TV Review: Doctor Who, Series 9

Another series of Doctor Who rolled to a close on Saturday night, with all the attendant trappings that we have come to expect - rampant speculation as to the future of the show, complaints from people who never liked it but watch anyway, and enouogh spoilers to equip the NASCAR racers for a year.  I understand that there was a happy time, once, when people watched Doctor Who because it was fun family entertainment, but that may just be a myth, or perhaps a story, where a memory once was. It's certainly been an interesting season, where the transistion from the tone of the 11th Doctor to the tone of the 12th has been completed. and we can perhaps get a better idea of what this era is all about.

TV Review: Doctor Who, Series 8

If there was ever a show that proved the old maxim that "you just can't please everyone" it is Doctor Who. Having passed its 50th year, and now 8th year since its unlikely return - regeneration, perhaps - from the dead, it seems to have found a place as one of the most talked about TV fixtures of the year. The national press do it, of course - dusting off the old casting rumours, gossip about who is leaving the show and hoary old complaints about it being "too dark for children" or "too silly for grown ups", safe in the knowledge that the comments sections will fill up with impassioned defenses and critiques. It's very prominence makes it a lightning rod for wider debates, a metaphor for wider issues in TV as a whole and geek TV in particular. And so a show about a time-travelling alien in a phone box, that goes out on a saturday evening to a family audience, seems at times to have the weight of a more serious, worthy show, whether it wants to or not. It also means that simply "liking" or "not liking" feels like its not enough.

TV Review: Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor

One of my New Years Resolutions is to try and get less annoyed by the howling void of idiot groupthink that is the Internet. At its best, its a celebratory medium that allows like-minded people to share their love of...well, just about anything, but at it's worse it can be a circle-jerk of snark for it's own sake, it's need for instant response destroying any sort of nuance response. Twitter, of course, is both these tendancies turned up to 11, which is probably why I love it and hate it (as I love and hate myself, as some wizard once said). This reaches some sort of apogee during "event TV", be it a reality show final, a sporting event or, on Xmas Day this year, Matt Smith's swansong as Doctor Who.

TV Review: Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor

Love it or hate it, you've not been able to escape Doctor Who the last week or so. And rightly, so, I think; sure, I'm a fan since being a kid, but even if I wasn't I'd hope that I could recognize what a cultural institution the how has been over the last 50 years and at least tolerate all the coverage it's had. At the centre piece of all of this has been the "special episode" that went out on the anniversary itself, a lengthened extraveganza that needs to celebrate the show as it has been, and as it is, and entertain long-standing fans and casual passers by wondering what the fuss is all about. It's a tall order, when you think about it. Wonder how they did?

Doctor Who: Eleven Companions, Eleven Stories

I had quite a lot of fun last week mentally rambling through favorite Doctor Who stories by Doctor, and have been toying with the idea of doing a "companions" list ever since. This runs into two problems - the fact that there are so many of them, and the fact that what defines a Who Companion is somewhat vexatious. Most attempts to define it within fandom end up being too narrow, too broad, or riddled with exceptions and caveats, so in the decided to pick just 11 of them. It seemed appropriate, and although there are some omissions I almost feel guilty about (Tegan and Jo Grant, for example) and as for if the Brig counts as a companion or not, well of course he bloody does. Presented in order of appearance, so as not to have to pick favorites.

Audio Review: The Light at the End

So, as mentioned a couple of months back, we've become slowly hooked on the range of Audios that Big Finish have been doing starring classic Doctors and Companions in new adventures. They're not flawless, but we've been listening to the earlier ones (because the're cheap, and because they're in order) and some of the issues tend to be inherent to Audio Drama anyway. By which I mean that sometimes the characters have a tendancy to over-describe their surroundings and situations, which you can't really get away from, even if it occasionally clunks. Anyway, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the show they've gathered together all the Doctors they can and made a giant crossover, which naturally we skipped straight to, as early as we could. 

Doctor Who: A Story for Every Doctor

Gosh, the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary is hurtling towards us, isn't it? And with it, the attendant plague of "best of lists" from every website and blogger and around. Actually, its a pretty good idea, so I'm going to one too, because it's my damn blog, thats why. But rather than just trot out any old list I thought I'd go for one from each Doctor; not necessarily the best story but one that is a good representation of the era. This will probably have a lot of "old favorites" in it anyway, but there will be some hard choices, I think. So lets see how it goes. 

Review: Big Finish Doctor Who Bonanza!

So, we've been on holiday, and much of that holiday has involved being on the road, driving from place to place with adult and child geeks alike to entertain. So it was recommended to me that we give some of Big Finish's Doctor Who range a try, which seemed like great advice right until I actually looked at the number of options available. I mean, there's hundreds of the damn things, featuring every Doctor who isn't dead, plus some "elseworlds" style stories, plus companion stories for TV-era companions and ones spun off the audio line. It's clearly a "thing". So, after some advice from folks on twitter, I bought some, and had a listen.

On Doctors...

Who'd have guessed that picking out a new lead actor for a TV show would turn out to be such a depressing experience? I mean, I'm quite sad that Matt Smith is leaving, because the Eleventh Doctor has really grown on me, and even with some of the weaker stories it's been a fantastically watchable performance, but the general state of community around the show at the moment is starting to fill me with fear. I mean, I hesitate to use the word "Fandom" any more; if you read around the web (and I've stopped doing this now, apart from occasional lapses) you'd get the impression that a substantive amount of the shows viewers only watch it to refuel their hate-batteries for the show, it's writers, its actors, and all for which it stands, yet still self-identify as "Doctor Who Fans".

