Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time

“Memories. You’re talking about memories.” — Rick Deckard, Blade Runner

It almost seems like a no-brainer that Steven Moffat should craft his final hour of Doctor Who — a finish line he crosses alongside leading man Peter Capaldi — as a meditation on the power of memories. Following the episode proper, Moffat revealed in the half-hour BBC America wrap-up special that he’d always intended to come back and fix this Doctor’s missing memories of his longest-serving companion, Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman, who appears here for all of 30 seconds). This mission seems to have been the springboard of the entire concept of “Twice Upon a Time,” which is surely one of the least bombastic, most thoughtful Christmas specials the series has produced.

Beyond the narrative, the no-brainer part really comes into play when one considers that Moffat has been waist-deep in Doctor Who for the last seven years as executive producer, and at least knee-deep as a writer for the five years prior to that. He’s been crafting how we view this TV series since the very first season of the revival way back in 2005, when he unleashed “Are you my mummy?” on an unsuspecting public, and he’s barely had time to look back since. Perhaps this final hour was his chance to walk down memory lane by reintroducing the incarnation of the Doctor that started it all, and toying with the notion that more than anything else, memories make us who we are. After 12 years of working on the show, coupled with a lifetime of fandom before that, there can be no doubt that Steven Moffat’s memories are often overflowing with Doctor Who.

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning.

A Female ‘Doctor Who’ Is Exactly What the Franchise Needed

“I want to tell the fans not to be scared by my gender. Because this is a really exciting time, and Doctor Who represents everything that’s exciting about change. The fans have lived through so many changes, and this is only a new, different one, not a fearful one.” – Jodie Whittaker

It’s the groundbreaking casting decision that’s caused aftershocks to ripple across the internet: 35-year-old Jodie Whittaker, best known to U.S. TV viewers as Broadchurch’s Beth Latimer, will be the thirteenth actor to portray the central character in the long-running BBC series Doctor Who, marking the first time in the show’s 54-year history that the part will be played by a woman. Some will call it political correctness run amok, and they’ll be entirely wrong.

This development is something Doctor Who desperately needs — not even counting the 27 years of it that ran from ’63 to ’89, it’s an old series at this point. In its latest iteration, it’s been on for ten seasons across 12 years, amid a sci-fi/fantasy/superhero TV marketplace that gets more crowded every season. In order to stay relevant, Doctor Who must continue to reach for the stars and do things that make it stand out from the pack. It’s no longer enough just to be the oldest sci-fi series on TV. Making the Doctor a woman wasn’t just necessary, it was inevitable.

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Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls

As I’ve written in past seasons, Steven Moffat two-parters tend to be composed of two very different types of episodes. While “The Doctor Falls” indeed follows that pattern, it was refreshing that the important plot points set up last week pay off; “The Doctor Falls” is indeed the second half of “World Enough and Time” in most every respect. The biggest questions I had (which didn’t even occur to me until after I filed my recap) were: Why was the Master on the spaceship in the first place, and why was he in disguise? Early on here, the Doctor offers up a lengthy theory that the Master neither confirms nor denies, and whether or not it’s on the nose is irrelevant — at least some method was given for all the madness. (Late in the episode, the Master does reveal to Missy that he blew his dematerialization circuit after arriving on the ship and he’s essentially been stranded ever since.)

The thing that concerned me most going into “The Doctor Falls” was that, based on the previews, it would be a raucous affair loaded with battles and explosions. While the episode does have both of those, it manages to place intimacy and character front and center, rarely allowing the battles to take center stage. Moffat has frequently said things like, “We don’t have the money for that anyway,” and thank goodness for that because nobody tunes in to Doctor Who for the fight scenes. High among the things we do tune in for are tears, and “The Doctor Falls” is loaded with them on both sides of the screen. After the big Beeb-sanctioned spoilers of last week, pretty much everything about this one was closely guarded, so there were no shortage of surprises.

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Graphic courtesy of Design by Stuart Manning.

