In Remembrance review [Guy Adams]

When an alarm is triggered at Coal Hill Academy, Quill and Charlie encounter a mysterious intruder prowling around school premises. Worse, they also encounter a Dalek. Their only hope of survival lies with the stranger: a woman who calls herself 'Ace'...

When: 2016 and 1963.

The Doctor's Case:

• The best moment of this story would have to be when Quill talks about how she used to think of herself as a hero, but that now she's nothing in a world full of people she hates.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "How's that for technology, you arrogant, stupid, tinned racist!?"
• The best thing about School Reunion isn't that Sarah Jane Smith came back but that she'd changed and grown since leaving the Doctor. She's built a new life and isn't the young companion that she once was. Unfortunately, Dorothy McShane isn't any different to the younger Ace we've had in so many audio dramas - she doesn't sound any different than in, say, Earth Aid. It's a shame because I was looking forward to getting to see something new from Ace, but whilst School Reunion left you wanting more of Sarah and even spawned The Sarah Jane Adventures, In Remembrance does nothing for Ace.
• Most of the story is set in 2016 with Dorothy and Quill talking and interacting with the Dalek, sidelining the arguably more interesting story of Charlie being stuck in a battleground in 1963. It's something we barely see and given how time travel isn't a theme of Class, I would have thought they'd have made the most of it.

Honours Roll: Daleks get blown up in 1963.

I'll Explain Later:

• How come Quill knows so much about the Daleks whilst Charlie doesn't?

This Reminds Me...:

• The events of Remembrance of the Daleks are an important part of this story.
• Charlie suggests running up stairs to escape the Dalek. Rose tried this in Dalek.
• A Charitable Earth was mentioned in Death of the Doctor.
• Ace mentions the Bandrils from Timelash and Fenric from The Curse of Fenric.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Considering this was the one I was looking forward to the most, I was left disappointed, especially by Dorothy who doesn't seem to have changed or grown much at all since being returned to Earth by Braxiatel. Quill was good, as usual, and Charlie's scenes in 1963 were far too short and infrequent. However, this was still an okay story and deserves a C.

Class: The Audio Adventures - Volume 2

Everybody Loves Reagan  |  Now You Know...  |  In Remembrance

Vengeance on Varos review [Philip Martin]

The Varosians are a people bordering on destitution, kept in abeyance by the government's endless stream of televised torture and executions. But then the Doctor and Peri land on Varos, looking for a precious mineral the worth of which the people of Varos don't have the faintest idea, and Sil of the Galatron Mining Corporation will do anything to keep it that way.

When and Where: Early 24th century Varos (assuming Peri is right in saying that the guest cast were all born almost 300 years after 1984). For the Doctor and Peri this isn't long after Attack of the Cybermen, although they've had the time to visit the frozen plains of Yuin 9, and is an indeterminate amount of time before The Mark of the Rani. For Sil this is a number of years before Mission to Magnus.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "This governor calls a punch-in every time he wants to change his trousers. The sooner he gets ruled out, the better." / "What would the next one do different?" / "Everything. Anything."
• "You've only got one life. You'll age here in the Tardis and then die. Me, I shall go on regenerating until all my lives are spent."
• "He's the worst governor we've had since. Well, since-" "Since the last one?"
• "I find the G-forces of this Varos-size world quite excessive."
• "If we can obtain enough Zeiton-7 to realign the transpower system, the TARDIS will be like... Well, as she was."
• "Sil's language transposer has an eccentric communication circuit, but don't tell him. It's my only amusement."
• "The cameras are still functioning…let the show begin. I want to hear them scream until I’m deaf with pleasure. To see their limbs twist in excruciating agony. Ultimately their blood must gush and flow along the gutters of Varos. The whole planet must delight in their torture and death."
• "And that, fellow citizens of Varos, is my vowed intention. For without justice and peace and tolerance, we have no future. I know you will all work as hard as I shall for a glorious tomorrow. Thank you for allowing me into your homes. Thank you."
• It's a dystopian world so there's an oppressive government. The two things go hand-in-hand. This episode, however, subverts this expectation by having the Governor be the real victim of both the elite and the populace - the elite manipulate him for their own agendas and the public are able to physically punish him if they disagree with him. It's an original idea and provides some very good political commentary, with Arak hating whoever is governor and saying that everything they're doing is wrong. Each Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is treated the same way, being called the worst the country's had and saying that their successor should do everything differently. Having us sympathise with the Governor is one of those clever things that Doctor Who does sometimes that deserves so much more recognition than it gets.
  
• Before we had Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, we had reality TV as a theme in Vengeance on Varos. It's a chilling prediction of the future in the same way as the film Shock Treatment is, with the people of Varos living their lives glued to screens and, when reality TV is taken from them, they don't know what to do. The existence of reality TV has taken away the Varosians' need to have their own lives and they're (almost entirely) happy with that. Arak and Etta are a great addition to the script showing us all what we ourselves do, like complaining about things baselessly and without any thought.
• Every now and then in Doctor Who, we get breakout villains that are too good not to return. The Daleks, the Cybermen, the Ice Warriors, the Great Intelligence, the Silurians, the Sontarans, Davros... and now Sil. He's not nearly as dangerous of any of the aforementioned but he's a character afforded a great deal of funny dialogue and extraordinarily well-performed by Nabil Shaban, providing his iconic and unusual laugh. His costume, too, is one of the more memorable and inspired of recent seasons. My boyfriend might hate him for reasons I don't understand, but I doubt many people were surprised when Sil's return was hastily pencilled in for season 23. He's a great character here and his return in Mindwarp is a welcome one.
• I can understand a lot of the reasons why a significant portion of the Doctor Who fanbase don't like the Sixth Doctor's criminally brief era, but one that I will never accept is saying that Colin Baker can't act. The cliff-hanger to episode one is one of my favourites of all time and it's almost definitely the best of this season, with the Doctor crawling on the floor rapidly dehydrating. It's a very convincing performance of what could easily have been embarrassing and ineffective in the hands of another actor - he really does convince that he's dying, even though we know he obviously won't.
• A common complaint about this story is the acidbath scene, but I couldn't disagree more. The Doctor clearly had no intention of killing either of the guards, with the first being accidentally pushed by the second and the second being pulled in by the first. Perhaps his James Bond one-liner was a little blasé, but the deaths were an accident and there's a look of revulsion on his face as he watches them dissolve.
  

