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N179 The Church on Ruby Road — The 2023 Christmas Special
Inter-temporal infanticide and a divisive song-and-dance number? We spend more than twice its runtime dissecting The Fifteenth Doctor's first big adve...B096 The Fourteenth Doctor Retrospective
Tennant is back, inexplicably yet fabulously, prompting a customary, cocktail-fuelled retrospective... - Articles
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"Right now, I’m alone." — A data log was found in a colony in the future. This is what it contained....The Eighth Doctor: An Episode Guide
If you’re hungry for more adventures, you just have to know where to look....It Came From The Backrooms
Zoey Fleetwood finally gets to meet the Doctor! But will her first impression go as smoothly as she hopes?... - Vindex
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Shazam!
Do you prefer listening to us rant about episodes we really liked or disliked? Coolio, then head on over to the stats section and find an episode we rated exceptionally highly/incredibly disparagingly!
And there are PLENTY of ways to get involved beyond listening to the show and exploring the article archives. Point your eyestalks at some of these links to learn more! - Merch!
Likes:
• KABOOM! Space battles! Human on Dalek, & Dalek on Dalek action! One Dalek was blasted in the gut! Another was bleeding green gunk from its head! Not seen this much pepperpot carnage since Seventh Doctor bloodbath Remembrance of the Daleks.
• Something new with the Daleks. Davros aside, this is arguably the most ambitious spin on the Daleks since they were made impotent in (criminally under-appreciated) Death to the Daleks.
• Trippy Eye Stork sequence.
• Better duty of care for our our shrunken heroes than in classic Who The Invisible Enemy (where clones of the Doctor and Leela with fruit-fly lifespans were haphazardly scooped into a syringe and injected into giant Doctor’s tear duct).
• Total badass bastard Doctor: “He was dead already. I was saving us!”, and his Arnie quip, “Top layer if you want to say a few words”. More please.
• Danny Pink. It takes skill to make a character likeable and complex within minutes of screen time.
• Ben Wheatley (Legend).
• Michael Smiley (Legend).
• Journey; “Can I come?”, Doctor; “erm, No”. REJECTED! Ha ha! (Loser).
Beefs:
• Even though we see Rusty again, a missed opportunity to create a Dalek Civil War storyline? Maybe he’ll be back.
• The Dalek antibodies weren’t as entertaining as the Doctor’s antibodies in Invisible Enemy (cotton wool stuck to balloons).
Summary: KABOOM!
Rating: 4.4/5 letters to the families of the antibody-vaporised redshirts who never made it out of the Dalek (sniff).
I don’t know why I felt so nostalgic when Doc 12 showed up, because that’s all gone now. I’m remembering how I nearly gave up on Doctor Who during early Capaldi.
Fortunately, I also remember I liked later Capaldi much more, so I shall wade through again.
There is something extravagantly judgmental about the 12th Doctor in his early episodes. Not just his Dalek-like hatred for Daleks— he’s always had that— but this Doctor both seems more aware of his own inner flaws, and also dismisses people with venom for things he tolerates in himself.
For instance: with Clara’s help, the Doctor finally was willing to think that maybe there could be a good Dalek, so he opened up his mind to try to instill his own tolerance and belief in change and hope, and… well…
He believes all species can grow and learn… except for certain species he has written off as not worthy of the effort he gives everyone else to try to help them become better than they have ever been before.
The Dalek calls him on it. But even after seeing into his own heart…
The Doctor turns to Journey, a woman actively trying to leave behind a lifestyle he despises, and condemns her. “I wish you hadn’t been a soldier.” Because to 12 at this time, that means she can never be different.
For Clara: 2.3