Doctor Who: Deep Breath

Since last we spoke, loyal readers, it’s been eight months of equal parts anticipation and dread. The former because it’s a new Doctor played by an enormously talented actor whose TV résumé dates all the way back to the time when Peter Davison was still playing the part. The latter because the head writer and lead creative mind on the show is still Steven Moffat, who last time we checked in with him at Christmas proved that even he can cock-up the end of an era that he spent four years shepherding. Would he actually be able to deliver on all of the promises he’s made in the intervening months that we’d be getting a new, reinvigorated version of Doctor Who?

With only one episode down, it’s impossible to answer that question, but based on this 80-minute opener, the future looks tight. To rework some classic dialogue from the Master, an entire season of this level of quality scarcely bears thinking about. Here we’ve been blessed with an episode of Doctor Who that feels like cinema. The scenes play out for four and five minutes at a time. The script isn’t in a rush to get to the end. The performances feel as though they’re building toward something fresh and new, rather than being built upon something that previously existed. The amount of quotable dialogue could make up its own recap. And yet it’s never, ever an “everything but the kitchen sink” type of affair. It has to be one of Moffat’s finest, most restrained and well thought out Who scripts.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor Blu-ray review

Should read: "As endured on BBC America"

At Christmas, I was not a particularly happy Whovian - in direct contrast to the excitable boy I’d been back in November during the 50th Anniversary celebrations. How could Steven Moffat pen one of his greatest episodes of Doctor Who, only to follow it with one of his worst? And as the grand finale to an entire era of the series, no less? My recap for Vulture was pretty scathing, yet, believe it or not, I held back a bit for fear of coming across like a crazed, fanboy lunatic. I quickly discovered, though, through the comments section of the recap, other online commentaries, and simply chatting with friends in person and on Facebook, that I wasn’t alone: “The Time of the Doctor” appeared divisive even by often divided modern Who standards, and folks normally given to an open-minded approach to the current series were having difficulties accepting that this jumbled, frenetic mess was indeed the last hurrah for Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor.

Fast forward two months, at which point I received a review copy of the Blu-ray disc. I had only viewed the episode once back on Christmas night, as once felt painful enough (never before have I been so quick to delete an episode of Who off the DVR). So, with a fair amount of trepidation, I put on the Blu-ray and gave it another spin, in an attempt to see it with fresh eyes. My reaction this time around was not one of crushing disappointment for the material. Such a reaction can easily manifest itself in a word like hate, as in “I hated that episode so much!” Truth is, I’ve never truly hated an episode of Doctor Who, probably because hate is so not what the show is about. And this second viewing revealed that “The Time of the Doctor” wasn’t much different than all the “Silver Nemeses” and “Underworlds” that came before it. “Time” is an episode overflowing with so much good will, that hate was no longer on the table. (This does not mean I suddenly fell in love with it.) More on this later.

"You're in for a *big* surprise!"

One might think that unrealistic expectations for “Time” played a part in my initial reaction, but that wasn’t at all the case. In fact, if anything, some of that reaction had to do with fears being realized. When it was announced last summer that Smith would be leaving at Christmas, it was disheartening. We hadn’t even seen the 50^th yet, and Matt was now due to exit the TARDIS a month later. The game-changing “The Name of the Doctor” had just aired a few weeks earlier – an episode which felt as though big things were in store for Eleven. Everything seemed to be happening so fast in comparison to the exits of previous Doctors. Tennant had a lengthy series of four specials built around his exit, which culminated in a nearly two and a half hour, two-part send-off. This smacked of suddenness, reminiscent of Eccleston’s hasty exit from the series.

When November rolled around, and “The Day of the Doctor” was finally unveiled, sure enough – nothing in that monumental episode’s narrative indicated that the following episode would be the fall of the Eleventh. Quite the contrary, it ends with a Doctor who has a renewed sense of purpose. It seems obvious in hindsight, to me at least, that somewhere after shooting “Day,” during the 4 month break he took before shooting “Time,” Matt decided to leave the show, for whatever reasons. Who knows what they were? We may never find out. I know that conventional wisdom and logic dictates that these things are planned out far in advance, but if that had been the case, then why did Steven Moffat do such a sloppy job of dramatizing Matt’s exit, especially given the care that had clearly gone into the previous two episodes?

The script is as clumsy as this Cyberman

“The Time of the Doctor” feels hastily written, as though boxes are being ticked off, one by one, from one scene to the next. It’s not organic like the very best Steven Moffat writing is. Even Moffat-penned episodes that I don’t much care for are put together with considerably more thought than this. It’s like an entire season has been squished into a single episode – as if Moffat had very definite long term plans (or at least plans that extended to another season) for the Eleventh Doctor that were cut short, but he had to execute them anyway, in order to complete his vision. (For instance, he must have known for some time – perhaps since creating the War Doctor – that he would address the 13-incarnation limit at the close of Matt’s tenure.) Because I can maybe imagine a version of these events that play out over a season, and it feels more dramatically right. Maybe a town called Christmas would’ve been involved, but likely not…which brings me to another issue.

Christmas - not just the town, but the holiday, and the now ubiquitous Christmas specials. It wouldn’t be sporting to call for an end to the annual special (though it feels like the areas in which it can be taken have run their course), but please, for the love of all that is Gallifreyan, can we never again have the Doctor regenerate at Christmas? A regeneration episode should be a dangerous, difficult scenario infused with all manner of gravitas – not the treacly sort of sentimentality this was made up of. (RTD at least had the good sense to wait a week and regenerate him on New Year’s Day.) But a holiday regeneration? Never again, I say! This further underscores my above theories, which, it should be reiterated, is all they are - theories and speculation: Moffat must have begrudgingly settled on this, as I simply cannot believe that his plan all along was to have the Doctor end his regeneration cycle at Christmas. Indeed, the town called Christmas feels entirely at odds with everything concerning the doom-laden Trenzalore that was set up in “Name.”

