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Doctor Who: The Woman Who Lived Review
While Doctor Who is a sci-fi show that evolved out of something that was originally intended to be a science and history show, it’s always been at its strongest when it’s a character study. Just look at the difference between last week’s episode and this week’s. The Girl Who Died was largely a comedy episode. The Woman Who Lived was a study of Ashilder and the downside of immortality.
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Doctor Who: The Girl Who Died Review
The Doctor Who and Game of Thrones crossover game was strong this week. We always have that connection between the two series because Jenna Coleman is dating Richard Madsen (Robb Stark). This week, we’re going back to medieval times and adding Maisie Williams (Arya Stark) as a Viking girl. Okay, it’s not quite a proper Doctor Who / GoT crossover but it’s probably as close as we’re going to get until Littlefinger shoves Clara out the Moon Door.
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Doctor Who: Before the Flood Review
For the second story in a row, Doctor Who is a two-part episode. As much as I like the vintage style of a multi-part Doctor Who story, after the Dalek two-parter and this ghost story, I’m not sure that they’ve quite figured out the pacing yet.
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Doctor Who: Under the Lake Review
If there’s one way to describe Steven Moffat’s run as showrunner, it’s to call it a throwback to classic Doctor Who. He’s mixed in little bits of action, horror, morality, and dry humour to make a fun show just like it was when it first started. Moffat also seems to be bringing back the multi-part stories to Doctor Who. For the second story in a row, we have a two-parter. While the last one was meant to tug at your heartstrings, this one is meant to send chills up your spine.
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Doctor Who: The Witch’s Familiar Review
As someone who watched old Doctor Who reruns growing up, I’m quite fond of the multi-episode arc that Doctor Who traditionally used to tell stories. It’s something we rarely see from modern Doctor Who, at least not to the extent that it used to be used as a story telling device. In fact, this is only the second two-part season premiere of Doctor Who since the revival.
The problem with a multi-episode story arc is that you really need to have a good payoff to the individual episodes and the story as a whole. I’m not convinced that The Magician’s Apprentice and The Witch’s Familiar two-parter really fulfilled either side of that.
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Doctor Who: Magician’s Apprentice Review
Nine months on from Christmas, Doctor Who Christmas is upon us. Okay, I’m not sure what a Doctor Who fan would consider to be the biggest event of the year but it’s my review so I’m going to say it’s the season premiere. With no new characters to introduce, we instead get reacquainted with a couple of The Doctor’s old nemeses. What good is a hero without an equally strong villain, after all.
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Doctor Who: Last Christmas Review
Like the last couple of Doctor Who Christmas specials, this year’s Doctor Who Christmas special come with some intrigue for the series going forward. Last year’s saw the denouement of the Eleventh Doctor and the introduction of Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor.
This year, the intrigue was all about Clara. Lead actors and actresses on Doctor Who haven’t been particularly long-lived on the show with Amy and Rory being the longest tenured at two-and-a-half season. So while we were all hoping for a happy Christmas story, the whole episode would be about the mystery contract status of Jenna Coleman.
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Doctor Who: Death in Haven Review
The first eleven episodes of this season of Doctor Who have been absolutely brilliant. We’re used to sporadic good episodes but such a succession of great episodes in 10 of the first 11 weeks of Doctor Who is something that no TV show this side of maybe The Wire or Game of Thrones have been able to match.
The finale would be the biggest test of the course of Doctor Who under Peter Capaldi because finales are typically where the show falls flattest. Could a season that’s been so much better than usual end so much better than usual?
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Doctor Who: Dark Water Review
It certainly hasn’t seemed like this season has been on for very long but we’ve reached the end of this season of Doctor Who. After ten weeks, it’s time for the two-part season finale. After all the teasers of Missy and the afterlife, The Doctor and Clara finally stumble upon it after the personal stakes are raised.
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Doctor Who: In the Forest of the Night Review
You can’t expect a run of great episodes to continue forever. You would hope that it wouldn’t end right before the season finale of one of the best seasons of Doctor Who since the show’s revival in 2005. However, asking for 12-for-12 great episodes would be asking too much so maybe a flat episode was better this week than in the next two.
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