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "You even managed to burn dinner last night." / "I have never said I was perfect." / "If you recall, last night I was supposed to have a cold supper." Is this humour?
• "I think he needs more than water, Peri, eh?" / "Like cyanide." Chill out, Peri. 
• The Sixth Doctor has a number of obstacles in the way of winning the confidence and hearts of the audience already, what with his outlandish costume, his brashness and the memory of The Twin Dilemma. Having Peri list a numerous off-screen examples of his incompetence just makes it that much more difficult to believe that this is the Time Lord we know and love and that Attack of the Cybermen did a reasonably good job of proving. He's caused electrical fires, a total power failure, a near-collision with asteroids, gotten lost in the TARDIS corridors, wiped the memory of the flight computer, jettisoned three-quarters of the storage hold and burnt dinner, all since leaving Telos. His calling Peri by a number of his previous companions' names (as mentioned in Attack of the Cybermen) can be forgiven since he'd only recently regenerated, but these continued examples of his idiocy hardly a Doctor make. The Eleventh Doctor not knowing the intricacies of the TARDIS console (as seen in The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone and The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon) is funny, shows us how good River is as piloting the ship and is forgivable because, despite his inelegance, he too can fly it and isn't incompetent.
• Arguably one of the biggest issues with season 22 and the forty-five minute format is that it takes the length of your average classic Who episode for the Doctor and Peri to arrive at their destination. They hang around in the console room, bicker and then encounter some sort of problem with the TARDIS as the script writer struggles for reasons to keep the pair from this week's setting before finally arriving twenty-five minutes in. It allows for the world to be explored in their absence and for the setting to be properly and fully established before the TARDIS lands, but is it really impossible to do that with the Doctor and Peri there? The TARDIS isn't an impressive set and having it feature so much with so few things of interest happening in them almost takes the magic of the TARDIS away. It becomes too domestic and regular.
  
• We're told that the Varosian elite are living in luxury by Areta and that discovering this is why Jondar is being tortured. However, we see nothing of this, with the scenes of the Governor and his Chief Officer being set in locations just as dingy and depressing as those with Arak and Etta. If we're to believe this we really have to see it, otherwise there seems to be little if any class divide between the descendants of the guards and those of the inmates.
• In Attack of the Cybermen the Doctor killed a number of Cybermen, one using his sonic lance and the others with a cyber-gun. These can be excused by the fact that the Earth and the billions of people who lived there (as well as the sleeping Silurians) were at risk of total annihilation. What I do take issue with is the Doctor setting up the laser in this episode in such a way that the guards could easily (and do) walk into it accidentally and die.

I'll Explain Later:

• Who's having their vengeance on Varos? Is it the vengeance of the Varosians upon the Galatron Mining Company? I'm not sure I buy that.
• The TARDIS can warn the crew (in an unusual and ineffective way, admittedly) about the fast return switch (The Edge of Destruction) but not that it's running low on fuel? 
• In The Day of the Doctor, we learn that the Doctor's promise to himself was to "never be cruel or cowardly. Never give up. Never give in." How come the Doctor gives up and gives in so quickly after the TARDIS runs out of fuel?
• Zeiton-7 is needed for every TARDIS yet the Varosians aren't aware of its value? Do Time Lords buy it from third-parties like Galatron or do they only get it from Varos's future?
• Who were the cannibals?
• Why is the Galatron invasion cancelled? Surely owning Varos is far more important than whatever scarce supply could be mined from an asteroid.

What's in a Name?: Planned titles for this story include Domain or Planet of Fear, but the latter was too similar to season 21's Planet of Fire.

His Constant Companion: The Doctor leaves a laser on that kills a Varosian guard. Rondel is unceremoniously shot by a guard after serving his purpose to the plot. One guard is accidentally knocked into the acidbath before pulling in his friend. The Doctor gets Jondar to kill the Chief Officer, Quillam and a guard with the death-vines.

This Reminds Me...:

• Jondar's torture is similar to the torture the Ninth Doctor will endure in Dalek.
• "Water me!" "Moisturise me!"

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Vengeance on Varos is one of my least favourite stories of Doctor Who, not because it's an atrocious mess like Time and the Rani or as mundane as Fear Her but because it's got so many genius ideas mixed with a whole lot of... unimpressiveness. The script is decent with some outstanding dialogue and Colin Baker gives his best performance yet, alongside a stellar guest cast (Nicola Bryant's fine, but I'm really not a fan of Peri), with Martin Jarvis as the Governor and Nabil Shabhan as Sil being the highlights. At this point, there's no doubt that Colin is the Doctor. The sympathetic Governor and the role of television is true genius and I can't commend Philip Martin enough. The problem with this story isn't the violence, which I think is largely a non-issue, but it's that it's not always that entertaining. A script can be as clever as you like, but if it isn't entertaining then it's missing the mark and this story is guilty of running around in circles and perhaps being a little too dark for its own good. Ultimately, Vengeance on Varos is okay and, although I wish I could rate it higher, earns itself a C.

Doctor Who (Season 22)

Attack of the Cybermen  |  Vengeance on Varos  |  The Mark of the Rani

Attack of the Cybermen review ["Paula Moore"]

In 1986, the Cybermen were thwarted in their plan to restore Mondas to the solar system by the First Doctor. In 1985, the Sixth Doctor and Peri must stop time-travelling Cybermen from destroying the Earth and preventing their defeat.

What's in a Name?: The Cybermen never really attack at any point. They defend themselves against the Cryons, kill those who enter the sewers to preserve their secret and plan to use Halley's Comet to destroy Earth but they never really do any actual attacking. Perhaps it should have been called Convolution of the Cybermen.

When and Where: The Doctor and Peri land in Shoreditch, 1985. This isn't long after The Twin Dilemma, as the Doctor is still recovering from Jaconda, and is shortly before Vengeance on Varos. For the Cybermen, this is between The Tomb of the Cybermen and Scorpius. For Lytton, this is a year after Resurrection of the Daleks.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "A little gratitude wouldn't irretrievably damage my ego."
• "More bulges than an antenatal clinic."
• "That's bonkers." / "That's debatable. It's also the truth."
• "You said you came from Fulham!"
• "Lytton? Tall, lean, dark, well-spoken? The sort of man who might shoot his mother just to keep his trigger finger supple?"
• "Please remove your TARDIS from Telos before you need rescuing again."
• In The Twin Dilemma, we were introduced to a thoroughly unpleasant Doctor who suffered bouts of cowardice and paranoia-fuelled murderousness. Damage control has started quite soon with Colin Baker giving a performance that's harder than we'll meet in season 23 but that we can absolutely buy as the Doctor. He's a little prickly towards Peri at the beginning of the first part and isn't as accessible as a character as his predecessors, but he's infinitely more watchable. His scenes with Flast are some of the best of the story and show off the gentle side that we didn't get so much as a glimpse of in his debut appearance.
• If you were to ask a fan to select a John Nathan-Turner character to return for season 22, they'd say Aunt Vanessa, the Ergon or Lady Madge Cranleigh. Okay, maybe not, but Lytton probably wouldn't be one of them either. However, Maurice Colbourne is a talent that it would have been a shame not to see again. This is a character that, in the hands of a lesser actor, could easily be one-dimensional and unconvincing. Instead, he becomes one of the most memorable of the Sixth Doctor's guest stars.
  
