Doctor Who - "A Good Man Goes To War"

WHOSCALE: 4 out of 10

For those who didn't see this season as it aired, Series 6/Season 32 was divided into to halves; the first half was shown in the spring of 2011, while the second half started in the fall. This episode marked what Moffat described as a "game-changing cliffhanger" for the first half. 

Frequently throughout this season, I have had to re-watch these episodes several times in order to get a confident grasp of what was going on so that I can be assured that I gave it a fair review. With Series 5/Season 31 however, this was not the case. Oddly enough, that season scored higher than any other season so far. Coincidence? Probably not. 

This review will no doubt be extensive, because as the score indicates, there was quite a lot about this episode that just was plain silly. 

Let's start with the title. Having followed the production of the series, this episode was originally to be titled "Demons Run." That title was later changed to "A Good Man Goes To War." Now obviously, the latter is a direct reference to The Doctor, which I constantly gripe about in the resurrection - the original series seldom - if ever - made direct references to the lead characters in episode titles. Perhaps the only exception were "The Two Doctors," "The Three Doctors," and "The Five Doctors." I know I sound like I'm being nit-picky, but the original series established a kind of format for episode titles, often beginning with "The" and following with an element relative to the story's overall plot. (i.e. "The Sunmakers," "The Romans," "The Aztecs," "The Silurians,") Another format that was regularly used was the "___ of the ___" format, or something similar. (i.e. "Talons of Weng-Chiang," "Terror of the Autons," "Seeds of Death.") These titles encompassed the story as a whole, and did not reference one particular element. In the case of the new series, Moffat & Co. frequently title episodes to either deliberately mislead viewers ("The Doctor's Wife," "The Doctor's Daughter," "The Next Doctor,") or they reference something that doesn't remotely relate to the plot of the episode, but more one specific character ("Amy's Choice," "Vincent and the Doctor," "Smith and Jones," "Partners In Crime,") These titles intentionally suggest that the episode is chiefly about the characters referenced, and not about a traditional Doctor Who dilemma, although some of these episodes often do have a great story, they're just mis-titled. "Smith and Jones," for example. The hospital was transported to the Moon, where we were introduced to the Judoon. The title is a reference to The Doctor's often used alias, John Smith and of course Martha's maiden name, Jones. Ironically, there was an 80s western series called "Alias Smith & Jones," that followed the adventures of two outlaws trying to clear their records. Whether or not this was a double reference, I'm not sure. 

The bottom line is, the title of this episode was a reference to one specific element - that of the old tale about why the asteroid is called "Demons Run," and as such was a poor choice. 

The opening sequence of this episode was painful for me to watch. Sequences like that of Rory in Roman attire managing to break into a Cybermen ship, reach the bridge and demand the wherabouts of his wife (as if the Cybermen give a f*** who his wife is, or where she is) shows that the producers take "Doctor Who is intended to be a children's show" literally. Portraying The Doctor, as well as his ordinary human companions as "super bad asses" doesn't give a sense of seriousness at all - it just looks rather silly. Granted, The Doctor is the hero of the series, but not in the Superman, Batman, Chuck Norris or Bruce Willis sense. The Doctor is the hero of the series like Colonel Jack O'Neill is the hero of StarGate SG-1. He's the lead character, and obviously the hero, but not to the point that he looks tremendously superior to the other characters. 

Blowing up a Cybermen ship just to emphasize a question? That's just ridiculous. The Doctor would never do that over something so trivial. I'm not trying to downplay the issue of Amy missing, but why doesn't he just go to the Shadow Proclamation like he did in "The Stolen Earth?" Why would the Cybermen, of all species in the realm of Doctor Who, know anything about Rory's wife? Even IF they had intercepted information about that, why would they make a note of it? It is completely, totally, utterly, IRRELEVANT to the Cybermen and their objectives! Let's not forget the fact that The Doctor as of late has longed to see the ultimate end of the Cybermen, so why doesn't he just blow them all up right then? Since they're so easy to find, apparently. On a side note, the windows behind Rory on the Cybership are the same exact windows that looked out from the flight deck of the ship in "The Curse of the Black Spot."

The episode digs an even deeper hole by introducing two completely irrelevant characters - The Fat One and the Thin One. So irrelevant, that they aren't even given proper names - just a blatant reference to their sexual preferences. Why in God's name is a gay couple relevant here?! You could have just as easily omitted that detail, and the episode would still have worked seamlessly. 

Yet another character that I question is that of Lorna Bucket, the girl who apparently met The Doctor once before in her childhood in the Gamma Forests. The purpose of this character was two fold; one to provide a bit more hero worship for the viewers watching that have embraced the notion that The Doctor is Superman in a bow tie, and to help close the thread of River Song's true identity, which I'll get to in a moment. My memory is fuzzy on the Tennant years, but I think this may have been done once before. A character is introduced and claims to have met The Doctor previously, only to spend the rest of their lives seeking him. Wait...it's come back to me now. Elton from "Love And Monsters" did that. 

Why do all of the supporting characters in the new series have this overwhelming obsession with The Doctor? It's obvious that the production crew are attempting to create a link between the series and the avid fans of the show. In other words, they're blurring the lines between Doctor Who reality, and that of actual reality. I do not understand why this is necessary. If you need that to relate to the show, how the fudge did you watch "The Prisoner?" 

Moving on. Another element that I found completely distasteful was that of The Doctor raising an army. OK, let's put this in perspective: Amy Pond, a girl who has been The Doctor's companion for less than 2 years, has been abducted since the events of "Day of the Moon." To find and rescue this companion - one who has spent less time in the TARDIS than Jamie - The Doctor blows up a Cybermen ship, and travels throughout the universe recruiting those he's saved in the past so that they can repay their debt to him. First of all, when did The Doctor expect some sort of repayment for what he does? I don't think The Doctor ever felt like the universe "owed him a debt," even though he may have joked about it from time to time. Strangely enough, he only recruits characters as far back as Series 5/Season 31 - The Judoon, the Silurians, the Sontarans, Danny Boy from "Victory of the Daleks," and Captain Avery from "The Curse of the Black Spot." How convenient. The Doctor has faced more menacing odds in the original series, and wiggled his way out of the situation without having to ask a favor from the universe. First he's so bad ass that he can blow up a Cybermen ship to ask a question, then he can't even rescue his companion without raising an army. I could go on for two more days ranting about how out of character this behavior was for The Doctor, so I'll leave it at this. I think I've made my point clear: Raising an army out of previous characters was not the route to go. 

There are other moments that just made me want to face palm. For example, a scene that first shows the Headless Monks is conveniently accompanied by an overhead speaker system saying, "Reminder: It is a level 1 offense to remove the hood of a Headless Monk," or something to that effect. Immediately following this, one of the two gay couple asks aloud, "I wonder why they're called "headless monks? They can't actually be headless." REALLY?! Could you have made it more obvious? The entire audience was quietly wondering this until you wrote this first-year student shit. Now it's OBVIOUS: The Headless Monks are actually HEADLESS. 

Speaking of the Headless Monks, way to rip off Star Wars again by making them look like Sith Lords wielding lightsabers. I know people may call me lame for making that reference, but let's be honest: No matter what you're doing in a series, if you present a weapon that's a glowing sword of any kind, people are immediately going to think "Star Wars." 

By this time, I was getting sick of how River Song always has to be so cryptic with her dialogue. Never a straight answer to anything, and always riddles as answers. "He will rise higher than he's ever risen before, and then he will fall so much further." Damnit, if she feels she can't disclose any information about Demon's Run because of timelines and all that junk, why not just NOT SAY ANYTHING?! Just tell Rory that you can't say anything because it's his future and your past! This kind of crypto-clue talking was nice in "Silence In the Library," and maybe even in "The Time of Angels," but now you're just dragging it out. and it's annoying as hell. 