"My turkey isn't the only thing half-baked here..."

So, either some version of the events I’ve laid out above is true, or Steven Moffat is the most incompetent dramatist in the kingdom. Now I’ve had my issues with the Moff here and there over the years, but never has my opinion of his talents changed: He is one of the best and smartest TV writers working today, which is why I must believe something along the lines of what I’ve laid out above is closer to the truth than accepting that the events as they went down in “Time” were his plan all along. It simply makes no narrative sense whatsoever, given what came before in the previous two installments.

Having gotten all of that off my chest, let’s go back to my minor reappraisal of the episode. What struck me as worthy on the second viewing was the emotion of it all, which is pretty sound. And I do believe that for a substantial portion of the viewing audience, the emotions and feelings of the series are amongst its strongest attributes, hence the reason it worked for about half the people who tuned in. Another thing that I was pretty blinded to on the first viewing was Matt’s performance, which is pretty great, especially given all the different stages of his Doctor’s life he has to wade through. I don’t think it’s the best work of his tenure by a long shot, but given the frequently subpar material he has to work with here, it’s a touching showing on his part. “The Time of the Doctor” is essentially a “Greatest Hits” package, and like all such collections, it can please in the short term on its own, but is ultimately hollow, and shown up by the bigger picture of everything that led up to it.

For me, Matt Smith’s time as the Doctor will always end with him surrounded by all of his previous selves, eagerly moving forward into a bold new direction that’s promise will hopefully be fulfilled by Moffat as we enter the Peter Capaldi era of the series later this year.

The Doctor carts around what's likely the remains of a human head for hundreds of years

Blu-ray Extras: In addition to the main program, there’s a touching “Behind the Lens” piece that runs about 13 minutes - a making-of that includes bits from the heartrending final table read, as well as the cast and crew saying goodbye to Matt on set. It will tug at your heartstrings, perhaps even more so than the episode proper. Also present are two, 45-minute BBC America-produced docs: “Tales from the TARDIS,” which features interviews with most of the previous living Doctors; and “Farewell to Matt Smith,” which is something of an overview of his era. All in all, a decent package given the asking price, and if, like me, you’re not a fan of the episode, there are at least these bonus goodies to justify the purchase.

Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor

You know that maxim that says the third movie in a trilogy will suck? It’s not a hard and fast rule, as there are plenty of movies that buck it, but likewise there are enough failures to justify the coining of the rule in the first place. I thought of that rule often while watching “The Time of the Doctor,” which, after the exhilarating one-two punch of “The Name of the Doctor” and “The Day of the Doctor,” was a letdown of, I dare suggest, epic proportions. Ambitious to a fault, it never achieves the grandeur of the previous two “… of the Doctor” episodes, though it appears hell bent on outdoing both as hard as it possibly can. And you know what they say about trying hard — actually, I’m not sure, but it must be something awful. I’ll stop short of describing the episode as just that, because there was some nice stuff nestled in between all the loud, incomprehensible bits, which were countless.

Read the rest of this recap/commentary by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray/DVD review

Surely the one thing that every Doctor Who fan will want this Christmas, “The Day of the Doctor” on DVD or Blu-ray is the perfect stocking stuffer for fans of all things Time Lord, TARDIS, and Tennant. On the weekend of the 50^th, I only had a night and a morning to collect and figure out my thoughts in order to craft a recap for Vulture, but I’ve had plenty of time to ponder it since. Further, I saw it theatrically in 3D (as transcendent and religious an experience as an atheist Whovian can have, I imagine), and numerous times on the DVR and now this disc. I can’t recall the last time I wanted to watch an episode of new Who so many times, which must surely speak to the quality of the anniversary episode.

What gets me about this anniversary story is how it’s so much better by leaps and bounds than its predecessors. It’s often said that new Who isn’t as good as old Who, but then even back when the classic series was still on, people were saying “it isn’t as a good as it used to be.” But “The Day of the Doctor” is such a vastly superior anniversary offering than either of its multi-Doc predecessors (I’m not bringing “The Two Doctors” into the equation since it was a slightly different animal), that it’s a clear instance of an area where the new series blows away the classic – how the complexities of today’s storytelling trumps the days of old. No, new Who isn’t always better than classic, but nor is it always inferior, and here we have a sterling example of new trumping old. “The Day of the Doctor” is proof of how much life is left in this beast called Doctor Who, and it appears to be vast quantities.

I can’t recall if I shared this with Morgue readers before, but it’s a lengthy quote from Steven Moffat that I got from a conference call I was on with him. This was from back before the second half of season seven had kicked off, and someone asked a question about the upcoming anniversary special. Moffat's reply?

“The show must never feel old. It must always feel brand new, and a 50th anniversary can play against that. The show must be seen to be going forward. It's all about the next 50 years, not about the last 50 years. If you start putting a full stop on it, if you start thinking it's all about nostalgia, then you're finished. It's about moving forward. So, you know, the Doctor is moving forward as he always does…he's not thinking about all his previous incarnations and his previous adventures, he's thinking about the future. And that, for me, is important.”

And it was so refreshing to see that philosophy he espoused so many months ago finally play out onscreen, almost to the letter. The show that is seemingly more ancient than any other, once again feels fresh, and the load the Doctor has carried since the start of the new series has been lifted. It will hopefully be fascinating to see how this all plays out in the coming years.

As far as the Blu-ray goes, it’s difficult to imagine anyone being disappointed with the DTS-HD 5.1 sound or the 1080p video, though I don’t have a 3D capable TV, so I wasn’t able to explore that avenue of the disc; there’s so much more to this story than its 3D draw anyway. It seems unlikely that “The Day of the Doctor” will end up on any sort of season box set anytime soon, so whereas I might normally suggest that you could always wait a few months for the eventual season box set release, that seems less of an option for this title. Who knows? It may not even end up on the eventual season eight box set (which likely won’t even be released until 2015). So this is an easy recommendation: Your collection craves this set. 

