Doctor Who (2005) 1-12: Bad Wolf

Episode:

708

|

Serial:

166

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Joe Ahearne

|

Air Date:

11-Jun-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching Bad Wolf, the 708th episode of Doctor Who! It's also the 12th episode of this 13 episode season, so it's the penultimate story. Or penultimate episode anyway.

Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways started a tradition of two part season finales that has continued to this day... mostly. Okay classic Doctor Who ended a season with a two-parter a few times as well, but the show was all serials, so that just meant a story had fewer episodes than normal. Since this there have only been three seasons that ended on a single episode (or four if you split Heaven Sent/Hell Bent), so it seems like the idea was a big success!

Oh, I should mention that "Bad Wolf" is an interesting title, as it's this season's important phrase. It has been mentioned here and there in episodes but its meaning remains elusive. Personally it makes me think about the phrase "Big Bad" in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, which referred to the villain the heroes would have to defeat at the end of a season. Hey, that series is getting a revival soon as well, 20+ years after it left TV. That beats Doctor Who's 16 years absence!

Anyway, there are going to be SPOILERS below, but only about things that that happened up to 11th June 2005. If you're watching the series for the first time, you'll be safe. I won't give away anything that happens in part 2.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-11: Boom Town (Quick Review)

Episode:

707

|

Serial:

165

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Joe Ahearne

|

Air Date:

04-Jun-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching another episode of the endless first season of the 2005 Doctor Who revival. 13 episodes, man; it just keeps going and going.

The writer this time was showrunner Russell T Davies himself, back after a three-episode break to land the season personally. Though those three episodes by other writers were Father's Day, The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances, so the bar has been raised a bit.

RTD had actually brought in acclaimed writer Paul Abbott to script this one, but he had his own show, Shameless, and he was ultimately too busy. It would've had an entirely different story so I'm not sure how that would've affected the season finale.

Anyway I'm not talking about the finale right now, because this is only going to contain SPOILERS for this episode and earlier stories. If you're watching for the first time you've got nothing to worry about from me.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-08: Father's Day (Quick Review)

Episode:

704

|

Serial:

163

|

Writer:

Paul Cornell

|

Director:

Joe Ahearne

|

Air Date:

14-May-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching Father's Day, by veteran Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell. He only ever wrote two stories for the TV series, with this being the first, but he'd been writing Doctor Who novels, audio dramas and comics since the start of the '90s, so he'd had a bit of practice by this point.

The episode wasn't released on Father's Day, by the way. Wrong month entirely. Just like how the Christmas episode, The Unquiet Dead, wasn't released on Christmas. It's a weird thing to point out, but the series loves its holiday specials so much that these days that if you see a character eating an Easter egg, for example, the episode probably aired at Easter.

Alright, this is where the SPOILERS start, so it's your last chance to get off. Though I'll only spoil things that happen in this episode or earlier. As far as this review is concerned I've time-travelled back exactly 20 years to 2005, so if you're watching the series for the first time this will be safe to read.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-07: The Long Game (Quick Review)

Episode:

703

|

Serial:

162

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Brian Grant

|

Air Date:

07-May-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching The Long Game, which is either the 7th or the 703rd episode of Doctor Who, depending on how you count it.

It's closer to 703rd to me, because I started in the Matt Smith era, continued watching the modern episodes as they aired, went back and watched all of classic Who, and now I'm here. Okay I did check out the big Russell T Davies era stories everyone mentions like the finales, Blink, Forest of the Night etc., but this never made the list. No one ever says "Hey, you've got to check out The Long Game, it's got Simon Pegg in it!" Even though he does turn up in it, I knew that much going in. I've also known how it ends for a long while, because it's a bit of a meme.

Okay, there are SPOILERS below for this episode and maybe earlier stories too, so stop reading now if you value your ignorance.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-06: Dalek

Episode:

702

|

Serial:

161

|

Writer:

Robert Shearman

|

Director:

Joe Ahearne

|

Air Date:

30-Apr-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about the 702nd episode of long-running British sci-fi series Doctor Who, called Dalek.

It was inspired by a Big Finish audio drama called Jubilee by the same writer, Robert Shearman. I don't know how similar they are as I haven't listened to it, but it has a Dalek on the cover so I wouldn't be surprised if they show up there as well.

You could argue that it spoils the surprise a bit to put the villain's name right there in the title, but it's basically a tradition. The Daleks turned up in 17 classic serials and 13 of them had 'Dalek' in the name. Plus Russell T Davies has no issues with giving a few things away if it's going to get them more publicity and viewers. If you've got one of the most iconic villains in British television history returning to screens after two decades you don't hide it.