Doctor Who: World Enough and Time

“World Enough and Time” aims to grab your attention from its opening, pre-credits moments. The Doctor stumbles from the TARDIS into a frozen landscape, his hair longer and wilder than ever before, seemingly fighting against his regeneration. It’s a striking sequence, perhaps undercut only by that awful faux-regeneration in “The Lie of the Land,” an episode I’ve grown to despise exponentially since its airing. The series never should have done that knowing a scene like this was right around the corner. But if we can scrub the “Lie” from our brains, this is a hell of a way to kick off the end of an era.

Once the episode begins proper, we’re nowhere near that flash-forward, but instead skimming across the exterior of a vast spaceship that appears to be sitting on the edge of a black hole — and by vast, I mean 400 miles long and 100 miles wide. (Later, we find out it isn’t sitting, but actively attempting to escape the hole.) Between the double shot of openings, we are firmly entrenched in the expansive vision of director Rachel Talalay, who has skillfully guided all of Capaldi’s epic finales. But the enormity of the craft zeroes in on a tiny area of the ship in which the TARDIS appears, and out pops Missy followed by Bill and Nardole.

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Doctor Who: The Eaters of Light

Often in my recaps, I rely on the history of the writer while forming my thoughts and opinions of an episode. Doctor Who is very much a writers’ show, even though the head writers like Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat get the most credit (as well as the most blame). Rona Munro, the writer of “The Eaters of Light,” holds a special distinction: She is now the first and only writer to have penned scripts for both the classic and the modern incarnations of Doctor Who. Her previous contribution was, in fact, the final classic series story, 1989’s “Survival.” One thing I never really expected to write much about in this recap was “Survival,” because surely that 28-year-old script would have nothing in common with this new tale … and yet in some ways it does, not the least of which is its elliptical yet mythically epic style.

The unlikeliest TARDIS trio ever travel to Aberdeen, Scotland, circa second-century A.D. because Bill and the Doctor are bickering over who knows more about the lost Ninth Roman Legion, which famously disappeared from history without a trace. (Between this outing and “Thin Ice,” mad props to season ten for the entertaining history lessons.) Beside the pair, Nardole is decked out in his Arthur Dent best — pajamas and a preposterously out of place robe. One imagines him being awakened from sleep and dragged through time, and indeed, one also wonders why he came along at all given that his primary concern once again is the vault. Thankfully, between the end of this episode and the preview for next week’s, the vault nonsense seems over and done with. The argument for guarding it doesn’t even work particularly well here, given the way events have played out in recent weeks (when the Monks were invading, it barely seemed like an issue).

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Doctor Who: Empress of Mars

Back in season seven, Mark Gatiss reintroduced classic Doctor Who villains the Ice Warriors in “Cold War,” an episode I was gaga over. A big part of my love revolved around its infusion of ’80s nuclear paranoia, which at the time seemed something of a distant memory. My, how just a few years can see us tumbling backward. “Empress of Mars,” which is in no way a sequel to “Cold War” (indeed, it takes place a hundred years before its predecessor), is another score for Gatiss, and enough so that we must forgive him for last season’s dire “Sleep No More.” “Empress” is a sleek tale of honor, loyalty, and redemption told through the filter of science-fiction mavericks such as Burroughs, Verne, and Wells.

The action kicks off in the present day at NASA, which the Doctor, Bill, and Nardole have infiltrated seemingly for no other reason than because they can. A probe called the Valkyrie is sending back images from a previously unseen area of the planet, and the first one shocks everyone in the room: It’s a landscape across which is written “God Save the Queen.” The Doctor wastes no time taking his posse to the planet, albeit in 1881, which is when the TARDIS says the message was created. (Must be a handy new feature that we’ll likely never see again.) They materialize underground in an elaborate cave system, replete with oxygen, which the Doctor credits the “indigenous Martians” with engineering.

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Doctor Who: The Lie of the Land

The opening montage of “The Lie of the Land,” presented as an alternate history lesson narrated by the Doctor, is disturbingly effective. The Monks have insinuated themselves into our memories to the point that humanity believes they’ve been guiding and helping us since we first wiggled out of the oceans and sprouted legs. The video is intercut with imagery of an average family broken apart by fascist troops who haul off the mother for spreading subversive propaganda. A horrified Bill observes the proceedings, seemingly one of the few who’s awake. Monuments to the Monks decorate the landscape of the planet. The grinning Doctor looking directly at the camera, which closes out the sequence, makes for a queasy stomach.