Blu-ray/DVD Extras: Normally minisodes are fun but ultimately a little forgettable. With this disc, however, we get one that’s downright imperative viewing, and that’s “The Night of the Doctor,” which was released a week and a half prior to “Day.” Featuring the return of Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, and showing his regeneration into John Hurt’s War Doctor, “Night” is the sort of thing Who dreams are made of, and it’s a brilliant prequel to “Day,” and its inclusion on this set, while not necessary, is surely the most welcome extra. I imagine some people will buy this disc especially for it, in fact. The other minisode, “The Last Day,” got sort of lost in much of the celebratory shuffle, but it’s set on Gallifrey in the midst of the Time War, and provides a bit of extra shading for the main feature. Indeed, watching both of these minis in order prior to the special proper is the way to do it.

Additionally, there’s the 45-minute “Doctor Who Explained” talking heads documentary produced by and shown on BBC America, and the 14-minute “Behind the Scenes” [of “The Day of the Doctor”] narrated by Colin Baker, which was shown theatrically, after the anniversary special (though the disc has neither of the pre-show featurette bits with Strax and Smith & Tennant). Lastly, there’s the “Day” trailer that was first screened at Comic-Con this summer, as well as that awesome collage teaser trailer that seemingly dragged us all the way through the Doctors many lives in just one minute, and ended with Smith pointing his screwdriver at the heavens.

Finally, this early edition contains a deck of twelve trading cards – one for each Doctor, including Hurt - that assemble together to make one large collage.

The only thing this set is missing – and its inclusion would’ve taken it right up over the top - is “The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot,” written and directed by Peter Davison. Let's hope that makes its way onto home video in some form or fashion, as it was integral to the anniversary celebrations.

Note: All of the above extras are included on both the Blu-ray and the DVD inside the set.

Doctor Who: The Doctors Revisited - Ninth to Eleventh DVD review

After two volumes of “The Doctors Revisited,” featuring classic stories with classic Doctors, we reach the third and presumably final volume of this series, which features the three modern Doctors who’ve so dominated the landscape of Doctor Who since the show was resuscitated back in 2005. This is also the toughest of the three to recommend, simply because most people either have these on DVD or Blu-ray, or have access to these stories already via Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Amazon Prime. Further, these episodes frequently play on BBC America. So it would be very easy to view this set as redundant to your collection, and yet it had to be released.

If I know Doctor Who fans, those who picked up the first two volumes will look down at them and feel something’s missing if they don’t buy the third. After all, there are three half-hour talking head documentaries on here, covering the eras of Eccleston, Tennant, and Smith, which are part of the tapestry of “The Doctors Revisited” series. And there are also the fridge magnets – we mustn’t forget the fridge magnets! Indeed, the other eight magnets are going to look mighty incomplete without the final four - the last of which is a collage of all eleven Doctors (see pics below).

The storylines featured in this set are: “Bad Wolf” / “The Parting of the Ways” which closed out Season One; “The Stolen Earth” / “Journey’s End” which closed out Season Four; and “The Impossible Astronaut” / “Day of the Moon” which kicked off Season Six – all presented here in movie length edits as well as in their original two-part versions.

Fridge Magnets, 9-11

Also, it’s worth mentioning, even though it seems obvious to me, that all of the aspect ratio and quality issues I had with portions of the previous two collections do not apply to this set. In fact, these might look even better than some of the older DVDs (in particular the Eccleston two-parter – though admittedly I didn’t do any comparisons.) And the feature length movie versions have seamlessly married the two episodes together, which I was sort of skeptical about them being able to pull off, so basically you get what feels very much like three Doctor Who movies.  

There’s not too much to complain about here, except that since this set is comprised of three discs rather than four, the retail price point really shouldn’t be the same as the previous collections, though it is. Surely $34.95 or even $29.95 would have been a better move? Especially given that with this set, people are likely being asked to double dip. Well, we’ll leave that to you and your wallet or purse to figure out.

Check out the previous “The Doctors Revisited” DVD reviews by clicking here and here.

The entire collection of "The Doctors Revisited" fridge magnets on my hideous yellow filing cabinet

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor

From the very first moments of “The Day of the Doctor,” it was pretty obvious we were in for something special. They dared to go old school, with Hartnell-era style credits, coupled with a classic London bobby walking past a sign pointing toward the Totters Lane junkyard, which was then revealed to be on a wall outside Coal Hill Secondary School – all nods to the very first episode, “An Unearthly Child.” But things got modern quickly, upon discovering that we were not in the past, but the present, and Clara (Jenna Coleman) is now teaching at the school, gracing the very same hallways and classrooms as her predecessors Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright did 50 years ago (there’s actually a shout out to Ian on the Coal Hill sign if you look closely).

What happened to the Doctor and Clara being caught in his timestream at the close of “The Name of the Doctor”? Seems some time has passed, and some escapades have been glossed over. It’s business as usual, and Clara is off on a motorbike (the same one from “The Bells of Saint John,” right?) and into the TARDIS for more adventures. Soon enough she and the Doctor (Matt Smith) are on one, when they realize the TARDIS is caught in the grip of a crane attached to a helicopter, and they’re being dragged to UNIT HQ by Kate Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), which was a far more thrilling sequence than expected. Or are they? Kate’s acting on orders from the Queen – Queen Elizabeth I, that is.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: The Complete Seventh Series Blu-ray review

Though all the episodes contained within this set have been available on several different platforms for a while now, for a lot of patient fans, this is the collection they’ve been waiting for – the one with all the goodies, which everyone knows will eventually hit the market. But just how good are the goodies? Hang tight. We’ll get there.