As usual, the music was well overdone. 

Yet another bit that makes me want to cringe is when Dorium just waltzes out to greet the pissed off Monks, thinking they will spare him because of previous dealings, even though he's just sold them out to The Doctor. This mindless sequence was done simply to emphasize that the Monks will chop your head off. Thanks Moffat, but we figured that would be the case when we saw them wielding swords. We didn't need to see someone just outright commit suicide to work it out.

Which brings up another dummy mark: Demons Run is occupied by an entire army of Silurian soldiers, but magically, a few Headless Monks (who can't inflict damage except at close quarters) manage to reduce the entire army to that of just Rory, The Doctor and Amy. Even the Sontaran Strax and Bucket are killed. 

Is this even remotely supposed to be believable?

What about how the communications array gets taken out? Seriously? Danny Boy from "Victory of the Daleks?" I thought all the Dalek tech was destroyed in that story? So how does Danny Boy still have space flight capability on his Spitfire? To say nothing about how he managed to get from 1940s WWII torn Earth, to the Demons Run asteroid in the far flung future. 

Perhaps the biggest disappointment for me was that of River Song's identity. Are you telling me that a character who possesses the ability to time travel via a vortex manipulator, has dated androids, knows The Doctor's real name, is a professor of archaeology in the future, has dealt with Weeping Angels more than once, has the ability to regenerate and is in StormCage prison for killing The Doctor is simply Amy and Rory's DAUGHTER?! At this point, I was utterly disgusted with the series. The show had officially become entirely about the supporting characters. It was then that I realized that this entire episode was in fact about Amy and Rory. If you read by blog, or if you watch my YouTube rants, you know that is a total turn off for me as a Doctor Who fan. When you devote a thread that's spanned three seasons to character development in a series that's about traveling through time and space and saving the universe from menaces like The Daleks and The Ice Warriors, you lose all respect from me as a contributing writer.

We're only half way in to Moffat's second season, and already I want him gone. 

So far, this was perhaps the lowest scoring episode of the new series, save for "Love and Monsters." A shame that it had to come from Steven Moffat, of all people.

Doctor Who - "The Almost People"

WHOSCALE: 5 out of 10

Considering that in my opinion, the bulk of the story was covered in the first half of the previous episode, it should be no surprise that the second half of this two part story scored lower on the Whoscale. 

Before I go into detail on what costs this episode so many points, I should note that the pacing for this story was a huge issue. I found it frequently difficult to understand what was going on because the dialogue from so many characters was gibberish. For some reason, Moffat seems to think that characters that talk extremely rapidly is "quirky." While this may be true, it should be a trait reserved only for the Doctor, not every character. When you get a room full of characters all conversing and their sentences are garbled because they're speaking so fast, it no longer becomes an appealing quirk, it becomes an irritating annoyance, because I cannot understand them. 

Besides the almost non stop music throughout this entire episode, that is perhaps my biggest complaint. As I stated in my previous review, the initial plot and story was not a bad idea for an episode of Doctor Who. The fact that it was a two parter of course, always yields a few points. However, in spite of the story's two part format -  and having watched this episode several times now since it aired - I still have trouble "keeping up" so to speak with the development of the story.

I think what I'm trying to say is that the episode does not have a very good structured narrative. For me, much of this episode felt like a mess, particularly when pointless elements start getting introduced into the story. For example, the doppleganger of The Doctor had no purpose whatsoever other than to confuse both Amy and the audience. Then we're forced to deal with yet another problem - as if we don't have enough of them already - Amy initially rejects the notion of "two identical Doctors," claiming that she can tell the difference between the two. This is later proven false due to The Doctor switching shoes with his ganger. What's even more ridiculous is that The Doctor claims that the reason he swapped shoes with his ganger was to determine whether or not Amy could truly tell a difference. Who the fudge cares?! 

The more I reflect on what I've just watched, the more I find it difficult to even summarize the story in my head. There was too much already going on by the time the Doctor ganger was introduced. Already we had a missing Rory, a missing Jennifer, a missing ganger Jennifer, three or four other gangers running amok and plotting a revolution against the humans. This was more than enough to resolve within the confines of this episode - and that's if you don't count the final ten minutes, which had nothing to do with this story whatsoever. 

Anytime a science fiction story deals with copies, there is always going to be that brief moment of confusion from the audience where they cannot tell which one is the original. Such an example would be the campfire scene in the snow in Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, where a shape shifter takes on the form of Kirk, and a fight ensues. A few rolls in the snow later, we're confused on who the real Kirk is. However, the scene soon resolves this with the elimination of the shape shifter. My point is, it's confusing enough to drag out a story with two of every character over two episodes, it's practically mundane when you introduce a copy of a copy, as this episode did with Jennifer. We soon learn that Jennifer has in fact been dead for some time, at that BOTH the Jennifers that were walking around with Rory are gangers. Yet again, what purpose was served by having this element in the story? It served only to confuse the audience even further. 

Since Moffat teased the audience with the death of The Doctor in the season opener "The Impossible Astronaut," it was clear that throughout the remainder of this season, Moffat was leading us on with suggestions at how the incident at the lake could be avoided or circumvented. With "The Curse of the Black Spot," were introduced to a life support system that could sustain a dying person indefinitely. With "The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People," we're introduced to a copy of The Doctor. Naturally, my first thought when seeing this originally was that perhaps The Doctor at the lake was this ganger. However, the ganger dies of course near the end of the episode. 

The resolution of the story in my opinion was a joke. Cleaves' ganger - who for two whole episodes has sworn to wage war against the humans - suddenly decides that there is no point in the war and surrenders. Meanwhile, Jennifer, who is nothing more than a ganger, suddenly possesses the ability to morph into a horrific CGI monster similar to the one in "The Lazarus Experiment." That monster, in turn, was defeated by The Doctor's ganger simply pointing his sonic screwdriver at it, which reveals that it can break down the molecular patterns of the flesh, thus returning the ganger to a puddle of goo. So why not have just done this to the walkabout gangers from onset?!

The problem of having a double for each of the mining crew is quickly resolved by a few convenient acid-related deaths. The scene between the two Jimmys is practically scene for scene ripped from "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace," where a young Obi-Wan cradles a dying Qui-Gon. The fact that I'm actually finding similarities between a television series about time and space travel and a major motion picture franchise like Star Trek or Star Wars, shows that some, if not all of these modern Doctor Who episodes are well over done. 

Yet one other problem that the entire story touched on, was the fact that the gangers were in limbo between "real human" and "ganger" (hence the title of the episode). This issue is magically resolved after the gangers enter the TARDIS. Apparently, the TARDIS energy stabilized their molecular structure, so they were suddenly human. How convenient. 

It irritates me to my core when a writer is given the breathing room of two episodes, and yet the whole thing gets resolved in the final 10 minutes. It makes you wonder, "what the hell did we just spend the last hour doing?!"

The final sequence in the episode takes place in the TARDIS, and reveals the nature of the Eye Patch Lady that has been visiting Amy as a hallucination. Amy is revealed to be a ganger, which raises my next question. The ganger technology was unique to this time period, so assuming that Amy was copied during the time she was missing in "The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon," (which was in 1969) how did the Silents become aware of this technology? It was a clever twist, but some of these little convenient resolutions feel like they were dreamed up at the last minute - to the point of just seeming ridiculous. To me, the whole "Amy is actually a ganger- a element that we just conveniently introduced" felt more like "this here, for lack of a better idea." 