The Doctor: “So relax. Do as you’re told. Your future is taken care of.”

It’s been six months since the Monks took over, and Bill is living a life of seeming solitude. (Where’s her foster mother?) There’s a clear struggle between knowing the truth and accepting the lie, and seemingly the easiest way for her to keep her head straight is to have imaginary conversations with her deceased mother, as her “father” is currently displaying dubious morality. Despite all of the videos the Doctor recorded that appear to prove otherwise, she hangs on to the belief that he’s got a plan and will save the planet.

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning. 

Doctor Who: The Pyramid at the End of the World

As he did last season with a tension-packed Zygon two-parter, writer Peter Harness (with Steven Moffat taking a co-writing credit) again sets out to nearly destroy planet Earth, and again he skillfully takes us on a paranoid, politically-charged ride. Last time it was UNIT at the forefront of the battle; this time its three major world powers. Picking up in the real world from where we left off in the horrific simulation last week, the Monks invade Earth for real, but first they need our permission … and they set out to get it by offering to save us from ourselves.

In the fictitious country of Turmezistan (originally conceived for the aforementioned Zygon storyline), three massive armies — American, Russian, and Chinese — are in a standoff. In the midst of the tension, a 5,000-year-old pyramid appears out of nowhere, throwing all parties involved into a tailspin. The Doctor is needed in his capacity as president of the Earth, and apparently the simplest way to find him is through Bill, who’s on her date with Penny when troops, followed by the Secretary General of the UN (Togo Igawa, Eyes Wide Shut), burst into her apartment. Bill is on the radar of governments now. Meanwhile in the TARDIS, the Doctor plucks notes on his guitar and grimly ponders the future.

The Doctor: “The end of your life has already begun. There is a last place you will ever go, a last door you will ever walk through, a last sight you will ever see, and every step you ever take is moving you closer. The end of the world is a billion billion tiny moments, and somewhere, unnoticed, in silence or in darkness, it has already begun.”

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Graphic courtesy of Design by Stuart Manning. 

Doctor Who: Extremis

As most Doctor Who fans know, we’re rapidly approaching the end of Steven Moffat’s era. There’s no question his showrunning tenure has been a divisive one, but at least here in the States, it was on his watch that the show attained such immense popularity. He has scripted more stories and filled more minutes than any other writer in the show’s history. (Due to the classic series’ serialized format, though, he hasn’t written the most episodes.) You’d think he’d have run out of ideas by now, but as “Extremis” proves, that’s hardly the case. If the previous five episodes nestled you into a comfort zone of sorts, “Extremis” aims to knock you flat on your back. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Moffat’s greatest strength is his unpredictability.

First, let’s talk vault, which is perhaps the only predictable aspect of “Extremis.” Presumably, Missy (Michelle Gomez) is inside. I say presumably only because we never see the Doctor open it and view Missy on the inside, despite the chronicling of the events that led up to her imprisonment and a blind Doctor in the present whispering to Missy from outside the vault. However, this wraparound tale tells of events “a long time ago” (in the show’s timeline, seemingly some time after the events of “The Husbands of River Song”), in which Missy has been condemned to execution by an unnamed race who developed the technology to destroy a Time Lord for good. But why Missy? Why now? What has she done? These questions go unanswered, so while we’re given the answer to who’s in the vault, that answer gives way to a whole new batch of questions.

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning. 

Doctor Who: Oxygen

The Doctor: “Space … the final frontier. Final because it wants to kill us. Sometimes we forget that, start taking it all for granted — the suits, the ships, the little bubbles of safety — as they protect us from the void. But the void is always waiting.”

Beginning with that darkly tongue-in-cheek voice over, the pre-credits sequence of “Oxygen” is quintessential Doctor Who. Two bodies eerily tumble through space. A massive space station is revealed. Both surrounded by the void and working outside, Ellie (Katie Brayben) confesses to Ivan (Kieran Bew): If they manage to escape their current predicament, she wants to have a baby with him. Unfortunately, there’s a com error and Ivan will never hear Ellie’s dream. Moments later, she’s attacked and killed by the two previously seen bodies, now upright and hulking forward. Is Ivan next? Cue credits. That mixture of the intimate alongside the vast and shocking is Doctor Who at its best.

