My name is... WHAT?! 'Doctor Who' 33.13, "The Name of the Doctor"

I’m not going to do a standard ten-point review for this; I can’t do ten points without being spoilery. So I’ll be brief.

 

This was a bit of a dragger of an episode; there were moments that could have done with being somewhat shorter. It is also clearer that the show is spending money on effects instead of a large cast; nearly everyone had prior form on the show. However, we had moments of great drama and a superb explanation for Clara.

 

The revelation of the ‘Name’ and that ending… that’s going to be speculated on for months and talked about for years.

 

Roll on 23 November.

 

7/10

April 2013 newsletter

Much later than planned, here is the next issue of our newsletter.

Who fancies a Ninja Tribunal?

Berzerker is proposing a new sim set in the Stargate universe, a spin-off from SGB-2. This will involve "A Stargate Team that hunts Ancient Legends and figures out that they are Ancient Tools and Technology", learning how to use them.

Check out the proposal thread.

The Cyberman Gambit (Review: 'Doctor Who' 33.12, "Nightmare in Silver")

The Doctor, Clara and her two charges travel to the biggest theme park in the cosmos, only to discover that it is not only closed, but contains Cybermen…

 

·         We jumped pretty much straight into this, although the reveal of the title sequence cliffhanger was more than a bit clichéd.

·         Matt Smith had a great time playing two roles – truly hamming it up as the Cyber Planner (not that he avoids the ham usually) in a turn that reminded me of performances of Jekyll and Hyde.

·         Clara didn’t do the best job this week – getting handed military command and reacting in that manner seemed a bit off.

·         Got to say that I liked the reveal of how the chess game was initially operated – look up the Mechanical Turk for the inspiration.

·         Warwick Davis did a great job as Porridge and I liked the reveal of his true identity; I’m sure many people in his position would have wanted to be ordinary just for once.

·         When is this set? I guess it’s one of the Great and Bountiful Human Empires.

·         Superb CGI work in this episode; you could never have had shots like this in the old days.

·         The military unit looked more than a bit unmilitary; while they may well have been a punishment platoon, no military would let the Captain have that fringe.

·         Really, really effective Cybermen – they came up with a counter strategy for nearly everything that the humans threw at them.

·         The final shot of the episode was again something that we’ve seen before many times before.

 

Conclusion

 

An enjoyable episode, but nothing stellar. Next week’s finale could be very interesting indeed.

 

7/10

James Bond: The Living Daylights

Timothy Dalton’s first outing as 007 was one of the first James Bond movies I saw, when I went through a total of four on a holiday to New York in December 1999, where I saw my first one in a cinema – The World Is Not Enough and three others during the course of a TBS series of re-runs.

 

It’s also one of my personal favourites – I’ve watched it at least four times counting this re-watch. As such, I can focus less on the magnificent story (it’s got one of the best plots of the series) and more on other details.

 

Dalton’s Bond is tough, but personable – it’s easy to see how he could be see such a charmer, even from my heterosexual male point of view. The action scenes, accompanied by John Barry’s masterwork of a score (his last one for the series in fact) are brilliantly staged. The set design is mostly superb (although with odd niggles like an Emergency Exit sign in English only on a Soviet plane) and there are great one-liners throughout. Even Joe Don Baker’s not bad.

 

Two people let the side down somewhat - Jeroen Krabbé and Maryam d’Abo. Krabbé is the worst thing in the movie; he can’t act and his scenes as Koskov are annoying. Maryam d’Abo is great to look at, does some great facial acting and handles one of the better written Bond Girl parts, but when she opens her mouth… her voice is irritating. Someone should have gotten a better vocal coach to soften her voice a bit.

 

Having learnt a bit about diplomatic bags via an episode of Castle, the bit about Koskov’s fate works even better.

 

Conclusion

 

This stays just as good on re-watch and its status as one of the best in the series remains. If you want to introduce someone to 007, warts and all.

 

9/10.

A Battenberg episode (Review: 'Doctor Who' 33.11, "The Crimson Horror")

The Doctor, Clara and the Vastra gang try to stop an insane factory owner in 1893 Yorkshire.

 

This one was a fast-paced episode that rattled along with barely time to breathe:

 

·         Great pre-titles sequence; it had the air of a classic pastiche of Victorian times about it.

·         Dame Diana Rigg, bringing out a far more Yorkshire accent than most of her roles have had, did a great job throughout, although crediting her as ‘Dame Diana Rigg’ seemed a bit strange.

·         The ‘sat nav’ joke was excellent; although the name of the kid was obviously telegraphed.

·         Strax, Jenny and Vastra were wonderful, although I’m not sure what ‘limbo vapour’ is…

·         Starting a story in media res that way was a novelty for the show and worked well in this case, even it is seriously overused at other times.

·         There were some superb supporting characters, especially the pathologist.

·         The alien we saw was well realised – kudos to the creators for this.

·         Matt Smith had less to do than usual, but was still good; he can certainly rock a bowler.

·         Clara seemed a bit more subdued – she wasn’t in much of this and when she was on, her normal sass wasn’t fully present.

·         Bringing the two kids along for a ride next week could either be great or a recipe for disaster – the show does not take minors on the TARDIS and I suspect many would not like for the Doctor to have a kid companion.

 

Conclusion

 

Another treat from Mark Gatiss, but this is a Battenberg cake of an episode… enjoyable, but too many will make you sick.

 

8/10

New ideas for Phoenix

Two new ideas are being mooted in our Sim Proposals forum. Brandon is tabling a mecha-style sim and that purveyor of quantity, if not necessarily quality, Silent Hunter is looking to do a 1960s-spy sim in the style of classic British television.