Doctor Who - The Day of the Doctor 50th Anniversary Special Review

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

At 5:16pm on Saturday the 23rd of November 1963, 4.4 million viewers turned on their televisions to watch a new science fiction programme about a curious old man who lived in a time travelling police box. No one would have believed the legacy that was about to be born... 50 years (and a couple of hours) later, the 799th episode of Doctor Who, The Day of the Doctor, was broadcast simultaneously across the globe, hitting screens in homes and cinemas in 94 countries to celebrate one of the longest running science fiction franchises in television history. And, as it so happens, one of my favourite science fiction franchises in television history. The amount of hype and anticipation that had been drummed up about this event was outstanding.

And so, just before 7:50pm on the 23rd of November 2013, I took my seat in the auditorium - surrounded by so many Doctors that I feared a rupture in space-time would open up and consume the cinema - and I donned a pair of ridiculous 3D glasses. The Moment had finally come. The Day of the Doctor was upon us.

Starring current Doctor, Matt Smith, previous Doctor, David Tennant, and hitherto unknown Doctor, John Hurt, the 50th Anniversary Special episode set out to mark this momentous occasion with something to remember. Did it feel like a fitting tribute to 50 years of Doctor Who? To be honest, I felt that An Adventure in Space and Time (a dramatisation about the inception of Doctor Who, written by Mark Gatiss, starring Jessica Raine as Verity Lambert and David Bradley as William Hartnell) was a far more fitting tribute to the show’s history, but that’s not to say that The Day of the Doctor wasn’t spectacular in its own right. The interplay between the three Doctors was fantastic, as the three actors play off of each other’s performances perfectly, and I was thrilled to finally glimpse a part of the Time War (although I’d love to see more. In fact, I’d love to see a series with John Hurt as the Doctor, whether it’s set in the Time War or not). And there was one particular moment - oh, one shining, brilliant moment - that sent a frisson running through my two hearts, but I’ll come back to that one later...

There are two stories at work throughout The Day of the Doctor: the Doctor and the Time War, and the Zygon foothold on Earth. First and foremost is the story of the Doctor who fought in the Time War, the man who was there at the fall of Arcadia and left burdened with a terrible decision, who is now brought forward in time to meet his future selves and see the man he will become. In possession of the Moment (it's interface played by the brilliant Billie Piper, although it would've been good to see more of her as Rose Tyler interacting with David Tennant's Doctor), the Doctor is prepared to take the fate of Gallifrey and the Daleks into his own hands and end the war that almost destroyed the Universe. This is the Doctor's biggest regret. Seeing John Hurt as the weary War Doctor, a good man at heart but carrying out a necessary evil, was fantastic. When Hurt was revealed as the Doctor at the end of The Name of the Doctor, I was bloody excited - doubly so that his Doctor (the ninth incarnation) was to be the focal point of the 50th Anniversary - and he delivered the role perfectly. He was as excitable and eccentric as his predecessors and successors, but with the gravitas of a man burdened with the destruction of his people, and his bemusement when dealing with his future selves was an absolute joy (“Why are you pointing your screwdrivers like that? They're scientific instruments not water pistols.” … “They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do, assemble a cabinet?”).

In addition to this, the other two Doctors (Tennant and Smith) were wonderful as ever. Their initial double-act - turned triple-act - was truly one of the highlights of the episode/film, as they play off of each other's energy, quirks, differences and similarities extraordinarily. Their ability to collectively go from eccentric and entertaining to dark and brooding was fantastic, and no moment demonstrated this as perfectly as the climax, as the three solemnly gather to use the Moment to end Dalek and Time Lord alike, and then snap into jubilation as they reach an alternative conclusion. This conclusion essentially saves Gallifrey (a point I'll revisit in a moment), hiding it and Time Lord society away in a pocket universe, and strongly hints that the Doctor will be returning home soon... I can't think of a more fitting way to conclude the 50th Anniversary episode!

The Zygon storyline, on the other hand, sadly didn't work quite as well. Mostly, it felt like filler in between scenes with the three Doctors, and although it progressed things with the Queen Elizabeth I plot and was - in a sense - the driving force behind the narrative, the whole thing felt a little flat. The Zygons are a good alien race to choose (their shapeshifting abilities allow for a number of duplicitous plots), but overall their inclusion didn’t feel necessary, and although it was a nice nod to a classic monster, they could easily have been replaced with almost any other enemy. I can't help but feel that the Daleks would have made a more fitting and engaging foe, especially as they are an icon of Doctor Who and are just as old as the show itself (not that they weren’t present in the episode, but it was only fleetingly during the brief segments of the Time War). The Zygon story also felt largely unresolved, with UNIT personnel and Zygon doppelgängers in a stalemate, neither party able to remember which side they belong to and beginning to negotiate an end to the invasion (although I imagine that’s a bit difficult if you don’t know which side you’re representing). Whilst this effectively disarms the initial Zygon threat, this narrative thread is suddenly dropped with the implication that - because temporarily neither human nor Zygon can tell each other apart - this facilitates peace and the whole issue is supposedly resolved. But what about when the Zygons remember that they are indeed Zygons? What prevents them from resuming their incursion on Earth? I doubt they’d just call off the invasion because for three hours they thought they might possibly be human…

Ah well, sometimes it’s best to let Zygons be Zygons (always wanted to say that).

But if the Zygon story felt like it had been dropped, it was only to make way for the episode’s grand finale with the three Doctors and the Time War, and the conclusion that’s likely to be a bit of a game-changer in future episodes (spoilers ahead, although if you’re worried about spoilers I’m not too sure why you’re reading a review!). Having had a good four hundred years to reflect on the moment he used the Moment to destroy both Time Lords and Daleks, the ‘current’ Doctor (Matt Smith, traditionally called the 11th Doctor) has been thinking of an alternative solution that will destroy the Daleks but save Gallifrey and the Time Lords from destruction, just tucked away in an isolated pocket Universe; out of sight, out of time, frozen in a single moment. With the aid of thirteen incarnations of himself (along with a brief cameo from Peter Capaldi’s smouldering eyes), the collective Doctors remove Gallifrey from the Universe, causing the Daleks to destroy each other in the cross-fire and secreting the Time Lords away, frozen in time. With the knowledge that his homeworld and his people are still alive out there, somewhere, the Doctor now has a new destination: home.

And the quest to return to Gallifrey couldn’t have come a moment too soon… With the Doctor now on what is actually his 12th incarnation (possibly 13th, if we count the meta-crisis Doctor from The Stolen Earth/Journey's End) he is approaching the end of his life. It's been stated in The Deadly Assassin that a Time Lord only has 12 regenerations/13 incarnations (whether this is an organic regeneration energy limit, technological limit or societal limit is unknown - I like the idea of it being organic energy, each Time Lord body only having the energy for 12 regenerations), so now that the Doctor is at the end of his regenerative cycle it's imperative he finds a way to prolong his life, and the survival of Gallifrey could be the key. In The Five Doctors, the Time Lords offer a new set of regenerations to the Master in exchange for working with them, and theoretically the same could be offered to the Doctor (perhaps as a token of gratitude for saving Gallifrey). Presumably, with Peter Capaldi taking the role of the 12th Doctor (13th incarnation) in the upcoming Christmas episode Time of the Doctor, he will then embark on his journey home, on a quest to find Gallifrey and, with luck, find a way to extend his life. Personally, I feel this would make a fantastic character arc for Capaldi’s Doctor.

Another implication of Gallifrey’s return is obviously the return of the Time Lords. This was something I’d hoped would happen when it was revealed that Gallifrey was returning in The End of Time, only for it to be sucked straight back into the final day of the Time War. This naturally opens up the possibility for many more stories about the Time Lords, how their society has evolved since their last appearance in the classic era, and how the Time War has changed them. Also, with the Daleks revived through the Progenitor device in Victory of the Daleks, and the prospect of the Time Lords returning, there is a chance the Time War may flare up again.