Jamie Mathieson writes great, thought-provoking Doctor Who and “Oxygen” is no exception. Here he has crafted a story about greed and selfishness, explored in two ways: The first is corporate and the second is personal, and there are consequences for both. Further, the production team steps up to the plate and delivers gorgeous imagery to complement the intense script.

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning

Doctor Who: Knock Knock

In this week’s episode of Doctor Who, Bill and her college peeps — Harry (Colin Ryan), Paul (Ben Presley, Galavant), Felicity (Alice Hewkin), Shireen (Mandeep Dhillon), and Pavel (Bart Suavek) — hunt for a place to live. The digs they check out are too pricey or too noisy or too cramped. Out of nowhere appears a strange old man (the always reliable David Suchet) offering them a place beyond their wildest dreams. If nothing else, “Knock Knock” might teach youngsters that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. After the sextet sign a contract, Pavel moves in first and it doesn’t take long for him to disappear into his room (damn near literally) after spinning a tune on his turntable.

In perhaps the episode’s only smart gag, Bill enlists the Doctor’s help with moving. He materializes the TARDIS around her stack of boxes and rematerializes outside the creaky old house. Even the Doctor is impressed by its size, but he senses something in those creaks. Bill introduces the Doctor to her friends as her grandfather. (He begs, “Father, at least. Please!”) As the scenario progresses, Bill becomes more and more embarrassed by the Doctor’s presence, ultimately ushering him off the premises, and it was here where “Knock Knock” started losing me.

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning

Doctor Who: Thin Ice

Writer Sarah Dollard’s first contribution to Doctor Who was last season’s “Face the Raven,” an episode I was lukewarm on, though that had little to do with her script. Dollard was tasked with killing off Clara, yet not really. It was a tough sell because it happened so fast and without fanfare at an odd time of the season, so it was difficult to buy into at a point when believability was necessary. That story and the season would have been better served by dropping the near universally panned “Sleep No More” altogether and giving Dollard an extra episode to flesh out her inventive trap-street universe with a two-part cliffhanger of Clara realizing her impending death. That could have worked much better.

Given free rein to play in the Whoniverse largely edict-free, Dollard delivers a brilliantly cracking yarn in “Thin Ice” with a proper beginning, middle and end. It’s got no narrative gimmicks to weigh down her ideas, all effortlessly accomplished in 45 minutes. Despite being set in 1814, the script has a social conscience about numerous issues that ricochet off the past into the future, reflecting the here and now. This is something that I often crow about new Doctor Who not doing nearly enough of, and Dollard’s hand is so sure and steady that never once does the material come across as preachy.

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning

Doctor Who: Smile

Going into “Smile,” I was leery about two things: Emojibots and Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s writing credit. The former because, well, I’m a writer, and like many other writers I cringe at them instinctively. The latter because Cottrell-Boyce’s only other contribution to Doctor Who was season eight’s ambitious failure “In the Forest of the Night,” arguably the weakest offering of that year. Turns out the ‘bots weren’t as annoying as actual emoji and Cottrell-Boyce’s script is an improvement on his previous offering — and yet “Smile” still feels like a mild letdown after all the promise of last week’s season opener.

Bill Potts: “You can’t reach the controls from the seats. What’s the point in that? Or do you have stretchy arms like Mr. Fantastic?”

The opening TARDIS sequence is loaded with the sort of priceless banter that “The Pilot” laid the groundwork for. Bill’s grilling of the Doctor over the seats is especially amusing to anyone who’s been watching this show for the past decade: Why are the seats so far away from the console? (Why are there seats there at all? Nobody ever seems to use them.)

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning

Doctor Who: The Pilot

Two Christmas specials aside, it’s been a seemingly interminably long wait for new Doctor Who. A guy I know recently asked, “Is that show even still on?,” which cut me deeply. A strong, multi-episodic arc of Time Lord and TARDIS will make things right again, and “The Pilot” is rife with promise of greatness to come. As Steven Moffat-penned scripts go, it is refreshingly lacking in twists and turns, has less plot than a typical offering, and is more a collection of set-ups, ideas, and emotions. There’s a comforting intimacy on display here not often seen in this series, and certainly not in a season premiere.

