A Guest Blog by Hevy782

So I could be mean to you and wait until the end to talk about Clara’s demise but since you’ve probably already suffered enough I’m going to be kind for once and talk about it first. Now for those of you who don’t know I am not a big Clara fan. None of that is really to do with Jenna Coleman as I think she’s an amazing actress who’s not been given the best material to work with. There was practically no solid sense of character during series seven as the whole impossible girl plot line simply treated her as nothing more than a walking, talking plot device. Then came the fiftieth anniversary where she suddenly became a teacher despite showing no prior interest in teaching. But anyway, moving on to series eight where the control freak angle was thrown in out of nowhere but on the bright-side we were at least getting some much needed character development at this point. Throughout most of series nine I couldn’t really care less about Clara and given how little she got to do I think the writers might have felt the same. But despite all of that I still found her death quite moving, mainly because of Sarah Dollard’s great writing and Peter and Jenna’s superb acting. Also, my heart was racing at times during this episode but I couldn’t quite put my finger on why. This was probably at it’s worst during the scene where she gets the tattoo and while I had seen her death coming from a mile off this was the moment that sealed the deal for me. Some people have complained about the circumstances leading up to the death saying it wasn’t really that heroic but it wasn’t really meant to be, it was meant to show much of a risk-taker she’s become and now she’s seen the consequences of that which provides a fitting conclusion to her arc this series.

So that’s basically all I have to say about Clara’s death itself but I’m not completely done with it as it does hang over the episode as a whole quite a bit. In fact the reason I brought it up first was because it would have been hard to discuss the rest of the episode without mentioning it and it would end up feeling like I’m just killing time until I can talk about it, a bit like how the majority of the episode felt to me. Not that I’m saying I didn’t enjoy the build up to it, I thought some of it was great but ultimately it was rather uneventful and had a very thin plot, making it feel like the episode was only here to kill Clara off and set up the finale rather than tell a story in it’s own right. They could’ve done a neat little murder mystery plot in a mysterious setting but instead as soon as the investigation into what’s going on begins it’s over, there’s literally only really one scene of it. It’s something that Doctor Who’s been doing far too often recently in my opinion and that is introducing really cool and interesting ideas but rather than exploring them more beyond that they simply move on to the next one. Take the trapped street idea from this story as an example. It’s a wonderful idea and it’s done very well visually but we hardly go anywhere with it before we move on to the episode’s next big idea, the raven itself but by the time we get to it there’s not enough run time to flesh it out satisfactorily.

Now let’s talk about Rigsy who I quite liked in Flatline and once again I quite liked him here. He now has a son but he’s still very much the same character as last time and it’s nice to have him back as not only did he work quite well with Clara last time but he also helped to point out how much Clara has changed since last series. However, I’m disappointed he sort of disappeared from the story at the end and didn’t get to properly say goodbye to Clara or the Doctor either for that matter. But his memorial for Clara at the end was nice. Now we come to the return of Me who has once again changed quite a bit since we last saw her. However, I feel like this story kind of undid some of the development she got in her previous story and it seems like most of the interesting character development has once again taken place off screen. However, those final moments she had with the Doctor were very strong and I get the feeling she’s going to need one more episode to resolve that.

Speaking of the Doctor, let’s talk about him now and I’ll start off by saying that this is probably one of the strongest performances that Peter Capaldi has ever given. It really got me excited for where we’re heading next week with a what has basically been described as an episode long monologue and the events of this episode should play into that quite nicely and make it even more entertaining. But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself so let’s turn our attention back to this episode and talking about his goodbye to Clara. I already mentioned how superb both the actors were in this scene but I might as well talk about them again as they are both so good. Clara’s line about not wanting the last she sees of the Doctor to be him threatening people is a particular stand out for me and is the turning point of the scene. We then get such a range of emotion from Capaldi but then the way he turns on Me following Clara’s death is simply incredible and it’s great to see that it will affect him greatly as a character. It has been said that we will be seeing a more cynical Doctor next series and it’s good to see here that there will be a good reason for that. It will also be interesting to see how he treats his next companion due to Clara’s death although having said that I hope they don’t do what they did with Martha and have the new companion be overshadowed by the old one.