• The Cryons might not be the best-realised monsters of all time, but they're a perfect foil for the Cybermen. Airy and sensual to counter the stolid Cybermen with soft feminine voices that contract with the Cybermen's deep and masculine ones. The actresses are handicapped by costumes that not only severely limit their vision but that stand in the way of a believable character with its odd design. They do a great job and help make the second episode easily the best of the two, although I understand that this is an unpopular opinion. Flast's death ends up being one of the most poignant moments of the story, refusing to tell the Cybermen anything and allowing herself to be pulled from the subzero temperature she required to live. Varne dies saving the Doctor and Rost tells him to leave the planet before more had to die for him. It's a topic that's brought up relatively often in New Who ("How many have died in your name?") but not so much pre-2005.
• Classic Doctor Who is almost always overlit. Look at the ship from Four to Doomsday or the sea base of Warriors of the Deep or, in fact, any set from any '80s story. The moodily-lit sewer is a rare example of lighting done right in this era, giving us a more sinister and eerie setting than we're used to with John Nathan-Turner's Doctors. Yes, it's an idea ripped straight from the script of The Invasion, but points for execution.
  

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Next year? That's almost now!"
• "I don’t think I’ve ever misjudged anybody quite as badly as I did Lytton."
• One of the biggest problems with Attack of the Cybermen is the overwhelming and unprecedented amount of continuity, with a lot of the plot relying on elements of The Tenth Planet and The Tomb of the Cybermen. At the time, the public hadn't seen either of these stories since their transmission in the late '60s and almost certainly weren't in the minds of any but the Ian Levine's of the world. To lean so heavily on plot points from so long ago makes this story feel almost like fanfiction and makes it overly complicated and borderline inaccessible to the casual or to the newer viewer. The scene where the main characters are prisoners aboard the TARDIS is laden with exposition.
• The score for this story is truly abominable and easily among the very worst of the show. It's out of place, against the genre and sometimes downright intrusive. It almost brings the whole episode down as a result because it's difficult to take some of the scenes entirely seriously.
• Attack of the Cybermen gets a lot of flak for being too violent. It certainly has a very high body-count, but I don't necessarily object to that. What I do object to is the Doctor's off-screen battery of one of Lytton's constables in the sewer, which is inexcusable violence on the Doctor's behalf. Using a gun against a Cyberman when his own life, as well as the lives of Peri and absolutely everybody on Earth, are at risk is one thing but beating up a human being just isn't the Doctor. What makes it worse is how blasé he is about it afterwards.
  
• A Cyber-Controller, a Cyber-Leader and a Cyber-Lieutenant, each outranking one another... It feels too much and makes the Cybermen feel overly bureaucratic. These are cyborgs that surely shouldn't require so much devolution. Perhaps the Cyber-Lieutenant should have been excised. 
• It's not an issue confined to this story but the Cybermen have far too much personality and too many human mannerisms. They could get away with the mannerisms more in The Tenth Planet where there definitely felt like there was a biological element to them but in The Moonbase, The Tomb of the Cybermen and The Invasion they felt more mechanical. Here they are saying "excellent" and emoting and squabbling and it all feels so wrong. Without the cold calculation, they're just any old monster of the week. Also, the Cyber-Controller's a bit fat.
• Killing off important guest characters is absolutely fine and should even be encourage to raise the stakes and make the villains that much more dangerous and hateable. The problem with Bates and Stratton isn't that they're killed off but that their story, which began in the first episode, never went anywhere and had no resolution or real impact on the plot. Their plan to escape fails when the third accomplice dies and they don't manage to get the head of a Cyberman. They kill another and get one, then head to Cyber-Control with Stratton in a Cyberman suit. They die there. What was the point in this plot thread?
  
• The story ends on a very abrupt note. Cyber-Control blows up, the Doctor says he misjudges Lytton and then the episode ends. If it was going for a Doctor Who and the Silurians ending, it missed the mark with the Doctor's rumination failing to resonate nearly as well as the Third Doctor's reaction to the regrettable murder of the Silurian colony.
• Peri starts off this season in a truly horrific outfit. John Nathan-Turner was clearly doing it for the straight male audience, but having both of our leads in ridiculous costumes makes it very difficult to believe the story. They look their worst in episode one, when they're traversing the mundane streets of London.
• Flast sets fire to a Cyberman's arm and what does it do? It bats at the flames with his gun. What an idiot.

His Constant Companion: The two workmen and Payne are killed in the sewers. A Cyberman is shot by one of Lytton's gang; two are killed on Telos by the escapees; another is killed by the Doctor in the sewers using his sonic lance; and in the TARDIS, Russell shoots one in the head with his own gun and then kills another with a cyber gun. Russell is killed by a tap on the shoulder by a cyber fist. Varne and Rost shot a Cyberman to save Peri. Flast is exposed to temperatures of 15 degrees or above by the Cybermen. Bates, Stratton, Griffiths and Varne are shot. The Cyber-Controller is stabbed by Lytton before the Doctor shoots him and other Cybermen. Lytton dies in this fight. The remaining Cybermen are killed by the explosion of Cyber Control.

I'll Explain Later:

• The Doctor beat up one of Lytton's constables and then handcuffs the other without even trying to question him. Does the Doctor not care about what the constables were up to? Why not at least attempt asking them?
  
• Why are the Cybermen on Earth?
• Did Lytton and the Doctor even meet in Resurrection of the Daleks? Was there an untelevised adventure where they met again? And how would that make sense given that the Doctor describes Lytton as having been an agent of the Daleks the last time they had any interaction?
• If Lytton's transmission has been answered by the Cryons, why is it ongoing?
• The Cryons are on Telos at a point in time after The Tomb of the Cybermen, meaning they're in the 25th or 26th century. How, then, do Lytton and the Cryons communicate? How did they get his transmission?
• How did the Cybermen get into the TARDIS? It's always seemed to be self-locking and enemy-proof.
• Why do the Cybermen hesitate when the Doctor tells them to wait? They were given the order to shoot Peri so shouldn't they carry that out regardless of what her accomplice says?
• Wouldn't saving Mondas be a paradox? It would mean that Telos was never colonised by the Cybermen, meaning they couldn't have saved Mondas.
• Isn't the TARDIS in a state of temporal grace? How did Russell and the Cybermen shoot one another?
• Why do the tombs look nothing like they did in The Tomb of the Cybermen?
• How come the Cybermen are going rogue? What was that all about?
• Peri visited London with the Fifth Doctor in The Kingmaker, yet claims here that it's her first visit to the city. Perhaps she meant her first visit in the modern day.

This Reminds Me...:

• The Doctor mentions Jaconda, the planet that they visited in season 21 finale The Twin Dilemma.
  