First, some stray paragraphs/thoughts about Season Seven. I’ve made no secret of my dislike for Season Six, or conversely, how much I enjoyed the bulk of Season Seven (I have issues with certain episodes, sure, but that’s the case with any season of this series). The biggest reason I disliked much of Season Six is because its overarching storyline felt too convoluted. Season Seven was very much the opposite of this – a collection of largely standalone episodes, with some connections and arcs that ultimately have little effect on the drama of the individual installments. Doctor Who, it’s my belief, simply works better this way. Not every series should strive for the complexity of Battlestar Galactica or Lost, and Doctor Who just seems to dramatically work better the cleaner and more efficiently it’s presented.

Having said that, one thing Steven Moffat has done with the structures of each of his seasons so far is experiment – which is something Russell T Davies didn’t really do. In fact, for those of you who were around at the time, I recall that we all felt a bit weary of the nearly identical structure of his seasons by the time the Fourth (with Catherine Tate) rolled around (i.e. opening sci-fi romp followed by trip to history followed by action-packed two-parter and later on another two-parter that’s darker and deeper, a Doctor-lite episode, and then of course the big “everything and the kitchen sink” finale that pays off the seasonal mystery (Bad Wolf/Torchwood/Harold Saxon/Rose’s return). Moffat, to his credit, keeps us guessing – not just with his individual episodes, but in the way he’s plotted each season as a whole so far. It stands to reason that with Season Eight, he will do it yet another way.

Season Seven - from “Asylum of the Daleks” all the way through to “The Name of the Doctor” - is quite the ride, particularly in regards to how the character of Clara was introduced to us…and then reintroduced, and then reintroduced again. I like that the Christmas special “The Snowmen” functions as a necessary dramatic component of the storyline, and doesn’t feel like a complete one-off as so many of them often do. I enjoy how part of the season is one thing, and the other part of the season is something else entirely. And then there’s a finale that’s been built up to since the Season Six finale that seems to take the show to a whole new place, as it sets up the 50^th, which we now know will be titled “The Day of the Doctor.” Indeed, for a series whose history is rooted in the art of the cliffhanger, new Doctor Who has never really ended a season on one. A freshly regenerated Doctor is not a cliffhanger, nor is stuff like Donna suddenly appearing, or the Titantic crashing into the TARDIS - both of which are too silly to be taken seriously. Here we’ve been given one of the great cliffhangers in sci-fi TV history – the reveal at the close of “The Name of the Doctor” is right up there with Picard being turned into Locutus.     

Over at Vulture where I’ve been writing Who recaps, a commenter recently complained that an episode I’d given high marks to was merely “a monster of the week,” and therefore I was being too generous. Doctor Who was built on Monster of the Week. That’s what the show is, and has largely always been. This is another reason I take issue with Season Six – it somehow seemed to “train” some viewers into thinking that a labyrinthine, character-driven storyline is somehow what this show should strive to be. Season Six was an experiment – not a failed one by any means, but not an entirely successful one either. Having been a fan for over half my life, Season Seven as a whole is much closer to my sensibilities, but then that’s sort of the rub with this show – what works for me, may not work for you, and vice versa. It could be an episode we vehemently disagree on, or an ongoing story thread, or it could be a character, or even a piece of dialogue. It seems that all the many elements that come together to make this program mean something different to everyone that views it. This is one of the strongest testaments I can think of for Doctor Who: It’s the show that actually does have something for everyone. Didn’t like an episode? Just sit tight, because there’s one coming up that you’re gonna adore.

So I suppose this was my rather disjointed attempt at explaining why this season works for me, when clearly it didn’t always appear to work for the entire audience. Moving on to the goods…

Blu-ray Extras: For the first time on Blu-ray, a season of the series is being presented in 1080p, rather than 1080i. (Likewise, the massive Blu-ray box set of the entire new series that’s being released in November will also be in 1080p.) While this is potentially good news, if I’m being honest, I have to say I cannot tell the difference from the previous 1080i discs: the show looked spectacular in high-def before, and it looks (and sounds) spectacular now. Doctor Who remains one of the most visually dazzling shows on TV, and there’s simply no better way to experience it than via these Blu-ray sets.

Most exciting are the three new minisodes here: “INFORARIUM” is a clever, Moffat-y bit featuring the Doctor removing info about himself from the timeline of the universe; “Clara and the TARDIS” is a “discussion” between the pair – sure to rumple the feathers of a fan or two; and lastly there’s “Rain Gods,” which is a fun bit with the Doctor and River on a brief adventure to an alien world.

Two short featurettes were certainly new to me. “The Last Days of the Ponds” is an emotional behind the scenes look at Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill’s last days working on the show. I dare suggest it is actually more moving than “The Angels Take Manhattan,” but by no means take that as gospel. “Creating Clara,” with Jenna Coleman, is sort of self explanatory. There are also 14 short making-of docs (one for each episode [sans “Wardrobe”], including “Clara’s White Christmas,” which previously featured on “The Snowmen” disc) that together total about 55 minutes.

There are four commentary tracks spread throughout the set. “The Snowmen” features production designer Michael Pickwoad and art director Paul Spriggs. “Cold War” features writer Mark Gatiss, VFX supervisor Murray Barber, and VFX producer Jenna Powell. “Hide” somewhat surprisingly features Matt Smith gabbing with director Jamie Payne, who’ll also be directing this year’s Christmas special – the final tale of the Eleventh. And “The Crimson Horror” features the lovely trio of Neve McIntosh (Vastra), Dan Starkey (Strax), and Catrin Stewart (Jenny). All in all, not a total letdown on the commentary front, but not as exciting a lineup as I can imagine in my mind (none of the key episodes - “Asylum,” “Angels,” “Name” - of the season have commentaries, which is a bit of a shame).