There is also the matter of Rassilon, and his Ultimate Sanction: to bring about the destruction of all of creation, ripping the Time Vortex apart, and to cause the Time Lords to ascend beyond the physical and exist as beings of consciousness alone. The Doctor stated in The End of Time that he had been aware of Rassilon’s plans and was left with no choice but to use the Moment, ending the Time War and preventing the Ultimate Sanction from being enacted (something that’s not really touched upon in The Day of the Doctor). This does raise a question about the Doctor’s reaction to saving Gallifrey instead of using the Moment. All three of them seemed overjoyed that the Time Lords will be saved, the Daleks destroyed and the Time War ended, but they seem to be forgetting the terrifying implication of what this could mean for the rest of the Universe if Gallifrey returns and if Rassilon is ever given the chance to carry out his plans. Presumably the Doctor has faith that there are enough people on Gallifrey who would be opposed to the plan to actually stop it, but that’s not a guarantee, or that he himself may be able to prevent it when the time comes (freezing a Universe-ending plot for an indefinite amount of time is arguably better than having the blood of billions of innocents on your hands, after all!). There’s also the potential that the Master - along with other renegade Time Lords - will return, as he was taken back to the final days of the Time War along with Rassilon and the rest of Gallifrey in The End of Time. As the Master was engaged in a fight to the death with Rassilon at the time, it’s also possible that the Doctor will return home to find it being run by one Lord President Master...

To be honest, I really could ramble on about this for hours.

Lastly, for me, the crowning moment of the episode came towards the end, as the Doctor sits in the National Gallery musing that one day he’d quite like to be curator of the place. “You know, I really think you might,” says an all too familiar voice, and a frisson ran through the auditorium. There was a collective awe-struck silence, and a number of middle-aged men gasped. My face twitched with an involuntary smile. Tom Baker. Arguably the most iconic Doctor. I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t a magical moment, and not just because it’s Tom Baker and one of the few proper tributes to the show’s past in the 50th Anniversary Special. It’s implied (in a sense) that he is a future Doctor, having chosen to take on the form of his fourth incarnation (“In years to come, you might find yourself… revisiting a few [faces]. But just the old favourites, eh?”), and confirms that “Gallifrey Falls No More”, pointing the Doctor in the direction of a search for Gallifrey, telling him he has "a lot to do." It’s a wonderfully performed segment, and is quite possibly one of the main stand-out moments of the episode for me. Baker’s appearance also means that, if Baker was indeed playing a future, retired Doctor now under the name of the Curator, that the Doctor will find Gallifrey, return home and acquire enough regenerations to live long enough to reach retirement after an indefinite amount of regenerations. But who knows, eh? Who knows. *taps nose*

It’s a shame that other classic era Doctors (Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann) weren’t featured in the 50th, as it would have been brilliant to pay homage to the other previous eras in more than a few snippets of old footage. After all, Doctor Who would not have reached 50 if it weren’t for the 34 years of television that have built its legacy, and this is something The Day of the Doctor sadly missed out on. However, Peter Davison’s short film The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot is a fantastic piece and incredibly amusing, featuring Davison, Baker, McCoy and McGann as well as a great many of the actors who played their former companions, and is absolutely well worth watching. If you’re not going to be in something, this is the way to not be in it!

Ultimately, although The Day of the Doctor didn’t feel quite like 50th Anniversary tribute I’d been hoping for, and occasionally fell short narratively, it was an overall enjoyable and at times truly spectacular episode. The interactions between the Doctors was by far the highlight of the piece. It may not have spent much of its time paying tribute to the past, but it’s given us something to look forward to for the future.

Atlantis - The Earth Bull Review

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

From the creators of Merlin comes a new fantasy drama series, Atlantis, set in a world of legendary heroes and mythical creatures. Last night, Atlantis premièred with its first episode, The Earth Bull, and despite not being immediately gripping, it does show some promise for the series.

Atlantis stars Jack Donnelly as Jason (presumably of Argonauts fame), a young man who takes a submarine down into the ocean in an attempt to find his missing father. But something most irregular happens to Jason’s sub, and he suddenly finds himself marooned - and inexplicably clothes-less - on an unknown shore. With nothing more than the pendant his father once gave him and a pile of clothes he finds on the shoreline, Jason makes his way inland and comes across a vast and impressive looking city.

After a wild chase through a market, involving a number of city guards and a two-headed lizard, Jason is rescued by a young Pythagoras (Robert Emms) and we learn that this is the city of Atlantis, before the fall. Although Pythagoras is more than happy to take in the perplexed Jason, his house-mate Hercules (Mark Addy) is less than enthused by this newcomer’s arrival…

From here, the story borrows elements from the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur, as the Atlantean people are brought before King Minos (Alexander Siddig) in an annual ritual to draw stones; a white stone means that one is safe, but a black stone means that they are one of the seven to be sacrificed to the Minotaur and appease the gods. Offering himself in place of Pythagoras (who drew a black stone), Jason is taken with six others to face the Minotaur, with only a spool of thread given to him by Minos’s daughter, Ariadne (Aiysha Hart), to help him retrace his path back out of the cave...

This opening episode of the series shows promise for the future. With impressive, detailed sets and costumes, and fantastically rendered CGI in the form of the Minotaur and the aforementioned two-headed lizard, Atlantis certainly has a wonderful aesthetic feel to it. The cast provide excellent performances throughout, with Emms’s slightly awkward, bumbling yet brilliant Pythagoras, Addy’s subversive take on Hercules, and Donnelly’s portrayal of a man finding his feet in this unknown land. They’ve set up a truly talented triumvirate to lead the show.

However, the story did fall short on a few occasions, and this could largely be due to it being the pilot and having to establish its Universe. Jason adapts to life in Atlantis exceedingly quickly, suddenly being able to perform such unlikely athletic feats as jumping on to the city’s wall, swinging from a pole to propel himself upwards, and he takes on the hero’s mantel fairly early on in the story. However, this could be connected to his special destiny that the Oracle (Juliet Stevenson) mentions to him shortly after his arrival on Atlantis. But at least he’s not particularly good with a sword (worse than Pythagoras, as it turns out)! There is also a substantial amount of expository dialogue from the Oracle, as she explains how Jason was born in Atlantis, that there’s a gateway between their worlds, and that he has many enemies here who would kill him if they found out who he was. This exposition does feel quite heavy, especially for the first episode, but it does help to establish the character and the story that is starting to unfold.

That’s not to say it wasn’t good, by any means. It was certainly an enjoyable opening episode, and the incorporation of various recognisable myths and legends was done exceedingly well (although I must admit the confrontation with the Minotaur felt a little anticlimactic). There are also some elements of intrigue introduced in this episode which will no doubt be expanded upon in future episodes: Who is Jason really, and what is his destiny? Who are those who would wish to stop him, and why?

All in all, the first episode of Atlantis was a good opening to the series; although the dialogue seemed overly expository at times, and the story occasionally fell short, it was an overall enjoyable viewing. Pilots are often a shaky start for any series, and The Earth Bull certainly shows some promise for the future of Atlantis. I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the series pans out.

If you missed the first episode of Atlantis, you can catch it on BBC iPlayer here.

Rush - Everyone's Driven By Something

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

It's undeniable that the idea of sitting on top of a 450 horse-power engine, behind the steering wheel of an F1 car tearing around at 170mph is an incredibly thrilling prospect. And as tempting as that idea is, I came away from Rush with both the desire to put my foot down on the accelerator and yet also thankful that I don't actually own a car!

Directed by Ron Howard and written by Peter Morgan, Rush is based on the true story of Formula One World Champions Niki Lauda and James Hunt. Starring Daniel Brühl as the methodical, calculating and obnoxious Lauda and Chris Hemsworth as the charming playboy – and no less obnoxious – Hunt, the film tells the story of these two very disparate men and their intense rivalry. With stunning visuals and an engaging narrative about the fierce competition and personal drama between these two racers, Rush is a gripping cinematic tour de force from beginning to end.