If I remember right, the plan for this episode was that it could work as a jumping on point for people who hadn't checked the series out yet, but were curious about what they were going to do with the Daleks. Since the show's second ever serial the Daleks have been Doctor Who's biggest draw and they're probably the reason it survived its first few seasons. Funny thing is, the Daleks nearly sat this one out, as they're not owned by the BBC and discussions with the Terry Nation estate hadn't been going great. For a while the episode would've been called The Sphere and it would've starred a new, more spherical villain. Maybe we don't live in the worst timeline after all.

I'll be going through the whole episode scene by scene with screencaps and recaps so there'll be SPOILERS here, for this and earlier stories. I'll not say a thing about anything that aired later though. Not even if it shows up in the next time trailer.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-05: World War Three

Episode:

701

|

Serial:

160

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Keith Boak

|

Air Date:

23-Apr-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the second part of Aliens of London, which is called World War Three. It's one of the rare part 2s to have a title that ends with 3.

Giving each part of a serial its own title was nothing new for Doctor Who, there are over a hundred classic episodes with individual titles. But it did get old and they stopped doing it three seasons in, back in the First Doctor era, which means this was a bit of a break from tradition. Plus there's no name for the complete story, the closest you can get is calling it "Aliens of London/World War Three" or "the Aliens of London two-parter", so that was unusual for the series too.

I'll be going through the whole episode scene by scene, so everything past this point will be SPOILERS.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-04: Aliens of London

Episode:

700

|

Serial:

160

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Keith Boak

|

Air Date:

16-Apr-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm reviewing the 700th episode of Doctor Who! At least, that's how it works out by my count. Things weren't quite that simple when it comes to the production side however, as it was being filmed in the same block as the pilot episode Rose. In fact, the first scene that Christopher Eccleston filmed for the series was for this episode.

The episode's called Aliens of London, by the way, and it's a secret two-parter. There's no clue in the title, you just get to the end and find that there's no ending. I hope that doesn't count as a spoiler to anyone, because I'm supposed to keep all my SPOILERS down in the review below.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-03: The Unquiet Dead (Quick Review)

Episode:

699

|

Serial:

159

|

Writer:

Mark Gatiss

|

Director:

Euros Lyn

|

Air Date:

09-Apr-2005

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the 20th anniversary... of the third episode of the 2005 Doctor Who revival. The season had started airing a couple of weeks earlier with Rose, but I've already reviewed that one. I've also reviewed episode 2, The End of the World. But I haven't reviewed this one, so this is the story I'm writing about to celebrate 20 years of (additional) Doctor Who.

The first season of the revival had 13 episodes and 8 of them were written by showrunner Russell T Davies, so there wasn't much room for other writers to come in and make their mark, especially seeing as Davies had planned the season out in advance and was rewriting people's scripts. But there were other people who helped define this new Doctor Who, and one of them was Mark Gatiss. The guy kept coming back as a writer (and an actor) until season 10, and this was his first story.

That title, The Unquiet Dead, feels very classic Doctor Who to me, like there must be half a dozen serials that end in 'Dead'. There aren't though, not even one. There's The Seeds of Death, The Ambassadors of Death, The Green Death, The Robots of Death and City of Death, but if it's 'Dead' you're after, you have to go to the RTD era.

Wow, that is a surprisingly good collection of serials I just listed, each one (arguably) better than the last. I can say that now because I've watched all (existing) episodes of classic Who. I still haven't seen all of modern Who though, and Unquiet Dead was one of the ones I missed, so this was actually written after my very first viewing. I'd been spoiled on what happened though. Oh, that reminds me...

This is the kind of review that's full of SPOILERS.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-02: The End of the World

Episode:

698

|

Serial:

158

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Euros Lyn

|

Air Date:

26-Mar-2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally getting around to the second episode of the 2005 Doctor Who revival: The End of the World! I wrote about episode 1, Rose, back in 2018 when I was covering all the modern regeneration stories leading up to the debut of the Thirteenth Doctor. Now we're about to get the Fourteenth Doctor, and I'm writing about episode 2, so at this rate I should be done with series 1 by the time the Twenty-Fifth Doctor comes around.

I'll be screencapping the whole episode and sharing my thoughts and observations as I go, so there will be SPOILERS here, but probably only really for this and Rose. I definitely won't be spoiling anything that comes after them.

