Un eithaf rhyfedd (Review: 'Doctor Who', 1.4, "73 Yards")

• The complete lack of a title sequence, even a title card, is pretty rare for the show, but has happened before.
• Ncuti Gatwa is barely in this one. Was there a reason in terms of scheduling that this is so Millie-focussed?
• While this is clearly meant to be a focus on Millie's acting talents, merely sticking her in a pair of glasses doesn't make her a convincing 40-year-old. They did a much better job with Karen Gillan (who is now 36) in "The Girl Who Waited".
• A Welsh village pretending to be backward and superstitious just for the LOLs. I am sure that some other places will do that too.
• Why can the woman be exactly 73 yards away and no more, no less? How does she drive everyone who talks to her to run away scream?
• Nice to see UNIT make an appearance and for their role as a support service for former companions.
• A search for "Mad Jack" found a rather eccentric Regency-era chap who once tried to cure hiccups by setting his shirt on fire.
• I was rather reminded of "Turn Left" in this episode. Not to mention Mr Saxon from Series 3.
• It's a good thing that far-right politicians don't generally tend to be handsome chaps like Roger ap Gwilliam was in this one. The regular ones are a big enough problem already.

Conclusion

This "Doctor-lite" episode has some rather great atmosphere, but also far too little explanation to be truly great.

7/10

Sunday, Munday, Zappy Days! (Review: 'Doctor Who' 1.3, "Boom")

• The last bit of Steven Moffat on Doctor Who was the Twelfth Doctor warning his future incarnations about consuming pears. That rather undersells the final speech he did.
• An AI killing someone because they won't recover quickly enough and will consume more resources than the bottom line is happy with is pretty chilling. While something already done in Doctor Who.
• We've definitely heard the name Villengard before - a past Doctor blew up their weapons factories and had them replaced with banana groves.
• Using your own body as the bomb and turning you into a carriable memorial... that's dark.
• Ncuti Gatwa spends most of this episode standing still on a landmine, unable to do much moving and yet delivers his finest performance as the Doctor in the five episodes we've seen in him so far.
• A very good episode for Millie Gibson too as well. I wasn't expecting Ruby to get nearly killed in this one!
• There were definitely things I was thinking about Munday Flynn. Like "she's wearing a lot of eye make-up" but not "that's Varada Sethu!", which didn't occur to me until I watched Unleashed straight after.
• Not 100% sure about the writing for Splice though.
• Susan Twist is going to be in every episode of this, isn't she?
• Definitely an episode where the "power of love" saves the day. Here it just about works.
• Moffat and RTD are both atheists and so take a couple of shots at organised religion. In fairness, they're not 100% wrong in some of their comments. As an Anglican myself, but not a marine of any form, I know my denomination has been pretty dodgy at times. The gag about "thoughts and prayers" also works well - it's become seen as a cheap refrain by politicians unwilling to do anything about gun control in the states to the point it can no longer be done straight.
• The snowflake thing is pretty meaningful, it seems. I thought Clara, but that was actually a leaf.

Conclusion

Steven Moffat has on the whole been a superlative Doctor Who writer - it's rare he's ever written anything bad.

This definitely is an example of one of his best.

9/10

My Millie screams better than your Millie! (Review: 'Doctor Who' 1.2, "The Devil's Chord")

• I watched this the day after the first episode - I'd been out for much of the day on Saturday and generally limit myself to one DW episode a day.
• Jinkx Monsoon eats the scenery like there's no tomorrow in this episode. It's like her volume switch is stuck or something. Also, making Maestro non-binary was a nice touch.
• Going into the title sequence via the use of the piano version of the theme is a good one. However, the tune doesn't really work on one instrument, so cutting was wise.
• The impression that I'm getting from the trailers is that Fifteen will be a lot more varied than past Doctors and to be honest, I'm pretty fine with that. He looks good in all of them.
• Ruby Sunday does rather a lot of screaming in this episode and getting dragged across a floor by her feet. It's like Disney are deliberately trying to ape Stranger Things.
• The Beatles singing rubbish songs was probably one of the best ways to get around the fact that they couldn't afford the rights to any of their songs - indeed, the use of "Ticket to Ride" back in 1965 has caused DVD issues.
• The overall concept of someone stealing music from the universe works well.
• Doing a modern-day take on that 1980 scene in "Pyramids of Mars" is probably needed for the modern audience. I was just too busy knowing it was a homage to appreciate it and wondering when the world got destroyed, as the London Eye is present there.
• Would an American audience have heard of Cilla Black?
• Nice call back to the Toymaker.
• Of course, this is the episode that aired on Eurovision night...
• Frankly by the end of this, I was finding it rather silly. The show has a far-out premise, but good writing generally keeps you from seeing the flaws until a while later. Not this one.
• The musical number at the end was really, really quiet unnecessary and I found myself comparing it to "Idiot Control Now" from Mystery Science Theater 3000 and not in a good way.
• Well, Steven Moffat has done next week's. He has done some good stuff over the years - his RTD1 era work was superb.

Conclusion

An interesting opening concept ended up falling apart by the end of the episode, which just got far too silly.

Frankly, I'd have taken five minutes off this one and given it to the first episode.

I hope this is the only RTD clunker of the season.

4/10

Children and animals (Review: 'Doctor Who' 1.1, "Space Babies")

• They've added a new bit to the title sequence, making it slightly longer and arguably much more enjoyable.
• The opening was rather frenetic. A bit too frenetic frankly. Not sure that info-dumping all the key bits of the lore in the first ten minutes was really necessary.
• Not overly used to Fifteen yet; he's got a rather different tone. Or rather different way of delivering the same sort of lines that other doctors would.
• Ruby seems decent enough, but I would need more time to get used to her.
• The music was rather too loud and distracting in places.
• The butterfly effect bit was a decent short gag, but ultimately unnecessary.
• The CGI animation of the babies was frankly a bit creepy.
• Abandoning the station, but not being able to turn the baby machine off because it's illegal. I think that's a rather pointed comment about American abortion laws.
• Some rather clever science fiction tropes here.
• Ah, the Nannie filter... it's the sort of humour this show loves to do.
• Also, you're not a companion these days until you've been been gunged or soaked it seems.
• And RTD still hasn't outgrown toilet humour gags.

Conclusion

An enjoyable story, but still somewhat flawed. Could have done with being a bit longer to let some bits breathe.

8/10