It’s a little surprising that after just two stories, 1964′s Doctor Who had already turned inward for the two-parter “The Edge of Destruction”/”The Brink of Disaster”. But after going to prehistoric Earth and then the planet of the Daleks in Earth’s far future, maybe it seemed like a logical next step to explore the ship [...]
Doctor Who Season 6.2 trailer This looks fantastic. Boo to the Weeping Angels and Cybermen (enough already with both of them) but yay to the minotaur, the robots (presumably related to the ones chasing Mme. de Pompadour), and River in an eyepatch (surely it’s a disguise, but if not…!!). And double yay to James Corden [...]
You can tell when you’re talking to a real Doctor Who nerd if he* rolls his eyes when you mention the second-ever Doctor Who adventure, The Daleks. It’s not the content, but the title: back in the Sixties, as with the modern two-parters, every episode had its own name. If this story had an overarching [...]
In the space between the halves of season “6″ of Doctor Who, I’m planning to watch Doctor Who, the classic series. I’m not watching in order or anything crazy like that; my collection’s nowhere near that complete. But I’m starting with the first three stories, since my girlfriend gave them to me for Christmas, and [...]
Note: This episode reveals the identity of River Song and deals heavily with Amy’s apparent pregnancy. If you haven’t seen it or been spoiled about these things already, you might not want to read this yet. I’m feeling overwhelmed about how to approach this one, so I’m going to try breaking it up into 5-minute [...]
Once again I think I’ll be alone in preferring the action-packed second half of the “morality play” two-parter (i.e., this episode and “Cold Blood”) to the clumsy, uneventful, implausible setup of the first half (i.e., “The Rebel Flesh” and “The Hungry Earth”). I think it’s easier to make the case for this one, though: even [...]
Yes, it’s the “classic” two-parter, the counterpart to last season’s Silurian story. Here are the elements that feel “classic” to me and the classic stories where we’ve seen vaguely similar things before. There’s a preexisting world here that the Doctor (apparently) stumbles into, as opposed to what feels like a pantomime arranged for his benefit. [...]
I don’t love everything Neil Gaiman’s done. Some of his post-Sandman stuff I’ve found just okay, or struck me as almost self-parodic (Coraline and Neverwhere), and some of it’s really rubbed me the wrong way or just been shockingly off-putting (Stardust and almost all of his short stories). I always enjoy him the most when, [...]
Or: Curse of the Third Episode. Okay, maybe two seasons isn’t enough to set up a curse, but this has a lot in common with “Victory of the Daleks.” Both are weaker stories following two strong season openers. Both are too rushed to build up any real suspense leading up to the twist. Both attempt [...]
(Big old spoilers ahead, sweetie.) A partial list of the questions I still have after watching this episode twice: Did Amy and Rory know just to fall down when they were shot? If so, why didn’t River get the same briefing? If not, what were they shot with and why didn’t any of the other [...]