Doctor Who (2023) 2-01: The Robot Revolution

Episode:

885

|

Serial:

313

|

Writer:

Russell T Davies

|

Director:

Peter Hoar

|

Air Date:

12-Apr-2025

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Doctor Who again. This time it's the first episode of the latest season: The Robot Revolution.

Hasn't classic Doctor Who used that title already? Hang on, no I must be thinking of The Robots of Death. Or maybe just Robot. I guess robots rebelled a lot back in the day. Speaking of ancient episodes, they brought the director of series 6's A Good Man Goes to War back for this one. Doctor Who directors typically direct a block of two episodes and sometimes another block next season, and then they're done. It's rare for a director to return years later like this. I think Graham Harper might hold the record with 21 years between 6th Doctor story Revelation of the Daleks and 10th Doctor story Rise of the Cybermen, but Peter Hoar is now in second place with 14 years. That's about the same amount of time that showrunner Russell T Davies disappeared for!

I wish I could say that the second coming of RTD has been my kind of thing, but so far it's been hit and miss, and stories like The Church on Ruby Road and Joy to the World have me feeling like it's not a series for me anymore. Starting season 1 with Space Babies should've been a clue that they were showing me the door and inviting the next group of fans in.

Just please let this be better than Space Babies, please let this be better than Space Babies...

There will be SPOILERS below and probably some earlier episodes as well if my thoughts go in that direction.

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.

Star Trek: Section 31

Writer:

Craig Sweeny

|

Director:

Olatunde Osunsanmi

|

Release Date:

2025

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Section 31, the most critically panned Star Trek movie ever made. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier had a good run, but it's finally been dethroned. In fact, its review scores haves been giving Borderlands and Rebel Moon a run for their money, and I'm kind of not mad about that.

I've been biased against the movie from the day it was announced, because I strongly dislike the idea that Section 31 is necessary for Star Trek's utopian Federation to exist. Though I keep hearing that the film's actually about a team of fun misfits on a tame Mission: Impossible adventure, and I guess that's certainly one thing you can do with the dark conspiracy corrupting Starfleet's soul.

The film has already disappointed me by not having the bold magenta and yellow logo from the trailer. I didn't particularly love it, but it looked better than this.

Anyway, I'm going to share some of my thoughts underneath screencaps and I promise you this won't drag on for five pages like my Phantom Menace review. It will contain SPOILERS however, for this and earlier Trek stories featuring Georgiou and Section 31.

Doctor Who (2023) - Christmas 2024: Joy to the World

Episode:

884

|

Serial:

312

|

Writer:

Steven Moffat

|

Director:

Alex Sanjiv Pillai

|

Air Date:

25-Dec-2024

---

The good news is that Sci-Fi Adventures has finally returned to cover a brand new episode of Doctor Who! The bad news is that it's been six months since I last wrote a full scene-by-scene review like this and I've forgotten how to do it. Honestly it's lucky I remembered I'm supposed to take notes.

Anyway, this is a Steven Moffat episode and that's a pretty big deal, seeing as he's written some of the best stories in Doctor Who history. They haven't all been winners, but that's no surprise considering how prolific he's been. By my calculations this is the 50th episode that Moffat has been credited for writing or co-writing for Doctor Who, which is even more than Russell T Davies' 41. He's still way short of Classic Who writers Robert Holmes (72), Terry Nation (62) or Malcolm Hulke (54), though, and I doubt they'll ever be beaten...

... unless you count full stories instead of episodes, in which case those numbers become Robert Holmes (18), Terry Nation (11), Malcolm Hulke (8), Russell T Davies (33) and Steven Moffat (40... ish). (It's hard to know what to count as a two-parter sometimes.) So Steven Moffat has set an almost unbeatable record here, especially considering how seasons are getting shorter and further apart. At least, it would've been if RTD wasn't so close to catching up.

I should warn you that this review will contain SPOILERS for every minute of this episode and certain minutes of previous stories.

Star Trek: Picard - Season 3 Review

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm finally crossing Star Trek: Picard off my list of things I need to get done. It's over, I've reviewed every episode and now I'm covering season 3 overall.

That makes this the third series I've covered in its entirety, after Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Discovery, though in this case it wasn't that much of a challenge considering it only has 30 episodes in total. That's less than half of Discovery's episode count, and that wasn't particularly long for a Star Trek series either.

Anyway, I'm reviewing season 3 in particular, though there will be SPOILERS here for the rest of the series.

Star Trek: Picard 3-10: The Last Generation (Quick Review)

Episode:

30

|

Writer:

Terry Matalas

|

Director:

Terry Matalas

|

Air Date:

20-Apr-2023

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing The Last Generation, the dramatic conclusion of Star Trek: Picard's dramatic concluding season. This means I've completed another series! This, Star Trek: Discovery and Babylon 5 are the only three shows I've finished writing about in their entirety, so this is a rare event for me.

The episode was produced, written and directed by showrunner Terry Matalas, so it's more one person's vision than any other Trek episode since, I dunno, the first episode of Strange New Worlds (and that has a couple of other names besides Akiva Goldsman's on the 'story by' credit). The next closest episode after that I can think of is from way back in the 60s, as the Original Series' Elaan of Troyius was written and directed by John Meredyth Lucas. So that's pretty rare too.

There are going to be all kinds of SPOILERS below so I wouldn't go any further unless you've seen the episode yourself. Also Star Trek: Voyager. And Return of the Jedi.

Star Trek: Picard 3-09: Võx (Quick Review)

Episode:

29

|

Writer:

Sean Tretta & Kiley Rossetter

|

Director:

Terry Matalas

|

Air Date:

13-Apr-2023

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about Picard's penultimate episode, Võx, which has a weird title. At least, that's what the experts say. Personally I have no idea if it's right or not, I didn't even know that it was Latin, but the internet seems pretty sure that tilde shouldn't be over the o. It may have been meant to be Vōx, but plain simple Vox would've worked just fine. It means 'voice' by the way.

One thing you don't often see on Star Trek is the showrunner directing an episode themselves, but Terry Matalas was at the helm for this one. He'd directed a few episodes of Twelve Monkeys previously, including the finale, so I'm sure he knew what he was doing. It would've been hilarious if he didn't though, and Picard ended as a complete train wreck on a basic production level. I guess I'll find out!

I'm going to start discussing SPOILERS now, so avert your eyes if you'd rather not know anything about this episode or what led up to it.