Doctor Who (2005) 11-08: The Witchfinders (Quick Review)

Episode:

848

|

Serial:

284

|

Writer:

Joy Wilkinson

|

Air Date:

25-Nov-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm sharing my thoughts on The Witchfinders, episode 848 of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who's had female writers and female directors before, but it's rare for an episode to feature both like this. In fact its only happened twice before in the series' history, both in the classic series: Enlightenment and Mark of the Rani. And Mark of the Rani was co-written by a guy.

Here's some other trivia which will get more interesting years from now when people have started forgetting it: Amazon Prime subscribers accidentally got to see the episode three days early in place of Kerblam!, which just happened to be an episode criticising Amazon. I guess now we know that the company's not run by witches at least.

There will be SPOILERS for the episode and earlier ones below, and if I'm feeling particularly precognitive I might even spoil future stories too! For instance, I'll tell you now that the long awaited four-part Star Trek: Destiny / Doctor Who crossover in series 15 will be a bit of a let down, but The Fourteen Doctors will be the best multi-Doctor story since Day of the Doctor.

Doctor Who (2005) 11-07: Kerblam! (Quick Review)

Episode:

847

|

Serial:

283

|

Writer:

Pete McTighe

|

Air Date:

18-Nov-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm reviewing the episode of Doctor Who known as Kerblam!

It's not the only episode in the series history to use punctuation in the title (there's The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe for one) but it is the very first to feature an exclamation mark. There's still exactly zero episodes with a question mark in the title though, so that's still up for grabs. Incidentally Star Trek has two exclamation mark titles and six question mark titles, so Doctor Who has some catching up to do. Fun fact: your life wasn't improved by knowing any of this.

This was the second episode directed by Jennifer Perrott (after The Tsuranga Conundrum, a title I can now spell correctly without looking it up), but the first to be written by Pete McTighe, a screenwriter I know nothing about. It's interesting how they went with entirely new writers for this season, like they were trying to make absolutely sure the episodes had no resemblance to anything that'd come before. That probably wasn't the worst idea actually, but I'm still hoping they give Jamie Mathieson another episode in series 12, considering how well Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline worked out. Or let him take over as showrunner, either's good.

There will be SPOILERS below, so this would be a good place to stop reading if you don't already know what happens. I might also mention a few things from earlier episodes too, but I couldn't spoil anything later if I tried because they haven't aired yet.

Doctor Who (2005) 11-06: Demons of the Punjab (Quick Review)

Episode:

846

|

Serial:

282

|

Writer:

Vinay Patel

|

Air Date:

11-Nov-2018

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This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, the first episode of Doctor Who's 11th series not written by Chris Chibnall! Well I'm sure he did a lot of rewriting work on it, as that's his job, but he's not gotten a 'written by' credit this time.

Vinay Patel is brand new to Doctor Who, and to me, but director Jamie Childs is on his second episode now... kind of. Doctor Who directors work on two episodes in a row for whatever reason, and he directed the season premiere The Woman Who Fell to Earth, so I figured that must make this the second episode filmed. But nope, it was actually the ninth episode to be produced, so that second episode is still out there somewhere, waiting to confuse us with how the actors seem very slightly less comfortable in their roles.

There will be SPOILERS beyond this point for this story and maybe earlier ones too. I will not be spoiling anything about series 1 episode Father's Day though, mostly because I haven't seen it yet.

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.