Overall, this episode isn’t perfect but the final quarter of it very nearly is. I’m going to give it an eight-out-of-ten although I’m not sure whether more time could’ve improved this and fixed some of the flaws I’ve pointed out or just a better use of the time they already had here. With an extended run time and only one real character to cater for I hope next weeks doesn’t suffer from the same problems as Heaven Sent has a lot of potential and I only hope it can live up to it. So until we see it next week be sure to sound off your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

A Guest Blog by Hevy782

Strange, isn’t it? There have been episodes this series that have been almost universally praised which I am not all that keen on and then along comes an episode which I positively adore and it seems that not many share my enthusiasm. Now I can kind of see why as it is quite experimental in more ways that one and quite a few people will probably not take very well to that element of the episode. That and the fact that the ending can be quite confusing. Admittedly I was quite shaken by it all the first time but after a second viewing during which I understood much better what was going on I enjoyed it much more. Now let’s begin with the elephant in the room, the found footage itself. Admittedly when I first heard about this I was quite concerned and thought it would be a rehash of Love and Monsters but with poor quality phone cameras. But as we got closer to the story and I realised it was set in space my hopes rose by quite a bit. Now that I’ve seen the actual episode I’m very happy with how the found footage element turned out and I’m particularly happy that it had an actual reason for being there, and an experimental one at that. Now in other shows found footage can feel superfluous to the story being told but the way that it tied into the narrative made me feel that the episode wouldn’t have been as good without it.

Now Mark Gatiss himself seems to be a bit of a mainstay when it comes to Doctor Who having been writing for the show since it came back, so it’s rather surprising that this is his first futuristic story. In fact all of his previous works apart from Night Terrors have been set in the past. And he can do horror very well (you only have to watch The Unquiet Dead to see that) but he instead seems to focus on comedy’s instead which are sometimes less than successful. Here though he does unleash his inner horror and the Sandmen are quite wonderful creations and quite a scary idea also. Now I’ve head some critics of the episode say the idea of living dust is more fantasy than science but I mean we’ve had stranger things before, haven’t we? I mean we had the moon turn out to be an egg for crying out loud. So having the Morpheus machine turn the dust from sleep sentient didn’t jump out at me as absurd whatsoever. In fact it more or less made sense to me. It was also quite a scary idea and the Sandmen themselves (especially when kept to the shadows) turned out to be quite scary as monsters. The song was also strangely unsettling. And then there’s ending which was marvellously done and was probably the scariest thing about it. The way he rubbed out his eye was particularly good although they may have got a bit carried away after that.

Before we finish off by talking about the characters I would like to bring up the interesting concept of the titles which I was quite worried about at first but they actually worked quite well and helped make the experience more immersive. Shame they couldn’t do something similar at the end though as the sudden appearance of the credits kind of threw right out of it and almost ruined that spectacular ending. But anyway, now for the characters and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the biggest fan of Clara although I think Jenna Coleman is a fantastic actress. This episode however I feel that Mark Gatiss wrote her in a way in which she felt like a real, likeable person. The scene where they talk about space stuff is great and just highlights my point. We might not have long left with her but I still want more of this please. The Doctor was also wonderful during these scenes and while he didn’t get any material like last week he was still used well here. When it comes to supporting characters I find that Mark Gatiss always does a good job and this is no exception. Admitedly the only standout of the crew is Chopra but the others are still good. The main masterpiece here though is Reece Shearsmith’s Rassmussen who has quite a few layers to his character, and no I’m not talking about layers of sand. Good performances all around too which really helped this episode.

Overall, Under the Lake may be my favourite individual episode from this series but Sleep No More is definitely my favourite story as a whole due to it not having a second part like Before the Flood to let it down. Having said that though, Mark Gatiss will apparently be writing a sequel but I’m not sure this needs one as the ending is as perfect as it is ambiguous in my view. But anyway, while I won’t be giving this one full marks I will be giving it a nine-out-of-ten and will look back on it as an underrated gem, even if you probably won’t. Now we look forward to next week’s episode Face the Raven which appears to have an awful lot going on in it. So until we see it next week be sure to sound off your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

