In the UK: Saturday 1st October, 7.15pm, BBC1/BBC1 HD. Available on the iPlayer
In the US: Saturday 1st October, 9pm/8c ET/PT, BBC America
Erm, yes. Another crazy bit of Stevieness. How does he stop himself from going mad with thoughts like that?
I largely enjoyed that one. Full of fun moments. Good to see quite a big chunk of questions answered – River’s timeline, how the Doctor avoids dying, what’s up with the eyepatches – as well as a few new ones asked, such as Doctor Who? Could have done with knowing why the TARDIS blew up at the end of last season, but maybe we’ll find out next year. The Silence were a little under-powered. Rory was a bit of a letdown. The Doctor’s escape clause felt like a bit of a cheat. But pretty enjoyable and the tribute to Nicholas Courtney was tear-jerking.
But it didn’t feel like a season finale, if you know what I mean. There was spectacle but no real sense of danger or of energy. Perhaps the supposed inevitability of it all robbed the story of that energy, since it felt like it was walking to its doom, Sydney Carton style. And putting out a message to the universe saying "Come help the Doctor" and getting a series of polite responses in return did rob the story of a potential bit of fun.
On the whole, in fact, a slightly less impressive two-part season than Stevie’s first. Amy was a shadow of her former self. A lot of the non-Stevie episodes felt like filler. Maybe a little too complicated for its own good and not as emotional or grounded as Rusty’s era, either. But Matt Smith’s very good, isn’t he?
On the whole, in fact, Doctor Who is starting to feel "interesting" in the same way as a puzzle rather than as drama. For me, it’s hard to feel enthusiasm for it, rather than waiting for another piece of the puzzle to be added to the mix. Not so much fun as homework, if you see what I mean. And a lot of the time, I’m not sure I desperately want to know the answers to the questions being asked. The Silence need to be a bit more threatening if they’re going to be a big bad. The companion(s), if they go through danger, need to change rather than be reset as a result of their adventures.
Although I won’t miss the complete absence of logic and sensible plotting from the Rusty era, he did at least know how to make you care about the companions and the Doctor and the current run is a little too distant from them at the moment.
But what do you think?