I wanted to score this episode high, because it had the core of a good Doctor Who story, but like so many others in the new series, it was presented in a fashion that simply does not work for  a show like this.

Doctor Who - "The Rebel Flesh"

WHOSCALE: 7 out of 10

Following the masterpiece by Neil Gaiman, Matthew Graham was up next with a two part story. This would be the second story contributed to the series by Graham - his previous being "Fear Her."

It's not far fetched to say that "The Rebel Flesh" wasn't as brilliant as the previous episode by Gaiman, but it nevertheless was certainly more in line with what Doctor Who traditionally was than the opening two part story. The setting for the episode roughly follows what we would have seen in the original series - a isolated island, and old medieval castle, a group of scientist that aren't dressed in modern day tank tops and cargo khakis. The setting and format, as well as the storyline are really what carried this one though on the Whoscale. However, there were quite a number of things that I frequently noted while watching it.

The biggest drawback for me in this episode was the fact that the initial problem - the solar storm causing the gangers to go walkabout - was rushed through within the first fifteen minutes of the episode. It was actually so rushed that I recall having difficulty understanding what was going on the first time I watched it. Rushing the openig struck me as strange, considering that the story had the breathing room of two episodes. Normally, a two part story can unfold fluently and relatively slow, such as the case of "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances." Once it was established that the gangers were now teeter-tottering between "almost people" and exact duplicates of their originals, the remainder of the episode focused solely on how the originals refuted the existence of self-aware gangers. At the same time, the gangers themselves struggled to accept their new humanity, and were met with rejection from their originals, as well as Amy. 

That brings me to yet another disappointing element in this episode: The TARDIS crew are essentially divided into three camps on the doppleganger issue; The Doctor taking on a neutral role, as well as a peaceful coalition approach, while Amy sides with the originals and Rory defends Jennifer's ganger. 

By this time, I was absolutely fed up with suggestive themes regarding the stability of Amy and Rory's marriage. This issue is completely irrelevant to the series, or any science fiction series for that matter. In Star Wars, Han Solo and Leia slowly began to fall in love with each the other, and Lucas loosely alluded to this over the course of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, but it was never so much that the central narrative of Star Wars had to be pushed aside for the sake of the audience finding out whether or not "it would work out." Simply because, that wasn't the issue, and it wasn't important. Not when you've got a platoon of Stormtroopers knocking at your doorstep.

With that said, I question why this continues to be a running theme in Doctor Who, even after it has been established (and then later undermined) numerous times that Amy's love for Rory and Rory's love for Amy is indisputable. The fact that I'm even having to gripe about "relationships" in a review of a science fiction series like Doctor Who is proof that somewhere, the show has gotten side tracked. This is something that shouldn't even be in a review like this.

The original series demonstrated for twenty-six years that you can have both male and female companions in the TARDIS simultaneously without having to incorporate a romantic theme. Jamie was the Second Doctor's companion for his entire run, save for the opening story for the Second Doctor, "The Power of the Daleks." Over the course of those three seasons, numerous female companions came and went, but never was a romantic plotline introduced, and the series did just fine. Some of the greatest stories in the history of the series were during Troughton's run.

The point is, science fiction needs to stick to being just that - science fiction. Any other genre that is introduced into such a series as a recurring sub-plot can serve no other purpose than to dilute the fundamental aim of the series - to appeal to the science fiction community. 

I've ranted about that enough. Yet another minus for this episode was the overuse of incidental music. This is something that I'm very picky about, and it's often one of the revived series' shortcomings. In the world of film, music is a method of invoking an emotional response from the audience by communicating a particular mood, or it can serve to accompany action sequences to amp up the drama. However, it can also serve as a distraction, particularly during dialogue scenes. If the writing is poor, or the actors aren't great, incidental music can be used to as a smokescreen for these things. The actors all looked great, and the story was fair, but it seems that Murray Gold often uses incidental music as a means of keeping the episode from dropping into a "too slow of a pace for the iGens." Many fans who were introduced to Doctor Who in 2005 and have since watched some of the original series have complained that it was "too slow paced" or "boring" to them. Granted, they are partially correct when noting it's slower pace, but the writing was brilliant and so were the actors, so it didn't need a smokescreen. You had to pay close attention to know what was going on, and music during a critical dialogue scene would only disrupt the viewer's concentration.

To summarize, the solar storm causing otherwise lifeless gangers to become self aware was the basis for the STORY. However, rather than spread that over the two episodes, Graham rushed through that to focus on what would be the basis of DRAMA - how the two sides would cope with each other. In the midst of this drama fest would be a torn Rory looking after the safety of a female ganger, all the while making a jealous Amy furious. The basic recipe for a modern day science fiction program. 

Already this story had disappointed on so many levels, and there was still half of it to go. For me, the story was covered in the opening fifteen minutes. What could there possibly be left to tell that would take an additional episode?

Doctor Who - "The Pandorica Opens"

WHOSCALE: 7 out of 10

Steven Moffat was next in line to write the season's two part finale. This was perhaps one of the most anticipated episodes of the season, as a lot of viewers were expecting to get some answers to many questions that had arisen throughout the season.

We all knew that Moffat was capable of writing some clever plot twists, but I have to say he outdid himself with Series 5/Season 31. If you're one of the casual fan girls that watches only because "Tennant was hot," then this definitely wasn't your favorite. I'm a seasoned sci-fi fan, and it took me at least two viewings to figure out what all was coming together in this episode.

However, to be fair to my readers, I'm going to set aside the fact that the plot was top notch, and conduct this review as a comparative to the original series.

One of the first things that kind of put me off was the length of the pre-title sequence, which essentially took eight to nine minutes setting up the backdrop for the episode. It's not a real biggie for me, but as I've said many times, I'm not a big fan of a "Star Trek/X-Files/Babylon 5" style pre-title sequence. I know almost every modern day television show uses the format, but the three I named are the ones I most associate it with.

This may have been intentional considering the episode dealt with digging up old hidden artifacts, but the music score for this episode seemed to have the ring of Indiana Jones, particularly during the scene where The Doctor, Amy, and Song enter the Pandorica chamber.
Speaking of Dr. Jones, there was another scene during the pre-title sequence that was almost plucked word-for-word from "Indiana Jones and The Temple Of Doom," where River Song slips some micro-explosives (in place of poison) into Dorium's drink, forcing him to sell the Vortex Manipulator in exchange for a diffuser (instead of the antidote).

While I'm on the subject of music, the episode seemed to be well over-scored. Apart from a couple of dialogue scenes between characters in the underhenge, everything else was coated with a John Williams-ish orchestral score.

Moffat seemed to continue the running theme of recurring characters, a theme that was common during the Davies era. Virtually all of the major characters from the season have a role in this episode - Liz 10 from "The Beast Below," Bracewell and Churchhill from "Victory Of The Daleks," River Song from "The Time Of Angels" and "Flesh And Stone," and Vincent Van Gogh from "Vincent And The Doctor." Although each character seemed to have a relevant role, I think it could have been communicated without having to touch on every past encounter by The Doctor. If one had to be pointless, it was Liz 10, who was doing nothing else other than guarding the Royal Collection in the 52nd Century, which actually doesn't make a whole lot of sense, considering she's the Queen, and should be tending to her space-bound kingdom of citizens, Smilers and Winders.

Rory is resurrected (again) in this episode - this time as an Auton, although once again no character addresses them as "Autons," only as "duplicates."

