Tag Archives: Rory

They Killed Rory Again

Posted on March 13, 2019 by Roger Pocock

Companion Tropes 10 Even as somebody who has never watched South Park, and never will, I’m still well aware of the most famous catchphrase from that show: “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!”  Kenny of course was a character who … Continue reading →

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The Power of Three

Posted on August 10, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Back in May I wrote an article about the significance of the number three in Doctor Who, and came to a conclusion that stated three reasons why the number three was important, one of which focussed on the Doctor, the … Continue reading →

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A Town Called Mercy

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Doctor Who crashing into other genres can be a lot of fun, but every so often it crashes into a genre that is so vastly inferior that it runs the risk of being diminished by the effort.  This happened with … Continue reading →

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Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Posted on June 15, 2018 by Roger Pocock

The last time the word “dinosaurs” appeared in the title of a Doctor Who story things went awry, but special effects have moved on to an extent that dinosaurs can now be the selling point of an episode without embarrassment.  … Continue reading →

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The Wedding of River Song

Posted on April 26, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Russell T. Davies used to wrap up a season with a two-parter.  Here Steven Moffat wraps up two seasons with a one-parter.  The resulting episode is a bit of a muddle, and reprises a lot of things in slightly less … Continue reading →

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Let’s Kill Hitler

Posted on April 25, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Any article written about Let’s Kill Hitler is always going to end up not being about Hitler, as the episode has very little to do with him, so let’s at least give that part of the episode a passing mention … Continue reading →

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A Good Man Goes to War

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Roger Pocock

This is something new: a mid-season finale.  It functions in a very different way to a season finale because instead of bringing all the plot strands together and resolving them, it instead resolves some while creating others, but leaving the … Continue reading →

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The Rebel Flesh

Posted on March 23, 2018 by Roger Pocock

This article covers the episodes The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People, which together form a single story.  Your appreciation of this one will probably depend on what it is that you want from a Doctor Who story.  If you … Continue reading →

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The Doctor’s Wife

Posted on March 22, 2018 by Roger Pocock

To get the obvious remark out of the way, this is by Neil Gaiman, and it’s magnificent.  Of course it is – Neil Gaiman is an incredible writer.  He is also perfect for Doctor Who, especially if you like your … Continue reading →

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The Curse of the Black Spot

Posted on March 21, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Just this once, everybody lives!  This is the story of alien medical technology malfunctioning and creating terror in the process.  There is also a young boy whose relationship to his parent needs to be healed.  So, superficially we have the … Continue reading →

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The Impossible Astronaut

Posted on March 20, 2018 by Roger Pocock

Don’t you just love a season finale?  The epic storytelling, the payoff for everything that has gone before, the big bad monster, the ensemble cast, the complex plot threads coming together as a satisfying resolution.  This article covers the episodes … Continue reading →

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The Pandorica Opens

Posted on March 19, 2018 by Roger Pocock

This article covers the episodes The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang, which together form a single Doctor Who story, albeit one with very different individual episodes, but this is the Moffat way with two-parters.  The first thing to notice … Continue reading →

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Closing Time

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Roger Pocock

So it’s 2011 and we still haven’t had a Doctor Who story where the Cybermen have really been used in an effective way since 1969.  We had a couple of decades of stomping robots with bad attitudes, and then the … Continue reading →

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A Christmas Carol

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Roger Pocock

This is the first Doctor Who Christmas Special.  OK, I’m twisting things a bit there, but to explain what I mean by that let’s look at the plotlines of previous ones: The Feast of Steven: the Doctor and his companions … 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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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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