Review "The Witchfinders"

Well, it's time for another Dr Who review. Sorry for the recent delays in reviews. I have been having computer trouble and getting ready next weekend to move into my new house. I'm looking forward to having my own Dr Who room. With that being said, let's get to "The Witchfinders". Oh, crap. I'm bored already.

I seriously was bored during this whole episode. There wasn't anything in this episode, that really caught my attention. It was another bland villain with a bland backstory and to top of it off another bland performance by Jodie Whittaker. I seriously think this season has been the worst season of villains, we have ever seen. I understand that they are trying to stay away from the old favorite villains like the Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans to just name a few, but there's a reason that they have turned up over and over in Dr Who. They are POPULAR! They have an interesting back, history with the Doctor and finally they are beloved by fans. I think it's great they are trying to make new villains, but the villains they have created have had the personality of bubble wrap. Oh wait, we actually got an episode with evil bubble wrap in it. (shaking my head).

The whole time I was watching this, I was thinking to myself "Why didn't they air this during Halloween?" But then I thought, "Well, maybe the UK does not celebrate Halloween." I did a little Google search and yes the UK celebrates Halloween on October 31st, just like us. What idiot does not schedule a Dr Who episode with witches in it around Halloween? Oh, I would assume that would be Chris Chibnall. Whoever made the decision to air this episode at the end of November, should be fired.

I will give "The Witchfinders" a 2 out of 5 Tardises, Someone asked me at work what I thought about this season and I summed up the whole season so far in one word, "Ok". That pretty much sums up the whole season. Nothing has been great (Brice, "Kerblaam" was not great), everything has been, well...."Ok".

Review "Kerblam" by Brice Baker

It finally happened. Like scratching that lottery ticket and winning $100, we finally got a Doctor Who episode this season. We’ve had decent ones and painful ones, but with "Kerblam", we finally have a real one.

First, we have links to the past that we haven’t really seen up to now. The fez was obvious but welcomed and the Agatha Christie comment was icing on the cake. Next, we have the Doctor blundering into a situation without any plan. She actually gets in the way by overthinking things when the system initially puts her in custodial. It was much more of a fluid situation which she had to adapt her plans to on the fly as opposed to "Rosa" and "Demons of Punjab", where she was basically protecting a forgone conclusion. Also, The companions were real active in parts of the plot instead of being sent away on some unrelated side quest. And finally, the thing that put it over the top for me was the twist. Making a common item scary or dangerous is a long tradition (Autons and Angels to name a few), and lethal bubble wrap just adds to this. I don’t know if it was an intentionally homage to the green bubble wrap monsters in arc in space, but I like to think it was.

In other words, this episode had a nice mix of mystery, fun, history and some relevance to today, as a good episode should. Without hitting us over the head with it. I’ll give it 4.5 out of 5 Tardises.

Review "Demons of the Punjab"

It's that time again to review the newest Doctor Who episode and I'm sure I will hate it.  And..... I didn't hate it. There's a first for me. I know most of you think I will hate everything this new Doctor does, but that's not true. Actually, there were other episodes that I liked, but it always ended up being my partner in crime, Brice Baker's turn to review it.  So here's my chance. Now, let's not get carried away. I didn't love this episode, but it was Ok. 

Review "The Tsuranga Conundrum"

We are onto episode 5 of this season and thank goodness, there were no spiders in this episode. "The Tsuranga Conundrum" features the Doctor and her companions on board a medical ship that is being eaten by a small creature called a "Pting", who has an insatiable appetite for energy and will stop for nothing to devour all of it. Plus as an added obstacle, if they deviate the ships' path the people controlling it will blow it up. Sounds like a pretty juicy episode, right? WRONG!

This episode was a complete waste. First they make the baddie, the Pting look like a cute little chubby creature that you might want to snuggle with. Not that menacing. I know why Chris Chibnall created the Pting like this, because he always wants to be different and do unconventional things. But there's a reason why you don't make the monster a cute a little creature, because it doesn't work. 

Review "Arachnids" by Brice Baker

With Arachnids in the UK, this season continues on its steady improvement. The characters are fleshing out nicely and supporting family and friends adding to their dimensions. I found the reasoning for each to continue being companions particularly interesting.

The story was a nice change. It wasn’t an alien invasion, it wasn’t in London and it was in the present. The Doctor is very proud of herself that she got them to the right place for a change! She is fantastic at the socially awkward one liners and her facial expressions are over the top. This story continued the tradition of seemingly unrelated threads coming together in the end. The spiders are all going crazy without an obvious reason. The Doctor finds a strong advisor who begins to bring the mystery together. The Doctor’s unique ability of seeing connections, places a bulls-eye on a swanky new resort. We meet the owner, a stereotypical American businessman, who is a shoot first control freak. As his eyes are opened to the damage he has caused, he becomes angrier and eventually killing the “mother spider”. A brief mention of a toxic waste disposal company ends up tying up the loose ends.

Review "Rosa"

We are onto the 3rd episode of this season and we get our first historical episode from Jodie's Doctor, which features Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott.  Now when Doctor Who does a historical episode, it tries to blend historical facts with an element of science fiction that is trying to cause the historical moment not to occur. It's a pretty simple formula to follow, but somehow this episode messed up the science fiction part.

The historical part of this episode was magically done. It had great acting, especially Vinette Robinson who played Rosa Parks, great sets and great drama. If they would have just stopped at that, we would have had a great episode, maybe not a great Dr Who episode, but a great TV episode nonetheless. In order to make it a Dr Who episode, they needed to add some form of science fiction to it and here's where they dropped the ball. Enter Krasko, who is a rehabilitated murderer who can't kill anyone because of his neural implant. For some reason, Krasko blames Rosa Parks and the Civil Rights Movement on all of his troubles in the far, far future. This futuristic criminal really blames the Civil Right Movement on all of his troubles?

