The sontaran one rings a bell now you mention it! That Luke character does stick out in my mind a bit.

Edited May 11, 20178 yr by PeteFromLeeds

Thatw as awful and the Tennent Doctor was at his pretentious worst and preaching in it. awful. Should have been much lower and the lowest historical.

This is exactly what I like to see in a historical episode really. Shakespeare is put to great use and is portrayed really well by Dean Lennox Kelly, and I enjoyed the Carrionites as a threat also. It's a pretty fun episode for the most part and classic Doctor Who, taking a mythical threat and turning it into something alien. The ending with Queen Elizabeth I is amusing, and I wouldn't have been too gutted if we didn't get a resolution to that but it's kinda cool now we've been filled in on the back story in The Day of the Doctor!

 

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Indeed, that's what I love to see in historicals. Like with the werewolf, that the Carrionites are some ancient threat that is interpreted as something supernatural by the people of the time is cool.

 

It might not be the best historical but it's a fun ride with all the classic Shakepeare references dotted here there and everywhere about the script. It humanises Shakespeare a bit and he does need a bit of that what with most people probably just resenting him for making English lessons a bit dull these days. And the use of Love Labour's Won as the plot point is nice as it is a real historical mystery and part of what I love these historicals for is making me aware of these unsolved historical mysteries that I can speculate about (even if the likelihood is that it was just another name for some other Shakespeare play that didn't stick as well as the actual title did).

sHAKESPEARE EPISODE IS ANOTHER TRAGEDY OF dOC wHO TRYING TO BE TOO FANTASY TOO.

 

Ignore his COMPLETE lack of charisma and boring, monotone voice; I mean, he is a youtuber, after all.

 

However, he says the creature in Listen was a FLOOF and that there was nothing outside the space station at the end.

 

I actually completely agree with his analysis. It is very well-reasoned and based on a short story that Moffat wrote. Listen is obviously a tv adaptation of that short story. The creaure we see fits the Floof description perfectly. Also, a child would NEVER act like that. It was psychotic behaviour. He thinks the Floof could have killed the if they looked at it directly. I don;t. It is too small and weak.

I enjoyed the Sontaran and Cyberman two parters - they were both good fun and decent 'threat to Earth' storylines.

 

I've never been a huge fan of the Shakespeare one. I think it's just like witches, really? Doctor Who feels better than that. But I did enjoy Shakespeare!

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33 The Girl Who Waited

Series 6, Episode 10

Doctor: Eleventh

Companion: Amy Pond, Rory Williams

 

Now for my favourite episode from series 6! The Girl Who Waited sees the Doctor take Amy and Rory to Apalapucia, a top holiday location. However, they are unaware that the entire planet has been hit with a deadly plague named Chen7 which kills its victims within a day, although only affects beings with two hearts. When Amy gets trapped, separated from Rory and the Doctor, they realise they are able to watch her live out her life in an accelerated timestream, or a "kindness centre" for the relatives of the infected. Rory sets off on a mission to track Amy down, while the Doctor has to stay in the TARDIS so he doesn't get infected. He uses the glass lens from the kindness centre to track her down, and Rory takes it with him. Amy meanwhile has to take shelter from the Handbots, which are designed to administer medicine, but it would be fatal to Amy or Rory. She hides in a vent where they cannot detect her. Rory eventually tracks down Amy but finds his wife has been waiting for him for 36 years. In that time, Amy has become bitter and resentful of both the Doctor and Rory for not tracking her down sooner. The Doctor, from the TARDIS, urges Amy to help them find her younger self but she refuses, knowing her current self would cease to exist. Rory uses the lens to talk to a younger Amy, in the same location 36 years ago, to convince her older self to help with the rescue. She agrees, but only if both Amys can be taken. The Doctor says the TARDIS could sustain the paradox, so older Amy helps with the rescue. The Doctor synchronises the two Amys' thoughts and brings them into the same timestream. Together they have to fight off Handbots to reach the TARDIS, with older Amy doing much of the fighting. With young Amy and Rory back in the TARDIS, the Doctor cloces the door, having lied to older Amy. Rory must decide which version of his wife to take. Older Amy says goodbye to him, and tells him to take young Amy.