The film follows the tale of the two acclaimed racing drivers, from Hunt and Lauda's first encounter at a Formula Three race in 1970 to the climactic events of the 1976 Formula One season, in which both drivers are willing to risk everything to best each other and claim the title of World Champion. Although the film is set against the stylish backdrop of the 70s Formula One racing world, Rush is not just about the racing; it’s about Hunt and Lauda’s rivalry, a story driven by their very different styles both on and off the tracks, and their personal approaches to life.

Daniel Brühl and Chris Hemsworth bring this true story of conflict and competition to life on-screen, consistently carrying off these roles and their juxtaposed personalities superbly, truly embodying their characters. At times it becomes difficult to distinguish the actors from the men they’re portraying. There’s a wonderful chemistry between the two, especially as their confrontational demeanor grows into a mutual respect. The film at first appears to focus on Hemsworth’s James Hunt, following his rise to F1 stardom, his promiscuous lifestyle, and his impulsive attitude towards both racing and his life. He has one goal in mind; to beat Niki Lauda, and take his place as F1 World Champion. As the narrative progresses, it gradually transitions to Brühl’s Niki Lauda, the polar opposite of Hunt, in his more measured and methodical approach to all walks of life, calculating and plotting his course around the track, maximising the efficiency of his car, and considering the risks and weighing them against his personal life and what he stands to lose.

The crux of the film is during the fateful incident at the Nürburgring on the 1st of August, 1976, during which Lauda suffers a near-fatal accident, having to be airlifted to hospital after his car careens into an embankment and bursts into flames. The narrative takes on a more sombre note from this point, as Lauda spends six weeks being treated for his injuries and watching as Hunt begins to dominate the rest of the season. It’s a heartbreaking sequence, phenomenally portrayed by Brühl and Alexandra Maria Lara as his wife, Marlene Lauda; her grief and concern for her husband is palpable, helplessly standing by as he struggles through his recovery, forcing himself to get back behind the wheel against his doctor’s orders, spurred on by his rivalry with Hunt. Despite Lauda being a fundamentally unlikable character for most of the film, these are some of the most emotionally impacting scenes in Rush, as one truly feels a sense of empathy for him.

It’s hard to have a similar sense of empathy during Hunt’s crisis, though, as he suffers a series of setbacks over the course of a number of races and reacts like a petulant teenager most of the time, but is nonetheless consummately portrayed by Chris Hemsworth. It’s not until he discovers that his wife, Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde), is having an affair with Richard Burton that he regains his competitive spirit, and this, along with his growing respect for Lauda getting back into racing so soon after his accident (and remorse for being somewhat responsible), is where Hunt really shows some character depth. Although there isn’t a great deal of room for character development with James Hunt, Hemsworth delivers a great performance as the arrogant and impulsive Hunt, and there are some particularly touching scenes towards the film’s conclusion between Hunt and Lauda.

The greatest triumph of Rush has to be the story. Based on true events, Peter Morgan has taken two F1 legends, conveying public facts whilst also creating vivid and believable interpretations of their lives 'behind closed doors'. This sets Rush apart from other sports dramas, as it's not really about the racing; it's a multi-faceted human drama, a story of personal rivalry and tragedy, juxtaposed with the breakneck world of Formula One. This depth of narrative, combined with the thrilling racing sequences (which are much more exciting than watching real F1!) and stylish 70s aesthetic, makes for a truly engaging film.

Rush is as one would expect from its title; an adrenaline-pumping, pedal-to-the-metal action film, but set against this backdrop of golden age Formula One racing and underpinning this fast-paced thrill ride is a story of drama, intense rivalry, and fierce determination. It is nothing short of phenomenal.

Cloud Atlas - Everything Is Connected

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

Cloud Atlas was one of the most highly anticipated films of 2012. It didn't première in the UK until February 2013, but regrettably I never went to see it when it was being shown in cinemas. However, a year on from its world première at Toronto Film Festival, I finally sat down to watch the film I'd been looking forward to for so long... Having read the book a while ago, I was immensely looking forward to seeing how they'd taken on the incredibly challenging task of adapting it for film; it'd be no mean feat, but if anyone could do Cloud Atlas justice, it would be the Wachowskis!

Created by Tom Tykwer,  Lana Wachowski, and Andy Wachowski, Cloud Atlas is the cinematic adaptation of David Mitchell's award-winning book. Starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Ben Whishaw, Doona Bae, James D'Arcy, Hugh Grant and Hugo Weaving as a multitude of characters over six separate – but connected – narratives, the story takes place across different time periods over the course of 500 years, from the Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing in 1849 to 'Sloosha's Crossin' an' Ev'rythin' After' in 2321.

Unlike the book, which tells each story in a 'nesting doll' style (each story finishes halfway through and moves on to the next, and then the final half of each story is told in reverse order), the film is structured in a pointillist mosaic style, telling fragments of each story, often mirroring or juxtaposed with segments which are connected in the other time period. Although this initially feels very fragmented, as it doesn't seem to follow a linear structure, it becomes clearer as the film progresses and makes the over-arching narrative all the more understandable. Personally, I felt this style worked particularly well for the film, as if it had followed the book's structure we'd see the first half of Adam Ewing's story at the very beginning and not be concluded for another two and a half hours (in which time, one could easily have forgotten some of its significance)! This pointillist method helps show how everything is connected.

Cloud Atlas is by no means a traditional Hollywood film; you can't just leave your brain at the door, and it certainly pays off to devote your full attention to it throughout the piece. Each element of the story is integral to the next, and each individual piece is key to understanding the whole (what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?). The story itself I found to be a life affirming piece; a story of past, present and future; of how everything is connected; and of how a single act of kindness can shape the future in unforeseeable ways.

There are also elements of spirituality to the narrative, as souls cross ages like clouds cross skies (an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul). Some characters (such as those played by Hugo Weaving and Hugh Grant) seem destined to repeat the same existence, being the forces that stand in the way of – and even openly try to prevent – each story's protagonist from accomplishing their goals, to varying levels of immorality. Meanwhile, Tom Hanks's characters tell a tale of spiritual redemption (from the duplicitous Dr Henry Goose to the kind-hearted Zachry) and Jim Sturgess plays those who fight for equality and justice (from lawyer Adam Ewing, who helps an escaped-slave stowaway and ultimately condemns slavery, to Hae-Joo Chang, a Korean freedom fighter in 2144 who frees the slave-clone Sonmi 451 and initiates a revolution). Keeping track of each actor and the characters they play throughout the film is integral to understanding the overall narrative, as various souls are reincarnated and carry on their spiritual journey across the ages, crossing each other's paths again and again, and finding their soulmates. I find the ideas explored in the film – and the book – incredibly intriguing, and will probably fully explore them and their implications in a future article (whether it'll be in this lifetime or the next is unknown at this time!).

Of course, it would be remiss of me not to commend the cast on their performances throughout the film, as each actor fully embodies a number of personae to portray their progressive life-times. I had to double-take a number of times throughout the viewing, as actors recur in all six of the film's plots, but are completely unrecognisable in some cases (not least Hugo Weaving when he turns up as a despotic female care-worker!). Hugh Grant is another who phenomenally covers an array of characters, and although he's definitely recognisable in the role of Lloyd Hooks, owner of a nuclear power plant on Swannekke Island, Grant is completely transformed in his other roles throughout the film (who'd have thought William Thacker from Notting Hill would become the savage leader of a cannibalistic tribe in 2321?!).

I could go on and on and on, as the fact of the matter is that every actor performs superbly throughout, completely unrecognisable from one role to the next as they not only capture each role but inhabit their characters perfectly. Unfortunately, to properly convey praise for each individual's performance would probably require writing many more pages than is really fitting for a film review, so I'll simply leave it as this: the entire cast provide brilliant performances throughout, consummately embodying their respective characters throughout six different stories, and each actor's fantastic portrayal helped make Cloud Atlas a truly, utterly sublime piece of cinema.

In many ways, Cloud Atlas is much more than another science fiction film; it's a work of art. It is an inspiring, thought-provoking and life-affirming piece of cinema, and is a genuinely remarkable film. It is – in the truest meaning of the word – awesome.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

In his first adult novel in over eight years, famed fantasy author Neil Gaiman takes us to the landscape of his childhood for a journey of memory, magic and survival in a world just beyond the veil of reality... To the Ocean at the End of the Lane.

