it and I don't know what happened but somehow his microphone feed was broadcast over a really critical moment of that first episode. I remember being really confused as to why Autons were speaking with the voice of Graham Norton. With this two part story the forore was caused by an animated version of him dancing all across Matt Smith's face in the closing seconds as the Doctor made his big dramatic speech leading to the cliffhanger. It was an advert for the upcoming programme but I was left stunned at how they had done it. It wasn't even a tiny thing. A cartoon Graham Norton came out and danced across the screen. Everytime I see that cliffhanger now I cringe in anticipation of it happening again.

Day 832 - Victory Of The Daleks

Recently I've been noticing something a little odd about my challenge. Obviously it goes without saying that I now get some days when I'm sick and tired of watching Doctor Who. But some days I find myself discovering the excitement all over again and that was the case with this episode. 

I've never really liked this one, for reasons I'll go into shortly but for this time round I really enjoyed watching it. Maybe it was because it was after a long day so the analytical part of my brain had shut down and I was just able to let the excitement wash over me. For example, Spitfires in space attacking a Dalek ship. Even given that there is a loose explanation as to how the spitfires were equipped with the ability to leave the Earth's atmosphere, the fact that this all had to be done in about 10 minutes is completely implausible. It's not just the fixing up of the planes but surely the pilots would have had to receive some kind of additional training etc. Watching it through this time I loved it! It's Spitfires I'm space attacking a Dalek ship! How cool can you get!

Some of the more positive moments of the episode come in the first half. The Daleks have apparently been invented by Professor Bracewell as a secret weapon to help win the Second World War. We of course know differently as does the Doctor and therefore some of the great scenes come from the Doctor desperately trying to persuade Churchill that the Daleks (or the Ironsides as he knows them as) are not the salvation they claim to be. It borrows quite a lot from the second Doctor story, The Power Of The Daleks where the Daleks are claiming to be the servants of humanity. The line used in that story of "I am your servent" is repeated here with a slight alteration to become "I am your soldier". I think I heard a story where Mark Gatiss (the write of this episode) asked Nick Briggs (the voice of the Daleks) to linger on the "S" of "Soldier" as a bit of a fan tease. I love it!

By the second half of the episode we discover that the Daleks have tricked the Doctor into confirming their identity as Daleks in order that they can successfully activate a progenator device which will produce a race of pure Daleks, thus the new paradigm is born. Or should that be the Power Ranger Daleks.

I'm not against the redesign of the Daleks in principle. The Cybermen were pretty much redesigned every story back in the old days! However this new look form is...just not very good. The colours are too bright and they look all plasticy! Also their shape is bizarre and they look like they have a huge ass! I thinks i would have gotten used to them but it seems that they have disappeared from the series one as most of the recent episodes have included the classic look of the Daleks again.

As a final note, and another exciting part of this episode, the crack in Amy's wall seems to be having a lingering affect on the series when the Doctor discovers that Amy has no memory of the Daleks at all despite their recent invasion of the Earth. Clearly something is not right. Unless of course Amy is like Donna who just so happened to be on holiday during every alien threat so always missed them all!

Day 831 - The Beast Below

For Amy's first trip in the TARDIS the doctor takes her to starship UK which is our entire union bolted together and flown into space. Things quickly become apparent that something is not right when the Doctor realised the ship has no engines but is still moving.

The truth of how the ship continues to travel is kept secret except when it comes to the peoples chance to vote and this is where I think this episode is awesome. They are individually shown a video which reveals the whole terrible truth about starship UK and then they have the choice between pressing two buttons, one marked "protest" and one marked "forget". If a certain percentage of the population choose to protest then the "procedure" will be stopped with dire consequences for everyone on board. If they choose to forget then their memory of what they have just seen is erased so that they can continue their life unburdened of the knowledge of what has been done to save them. It's such a cool idea and everytime I watch this episode it really makes me wonder what I would do.

As this is Amy's first proper trip in the TARDIS then this is her chance to prove herself to the Doctor and to be honest it looks like she screws it up pretty badly by keeping her knowledge of what is happening on the ship hidden from the Doctor in order to save him from being forced into making a terrible decision. This pisses him off quite badly and he tells her that when they are done on the ship then he is taking her straight back home. This is an awesome scene played out by Matt and Karen and the Doctor's disappointment in her is clear to see. In the end though, Amy ends up saving the day when she recognises similarities between the creature on whom the ship is built and the Doctor himself which allows her to predict how the creature will react when the humans stop torturing it to make it fly. She realises that as the creature is the last of its kind it had volunteered its service to the humans and torturing it had been completely unnecessary. I'm doing a terrible job of explaining this but honestly it's an awesome scene.