 

This episode really felt like a breath of fresh air in series 6 for me. I loved seeing Rory get a chance to shine on his own, rather than being a spare part to Amy like he often was during his tenure as companion. The Doctor lying to older Amy was a great twist but kinda heartbreaking, particularly as I don't think it was in doubt that Rory would pick young Amy instead, so I went from disliking how bitter Amy had become, to really feeling sorry for her. The Handbots were cool additions although not the most exciting threat, it was much more character focused and sometimes I think these episodes lack a cool, exciting villain, but this episode didn't suffer from that all for me. Definitely one of the best performances from both Karen and Arthur, particularly when the two Amys were talking to each other, a great scene!

http://cdn1us.denofgeek.com/sites/denofgeekus/files/doctor_who_face_the_raven_0.jpg

 

32 Face the Raven

Series 9, Episode 10

Doctor: Twelfth

Companion: Clara Oswald

Also starring: Rigsy, Ashildr/"Me"

 

The Doctor and Clara get called back to Earth by Rigsy, who wakes up with no knowledge of the previous night, and a mysterious countdown on the back of his neck. The Doctor scans him with the TARDIS and finds out that he's had contact with aliens, and the countdown on his neck is counting down to his death. Clara insists that they must try something to help Rigsy, and together, they look out for somewhere aliens could be hiding in London - a trap street. Clara finds one, and the trio investigate. They are met by Ashildr, who explains what happened the previous night. Rigsy was sentenced to death for allegedly killing Anah, a member of the Janus race, and was retconned to forget about the trap street. The tattoo on his neck is a chronolock, which gives him time to say his goodbyes before being killed by the Quantum Shade, which takes the form of a raven. The Doctor and Clara think that Rigsy was framed, and investigate. Clara learns that the chronolock can be passed on, so she hitches a plan to take Rigsy's chronolock and they'll be fine after Ashildr promised her safety. They speak to Anahson, Anah's daughter, who confirms that Rigsy has indeed been framed, so that he could bring the Doctor to her. They discover that Anah is actually alive, in a stasis chamber, and to unlock it, the Doctor must give up the TARDIS key. As he does so, a teleport bracelet is clamped onto his wrist. Ashildr is horrified when Clara reveals that she's taken the chronlock from Rigsy, stating that the terms of the agreement change when it's passed on and it cannot be removed. Clara says her goodbyes to the Doctor, telling him not to get angry or avenge her death, and she faces the raven, collapsing to the floor, dead. The Doctor is then teleported to an unknown location.

 

The strength of this episode lies mainly with its conclusion I think. Clara being killed off was an incredibly bold move and it was executed fantastically. Her goodbye scene was emotional and the lead up to her death was fitting after the hints we'd been given throughout series 9. The rest of the episode is pretty good too, I love the idea of aliens hiding in trap streets and I think there could be scope to explore this idea further in a future episode. Rigsy was a good addition once again, and it was probably my favourite appearance of Ashildr, who I never totally warmed to otherwise. Such a shame that the wonderful ending was kinda dampened by Hell Bent - as much as I like a happy ending, Clara's death felt much more emotionally impactful without the Hell Bent events.

Both of those episodes were really boring.

 

Fsce the raven was better, but not so high.

I really like the cyberman two parter really brings home what cybermen are really about :wub: I also like Face The Raven and The Shakespeare Code both great stories and plots :wub:

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31 The Runaway Bride

2006 Christmas Special

Doctor: Tenth

Companion: Donna Noble

Also starring: Sylvia Noble

 

After a tearful goodbye to Rose, the Doctor is immediately thrown into a new adventure after a bride appears in the TARDIS. Her name is Donna and she demands that she's taken back to the wedding, getting furious with the Doctor when he tries to explain where she is. The Doctor lands the TARDIS but nowhere near the church - near a town in fact. Donna tries to find money for a taxi, so the Doctor gets it for her, but notices some familiar robot Santas, aka pilot fish. He distracts them and runs to get Donna, to find she's already in a taxi, being driven by one of the robots! He rescues her on the motorway, and gives her a biodamper so she can't be seen. She returns for the wedding reception, but is tracked down by the pilot fish as the biodamper doesn't hide the ancient huon particles inside her. After an attack from explosive baubles, the Doctor destroys the robots with incredibly high sound waves. The Doctor then discovers that Donna's workplace, H. C. Clements, is owned by the thought-to-be-defunct Torchwood Institute. Donna and fiancée Lance accompany him there. They visit a secret underground floor and find a laboratory, experimenting on huon particles. They are joined by the Empress of the Racnoss, an ancient race of spider-like aliens. Lance betrays the Doctor and Donna and they escape in the TARDIS, looking back to the creation of Earth. They see the first rock that kickstarted the planet's formation was actually a Racnoss ship, and the Empress was trying to awaken her species from the centre of the Earth with the huon particles. They return to the lair and Donna is kidnapped. She learns that Lance was preparing her as a sacrifice, slipping huon particles into her coffee every day, but Lance is sacrificed first. The Doctor saves Donna and floods the base, killing the Racnoss. The Empress ascends to her Webstar ship, which attacks London but is destroyed by the army. Donna saves the Doctor by telling him when to stop, and they escape. She refuses the chance to travel with him but urges him to find someone after losing Rose.

