Doctor Who Series 11 They Take You Away Review

I’ve tried to be fair about Who in these reviews. Sometimes I’ve been a bit too critical and others I’ve been willing to over look things I really shouldn’t have. There are reviewers out there that have just been praising the show and I’ve been left wondering just what they saw I haven’t. There are other reviewers that lay into the show and have nothing good to say about it. I think all three groups, the overly critical, the soft touch and the middle ground can agree on something:-

Bradley Walsh is a fantastic actor.

In every episode both his character and his performance have been a highlight. This time he really proved it. Considering he did this while also filming a nightly general knowledge quiz show and from all reports being the joker of the cast I’m in awe.

It’s worth noting this isn’t his first time in Who, well not technically. Walsh played a villain in the Sarah Jane Adventures, The Pied Piper. An evil alien that disguised itself as a clown and kidnapped children to feed off the fear doing so generated. Look it up if you have a chance because it too is a really good performance.

I say all this knowing my previous prediction. Now that Ryan has called him Granddad I fear the characters days are numbered. Still that’s the future, right now I’m looking at the ninth, and penultimate, episode of the season.

And I don’t know what to say.

Honestly this episode has left me stumped. It’s not entirely unique in Doctor Who. The Planet of Evil, for example, is a 70’s adventure where the Doctor visited an anti-matter universe. Same happened more recently in Hide and the Doctor’s Wife. Both involved micro universes just outside our own.

However, in many ways it’s not Doctor Who. At least not standard Doctor Who. There was no villain to conquer, or really a threat if I’m honest. It was an adventure and had a high concept science fiction plot at heart. Without a major villain the antagonist is an sentient aspect of creation that was banished somehow in order for the universe as we know it to exist.

Doctor Who Series 11 The Witchfinders Review

“Pendle Hill is a prison for intergalactic criminals!”

It was at that point I lost it, totally, and collapsed on the floor in hysterics.

Going into this one I had a very bad feeling it was going to turn out like Rosa. You see the Pendle Witch Trials were a nightmare. If anyone was even thought of being a “Witch” they were tried and quickly executed with very little defence. Superstition and fear ruled. People carved symbols to ward off the evil they were sure stalked the good folk of the villages.

The truth was a little more complicated. Put very simply Pendle was home to a number of small villages all of which had local healers. Often women, but not always, who knew how to cook certain herbs and other plants to fight infection and other such things. However, a good number of people didn’t understand diseases at the time, attributing them to demons in the blood rather than bacteria. The result was these healers were seen to be commanding the demons out of people.

If they could command them out, who’s to say they couldn’t command them in? As a result superstitious people began to fear the knowledge these people had. Blaming them for whatever bad luck befell a person or area. Naturally when someone fears something they don’t understand it’s easier to attack it that to try and learn.

Hence the hanging of witches.

This is a summary and leaves a lot of important detail out, which makes it a difficult topic to go into and explain in the confines of a 50-odd minute show. With no clear solution. In the case of Rosa they messed up historical accuracy in favour of delivering a heavy handed message. Given I actually live in Rawtenstall, a town not 15 minutes from Pendle, I feared that, once again, historical accuracy would be thrown by the wayside in favour of some sort of ham fisted lesson. Fortunately this didn’t happen and the Pendle Witches became a backdrop to a far more traditional Doctor Who story rather than the entire focus.

Doctor Who Series 11 Kerblam Review

Really, was that the whole point of the silly name? That gag at the end? Was it worth it?

Yes, yes it was.

I can say this is the the first truly good, not great but good, episode of the season. Somebody behind the scenes seems to have woken up and realised Doctor Who can be good and doesn’t have to be mediocre. 

Which is ironic because any other time this far into the season it would be a filler episode, the one that doesn’t really mean anything. It’s far enough along to have established everything, but not close enough to the end to need to ramp up the tension. So freed from Chibnall’s greasy grip, just told to try and be a fun and entertaining episode we got just that. They even were able to throw in a rather surprising, if only at first viewing, twist I don’t really want to spoil.

Unfortunately mentioning that there is a twist is sort of a spoiler, but you can’t review the episode around it. So if you’ve not seen the episode yet just take it on faith, it is worth watching.

Doctor Who Demons of the Punjab Review

As much as I don’t want I’m going to split this review in two. Set up a boarder between the sections and then look at them apart before fitting them back together. 