TV Review: Doctor Who: Series 7b

So, as I write the news has broken that Matt Smith is standing down as the Eleventh Doctor at Christmas, so we can all look forward to a regeneration story, a new Doctor, and weeks, if not months, or people on the internet pontification on what the next Doctor MUST be like, else disaster. I may even join in at some point. But for now, the second half of Season 7 has just ended, so before we look forward, we should look back. A new companion, a new mystery arc, and a big anniversary to build up to; how will the Doctor face these challenges?

TV Review: Doctor Who: The Snowmen

One of the big Xmas fixtures for our household in the last few years has been the Doctor Who Christmas Special. Full of food, and a bottle of wine down, its time to curl up on the sofa with the kids and watch a bit of festive light Sci-fi. The last couple of years have played with particularly festive feels, firstly with great success in "A Christmas Carol" and then less so with last years' Narnia themed offering, and this year we have "The Snowmen", presumably inspired by the perennial Raymond Briggs cartoon. Even better, we get a proper look at the new companion...sort of. 

TV Review: Doctor Who: Series 7a

Only half a series of Doctor Who this year, what a shame. I mean, I understand the logic - shifting to the autumn probably means better viewing figures from the darker and colder nights, more production from the split run, and the fact that they can be on next autumn for the big 50th Anniversary. But 5 episodes doesn't seem a lot, even though they were the build up to the leaving of the Ponds, companions that I've become quite attached to over the last couple of years. It was also supposed to mark a move away from the more serialised plotlines of last season, into more stand alone episodes, which always had the danger of being a somewhat double edged decision. So how did it get along with that then?

Thinking: Its Not For You!

Well, its that time again, when Doctor Who returns to our screens, and is instantly subjected to a level of scrutiny far beyond that which a Saturday Evening Family-viewing show merits. Everyone seems to be in on the act, from twitter (split as ever, between gushing fans and bitter refuseniks), the legion of geek blogs, and even the mainstream press can't resist getting a few articles up each about the return of the show, episode reviews and some tacked on commentary using the show as an analogy. It's all a bit weird really, when you think about it - Who doesn't put itself forward as that sort of show and there are a hell of a lot of shows that do and don't seem to get the coverage.

Thinking: Non-Essential Seasons of Essential Shows

When I was writing up my love for Fringe's third season, it struck me that there are whole seasons of “essential” shows that you can probably safely skip, and I've been pondering on it ever since. I've settled on five examples, and so here they are:

Fringe, Season 1

This is the example that set me off. At the start, Fringe is hardly a bad show, but it’s not a great one, and the first season is a far cry from the mad science, parallel worlds lunacy that the show grew up into. It does establish the characters and broad setting, and I guess a more mundane start grounds the show a little as it starts to spin off into ever more complex areas, but the joy of Fringe is that it is, by mid-second season, so wholly just itself, its first season just feels too normal.

What you’d miss: “There’s More Than One of Everything”, the series finale that really kicks off Fringe becoming Fringe.

Take That, Fun! 

Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6

Buffy Summers dies at the end of Season 5, killing a god and accepting her destiny as the Slayer. It’s a great ending to a great series, and the series always seemed to struggle with continuing beyond that. There is something brave in Season Six’s desire to “go dark”, with Buffy struggling with her resurrection and the some heavy metaphorical stuff dealing with bad relationships, drugs and other real world stuff. The problem is that Buffy always did its best work by sliding around the tonal scale with a certain abandon – flashes of darkness and real pain and flashes of levity and hope  - and this season overloads itself in angst and suffering and manages to be both depressing to watch, and in places just plain dull.

What you’d miss: the cast having fun playing against type in “Tabula Rasa” and the marvellously self-indulgent “Once More With Feeling”.

Doctor Who, Seasons 22 & 23

Yes, this is the whole of the Sixth Doctors tenure. It’s a fashionable choice to knock Colin Baker but it’s apparent he’s a victim of the confusion and BBC internal politics that took hold in Who’s production at that time, and an already difficult sell – a dangerous and instable incarnation of the Time Lord – is crippled by poor scripts, budget cuts and general behind the scenes chaos. Many of these problems (and Bonnie Langford) are carried forward into early Seventh Doctor stories, but Classic Who’s last hurrah shows marked improvement over its run, so you’d be better off watching that.

What you’d miss: “Trial of a Time Lord” – an ambitious season long story that completely falls flat; also fans of very stupid looking coats should probably watch.

Babylon 5: Season 5

J. Michael Straczynski always said he had a five-year plan for Babylon 5, and always struggled to get renewed season to season, leaving fans with the constant fear they would never see a conclusion. But they did – at the end of Season 4, hurried along after he was told he may not get the fifth. But he did, and it’s a bit of an orphan child to the rest of the series. Most notably, the big arcs were B5’s strong point, and with those mostly gone the season felt like filler – especially a heavy-handed and clunky Psykers plotline that dominates the early running. A bit like Fringe’s first season, it’s not terrible by any stretch, but it displays very little of what made B5 worth watching in the first place.

What you’d miss: “Sleeping in Light”, the Series proper finale.

Lost, Season 2

As you may have noticed, I loved me some Lost.  It’s first season is fantastic – structurally innovative, slick, directed storytelling that meshes great character work with a building early mythology, but 3 or 4 episodes into season two I just stopped watching it. So did a lot of people, apparently. A few years later I picked up the show from the Season 3 and tore into it like I’d never been away; picking up the few new characters with little difficulty and never feeling the loss of 20-odd episodes I've never seen.

What you'd miss: I don’t know. I never watched it.