Anyone who knows me knows of my love for Gaiman and his work. From Stardust and Neverwhere to his episodes of Doctor Who, I've thoroughly enjoyed the strange, fantastical – and yet seemingly real and tangible – worlds that Gaiman conjures up. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a perfect example of this: a world that's simultaneously completely fictitious and yet entirely and believably real. This is, in part, due to the fact that Gaiman draws on elements of his childhood for the setting and impetus of this dark and fantastical tale, and his usual engaging narrative style immediately sucks you in.

Told through the memories of our narrator, a forty-something man recalling a time in his life through the eyes of his seven-year-old self, the narrative is as much about childhood and growing up as it is about a world of fantasy and monsters. The book tells the story of the protagonist encountering beings from other worlds, things that exist just outside of our reality (and may very well be more real than what we call reality), but more than that, it tells a story about the powerlessness of childhood, as we attempt to make our way in a world we barely understand. This is probably the biggest thing that separates this book from children's fiction. In Gaiman's more child-friendly works, such as Coraline, he tells children that they can be powerful, that they can triumph over darkness and overcome seemingly impossible odds. But in The Ocean at the End of the Lane, the protagonist is burdened by the role he unwilling has to play in this story, and is powerless against the extra-dimensional entities he's faced with, let alone against his own parents!

In many ways, that's the scariest part of this book: not the entities and not the struggle against the darkness, but the overwhelming sense of futility and hopelessness felt by the narrator. It takes you back to those times in childhood when the world was far bigger and scarier than you could even begin to imagine; a world inhabited by giant grown-ups who were invariably right; a world in which you very rarely were able to have any real form of influence or control (a large reason why I buried my head in books in my formative years, and have yet to truly emerge into the “real” world...). It's a powerful way to convey a story, especially one where sometimes the monsters feel more like a metaphor for the unknowably daunting challenges of the real world we begin to discover as we grow up. To feel the vulnerability of childhood from an adult perspective is a sombre and humbling experience, and is something that Gaiman accomplishes brilliantly in this book. The Ocean at the End of the Lane may be a book for adults, but is very much written for the children these adults used to be.

Not only has the book been ranked Number 1 Bestseller
by the New York Times, and signed by the man himself,
it has also earned the highly-coveted position on my
Coffee Table of Excellence™!

The story which frames the allegory of childhood is also a fantastically realised world of magic, wonder and darkness. We're introduced to the magically mysterious yet earthly and everyday Hempstock family who live on the farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them, Lettie Hempstock, claims that her duck pond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang. These characters are so matter-of-fact about things that would otherwise seem abnormal that you don't even question it, you just allow yourself to be carried away into their weird and wonderful world; a world that's always one step beyond logic.

There are also, of course, dark, monstrous things from beyond our narrator’s reality, things that should never have been summoned to this world, that are brought forth when the lodger commits suicide in the family car (an event based on a true story from when Gaiman himself was seven - whether the entities that are summoned and the events which then unfold are also true remains unknown!). I shan’t go into more detail about the narrative that ensues, because this is a story best left unspoiled and delightfully surprising, but what I will say is that it is incredibly engaging. I devoured the first ten chapters as soon as I got the book on the night of the 17th of June (to be honest, I can’t even remember getting home; one minute I was in the theatre, then I was seven-years-old and encountered the thing that called itself Ursula Monkton, and the next I was back home!), and persuaded myself to read only one chapter a night to prolong the experience.

From what started life as a short story for his wife, Amanda Palmer, The Ocean at the End of the Lane has become a genuinely brilliant novel. Through this story, Gaiman conjures up those oft-forgotten worlds of magic and adventure, capturing the essence and innocence of being a child again, but also leading us to that bittersweet taste of childhood’s end. It is a wonderful and poignant tale, and worth every tug at the heart-strings.

It's an adult fairy tale, a modern day myth, and a bloody good read!

You can read a transcript of Neil Gaiman’s Q&A at the Royal Society of Literature on the 17th of June, talking about the inception of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, here.

Doctor Who - The Name of the Doctor Review

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

On the channel of BBC One at the hour of Seven, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered... In Steven Moffat’s phenomenal finale, The Name of the Doctor, the enigmatic Time Lord is forced to travel to the one place that he must never go, and his greatest secret is revealed...

Ever since The Wedding of River Song back in 2011, we’ve known that the Doctor’s path will eventually lead him to Trenzalore, where he will be asked his name at the ambiguous yet foreboding Fall of the Eleventh. It’s been the topic of intrigue for some time, but now here we are, the Doctor inextricably summoned to Trenzalore at the behest of the Great Intelligence in order to save the lives of those he cares about. However, in doing so the Doctor not only puts himself in jeopardy, but his actions could have major implications for the rest of the Universe and time itself...

The Name of the Doctor has to be, in my opinion, the finest series finale we’ve had in a very long time! From start to finish, this episode delivered on all fronts, providing us with a superb story and answers to some of this series’ lingering questions, as well as an homage to the past with a look to the future. The whole thing really was bloody brilliant!

The revelation of Clara takes place early in the episode, revealing that she was born to save the Doctor (although quite why or how is not explained until much later) through a montage of Jenna-Louise Coleman being inserted into old footage of almost every pre-2005 generation of Doctor Who, seeing Clara as a constant throughout the Doctor’s life, even being the one who helped Hartnell’s Doctor choose the right TARDIS (although I was under the impression that it was the TARDIS who chose him). Not unlike my crack in the mirror theory (detailed in my review of Hide), Clara is fractured into a million pieces, a million echoes of herself spread across time, living and dying over and over to save the Doctor. We now know the mystery of the Impossible Girl, and it’s actually quite a satisfying answer to the question, neatly wrapping up the enigma and tying it up with a bow.

However, it’s the truth of Trenzalore that provides the most intrigue in this episode; it’s the site of the Doctor’s final battle, and his final resting place. Here, on the Fields of Trenzalore, is the Doctor’s tomb, and quite a familiar old thing it is too. Trenzalore is as much a graveyard for the TARDIS as it is for the Doctor; a fitting end for them both, intrinsically linked even in death. And at the heart of the dying TARDIS, a tear in time; scar tissue from the Doctor’s journeys throughout time and space. This tear represents the Doctor, his own personal timeline, things that have been and things that will be - something no time traveller should ever come across. There’s something remarkably mystifying about this idea and it’s used to great effect in this story, especially towards the end.

It was a welcome return for Richard E Grant as the Great Intelligence, with a cohort of the fantastically creepy, Slenderman-esque Whispermen, as the villain of the piece. Gaining access to the Doctor’s tomb, the Great Intelligence’s master plan was to intercept the Time Lord’s timeline, destroying himself in order to turn all of the Doctor’s victories in to defeats, essentially rewriting the past, present and future. Despite his menacing presence, and the build up he received in The Snowmen and The Bells of Saint John, it’s surprising to see the Great Intelligence just go like that. Admittedly, it’s a fine act of villainous vengeance, but for something so steeped in Who lore and portrayed by the eminent Richard E Grant, Mr G. Intelligence felt sorely underused and had the potential to be a superb recurring foe for the Doctor. That being so, it’s entirely possible that as he was disseminated throughout the Doctor’s timeline he could pop up again sometime in the future (although that may just be wishful thinking on my behalf).

