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 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: Asylum of the Daleks

Two types of Doctor Who episodes Steven Moffat has excelled at envisioning are Christmas episodes and season premieres. Once again, in the latter area, he has not failed. “Asylum of the Daleks” is a deliriously intense dramatic trip — a Hammer House of Dalek Horrors — that delivers on just about every count and expectation one could have from a 50-minute installment of this series. It’s probably Moffat’s finest season opener yet. (The list of requests I wrote earlier this week? Let’s just say I’m presently a satisfied Whovian.) After the bad taste left by so much of season six, this felt very much like a series getting itself back on track. Perhaps we shouldn’t get prematurely excited, though, lest we end up let down later? It is, after all, only the first installment of a season of 14 that’s going to stretch well into next year. Still, this was most reassuring.

Many aspects are worthy of discussion, but the one that was the most startling was the early appearance of Jenna-Louise Coleman, here playing a character named Oswin Oswald, revealed in the climax to be a human converted into a Dalek. Moffat has insisted for months that Coleman’s new companion would be introduced at Christmas, to the point where this was an accepted fact; obviously a massive deception. Why keep it a secret, and is the “surprise” a surprise to the average viewer who doesn’t keep track of behind the scenes stuff such as casting? Even over in the U.K., where the public actually knows who Coleman is, won’t most viewers just shrug and say, “Oh yeah, I heard she was coming onto the show.” It’s a long way to go to keep a secret that didn’t necessarily need to be kept.

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