Further, all the appropriate minisodes and prequels from previous Blu-rays and DVDs are presented here, as well as “She Said, He Said” and “Demon’s Run: Two Days Later,” which are both making their home video debuts (both were available on the internet.) Full-length specials from BBC America making their home video debuts are “Doctor Who in the U.S.” and “The Companions,” while “The Science of Doctor Who” and “Doctor Who at Comic Con,” both previously available on the “Series Seven, Part One” disc, are repeated here. Also present are two interviews with Smith and one from Coleman, all from the show The Nerdist.

If you purchased the previous vanilla releases and choose to upgrade, feel free to trade in or pass on those old discs – except for “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe,” which you may want to hang onto, as the three BBC America specials presented on that disc are not duplicated here.

Doctor Who: The Green Death Special Edition DVD review

Though “The Green Death” wasn’t the end of the Jon Pertwee/Barry Letts era of Doctor Who, it was most definitely an end. An entire story was crafted around the wing spreading, falling in love, and exit of Katy Manning’s Jo Grant, and it hung its heart so slavishly on its sleeve that even though it wasn’t the first time the show had done something of this ilk (Susan in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”), it sure felt like it. While “The Green Death” may not be the pinnacle of the Pertwee era, surely it’s in his Top Five stories, and as such is more than deserving of some double-dip, special edition love, of which there’s plenty to be found on this two-disc set.

With Jo Grant leading the charge, the Doctor and UNIT head to the Welsh coal mining village of Llanfairfach, where a miner has died in an accident – his dead body glowing bright green. The nearby Global Chemicals plead ignorance while promising a rich, oil-driven future for planet Earth. But dashing Professor Clifford Jones (Stewart Bevan, Manning’s real life beau at the time) and his band of hippie genius followers have plenty to say on all matters global, chemical and fungal. Meanwhile, something else is stirring below the planet’s surface – something more horrific than anyone is even aware, and behind the scenes at Global Chemicals, there’s the mysterious, possibly maniacal BOSS…

Affectionately known by many as “the one with the maggots,” “The Green Death” is so much more than that – though the fact that it’s known as such does speak to how creepily brought to life the nasty critters are. Aside from being a smashing, character-driven love story, “The Green Death” is also an ecological wake up call and a taking to task of the corporate mentality – aspects of it that, while occasionally dated from an execution standpoint, remain as timely as ever in this Monsanto/Koch Brothers-driven climate of fear and paranoia. More so than any other of the series, the Barry Letts era often ruminated on important issues and issued corporate indictments while telling its thrilling action adventure stories, and I’m not sure that any of them conveyed such messages as eloquently as “The Green Death.” Much cinematic sci-fi of the early seventies (Soylent Green, Silent Running) went down similar roads, so it’s entirely fitting that Doctor Who was doing the same.

Does it have minuses? Sure. There are numerous instances of terrible CSO work – stuff that to my eyes could easily have been avoided, but then I’m no expert on the ins and outs of this serial’s production schedule. The flying critters that the maggots morph into in episode six are not terribly convincing. The actor (Tony Adams) playing the rather prominent role of Elgin fell sick somewhere after recording episode four, leaving the production in a lurch. They were forced to create a new character for episode five to take his place, giving Elgin an unfinished story arc, and emphasis placed on a different character we’ve nothing invested in.

Katy Manning and Stewart Bevan

But none of those things even come close to taking away from the heartfelt story of a young girl who once upon a time met a brilliant scientist that whisked her away to distant worlds – a young girl who eventually grew up and fell for another brilliant scientist that offered to take her on a whole new set of adventures, including marriage - all while her mentor slips away quietly into the night. Yes, Jo Grant grew up, and so did Doctor Who and us, right along with her. “The Green Death” is truly a “very special episode” of Doctor Who, and now it exists in a very special edition. Read on… 

DVD Extras: Everything from the previous edition – such as the commentary track with Manning, Letts and Terrance Dicks, and the faux-doc “Global Conspiracy!” starring the increasingly ubiquitous Mark Gatiss – have been ported over. A new, proper making-of entitled (of course) “The One With the Maggots” is a loving look back, featuring all manner of cast and crew. A short bit entitled “Wales Today” consists of some silent location footage from “The Green Death,” as well as a news report about Pertwee returning to the location in Wales 20 years later. “What Katy Did Next” is a brief news report on her leaving the show, as well as a clip from an arts and crafts program she hosted after leaving Who called Serendipity. Another installment of “Doctor Forever!” focuses entirely on the attempts of Russell T. Davies and then BBC Controller of Drama Jane Tranter to bring Doctor Who back from the dead, as seen through their eyes. A fascinating story this one is. You’ll be amazed the revival got off the ground at all, given the sheer amount of negativity that surrounded them.

Death of the Doctor

Speaking of Davies – all hail RTD! Not only are both episodes of the Season Four Sarah Jane Adventures story “Death of the Doctor,” guest starring Matt Smith & Katy Manning and written by RTD, on here, but RTD and Manning recorded commentary tracks for both – as well as for “The Green Death” episode six! So, yes, for nearly 90 minutes you get to listen to the pair of them gab, and the love and emotion and the stories and the utterly riotous laughter they share are all just so bloody infectious; it’s well worth the upgrade for these three tracks alone. And, yes, there’s plenty of talk about Elisabeth Sladen. Might want to keep a box of tissues handy…“Death of the Doctor” is an outstanding post-script to the story of Jo Grant, and its inclusion here is not only appreciated, but perhaps also warranted.

Richard Franklin and Jon Pertwee - you gotta see this!

Further, there are more new commentary tracks on episodes three, four and five of “The Green Death” featuring Richard Franklin (Mike Yates), actress Mitzi McKenzie (who plays Nancy), and visual effects designer Colin Mapson, all moderated by Toby Hadoke, who clearly at this point has one of the coolest jobs on the planet. There are also Radio Times listings in PDF form, a slighty longer photo gallery, and a coming soon trailer for next month’s release of “The Ice Warriors.”