• The Doctor has called Peri by a number of his previous companions' names, including Susan, Jamie, Zoe and Tegan.
• The Doctor has also called her Zodin, the name of a villainess fought by the Second Doctor offscreen. She was mentioned in The Five Doctors.
• Lytton appeared as a Dalek agent in Resurrection of the Daleks.
• The TARDIS materialises in Foreman's Yard, first seen in An Unearthly Child. It will show up again in Remembrance of the Daleks.
• Cybermen were previously seen in the sewers of London in The Invasion.
• Mondas was destroyed in The Tenth Planet.
• Telos and its ice tombs were visited by the Second Doctor in The Tomb of the Cybermen.
• The Cybermen have a ship on the dark side of the Moon, just as they did in The Invasion.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: I will never stop singing the praises of Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor, but I was dreading watching this story again. All that I could remember was Lytton's hands, all the continuity (Foreman's Yard - why?) and the Doctor being unpleasant to the whiny and oddly-dressed Peri. I was very surprised to find that it's actually rather good and not nearly as unfocused as I remembered it being. Having fully stabilised, the Doctor is a defined man now and is so much easier to watch. This is helped by the gentle scenes he shares with the Cryons and that he becomes a prisoner of the Cybermen, meaning that we get to see him in a far different position than that of the ultimate authority that he was in The Twin Dilemma. The Cybermen are easily one of the weakest aspects of this story and the second episode is, despite the continuity, better than the first but this is still an okay story. Attack of the Cybermen comes close to a B, but ultimately earns itself a C.

Doctor Who (Season 22)

The Twin Dilemma (Season 21)  |  Attack of the Cybermen  |  Vengeance on Varos

The Bells of Saint John review [Steven Moffat]

Miss Kizlet is a businesswoman working at the skyline-dominating Shard. She has a client, a client who lives in the WiFi. A client who's hungry.

Clara Oswald doesn't know anything about computers. She calls a helpline. A helpline to the year 1207, where the Mad Monk sits meditating on the girl he watched die twice.

When and Where: London (again) in autumn 2013. The year comes from the official synopsis on iPlayer.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Actually, he's about to go on holiday. Kill him when he gets back. Let's not be unreasonable."
• "Also, your dad phoned. Mainly about the government, he seems very cross with them. I've got a few pages on that. I said I'd look into it."
• "Human souls trapped like flies in the World Wide Web. Stuck forever, crying out for help." / "Isn't that basically Twitter?"
• "Where are my mummy and daddy? They said they wouldn't be long. Are they coming back?"
• We were promised an urban thriller and, while we didn't really get it, we do get the very tense sequence where the lights around the Maitlands' house are all switched on whilst all others go out, telling a plane where to crash. It's an idea I haven't seen before and I really liked it.
  
  
• Richard E. Grant and Ian McKellen in the last episode and now Celia Imrie (and a Grant cameo). That's some stellar British talent we've got onboard. Miss Kizlet isn't the most memorable of villains - the script doesn't really allow her to be and we're never under the misconception that she's the one in charge here - but Imrie's performance is to be praised, as is Moffat for some of her lines. Her big moment, however, is her last, where she restores herself to how she was before the Great Intelligence involved itself in her life: a lost child. It's unexpected and heart-wrenching and could easily have been embarrassing and unconvincing in the hands of a weaker actress. If you trust The Doctor: His Lives and Times, then her parents left her at Russell Square station during the Intelligence's attack in The Web of Fear. 
• The Great Intelligence was Kizlet's client, wanting to increase his strength before The Name of the Doctor. It's good to see a recurring villain, especially one that isn't a big name like the Daleks, the Cybermen or the Master.
• Clara tracks down Kizlet by hacking her employees' webcams and finding their place of work through social media. It's an inspired idea.

 The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
  
• "Doctor who?" / "Do you know, I never realised how much I enjoy hearing that said out loud. Thank you."
• "Is it a snogging booth?"
• "Do you just crook your finger and people just jump in your snog box and fly away?"
• The episode is named after the ringing of the TARDIS phone, although I have no idea why. There are plenty of far better names that this episode could have been given relating to WiFi or the snatching of souls or something. The Bells of Saint John could apply to a number of episodes and is quite generic. The whole Cumbria 1207 thing is unnecessary anyway. In The Power of Three, the Doctor said that patience was for wimps and was completely unable to sit still in one place, as he was in Vincent and the Doctor. For some reason, though, he's chosen to sit in a 13th century monastery trying to "divine" the truth behind Clara. This is a proactive man who can't sit still - he should be out there looking rather than wasting time in a monk's robes achieving absolutely nothing.
• This is the third Oswald that we've met. We had the computer genius Oswin Oswald in Asylum of the Daleks, the governess-with-a-secret Miss Montague (AKA Clara Oswin Oswald) and here we meet a version in the modern day. As far as this episode goes, this Oswald is the most human. Oswin and Miss Montague were both fun and interesting characters but both were a little too perfect, Miss Montague in particular. Nothing really seemed to faze her too much and she took everything in her stride, although she had a great moment with the TARDIS key before she was pulled to her death. Oswin was better, having a wonderfully tear-jerking scene where she breaks down upon learning that she's a Dalek. Clara is somewhere inbetween, feeling more real than Miss Montague but failing to be as engaging as Oswin, nor does she feel like a real person like Rose, Martha, Donna or, to a lesser extent, Rory did.
  
• Series 7a went for big, blockbusting ideas whilst The Bells of Saint John is going for a genre, that genre being an urban thriller. Aside from the plane flying towards the Maitlands' street, I never got this vibe. There's some typing that goes on and the Doctor driving a motorbike up the Shard (which was silly) but it's pretty weak and definitely isn't James Bond as Moffat was going for.
• "Doctor who?" is a question that should never be answered. After Asylum of the Daleks, The Snowmen and now The Bells of Saint John, I'm thinking it should also never be asked. The scene is painful to watch, a waste of a good few seconds of screentime and isn't remotely clever or funny. It's indulgent.
• Kizlet uploads human souls into the WiFi where they're pulped and fed to the Great Intelligence. However, we've never been given any hint before that it fed on souls. In The Snowmen it wanted human form, in The Abominable Snowmen it wanted to spread across the world, in The Web of Fear it wanted the Doctor's body and in Downtime it again wanted physical form. Never has there been any implication that he feeds on human souls and nor is any reason given here for why he's suddenly on this diet. He says that it's made him become stronger, but that's all the explanation we get. 
• Clara trying to access the WiFi isn't cute or endearing. It's embarrassing and there's no way she's gotten to her age without knowing how to do it. Anyway, typing the wrong password does absolutely nothing unless you press enter and declaring the password to be wrong because she somehow managed to accidentally click the 4 instead of the 3 is stupid. It gives away the number of characters in the actual password. Why does she click on the evil WiFi anyway
• Keyboard battles are tricky to make tense and the Doctor and Alexei clickety-clacking away at their computers isn't very exciting. It looks like what it is: two people tapping keys whilst computery nonsense is typed across the screen.
• The Doctor doesn't take the TARDIS into battle? What a lie.
  