A Guest Blog by Hevy782

When we left off last week I quite liked the direction the story was going in but I also expressed some concern that I had also felt this way before at the end of the first half of all series nine two-parters so far and had always ended up disappointed by the second half. Now I will say that this episode is the best second part from Capaldi’s era. It also linked well thematically with the first part and I can’t really say the same for The Witch’s Familiar and Before the Flood. It felt like one long story this time but the two halves do still feel distinctive. However, I did still feel disappointed with this episode in comparison to last weeks. But before I go into that I’d like to discuss something that kind of bothered me over the course of both episodes, the Zygons themselves. In the classic series they were set up as the ideal infiltrators. They took would take a human, get a body print from them and then take their form. This meant that they had limits but these limits set them apart from the standard sci-fi shape-shifters and therefor made them more interesting. They also had the Skarasen a giant armoured cyborg which they could not only use as a weapon but also depended on for survival due to the lactic fluid it produced for them. However, basically all of this lore is thrown away in this story and while there was sort of an in-universe explanation given by Osgood last week it still bothers me that if they were going to change the monster so much why did they not just make a new one to suit the story’s requirements. As it is they’re just fitting the monster to the story when it should really be the other way around in the case of pre-existing monsters.

Now I don’t think I gave enough praise to Jenna Coleman last week for what she did with Bonnie and I’m happy to say that she improved on it even more this week. I think this is the best performance Jenna Coleman has ever given in Doctor Who and she isn’t even playing her main role. Admittedly she didn’t do too bad a job as the normal Clara but ultimately Bonnie was just so much more interesting to me. I think it’s because we all love a good villain and he fact that said villain looks like one of the main characters is just adds to that. Now we move onto a character who I didn’t really talk about at all last week, Kate Stewart. Admittedly I saw the twist of how she’d get out of last weeks situation instantly but the Brigadier reference they put in there was quite nice. It was nice for her to go off and do her own thing last week but in this episode she seemed to act very out of character when it came to the climax. It felt far too similar to the Day of the Doctor’s resolution and wiping her memory robbed her or any development here. I personally think that they should’ve swapped her out for Rebecca Front’s Colonel Walsh instead as her character fitted the situation far better and there had even been some possible build up to this last week during her scenes. It’s a shame she didn’t appear at all in this one at all as it feels like her character only had half her story told.

While we’re on the topic of the ending though, wasn’t the Doctor’s speech there just fantastic? It will almost definitely be one of Capaldi’s defining moments and while the American accent was quite annoying (albeit not as annoying as Missy’s was) it didn’t detract from the overall quality of the writing or the rest of the speech. And it’s not one of those grandiose speeches which Matt Smith had which only really served to big the character up, it’s instead a speech which could very easily be applied to the real world and it nicely tied up the anti-war theme of the episode. It’s almost call back to the Pertwee era as many of his stories had a strong political message. The Zygon splinter group itself is also very much a parody of modern day terrorism. It even directly paralleled to the idea that many people in our society blame all Muslim’s for the actions of a few radicalised groups and it did this right. And yet some people have still found something to complain about here by calling the BBC insensitive for broadcasting a plane getting shot down only a week after a plane was tragically struck down in real life. Now I am not trying to be insensitive here but surly viewers will be able to distinguish between real life and fictional events. It’s not like the production team are making light of this terrible situation and parodying it as it was filmed long before this event occurred. Cutting it out wasn’t exactly an option either as it was too crucial to the plot and it was last weeks cliff-hanger for heavens sake. I’m just glad we didn’t have a repeat of the Robot of Sherwood beheading scene fiasco but anyway, I’m going way off topic and way too political so let’s cool down a bit by talking about Osgood. She was a great character and while she didn’t do much beyond give the Doctor someone to talk to it was still nice to have her there. Also, it would’ve been great for her to have had at least one trip in the TARDIS as I feel she brings out a lot of good qualities in Capadi’s Doctor.

Overall, I give The Zygon Inversion an eight-out-of-ten as I can look beyond the flaws in the Zygons and see that this is a really strong story with a great speech that it very relevant to events occurring in the world right now. Also, if you’re in the mood for more Kate and Osgood then you’re in luck as Big Finish just released UNIT: Extinction in which they and the rest of UNIT face the Autons. Alternatively the adventures of the Doctor and Clara continue in Sleep No More. It’s a found-footage style story by Mark Gatiss and will hopefully include some good, old fashioned sci-fi horror. So then, until next week be sure to sound off your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.

