Doctor Who (2005) 11-05: The Tsuranga Conundrum (Quick Review)

Episode:

845

|

Serial:

281

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

04-Nov-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm talking about Doctor Who again! Why? Because I feel compelled to finish this season and I can't write about two shows a week anymore because I burned up all my enthusiasm and determination a couple of months ago when I wrote about the entire classic series.

Uh, I mean I'm writing about this episode because I have many opinions on it... probably! None of them are really leaping to the forefront of my brain but I'm sure there must be some in there somewhere and I'm dying to share them with people.

I've also got at least one fact for you, which is that the episode was written by showrunner Chris Chibnall. That might not come as a huge shock considering that his name's on the title card up there and he was credited for the four that came before it as well, but you may not know that this is going to be his last for a while. The next four episodes, basically the second half of the season, were all written by new writers. So any one of them could be the next Blink or Flatline... or the next Fear Her or Sleep No More. They'll be a change at least. Hopefully.

There will be SPOILERS after this point, for this episode and maybe earlier ones as well.

Doctor Who (2005) 11-04: Arachnids in the UK (Quick Review)

Episode:

844

|

Serial:

280

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

28-Oct-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, it's Arachnids in the UK: the fourth episode of Doctor Who's 11th season to be written by showrunner Chris Chibnall. In a row.

Everyone knows that the title's a play on the Sex Pistols song Anarchy in the U.K. but there's also a subtle clue in there that the episode's about spiders. By an interesting coincidence the fourth serial of the classic show's 11th season, Planet of the Spiders, was also about evil spiders! Well okay it was the sixth serial, but close enough.

This is a spooky story just in time for Halloween, but I have to admit that I wasn't overly hyped for it. Mostly because I was worried it'd put me off my food. Writers should be more considerate of people who watch TV while they're eating their dinner!

There will be SPOILERS below this point, for this episode and perhaps even earlier ones, but no SPIDERS. I realise that most people reading this would've watched the episode already and have no problem with scrolling down to a surprise spider screencap, but I figured I'd play it safe. 

Doctor Who (2005) 11-03: Rosa (Quick Review)

Episode:

843

|

Serial:

279

|

Writer:

Malorie Blackman and Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

21-Oct-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got another relatively brief Doctor Who review for you! It's all opinions, no recap, and like the shiny text says it's for an episode called Rosa.

The shiny text also claims that it was written by showrunner Chris Chibnall, continuing his streak of writing every episode this season, and Malorie Blackman, who's new to the series. I was going to make a dumb and shameful joke about her being both the first Blackman and black woman to write for the series, but it turns out that the situation's more depressing than that, as she's apparently the first non-white writer that the TV show has ever had. Still, I can't say that the Rosa Parks episode was a bad time to bring her on board.

This is the first celebrity pseudo-historical of the Chris Chibnall era, arriving right on schedule. Russell T Davies brought in Charles Dickens for his third episode and Steven Moffat had Winston Churchill, so it seems like it's become a tradition now. Hopefully it's a little better than those two stories though. I mean I don't actually know if The Unquiet Dead's any good or not, I've never seen it, I just hope this is better than it anyway.

There will be SPOILERS for this episode below this point and I might mention something that happened in an earlier story too. Like just then when I carelessly mentioned that Charles Dickens was in The Unquiet Dead.

Doctor Who (2005) 11-02: The Ghost Monument (Quick Review)

Episode:

842

|

Serial:

278

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

14-Oct-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures I've got a quick review of The Ghost Monument for you. All opinions, no recap. Here's a bonus opinion right at the start: it's nice that they've given me a proper title to put at the top of my review this time so I didn't have to screencap the end credits instead.

This is the second episode of the season to be written by showrunner Chris Chibnall and it seems that I'm going to have to get used to seeing his name under the titles as he's written a good percentage of the episodes himself. I suppose that's nothing new though, as if you look at the writing credits for the stories filmed during Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat time in charge you'll see their names show up on half of them. It's a big change from the classic era though, where the job was sort of split between the producer and script editor, and neither of them were supposed to be writing episodes (but they sometimes did anyway).

There will be SPOILERS underneath, both for this episode and maybe earlier ones too.

Doctor Who (2005) 11-01: The Woman Who Fell to Earth

Episode:

841

|

Serial:

277

|

Writer:

Chris Chibnall

|

Air Date:

07-Oct-2018

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Doctor Who series 11, episode 1: The Woman Who Fell to Earth. It's the very first Jodie Whittaker story, arriving just 14 months after the end of series 10.