I'll Explain Later:

• Would everyone's response to being uploaded be to repeatedly say "I don't know where I am"? It wouldn't be mine.
• Why did the Doctor leave the TARDIS in a cave so far away from the monastery?
• Does the Doctor not care to find out who Miss Kizlet's client was?

This Reminds Me...:

• The Spoonheads are reminiscent of the Nodes in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead.
• We saw the Tenth Doctor ride a motorbike in The Idiot's Lantern.
• The Doctor sent in a fake version of himself (in that case the Tesselecta) in The Wedding of River Song.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: A weak and insubstantial first half followed by a decent second half, The Bells of Saint John doesn't feel as though it's bringing anything new to the table and is definitely one of the weakest companion introductions. Clara is more human than Miss Montague, but is still rather closed-off and unknowable unlike Rose, Martha and Donna. This Clara and the Doctor have a chemistry that is (thankfully) lacking in the lust that we got in The Snowmen, although Moffat is still sexualising the Doctor, the TARDIS and the show at large. When the episode kicks in, it's rather good, with a great performance by Celia Imrie (even if her character was somewhat limited) and her creepy way of following the Doctor around by hacking people to speak through. The Bells of Saint John is okay and earns itself a C.

Doctor Who (Series 7)

The Snowmen  |  The Bells of Saint John  |  The Rings of Akhaten

Trial of the Valeyard review [Alan Barnes and Mike Maddox]

Transported aboard the Time Lords' orbiting courtroom, the Doctor once again encounters the Valeyard, an amalgamation of the darker sides of his nature. This time, however, the Doctor isn't in the dock. This time, the Valeyard is the defendant, accused of a crime so terrible that the presiding Inquisitor is forbidden to reveal it even to the court, nor even to his counsel for the defence - the Doctor.

If the Valeyard is found guilty, he'll be executed. Execute the Valeyard, and the secret of his origins dies with him. A secret that the Doctor is desperate to know - and which the Time Lords will stop at nothing to protect.

Previous Stories: Before listening to this, one should have watched The Trial of a Time Lord.

When and Where: The Gallifreyan space station, near the planet of Eta Rho. For the Valeyard, this takes place between The Ultimate Foe and The End of the Line. The Doctor is travelling alone and, for him, this is at some point after The Wormery but probably before The Marian Conspiracy given his arrogance.

The Doctor's Case:

• It's been decades since The Trial of the Time Lord ended with the reveal of the Valeyard's survival at the end of The Ultimate Foe and the mysterious villain himself has barely (if ever) been touched during this time. Neither Big Finish nor the TV show gave us any information on what the Valeyard did next or where he came from beyond the Master's short explanation that he was the Doctor's dark thoughts made manifest. At last, we get his story, even if most of it is probably untrue. The idea of a Shadow House where Time Lords who suffer an imperfect regeneration are hidden away is an intriguing idea and one that stirs a little bit of sympathy for the Valeyard, and it's the only part of his story that I personally believe. As for what happens to him post-Trial, he makes use of the Time Lords and their legal system to lay a trap that will kill Darkel (who he wants dead for some reason) and the Doctor. It's fitting that he should use the Gallifreyan judiciary once more to try to kill the Doctor.
• An overlooked part of Trial is that of the Inquisitor, who has since been given the name of Darkelatraquistahastrad, or Darkel. Michael Jayston does a great job but he doesn't overshadow the rest of the courtroom as Lynda Bellingham is equally compelling onscreen, so to have her return to arbitrate a trial with the Doctor and the Valeyard again is a brilliant place to find ourselves - the scenes in Trial might have been interrupting the action but it can't be said that they weren't well-performed. Here, Darkel is without the warm moments that she occasionally had on TV and is of more questionable morality, not being the same fair judge that we know. Fortunately, Bellingham's performance makes this change of character almost unnoticeable. Her voice has aged the most but it's still a lovely one to listen to.
• The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors irritate me the most of any Doctor, mainly because of all the babbling. They talk really quickly and quirkily, often about complete rubbish, and I find it grating. However, the "Thirteenth Doctor" (actually the Valeyard in disguise) shows that it can be done right. He's mad and talking nonsense with loads of references to the Doctor's history (Polly, Foreman's Yard, etc.) and it's fun to listen to. He reminds me somewhat of Patchface from A Song of Ice and Fire, an insane clown who seems to be saying gibberish but is actually predicting the future. It's not quite the same, obviously, but the comparison's there. It's a shame that it turns out to be the Valeyard in disguise but, then again, Big Finish could hardly introduce a Thirteenth Doctor so they had to fake it.

The Valeyard's Case:

• The main problem with The Trial of a Time Lord is the courtroom, as I discovered upon watching a fan edit of Mindwarp which removed the sequences. The first time round, the boring trial scenes took us out of the action and harmed the stories as a result. Here, the trial is perfectly fine but to have the Valeyard's story of his life play out as a flashback would have been more entertaining a way of telling us this information. It's not a huge problem, though, thanks to the lovely voice of Michael Jayston.
• Another problem with The Trial of a Time Lord is the Doctor in the trial room, where his flippancy irritates both the Inquisitor and myself the viewer with his stackyards and knacker's yards. In Trial of the Valeyard, it takes eight minutes for the Doctor to even learn that this is the Valeyard's trial because he talks incessantly from the story's beginning. It's not quirky and endearing: rather, it's annoying because we know what's going on and the Doctor's dragging out the reveal by being obnoxious. His repeated mentions of Ravolox to set off the alarm is childish and annoying, which I hate to see from my favourite Doctor.
• The story could do with being longer. The last time we saw the Valeyard, he had a season-long plan which was linked to a conspiracy by the High Council and involved wielding the sword of the Gallifreyan legal system against the Doctor, before using the surreal Matrix to attempt to get him to sign over his lives whilst also assassinating the courtroom. In this story, the Valeyard's big plan is leading the Doctor and Darkel to a bomb. It lacks the finesse and intelligence that we got from the Valeyard onscreen and a longer story would no doubt have allowed him to have a more insidious plot.
• The Doctor is the Valeyard's court defender. It's a great reversal, but there doesn't seem to be much of a threat when there isn't a prosecutor for the Doctor to go up against. Darkel is an arbiter (although, admittedly, a very biased one) but this is the Doctor of Words and he needs a sparring partner like he had in Trial who's actively attempting to have the defendant executed.

Who is the Valeyard?: The Valeyard claims that he was an orphan, living as a mute savage on a nameless planet. He was found by space scavengers at the age of about twenty. The scavengers helped get him to Gallifrey, where his biodata was found to be identical to the Doctor's, so he was sent to a Shadow House, one of the Black Nurseries. Time Lords who suffer failed regenerations are sent to such places. A Time Lord in constant flux there recognised him from his own future and told him to study regeneration so he could avenge those at the Shadow House. In his studies, he discovered that the regeneration rule was imposed by Rassilon and that the Doctor would, in his thirteenth incarnation, experiment on himself to break the rule and extend his life. This resulted only in the creation of the Valeyard. (Most of this story is known to be false, and The Brink of Death suggests that he was a black ops Time Lord creation.)

