Well there you have it Whovians! By now you should have fully absorbed and hopefully enjoyed series 8 of the Time Lord's adventures, which culminated in a fantastic finale on Saturday. So, now that we have all had a few days to reflect, I thought I would offer my own take on the whole series; offering a few lines on each episode of Peter Capaldi's great debut as The Doctor (Yeah...for the non-Whovian faint of heart amongst you, I won't be too offended if you want to skip this one!).
(WARNING - POTENTIAL SPOILERS)
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DEEP BREATH
(For a more detailed review of this opener - see my BLOG ARCHIVE)
Ah yes, the big entrance, the show starter, the precedent that will set up for all that is to come. In short- Capaldi's Doctor made an extremely solid, quite ridiculous, and intrinsically wonderful debut.
New Doctor, new villains, old faces and an utterly bonkers story that nevertheless made for a fantastic series opener. One belter of an opening episode wasn't enough to render the series a full-gone conclusion, but Deep Breath certainly made for an impressive start.
INTO THE DALEK
In only his second episode proper, Peter Capaldi's Doctor came face to face with Doctor Who's most dangerous and most iconic villain. Yet this was not just a case of the new Doctor vs. a Dalek. Instead we were treated to a great sci-fi romp, a tinge of the human element, and new insight into the Doctor/Dalek mythology and relationship.
It might have been easy for the team to briefly rest on their laurels after such a strong start, but Into The Dalek once again fired off a powerhouse Doctor Who episode.
ROBOT OF SHERWOOD
If anything the respite, or at least the change of direction, came with episode three. The new Doctor was still something of an unknown element, but Robot Of Sherwood saw him start to settle into the TARDIS a bit, with a cheeky, swarthy and slightly stunted historical/legendary spoof.
There were elements to this episode I thought pushed things a bit, but overall it was still a worthy Doctor Who adventure that provided plenty of action, humour and excitement (quite a solid episode three repertoire really).
LISTEN
This was the first time that I was truly dissapointed with this series of Who. Again I think this is a sad case of Steven Moffat overreaching himself in trying to outdo himself. This episode had the distinctive feel of Blink (an iconic episode of David Tennant's era, penned by Moffat, and an episode that introduced the now terrifyingly classic Weeping Angels). I just feel that the overriding idea was to present a similarly classic and chilling villain/episode for Capaldi's Doctor, but sadly it was a concept that (sufficiently chilling though it may have been) eventually fell flat and was not crisply and clearly explained and fleshed out enough.
That being said, some of the sequences in this episode were superb, the acting was excellent, and the ending (whilst not really giving us a new Weeping Angel) did add a new and wonderfully nuanced string to the history and mythology of the Doctor which I loved.
TIME HEIST
Doctor Who's take on a bank robbery thriller. Odd but not totally without merit. This episode had a lot of style and an element of the "bank job", quite a unique monster and a delicious guest appearance from Keeley Hawes.
However in terms of its execution, I feel this episode slightly missed the mark. Again a Moffat trait, it threw everything it had into the opening ten minutes then failed to resolve things properly. Also I feel the idea of a Doctor Who episode focused around a bank job, whilst good in theory, was not put together with nearly enough flare and panache that it needed, and the Whovian elements of the episode were added rather limply which did seem to me to be a shame.
THE CARETAKER
To me this episode was all about the human elements of Doctor Who. The Doctor goes back to school, reclaiming the John Smith alias, and gets all up in Clara Oswald's business. The Caretaker was jam-packed full of wonderfully funny, very cheeky, and incredibly human moments. The Doctor-Clara relationship sizzled here, with great performances from Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman respectively. The emergence of Danny Pink and the monster of the piece (the quite ridiculously named Skovox Blitzer) were quite second string and second rate here, but it just didn't matter as the fact that the Doctor had a blistering adventure with real humanity in a very human setting made for a great episode to behold.
KILL THE MOON
This episode was a bit of a miss-match in terms of theme, concept, and what we eventually got out of it. The concept was quite superb, if a little silly, the theme was sort of that of a sci-fi horror, and the overriding factor that we ended on was a big leap in the new Doctor's development, but more importantly a big shift in his relationship with Clara.
Again great performances from Time Lord and companion, that of the companion possibly shining the brightest this time, as Jenna Coleman not only shone in this individual episode, but also effortlessly demonstrated how far she and Clara had come, and how far they had to go.
In the end I think Kill The Moon gave us quite a pivotal, if slightly misdirected middle episode. Strong enough to both celebrate and draw a partial line under what had gone before, and intruiging enough to tantalizingly hint at what was to come.
