the beast below | the m0vie blog

Doctor Who: Kill the Moon (Review)

Posted on October 4, 2014 by Darren

I don’t like people being sick in my TARDIS. No being sick. And no hanky-panky.

If The Caretaker began the transition into the second half of the season, Kill the Moon completes it. The Twelfth Doctor is established. Peter Capaldi has found his footing. The audience has a clear grasp of what distinguishes his take on the character from the iterations played by David Tennant or Matt Smith. The orderly transition of lead actors is complete; the show can no go about its business. Along with The Caretaker, Kill the Moon marks the point at which the season starts building clearly and concretely towards Death in Heaven.

This is the point at which the show feels free to get a little experimental. With the exception of Listen, the first six stories of the season were all relatively conservative. Deep Breath returned to the Paternoster Gang in order to ease the transition to the new lead. Into the Dalek was the obligatory “Dalek episode.” Although it featured a fictional celebrity, Robot of Sherwood was a throwback to the old school celebrity historical. Time Heist was a light run-around. The Caretaker was the “dump the Doctor into the real world” story.

“Yes, I’m wearing my One Direction shirt. Wanna make something of it?”

In contrast, the second-half of the season is more bold and experimental. Steven Moffat is not credited as a co-writer, suggesting that the training wheels are coming off. While the first six episodes were all written by established Doctor Who writers, the four episodes between The Caretaker and Dark Water are all credited to newbies. More than that, there is a spirit of experimentation. Kill the Moon and In the Forest of the Night are perhaps two of the most divisive and controversial episodes of the show since it returned in 2005. Only Love and Monsters comes close.

Kill the Moon is bold, provocative, insane and more than a little twisted.

David Tennant has the same tumblr photo…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: children of earth, doctor who, dvies, ethics, moon, morals, peter capladi, steven moffat, the beast below, torchwood | 10 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 »

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 »