I'll Explain Later:

• Shouldn't there be a prosecutor at the Valeyard's trial?
• Darkel seemed dedicated to ensuring a fair trial in The Trial of a Time Lord. Why does she seem so willing to allow an unfair trial now?
• Why does the Valeyard want revenge on the Inquisitor? She had barely anything to do with his defeat.

This Reminds Me:

• The Doctor mentions the Master, the Rani, the Monk, Morbius and Borusa. He also asks if the Valeyard is going to play the spoons, which the Seventh Doctor does in Time and the Rani.
• The Valeyard describes the Seventh and Eighth Doctors and mentions Stockbridge. As the Thirteenth Doctor, he mentions Lady Jane Grey, the name Foreman (as well as allusions to Totter's Lane), Polly Wright, Tibet and fish people. He also does an impression of Jamie.
• The Doctor theorises about the Valeyard's nature, suggesting that he could be a future incarnation of the Doctor or be a Watcher of his.
• The Doctor triggering the alarm by saying "Ravolox" is like how Jack triggers a man's conditioning by saying "Torchwood" in They Keep Killing Suzie.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Trial of the Valeyard could have been the epilogue to season 23, but fails to make an impact in that... nothing changes. By the end of the story, nothing has changed since The Ultimate Foe, with the Valeyard having escaped, Darkel sitting in her courtroom as an inquisitor and the Doctor speculating about his dark alter-ego without much to go on. It definitely would have benefited from being longer, with full-cast flashbacks of the Valeyard's past. Having said that, Michael Jayston and Lynda Bellingham give fantastic performances (as does Colin Baker, per usual, even if he is obnoxious at times) and it's about time we got a little background on the Valeyard, even if it's impossible to pick out from the lies.This story is okay, and that earns it a C.

Doctor Who - Bonus Releases

Night of the Stormcrow  |  Trial of the Valeyard

Mastermind review [Jonathan Morris]

The Vault - an archive of alien artefacts securely stored deep beneath the Angel of the North.

There's also a prisoner in the Vault. An extraterrestrial known as the Master. He has been on Earth for some time, but now he's under lock and key.

This is his story.

Or, as Captain Ruth Matheson and Warrant Officer Charlie Sato discover... perhaps it is theirs.

When and Where: The Master's story takes place after the TV film. After his escape, he's saved from a predicament by Narvin and his adventures continue from Time's Horizon.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "I am known as the Master. Universally."
• "I am the living embodiment of entropy. Rotten to the core."
• Learning how the Master survived the TV film and what he's been up to since then is one of those gaps in continuity that Big Finish happily fills. The Master's life on Earth contrasts with the Doctor's: rather than join UNIT and selflessly protect the human race from extraterrestrial threats, the Master becomes a gang boss and crime lord, running all the casinos in Las Vegas. The Master has an obvious Silence of the Lambs vibe that allows Geoffrey Beevers to deliver a captivating performance. But then he managed that even in Dust Breeding.

The Valeyard's Case:

• Whilst it's interesting to learn what the Master got up to after the film, this story lacks an emotional element. Master showed that there is depth to the character and that there's plenty of emotional and psychological exploration to do with the character. This could have been in the same vein as Davros or Master, but instead it's the Master simply recounting his history like a wiki page.
• Matheson and Sato are entirely one-note and without character and, given that this range is The Companion Chronicles and not The Master Chronicles this really shouldn't be the case. They're a very dull pair and it's a shame that Ashbrook and Tso don't have more developed characters to play. Neither Grace Holloway nor Chang Lee were breakout characters but they're preferable to these vapid characters.

I'll Explain Later:

• The defences seem pretty extensive, but are Captain Matheson and Warrant Officer Sato really the only people guarding him? They're just asking for him to escape.

This Reminds Me...:

• Excalibur was found by the Seventh Doctor and Ace in an adventure with Brigadier Bambera in Battlefield.
• The Master mentions the events of the TV film and explains what happened to him. The Deathworm Morphant allowed him to survive in the Eye of Harmony for an uncertain length of time before he was able to project his mind outside of the Eye. He reached out into the mind of the Eighth Doctor's companion Edward Grainger, who set him free into 1906.
• The Master mentions the Brigadier and Jo Grant.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: With a lack of an emotional dimension to any of the characters, Mastermind doesn't make for a truly engaging listen. The Master matter-of-factly delivers to the dull Captain Matheson and Warrant Officer Sato a portion of his autobiography before escaping, which was the obvious ending. Geoffrey Beevers, however, is always brilliant. This story should have covered a shorter length of time and had far more interesting characters that Matheson and Sato. This story is okay, and that earns it a C.

The Companion Chronicles - Series 8

Council of War  |  Mastermind  |  The Alchemists

Legion of the Lost review [John Dorney]

The Annihilator is a weapon capable of erasing entire species from the universe, created by the Daleks. Collis is a Time Lady and part of a team sent to claim it for Gallifrey, but there is another Time Lord about, known as the Renegade. He believes that neither race should have it.

Infernal Devices: The Annihilator, capable of wiping races from existence, and the Technomancers' machine for resurrection.

When and Where: Vildar (where Collis dies) and Aldriss, the planet of the Technomancers. This is set between The Heart of the Battle and A Thing of Guile.

The Renegade's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Death's the only certainty we have. Why take it away? For some of us death is the only peace we can hope for."
• "No one knows what we're fighting for more than the dead."
• "Omega's ghost!"
• The Time Lords making a deal with the Technomancers to resurrect their soldiers is an inspired idea, even more so once it's revealed that each resurrected Gallifreyan holds a piece of the Horned Ones in their being.
• By the time of Collis's first death she's already made more of an impression than Rejoice did in the whole of Only the Monstrous. In the course of her death and brief second life, Collis enjoys more development than the underwritten Rejoice did in one box set. Zoë Tapper is a very good actress and it's a shame that she wasn't given the role of the War Doctor's companion.

The Cardinal's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• I don't need authority. I have a screwdriver!"
• The Time War is a concept that demands a sense of scale that's missing from this story. We only see Collis come back to life, rather than legions of Gallifreyans torn from the tranquility of death and forced back into the war against the Daleks.
• Whilst it doesn't lack in a decent idea, there isn't any plot. We learn what's going on on Aldriss piece of exposition by piece of exposition, until the Doctor and Collis put an end to it.
• The infernal device (the Annihilator) is something we've seen before in the form of the Gallifreyan de-mat guns as seen in The Invasion of Time. Originality has so far been something that the War Doctor series has been lacking in.

I'll Explain Later:

• The Doctor says that he is on the side of the innocents and the collateral. How can he possibly call himself a monster? And what separates him from the Eighth Doctor, who helped out where he could but didn't fight?