I think Moffat handled another chapter of River Song's story well again, electing to not have the episode focus on River, but rather have her tag along as another companion to The Doctor. River's universal and temporal experience is only matched by The Doctor's, so it's kind of like getting a Romana on occasion.

Perhaps the most notable part of this episode is the climax, in which a season's worth of wondering what's inside the Pandorica is revealed. I don't think many viewers saw that one coming, because it certainly hit me broadside.

The episode closes on a cliffhanger, in traditional multi-episode Doctor Who form, with The Doctor trapped in the Pandorica, Amy shot dead by the Auton Rory, River trapped in the exploding TARDIS which would seem to be the cause of the mysterious cracks, and more seriously, the erasure of the entire universe, save for Earth itself. (Go figure.) Probably what got Moffat the biggest score with this one was the fact that for once, we weren't in downtown London or Cardiff fighting off a Dalek invasion for the season finale.

Doctor Who - "The Lodger"

WHOSCALE: 6.5 out of 10

Tackling the "character-lite" episode for this season was Gareth Roberts, who had previously penned "The Unicorn And The Wasp" for the Tenth Doctor. It should be noted that this episode is based on a short comic strip that was published during the Tenth Doctor's run, and as such was written for Tennant's Doctor. However, Roberts seemed to see the problem with having the episode soley focus on The Doctor living as a flatmate, and so a mystery element was introduced.

This was yet again another episode that I have mixed feelings about. So many things were done well, and so many weren't. As an episode of Doctor Who, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but when I look at it through my Whoscale goggles, I'm not so sure what to think.

Roberts loosely followed the same format that Moffat did with "Blink" by having the character with minimal screen time (in this case, Amy) still be actively involved in the story. Amy's absence from the episode is explained in a logical manner. Instead of just having her out of the episode altogether like Davies did with "Love And Monsters," Amy continues to offer information, clues and advice from the confines of the dematerialized TARDIS. It's always a good thing when the writer intertwines the two lead characters' roles in a way that we as viewers don't suspect it's a "character-lite" episode.

There were several nods to the original series in this episode, and some less obsessive fans might not have caught them. Some were obvious - The Doctor giving Craig a brief biography of himself, with flashes of the first three Doctors, and others weren't so obvious - If anyone's seen "Spearhead From Space" with the Third Doctor, then you couldn't help but be reminded of it during Smith's shower scene. Another that was tremendously vague was when Craig recruits The Doctor for his local football match, and The Doctor asks, "Football...is that the one with the sticks?" - harking back to the Fifth Doctor's skilled cricket abilities. It would seem that he also possesses top notch football skills, as well. In addition to sprinkles of classic Doctor Who, there were numerous other quirks about this episode that fit the bill for what you'd expect from The Doctor, such as his football jersey number being "11." Another was The Doctor's reactions to indications of romance. Craig explains the "understanding" in case The Doctor needs some alone time with wink, and The Doctor winks back in acknowledgement, immediately following the response by questioning why he would want alone time.

The episode did well to keep us on the edge of our seats with the volume a little higher so we wouldn't miss a beat after the clocks starting going awry at Craig's and The Doctor's flat. Since I'm in the States, I had to watch new episodes online, and when the time loop at the end of the football match started, I remember thinking that my video played had froze up.

I think what may have me so undecided on this episode's score is because it kept weaving back and forth between two separate stories - one of The Doctor experiencing domestic life with Craig, the other of the mystery upstairs. Now, don't get me wrong - the "weaving" this episode was doing was not so abrupt that it felt like two plot lines running parallel to each other (i.e. "Boom Town"). Roberts did well in mixing the mystery of what was upstairs in with the premise of the comic strip, also titled "The Lodger."

As with a lot of new episodes since the revival in 2005, this one took the biggest hit on the Whoscale in the last ten minutes. Something about the resolutions of plots just isn't sorted with the writers. Like so many before - to the point of almost becoming a revived series tradition - the "companions" for this episode save the day, and not by some clever thinking or application of logic - no, by using the same incredible mental powers that Bracewell used in "Victory Of The Daleks." Basically, by "wishing" the baddies away, Craig saves The Doctor and Sophie. If you're a diehard reader of this blog, this be sure to remember that resolution when reading my review of "Closing Time" in Series 6/Season 32. The phrase "kiss the girl!" just seems like it was plucked out of a Disney film, so it just didn't feel very Doctor Who-ish.

There were some VERY intriguing aspects about this episode. I remember my reaction the first time seeing the interior of the upstairs flat, and immediately thinking, "OH, S***! IT'S A TARDIS!!!" The fact that we never actually find out who owns that TARDIS makes it even better, with the mysterious visitor getting away scott free. I recall speculation floating around after it aired - fans were guessing The Master, Omega, River Song, Susan Foreman and everything between.

It wasn't has close to original Who has Chibnall's Silurian story, but it seemed to have roughly enough ingredients to make it fair well on the Whoscale.

Doctor Who - "Vincent And The Doctor"

WHOSCALE: 6 out of 10

Following the Silurian two part story, Richard Curtis penned the next episode. This story was intended to be the season's historical installment, as was "Tooth And Claw" for Series 2/Season 28, "The Shakespeare Code" for the Series 3/Season 29, and "The Unicorn And The Wasp" for Series 4/Season 30. While all of these previous installments have featured a historic figure as one of the main characters, in each case the stories were generally set around the Doctor Who style mystery/monster format, with the historic character being "along for the ride" so to speak in much the same way The Doctor's companions were meant to be.

However, in the case of "Vincent And The Doctor," it's clear that Curtis abandoned this format to focus more on teaching viewers about Vincent Van Gogh, and less about making it an episode of Doctor Who that features a historic character.

First off, I'll point out a technical oversight that I noticed before the title sequence. The episode opens with The Doctor and Amy visiting an art museum that contains all of Van Gogh's paintings. The Doctor is intrigued by one painting in particular of a church, where a mysterious creature was depicted in one of the church windows. This odd depiction convinces The Doctor to travel to the past to talk to Van Gogh personally about the painting, which serves as The Doctor's reason for visiting Van Gogh to begin with. Clearly, the creature would have wreaked havoc on the Earth by the time 2010 had rolled around, but oddly enough, the creature seemed to keep quiet all those years. Now, one might could explain this by saying that the painting was the same one done when The Doctor and Amy were with him at the church, but at the close of the episode, the church painting is shown to NOT have a creature in the window, which would seem to indicate THAT painting is the one Van Gogh did with The Doctor.

Throughout the course of the episode, I had mixed feelings about it. Sometimes it felt like Doctor Who, sometimes it didn't - but more often than not, it didn't. The problem I think was that Curtis was so wound up in trying to educate viewers instead of telling a gem of Doctor Who. Granted, the purpose of a "historical episode" is to be a rough history lesson, and the original series did several of these during Hartnell's first two seasons, but having not been told they were historic episodes, I never would have known because the plot was so tastefully done. "The Aztecs" comes to mind - one of my favorites from the Hartnell era - where a history lesson about the ancient Aztecs spanned four episodes without requiring a single monster. My point is, educational episodes are great, as long as you don't make it OBVIOUS that being educational is what you're trying to be. Besides, most children are more inclined to absorb such facts if they aren't aware that's they're being fed educational data.