In addition, The Name of the Doctor sees the return of the Paternoster Gang (Vastra, Jenny and Strax), and the Doctor’s non-TARDIS wife, River Song. Although it felt as if River’s storyline had come to an end in The Angels Take Manhattan, Alex Kingston reprises the role in this episode to provide something she never truly got; a wonderfully understated and tender farewell. It’s difficult to give a natural end to a character whose story has essentially been upside-down and backwards since inception (a veritable Schrödinger’s Cat, both dead and alive depending on which way you look at the timeline), and although I wasn’t sure whether she needed to reappear, I’m incredibly pleased she did. It’s a genuinely touching moment between herself and the Doctor, and something that both Kingston and Matt Smith portrayed superbly.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Neve McIntosh, Catrin Stewart and Dan Starkey as Vastra, Jenny and Strax (a trio I am still trying to conjure up a fitting alliterative title for) as they continue to prove that a Victorian era crime drama spin-off series featuring these three would be bloody fantastic! Jenny's death during their 'conference call' (a sort of psychic Skype, which personally I reckon would be infinitely better than actual Skype) was a fantastically sinister moment with Catrin Stewart's chilling line, “I'm so sorry Ma'am, so sorry, so sorry, I think I've been murdered.” Thankfully, she was bought back to life later on; the loss of Jenny would be a terrible thing to happen to the trio. These are three great characters, brilliantly brought to life by three fantastic actors, and I certainly hope to see more of them in the coming series (maybe even an appearance in the 50th Anniversary?!).

Naturally, the absolute stand-out performance was that of Matt Smith. He never ceases to portray a consistently outstanding Doctor, and this episode was certainly no exception. There are times that a truly great actor can project an emotion and make it genuinely palpable, and that’s something Smith achieved at multiple points throughout this episode (and many, many other episodes!), not least during his deep concern and sorrow upon hearing the name Trenzalore. And of course, the man who doesn’t like goodbyes having to let go of the one he loves and finally bid her farewell was a truly tangible scene.

However, regardless of how outstanding this entire episode proved to be, there is one singular moment that steals the show and overshadows everything else in a revelation . The Name of the Doctor is an apt title, but not for the reasons many were anticipating, and not for the first time is a cunning turn of phrase to intentionally mislead. In the recesses of the Doctor’s timeline lies a truth that the he has tried to bury... One of his incarnations, but one he does not call the Doctor. “The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you choose, it's like a promise you make,” the Doctor explains of this mystery figure, “he's the one who broke the promise.”

"What I did I did without choice. In the name of peace and sanity," the figure intones enigmatically. "But not in the name of the Doctor," spits Smith’s Doctor, and the figure turns around to reveal (as if one couldn’t have guessed by the voice) John Hurt, accompanied by the terribly fourth-wall break ‘introducing JOHN HURT as THE DOCTOR.’ And thus, the episode ends.

This is the kind of phenomenal finale we have lacked for quite some time, it’s something that genuinely blows you away, and provides us with possibly one of the greatest cliffhangers in Who history, leading into the 50th Anniversary on 23rd November. And I am excited! Not least because I love John Hurt, he’s a magnificent gentleman and consummate actor, but also because it opens up so much speculation and anticipating for the anniversary special.

So, without further ado, let the theorising commence! My initial thought was that Hurt could be the Valeyard, an amalgamation of the darker sides of the Doctor’s nature from between his twelfth and final incarnations, but that doesn’t seem to fit with what little has been revealed... The Eleventh Doctor - that is to say, Smith’s Doctor - seems to possess knowledge of this other man, “he’s the one who broke the promise.” This also implies that this incarnation was not true to the Doctor’s name. A doctor heals people, and Hurt’s Doctor did something that goes against that name. He did not heal; he killed. Hurt hurt people, if you will.

He did what he did without choice, in the name of peace and sanity... We’ve always assumed that Smith is the Eleventh, because McGann was the Eighth in the 1996 film, and Eccleston came next when the show was revived in 2005 (so it was assumed Tennant was Tenth). What if there was a forgotten incarnation, between McGann and Eccleston, the true ninth incarnation of the man we know as the Doctor? This would be the incarnation who fought in the Time War, sealing his own people - the Time Lords - and the Daleks in a time-lock, and in doing so brought the war to an end. The Doctor would look back on this time with nothing but sorrow and regret, and see the man who had to commit these acts as someone other than himself, a man who did not act in the name of the Doctor. “I said he was me, I never said he was the Doctor.”

It’s going to be a long wait for the 50th Anniversary, but I have a feeling it’s going to be worth it!

I bloody love John Hurt.

If you missed The Name of the Doctor because the Great Intelligence interrupted your timeline (almost did mine, neighbours came and knocked on my door half-way through the episode), you can watch it again on iPlayer here.

Doctor Who - Nightmare in Silver Review

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

The Doctor takes Clara and the two children in her care to the future for a visit to Hedgewick’s World of Wonders, only to discover that the place has long been abandoned aside from a small military squad. However, in this seemingly dead amusement park, an old enemy is lurking in the shadows and sees the Doctor and his two child companions as the final hope for survival...

The Cybermen are back! In his second story penned for Doctor Who, Neil Gaiman has given the Cybermen an upgrade and made them more formidable than ever before, but will this prove to be a new lease of life for the Doctor’s oldest foes?

As some readers may have picked up on in my reviews for this series, I am hugely enamoured with Gaiman’s first episode of Doctor Who, The Doctor’s Wife. It’s somewhat of a modern classic, and I'm sure it will long remain at the top of my list of favourite episodes. As such, I was greatly anticipating Nightmare in Silver, especially with the promise that the Cybermen would be scary again.

For such an iconic enemy, the Cybermen have felt a little lackluster in recent years (especially in A Good Man Goes To War, wherein the duty of the Cybermen is to show up for a minute and promptly explode), and they haven’t been truly menacing since their reintroduction in Rise of the Cybermen/Age of Steel in 2006. This is something that Gaiman remedies, introducing a new form of Cyberman with a shiny new design and the ability to charge forward at alarming speeds, they're a vast improvement on previous models. With their capacity to upgrade as they go, adapting to new situations and new challenges, and their methods for assimilating people for cyber-conversion, it’s like this particular variety of Cyberman has been taking lessons from the Borg! Ultimately, Gaiman’s reinvention of the Cybermen does feel like a rebirth for them, and succeeds in portraying them as a far more formidable and unbeatable enemy.

However, the more threatening aspect of the episode isn’t so much the Cybermen themselves, but the conflict between the Doctor and the Cyber Planner. Attacked by a group of Cybermites (a more compact and likely more efficient kind of Cybermat), the Doctor starts to undergo the cyber-conversion process and begins to look a little bit like a male version of 7 of 9 from Star Trek: Voyager. Star Trek references aside, this is the highlight of the episode, as Matt Smith fantastically portrays this inner conflict, flitting between the Doctor and the Cyber Planner as they vie for control of his body and mind, engaged in a battle of wits and a game of chess. When done properly, the Doctor being incapacitated or compromised can be a powerfully threatening thing, and that is something that Nightmare in Silver did exceptionally well.

It’s up to Clara to lead a rag-tag band of incompetent soldiers in defence of Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle against the hordes of unbeatable cybernetic warriors, whilst the Doctor continues to fight for his mind and to free the two children. Clara continues to prove herself as the Doctor’s most startlingly competent companion to date (something that no doubt is connected to her impossible nature), but ultimately she’s fighting a losing battle. It’s Warwick Davis’s Porridge (the character, not his breakfast) who holds the key to defeating the Cybermen. Davis does a wonderfully understated job of portraying a man burdened by the necessities of war, something best conveyed when discussing the Cyber-Wars (“Used to be the Tiberion Spiral Galaxy. A million star systems. A hundred million worlds, a billion trillion people. It’s not there any more. No more Tiberion galaxy. No more Cybermen. It was effective. … I just feel sorry for the poor blighter who had to press the button and blow it all up.”). It’s not long until Porridge has to make a similar choice, and resorts to blowing up the planet in order to defeat the Cybermen...

It’s a drastic move, having to destroy an entire planet, but as Porridge said, “it was effective.” Maybe a little too effective for my taste, as although there was a hint that maybe the Cybermen are not all dead and gone by the end of the episode, I would have liked to see the Doctor et al have to run from their unbeatable foe and flee to the TARDIS. Escaping the army of Cybermen, those who made it out alive would consider themselves lucky, but be left with that looming sense of dread knowing that those Cybermen are still out there... Nevertheless, the ending certainly hints that this won’t be the last we’ll see of these relentless automatons, which I’m rather content with!