 

Donna is a big favourite character of mine, and one of my favourite things about her character is how much it progresses. We see it right from the start of this episode. She's shouty, loud and incredibly obnoxious at the start, but she mellows towards the end, having seen a race be wiped out (whatever the reasons) and after learning the man she loved was deceiving her the entire time. That aside, I find it a gripping episode, lots of Christmas cheer with some great comedy moments ("stop bleeping me!") and an interesting threat. I loved Sarah Parish as the Empress of the Racnoss, she was a great villain, although I guess the one thing that ruined her was the fact she barely moved from the spot she was in, but I guess that can't be helped for practical reasons :kink: Overall, a really fun Christmas episode and lots to revisit, hence why it's the highest Christmas special for me!

I still find it bizarre that they got an established actress to be coated in red and prosthetics and be part of a giant spider!!

Donna's a great character and love thst episode.

LOL watching Bad Wolf (still to come) and I was expecting Tanya Branning and Elaine the Pain but when I realised f***ing NEW MICHELLE FOWLER was the floor manager in the Weakest Link I almost DIED.

Omfg Tanya AND Michelle in it?! I had no idea either was in it!

LOL watching Bad Wolf (still to come) and I was expecting Tanya Branning and Elaine the Pain but when I realised f***ing NEW MICHELLE FOWLER was the floor manager in the Weakest Link I almost DIED.

!!!!!! omg I watched Bad Wolf the other day and it still didn't click :mellow:

 

Sorry for no new posts today guys, had about 5001 things to do :') 30 more stories to come plus a SJA review after #26 is posted.

http://www.doctorwhoreviews.altervista.org/2010-10_files/Vincent%20and%20the%20Doctor%20(1).jpg

 

30 Vincent and the Doctor

Series 5, Episode 10

Doctor: Eleventh

Companion: Amy Pond

 

The Doctor and Amy visit the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where many famous paintings and works of art are displayed, including those of Vincent van Gogh. The Doctor notices a dark figure in the church window of the The Church at Auvers painting that shouldn't be there, so in the TARDIS, they pay a trip to Vincent. They first meet him in a cafe, where he's being thrown out for once again being unable to pay. A girl is murdered outside the cafe and the locals blame Vincent and his insanity - an outcast in society. Amy is surprised to learn that his paintings are worth nothing to anyone. Amy is attacked by a creature that only Vincent can see outside, and when he's fought it off, he draws it for the Doctor, who identifies it as a Krafayis. The Doctor and Amy join him as he paints the nearby church, knowing the creature will appear because they saw it in the painting in the gallery. When the Krafayis shows up, the Doctor goes in to deal with it, but he's followed by Amy (against his wishes) and they become trapped. Vincent fights it off again, and it impales itself on Vincent's easel when it lunges at him. Vincent sympathises with it as it dies, knowing it was in fact blind, lonely and separated from its pack. As a final treat for Vincent, the Doctor and Amy take him back to the museum, and ask curator Dr. Black to explain the impact of Vincent, alongside his own personal opinion. Vincent is overwhelmed by where his art ends up, having seen his paintings hung up on the walls and hailed by Dr. Black as the greatest painter, and one of if not the greatest man who's ever lived. They return Vincent back home and revisit the art gallery one more time, with Amy hopeful that there are more paintings and they've prevented Vincent's suicide. Unfortunately that's not the case, but the Krafayis is no longer in the church painting, and there is a new message on the famous Vase with 12 Sunflowers painting - "For Amy".

 

I watched this episode a week or so ago because I wanted to do it justice in my write-up, and I know Iz in particular is a big fan. It's not actually an episode I rewatch all that often but every time I watch, I adore how touching a story it is. The historical jokes weren't quite so omnipresent (see: the "I am not amused" gags in Tooth & Claw, the constant Poirot/Marple name dropping in The Unicorn & The Wasp, etc), and it focused instead on telling a hugely impactful story about the struggles of Van Gogh. The way it portrays Vincent and his personal struggles is superb and Tony Curran was excellent in the role. The creature is good, not the most memorable really but I enjoyed Vincent sympathising with it in its final moments. However, the best scene for me, and indeed one of my favourite New Who scenes overall, will be the Doctor and Amy taking Vincent to the art gallery, to see his paintings on display many many years later. The direction is top notch and it's a genuine goosebumps moment every time I watch. Really good stuff.

