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Posted on November 16, 2017 by Roger Pocock

This is the second of Neil Cross’s Doctor Who stories, and is by far the simpler of the two.  That was entirely deliberate, with the writer intending to put together a very self-contained small-scale Doctor Who story, and in fact … Continue reading →

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The Rings of Akhaten

Posted on November 15, 2017 by Roger Pocock

Doctor Who has often seemed to me to be a fantasy series with a thin veil of technobabble to describe that.  It rarely has any kind of strong scientific premise that would make logical sense to a scientist.  This episode … Continue reading →

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The Bells of Saint John

Posted on November 14, 2017 by Roger Pocock

There was a charming little prequel to this episode with the Doctor meeting Clara when she was a child.  You might be forgiven for thinking “here we go again” at that point, and assuming that the Doctor is again going … Continue reading →

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Asylum of the Daleks

Posted on November 13, 2017 by Roger Pocock

This is the oddest of oddities.  Never has there been an episode of Doctor Who that traded more on knowledge external to what we see on screen.  Without that knowledge it is distinctly average while being bizarrely frenetic.  With the … Continue reading →

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Vincent and the Doctor

Posted on November 2, 2017 by Roger Pocock

There are very few episodes of Doctor Who that you can’t write about without talking about the writer.  Vincent and the Doctor is one of those select few, because it is written by Richard Curtis.  This is the only example … Continue reading →

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Amy’s Choice

Posted on November 1, 2017 by Roger Pocock

The philosophy of the “dream argument” goes right back to Plato, but was really popularised by Descartes.  It takes dreaming as evidence that we cannot trust our senses to show us the difference between reality and illusion.  For centuries philosophers … Continue reading →

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Night Terrors

Posted on October 26, 2017 by Roger Pocock

Night Terrors features the only monster I have actually seen scare somebody in real life.  When we were at the 50th anniversary convention in London there were some people wearing the peg doll costumes.  One of them started moving towards … Continue reading →

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The Vampires of Venice

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Roger Pocock

The Vampires of Venice is all about the Doctor trying to fix Amy and Rory’s relationship.  The reason he wants to do this is slightly troubling because it has overtones of somebody deciding the path Amy’s life is going to … Continue reading →

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The God Complex

Posted on October 12, 2017 by Roger Pocock

The God Complex is an amazing, ground breaking episode, but there are a couple of major problems with it that I am going to get out of the way straight away, because I really don’t want to end up wrapping … Continue reading →

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The Angels Take Manhattan

Posted on October 6, 2017 by Roger Pocock

Companion departures have been a tricky business since Doctor Who came back in 2005.  It wasn’t quite so much of a problem for the classic run because we had limited expectations of the character development and story arcs that the … Continue reading →

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The Time of Angels

Posted on October 5, 2017 by Roger Pocock

This review is for the episodes “The Time of Angels” and “Flesh and Stone”, which together form a single Doctor Who story, and what an amazing story it is… when looked at in isolation.  When Steven Moffat wrote Blink he … Continue reading →

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Victory of the Daleks

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Roger Pocock

I think it is fair to say that Victory of the Daleks was not generally well received by Doctor Who fans, which is ironic considering it is actually tailored towards them far too much. The best example is probably the … Continue reading →

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The Beast Below

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Roger Pocock

Back in Planet of the Ood the Doctor made a comment to Donna that I didn’t mention in my review, because I wanted to address it here instead.  Donna makes a moral judgement about humanity turning a blind eye to … Continue reading →

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The Eleventh Hour

Posted on September 28, 2017 by Roger Pocock

When a new Doctor takes over he nearly always inherits companions from his predecessor.  It is a useful way for the viewers to feel comfortable that this is still the series they know and love, and also provides an identification … Continue reading →

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Cold War

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Roger Pocock

The Troughton era truly was the classic monster era, and produced several that were worthy of being brought back multiple times, as per the Daleks and the Cybermen.  In some cases this was oddly never really capitalised on.  The Yeti … Continue reading →

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The Girl Who Waited

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Roger Pocock

At the risk of stating the obvious, this is Karen Gillan’s finest moment in Doctor Who.  It deserves to be said and said again, because she is stunningly good here.  Playing a character significantly older or younger than yourself has … Continue reading →

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The Hungry Earth

Posted on August 21, 2017 by Roger Pocock

This review is for the episodes “The Hungry Earth” and “Cold Blood”, which together form a single Doctor Who story.  One of the reasons I wanted to look at this story as a priority is that it is one of … Continue reading →

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