Doctor Who: "The Snowmen" & "Series Seven, Part Two" Blu-ray reviews

Having written recent extensive recaps of over a thousand words apiece on each of the episodes contained within these Blu-rays (you can find them at Vulture by clicking here), I’m not going to rehash that dialogue once again. Indeed, in rewatching all nine of these episodes, I found my opinions haven’t changed much at all. The Christmas special, “The Snowmen,” is flawed, but ultimately saved by a group of enjoyable protagonists (Jenna-Louise Coleman’s Victorian Clara remains a major high point). The eight episodes contained within the “Series Seven, Part Two” set remain – for me anyway – a largely strong run of stories, several of which rank among the very best of the Moffat era. Clearly, fan opinion is divided on that assertion, and you probably already know whether or not you agree with me. Having said that, if you’re a fan and you didn’t care for what you viewed over the past couple months, perhaps it wouldn’t be an entirely bad idea to give them another go, with the heavy burden of expectation divorced from the viewing experience.

Originally, all nine of these episodes were announced for release in a single set. That quickly changed when, I guess, the bean counters realized that could make a few more bucks by releasing “The Snowmen” separately as they have some of the previous Christmas specials. Only problem is, “The Christmas Carol” disc offered up an entire Proms concert as an extra, and “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe” included three, 45-minute talking head docs. In both cases, they were nice extras that went quite a way toward justifying entirely separate releases. Not so with “The Snowmen,” which offers up less than 10 minutes of bonus material. There’s a brief making-of entitled “Clara’s White Christmas,” and two prequels to the episode: “Vastra Investigates,” which premiered online; and “The Great Detective,” which debuted on Children in Need. Absent and very much missed is the online short “Demon’s Run: Two Days Later” which explains how the Sontaran Strax was brought back to life (or rather how he wasn’t actually killed in the first place).

Further, “The Snowmen” should have been included in the “Series Seven, Part Two” set because narratively it’s a big part of that story arc, whereas the previous Moffat holiday offerings were very much standalone tales. Bad, bad BBC Worldwide - I wag my finger at you! The “Series Seven, Part Two” set is equally lean on extras, offering up only two shorts: the arguably lame “The Bells of Saint John” prequel, which features the Doctor running into a young Clara on a playground; and a prequel that’s making its debut on this collection - “Clarence and The Whispermen,” which spells out a relationship between the psychopath and the creepy villains that was only hinted at in the season finale. Frankly, I’m not surprised it was ultimately decided to not play it on the interwebs. By Doctor Who standards it is quite unnerving and feels more like something to come from the mind of Clive Barker rather than Steven Moffat. Perhaps more importantly, though, it would’ve taken something away from the shock of the Whispermen in the episode proper to have already been introduced to them. Once again, though, a prequel is M.I.A. here, and that’s the “She Said, He Said” piece that debuted a few days before the finale. I imagine both it and the “Demons Run” bit will show up on the Complete Series Seven collection which will hit later this year.

As always, these discs are nice and sparkling crystal clear, with fantastic 5.1 audio tracks. There’s no better way to experience these episodes than on Blu-ray, which certainly trumps viewing them on BBC America with commercials. Though a DVR can alleviate that problem to a degree, one still ends up with tiny little breaks in places where they don’t belong. Doctor Who simply isn’t designed to be cut up in that manner. Obviously we’ve all been down this road many times before – you can either buy these now, or you can wait six months for the full Season Seven collection, which, as I understand it, will also include “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.” Personally, I’m extremely happy to have these for summer viewing, and would hate to be without high def versions of these episodes as I wait patiently for the 50^th anniversary special.

Doctor Who: The Name of the Doctor

“The show must never feel old. It must always feel brand new, and a 50th anniversary can play against that. The show must be seen to be going forward. It's all about the next 50 years, not about the last 50 years. If you start putting a full stop on it, if you start thinking it's all about nostalgia, then you're finished. It's about moving forward. The Doctor is moving forward as he always does, and he wants to solve the mystery of Clara. He's not thinking about all his previous incarnations and his previous adventures, he's thinking about the future. And that, for me, is important.” – Steven Moffat

I don’t always agree with Moffat, and my initial reaction to this statement was, “This is just his rationalization for not including the classic Doctors in the 50th!” But I thought on it, and then thought some more, and realized that wasn’t what he was addressing. No producer of Doctor Who wants to see the show die on their watch. A big part of the Who producer’s job – even if it’s not implicitly stated in the contract – is to keep the show healthy, and keep it moving forward, so that there’s something for the next person to work with.

“The Name of the Doctor” is that kind of story. It’s less about summing up this season, and more about looking towards the future by showing us the Doctor’s eventual fate, revealed by pointing the spotlight on the place his remains will end up at the close of his mind-bogglingly long life. The death of the Doctor is of paramount importance at this stage of Doctor Who, and it’s central to this particular story in which numerous characters die and are brought back to life, which I didn’t care for, but we’ll get to that. Right now I want to discuss a specific fanxiety I’ve felt since the series started again in 2005, and how “The Name of the Doctor” has helped alleviate it to a degree.

Read the entire recap for Doctor Who's Season Seven finale by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: Nightmare in Silver

Neil Gaiman has, over the course of his career, become a brand name unto himself – one that may even match Doctor Who in terms of fan devotion and popularity. Bringing these two “brands” together leads to well deserved shrieks of delight and an almost stomach-churning sense of anticipation, for if a slick fantasist like Gaiman cannot do Doctor Who justice, then who can?

