“The Story and The Engine” is another episode of this Doctor Who series that tells a good story, is well acted and has some positive messages at its heart but once again I find myself longing for something a bit more… Doctor Who-y. I’m happy episodes like this exist but I would prefer not to have so many of them in a row is what I’m saying, throw in a few base under siege / generic alien invasion stories here and there to break things up maybe… Well, anyway, let’s take a look!
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Doctor Who’s latest series hits a bit of a roadblock with “Lucky Day”. With only eight episodes this year taking an entire episode and using it to impart a good message but really badly and with The Doctor barely featuring in it is a choice, that’s for sure. Anyone looking for fun escapism in their Doctor Who will be sorely disappointed, I know I was, so let’s take a look so I can start to forget about it.
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It’s time to stop being quite so weird and do something a bit more traditional now as Doctor Who’s latest series gives us a good old fashioned claustrophobic space horror with a fun, if not a little visually silly, twist. It’s also a sequel to a popular original Russell T. Davies era story, but really you don’t have to be familiar with that one to watch this, it’s actually pretty damn different, but different in a good or bad way? Let’s take a look!
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The second episode of this series of Doctor Who gets weird, much like the second episode in the previous series, which ends up not being a coincidence. The big thing in the advertisements going into the episode was the whole “cartoon come to life” and that was handled brilliantly. Sadly they also stepped into the fourth wall breaking, “what if the Doctor came into our world where he’s a TV character!” trope that, as I’ve said a few times on this site, I HATE. Oh well… let’s see how these two aspects balance out, shall we?
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Now I thought Underwater Menace and Galaxy 4 were obscure lost stories to animate, “The Savages” has now taken the lead on that front as while it is a sci-fi story rather than a historical and does involve the (rather crap) exit of long-time companion Steven it’s also on the dull side, especially when watching the recon made from a bunch of stills and a soundtrack. Does the animation breathe new life into the otherwise sleepy story? Yes, having moving characters and false-camera work does hold your attention much more easily. Does it mean the story is good now? Um… well…
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Doctor Who has returned to our TV screens for its latest season, Fifteenth Doctor in tow. Happily “The Robot Revolution” is much better than the previous series opener, but given that was “Space Babies” that’s not saying much, instead I will say that as a companion introduction story it’s perfect, as a story overall? Not so much. Some ropey designs and some on-the-nose political and social commentary that I would’ve preferred to have been more subtle (though I get this is aimed at all ages…) knocks it down a peg or two. Still fun though, so let’s take a deeper look!
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One of my all-time favourite seasons of the show has found its way to Blu-Ray so it’s time to checkout a story from the set, and once again I’ve gone with the story its been the longest since I’ve seen it and with a season of four stories all of which I’ve watched loads that was hard to figure out. Still, I’m pretty sure Ambassadors of Death is it, and it’s my least favourite of the season. Still, a least favourite in a favourite season is still good, right…?
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I will always look forward to more Season 7 content, it remains one of my all-time favourite seasons full stop, so I was really looking forward to “and the Brain Drain”, which I guess is a callback to “and the Silurians” though that title was always an annoying one-off rather than something that should be copied (but let’s not get into the “Doctor Who/ The Doctor” debate!) Sadly Brain Drain took an interesting concept for a one hour story, maybe a four parter at best, and then had to stretch it out for seven parts, causing it to fall to pieces. Don’t get me wrong, a lot of the Season 7 seven part stories can drag but they at least often have alien threats to give some fun cliffhangers! Ah well, let’s take a closer look.
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Classic Doctors, New Monsters: Faithful Friends comes to a close with the Eighth Doctor encountering the otherwise nameless Monks that the Twelfth Doctor faced off with in a rather disappointing three parter during what was otherwise his finest season. When one of these stories comes around you know it will be taking a “new monster” and either doing a retread of their TV appearance or doing something interesting with the species, and given I didn’t massively like their TV appearance I was hoping for the latter, but instead I got the former. Still, does the addition of the Eighth Doctor in a romantic relationship make it better? Let’s find out!
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The latest Classic Doctors, New Monsters set has once again created a two-parter but split the parts across two different eras of the Doctor, in this case the Second and Seventh, so in order to cover the story as a whole I’m linking them together with the Seventh Doctor template, but Part 1 is still all Troughton, so to speak. The Krillitane are an interesting concept in that that keep adapting themselves all the time, stealing things from other species in packs, so no Krillitane grouping is ever the same, visually or power-set-wise, so it’s nice to see them appear here (even if the visual on the cover has them looking exactly the same as their TV appearance, but I can forgive that as it’s kind of the point of the set…) Let’s take a look!
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Hogan Reviews 