Review: "The Ghost Monument" by Brice Baker

I must admit to enjoying the change of pace with the new Doctor. I’ve said it before that Peter Capaldi, through no fault of his making, ended up with formulaic predictable storylines. Both episodes of the new series have been far from predictable, but had a bit of a familiar feel. “The Woman Who Fell to Earth” just had a hint of the manic pace of “Rose” and “The Ghost Monument” had the attitude of “The Eleventh Hour.”

In the second episode, we begin to get more of a feel for where each member or this group fit in. This is where we do run into a bit of predictability in that Graham is the steady, observant and responsible one, Yasmin is the emotional support and Ryan is the technical support. I see that the bike riding in the first episode will be a symbol for Ryan’s growth throughout the season.

"Woman who fell to Earth" Review

Welcome back to the new season of Dr Who and a new season of us writing about our thoughts of the shows. We have a new Doctor (Jodie Whittaker), new Companions (Mandip Gill, Tosin Cole & Bradley Walsh) and finally a new Executive Producer (Chris Chibnall).  With all that being said the first words out of my mouth after watching this episode were "What the hell was that?"

To begin with, I do not like first stories of brand new Doctors. I have pretty much hated every one, except maybe Patrick Troughton's 1st story, "The Power of the Daleks", but to be fair I only say it in it's animation form. It's tough to like any first story of a new Doctor. The actor is just learning how they want to portray the character, the writer has never written for this Doctor before and the fans have a tough time connecting to any new Doctor. It takes awhile to figure out what works. But what I saw in this episode did not even feel like a Dr Who episode. This was a Torchwood meets Sarah Jane Adventures mash up and the result was a disaster in my opinion. They used the dark and gritty look of Torchwood and combined with that a really bad looking villain that looked like was used on the SJ Adventures and you got this episode. If you took the words "Doctor", "Tardis" and "Sonic" out of this episode, I adventure that you would not have known what you were watching Dr Who and that's a Bad thing. The blame goes to 1 man, Chris Chibnall. Jodie Whittaker will not be the death of the show, but Chris Chibnall very could well be if he continues this look for the show. I dare to even say these words, but this episode kind of made me miss Steven Moffat. I shudder at the thought.

Connection Conjecture ~ Farewell to #12

With the oncoming return of The Doctor, I’ve wanted to revisit some of Peter Capaldi’s episodes. It was in scrolling through those, that I realized there weren’t any that stood out. "Heaven Sent" was a favorite but ruined by "Hell Bent". I consider him to be the most Doctorish of the new Doctors but his tenure was tarnished by two things, lackluster writing and Clara Oswald.

A lot of the stories seemed to reach for the lowest hanging fruit on the tree or absurd suspensions of reality. We save Robin Hood by shooting a golden arrow with a long bow through a window of a moving space ship...yes we are dealing with science fiction but this is a stretch. Another example was the season leading up to Missy. We spent all season wondering who this new character is, only to be not only given the obvious but also a grand finale that miraculously gives armor to the dead and buried out of thin air (or dirt?).

Awesome Con 2018 Review

As Dr Who fans, we have become extremely spoiled attending Awesome Con. We have had the pleasure to meet, Peter Capaldi, David Tennant, Billie Piper, Catherine Tate, Jenna Coleman, John Barrowman, etc at previous incarnations of Awesome Con. Those are some pretty big names for a convention that is not geared soley toward Dr Who, but rather geared toward everything that is pop culture. With this being said, I only give my reviews as it relates to Dr Who and the Dr Who Universe. I do not take in consideration anything that is not Dr Who. Is this fair? Probably not, but that's why I'm stating this here right up front. 2018 Awesome Con was geared more toward fans of Guardians of the Galaxy, Arrow, Star Wars and not Dr Who fans. I always review each Con based on Guests, Vendors & Programming.

Guests:

This is was by far the worst Dr Who guest lineup that Awesome Con has ever had since I have been covering them. The guest line-up would have been a little different if Karen Gillan had not backed out. As it was, John Barrowman was probably the biggest Dr Who star at the show and this was his 3rd straight appearance at Awesome Con. I'm guessing they brought him back since this year they included lots of other actors from the Arrow Universe. But 3 years in a row is getting to be a little bit much for me.

ReGeneration Who Review

ReGeneration Who took place March 23rd-25th in Baltimore, MD right next door to the Inner Harbor. This was my first time attending ReGeneration Who since their inaugural convention back in 2015. A lot has changed and some things have stayed the same. Now when I'm reviewing a convention, I like to look at Guests, Programing and Vendors. Just an FYI, I only attended the first 2 days of the Con.

Guests:

ReGeneration Who went all out this year in the quantity and quality of Dr Who guests. The headliners were clearly Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez. These two were fresh off their final appearances on the show and the attendees were certainly glad to see them in a smaller setting. Not only were Peter Capaldi and Michelle Gomez there, but ReGeneration Who brought in a slew of more guests like Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Sarah Sutton, Janet Fielding and the list goes on and on. The 2 guests that I was particular interested in were Matthew Waterhouse who played Adric and William Russell who played Ian Chesterton. Out of all the conventions I have attended, this was my first time meeting both of them. The character of Adric might take a lot of flack from fans, but as kid of about the same age when I started watching Dr Who, he was the character that I could most relate to. Then what can you say about William Russell? He was there from the beginning and was an intrical part in the early success of the show and it was a honor to meet and thank him for his excellent work on the show.