“In terms of how Doctor Who and the mythos of Doctor Who has influenced my writing, I think it’s impossible for me to say because I have no idea, there’s no control out there. I can’t actually ever get to meet Neil Gaiman who, at the age of 3, wasn’t watching Doctor Who, at the age of 4 wasn’t imagining how things can be bigger on the inside, at the age of 5, wasn’t buying a copy or persuading his father to buy a copy of the Dalek World annual on Victoria Station. And taking it home and studying it and learning all about Daleks, and discovering that Daleks couldn’t see the color red, and then writing about the red Daleks and whether they were invisible to their friends, and discovering that measles was a Dalek disease. And not lots of people know, but I learned that because I read it in the Dalek World Anthology.” - Gaiman

Know upfront that I’m not a Gaiman disciple, but have partaken in some of his work over the years, have particular affinity toward his ’96 BBC miniseries Neverwhere, and appreciated, but wasn’t bowled over by his previous Who contribution, “The Doctor’s Wife” (the production didn’t quite live up to his script and its ideas, but then the same has been said of Neverwhere). Nothing of the sort plagues “Nightmare in Silver,” which I’m utterly, madly delighted about. This tale of broken people (and ex-people) coming back to life is the unquestionable highlight of the season so far, though both “Asylum of the Daleks” and “Cold War” still rate pretty high. Who’d have guessed the peaks of season seven would be the stories featuring all the classic villains? If nothing else, it demonstrates why Doctor Who deserves such a fervent, passionate celebration of its 50 years – because the conceptual promises of the series’ earliest seasons can still be taken to conclusions that are as exciting to viewers today as they were to the viewers of the '60s and '70s.

Read the rest of this recap - which includes many more excerpts from a Gaiman conference call I participated in earlier this week - by clicking here and visiting Vulture. 

Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror

It’s been a while since I’ve been this dually stoked and let down by an episode of Doctor Who. The last time may have been “Victory of the Daleks,” which suffered from a similar schizophrenia and was also written by Mark Gatiss, whom I slobbered all over just a few weeks ago thanks to his script for “Cold War.” “The Crimson Horror” is a marvelous, almost jaw-droppingly innovative episode … for about the first half of its running time. In its second half it falls victim to horribly clichéd villainy and stock evil sci-fi plans, that all feels like it’s been done before, probably because it has.

Before dwelling on the bad, let’s revel in the good, of which there’s a fair amount. At this point, any episode showcasing Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh), Jenny (Catrin Stewart), and Strax (Dan Starkey) is an episode worth tuning into. There may be a point at which there’s nothing interesting left for the series to do with these characters, but that’s a long way off. Talk of a spinoff series set around this trio is a given, but it’s difficult to tell if it could actually work week in and out. Despite them figuring heavily into this tale, we’re not much closer to finding out after this viewing, as once the Doctor showed up, they were each marginalized to some degree or other. (Bit of a shame this wasn’t a true “Doctor-lite” episode such as “Blink” or “Love & Monsters” from RTD days of old.)

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

Since “Let’s Kill Hitler,” Steven Moffat’s been playing around with what I believe he once referred to as “sexy” episode titles – phrases chosen to provoke instantaneous fannish excitement. “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” from earlier this season was one. The upcoming season finale, “The Name of the Doctor,” is another obvious example. When the title “Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS” was unveiled last year, one can only imagine the myriad deafening sounds of squee that registered across the land. How big is the TARDIS, and what’s beyond the console room? The TARDIS is infinite, so even within the confines of an episode devoted to that exploration, it still feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface…but that doesn’t mean the production team didn’t do a pretty sweet job of making that scratch.

Steven Moffat said that the entire idea for the episode emerged from his feelings of childhood disappointment over the Tom Baker serial “The Invasion of Time,” which featured an extensive – albeit mostly unimpressive – journey through the TARDIS. To be fair to that serial and at the same time taking Moffat ever so slightly to task, it was the first time viewers saw the TARDIS swimming pool, so due credit must be given for that alone. That swimming pool was clearly important enough to Moffat’s imagination that he used it in “The Eleventh Hour” - in the very first moments of his era of Doctor Who, and it’s been referenced numerous times since, and it was shown once again here.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: Hide

Well, now we have an idea of the type of Doctor Who yarns Neil Cross is interested in spinning, since he’s delivered two scripts in a row with thematic similarities. Though “Hide” played two episodes after “The Rings of Akhaten” in the season, Cross wrote it prior to “Rings.” Apparently Steven Moffat and Co. were so happy with the first script, they offered him another. Once again, with “Hide,” we’re seeing the dissolving of a belief system, only here it’s on a smaller scale. Hopefully the Doctor won’t leave too much rampant chaos in his wake. (How did the Ahkatenians cope after the Doctor exited, just after shattering everything their culture ever believed in?) Further, both stories have contained these heavy, seemingly fate-fueled romances. Perhaps Moffat felt Cross did such a fine job of playing with those dynamics in this script, that he’d be an ideal man to breathe life into the doomed romance of Clara’s parents (which he was).

Last week the Doctor and Clara visited 1983, and now they’ve gone back yet another decade, to 1974. These journeys to recent times add a different texture to the series, by bringing a much more familiar feel than trips to the distant past. Arriving at the allegedly haunted Caliburn house, the duo encounters a pair not entirely dissimilar from themselves: Professor Alec Palmer, an ex-spy played by Dougray Scott, the man who missed out on being both James Bond and Wolverine, and his assistant, Emma Grayling (both such wonderful character names!), an empathic psychic brought to life by Jessica Raine, the star of PBS’s Call the Midwife.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: Cold War

"My world is dead, but now there will be a second red planet – red with the blood of humanity!" - Grand Marshal Skaldak