This Reminds Me...:

• Varga plants were first mentioned in Mission to the Unknown.
• We've seen magic from another universe before, in Battlefield.
• The Doctor uses psychic paper, first used by the Ninth Doctor in The End of the World. He possessed it as early as his eighth incarnation (The Turn of the Screw).
• Ollistra mentions that the Doctor stole his TARDIS, which we saw in The Beginning and The Name of the Doctor.

Next Time on Doctor Who: The Doctor is now officially a war criminal in the custody of Cardinal Ollistra.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Whilst this story is an improvement on Only the Monstrous, there isn't enough plot to go around and a lot of exposition and technobabble, particularly from Shadovar. Tapper and Warner are great guest stars as a pair of relatively memorable characters and both Hurt and Pearce are amazing as usual. This story is okay, and that earns it a C.

The War Doctor - Infernal Devices

The Heart of the Battle (Only the Monstrous)  |  Legion of the Lost  |  A Thing of Guile

The Heart of the Battle review [Nicholas Briggs]

The Daleks want peace with Gallifrey. Ollistra sent Seratrix to them to broker a peace, but why send the Doctor and a team of Time Lords after him?

When and Where: Keska, between The Thousand Worlds and Legion of the Lost.

The Warrior's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Where can I find you, Doctor, when I need you again?" / "At the heart of the battle, where the blood of the innocents flows and only the monstrous survive."
• Trying to make peace with the Daleks sounds ridiculous, but Seratrix's belief that this could be a reality makes more sense when we learn that they've been given an empire of more than a thousand planets.
• We've been told that Ollistra is a master manipulatrix but it's not until this story that we see any evidence of this. She sent the peace-desiring Seratrix to the Daleks to die and tried to dispose of his fellow believers Bennus and Arverton by "randomly" selecting them to detonate the Time Destructor. When the Doctor saved them, she planned to get rid of all three by sending them after Seratrix, willing to sacrifice Veklin in the process.

The Cardinal's Case:

• We learn that the purpose of the Daleks' plan (the same as in The Dalek Invasion of Earth) is to fire planets at Gallifrey (the same as in The Apocalypse Element), resulting in a story that lacks in originality. Also, a thousand planets being fired at Gallifrey at 50x the speed of light is ludicrously over the top.

This Reminds Me...:

• The Daleks' plan is a combination of their plots in The Dalek Invasion of Earth and The Apocalypse Element.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: After a disappointing start, The Heart of the Battle ends the box set on a better note than it started. All plot threads introduced through this lacklustre box set are wrapped up and the Doctor and Ollistra are reset and ready for the next volume, with Rejoice gone. She was much better as an older woman than a young girl, but was still one of the most forgettable and bland Big Finish companions. Concluding a poor first series of The War Doctor, this is an okay story, and that earns it a C.

The War Doctor - Only the Monstrous

The Thousand Worlds  |  The Heart of the Battle  |  Legion of the Lost (Infernal Devices)

Immortal Beloved review [Jonathan Clements]

There is a planet ruled by two gods, whose divine chariots are helicopters and whose magic wands are guns. A couple are ready to jump to their deaths to escape them before two new gods appear in a blue box.

Where and When: This story takes place in a colony in the 34th century. For the Doctor and Lucie, this is after Horror of Glam Rock and before Phobos.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "I am Lucie of... the M62. And this is my bumbling assistant, the Doctor."
• "She was operating the brainwashing, clone-swapping machine, all bent over and horrible." / "That's my wife." / "... I'm sure she has a lovely personality."
• "I missed out on a snog. Kalkin's really fit."
• The premise is an interesting if not entirely original one - transferring one's mind into new bodies so as to live forever, seen relatively recently in Tomb Raider. Here, however, the transferers are posing as gods and the transferees are clones. The ethical dilemma is similar to that presented in The Rebel Flesh and The Almost People but is explored in a far better way, with clones on both sides of the debate.
• The cast is wonderful. Ian McNeice and Elspet Gray do a fantastic job as Zeus and Hera and are definitely the show-stealing guest stars of this story. It's a testament to Big Finish that so far this series they've had Bernard Cribbins and now McNeice and Gray appearing in major roles.

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• Kalkin and Sararti aren't the most engaging characters and it's difficult to buy their love when they spend so little quality time together aside from their planned lovers' leap at the beginning. They're majorly overshadowed by Zeus and Hera, who are far more interesting.
• With the shorter running time of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, there's less room for depth which is certainly a problem with Immortal Beloved. If this had been a Main Range release, we could have learnt more about Kalkin and Sararti, the world that Zeus and Hera have been ruling over and how their ritual began. 

Witness Protection: There's no appearance by the Headhunter in this story, which is for the best. It would be silly to have her walk in at the end of every story.

His Constant Companion: General Ares is shot by Prince Kalkin, but his mind is then transferred into a clone of his called Tayden. The elderly Hera dies before she can be transferred into Sararti, who repeatedly stabs Zeus.

I'll Explain Later:

• Didn't the Doctor and Lucie decide at the end of Horror of Glam Rock to travel the universe together? Immortal Beloved begins shortly afterwards, with the Doctor trying to get her home.
• Why does the mind have to be transferred into an identical brain? Crozier managed to transfer Lord Kiv into Peri in Mindwarp. Perhaps it's a case of differing technologies.

This Reminds Me...:

• An old man reclaiming his youth is also the main plot point of The Lazarus Experiment.
• In the previous Eighth Doctor Adventure, we listened to Bernard Cribbins, AKA Wilfred Mott. In this release, we listen to Ian McNeice who will go on to play Winston Churchill in The Beast Below (briefly), Victory of the Daleks, The Pandorica Opens and The Wedding of River Song and later have his own Special Releases - The Churchill Years. In the Behind the Scenes feature, McNeice expresses a desire to play a bad guy on the show.
• The late Blackadder actress Elspet Gray played Thalia in Arc of Infinity and Jake McGann will later play the Doctor's great-grandson in An Earthly Child, Relative Dimensions, Lucie Miller and To the Death.
• The Doctor mentions his granddaughter, who he hasn't seen since the Fifth Doctor watched the First return her to the 22nd century in The Five Doctors. He'll be seeing her again soon, in An Earthly Child.
• A young-looking Doctor mentions having a granddaughter in passing in The Rings of Akhaten as well.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: Immortal Beloved presents a moral issue about what makes us human but doesn't explore it that much: Zeus and Hera see their clones as little more than clothes that they have to don every thirty years in order to continue ruling over the colony, Kalkin and Sararti see themselves as individuals and that they should be allowed to have a life together, and Ganymede sees becoming Zeus's new body someday as his reason for existing, declaring his life to have been ruined after Zeus is thwarted, but this is all skin-deep. Ultimately, there's very little going on so, whilst it's an okay story with an interesting premise, it's not as enjoyable as the first two Eighth Doctor Adventures. It is okay, which earns it a C.

