Season Review by Brice Baker

I started writing these articles because of my love of how uniquely Doctor Who could connect storylines from episode to episode, season to season and decade to decade. I thought I’d use that to help explain a bit about this season. Bear with me—wibbly wobbly.

I had two problems with Peter Capaldi’s reign as the Doctor, Clara and his sudden fixation on getting to Gallifrey. I think I have finally wrapped my head around both of these in one neat bundle...by going back to his first appearance. In “The Day of the Doctor,” he saves the planet and all of the inhabitants by placing them in a picture, essentially a pocket universe. Due to the crossing of timelines, The Doctor couldn’t realize this until his 11th incarnation. Instead, the Timelords hid away and allowed him to believe he had destroyed them. Soon after that, they forced him into a sort of prison on the planet “Chistmas” as he simultaneously protected them from the hoards of evil monsters and prevented them from returning for hundreds of years. Once again, Clara saved his life and bargained for a new set of regenerations for him.

Fast forward to “Face the Raven,”and he can’t prevent the death of Clara after all of the times she has saved him. Not only could he not protect her, but her death was in a way at the hands of the Timelords. Realizing what was going on, when he was teleported in “Heaven Sent,” he used her memory to keep his sanity for over 4 billion years and formulated a way to save her and hold Rasillon accountable for her death.

The next season is spent, in large part, protecting Missy, whom he now understands more and sees as his last chance at a family. The Doctor also takes on Bill as a companion when he sees a spark in her, however we don’t know how many years he spent as a professor before he accepts her. We can assume it took him a very long time to trust himself again. Suddenly, yet another is taken from him by the very person he was sworn to protect. Yet another failure in his part.

We can finally understand his not wanting to regenerate again. The Good Doctor has failed a loved one again. He had always sworn to bring his companions back safely and now has had multiple losses. He is done, but in seeing his previous incarnation, he gains hope for trying again.

However, this hope includes a complete break from the past. New everything, with no direct connections to the past. And seeking a new family, not necessarily companions but a family the (s)he had lost so many times.

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?