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…
You know, it was really hard to find a sci-fi movie for the 40s (especially as I’m saving the classic Universal monster movies for a much later marathon), I guess they had other things on their mind during a lot of the decade! Anyway, Man-Made Monster is where I’ve landed, a less talked about and obviously far less iconic Universal movie, but one that ticks all the boxes for what you want out of them. Let’s take a 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”.
When Street Fighter V was announced, I thought I’d wait for a while. I got the most fun out of IV by selling it and buying the arcade edition with more characters and modes than I did when I played the base game, and despite saying they wouldn’t re-release it, here we are! I brought SFV Arcade Edition for less than £30 new and sealed, and had a great time playing it over the summer (alongside Zelda: BOTW, which admittedly ate up far more of my time…) so let’s take a look at it, bearing in mind I’m no professional fighting game player or anything…
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!
My review of the latest Dragon Ball Super physical release is now up on Anime UK News, and can be found HERE. Just how many more ways can Future Trunks’ world get screwed up? Let’s find out!
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…)
Now I’m sure some of you are rolling your eyes here, but think back to Bleach when it was in its beginning, this arc (of again, smaller stories) and the second, bigger arc (the Soul Society Arc) are frankly brilliant, it’s only during the endless Arrancar Arc where things started slowly turning south, and then… yeah. But this isn’t an overall look at Shonen Jump! series, this is debut arcs, and I honestly think Bleach did it best (of the ones I’ve seen / read). With these first fourteen episodes you get a good feel for not only our lead protagonist, but for nearly all his surrounding cast, meaning we truly feel like we know the unit when they then have to jump head first into danger in the next arc. Let’s take a closer look and round off this Top 5!
Hogan Reviews 