Curtis minimized the use of CGI in this story by having the Krafayis be invisible to everyone in the episode except Van Gogh. This turns out to be the reason behind some of the accusations Van Gogh had got by the townspeople about being mad. Kudos for that, but it was one of those CGI-dodging gimmicks that's a bit obvious to the trained viewer. OF COURSE it's invisible. I'm not encouraging the use of CGI by no means, but there are other ways to get around it besides simply having the appearance of the monster absent for the most part of the episode, and writing it being invisible (and blind, apparently). Animatronics comes to mind. Yeah, it's a lot more time consuming to build a puppet and shoot some forced-perspective shots with it, but the pay off is worth it. If you look on YouTube, you've got five-year olds posting tutorial videos about using Adobe AfterEffects. Most kids know the difference between CGI and real, tangible puppets, so they're more likely to be scared behind the sofa by a physical puppet than a CGI monster. There's some body language that CGI just can't mimic, and it's a dead giveaway. The kids may know it's a mechanically operated puppet, but to them, its a REAL puppet nonetheless, and they can't help but wonder if it's going to be hiding under their bed later that night. The worst a CGI monster can do is crash your PC or Mac.

The episode also had atleast 30% t0 40% of it's shots done in shaky-cam, so do I really need to rant again about why I subtract points for this?

What really killed this episode's score was the final ten minutes, where it effectively drops into a modern day primetime drama format for Van Gogh's visit to the 2010 museum. Having an emotional, heart wrenching Lifehouse-ish song over the epilogue of an episode has been the norm for television dramas like "Grey's Anatomy,""E.R.," and "One Tree Hill" for years. I'm not sure if this was Moffat's experimental attempt to "see how the fans like this format," but it's been my understanding that hard core Whovians were outraged by it, myself included. If there's one thing that has no place in an episode of Doctor Who, it's modern day music with lyrics! Thankfully, so far this episode has been the only one to do so, having already seen Series 6/Season32.

It was an OK episode, but as the title implies, it was mainly about a particular character, to the point that the inclusion of a monster made little to no sense at all.

Doctor Who - "Cold Blood"

WHOSCALE: 8.5 out of 10

Chris Chibnall continues to pour on the Third Doctor era homage with the conclusion to "The Hungry Earth." Like this season's first two parter, the story utilizes roughly two main locations, in this case being above ground at the drill and the church in the first half, and focusing mainly underground in the Silurian city in this half. Once again the two part format does considerably well - largely due to the fact that with more time to work with - a more elaborate, slower paced story can be fluently developed over the span of the two episodes, instead of choosing between sacrificing depth or rushing an in-depth story through a single episode. That's not to say though, that some two part stories since the revival have still managed to turn out being flops. "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End," penned by former showrunner Russell T. Davies can arguably be the worst two part story of the revived series, mainly because of what he was trying to accomplish. Too many recurring characters and villains all twisted and intertwined into a basic Dalek storyline, with his usual soap subplots tossed in as well.

However in the case of "Cold Blood," Chibnall took the same approach to the second half that Moffat did with "Flesh And Stone." The episode picks up right where we left off in "The Hungry Earth," and once again the episode is chok full of nods to the original series. While Amy and Mo wandered the underground caverns, I couldn't help but be reminded of many a Third Doctor story, where Pertwee was exploring similar caverns.

As a diehard fan of the original series, I have a tendency to point out the little things that most viewers probably don't even notice. One of these little tid bits is the character names. For whatever reason, the original series seldom used common names for the characters in a particular story, whether it they be human or otherwise. The Silurian names stuck out in particular to me, as they were intentionally made to not sound like something you would hear above ground - "Alaya," "Restac," "Eldane," and "Malohkeh." Props for taking to time to be creative, Chibnall.

The story generally follows a universal narrative, without ever deviating for subplots. It only starts to go into a slight downturn right at the end - where once again, Rory dies. If you're still keeping count with me, that's two (2) deaths for Rory so far, and he's only been an official companion for four episodes. With Rory's death enters the usual sobbing, screaming companion scene. It almost as if all of the over-the-top drama was saved until the last ten minutes of the episode, where two episode's worth of drama was released, and thus causing the steady flow of the story to abruptly be disturbed.

There were a few scenes where I felt the CGI backdrops were a bit overdone, namely the one of the "Star Wars clone army" scene of Silurian soldiers. Now, in the Davies era, it would only have been a matter of time before that CGI army would have been marching up to the surface, but thankfully here, the backdrop scene is the only time we have to deal with a CGI army. Even after Restac has started releasing the soldiers, we never see any CGI Silurians, only the real ones.

The ending begs to question a few actions that I'm not quite sure analytical fans such as myself couldn't explain. For one, Moffat had already demonstrated that any object coming into contact with the light beaming from the crack in the wall would be instantly removed from history, yet here The Doctor is able to walk right up to the crack, stick his arm through, grab a piece from the other side and walk away unscathed.

The final scene definitely had be eager to see the rest of the season the first time I saw it, where the object The Doctor grabs from the crack in the wall turns out to be a charred piece of the TARDIS.

Another fantastic story, and tastefully done. At this point, it was clear that Series 5/Season 31 was going to blow the Davies era out of the water as far was traditional Doctor Who was concerned.

Doctor Who - "The Hungry Earth"

WHOSCALE: 9 out of 10

The second two parter for this season was penned by Chris Chibnall, who had previously contributed the Tenth Doctor story, "42."

Under the direction of Moffat, Chibnall is the second writer to have a kind of redemption story since the Davies era.

The idea behind this story was obviously to reintroduce the classic villains, the Silurians. To do that, Chibnall borrowed heavily from the flavor of the Third Doctor era, which was when the Silurians got the most air time.

There were tons of nods to the original series in this episodes, particularly the structure of the episode. It contained all the traditional elements you would have found in a Earth-based Third Doctor story - a mining operation, a small, rural village, and a scarce team of scientists drilling into the Earth's crust. Additionally, Chibnall successfully overcame the issue of avoiding present-day times while still setting the story relatively close to 2010 (in 2020), thus there's no reason to suspect that touch screen technology and present day clothes wouldn't still be the norm.

The plot is poured on thick in the beginning, with strange grass growing in the cemetery, a man swallowed up by the Earth, and empty graves with no visible sign of being disturbed. Although I knew well before this episode aired that it would be a Silurian story, I imagined when watching this time around what it must have been like for someone who hadn't followed production of the season before it aired, with absolutely no clue what this one was about. I expect it was even more of treat for Third Doctor fans than it was for me.

Everything seemed spot on in this episode. The pacing was a bit faster than that of "The Time Of Angels, " but not enough to feel like the producers were having to cram a six episode story into one. The music was sparingly used once again, if not a slight bit more powerful than what was used in "The Time Of Angels."

The Doctor is once again leading the way in this episode, with companions Amy and Rory tagging along as they should, and the two puzzled scientists joining in. Strange for the new series, but Amy was absent for much of this episode, having suffered the same fate as Mo near the beginning. She only appears in a couple of shots then, one of those being from a Silurian viewpoint, and a short scene near the end of the episode where a Silurian surgeon is apparently about to dissect her, having already done so on Mo.

As with most of the episodes from Moffat's debut season, I could find very little that just turned me off about it. If I just had to pick any minuses, it would be the slight over-injection of drama from The Doctor as Amy is pulled underground, the other being the CGI backdrop at the very end, and the ridiculous time discrepancy when The Doctor & company are setting up a security system - they had eight minutes to do, and it's hardly feasibly to accomplish what they did in that time. The "montage" format that is used even further indicates that far more time than eight minutes passed.