Doctor Who (2005) - Christmas 2005: The Christmas Invasion

Episode:

710

|

Serial:

167

|

Writer:

Russell T. Davies

|

Air Date:

25-Dec-2005

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about another episode of Russell T Davies era Doctor Who!

This one's called The Christmas Invasion because it's the first of Doctor Who's annual Christmas specials. I don't watch enough TV to know what kinds of series usually get Christmas specials and how rare they are, but I do know that the classic series never had any. Well okay, it had a Christmas episode one time in 1965, but that's only because serials would continue throughout December back then and Christmas Day just happened to coincide with one of the episodes. But since Christmas Invasion they haven't missed a year, even on occasions where they pretty much took the rest of the year off (I'm looking at you 2009 and 2016).

There will be SPOILERS beyond this point, for this story and perhaps earlier ones as well. For instance, I'm going to spoil that this is David Tennant's first episode as the Tenth Doctor.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-01: Rose

Episode:

697

|

Serial:

157

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Air Date:

26-Mar-2005

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm writing about Rose, the first episode of modern Doctor Who. Because after writing about the first eight Doctors it seemed a shame not to write about a Ninth Doctor story.

It's kind of amazing to me that this actually features the actual Ninth Doctor instead of a new First Doctor, and they didn't reset the continuity despite the huge gap between stories. This aired 9 years after the TV movie and 15 years after the final episode of the classic series. Doesn't quite beat the 18 year gap between Star Trek: The Next Generation and the Original Series but it's pretty close.

Here's some more facts for you, to save me from writing an actual introduction:

• This is the first of just three episodes of Doctor Who to have a companion's name in the title (four if you count the Feast of Steven chapter of The Daleks' Master Plan). The others are Smith and Jones and Amy's Choice.
• The episode had the shortest title in all of Doctor Who's then 42-year history until it was beaten a couple of years later by an episode called 42. I don't think that one's in any risk of getting outdone any time soon.
• If they'd kept the numbering, this would've been the first episode of season 27.
• It's the first season opener since The Ribos Operation in 1978 to introduce a new companion, and the first to also introduce a new Doctor in the same story since 1970's Spearhead from Space.
• It's the first story since Mission to the Unknown in 1965 to not feature a single returning actor (even the TV movie had Sylvester McCoy).
• It was directed by Keith Boak, the same guy who did the farting aliens in the Aliens of London two-parter and then never came back. Though to be fair he didn't write it. The episode was written by Russell T Davies, the same guy who wrote the farting aliens in the Aliens of London two-parter. Also the producer for this era.
• I'm not actually sure if I watched this episode on the day it aired, the only Doctor Who I'd seen at that point was the 1996 TV movie, so I wasn't exactly hyped. But it seems very plausible that I walked into a room with it on, saw a wheelie bin burp and then walked back out again. (I watched it a few years later though).

This is going to be a full recap review commentary full of screencaps and SPOILERS, so I'd suggest watching the episode first before reading it. In fact, to be safe you should probably watch all 696 classic episodes as well, even though I'm sure any spoilers I drop about them will be incredibly minor. And I'll be spoiling absolutely nothing about episodes that aired after it; I won't even say the words 'bad wolf' because there's no reference to them in this story at all.

Doom: Extended Edition

Written by:

Dave Callaham & Wesley Strick

|

Directed by:

Andrzej Bartkowiak

|

Release Date:

2005

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, another video game movie!

Doom can't be as bad as Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within though, surely? Well according to Rotten Tomatoes, 44% of critics came out of Final Fantasy feeling like it brightened up their day, compared to just 19% for Doom. But to be fair, Spirits Within is currently about the highest rated video game movie on the site (second only to Angry Birds), so Doom's actually a mid-tier VG adaptation.

No one could say a bad word about that logo though! Except that they've left a massive gap between the O's and bled all the colour out of it. But they stayed true to the games and I always respect a movie that respects its source material. Trouble is, at the time this was made the Doom games had already had one reboot so there were conflicting sources. Not to mention the comic and the books.

Still, as long as the movie's about a lone Space Marine who fights his way through the warped and broken corridors of a research base located on or around Mars, killing cyberdemons and his possessed comrades on his way to Hell itself, they couldn't really screw it up!

I'm going to be going through the Extended Edition, so you'll be getting 15 minutes of extra SPOILERS. I might even spoil the games too if I can think of any plot to spoil. Not the brand new one though, because while everyone else has been enjoying playing it, I've been busy writing this crap up instead.