doctor who | the m0vie blog

Doctor, Who?

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Darren

Believe me. Just believe me for twenty minutes…

My blu ray copy of Doctor Who arrived today and I am delighted. I’ve already written a review of the fifth season (and the Christmas special), but I loved it to pieces – despite its considerable flaws. I’ve done a bit of revisiting today and shall likely continue to view the episodes again later into the week. Anyway, just because I feel like celebrating, here’s a little piece of artwork I found on-line from artist Christopher Jones. I figured it was worth sharing.

Men and their screwdrivers...

Filed under: Television | Tagged: BBC America, Charles Dickens, christmas, Christmas Carol, doctor who, Eleventh Doctor, games, video games | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol

Posted on December 28, 2010 by Darren

Being honest, this Christmas special had me from the moment that Michael Gambon was announced. I might have been a little uncertain when it was stated that Stephen Moffat’s first Christmas episode would be essentially a re-telling of the Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it a great deal. That isn’t to pretend that it’s a perfect episode of Doctor Who or that there aren’t significant flaws with the hour of television, but it’s fairly entertaining, features fantastic performances and has a few clever concepts playing about – making it great for seasonal viewing.

The Ghost of Christmas past, present and future...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: a christmas carol, bbc, christmas, Christmas by medium, Doctor (Doctor Who), doctor who, michael gambon, russell t. davies, scrooge, stephen moffat, steven moffat, Television | 5 Comments »

A Matter of Time – Doctor Who: Season 5

Posted on June 26, 2010 by Darren

Sorry… Sorry! Dropped it!

Hello, Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe. But bad news everyone… cause guess who! Listenw you lot, cause you’re all whizzing about – it’s really could distracting. Could you all just stay still for a minute? Because I. am. talking!

Now, question of the hour: who’s got the Pandorica? Answer: I do. Next question: who’s coming to take it from me?

C’mon!

Look at me: no plan, no backup, no weapons worth a damn – oh, and something else I don’t have? Anything to lose! So if you’re sitting up there in all your silly little spaceships with your silly little guns and you’ve got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who’s standing in your way; remember every black day I ever stopped you; and then – and then! – do the smart thing: let somebody else try first.

– The Doctor, The Pandorica Opens

Well, the first season of Stephen Moffat’s run of Doctor Who is over. And what a ride it was. On one hand, you had budget cuts at the BBC, putting an even great financial strain on the show’s transition to high definition, the first wholsecale chance of the entire cast between seasons since the show’s transition to colour in 1970 (and, fittingly, this was the show’s transition to high definition), and you had the World Cup skewing ratings towards the backend of the season. On the other hand, you had the writer of some of the show’s best episodes directing the entire run behind the scenes, the exploration of the time travelling nature of the central protagonist, and a blatant admission that the show is more a fairytale than a science fiction epic. And along the way, there was barely enough time to catch your breath.

No time to lose...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: amy, amy pond, amy's choice, arthur darvill, autons, bbc, cold blood, daleks, doctor, doctor who, drama, family, flesh and stone, foreshadowing, matt smith, paradox, rory, rory williams, script, stephen moffat, tardis, Television, the beast below, the big bang, the doctor, the eleventh hour, the hungry earth, the lodger, the pandorica opens, the vampires of venice, the weeping angels, time, time of angels, time travel, victory of the daleks, vincent and the doctor | 9 Comments »

Reset for Adventure: Has Stephen Moffat Salvaged the Reset Button?

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Darren

Next week sees the season finale of Stephen Moffat’s first season as showrunner on the rather excellent Doctor Who. I have to admit that – with one or two minor misgivings – I’ve had a (space)whale of a time, just we’ll save that for the inevitable review. However, being the sort of meta-textual guy that I am, I love that Moffat has managed to balance both integrating this new iteration of the franchise (created and, despite what some naysayers would have you believe, served very well by Russell T. Davies) and connecting with the established history (note, for example, how many times we have seen flashbacks of the original eight versions of the character in these eleven episodes alone). What, however, has really grabbed me about this run of episodes is that fact that Moffat has seemingly decided to take one of the most common elements of Davies’ season finales – a reset button – and stretch it out over an entire season. In effect, he seems to be attempting to reclaim one the storytelling crutches that his predecessor arguably relied upon too heavily, but use it in an interesting and creative manner.

If the walls had eyes...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, crack, doctor who, eleven, matt smith, reset button, stephen moffat, storytelling. meta, Television, the crack, the pandorica opens | 2 Comments »

And the Angels did Weep: Are the Weeping Angels the first truly iconic villains of NuWho?

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Darren

The Time of Angels aired on Saturday on BBC and managed to singlehandedly demonstrate that Stephen Moffat is the master of scary Doctor Who and also that the show’s budget cuts were nowhere near crippling. Looking absolutely stunning in High Definition and looking every part, as Moffat alluded, like a big budget Hollywood blockbuster, The Time of Angels also offered the second appearance of Moffat’s own creation, the Weeping Angels, following their initial appearance in Blink a few years back. Part of me wonders if Moffat has, four hours into his first season, done what Russell T. Davies spent his entire run attempting – has he introduced a classic recurring Doctor Who monster?