The first thing that happens in “The Pilot” is the revelation that Nardole (Matt Lucas) is robotic in nature; the noises he makes and the bolt that drops from his body indicate as much. Back in December, his quickie resurrection was one of my few complaints. While it’s difficult to swallow the Doctor reattaching Nardole’s severed head to his body, it is less problematic to imagine that the head could be merged with a new and less cumbersome set of technology than it was previously attached to. Perhaps a few tricks picked up from the Doctor’s many encounters with the Cybermen?

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning

Doctor Who: The Return of Doctor Mysterio

It’s been exactly one year since we last had any new Doctor Who. That’s the longest period of time the series has been off the air with no new material since it was resurrected in 2005. Given the awful year that was, perhaps it’s entirely appropriate that the Doctor’s heroics have been absent. Maybe 2016 just wasn’t designed for taking fanciful trips in the TARDIS. And what of 2017? Next year, we may need the weekly diversion of the Doctor more than ever. Somebody has to bestow hope and show us that corners of light still exist in the universe. Such a train of thought makes this year’s holiday offering all the more prescient, as a warmer, kinder hour of Who.

Since the very first moments of Moffat’s tenure as head honcho of Who, he’s been unveiling stories about the Doctor making lifelong impressions on the minds of children. (Even further back than that, actually, as “The Girl in the Fireplace” was his first real foray into the idea.) Some of these stories last an episode; others lead to ongoing story arcs. It’s an idea he’s returned to over and over again, and the most sensible explanation for this obsession is that he’s working through and commenting on his own childhood memories and feelings of the series as it formed and shaped the young Steven Moffat.

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Graphic courtesy Design by Stuart Manning 

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song

The first time I watched Doctor Who's holiday offering, it didn't go swimmingly. It was late and I was tired and cranky, and probably not in the mood for festive antics. The whole thing seemed loud and rather aimless, and at nearly 60 minutes (like all the holiday specials are), stretched too thin for the premise. There's always a very real danger of viewers being in similar frames of mind on Christmas night, because Christmas is an unpredictable holiday.

However, I gave it another spin a night later with a brighter outlook, in the company of my wife, and the entire affair felt a delightfully fun romp with some lovely emotional resonance in the third act. It's Christmas. It's Doctor Who. What more do you need? As one of my oldest and dearest Whovian pals Denise recently declared, after experiencing the devastating three-part season nine finale, "We need a light episode."

Still, it wouldn't hurt to have had some more time in between those emotionally turbulent installments and this caper. Those events are fresh and crisp in our memories, but the Doctor is able to move on from Clara's departure with far greater ease than we can. The key, I think, to appreciating "The Husbands of River Song" is to accept that it's less an episode of Doctor Who, and more a one-time spin-off starring River, which happens to include the Doctor.

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Artwork courtesy Design by Stuart Manning. 

Doctor Who: Hell Bent

One aspect of Steven Moffat’s writing that doesn’t get nearly enough praise is its unpredictability. In any given season, people develop theories about what will happen. Sometimes, in the broadest sense, a few folks correctly call a thing or two ahead of time. But nobody, anywhere on the planet, in any corner of the world that this show is viewed in, predicted that this season would end with Clara and Ashildr/Me flying off into time and space in a diner-shaped TARDIS. Nobody. Like so many of Moffat’s season enders, “Hell Bent” is a highly operatic and deeply emotional affair. This may be putting too fine a point on it, but it seems likely your feelings on “Hell Bent” will largely hinge on whether or not you’ve been a fan of Clara Oswald, and if her character development and story arcs over the past three seasons have resonated with you.

The framing device aside (which we’ll get to in due course), Act I is largely concerned with the Doctor’s return to Gallifrey, and his measured, methodical dismantling of the political hierarchy, seemingly born out of anger not only over Clara’s death, but also for the four and a half billion years spent within the hell of the confession dial. Whatever one might think about the other two-thirds of the piece, surely we can all agree that the first section is glorious in scope while intimate in intent. While the scenario certainly has an Eastwood Man with No Name dynamic, I was more stuck by something else: simply, the Doctor is a country boy who’s had enough of the city boy’s shit.