The production team took a new approach to the look of the Silurians, which has gotten mixed opinions since the episode aired. Personally, I think they looked fantastic. All mask and costume and no CGI will always win in my book. However, they did seem to fall a bit short on the facial features; the new breed of Silurian retains more human characteristics than their 1970s predecessors. No doubt this was to better smooth the transition for audiences. A sort of "safety measure" so they wouldn't look too far-fetched alien. At any rate, I think the revamp of the Silurians turned out far better than that of the Cybermen.

As with traditional Doctor Who style, the episode ends on a cliffhanger, leading up to the setting of the second part.

Doctor Who - "The Vampires Of Venice"

WHOSCALE: 8 out of 10

The third writer to contribute to this season was Toby Whithouse, who previously penned the Tenth Doctor episode "School Reunion." As a viewer, I can't be certain if it was Whithouse's writing or the executive decisions of Russell T Davies that turned that episode into such a flop, but under the reign of Steven Moffat, Whithouse's contribution to Doctor Who seems to be singing a different tune. Following in the footsteps of Moffat with the title, Whithouse follows the traditional Doctor Who "The ____ of ____" format. As I recall, this episode was aired relatively the same time as the Twilight craze was in full swing, so it was great to have a vampire story that didn't get wrapped up in all the hype caused by those films and books.

Rory Williams joins the TARDIS crew at the start of this one, showing even further evidence that Moffat was playing the opposite card against the Davies era. He may not have intended it to be the opposite of the Mickey/Rose duo, but it certainly resulted that way. Rather than have Rory volunteer to "see what's out there" at the dismay of Amy, Whithouse and Moffat chose to have The Doctor invite Rory along on his travels as companion to Amy, to keep the two of them together and to permanently cut ties with any Doctor/Amy romance possibilities.

The show once again takes advantage of location shooting in Croatia, standing in here of course for 1580 Venice. This makes for a fantastic classic Who feel. By this time, it was impossible to not see the changes Moffat had made with the series, with "The Vampires Of Venice" being the sixth consecutive episode in the season to score no less than a 7 on the Whoscale.

This episode probably would have tied the previous one with a 9 if not for the CGI overload in the final ten minutes. Flumes of clouds come billowing out of the tower, filling the skies with ominous CGI overcast. The CGI used for the vampires in aquatic form was enough for me. Also, a technical oversight was the fact that the skies were covered in thick overcast, yet Amy was able to reflect a narrow beam of sunlight onto Francesco in alien form to destroy him.

The music was a bit more frequent in this one than some of the previous episodes, but there were times when it sounded much like a piece from Dudley Simpson, namely the scene where The Doctor enters the room and glances into a mirror.

Although I approved of Whithouse writing The Doctor as the hero of the hour and not one of his companions, the final scenes got a little ridiculous - The Doctor climbing the steep rooftop of the tower in the rain to open the steeple and flip a toggle switch.

There were a lot of nods to the original series in this one, some subtle, some obvious. An obvious one was The Doctor flashing his out of date library card, with a mug shot of the First Doctor on it. A more subtle one was how The Doctor befriends a Venetian local, Guido. As the episode progresses, Guido's home serves as a temporary meeting place for The Doctor, Amy, Rory and Guido to discuss further action. For some reason, the Fifth Doctor story "The Visitation" comes to mind. Perhaps it's the mention of plague in this episode.

There was some terrific dialogue in this episode, particularly from The Doctor.

It was also nice to be six episodes into the season and not having set foot in downtown London or Cardiff.

Most of the things I didn't like throughout the first 35 minutes were so insignificant and irrelevant that they don't really need mentioning. The main minus was the CGI-fest near the end. That aside, it was an extremely enjoyable episode, and for the most part felt like solid Doctor Who.

Doctor Who - "Flesh And Stone"

WHOSCALE: 9 out of 10

All I can say about this episode is "Wow!" Moffat once again delivers a magnificent story that fluently continues onward from where the previous episode left off. During the course of this second part, the pacing never feels like it's stepped up to force a resolution. Everything about this episode is rich with classic Who flavor, that it's practically one of the few times where I should have jotted down notes about good points, unlike what I'm accustom to doing - jotting notes of un-Who like moments.

Some of the things that I just wanted to applaud Moffat for in this one:

1) The interior of the Byzantium, with its minimalist design, similar to the Dalek ship in Gatiss' "Victory Of The Daleks."

2). The Doctor always at the forefront of the episode, constantly working not only to escape the trailing Weeping Angels, but to work out the implications of the bigger threat - the crack in Amy's bedroom wall that seems to follow them everywhere.

3) The sonic screwdriver gets a plausible use for once, used as a homing signal for Amy via her communicator.

4) Probably one of the most clever uses for a forest location shoot in a long time. An interior greenhouse aboard the Byzantium? Brilliant. When the hatch first opened, I couldn't help but be reminded of the Fourth Doctor story "Nightmare Of Eden."

5) The console design in the Byzantium was very reminiscent of the bulky, blocky consoles used in the original series, complete with toggle switches and round display screens.

6) Moffat thickens the plot to the likeness of molasses when Marco immediately "forgets" who Phillip and Crispin were after they ventured into the blinding light of the crack.

The Doctor was superb in this episode as well, most notably once he and River reached the forward control room, and he yells at her in a fit of frustration about the situation. Moffat also has a knack for leading us viewers to overlooking the obvious. When The Doctor surmises that a complicated time space event can close the crack temporarily, our immediate thoughts are either The Doctor or River Song, who are certainly both complicated events. The notion of the Weeping Angels never crossed my mind. Finally, The Doctor leads the way into the resolution of this story, by hinting to Amy and River that the drained Byzantium would lose its artificial gravity, thus causing the approaching Angels to "fall" into the crack behind them.

The music was once again ideal, subtle and sparingly used. The only exception being the scene when the Angels fall.

The farewell scene between The Doctor and River was done extremely well. No teary goodbyes, but more of a "until next time" attitude, which is quite true in their cases, since they both know from each others' pasts..err..futures... that they will see each other again....err...before this...umm...River apparently sees the Doctor BEFORE the events of the Byzantium when the Pandorica Opens, and she will see him AGAIN when she reaches The Library during the Tenth Doctor story, "Silence In The Library." Got it? Yeah, I know. Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey.

The only things at all I noticed that seemed unworthy of Whoscale points were the short scene of a teary-eyed Doctor face to face with a doomed Father Octavian, and of course the final scene in Amy's bedroom. However, I do have a different perspective on how Moffat handled that.

During the days of the Davies era, infatuation with the good Doctor was welcomed with open arms, if not encouraged. However, Moffat made it clear in interviews soon after he took of production that there would be no romance between The Doctor and his companion in Series 5/Season 31. In the final scene of this episode, Moffat makes it clear how he was going to handle that subject in this season. The Doctor quickly rejects Amy's advances, and soon swings our attention back to the date The Doctor discovered while scanning the crack on the Byzantium. This revealed that the date the cracks were created were the same day that Amy gets married.

Another masterpiece from Moffat, and thus far his vision for the show was knocking the past five years out of the park when it comes to solid Doctor Who.

Doctor Who - "The Time Of Angels"

WHOSCALE: 8.5 out of 10

Just as Davies wrote the first two parter for Series 1/Season 27, Steven Moffat penned the first for Series 5/Season 31. Most viewers were expecting something like this to happen after Moffat took over production - an episode involving the Weeping Angels and the return of River Song. I certainly expected this, but I never would have guessed that the two would be in the same story. Normally, when multiple major elements like this are crammed into a single story, it often causes the episode itself to suffer in terms of balancing participation from each of them. That certainly wasn't the case with this story. Moffat successfully wrote a story that included the mysterious River Song and the menacing Weeping Angels, without ever sacrificing a second of plot development.