It’s a metaphor, go with it.

In part A I’m going to look at the plight of Yaz’s grandmother and her family. It’s a terrible time that in many ways appears to mirror the troubles of Northern Ireland. A boarder is being enacted dividing India and Pakistan, this devision is religious as much as political. Separating Hindu and Muslim as much as the two peoples. Unfortunately Yaz’s grandmother is marring a hindu from across this new boarder and her soon to be brother-in-law has been radicalised by extremist propaganda…

The result is a tragedy. Just one more in a time where they are all too common. What was politically expedient at the time proves to be a terrible burden for decades and generations to come.

It’s a moving, powerful, tale that really pulls on the heartstrings. Strong performances and instantly relatable characters. Some likeable, others not so much, but all together well written and enjoyable. A solid drama I can’t really fault, made all the more poignant knowing that this was all together too possible. This not only could have happened you’re left with the heartbreaking certainty that it probably did, and more than just with this single family.

The story highlights one of those sad parts in human history the is often skipped over or out right missed in most summaries of our long past, not least because it happened so far away and there were other things going on. 1947 was the first moves in what we know now as the cold war. With Europe still reeling from the deviation of the second World War and the slowly descending Iron curtain about to cut the continent in two. The history books at this time are kinda full and there’s no room for anything more in schools.

So this period of India / Pakistan really does deserve something out there to raise more awareness of it. What makes this stronger than Rosa is we’re not following this one iconic figure. It’s so much smaller, dealing with just one family, but has such a greater impact for that. So I give this part of the story a solid score of 10 out of 13. Easily the strongest I’ve seen this season.

In Part B we’re actually going to look at the part of the story that is Doctor Who, because it has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the story. 

The time travel with Yaz crossing her own time line was utterly wasted. It even missed the otherwise pointless revelation at the end that the Grandmother should have recognised Yaz or the Doctor. It could have been anyone in that aspect and while I appreciate the rebellion in not going with the typical cliche, leaving Chekov’s gun unfired as it were, it isn’t exactly fulfilling.

The aliens were your typical fare. The basic idea of assassins and warriors that have given up their killing way was hardly original, but once again no threat what so ever. In this case though they weren’t supposed to be, so I won’t complain. What I will complain about is the psychic whatever flashes that gave the Doctor a headache a grand total of twice. Done just to build some tension, but that’s about it. 

A lot of the more science fiction elements just feel bolted on to the main plot and it doesn’t fit. In many ways they weren’t needed and should have just been removed. Focusing more on the main story.

That said there were a couple of nice moments. Yaz finally getting some much needed character development in a talk with Graham being one of them. but this side of the story rings hollow. Especially with the shear weight of what I’m calling part A.

Taken as a whole, which you have to do, this is still one of the strongest episodes so far. Even with the plot holes and dull aliens there’s enough here to enjoy and a serious message is in there as well. I wish the Doctor Who elements were better integrated. In another season this would have been incredibly out of place and have felt wrong. This season it’s some of the best we’re going to get.

8 out of 13

Doctor Who Season 11 Mid-season overview

Half way through this truncated season and I feel it’s necessary to take a metaphorical step back and look at the big picture.

I was looking forward to this season. I really was actually. Look, lets be honest here Steven Moffat had run out of steam by the end. Season 10 was an improvement over the previous two, but nowhere near as great as season 5. I blame Sherlock, it’s difficult enough to run one epic series, let alone two that become that amazingly popular and that ingrained into popular culture.

Both shows suffered because Moffat was torn between them. Still, I’m not here to go into that right now. We’re looking at Who. Now Chibnall cleared house behind the scenes as well as in front. This was going to be a fresh start for them. And Doctor Who needs to do that every so often. The show's been around for fifty five years, to keep up with the times it needs to change.

If it didn’t it would become stagnant. It would die off, much like Star Trek did in the early 2000’s. If you don’t innovate you lose viewers to those that do. Without viewers you fail and your show is gone. Especially in Science Fiction TV where they can cost more than smaller programs and the audience often demand more.

So with a new, fresh, show runner and a new Doctor things were looking up for the program. I was actually quite excited when I saw we were getting our first female Doctor. Of course there were people who didn’t like the idea, there’s always people objecting when the Doctor regenerates. I thought it was worth a chance.