Another great scene occurs earlier on in the episode when the Doctor and Amy make an escape down what they think is a rubbish shoot only to end up inside the mouth of the creature itself. The Doctor's dawning realisation of where they are is pretty funny and his escape plan (making the creature vomit them up) is hilarious. As the vomit comes swarming towards them like a huge tidal wave the Doctor simply straightens his bow tie and proclaims "this isn't going to be big on dignity"

A lot of people think this is one of the poorer episode of this season but I actually really like it. Amy begins to understand the Doctor more and it's her chance to proof her companion credentials.

Also I must mention that before watching this episode I also watched the "meanwhile in the TARDIS" mini episode which is set between The Eleventh Hour and The Beast Below. It's only a mini episode so it didn't require its own day to watch it but I still wanted to fit it in somewhere. It's pretty funny couple of minutes where the Doctor is showing of the wonders of the TARDIS to Amy who has just come on board. The highlight for me is when the Doctor is explaining why the TARDIS looks like a police box leading to this amazing quote:

"Every time the TARDIS materialises in a new location, within the first nanosecond of landing, it analyses it's surroundings, calculates a twelve dimensional data map of everything within a thousand mile radius and determines which outer shell will blend in best with the environment.. and then it disguises itself as a police telephone box from 1963."

That just about sums up Doctor Who for me!

Day 830 - The Eleventh Hour

It's all change for Doctor Who, with new show runner Steven Moffat, new companion Karen Gillan and new doctor Matt Smith!

I remember watching the special Doctor Who Confidential that was broadcast some time in 2009 where the identity of the man (or woman!) who was going to play the eleventh Doctor was revealed. When the big moment arrived the general consensus was "Who the hell is that??"

If anything this made his debut as the Doctor all the more exciting, I had no idea how he was going to play the part. After reading in an article that Matt had recently watched Tomb Of The Cybermen and had instantly phoned up Steven Moffat raving about how good Patrick Troughton was then I at least knew he was a man with impeccable taste!

It's funny as well that quite a few people seemed unwilling to let Tennant go. That's what of the ideas of the show people!! Change is necessary. Without it the show would not still be here after 50 years. I loved Tennant but as soon as his departure was announced I was excited to see the next Doctor. Strangely I was more unwilling to see Tennant depart this time round as it seems I all that much closer to the end.

New companion, Amy Pond is also introduced here in a pretty cool way with the Doctor first meeting her as a little girl and then, after promising to return in 5 minutes, ends up being 12 years to late when Amy has grown up into a rather fetching young lady (so I'm reliably informed).

This idea of the Doctor "imprinting" himself on a child who he then meets in later life is not exactly a new idea. It happened way back in The Girl In The Fireplace, which was also written by Steven Moffat. However, having this also happen to Amy who goes on to become a full time companion we get to see the interesting ways that that first fleeting moment with the Doctor has impacted her life. Speaking of which, we also meet Rory Williams in this story, Amy's long suffering boyfriend. Apparently as children the "raggedy Doctor" became a game and Amy even made Rory dress up as him.

It's in this first episode of season five that we also first get a glimpse of Amy's crack (steady!). Young Amelia has grown up with a crack running through her bedroom wall. She knows it's no ordinary crack when she begins to hear voices from it and the Doctor confirms that the crack is not in the wall itself but in the fabric of reality. This crack will go on to feature heavily in the upcoming episodes.

As Doctor debut stories go this one is pretty hectic. The Doctor has no time for all the lying around that his tenth persona had to do. Instead, after a hilarious scene of him trying to find the right food for his new body (finally settling on fish fingers in custard), it's all go when a prisoner escapes through the crack in reality and alien race known as the Atraxi turn up to destroy the planet unless the prisoner hands himself over. It's straight to work for Doctor number 11!

As if all this wasn't enough, we also have a brand new TARDIS! After pretty much destroying the interior with his explosive regeneration, the Doctor steps back in to discover the TARDIS has fixed itself up nicely with a brand new steam punk type control room. It looks marvellous.

Days 828 to 829 - The End Of Time

This really is the end of an era. In my challenge, David Tennant had been the Doctor since near to the start of November 2013 so to see him finally depart at the end of February 2014 seems like a fair amount of time. I have literally seen this man every day for the last four months and now he is gone. In many ways his departure had more of an impact on me this time that when this episode was first broadcast. More so than ever it feels like this challenge is nearing this end. The next Doctor, Matt Smith, is the final Doctor I will see in this challenge, except for the brief glimpse of Capaldi at the end of Smith's final episode. I don't want this to end!

The Master makes his return in this story. And his resurrection is one of the poorer moments of the whole thing. When the Master died at the end of The Last Of The Time Lords, we saw a mysterious hand pick up his ring and carry it away. Who could this possibly be? Well it turns out it was a character we had never seen before and one who just appears at the start of this story working in the prison where Lucy Saxon, the Master's wife, is being kept. The exact nature of the "potions" used to bring the Master back to life are a little vague and it all seems a but hocus pocus. 

