Doctor Who (2005) 1-10: The Doctor Dances

Episode:

706

|

Serial:

164

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Director:

James Hawes

|

Air Date:

28-May-2005

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm back in 2005 writing about the second part of Doctor Who series 1's The Empty Child two-parter.

It's called The Doctor Dances, which has always seemed like a bit of a strange title to me. It's weirdly playful for a Doctor Who story, which are usually called things like The Mysterious Planet or Planet of the Daleks or Dalek Invasion of Earth. Or Earthshock.

Even if you know what happens in it, which I do, it's still weird that the title references dancing. The episode takes place in London during an air raid, but it's not exactly a ballroom blitz. And if you know what 'dancing' refers to in the story... well I bet Steven Moffat and RTD thought it was hilarious that they got away with it.

Alright, everything past this point will be safe for new viewers as long as you've seen everything up to this point. Otherwise, beware of SPOILERS.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-09: The Empty Child

Episode:

705

|

Serial:

164

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Director:

James Hawes

|

Air Date:

21-May-2005

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching The Empty Child, the first part of Steven Moffat's very first story for Doctor Who. Unless you count the Comic Relief skit The Curse of Fatal Death, which I don't. Though I have to admit that it has an amazing cast, with most of them playing the Doctor.

It's probably fair to say that no writer has had more of an influence on modern Doctor Who than its first showrunner, Russell T Davies. He's the Gene Roddenberry of the revival. But Steven Moffat is a close second place and the guy still dominates 'Best Doctor Who Stories Ever' lists. People sometimes include episodes by other writers just for the sake of variety, but up at the top you'll find stories like Blink, Day of the Doctor, Heaven Sent, World Enough and Time, and occasionally The Empty Child.

But I've seen 40 of his stories now, enough to be extremely aware of his idiosyncrasies and tired of his gimmicks, so am I even going to enjoy it this time around? Did I really enjoy it that much to begin with? Keep reading and I'll let you know.

There will be SPOILERS below for The Empty Child and earlier stories, though if you're watching through the series for the first time you'll be fine as I won't mention anything that comes later. Except for all those episode titles I just mentioned.

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

---

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

---

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) 8-02: Into the Dalek

Episode:

802

|

Serial:

243

|

Writer:

Phil Ford and Steven Moffat

|

Director:

Ben Wheatley

|

Air Date:

30-Aug-2014

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I already wrote the Ninth Doctor story Dalek and now I'm jumping forward exactly 100 episodes to write about the Twelfth Doctor story Into the Dalek. Not to be confused with Star Trek Into Darkness, which came out a year earlier and contains zero Daleks.

This is the second episode of the Twelfth Doctor's first series, coming right after Deep Breath, and the two stories were filmed by the same director, Ben Wheatley. He's more of a movie director than a TV director, specialising in horror, so he wasn't the worst choice for the job.

Phil Ford was the head writer on spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures for most of its run and wrote 11 stories, but he only ever wrote two episodes of Doctor Who: this and The Waters of Mars. Incidentally this is the first episode since Waters of Mars to have two writers credited under the title, though it became more common after this. I mean it was never uncommon to have two people working on the script, because the showrunner often did an uncredited rewrite, but after this point there's a lot of 'and Steven Moffat' or 'and Chris Chibnall'. I think part of the reason for this is that putting a bigger name on the script can entice bigger name actors.

Okay, I will be going through this episode scene by scene, sharing my thoughts and observations as I go. So if you want SPOILERS for this and earlier stories, keep reading.

Doctor Who (2005) 1-06: Dalek

Episode:

702

|

Serial:

161

|

Writer:

Robert Shearman

|

Director:

Joe Ahearne

|

Air Date:

30-Apr-2005

---

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

---

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

---

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

---

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): The Day of the Doctor - Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the final third of The Day of the Doctor, the epic 50th Anniversary Doctor Who special. Click one of these links to jump to an earlier part: PART ONE, PART TWO.

Did you know that the title is shiny 3D, not just flat white? That's just one of the awesome observations you'll be getting as I finally finish taking this episode apart.

There will be SPOILERS below, for this episode and earlier ones. Otherwise, you should be safe.

Doctor Who (2005): The Day of the Doctor - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I want to go to London and slide down that railing.

Anyway, I'm still writing about The Day of the Doctor, arguably the most special of all of Doctor Who's anniversary specials. I've reached the middle third of the episode, but you can CLICK HERE to return to part one.

There will be SPOILERS here for this and older stuff, but nothing for newer stuff. I'll mention a few things from the novelisation as well, which shouldn't be too much of an issue as it's the same story.