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Artwork courtesy Design by Stuart Manning.

Doctor Who: Heaven Sent

When you’ve been plotting and writing Doctor Who for as long as Steven Moffat has, you inevitably must stumble across an idea that’s so mad you have no choice but to see it through to its finish. What will the people who so often chant for Moffat’s dismissal from the series – those who claim he has run out of ideas – make of this intimately epic hour that delves deep into the psyche of the show’s central figure? Perhaps they will say that it is nothing more than a rip-off of Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow or any of the myriad films or TV shows that have exploited the time loop gimmick in this manner. If it were done poorly, we may have cause to tear into it, but when it’s done to such aching perfection as this, we must stand back, catch our breath, and applaud. One of the most experimental episodes of Doctor Who ever, “Heaven Sent” is surely also one of the best, and certainly one of the most revealing.

The Doctor: “As you come into this world, something else is also born. You begin your life, and it begins a journey towards you. It moves slowly, but it never stops. Wherever you go, whatever path you take, it will follow – never faster, never slower, always coming. You will run, it will walk. You will rest, it will not. One day, you will linger in the same place too long - you will sit too still, or sleep too deep. And when, too late, you rise to go, you will notice a second shadow next to yours. Your life will then be over.”

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Artwork courtesy Design by Stuart Manning. 

Doctor Who: Face the Raven

There’s no need to begin with talk of the first two acts here, when the last 10 minutes of “Face the Raven” are what most folks are currently concerned with, so let’s cut to the chase: Clara’s dead, which, unless you pay very close attention to internet scuttlebutt, no doubt came as a huge surprise. After all, in the modern era, companion exits tend to happen at the end of a season, accompanied by much fanfare (the Ponds were an exception, but even they departed at the close of a half-season). As a means of shocking the audience, what was done here was highly effective, but as a fitting finish to the near three-season run of Jenna Coleman’s Clara Oswald? Not so much. Her passing was little more than a slip-up of an accident, surrounded by strong dialogue and ripe emotion. Given the handling of the scene, the show certainly wants us to believe that this is the end of Clara’s story, but it feels unfinished — as though we’ve come to the end of a long sentence, but there’s no punctuation at the close.

Would Steven Moffat really pass off scripting duties for a companion exit to a freshman Who writer? The episode doesn’t even feature a “and Steven Moffat” writing credit which has become so prevalent over the past two seasons, when major character arcs are addressed within non-Moffat penned episodes. Doctor Who killing off Clara after killing off the love of her life last season is bleak. There must be a happier ending to this story. I’m on record (a few recaps ago) as disbelieving the show would kill her off. Now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I have to believe there’s more to the end of her story than this particular note of finality. Is it possible that we could yet see the return of the Nethersphere? Could Clara Oswald and Danny Pink yet have a happy ending in some sort of computer program afterlife? And if you follow behind-the-scenes talk in-between watching episodes, what of the publicity photos that grace the various covers of Doctor Who Magazine #493? This can’t have been “it” for Clara. There has to be more to this. Or am I just in a serious state of denial?

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Doctor Who: Sleep No More

Gagan Rassmussen: “You must not watch this! I’m warning you. You can never unsee it.”

Rassmussen could easily have been speaking about “Sleep No More” itself with that very first line of the episode. Well, the streak of perfection (or at least near perfection) had to end sooner or later, didn’t it? Season nine had been charging forward like some kind of long form narrative Roadrunner, and with “Sleep No More” it has smashed into one of Wile E. Coyote’s tunnel paintings. Proudly billed as Doctor Who’s first “found footage” episode, it seems as if the footage that would’ve made sense of the whole affair ended up on the cutting room floor (yes, a horribly outdated turn of phrase in the digital age).

To call it a mess, though, surely misses the point. The concept of a found footage anything is messy by design, isn’t it? Admittedly, my experience with such concepts pretty much begins and ends with The Blair Witch Project, a movie so insufferable that it put me off the gimmick ever since. Now I’m in a position where I have to write about it, so forgive me any trespasses.

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Artwork courtesy Design by Stuart Manning.