Doctor Who (2005) - Christmas 2016: The Return of Doctor Mysterio

Episode:

827

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Serial:

264

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Writer:

Steven Moffat

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Air Date:

25-Dec-2016

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This Christmas on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about a Doctor Who Christmas special again!

Well, the review was supposed to be done by Christmas anyway. I was aiming for Christmas Day and missed, though that's probably for the best now that I think about it. Two Doctor Who Christmas special posts coming out on consecutive Christmases is dangerously close to becoming a tradition and I'm not keen on getting stuck in traditions. I might even write about the next one at Easter or something just to mix things up. That seems like a good time for a story about rebirth.

The Return of Doctor Mysterio is actually the very next episode after the previous Christmas ep, The Husbands of River Song, as they apparently forgot to air a series of Doctor Who during 2016. It was a leap year too, so that means 365 days between episodes; the longest hiatus since the big one between 1989 and 2005 (the 1996 TV movie doesn't count because it's a movie). That's why it's the Return of Doctor Mysterio by the way.

Though Peter Capaldi had actually been back for a while by the time this entered production, as it was filmed during the production of the 2017 series, between Knock Knock and Oxygen. Must have been weird for them to film an episode without Pearl Mackie around.

Uh, I mean Pearl Mackie, who's that? Never heard of her. I don't even know who Jodie Whittaker is mate. This review only features SPOILERS for this episode and the ones that came before it (Christmas specials especially) and I'll not even be hinting about anything that comes after. Except for a few paragraphs back where I hinted that the next Christmas special is about Jodie Whittaker becoming the next Doctor, which you of course know already.

Man, I said 'Christmas' nine times already and it's only the intro, that's a bit worrying. Ten now.

Sci-Fi Adventures Awards 2017

This kind of worked last year so I'm doing it again. It's the second annual Ray Hardgrit's Sci-Fi Adventures Awards!

Though this time there's some brand new categories, more TV series in the running, and less screwing around with javascript because I got all that working already. I've even spelt the text in the banner correctly so I don't have to sneakily edit it.

But the categories are still dumb, the winners are all still chosen by me for purely subjective reasons, and I'm only including things I've written about during the previous 12 months... for the most part. I'm not going to deliberately try to ruin movies or episodes for you, but there will be some SPOILERS around due to the fact that I'm giving out awards for their content, so there'll be descriptions of things and images that pop up when you click to reveal the winner. There are limits to how vague I can be I'm afraid.

The Orville: Season 1 Review

Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm taking a break from reviewing episodes to review an entire season! I'm doing this earlier than expected because Fox went and stole an episode then carried it off to season 2, so it turned out to be a 12 episode run instead of the promised 13. I'm fairly sure the missing episodes counts as being part of next season though and it's not going to be a really late season 1 finale; either way it's missed its chance of being included here.

I'm calling this a season review, but as there's only one season so far I'll probably end up talking more about what I think of The Orville is as a series. Fortunately I've been doing that in my individual episode reviews along the way, so I should be able to get away with just copy and pasting a few paragraphs over and rephrasing them a bit. No one's going to notice.

This may contain SPOILERS for everything in season one from Old Wounds to Mad Idolatry, but I won't go crazy and start spoiling Star Trek: Discovery as well. Even though I want to, because c'mon the two series are crying out for a proper comparison. It's like Deep Space Nine vs. Babylon 5 all over again right now, except more so.

The Orville 1-12: Mad Idolatry (Quick Review)

Episode:

12

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Writer:

Seth MacFarlane

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Air Date:

07-Dec-2017

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about The Orville's first season finale: Mad Idolatry. Nice title, I like it.

This is the 8th episode to be written by creator Seth MacFarlane and the 4th to be directed by Brannon Braga, and that seems like a lot seeing that this season only has 12 episodes in it. It should've had 13 but one of them's been held back until next season, presumably so that they weren't stuck with a single episode left over to air after Christmas. The episode's production code is 1LAB13 so I'm guessing this the intended season finale and it's episode 12 that's been moved, but I don't know for sure. Fortunately it doesn't actually matter and no one really cares; it's not a continuity-heavy series.

Beware of SPOILERS beyond this point.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 2-09: Second Sight (Quick Review)

Episode:

29

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Writer:

Mark Gehred-O'Connell & Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe

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Air Date:

21-Nov-1993

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm starting to think they should've given Colm Meaney some sci-fi googles before setting off sparks right in his face.

I'm up to episode 29 of Deep Space Nine, the second season's Second Sight, which is the first episode to feature Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe writing together as a team. The two of them together would later give us some of the very best episodes of the whole series... and a bunch of those crappy Ferengi episodes too. There's no Ferengi in this one, but I remember hating it anyway, so I'm going to be lazy and only give it a quick review, without the long recap.

There'll still be SPOILERS though, for this and earlier episodes of Star Trek, so consider yourself forewarned.

The Orville 1-11: New Dimensions (Quick Review)

Episode:

11

|

Writer:

Seth MacFarlane

|

Air Date:

30-Nov-2017

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally writing words about New Dimensions, the 216th episode of The Orville to be written by series creator and lead actor Seth MacFarlane. Well actually it's only his 7th, but seeing as this is episode 11 that's still a lot.

The episode was directed by script supervisor Kelly Cronin, who hadn't done a whole lot of directing before this, but then neither had Brannon Braga and he's done alright with the 216 Orville episodes he's helmed so far. Well actually it's probably more like, I dunno... 3? I can't be bothered to check.

Anyway there's going to be SPOILERS below this point, for this episode and earlier ones, as I'll be assuming that everyone reading has either seen the episode or doesn't care.

Babylon 5 2-13: Hunter, Prey

Episode:

35

|

Writer:

J. Michael Straczynski

|

Air Date:

01-Mar-1995

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm rewatching a Babylon 5 episode called Hunter, Prey.

I've never much liked the title of this one, it feels lazy somehow. Plus it's probably a quote from some poem I've never heard of, and I hate poetry almost as much as I hate it when television makes me feel ignorant!

Anyway, the following text will contain SPOILERS for this episode and the ones that preceded it, as I'm going to be doing a full recap with screencaps. But I'll not mention a thing about what's to come, so if you're a first-time viewer you don't have to worry about me ruining everything for you.