What with commenting on ‘Manhunt’, episode image captures of ‘Capital City’, occasional thoughts about the third season of ‘Ashes To Ashes’ and the odd product review to write I really haven’t had much free time to put down any thoughts about this years first full season under the stewardship of head writer Steven Moffat and incoming eleventh Doctor Matt Smith. So with a bit of free time over the weekend lets now get things underway by asking the question what do I think???
Well there is no doubt that proceedings got off to a great start with the extended story “The Eleventh Hour” and not only were we getting used to a new occupant in the TARDIS (which by the way with its multileveled orange hued multileveled interior and more robust and fascinating central console) than there is the fascinating encounter with new companion Amy Pond in two points in her life. First as an innocent young girl living alone in a large empty house with a strange crack on one of the rooms walls, then he returns to find her all grown up, just before her wedding, dressed as a police uniform wearing call girl. I liked the rural setting of this plus the intriguing ‘look around the occupants of the village green’ effect plus the way that, eventually, the Doctor chose his new outfit before talking to the spaceship on the roof after the pleasing ‘collage of previous Doctors’ sequence. Let us also praise the new titles sequence and theme tune which certainly seems more robust this year than it was for the preceding years.
I don’t like being disingenuous about such a worthy reinvigoration of the latest addition to franchise but personally the second episode “The Beast Below” really failed to grab me. I can’t really point to any specific aspect of this story I just didn’t find it ether sufficiently dramatically engaging or particularly memorable.
Bringing the Daleks back is generally a good move and matching it with a significant period in history written by Mark Gatiss I certainly think there is much to praise the third story “Victor of the Daleks” for. Ian McNeice does a reasonably good job recreating Churchill and as from a crowd pleasing and patriotic standpoint having Spitfire aircraft attacking a spaceship certainly looked good. However unless this is some alternate dimension the possibility of this happening and of the Daleks working with the British to combat the Germans is highly improbable. As to the new supposedly improved fatter and much more colourful versions of the Daleks it is debatable as to whether this is entirely successful. I take the view that these new larger and heavier versions could be likened to the replacement for the original Mini with the eventual superior BMW version. Both have their followers however it was felt that the brand needed updating and improving for a more demanding customer market. Make of this as you will!
So anyway as I type this the memory of the first two part story of the 2010 season is fresh in my mind, an adventure which saw the return of not just the Weeping Angels but also the mysterious River Song. From their first appearance in 2007’s “Blink” these creepy stone creatures were worth bringing back and matching it with the possible further insight into the intrigue of just what kind of relationship the Doctor will have with this knowledgeable female boded well for “The Time of The Angels”/”Flesh and Stone”. There is no doubt that Alex Kingston’s introduction where she lets herself be sucked out of an airlock in the self assured knowledge that the Doctor will save her is a brilliantly cool way to start proceedings. A stunning initial location shot is followed by creeping around darkened caves similar to Peter Davison’s “Earthshock” story but generally I thought that the first part was primarily purely about atmosphere and tense threat. I thought the main premise ‘meat of the story’ came in the second part shortly after discovering the buried spaceship with a worthy scene where the Doctor guides Amy (with her eyes firmly shut) through a frightening amount of threatening Weeping Angels. In summation it was fairly entertaining stuff but of the five I’ve seen so far I personally don’t think we’ve yet seen an episode that can be described as a classic… maybe that is yet to come.
A look through the pages of the latest issue of Doctor Who Magazine (Issue 421) gives story previews of the next four episodes beginning with next weeks "The Vampires In Venice” which aside from worthy location filming features a lot of people with seriously bad dental problems. I’m not too optimistic about episode 7 called “Amy’s Choice” however this is followed by a two parter which I definitely think shows distinct promise. It’s not giving anything away, because of the pictures and article on pages ten and eleven that “The Hungry Earth”/”Cold Blood” feature the welcome return of a classic monster foe… the Silurians. Let’s gloss over their previous appearance in Peter Davison’s “Warriors of the Deep” and cast our memories back to when they faced Jon Pertwee in the seven part 1970 epic story to recall just why I, and I presume a great many people should get excited at the prospect of their return.
At present I feel fairly ambivalent to Matt Smith as the Doctor (but then following someone like David Tennant was never going to be easy!) and have yet to totally warm to new companion Amy Pond especially when compared to other series regulars we have seen either since the return of the series in 2005 or cast my memory back to the classic series.
Over to you guys!
