Eighth Doctor | the m0vie blog

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor (Review)

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Darren

Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

– Clara sums up the Moffat era in a nutshell

The Day of the Doctor was a suitable anniversary celebration for Doctor Who, feeling like Moffat had borrowed more from The Three Doctors than The Five Doctors in piecing it together, allowing for multi-Doctor interaction grafted over a fairly generic Pertwee-era alien invasion tale. (“Not now!” the Eleventh Doctor protests as the multi-Doctor tale intrudes on his paintings mystery. “I’m busy!”) In terms of scale and spectacle, The Day of the Doctor falls a little bit short. While it looks lavish and clearly had more than a little bit of money thrown at it, the episode lacks a strong central narrative thread.

Instead, it serves as a meditation on who the Doctor is and what that means in the grand scheme of things – looking at the tapestry of his life and character, and trying to reconcile everything that the show was and ever could be. It’s the story of the War Doctor in the Time War, of the death of the classic show and the birth of the new, suggesting that the rift left by the cancellation can finally be healed, that the bridge can be crossed and that wounds might finally be closed.

Well, most of them, anyway.

The Three Doctors…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, christopher eccleston, doctor, DoctorWho, Eighth Doctor, Eleventh Doctor, End of Time, Gallifrey, High Council, john hurt, Moffat, Ninth Doctor, paul mcgann, rose, tardis, Tenth Doctor, Time Lord, Time War, Tom Baker, Zygon | 11 Comments »

Doctor Who: Blood of the Daleks (Review)

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

Blood of the Daleks originally broadcast in 2006-2007.

Blood of the Daleks is an interesting piece of Doctor Who lore. It isn’t the first of Paul McGann’s audio adventures in the role of the Doctor. While McGann wasn’t the first of the performers to work with Big Finish, he recorded his first performance in 2001, half a decade before he recorded Blood of the Daleks. He’d gone through years of audio adventures and even a couple of companions before Blood of the Daleks.

Paul McGann been working on the character since before Russell T. Davies had had a chance to structure and plan the revival, and he has been a fixture of the line throughout the tenures of Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant and Matt Smith in the role. However, Blood of the Daleks marks something of a big moment for the character, a definite step forward for his version of the character, and a bold endorsement of his interpretation by the BBC.

Blood of the Daleks didn’t debut on audio CDs in collectible shops. It broadcast on BBC7, less than a week following the broadcast of The Runaway Bride.

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: bbc, Big Finish, Big Finish Productions, Blood of the Daleks, christopher eccleston, Colin Baker, Dalek, doctor, doctor who, DoctorWho, Eighth Doctor, Lucie Miller, McGann, Nicholas Briggs, paul mcgann, russell t. davies | 2 Comments »

Doctor Who: Night of the Doctor (Review)

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Darren

Night of the Doctor originally aired in 2013.

I’m a Doctor. But probably not the one you’re expecting.

– isn’t that the truth?

Paul McGann. The “sort of” Doctor; the version of the character that is highly contested by fan and casual viewer alike. With only a single televised story to his credit, produced and filmed in America, McGann was always a controversial part of Doctor Who lore. Before his face appeared in a notebook in Human Nature, there was even debate about whether or not the movie “counted” in the grand pantheon of Doctor Who.

Ironically, McGann’s Doctor has gone on to have one of the most prolific lives of any Doctor. He has appeared in Big Finish audios, webcasts and even a series of audio plays broadcast on BBC radio. McGann has had an impressive volume of output, even without counting the tie-in novels and comics featuring his character, made without his input. The state of limbo in which the character seemed to hover seemed monumentally unfair, a quirk of fate that was the result of powers far beyond those of McGann himself.

So The Night of the Doctor is a pleasant surprise, conferring the ultimate legitimacy upon Paul McGann’s interpretation of the character, effectively confirming the Eighth Doctor as the version who held the flame for the classic series, and whose regeneration marks a turning point for the show.