Doctor Who begins to settle into its new groove with The Ghost Monument, which was a fun trek across a dangerous alien planet, and while it won’t win any originality awards (which at this point are incredibly hard to “win” thanks to there being just so many Who stories anyway) it was a fun way to pass an hour. New TARDIS interior and new opening completes the “new era” package, and we even get the old “hint of a future plot point” thrown in! Let’s take a closer look…
Ravenous 2 ends with “Seizure”, a story that goes full on with the horror clichés, though admittedly with a Doctor Who twist of being set inside a dying TARDIS. We’re finally introduced to the Ravenous, or a member of the Ravenous, who turns out is some sort of demonic… zombie… thing, who likes to have a bit of a chat. Let’s take a look!
It’s the start of October and it’s time for a new Doctor Who Christmas story! The Eighth Doctor already holds the prize for best Doctor Who Christmas story with the classic audio “The Chimes of Midnight”, and while I don’t think this topples it, it’s a damn fine story. Creepy, fun and told with a really interesting story-within-story narrative, this two parter is not to be missed (though probably best listened to a little closer to December…)
Thanks to Ravenous 2 doing a two part story in the middle of the box, I’ve had to split it into three rather than the usual two, which is mildly annoying… Anyway! What isn’t mildly annoying is a fun story set on Kaldor itself, even if it lacks the kind of imagination I associate with the planet. Plus it adds several layers onto Liv Chenka, which is a nice bonus! Let’s take a closer look…
The Thirteenth Doctor has arrived, and with her a certainly fresh feeling episode Doctor Who. The Doctor herself isn’t anything new at the moment (well, apart from gender!) which is of course a common post-regeneration thing, but I did enjoy the new cast that surrounds her. It was a fun opener to her run, and promises a different experience in the weeks ahead. Let’s take a closer look, then, at “The Woman Who Fell to Earth”.
Well, here we go, the first time I review a Twelfth Doctor story in retrospect, rather than after it airs. Deep Breath not only introduces us to a great new Doctor (well, great for the rest of this series, anyway…) but also gives us a fun villain and a waves a goodbye to Vastra, Jenny and Strax by giving them one final adventure. It’s a damn fine story, with only a few minor quibbles, so let’s take a good look!
Although the era of Doctor #11 declined as it went on (not as a whole, there were still some good episodes here and there) watching the Eleventh Hour is a stark reminder of how amazing a start Matt Smith’s time on the show got. In just an hour a lot of new cast got introduced and a new Doctor got to show his thing, while an overall season-long story arc got teased and a few new enemies got thrown in. It’s really well done, and filmed with an interesting and unique style. Comparing this to Series 6 or 7 shows how much the series fell… Still, we’re not here to talk about that, this is about Doctor debut stories, so let’s look at this Doctor’s debut story!
Not even a year later (release-wise) from the previous debut story, we have David Tennant’s debut in the role, as well as the first Doctor Who Christmas Special (of the modern era, anyway…) The Christmas Invasion, as the title suggests, certainly doesn’t forget to remind you of what time of the year it was, but it at least doesn’t forget to tell a story about how the 10th Doctor came to be, and how Rose managed to adapt to the sudden change. So… let’s take a look! Ho-ho-ho! (it’s September as I write this…)
This is not just a Doctor Debut Story, but it was the story that re-debuted the series in general and made it a success all over again. Writer Russell T. Davies looked back on past debut stories for this, specifically Spearhead from Space, and then weaved a more modern family story into it. The result is a very good adventure indeed, and a great debut for both Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor and Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler. Let’s take a closer look!
Now, technically the War Doctor made his debut in a 30 second stinger at the end of “The Name of the Doctor”, but that would seem like a waste of that story for the sake of 30 seconds, so I decided to go down the Eighth Doctor route and do John Hurt’s first performance from start to finish in the role as the lead (as Day of the Doctor was covered last year…), meaning we get the first Full Cast Audio Drama to feature him: “The Innocent”, from the “Only the Monstrous” box set. Is it any good? Well… It’s alright, I guess. It’s nice to finally debut my War Doctor image template anyway!
Hogan Reviews 