My only major issue with the episode would be the children... Their admission to join the Doctor on a trip in the TARDIS was largely unexplained, aside from them being particularly brat-like with their attempts at blackmail at the end of last week’s episode, but that still doesn’t quite explain why the Doctor would be so willing to bring them along... He’s turned better people away from the TARDIS in the past. Presumably the children were introduced to bring a sense of danger to the episode when they’re both taken to be upgraded, but I just felt it was a relief that they were side-lined so early on, and left in a cyber-conversion induced walking coma until towards the final five minutes. The danger element had already been achieved with the Doctor undergoing his own conversion, which was pretty much the driving force for the episode, so the children ultimately just felt superfluous.

That being so, Nightmare in Silver was still an all-round enjoyable episode. Matt Smith’s performance of the inner conflict between Doctor and Cyber Planner was the absolute highlight for me, alongside the now more effective Cybermen. As long as a planet doesn’t get blown up every time one of them shows up, there’s every chance these Cybermen could rise to become quite a prominent threat to the Universe once again!

And now, everything has been leading up to this moment... Next week, in The Name of the Doctor, all of our questions will (hopefully) be answered. Who is Clara? The impossible girl, a mystery wrapped in an enigma squeezed into a skirt that's just a little bit too tight... And on the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature could speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question which must never ever be answered... Doctor Who?

If you press the red button, you can watch the prequel for next week's episode. The red button on your television remote, that is. Not just any red button. There's no telling what might happen. Actually, click here and watch it on YouTube. Probably safer than pressing a load of red buttons.

If you missed Nightmare in Silver, you are inferior. You will be assimilated. Man will be reborn as Cyberman. Upgrading is compulsory. Watch the episode whilst the upgrade is in progress. If you do not comply, you will be deleted.

Doctor Who - The Crimson Horror Review

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

There’s something not quite right about Mrs Gillyflower’s mill, Sweetville, with it’s clean streets and perfect people, and things take a turn for the sinister when bright red, petrified corpses start turning up in the nearby rivers. Mark Gatiss’s second episode of the year takes us to Yorkshire in 1893, where Madame Vastra, her companion Jenny, and Commander Strax investigate The Crimson Horror...

Composed of equal parts horror, comedy, period detective drama and SciFi, The Crimson Horror has a strong classic Doctor Who vibe about it, coated in a magnificent Victorian aesthetic. In many ways, the episode felt like a melting pot of genres, blending the 19th century crime drama and fun-filled SciFi adventure perfectly and interspersing the script with both the humorous and the macabre; it is the quintessential Gatiss!

From the opening, The Crimson Horror is a fairly Doctor-light episode, with the Doctor and Clara actually part of the mystery rather than the ones trying to get to the bottom of things. Instead, the focus is primarily being driven by the three sleuths: Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Commander Strax. The investigative trio have now kind of grown on me; maybe it’s the fact that as this episode’s leads, their characters felt more developed than before and weren't just secondary characters simply there for a quick gag or two. With the three of them carrying the first half of the episode, sans Doctor, we’re treated to a distinctly period drama-esque crime thriller which expertly manages to weave in a Silurian and a Sontaran as its lead characters without them feeling out of place. They were the perfect characters to drive this episode. And indeed, it’s great credit to Catrin Stewart, Neve McIntosh and Dan Starkey that they can evoke such a captivating tale of horror and intrigue without the show’s titular character being present for most of the story. It’s actually got me on board the bandwagon for a spin-off series starring these three!

It’s good to see their characters getting a bit more exposition, too. It’s a welcome step into the limelight for Catrin Stewart, with Jenny the lock-picking chambermaid leading the investigation, and proving to be quite the sizzling sleuth in the process. Meanwhile, Commander Strax is more than just the comedy Sontaran in this episode, displaying a certain degree of competency, but still walks away with the bespoke award for Most Humorous Dialogue (“Horse! You have failed in your mission. Do you have any final words before your summary execution? ... The fourth one this week, and I'm not even hungry.”).

As for the story itself, The Crimson Horror certainly had a compelling narrative. With the episode’s eponymous macabre mystery (and its even more terrible truth), and the conspicuous absence of the Doctor, the episode had set up a truly intriguing premise. This level of intrigue was carried throughout, with the truth behind Sweetville being slowly revealed piece by piece, and the identity of it’s mastermind, Mister Sweet, an enigma right until the end. Some of the elements of The Crimson Horror were incredibly dark - certainly the kind of thing that would have given the ten-year-old me a good few sleepless nights! - making it one of the more terrifying episodes of the recent series.

Executing Mister Sweet’s plans was the villainously unhinged Winifred Gillyflower, played by the excellent Dame Diana Rigg, who brings a superbly deranged and zealous preacher (and harbinger) of the apocalypse to the story. However, the absolute stand-out performance is Gillyflower’s much-abused daughter Ada, portrayed by Rigg’s real-life daughter Rachael Stirling. The highlights of the episode are certainly the scenes featuring both Rigg and Stirling, as they work fantastically opposite each other throughout, especially in the final scenes (although one hopes their mother-daughter relationship is somewhat better off screen!).

The Crimson Horror was an overall good episode. It’s blending of SciFi with period drama and detective thriller made for an interesting and well executed mix, and its use of the sinister and the macabre with comedic elements felt perfectly balanced. The reintroduction of Vastra, Jenny and Strax was certainly a welcome return, and after their inclusion in this episode, I’d like to see more of their characters in the future.

Next week, the Cybermen return in Neil Gaiman’s Nightmare in Silver. Considering Gaiman’s previous episode of Doctor Who, The Doctor’s Wife, (and his body of work in general!) this is an episode I’ve been looking forward to for a very long time!

If you missed The Crimson Horror because some deranged old woman dipped you in a vat of poison and tried to dispose of your petrified corpse, then I’m deeply sorry for everything you’ve been through, but I’m not entirely sure how you’re reading this. However, if you were were lucky enough to survive the process and are now back in the land of the living, you can watch the episode on iPlayer here.

Doctor Who - Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS Review

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

An interstellar salvage team get their hands on the TARDIS, sending its systems into meltdown. With Clara lost in the depths of the seemingly infinite and labyrinthine ship, the Doctor enlists the help of the salvage team to try and find her, but the clock is ticking, and there’s something else lurking in the TARDIS’s winding corridors... Stephen Thompson’s Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS promised us, as one would expect from a title like that, an adventure deep within the bowels of the Doctor’s iconic time-travelling police box. I had very high expectations...

The last time an episode of Doctor Who took us into the TARDIS itself was in The Doctor’s Wife (I think I’ve managed to mention that episode in all of my reviews of this series...), which did it rather well to say the least, and as one of the finest episodes in living memory it was naturally going to be a tough one to beat! We weren’t treated to a full tour of the TARDIS in that episode, but we were introduced to the complexities of shifting corridors and time dilation. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS did this and a little more, giving us a glimpse of the oft-mentioned swimming pool, a brief wander in the majestical library, and a look at the Eye of Harmony. And corridors. Lots and lots of corridors. The sets were truly magnificent, exceedingly well produced and brilliantly inspired; it gave the sense of a ship far larger than one could possibly imagine, an infinite number of rooms down an infinite number of winding corridors, and was precisely the kind of thing you’d hope to see in an episode set inside the TARDIS. I only wish we could have seen more of it!

However, with the potential to explore the TARDIS in all its marvellous complexity, this episode felt like it fell short of what it could have achieved. Getting lost in the TARDIS could have turned out to be a fantastic episode, but unfortunately for me it felt more like a sub-plot to the salvage team’s story and the search for Clara. As a result, not enough time was spent dwelling on the various rooms and secrets hidden in the TARDIS, with a few things getting just a customary passing glance rather than a proper look at them (for example, what I’m guessing was an observatory, which got all of two seconds and a “huh” from Clara). The library got a bit more exposure than most areas, just enough to reveal the existence of written records from the Time War, and a brief game of hide and seek with an ossified demon, but ultimately this too felt too brief, with the majority of the episode revolving around the endless corridors.