Doctor Who (2005): The Day of the Doctor - Part 1

Episode:

799

|

Serial:

240

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Director:

Nick Hurran

|

Air Date:

23-Nov-2013

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing a bit about The Day of the Doctor, the 799th episode of Doctor Who! It got so close to being a milestone in the show's history. People could've still been talking about this story even now. But nope, it missed out by just one episode.

However, the story turned 10 years old last month, so I figured that this would be a good time to write something about it. Speaking of anniversaries, I've been writing about a lot of anniversary specials lately. The Three Doctors was Doctor Who's 10th, The Five Doctors was the 20th, Silver Nemesis was the 25th and Trials and Tribble-ations was Deep Space Nine's 30th.

Doctor Who did have a 30th Anniversary special, the Doctor Who/EastEnders crossover Dimensions in Time, made for Children in Need, but I'll be skipping that. I've seen it before and once was enough. In fact, it was the first Doctor Who story I ever saw from start to finish. I had no idea what the series was back then, but after watching Dimensions in Time I knew I didn't like it, and then the TV movie confirmed it. To be fair, if my first exposure to Star Wars had been the Holiday Special I probably would've avoided the rest of that for 20 years as well.

Anyway, the 40th got nothing new on television at all, but for the 50th Anniversary the BBC treated fans very well. There was An Adventure in Space and Time, dramatising William Hartnell's time on the series, The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot spoof, starring the classic Doctors, and then there was The Day of the Doctor, the 50th Anniversary special itself, simultaneously released both on TV and in actual cinemas. In 3D!

These screencaps aren't going to be in 3D, but I'll try to add some depth to my commentary as I go through the whole damn story scene by scene. Well, the first third of it a least. Either way, there will be SPOILERS below.

Doctor Who (2005): The Night of the Doctor

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Director:

John Hayes

|

Date:

14-Nov-2013

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally writing about The Night of the Doctor, the surprise seven-minute minisode prequel to The Day of the Doctor that just appeared on the internet out of nowhere a week before the 50th Anniversary.

2013 was a while ago now, and it's maybe hard to imagine what it was like to be a Doctor Who fan back then. It was the end of a Doctor's era, whose final run had been marred by long gaps between poorly received stories. But it was also an anniversary year and people were hyped for the return of familiar faces in a big anniversary special written by one of the series' most beloved writers. So it was basically nothing like 2023...

No one was hyped for The Night of the Doctor however, in fact they didn't know it was coming at all. But then a few people watched it and afterwards they told their friends to drop everything, stay off Twitter, and watch it themselves. Even knowing what it was about would be too much of a spoiler, all that fans needed to know is that they had to see it.

So I'll warn you now that there will be SPOILERS here, both for the episode and relevant stories leading up to it. I won't spoil anything that happens after this story however, even things that fans at the time would've already known.

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

---

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: The Thirteenth Doctor Era (2018-2022)

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the entire Jodie Whittaker/Chris Chibnall era of Doctor Who! It seemed like a smart idea to put my thoughts down now while it's still fresh in my mind to save me from having to watch it all again at some point. I mean I'm not saying that this run was bad... not up here in the intro anyway.

Though I'm starting to regret committing to this, as I'm not sure I can come up with anything I haven't said already, never mind the rest of the internet. Reviewers have turned tearing apart the Chibnall era into an art form. YouTube's packed full of video essays with hours of content, each of them representing months of work. Meanwhile all I have is a few scribbled down thoughts I've had over the last few days. Basically I'm not in a great position to be criticising trite half-baked writing.

But I said I'd do this and I need to see it through, so now that the smoke has cleared and the dust has settled etc. I'm going to take a look back at the Thirteenth Doctor era and figure out if I liked it. There will be SPOILERS beyond this point.

Doctor Who (2005): The Power of the Doctor - Part 3

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the final part of my The Power of the Doctor review. I'm sorry I had to split this into three parts, it's just that my screencaps tend to get out of hand when I cover something that lasts longer than an hour. Especially when it's as frantic as this. The episode's all over the place!

You can find the previous two parts HERE and HERE.

SPOILER WARNING: This will contain extreme Doctor Who spoilers up to and including this episode.

Doctor Who (2005): The Power of the Doctor - Part 2

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm still racing to get my thoughts on The Power of the Doctor typed up. You can find part 1 HERE and there'll be a link to part 3 at the end just as soon as I get it written and published.

SPOILER WARNING: I'm spoiling everything. Every Doctor Who episode up to this point is fair game.