We're actually in year 13 of the revival series now (we didn't get seasons in 2009 or 2016), and the classic series ran for 26 years so it's halfway to matching it! If you're curious, if the classic series had started airing in March 2005, we'd be up to The Talons of Weng-Chiang right now, three years into Tom Baker's run. Somehow I don't think they'd get away with airing that in 2018 though.

There's been two distinct eras to the modern series so far: the Russell T Davies era of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and the Steven Moffat era of the Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors. But with this we've entered the third era, of Chris Chibnall and the Thirteenth Doctor. Man, it's going to get awkward writing the Doctor's names out like this once we reach the One Hundred and Twenty-First Doctor. The transition from RTD to Moffat was pretty noticeable, and that was with a lot of the team staying on, including composer Murray Gold. This time around they've apparently got a lot of new people working on it and it seems like it's going to be a much bigger change in tone and style. But I don't know yet as I'm writing this intro before I've watched it.

I have seen a few of Chris Chibnall's episodes before though, like The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and The Power of Three, and to be honest I don't see this series being disappointing in the same way Steven Moffat's run could be sometimes. Because I had sky-high expectations for Moffat's episodes after he amazed me with his early stories and I'm just hoping I'm not too bored during these ones.

There will be SPOILERS for the episode below and perhaps earlier ones as well, but I'll say nothing about happens after it. And not just because it's the latest episode and I don't know what happens next. I won't be spoiling the David Bowie movie The Man Who Fell to Earth either as I've never seen it.

Doctor Who (2005) 8-01: Deep Breath

Episode:

801

|

Serial:

242

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Air Date:

23-Aug-2014

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the first story to star Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. I keep forgetting if it's called Don't Breath or Deep Breath though. I'm fairly sure it's not Don't Speak at least, because that's a song.

Peter Capaldi was the oldest actor to the take the role, as he was 56 at the time he filmed this, just slightly older than William Hartnell had been when he made An Unearthly Child. That means this is the biggest age gap between Doctors, as Matt Smith had been the youngest. Unless you count John Hurt and complicate everything.

There was no change in showrunner this time, as Steven Moffat remained the producer and main writer, but there was a bit of a shift in tone for this era. I've noticed some people aren't all that keen on the Peter Capaldi seasons, but I've also noticed that it's usually the writing that gets blamed for that. Me, I think that all of Doctor Who's seasons are a mess, classic and modern, with plenty of terrible stories to go along with the great ones, and the Twelfth Doctor's seasons were no exception.

Just this once I've decided not to bother warning people about the massive SPOILERS below this point, so if this is the first review you've seen on my site and you don't know by now that I only drop in spoilers for other Doctor Who stories that aired before it and none that came afterwards, then that's your own problem I'm afraid.

Doctor Who (2005) 5-01: The Eleventh Hour

Episode:

757

|

Serial:

203

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Director:

Adam Smith

|

Air Date:

03-Apr-2010

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing words about The Eleventh Hour: the first episode of series five, the Steven Moffat era and the Eleventh Doctor's four year run.

This is the first time we've been introduced to a new Doctor, companion and producer at once since Rose. In fact it's only happened five times ever: An Unearthly Child, the TV movie, Rose, The Eleventh Hour and the upcoming Girl Who Fell to Earth. It's become a tradition in the revival series for each new producer to get a bit of a clean slate but that wasn't the case in the classic show.

It's also the first time the Doctor's number has been referenced in the episode title. The Eleventh Doctor was played by Matt Smith who remains the youngest actor to take the role. He was 27 at the time, almost 30 years younger than William Hartnell was when he first stepped into the Tardis. This wasn't Smith's first time playing the role though, as besides his cameo at the end of The End of Time, he also filmed both episode of The Time of Angels first. So he'd had a bit of practice by this point.

The episode was originally going to be called The Doctor Returns, but Moffat decided to come up with something else because the Doctor hadn't actually gone anywhere. He finally got a chance to use the title for the 2016 Christmas Special after the series took a year off, but he gave it a bit of a Spanish twist, turning it into The Return of Doctor Mysterio.

One last first: this was probably the first episode of Doctor Who that I decided to watch properly, from the start, and I think I even watched it the day it aired. Well okay, I also saw the TV movie, but that's not an episode so it doesn't count.

Warning: There'll be SPOILERS below for the episode and perhaps earlier ones. No spoilers for later stories though.