Focusing on the positives, we also have the return of Bernard Cribbins as Wilfred Mott, grandfather to ex companion, Donna. After seeing the Master in his nightmares, Wilf tracks down the Doctor for his help. This leads to one of the highlights of the story which is a scene shared between the Doctor and Wilf inside a cafe. The Doctor tells Wilf that he knows his days are numbered and a prophecy has been made foretelling his death. When Wilf tries to comfort him by reminding him he is a Time Lord who can simply change his body when is body nears death, the Doctor gives us a very different impression of what regeneration is. The tenth Doctor will die and some new man will go walking away who is still the Doctor but not him..Never before has regeneration been so equated with an actual death.

The Master's plan is as balmy as ever! This time he manages to turn every single human on the planet, except for Donna and Wilf into a replica of himself. I don't really understand this as a plan. Surely the Master wants to dominate all other beings (the name sort of gives that away!) so how can having all humans be him possibly work?? Surely some "masters" are going to have to serve a superior Master and I can't see any of them liking that!

 

As if the return of the Master wasn't enough we also have the very exciting of the Time Lords! Led by the insane president of Gallifrey (who turns out to be Rassilon for some reason!) they are attempting to break out of the time war and back into our world where they will then bring about the end of time itself! The Time Lords have always been jerks but this takes the biscuit!

 

When it comes down to it, the Doctor's death is brought about because he has to save Wilf who has been locked inside a chamber which is about to flood with radiation. The only way he can be saved is if the Doctor takes his place which he does of course. However he only does this after having a complete mental breakdown, screaming against his impending death. I can't think of any other Doctor who has gone so unwillingly, unless you count the second Doctor who is forced to regenerate by the Time Lords.

 

As this is also the end of an era for the show runner, Russel T Davies, the last 10 minutes are devoted to a complete love in of all the characters he created. Before regenerating the Doctor goes to visit Martha (who has married Mickey completely out of the blue! Feels a bit like an excuse just to have the two ex companions in the same scene!). He also visits Captain Jack and sets him up with a casual shag at a bar which is sweet of him I guess. Then it's off to visit the descendant of Joan Redfern from Human Nature so that he can find out if her grandmother eventually got over the loss of John Smith. Then it's back to visit Wilf AGAIN! Honestly I'm getting tired just thinking about it!

 

Finally, the Doctor travels back to the year 2005 which is the year the new series of Doctor Who began and has brief meeting with Rose Tyler to whom he promises is going to have a really great year. When the Doctor eventually regenerates, the energy pouring out of him pretty much destroys the TARDIS. Again I'm not quite sure why this is but I like to think that he has held off regenerating for so long, so that he can visit all his old friends, so when he does eventually go, he goes with a bang!

 

Overall I had mixed feelings about this story. To be honest there doesn't really feel like much of a story to it. The Master's plan is just bonkers but then I guess that is nothing new. I must admit the last 10 minutes or so are pretty emotional as I bid farewell to a Doctor who (in my challenge) has been with me for nearly four months. His final words "I don't want to go" were echoed by myself.

 

The era of the eleventh Doctor starts tomorrow!

Days 826 to 827 - The Sarah Jane Adventures (Season Three) - Part Two

Back for the the final two part story of the third season of The Sarah Jane Advenures and I'm afraid to say that this one features the return of the Slitheen..well okay they are technically the Blathereen, a different family altogether, but it seems that the Slitheen are not the only criminal family from the planet Raxacoricophalapatorius (God knows if I've spelt that right!). It has to be said that these creatures do fit much better into the world of The Sarah Jane Adventures than they ever did into Doctor Who but they are still not great so to have them back for another season finale is not a very welcome surprise!

The Blathereen appear to come in peace and offer Sarah Jane the gift if a plant which will grown anywhere on Earth and can solve all the hunger issues of our planet. Unfortunately it's not long before the planet is spreading its seed all over London (and soon to be all over the world) releasing spores which can kill people.

In the previous two season finales we have had the moon nearly coming crashing down to Earth and a portal to another dimension opening up in the ground so to have the villain of this story be a plant that spreads across the city just seems a little undramatic. It would work fine as a story earlier on in the series but the season finale just feels like it needs something bigger. 

Saying that the guest cast in this one is excellent. Well okay they are only voice over parts for the Blathereen but still impressive. The Blathereen couple are played by Miriam Mayrgoyles and Simon Callow. Simon Callow has gone from playing Charles Dickens in Doctor Who to playing a big blobby orange alien that farts a lot..well I guess you can't deny he is an actor with a wide range.

So that was season three of The Sarah Jane Adventures finished. Only two more seasons to go and one of them is a short one. It really is feeling like the countdown to the end now. Speaking of which, tomorrow is The End Of Time as the tenth Doctor hears someone knocking four times...