There are also a few story elements that didn’t quite work. For starters, the three-man salvage team felt quite redundant (as did their plot twist, which in my opinion bore no real relation to the narrative what-so-ever), and I reckon the story’s key premise could have easily been carried out without them. Sometimes, a few of the plot points came and went so quickly that if you hadn’t been keeping up with it this whole time you’d be thoroughly lost! There are a few niggly things as well, like the fact that the TARDIS was behaving as if it didn't trust the Doctor. After 900 years of a relationship between man and ship, a bond stronger than the Doctor has had with any of his companions, based on their mutual trust of one another, you'd expect the TARDIS would be a little more helpful! It's behaviour didn't seem consistent with previous situations (especially considering last week's episode, where it risked itself to save the Doctor), and preventing the Doctor from getting to where he needed to go just didn't add up. There’s also the matter of the episode being neatly tied up quite literally at the press of a button, which essentially rebooted time back to just before the episode began, fixing everything that went wrong - simply pressing a reset button never feels like a satisfying conclusion to a story.

That being so, the ideas behind Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (henceforth known as JTTCOTT or ‘the episode’, because I’ll be buggered if I’m typing that title out every time I mention it!) aren’t without merit. There were some good ideas that were well executed; time leaking was an especially good plot point, causing the past, present and future to converge in a typically wibbly manner. The shambling, burnt corpses marauding the corridors were also a fine addition, maintaining a level of mystery and intrigue, and the revelation of their true identities was a nice - if rather macabre - twist. And as mentioned before, the set pieces gave the sense of a ship that existed beyond just the control room.

As with Hide, JTTCOTT is an episode founded in great ideas, but let down by its narrative. In my opinion, it would have made for a better story if the TARDIS had hit some temporal turbulence or a spatial rupture. In dire need of repair, the Doctor and Clara set about looking for spare parts and components to patch things up, but they’re separated by dimensional distortions changing the TARDIS’s layout (a la Amy and Rory, The Doctor’s Wife), and must try to navigate the ever-shifting corridors to find each other and repair the ship. This would give reason to having a look around several different rooms and allow more time in exploring the TARDIS, as they must search for different items to fix it - this would also eliminate the reboot button, or at the very least make it feel less like a reboot button due to the effort they had to go to to create it. But back to the episode itself...

For me, the bit that stands out most about this episode is something that is no doubt going to be touched on later... The History of the Time War. It only gets a brief look in this episode, but I’m hoping that through its pages we might learn more of this cataclysmic conflict. However, from the book Clara learns something that no-one must ever know - the Doctor’s true name (presumably to be revisited in the episode titled The Name of the Doctor - just a hunch!). Now that events have been reset, it can be assumed that Clara no longer has this knowledge, but it’s intriguing to know that she (with three different versions of her meeting the Doctor at different points in time) might know his true identity. Is Clara’s impossible nature intrinsically linked with the Doctor’s name? (Which, incidentally, I hope is never revealed; the mystery is far more tantalising than the possibility of ever knowing the truth, and if his name is revealed then it kind of renders 50 years of cultural history null).

I suppose, at the end of the day, there were good bits and bad bits to JTTCOTT, but everything aside from the set pieces and lead actors ultimately felt a little lackluster. The story wasn’t as gripping as I’d anticipated, and what we saw of the TARDIS didn’t feel quite as special as I’d hoped it would. However, there were plenty of good ideas behind the story, some of which were executed particularly well, and the setting was exceptionally well designed.

Overall, I’d quantify this episode as a 6/10.

Next week’s episode sees the return of Vastra, Jenny and Strax in Mark Gatiss’s The Crimson Horror.

If you technically missed last night’s episode because time was rebooted at the press of a big friendly button, you can watch it again (or for the first time, subjectively speaking) on iPlayer here.

You can read last week's review of Hide here.

(Never have I written the word TARDIS so many times in one place...)

Doctor Who - Hide Review

This review can also be found on Media Gateway.

“It’s not a ghost story, it’s a love story.”

That quote best summarises the latest episode of Doctor Who, Hide; it’s not about a ghost (well, it is, but it’s not), but it is about the power of love. Penned by Neil Cross, the man behind The Rings of Akhaten (and, of course, creator of Luther), the episode takes us to Caliburn House in 1974, where a professor and a psychic medium are tracking down a ghost...

From the promotional images and trailers, I had imagined Hide was going to be quite a creepy, haunt-y, ghost-y kind of story, but it didn’t yield quite the spook-factor I had anticipated. The episode was largely focussed on the relationship of Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott) and Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine) during their investigation at Caliburn House, whilst the ghost story (and its SciFi twist) felt more like a backdrop to the story than its driving force. That being so, the set of Caliburn house was marvellously designed, a perfect setting for a ghost hunt, and the array of 70’s paranormal equipment was a nice touch (and enough to make anyone want to tinker with the numerous bits of gadgetry) which all helped to create a proper haunted house atmosphere when the first ghostly happenings began.

Much like The Rings of Akhaten, I felt Hide had a lot of good ideas and plenty of potential, but alas the story fell somewhat short of what it could have achieved. That’s not to say it was poorly written, by any means - there are some great bits of dialogue throughout - but the story itself failed to captivate me. The ghost aspect itself never took on a more prominent or sinister form, and the monster of the episode turned out to be completely misunderstood in a twist reveal in the final two minutes (which, to be honest, felt completely redundant). And why was the episode called Hide? No-one hid anywhere at any time... There was no hiding in Hide!

“But Bron,” I hear you cry, “you can't be negative about Doctor Who! There must have been something good about it?!” And you’d be right, voices in my head. Although I didn't find the story particularly engaging, it was well-written nevertheless, and certain aspects did prove to be quite intriguing. Despite it's purported ghostliness, the primary force behind Hide is love. Or rather, the timeless power of love which can stretch across infinity. This is primarily touched on through Palmer and Grayling, with their feelings for each other being apparent but not being revealed to one another until towards the end of the episode. It is also their love that ultimately resolves the episode, as the ghost is actually their time-travelling great-great-great-great-great-grand-daughter trapped in a pocket Universe, and it's their bond that makes returning her to this Universe possible (and is quite likely to have lead them both to Caliburn House in the first place; when it comes to matters of the heart, it can often lead you to exactly where you need to be, even if you don't know it at the time).

The Doctor's reason for coming to this place at this time was to get Emma's feelings on Clara, to find out who – or what – she is (according to Miss Grayling, she's a girl... Pretty handy psychic work there, if you don't mind me sayin' so, ma'am!). Meanwhile, Clara seems to be getting some not-so-friendly signs, as she feels the TARDIS doesn't like her (and it locks her out, as it did in The Rings of Akhaten, too), and she's warned by Emma Grayling to be wary of the Doctor as “he has a sliver of ice in his heart.” I'm hoping this is foreshadowing the Doctor's darker aspects coming to the surface again, especially with the mirroring between the Doctor and Alec Palmer regarding the guilt over the lives of people lost.

There’s also a fair deal to explore with the TARDIS in this episode, too - perhaps quite fittingly, given the premise of next week’s episode Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. For starters, there’s mention of the Eye of Harmony (last heard of in the 1994 movie starring Paul McGann, I believe), the artificial black hole created by the Time Lords to provide energy for their homeworld Gallifrey, and to power their time-travel technology. Unless it’s been moved, like the library’s swimming pool, then the Eye of Harmony sits at the heart of the TARDIS in the Cloister Room. There’s also the matter of the cloister bell (a.k.a. the Universal early-warning alarm) sounding when the Doctor is trapped in the pocket Universe. Although the TARDIS out-right refuses to grant Clara access (speaking to her via hologram), stating that taking the TARDIS into the pocket Universe to save the Doctor is an impossibility, it does eventually (albeit begrudgingly) let her in and flies itself into the pocket Universe. I suppose there again is the tale of love in this episode; quite fittingly, the heart of the TARDIS keeps the wormhole to the pocket Universe open, whilst the TARDIS risks itself – putting aside it's personal preferences – to save the Doctor. There is truly no greater love than that between a Time Lord and his time-travelling police box...