File my instantaneous, mad love for “Cold War” under “Didn’t See It Coming,” because I was hedging bets this episode would be a letdown, especially after the flirtation with greatness that was “The Rings of Akhaten” (an episode that’s grown on me enormously over the past week). Surely the series couldn’t produce two straight weeks of awesomeness? Also, it’s written by Mark Gatiss, whose Who scripts I’ve had issues with more often than not. But not here, not this time, not at all. He got it just right. I want to declare “Cold War” an instant classic, right here and now, and deem it one of the triumphs of the Steven Moffat era, despite the era not having ended yet. It’s everything that’s ever been great about Doctor Who, and basically none of what’s been deficient about it. If the show could be this straightforward, intelligent and unsettling more often, it’d be all the better for it.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten

It’s always potentially exciting when a new writer climbs aboard the good ship TARDIS, since there’s a possibility he sees Doctor Who in a way that nobody has before. Neil Cross is best known to Americans as the creator and writer of the Emmy-nominated, Idris Elba-starring character crime drama Luther – a series that might as well be described as the polar opposite of Doctor Who. What could a guy like this possibly bring to the table? It’s like pondering what Buck Rogers might be like as seen through the eyes of David Chase. Whatever one might have had in mind based on a familiarity with Luther, “The Rings of Akhaten” must surely be 180 degrees in yet another direction.

This tale set on a distant alien world begins much closer to home, but some years ago, in 1981. Picking up not long after last week’s episode ended (though really, with this era of Who, making guesses about the timeline feels increasingly a fool’s errand), the Doctor (Matt Smith) takes a lengthy detour through Clara’s (Jenna-Louise Coleman) past. The pre-credits sequence in a way recalls that sequence in Pixar’s Up - the one that reduces grown men to quivering heaps of tear-stained flesh.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: The Bells of Saint John

Steven Moffat said in numerous interviews in recent weeks that “The Bells of Saint John” was as close as Doctor Who could get to James Bond. I don’t know about all that, but the episode does sport some nifty action sequences, there’s a great deal of running to and fro, and the mechanics of it all work as long as you don’t analyze them too closely, which opens the door to a special kind of hell for those of us who must write about this show.

What the episode really smacks of is Russell T Davies. This is the closest thing that’s been done on Moffat’s watch to what Davies was often doing before him. It’s as if Moffat was haunted by the ghost of “Partners in Crime” while he plotted this, which isn’t a bad thing, because this style of action romp/social commentary has been missed. If anything, in the past it was easy to take these sorts of stories for granted, because they appeared so effortlessly written. Moffat’s guiding hand isn’t quite as steady as Davies for this kind of material, but as season openers go, it more or less accomplished what it set out to do. Oh yeah, that’s right…this isn’t a season opener. Though we’re still in the middle of season seven, “The Bells of Saint John” has that “the story’s starting over” vibe; the sort of thing you’d feel at the top of a new season.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture.

Doctor Who: The Snowmen

Back when it was announced that Steven Moffat was taking over for Russell T. Davies, he made a comment in an early interview about how his take on Doctor Who would be like a series of “dark fairy tales.” Likely realizing that phrase wasn’t the most conducive to garnering sci-fi fan support, he recanted the statement not long after, saying he’d misspoke, or whatever kind of jive doublespeak a showrunner uses when he has to cover his ass. In any case, while Moffat’s version of the series proper doesn’t warrant the label, his Christmas specials are most certainly dark fairy tales, and “The Snowmen” continues the tradition, although it centers around a Doctor in a decidedly less-than-festive mood.

The episode stops short of transforming the Doctor into a Grinch, which is a shame, because it would’ve been a bold move to showcase a Doctor with no patience for the holidays whatsoever — a harsh contrast to his attitude in all the Christmas specials that have come before. This is also one of the least Christmas-y Christmas specials yet, with only a couple throwaway lines referencing the season; drawing attention to the holiday would have been akin to throwing it in the Doctor’s face, and he’d then have had to demonstrate some annoyance with it. Variations on the rally cry “He should’ve done it this way … ” are commonplace now, seemingly with each new episode, so it’s probably better to not focus on what wasn’t but rather what was, otherwise I could be here for hours.

Read the rest of this recap by clicking here and visiting Vulture. 

Doctor Who: Series Seven, Part One Blu-ray Review

Having recapped/reviewed all five of these episodes for Vulture back in September, I’m not going to talk specifically about each of them, but since the folks at BBC America were kind enough to slide me a review copy of this set, it seemed like the decent thing to do would be to write a few words about it.

Aside from the stellar audio and video quality, I was most taken with the extras on the second disc. The entirety of the web series “Pond Life” is available on here with a “play all” feature, effectively turning it into a seven-minute short film, which now makes for quite the nice preamble to the mini-season which saw the exit of the Ponds. Likewise, the prequel for “Asylum of the Daleks” should also be viewed prior to watching the episode itself. Really, this stuff should’ve been placed on the first disc, but that minor gripe aside, it’s all a welcome inclusion. However, a second prequel, entitled “The Making of the Gunslinger,” is best viewed after watching “A Town Called Mercy,” otherwise it robs the story of some of its dramatic heft.

Beyond those narrative-enhancing bonuses, the set also offers up one of the four 45-minute specials – “The Science of Doctor Who” - presented by BBC America in the weeks leading up to the premiere of “Asylum”; the other three specials are available on their own disc in the massive and probably now hard to find Doctor Who gift set that was released last month. Lastly, there’s a ten minute piece with Smith, Gillan, Darvill and Moffat fawning and being fawned over at Comic Con.

All in all, this is a fine set and an excellent stocking stuffer for the Whovian in your life. Sure, most of what’s on here will be duplicated on the inevitable Season Seven box set, but this Blu-ray makes a lovely placeholder for those who don’t want to wait another six months to see these final adventures of the Doctor and the Ponds in full, uncompressed 1080i glory.

P.S. “Asylum of the Daleks” gets better with each viewing; best Dalek story since 2005's “Dalek” from Rob Shearman, by a mile.