MUMMY ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
The major dissapointment of this episode for me happened within the first few minutes: after the shocking final scenes of the previous episode; Clara still remained with the Doctor on the TARDIS (thus starting a rather stunted recurring theme that would continue onto the final episode). I feel they missed a trick here (the cynic in me says its Mr. Moffat again attempting to be too clever by half) but apart from that I did enjoy this one.
Another sensationally silly concept (actually this time bordering more towards the silly) of an Egyptian mummified monster roaming a space-version of the Orient Express. We actually got just enough suspense and action to save the plot, not to mention a fantastic appearance from die-hard Whovian Frank Skinner; whose character Perkins was actually rather brilliant.
FLATLINE
This episode was meant to be Clara-centric from the off, and whilst Jenna Coleman's performance was again excellent, the episode itself left me feeling rather cold.
The Doctor surely wasn't absent, but for most of the show he was in the background, which led to some unique humour and tongue-in-cheek moments, but the home-grown nature of this one (as opposed to The Caretaker for example) did not work as well. Some of the CGI sequences looked rather brilliant, but in terms of content, positive plot and character, Flatline did fall slightly and sadly flat for me.
IN THE FOREST OF THE NIGHT
Quite a revolutionary concept opened up this one; namely the trees had taken back planet Earth. Stonking concept, and in the middle of it all the Doctor, Clara, Danny Pink and a load of unruly school kids - what could go wrong?
Well what went right was Peter Capaldi as, after a few episodes where Jenna Coleman shone, this was definitely his episode; all the right amounts of cheekiness, dour dry humour, and powerful drama exuded from his Doctor.
Also a few little nuances were added to the Doctor/Clara relationship at this point (a relationship that had sort of reached an impasse after the aforementioned lack of direction in previous episodes).
Yet again the Danny Pink elements, the plot points that relied on child-acting and again the round-up of the initially promising concept itself did fall flat towards the end.
Happily however, the over-riding feel of this episode was to me a case of Peter Capaldi's magnificent Doctor leading us through a classic adventure, and this alone managed to salvage this episode and indeed went on to give the right result.
DARK WATER
The penultimate episode of series 8 was, in my opinion, by a slim margin the best. Yes there were a few little niggles; such as the culmination in the Clara/Danny relationship (one that had failed to move me all series) which though vital to the plot, did not really add to the overall raw power of this episode. Yet again it was the relationship of the Doctor and Clara that really came to a twisted, unexpected and spectacular head. Heartfelt, heart-wrenching and truly shocking in places, this pair's chemistry is turned on its head in the first ten minutes, before being thrown right into a fantastically dark and superbly executed adventure.
Note-worthy too is the wonderfully chilling underlying concept of this episode; looking at what happens when we die. Throw into that the Doctor and things rapidly run rampant! We get all the fantastic elements of the new Doctor that we have come to know and love, a newly fleshed out Clara Oswald, the return of the Cybermen, plus a fantastically envisioned regeneration of another old adversary, and a wonderfully subtle and sublime cliff-hanger into the season finale.
DEATH IN HEAVEN
After a fantastic setup in Dark Water, this series finale gives us a no holds-barred fan-fare that broadly speaking does not disappoint.
Sadly, even turning Danny Pink into a Cyberman did not fill me with that much excitement about the final acts of his and Clara's relationship. Throughout the series I have just found the character of Danny Pink, and to an extent the actor Samuel Anderson, just painfully one-dimensional and predictable; rendering his eventual "heroic sacrifice" a bit of something and nothing for me. So too was my opinion of the "problem of lying" arc that came attached to the Clara/Doctor/Danny story. This I feel had potential, but was not carried through enough and did fall flat in the end.
However all of this could not detract from what was a very pleasing finale. Missy/the Master (played by the masterfully evil Michelle Gomez) was a treat to watch in every scene, and the chemistry with Capaldi's Doctor was wonderfully palpable; I really hope that is not the last we have seen of her. The Cybermen were given a new chilling element (though yet another reference to the Brigadier did seem to be pushing it, even if it was a tad touching all the same). Action a-plenty, substance abound, plus we really and truly got to face Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, as he came to a realization of himself in spectacularly raw and joyous style.
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So, in my view a very promising and very fulfilling first series for the new Doctor, and plenty more besides. Yes there were a few blips but that can be said of any past Who series, and don't forget this is down to a certain extent to personal taste.
In the end though I, along with many other Whovians I'm sure, am brimming with confidence regarding Peter Capaldi. To me he is already a great Doctor, and long may his time on the TARDIS continue!
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