Vincent and the Doctor is another episode I've really grown to love. I never really appreciated it on first watch because I was just expecting the traditional Doctor Who episode but its much more than that! I love that it really examines the life of Van Gough and helps make the monster part of that. It doesn't really matter that the monster isn't memorable because the episode is about Vincent.

 

I too ADORE the gallery scene at the end. It is beautifully done and always melts my heart.

The gallery scene where Vincent sees the impact of his creations and hears Dr Black's speech is by a long way my favourite single scene in the entire series, no hyperbole - making this episode 2nd on my overall list, and it moves me to tears every single time I watch it. The entire episode spent ages on Vincent having low self-esteem, doubting himself, believing what the people he knows in his own time tell him, that he's awful, all building up to this moment where possibly one of the greatest creative minds to have never discovered his own fame does so in a really pure moment, the Doctor using the power of time travel for some absolute good, to help a desperate man in the last months of his life know that he will be remembered.

 

The true strength of historical episodes are rarely the monsters, but more the power of the interactions between the Doctor/companions and the historical figure and this was done to perfection. I'm no art history expert but it is moments like this that make me appreciate it.

http://www.doctorwhoreviews.altervista.org/2008-02_files/The%20Fires%20of%20Pompeii%20(12).jpg

 

29 The Fires of Pompeii

Series 4, Episode 2

Doctor: Tenth

Companion: Donna Noble

 

For Donna's first proper trip in the TARDIS, the Doctor takes her to Ancient Rome. However, they soon realise they're in Pompeii, the day Mount Vesuvius erupts. Instantly this causes a problem between the Doctor and Donna - the former insists that it's a fixed event in time and they cannot stop it, but Donna argues that they should do all they can to save people. Wanting to leave, the Doctor is annoyed to realise that a merchant sold the TARDIS to a man called Caecilius. They meet Caecilius and his family - his wife Metella, their son Quintus, and their daughter Evelina, the latter of whom has been sworn to the Sibylline Sisterhood, a group of soothsayers. They are expecting the arrival of Lucius Petrus Dextrus, the local angur who has arrived to collect a sculpture, which turns out to be an oversized circuit board. Lucius displays psychic abilities, identifying the Doctor as a Time Lord and forseeing "something on your back" for Donna. After he leaves, the Doctor and Quintus head to Lucius' house to investigate, and find a number of circuit boards, which create an energy converter. Meanwhile, Donna speaks to Evelina, trying to convince her about the volcano's imminent eruption, but the Sibylline prophecy does not forsee it. A creature follows the Doctor and Quintus back after a heated argument with Lucius, and it rises out of the floor - a magma creature. Donna is kidnapped as a sacrifice, and the Doctor tracks her down to the Sibylline, where he meets the High Priestess, a woman who has been turned entirely to stone by a race called the Pyrovile, with the rest of the sisterhood on their way to that too. The Doctor and Donna escape the only way they can - through the volcano. They confront Lucius, who reveals that they plan to convert Earth into the new home for the Pyrovile, after Pyrovilia was lost. The Doctor and Donna hide inside what turns out to be an escape pod, and realise that they either have to erupt the volcano themselves and destroy Pompeii, or see the whole world conquered by the Pyrovile. They make the tough decision to erupt Vesuvius, but Donna insists that they save Caecilius and his family, and in a touching moment, the Doctor saves four people from the town who start a new life in Rome.

 

Episodes that deal with "fixed events" can be hit and miss, because sometimes it leads to a rather confusing plotline (see the entire series 6 arc with the Doctor's death), but I think this episode deals with it perfectly. Vesuvius has to erupt, it's a significant event, and everyone must die, but the prophecies don't see it coming. Why? Because it's not in the current chain of events. The Doctor and Donna making Vesuvius erupt in order to save the entire world was a huge twist and not one I saw coming, and much like Vincent, it was the character moments that really sold this episode to me. Caecilius and his family are great as supporting characters (particularly fun when you remember Capaldi's first line in Doctor Who wasn't "kidneys!" but in fact "modern art!") and Catherine Tate puts in a superb performance as she argues with the Doctor and defends what she believes should happen. The Pyrovile are pretty cool but overall they felt a bit underused. That didn't matter too much to me when the main selling point was the volcano anyway, and it's got a lot of rewatchability for me too. Shout out to the scene in the above picture, on the hill top, watching the eruption from afar.