Angels and demons...

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc television, blink, doctor who, flesh and stone, stephen moffat, the time of angels, the weeping angels | 2 Comments »

Sympathy for the Daleks: Steven Moffat & The Shifting Status Quo

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Darren

I suppose you could bring them back, but I’d be slightly puzzled, because they were robots that went wrong. Generally speaking, and maybe Russell wouldn’t agree with a word I’m saying right now, but my favorite Doctor Who story is the one with brand new monsters that you see once and once only. The moment you start crowding the universe with familiar monsters, I think it’s less interesting. Two of the words that you could reasonably apply to the Daleks are ‘reliably defeatable.’ You know those guys are going to lose at the last minute anyway, and you always know what they’re up to, so the best bit about bringing back old monsters is the reveal. After that, it’s all downhill. It’s like Agatha Christie deciding that the butler should always do it, because it was successful in the last book, so that’s not my favorite kind of Doctor Who story. I like brand new monsters.

– Steven Moffat

That answer comes from an interview he gave waaaay back in 2006 – about the time he was writing The Girl in the Fireplace, his second story for the relaunched Doctor Who. I don’t know if he knew then that he was heir apparent to the throne and would succeed Russell T. Davies, but I wonder if being positioned as showrunner has somewhat changed his perspective. In his inaugural year running the show, we’ve already had the return of the Daleks, three episodes in with Victory of the Daleks, next week we’ll witness Moffat returning to one of his own monstrous creations in The Time of Angels and previews have already confirmed that the Cybermen themselves – foes dating from the show’s first leading actor – will be returning as well (with Roman centurians). I’m not complaining at all (a writer as talented as Moffat can do pretty much whatever he wants and I’ll trust him), but I can’t help wondering if perhaps Moffat is playing his own long game with the franchise in his opening season.

Don't worry, this Cyberman is mostly 'armless...

Note: This article contains spoilers for the end of this week’s episode, The Victory of the Daleks, so those who haven’t caught it yet might want to look away or come back to this when they’ve seen the episode. You’ve been warned, so you have.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: cybermen, daleks, doctor who, mark gratiss, status quo, steven moffat, Television, the doctor, victory of the daleks, would! you! like! some! tea! | Leave a comment »

The Beastly Side: The Beast Below

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Darren

Remember last week how I was said I was going to wait until the end of the year to post up one big post-season analysis of Matt Smith’s first season as the Doctor? Yeah, well I’m still gonna do that. But while the episodes still give us food for thought, I might want to post my thought on a given hour (or, in this case, the first episode of the show under an hour long in about two years). Maybe next week I’ll have nothing more to post than simply the fact that spitfires in space represent the coolest concept ever.

The belly of the beast...

Note: This post contains spoilers for The Beast Below, the second episode of the fifth season of Doctor Who (and if you’re going to argue about the given season number, you know exactly which season I’m talking about). I’ll flag them in the article below before I reach them, but consider yourself warned.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, beast below, democracy, doctor who, eleven, matt smith, metaphors, starship uk, stephen moffat, Television, the beast below, the doctor, the happiness patrol, timelord, uk elections | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who? A Tennant Era Retrospective…

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Darren

Well, with The Eleventh Hour airing over the weekend, it seems like the perfect time for a reflection on the end of the Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who. I’ll probably go back and do a retrospective on the Eccleston era at some point in the future, but Tennant’s four years in the brown trenchcoat provide a fertile enough starting ground.

Has the Tenth Doctor got a screw loose?

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, christopher eccleston, david tennant, doctor who, era, regeneration, rose, rose tyler, russell t. davies, Television, ten, the doctor, the end of time, the tenth doctor | Leave a comment »

The Doctor is In: Thoughts on The Eleventh Hour…

Posted on April 3, 2010 by Darren

The Russell T. Davies era of Doctor Who is officially over. The man who revived the franchise has departed, passing the reigns to Stephen Moffat. Similiarly, David Tennant has hung up his iconic brown trechcoat, to be replaced by virtual unknown Matt Smith. The Eleventh Hour, the opening salvo of the show’s fifth season since its return to television, aired tonight on the BBC and we were impressed. Mighty impressed, might we add. This isn’t a review (I’ll do a year-end round up in about twelve weeks), just some thoughts on this new era in television’s longest running science fiction show, based on a sixty-minute opening episode – particularly on the Doctor-Companion relationship. There are minimal spoilers within.

“Anywhere you want, any time you want… one condition: it has to be amazing.”

– The Doctor

"Run!"

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: amy pond, bbc, doctor who, karen gillen, matt smith, stephen moffat, Television, the doctor, the eleventh hour | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Darren

There’s nothing necessarily bad about Planet of the Dead. Okay, there’s nothing necessarily unforgiveably terrible about the episode. It certainly isn’t anywhere near the worst episode of the show since the revival. On the other hand, there isn’t anything essential or even spectacular about it. In any given season, it would probably be mid-year filler and pass without note or scrutiny. Unfortunately we only got five of these specials, so each on seems just a little bit more important than a regular episode – even more with the countdown ticking towards David Tennant’s departure. Despite some lovely scenery and a few hints of charm and whimsy, the episode seems too much like treading water.