A Guest Blog by Hevy782

The Zygons are back and it appears that this is a story that has been in the works for a long time now. It all began during fiftieth anniversary, where a rather bland Zygon subplot is now revealed to have simply been laying the groundwork for this story. Following the events of this subplot in The Day of the Doctor a peace between humans and Zygon’s is established, with the two Osgoods acting as the living embodiment of said peace. Skip forward a year and one of the Osgoods is disintegrated by Missy, an action which I doubt even she was aware of the full implications. Now the peace is breaking down and a Zygon splinter group are now trying to claim the world for themselves. When I first heard about the story everything about it excited me except the fact that it was written by Peter Harness who of course wrote last years train wreck of an episode Kill the Moon. Then it was revealed that Osgood would be returning and I started to worry. Not because I dislike Osgood but because her Death in Heaven really meant something at the time and it felt like that was being thrown away and yet another death in Doctor Who didn’t mean anything. The few glimpses we got in the series nine trailers looked good but it was the individual episode trailers that got me really excited again. My hopes were held high again but I still had this thought in the back of my head reminding me that I felt the same way about be trailers for Peter Harness’s last story. The clips then came along midweek and they didn’t look too good out of context. So there’s been a lot of ups and downs on the road to this story but now that I’ve seen the first episode of it, what do I think?

Well, I thought that The Zygon Invasion was the best episode of series nine so far. Admittedly I wasn’t a fan of the once upon a time opening and for the first five minutes it felt like my worst fears about the episode had been confirmed. The Zygon’s using electricity now initially annoyed the hell out of me and especially considering that they got the sting so right in The Day of the Doctor this just felt like a cheap gimmick. But once we were beyond the opening titles and I’d had a chance to calm down I actually started to enjoy it. Not long after that I was riveted to it and was disappointed that I couldn’t immediately go straight on to the second part. So I did the next best thing a just watch the first part again. The second viewing definitely helped and some of the things that annoyed me the first time really ended up feeling like simple nitpicks the second time. The electricity still didn’t work for me though and the fact that it turned people into things that look like tumbleweeds just felt like an excuse not to show actual dead bodies on Doctor Who. Now I’m not a psychopath who gets a kick out of seeing dead bodies but I do feel that actual bodies would’ve had more of an impact. Other than that the Zygons were great and felt very menacing. Also, given that the electricity thing is my biggest complaint that just shows how strong the episode really is.

The episode had more than a couple of parallels with modern-day terrorism. The Zygons using Osgood to send out there message. The fact that many are blaming the vast majority for the actions of a few. These are all things that relate to problems we have in the real world and while it does feel like these themes are being bashed over your head from time to time I still feel that it works. It also helps to make the Zygons even more scary as they remind us of people we fear today just like the Daleks reminded sixties viewers of people they feared back then, the Nazis. But that’s not all that made the Zygon’s scary this week as the scene outside the Church was one of the most gripping things I’ve seen in a long while. While it may have been obvious that she was a Zygon the acting made it very tense and the music added to it also. In fact the music added a lot to the episode, as it can be quite creepy at times. Another standout moment was the reveal of Clara being a Zygon and while it was fairly obvious on the second watch I somehow did not see it coming first time around so well done to Peter Harness on that. I’m very much looking forward to seeing where they take this next week with Jenna Coleman playing the main villain. Exciting stuff. Also, poor Jac. She was quite good in this and even though there wasn’t much character there I feel that the actress did a lot with the role. Another good character was Colonel Walsh who will hopefully be back next week as Rebecca Front worked brilliantly alongside Peter Capaldi. The Doctor obviously dislikes her but not because she’s a soldier but because of her attitude towards the Zygons which works a lot better. But what is probably the best thing about this episode is the global scale of it. It feels like a finale in the way it’s written and a movie in the way it’s directed. Steven Moffat was spot on when he described it as a global urban thriller and it’s a style that’s very new for the series, thus making this episode really stand out.

Overall, I’m going to give this episode a very high nine-out-of-ten as it simply blew me away. Now there are some things which I deliberately missed out of this week’s review but rest assured that I will bring them up next week as I want to talk about them parts when we have the full picture. Now it probably goes without saying that I’m looking forward to The Zygon Inversion. Having said that though I am worried, as Capaldi’s era seems to have a habit of producing disappointing second halves. Hopefully this will be the exception but until we get the answers we seek next week be sure to sound off your thoughts on the episode in the comments below.