Eighth Doctor Adventures

Horror of Glam Rock  |  Immortal Beloved  |  Phobos

Storm Warning review [Alan Barnes]

There's a storm coming. The R101 flies high over France with two strangers aboard. One is a young boy by the name of Murchford with a lot more hair tucked under his hat than one might expect. The other is a man in a green frockcoat going by the name of Dr Johann Schmidt.

When and Where?: This story takes place on the 4th and 5th October 1930, in the R101 over France. For the Doctor, it takes place after Mary's Story and the Terror Firma flashbacks and before Sword of Orion.

The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "Breathe in deep, lieutenant. You too, Charley. You feel that pounding in your heart? That tightness in the pit of your stomach? The blood rushing to your head, do you know what that is? That's adventure. The thrill and the fear and the joy of stepping into the unknown. That's why we're all here, and that's why we're alive."
• "Trust me. I haven't a clue what I'm doing."
• "You're heavier than you look." / "I carry a lot of things in my pockets."
• At the point that this audio drama was released, we didn't know very much about Paul McGann's Doctor. He had been in books and comics and such, but this was McGann's first performance as the Doctor since the film, in which the character was amnesiac and not his self for most of it. Not only does Storm Warning have the job of introducing Charley but also of reintroducing the Eighth Doctor, and it does both effortlessly. Both are introduced through books - the Doctor is having a passing look at a few on his shelf as he looks for his misplaced TARDIS instruction manual (showing us that he's easily distracted from mundane things by more fun prospects and that he still doesn't keep the manual at the ready) and Charley is beginning writing her book on her Edwardian adventures before she gets into her disguise as a boy. One is a seasoned adventurer who could have filled a library but instead reads the works of others, and the other is a prospective adventurer who's not even started writing her first chapter. The Doctor is a breathless romantic and a far cry from the dark man in The Great War and beyond.
• It might not be the most original method of exposition but the radio announcement on the inaugural flight of the R101 is functional without being obviously so - getting those unaware of the airship up to speed - and gives us a feel of the time we're in. News reports were used a lot by Russell T. Davies to great effect.
  
• Lord Tamworth could have been a predecessor to the flat and one-dimensional English soldiers of Empress of Mars but he's played to perfection by Gareth Thomas. 

The Valeyard's Case:

• A Bad Quotation:
• "Oh, no! An energy weapon!"
• The Doctor is without a companion at the beginning of this story which makes it somewhat necessary, but his talking to himself gets a bit unbelievable around the line "oh, no. Vortisaurs!" The Doctor lamp-shading it with a line about talking to himself being the first sign of madness doesn't excuse it.
• Part 3 is made up mostly of exposition about the Triskele, who aren't the most interesting aliens we've ever encountered. To go from the relatively quick pace of the new Doctor and his new companion dashing about to the long crawl that is Part 3 is quite jarring.

His Constant Companion: Rathbone shoots the Lawgiver and later the Uncreator Prime. Everyone about the R101 dies in its crash.

I'll Explain Later:

• Why does the Doctor feel that Charley isn't supposed to be aboard the ship given that it's the place she's destined to die?

This Reminds Me...:

• The last page of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is missing from the Doctor's copy of the book, and he regrets that he'll never know who did it. The Eleventh Doctor, however, will later deliberately tear out the last page.
• The Doctor corrects Mary Shelley's book like Susan did the book on the French Revolution in An Unearthly Child.

The Inquisitor's Judgement: The story of this audio drama isn't particularly ground-breaking and the Triskele are something of a bore, dragging the story down in Part 3. But then perhaps an average story was what the Eighth Doctor needed - we've only watched McGann in the, erm... flawed film and listening to him tackle a story like those his predecessors have week in and week out since 1963 proves that McGann isn't the George Lazenby of Doctor Who. McGann and India Fisher have instant chemistry as the Doctor and Charley and it's simply musical whenever the two talk to one another. This is the start of a delightful TARDIS team. Storm Warning is okay, and that earns it a C.

The Main Range - The Eighth Doctor

Storm Warning  |  Sword of Orion

Vincent and the Doctor review [Richard Curtis]

After taking Amy to a French museum, the Doctor discovers a sinister-looking creature in one of the paintings of Vincent van Gogh.
The Doctor's Case:

• A Good Quotation:
• "I'm... new in town." 
• Whilst William Shakespeare in The Shakespeare Code (who had an artistic block and fancied the Doctor's companion) didn't feel much like a real person and just spewed off some of his quotes every now and then, Vincent is a far more nuanced character, written without being a caricature by Richard Curtis and played with subtlety by Tony Curran.
• When you think of this episode, you probably think of the last few scenes with Vincent at the museum (a truly touching and eye-watering sequence) and then Amy expecting new paintings but discovering that depression still won out. These are scenes that will go down in the series' history as amongst the best. 
• It's a small part but Bill Nighy does a very good job as Dr Black, the museum guide who shares the Doctor's penchant for bow-ties and rambling.

The Valeyard's Case:

• "Oh, look, just shut uuuup, the pair of you!" Amy Pond seems to think she's above everyone and can speak however she likes to whoever she likes regardless of where she is. Granted, the Doctor does this but he's a seasoned, non-human time-traveller who isn't meant as an audience surrogate. Amy's Choice has proven that she can be a good character and removing her smugness and delusion of superiority and she might be bearable, which, in fairness, she was for the rest of the episode.
• The CG Krafayis isn't very impressive, but given how little we see it this isn't much of an issue. What's more of an issue is that... it's a bit of a naff monster. The episode is a character piece, yes, but that doesn't jettison the need for an interesting and compelling villain. It leaves the episode feeling rather uneven, ending with brilliance but being rather run-of-the-mill until then.
• The episode's high points are where it deals with the darkness of depression and sometimes feels slightly undermined by farce and light humour, usually from the Doctor.
• As a cat owner, I don't think the cat that shrieks when the TARDIS materialises would make a noise at all. I think it would run away without making a sound and then look back from a safe distance. But that's just pedantry.

The Master Plan: Amy, deep down, is aware of her loss of Rory.

I'll Explain Later:

• So, Rory was wiped from time and never existed. How, then, can Amy miss him subconsciously? It's the Flesh and Stone issue again. They're wiped from history and ever existing, only not really.
• Vincent says that the paintings are precious to him, yet he puts a coffee pot down on one. He also tries to trade one for a drink. How precious can they really be to him?

This Reminds Me...:

• The Eleventh Doctor will again suffer through the slowness of time's usual pace in The Power of Three.

The Inquisitor's Verdict: It's easy to remember the fantastic and heart-wrenching ending of the episode and to forget the undeveloped monster inserted as an afterthought, but unfortunately the episode isn't consistently good. The setting is good and the character of Vincent is explored rather well, but it doesn't make for a great episode. C

Doctor Who (Series 5)

The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood  |  Vincent and the Doctor  |  The Lodger