There are several things about this episode's face value that immediately give it a good ranking on the Whoscale. Foremost being the title, which follows the tradition "The ___ of ____" format that was common place during the first four Doctors. Another thing that I applauded Moffat for was resisting the temptation to set up a subplot involving Song. Instead, he incorporates her into the story as a companion to The Doctor, and rather than devote an episode to soapy River/Doctor conversations, the episode continuously stays focused on the problem at hand.

We learn in this story that River Song can write and translate ancient Gallifreyan. I think for most of the fans, this prompted even more questions than it answered about her.

The same location that was used for Bad Wolf Bay is used again, but this time for another planet, which harks back to the days of the original series, where local quarries often stood in for alien worlds.

There was very little I could find that just turned me off while I was watching it. Perhaps the incidental music, but it was never close to being as bombastic as it was in "Doomsday." If I had to make an comparison, I would say it relatively equaled the use in the Ninth Doctor story "Aliens Of London"

There was so much that I liked about this one, that it probably will always be my favorite from this season. Moffat did a terrific job of side stepping issues that might have come across as being "ripped off" from other forms of science fiction, such as the teleportation of Father Octavian and his Clerics. Moffat also turned up the fright factor of the Angels about ten notches in this one also with decayed, disfigured statues joining the ranks.

The cliffhanger is spot on, pure bred Doctor Who. I recall seeing this one for the first time, and seeing the gravity globe exploding, then having to spend a whole week trying to work out what they could possibly do to get out the corner they were in, and what that exploding globe had to go with it. I was chomping at the bits.

It was refreshing to see The Doctor and River once again working together to piece together a puzzle.

Doctor Who - "Victory Of The Daleks"

WHOSCALE: 7 out of 10

Next up to bat was Mark Gatiss, who coincidentally also wrote the third episode of Davies' first season, "The Unquiet Dead." Gatiss has been known for contributing episodes to the series that were some of the few that could compete with the kind of Whoscale scores that Moffat often got.

By this time, a lot of fans - both new and old - were getting a bit tired of having to deal with Daleks every season. But Moffat placing this in the number three slot as a stand alone episode, with no additional Dalek related stories in the season was a move I felt to again gradually bring audiences out of the Dalek-infested Davies era and into...well, whatever Moffat had planned for us.

Right off the top, the episode scores points with the title. Gatiss stays true to Doctor Who heritage by following the "____ of the Daleks" format. The last Dalek story to follow this format was Helen Raynor's "Evolution Of The Daleks" back in Tennant's second season.

This episode has received quite a lot of negative criticism from fans since it was aired, and has even been occasionally ranked the worst episode of Series 5/Season 31. Being a diehard fan of both the original series and the new, as well as often viewing episodes from a classic Who point of view, I have to wholly disagree with them.

Gatiss harks back to the lost story "Power Of The Daleks" with the Second Doctor, where the Daleks were initially introduced has servants. However, Gatiss' story often felt like it should have been one of those six part serials, and as such was rushed. The pacing of the episode is relatively balanced for the first twenty minutes, but the revelation of the Daleks' true intention, the truth behind Bracewell's relevance to the Daleks all came together a bit quickly, which then set the stage for the next ten minutes of light speed action.

One thing I thought that was terrific was the simplicity of the the Dalek ship this go around. Instead of the CGI backdrop, fire and brimstone appearance, the walls, ceiling, and floor use very mute colors, with touches of tin here and there. It reminded me of the Kaled bunker from the Fourth Doctor story, "Genesis Of The Daleks." Likewise, Gatiss also incorporates three lone Daleks, instead of the Davies style invasion in the millions tactic. This format has and always will work wonders for Dalek and Cybermen stories, as long as the first half is relaying the fact piece by piece that the Daleks (or Cybermen) are in fact "up to something." The story can then slowly play out revealing what that something is, and then having The Doctor cleverly devise a way to out wit and out think them, instead of just pulling a magic lever.

Unfortunately, the final twenty minutes of this episode is where it starts to falter on the Whoscale. Once again we have to sit through a short sequence that looks remarkably similar to a young podracer prodigy from Tatooine destroying a Trade Federation ship. In the case of this episode, it's WWII Spitfires instead of Naboo Starfighters. Speaking of the Spitfires, that was perhaps the least believable part of the entire episode, and I place most the blame on the fact that an in depth Dalek story like this one just doesn't work when crammed into 45 minutes. You get ridiculous time discrepancies like the time it took Bracewell to outfit a squardron of Spitfires with gravity bubble technology and replace their outdated machine guns with laser cannons - about 45 seconds. After further examination, one has to wonder how a combustion engine aircraft is able to fly loop-de-loops and zig zags in free space, with no oxygen to combust, and no air passing over the wings. That's reading a bit deep into the technical side of the physics in that scene, but things like that wouldn't have been overlooked in the original series. In fact, a squadron of Spitfires wouldn't have been anywhere near a Dalek ship - The Doctor would have somehow deactivated the power source himself.

The episode gets even more disappointing when Amy once again steps in to save the day, over shadowing the lead character. This sort of thing was getting kind of ridiculous, also. Honestly, why bother to have The Doctor feel his way though an entire episode uncovering clues if his companion can resolve the whole darned thing with a Leadworth education?!

The final ten minutes devotes itself to being entirely heart wrenching and joyous, with a farewell by Churchhill and Bracewell, finally leading The Doctor and Amy back to the TARDIS, who then also pause just outside the doors to reflect on the events of the episode.

The music in the episode was almost a mirror image of the episode's Whoscale. It was often subtle and sparingly used in the opening twenty minutes, and then turned into a piece from John Williams during the Spitfire sequence. It then calms to an emotion invoking piece for the Bracewell bomb deactivation sequence.

Finally, I'll touch on the redesign of the Daleks. This was another item of great criticism after this episode aired. I remember the first time I saw them, and my first thought was "Power Ranger Daleks?" The new design grew on me a bit after I discovered that each color is symbolic, and that each Dalek color is representative of a particular rank or function. For example, the white Dalek is the Supreme Dalek and the blue one is the Scanner/Intelligence officer. I also immediately noted the change in the texture of their exteriors. While the Daleks are meant to be metal, the original series never went to far to hide the fact that they were just plastic. This in the end added to the charm of the series, and at the risk of insulting the production department of the new series, the new Daleks look plastic. To me, that's a good thing. It helps bring back the flavor of the bare bones simplistic style of the original series.

Doctor Who - "The Beast Below"

WHOSCALE: 8 out of 10

After seeing this episode and seeing the final scene leading into the next, it was apparent that one of the things Moffat was NOT changing this season was the format of the opening three episodes. Since the revival in 2005, the opener has been based on modern Earth, with the next two episodes being set in the future and in the past, in alternating order. The Tenth Doctor's opening season was the only exception, with "New Earth" being set in the distant future. However, that season marked the first Christmas special - "The Christmas Invasion" - which was set on modern day Earth.

The out right adversity between Davies' production style and Moffat's production style is once again very evident in this episode. The pacing of the story doesn't ever feel rushed, nor does it seem to just bog down. The story unfolds fluently, and in true Doctor Who style, devotes much of the first half to presenting elements of the story that spike our curiosity, and make us lean in a bit closer to our televisions, ensuring that we don't miss a beat. Moffat has always done well with establishing in depth, concise, plot-hole free mysteries in his Doctor Who episodes. "The Beast Below" is no exception.

The incidental music was much more subtle and more sparingly used in this episode, but I've always thought that Moffat intentionally used more in "The Eleventh Hour" to help transition less-informed viewers through the end of the Davies era into the Moffat era.