Doctor Who (2005): The Power of the Doctor - Part 1

Episode:

871

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Director:

Jamie Magnus Stone

|

Air Date:

23-Oct-2022

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I'm watching all 90 minutes of the Doctor Who BBC Centenary special, The Power of the Doctor!

It's the last episode of the Jodie Whittaker/Chris Chibnall era, which means it's also a regeneration story! Oh damn, I should've covered all the modern regeneration episodes first! Why is that only occurring to me now? Never mind, I wouldn't have had the time to do it anyway.

I have to be honest, if I'd known that this was going to be 90 minutes I wouldn't have been so quick to tell everyone it was going to be my next review. For whatever reason I can cover a 45 minute episode in a normal-sized review just fine, but a 90 minute story usually means three times the work. So if this seems a bit more rushed, scruffy and downright inaccurate than usual, that's because I'm racing to get it finished. It's going to have some real first draft energy.

Oh right, the SPOILER WARNING. Can't forget that. I'll be going through the whole episode scene by scene so if you want to experience its surprises properly I'd strongly recommend watching it first. This is an anniversary special so I'll probably be talking about stuff from a bunch of other episodes too.

Doctor Who (2005) 6-04: The Doctor's Wife

Episode:

774

|

Serial:

216

|

Writer:

Neil Gaiman

|

Director:

Richard Clark

|

Air Date:

14-May-2011

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's the second part of a surprise Neil Gaiman double bill! The surprise is that it got interrupted halfway through by a different episode of Doctor Who. Anyway, I already wrote about his episode of Babylon 5 last time and now I'm writing about the first of his two Doctor Who stories: The Doctor's Wife.

I'm a little early posting this one, as it originally aired on 14th May 2011. If I'd just waited a bit I could've put it up on its eleventh anniversary, which would've been kind of fitting for an Eleventh Doctor episode. I've already covered one Eleventh Doctor story, series 5's The Eleventh Hour, but that was a few years ago now and I'm jumping quite a bit ahead to series 6, episode 4. Fortunately I think I can remember most of what happened in between. Well, some of it.

This episode aired almost exactly three years after series 4, episode 6, The Doctor's Daughter, so the series didn't wait long before once again tormenting fans with the hope that they might finally get to meet some of the Doctor's family. The title 'The Doctor's Wife' is much much older than that though, as it was originally attached to the Fifth Doctor serial The Caves of Androzani back in 1984. It was never going to be used, they were just trying to pin down who was possibly leaking information.

Okay I'll be writing text under screencaps of the entire episode so there will be SPOILERS here. In fact I may spoil elements of earlier stories as well, though I won't talk about anything that comes afterwards. Well okay I will, but only very vaguely. For the most part I'm treating this like it's the 14th May 2011 and I haven't even seen the NEXT TIME trailer. I'm sure it looks exciting though.

Doctor Who (2005) - Easter 2022: Legend of the Sea Devils

Episode:

870

|

Writer:

Ella Road and Chris Chibnall

|

Director:

Haolu Wang

|

Air Date:

17-Apr-2022

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching a Doctor Who episode... though maybe not the one you're expecting. I know I said that I'd be writing about the episode The Doctor's Wife from the Eleventh Doctor era, but that's because I forgot that Legend of the Sea Devils starring the Thirteenth Doctor was going to be on TV. Don't worry, you'll still be getting that other episode soon, you're just getting a bonus episode first.

Also I usually give my reviews a proper second draft to fix all the inaccuracies, rephrase sentences that make no sense, and catch at least half the typos, but this time I'm in too much of a rush. I want to get this published as soon as possible, so I'm mostly giving you my first thoughts, right off the top of my head.

Here's my first first thought: wow, it's weird seeing these opening titles for the second to last time. Presumably. It really doesn't feel like we've had them long, at least not to me. Legend of the Sea Devils is the second of the three specials we're getting this year in place of a full season, and it's the penultimate episode of the Chris Chibnall-era. Only one more story to go after this, and that's it for Chibnall and Jodie Whittaker.

The episode was also written by Ella Road and it was directed by Haolu Wang, who are both new to Doctor Who. In fact they're both pretty new in general, as this is the first script Road has gotten on TV and up to this point Wang had only ever directed shorts. You've got to start somewhere I guess!

Alright I'm going to go through the episode basically scene by scene and try to write something halfway interesting underneath each screencap as I recap the story and share my thoughts. There will be SPOILERS, though I won't give away anything from the 'next time' trailer at the end, even though I accidentally watched it.