There were also people at the time that called Chris Chibnall a hack writer, I didn’t particularly agree with them. I was never that impressed with Chibnall’s previous work on Doctor Who and Torchwood, true, but he was brought on as staff. Shackled by the guidelines imposed on him from the screenwriter. Now he was captaining the ship he could set the course. 

So we’re half way through the first journey on this captaincy. Where do we stand? Well the important thing to remember is it’s never too late to improve. You just have to know what the problem is. That said I announced in my last review that the gloves were off. I’m not going to be polite here. Chibnall has proven to be an incompetent, mediocre and stagnant writer.

Doctor Who The Tsuranga Conundrum Review

Wha…

I don’t know how to begin this review, because I truly am in two minds about this episode. On the one hand it was an utterly pointless waste of my time that I want to bill the BBC for to get my money back. On the other it was a whimsical piece of dada-ism in film making that deserves some kind of award.

I want to love Doctor Who. It’s important you know this. I want to be screaming from the rooftops about how brilliant it is. I want to argue with people that they are truly missing something of real importance by not watching it. Then I’m confronted with an episode like this. An episode where, after watching it, all you can do is ask questions that you know there isn’t going to be an answer to.

What was the Doctor and team Tardis looking for in the scrap pile? Why the hell was there a mine hidden in a pile of otherwise useless junk? Who called the medical transport?

But no time for that… Suddenly the ship is attacked by a space gremlin! and OH NO! It eats metal and feeds off energy! We’ve never seen that before… Oh wait I’ve lost count of how many times that nonsense has been tried! For the sake of, the Transformers Cartoon did this in the 1984 and it was a long long way from original. It’s right up there with the “What if it’s the MAN that becomes pregnant?” cliche. And will you look at that. Whats more he’s not ready to be a single parent, oh the tragedy! Will he keep the child, or give it up for adoption?

Here’s a hint, whichever one is the most cliched, and the most cowardly from a writers perspective. (I don’t want to belittle real life single parents that feel they can’t take care of their child and forced to give them up to adoption, but this pat solution is pointless) Speaking off we also have the pilot that’s suffering from a degenerative condition and their brother that they lie to because they want to maintain their perfect image. Whoopee bloody doo! 

These are all ideas that have been done by Red Dwarf, back in the 90’s. And back then they were a bad joke! The Dwarf boys were laughing that it was old hat two decades ago! Now what is meant to be the premier Sci-Fi show of the era, the trend setter that has redefined Science Fiction for more than fifty years, does this? You can’t make it up. Is this supposed to be so retro that it’s new or something? Is it supposed to be a new take on the old ideas? Because believe me its really neither.

Doctor Who Arachnids in the UK Review

Think I’d better mention that I don’t like spiders. 

They have the effect of creeping me out. Too many legs, eyes and fangs. Don’t forget the fangs. Then there’s the webs wrapping you up, covering you, suffocating you. Being mummified alive. Trapped in tomb no bigger than yourself, screaming silently as you slowly die… 

Anyway Arachnids in the UK was meant to be a horror story. Back in the day Doctor Who was legendary for scaring people, the joke being the viewers often hid behind the sofa to het away from the terrifying things they had to see. Horror has been a staple of Doctor Who since it’s inception and it’s always been that The Doctor taught children it was alright to be scared. That fear was good and bravery wasn’t the absence of fear, but doing what had to be done despite it.

It was one of the best lines in the Curse of the Fatal Death (a comic relief skit on Doctor Who from the 90’s) when the Doctor was thought dead that summed it up wonderfully:- “…It will never be safe to be scared again.”

This is why we needed a horror story, specially around halloween. We needed to be scared. To be terrified. To be brave. So, were we?

Kind of, yes.

I would actually describe Arachnids in the UK as a tribute to shlock horror movies. There’s a whole sub-genre of horror films that feature some aspect of nature grow wildly out of control. Films like Night of the Lepus. Usually these films feature morally questionable experiments going awry or Nature fighting back against mankind’s often selfish actions.

In this episode we got a morality tale about (wo)man’s science messing with nature and things it shouldn’t trifle with. How the quick solution isn’t always, or ever, the best one. We also got to see the real monster, as always, is the worse excesses of humanity. Which all worked in a way and all straight from classic monster horror movies.