Hide once again brings the intrigue of the series plot-arc back to the forefront of our minds with the question of “who is Clara Oswald?” She’s an enigma to the Doctor (“You are the only mystery worth solving.”), and apparently the empathic psychic Emma Grayling can divine no more information other than “she’s a girl.” So who is Clara, the girl twice dead, who the Doctor has now met on three separate occasions in the past, present and future? My personal theory (among many, but this is my favourite); she’s a crack in the mirror, a split projection in time. In much the same way a broken mirror reflects and refracts an image, yet despite the fracture the image still remains whole, the same can be said for the concept that is Clara. Her very being could be fractured like that mirrored image, a crack in time causing separate reflections or embodiments of Clara to appear scattered across time and space.

Or, slightly stranger, she’s a reflection of the Doctor; a self-created illusion to prevent himself going mad from primal loneliness, an invention so he can save the girl twice dead as a way to repent for his guilt over the lives he could not save. She is his loneliness, his guilt, his sorrow, his regret manifest. She is the Doctor’s shadow.

I don’t know, but I do like a good mystery!

Overall, Hide was a good episode with some great ideas and concepts behind it, but sadly it didn’t quite captivate me as I had hoped it would. The story fell a bit short of what I felt it could have achieved, but it was well-written nonetheless, with some tantalising and thought-provoking pieces. All in all, it was a good episode, and maybe I’ve just been spoilt with the likes of Cold War!

Next week, we take a Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and Clara gets lost in the depths of the labyrinthine time-machine...

If you missed Hide due to being trapped in a pocket Universe, you can catch it on iPlayer here.

A Look At Star Trek Online: Legacy of Romulus

This article can also be found on Media Gateway.

Earlier this year, Cryptic Studios and Perfect World Entertainment announced their first expansion for Star Trek Online: Legacy of Romulus. The expansion introduces a third - and long-speculated - faction to the game, the Romulans, as they struggle to rebuild after their homeworld was destroyed by a supernova. It goes without saying that the STO community was a-buzz with the news!

I was honoured and privileged to be invited for the closed Beta test of the new Romulan faction. With a leap and a bound, I marched beneath the Raptor's wings and took to the testing server to try out life as a Romulan. (NB: This article may contain spoilers for the tutorial of Legacy of Romulus. You have been warned!)

Meet my character, Caius Ne'Ral, a former tactical officer of a Romulan Warbird, brought to the colony of Virinat a few short years ago by D'Vex, a man devoted to helping the Romulans rebuild after the diaspora. Now trying to start his new life on the colony, Caius has taken up work as a farmer, tending to the vineyards.  With its large, ramshackled marketplace, extensive vineyard and rustic housing, Virinat is quite a quaint and charming little colony - its certainly a far-cry from the former imperialism of the Romulan Star Empire.

After the loss of his homeworld, Caius took to a life of staring wistfully into the distance...

Some may argue that these aren't "true" Romulans as we're used to seeing in the Star Trek series, and they'd be right; so far on Virinat, I have yet to meet a vindictive, militant double-agent, and everyone's been incredibly friendly to my character. It may not be what some would call a traditional Romulan society, but I do like this new approach; a race of people trying to rebuild after the destruction of their homeworld and the destabilisation of their government. The imperialistic Romulans of old are still about, mind you, as their former intelligence department - the Tal Shiar - try to grip on to the old empire with a neutronium fist, and Empress Sela is trying to build an empire fit for her ruling, but the people of Virinat just want to lead a peaceful life secluded from the troubles and conflicts that mar the face of the Alpha Quadrant. It's a move that makes sense for a people without a homeworld or a stable government, and is a fine founding stone for the narrative of the New Romulan Republic.

But back to Caius's life. Some Khellids (a kind of large, flappy bug type thing) have been chewing through the irrigation pipes in the vineyards and Caius has been called upon to fix the leaks, blasting a few Khellids with his plasma pistol along the way. However, the Khellids are acting strangely aggressive, so Caius goes to investigate. In a cave not too far from the town, where swarms of Khellids buzz about as large buzzy insects are wont to do, there's a suspicious looking beacon. With the beacon deactivated, and a few Khellids splattered by plasma fire, Caius returns to the market place in time for an evening of festivity in this new and peaceful world.

I could get used to a life here.

Commemorating the founding of their settlement on this world, the Romulans settle in for a night of revelry. Fireworks sore into the ink-black skies, erupting into firey orange, sparkling blues, plasma green... Wait, that's no firework!

WHY CAN'T WE HAVE NICE THINGS?!

With the ground-works of this new Romulan settlement now established, it's all swiftly blown to pieces by the Tal Shiar. Grabbing a high-density plasma beam rifle, Caius makes a dash for the shuttlecraft where he, and other survivors of this onslaught, would make their escape. Escaping the atmosphere into orbit, the surviving shuttlecraft make their way to an abandoned Bird-of-Prey left in orbit several years ago - a ship I christened the Raptor's Talon.

Set a course for that interesting looking nebula, Mister T'Val.

This segment is another triumph for the opening of Legacy of Romulus; the first bridge officer to join your crew is a man you met on the surface of Virinat, and who helped you escape the devastation. The acquisition of a new officer prior to this (in the case of both the Federation and Klingon factions) just felt like buying a new commodity, but Legacy of Romulus has woven this new officer into the fabric of the story. The fact that he's a somewhat developed character means I'll probably keep him as a permanent tactical officer, as his dialogue makes him as much a part of Caius's story as the other central characters in the game.

In addition, having got main power and primary systems back online, you have to start scavenging for spare parts. Blowing apart debris from ancient, discarded vessels is a good start, as you start to collect components to turn this old rust-bucket into a functioning starship. It's just another thing that helps you engage with the narrative behind Legacy of Romulus and become a part of this rag-tag band of survivors in their exodus. As much as I like my Federation Vice Admiral, in his sleek uniform and state-of-the-art starship with a crew compliment of 2000, there's something about the story of these people from humble beginnings with their battered and worn clothes, forced to try and find a new life amongst the stars in their creaky old starship. The story is further embellished when you pick up a nearby distress signal from other survivors trying to escape the Tal Shiar. Engaging the enemy, you rescue the crew of these now derelict ships and beam them aboard your own.

Deftly evading plasma beams... Not bad for a farmer-turned-captain!

I didn't get to experience much more after this point, as the shard was taken down for maintenance (and there appeared to be a sudden increase in server-side lag), but from what I experienced thus far it had rekindled my excitement for Legacy of Romulus's release.

The story was engaging, weaving in core game mechanics as part of the narrative rather well, and if it continues in a similar vein then it will not disappoint! I encountered no bugs (except the Khellids!) in my first foray into Legacy of Romulus, and aside from the slight lag just before server maintenance the gameplay was smooth and thoroughly enjoyable. Some of the latest updates to the user interface, such as the ability to change the colour of your UI and the updated viewscreen/dialogue window, are a nice touch and create a more Trek-y vibe. The character creation screen has also been given a nifty new make-over, with it's over-hauled layout and dynamic background, which certainly looks good but might take me a bit to get used to! In fact, my only gripe with the experience was that during the cut-scenes, some of the subtitles went by a bit too fast, but I was able to get the gist of things (hopefully it'll be slowed down a bit for release on May 21st).

However, this is only the beta test for the biggest update to STO to date, and as Daniel Stahl stated in a recent Q&A, "This is an early build with many bells and whistles still missing. There is no VO yet and many of the cutscenes aren't finalized. You will find bugs and rough patches, but we would like to start getting feedback on the Romulans at this time."

All in all, Star Trek Online's first expansion looks set to be nothing short of spectacular! From the tutorial alone, Legacy of Romulus shows great promise and I'm looking forward to seeing where the course of events will take Caius and myself next...

Click here for more information on the Legacy of Romulus.

To sign up to Star Trek Online, which went free-to-play last year, please click here.


Bron's main character in Star Trek Online is Oracle@MorosAtum, an Arcturian science officer serving in the 12th Fleet.