Before I get my readers to thinking I'm just kissing up to Moffat, let me point out a few things that contributed to minuses on this episode's Whoscale.

Probably the most bothersome scene was the semi-heart wrenching reflection scene at the end between The Doctor and Amy. The following scene is the two of them scampering off back to the TARDIS, so I felt that Hinchcliffe or JNT would just have omitted that short scene altogether, since it roughly just recapped what most of us had figured out five minutes earlier.

Another point of dislike for me was the fact that The Doctor's role as unsung hero takes a back seat at the climax, and once again it's up to his companion to step in and save the day. The possibility that the Star Whale willingly arrived to save the human race doesn't strike me as one The Doctor would overlook.

Speaking of companions, Moffat did well writing the part of Amy though. Her character shows many qualities in this episode that reflects qualities that original series companions possessed: bravery, initiative, compassion, intelligence, stability under pressure, and for once the companion isn't spelling out every scene so the fan girls will get what's going on. The Doctor's portrayed smart. Amy's portrayed smart, just not Time Lord smart.

That brings me to another plus in this episode - the dialogue. Moffat wrote some terrific one liners that tremendously reflected the quirky persona of the first eight Doctors.

One final plus was the Smilers and the Winders. Definitely the stuff of nightmares for the kids watching, and Moffat choosing to introduce such fantastically creepy villains in his second story proved that there wasn't going to be a "safety blanket" in any of his episodes like Davies had often done with the series to liven things up and to turn the scare factor down a few notches. It was looking like we were going to have the likes of "Blink" for a whole season.

Best classic style scene had to be the meeting between Liz 10 and The Doctor in the corridor. A terrific episode, and definitely spoke a lot about what we could expect from Moffat's vision of Doctor Who in the near future.

Doctor Who - "The Eleventh Hour"

WHOSCALE: 7.5 out of 10

This was perhaps the most anticipated episode for me since the revival of the series in 2005. It was a whole new start in so many ways, and I had been following production of the series closely. The internet was swamped with rumors of a new title sequence, a new version of the theme music, and one claiming that Moffat was planning to return Doctor Who to it's roots with Series 5/Season 31.

Since this episode opens the Steven Moffat era, I must point out in this review how quickly Moffat communicated the differences between the direction he was going, and what Davies had done the last five years. As always, I will also be reviewing this episode's approximation to classic Doctor Who, which will probably be the most difficult part from here on out for me - I'm partial to Moffat.

I'll begin by covering what I saw as a sign of things to come the first time watching this episode. The title theme had been revamped, but I was a little disappointed that (Murray) Gold had again chosen to orchestrate the majority of the theme. Also, the original bassline is all but completely drowned out by Gold's "chase" percussion. The main melody sounded good though, echoing back to the days of a synthesized theme.

Remember that "The Eleventh Hour" was to Moffat as "Rose" was to Russell T Davies. Both were their opening stories, and established the kind of show Doctor Who would be in future.

Ok, here are the comparions to show that Moffat intentionally wrote his opener to be a complete departure from what Davies wrote five years earlier:

SETTING: A recurring setting in the original series (probably due to budget constraints) was small, country side English villages. Virtually all of the Earth-based stories set in modern times during the RTD era were set in either metropolitan Cardiff or downtown London. This includes his series opener, "Rose." Moffat hits a home run by setting "The Eleventh Hour" in the small, rural village of Leadworth.

CHARACTER EMPHASIS: This is probably the most obvious opposite of the two openers. Davies titled his opener after the companion, whereas Moffat titled his after The Doctor. Moffat again wins on this level, because the show IS called Doctor Who, and as such revolves chiefly around the adventures of the lead character, The Doctor. Davies deliberately wrote his opener from the viewpoint of the companion, and as a result she frequently became the front runner of the show, over shadowing The Doctor. Although the emphasis on The Doctor in this episode doesn't equal that of the emphasis on Rose, the emphasis in this one IS generally balanced between The Doctor and Amy Pond, and is able to cover introducing Amy, the new Doctor, and the problem at hand quite evenly.

CLASSIC VILLAIN/NEW VILLAIN: This was one of the complaints voiced frequently by old fans about the new series. Davies opened with a very minor scrape with some Autons (which they were never even called), whereas Moffat chose to introduce us to a new villain, and a mystery to go with it. Prisoner Zero escaped into our dimension via a crack in Amy's wall. The crack is revealed to be a fissure in the fabric of space and time. Now, The Master was introduced on the backdrop of an Auton invasion in the Third Doctor's first story, "Spearhead from Space," but at that time, it was our first encounter with Autons. So once again, Moffat scores a 1-up against his predecessor.

DOMESTIC APPROACH: If you've read any of my previous reviews, you know what I'm talking about. Davies immediately introduced us to a wide range of companion family members to keep us coming back to Earth on a regular basis. It is my belief that Moffat saw this, and wanted to write a companion that had no ties here on modern Earth, leaving the field open for the duo to go anywhere, any when, for any length of time. Moffat established IMMEDIATELY in the opening scenes that Amy had no family except an Aunt, which was never even shown on screen. Ten minutes into "Rose," we had already had an unfortunate encounter with Jackie Tyler. With Moffat leaving out the domestic approach, he scores yet again.

THE DOCTOR'S COSTUME: Okay, look at all of the previous eight Doctors, and you will immediately notice that their costumes were all quirky, and seldom ever blended in with any time period he visited. Both Eccleston's and Tennant's Doctors were dressed in modern costumes, with Tennant at the forefront in his suit and tie. Moffat scores big again by returning The Doctor's curious sense of style - a tweed jacket, a button up shirt, braces, black rolled up trousers, black boots, and of course, the red bow tie. Bow ties are cool. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Moffat establishes here that this Doctor would not be eye candy for fan girls, but the lovable Doctor we could immediately connect with due to an item of clothing - a black suit, an oversized coat, velvet magician garb, a multi-colored scarf, celery and cricket, a quilt of a coat, and a question mark umbrella or in this case, a bow tie.

TARDIS APPEARANCE: Although I had no complaints about the appearance of the Davies era TARDIS, I definitely was pleased to see Moffat returning the design to the First Doctor style - white framed windows and the St. John's Ambulance sticker. The interior is much more fairy-tale looking though. I'm partial to the white walled Fourth Doctor console room. I did notice that the ceiling right above the console is the same disc pattern that the First Doctor's console had above it. I gave Moffat a few points for bringing back the old exterior, but it never was an issue for me, as I was just as pleased with the RTD outward appearance. So this one is a tie.

COMPANIONS: Granted, Moffat took a completely different approach to introducing The Doctor to Amy, but in the end, we ended up with more or less the same thing we had by the end of "Rose." A modern day female with a goofy, portrayed as idiotic boyfriend who stays behind. Now, I'm sure we can all agree that Amy is hands down less annoying than Rose, but I was hoping for an extra-terrestrial companion, such as a new Turlough, Romana, Adric, or Vicki. Or Jamie, for that matter. Why not pick one from history that we seem to frequently visit? No score here, Moffat.

CGI USE/VILLAIN SEVERITY: Davies was actually pretty sparing with CGI in his opener, just as Moffat was. At the risk of sounding like Davies actually out did Moffat, I think the Autons in "Rose" were more of a threat than Prisoner Zero was. The Autons were actually shooting people, whereas the most threatening Zero got was...well.....barking while standing still. Zero frequently reared his spiky teeth, but never actually used them. In fact, instead of just attacking Amy when she wandered into his room, Zero playfully stays out of her line of sight.

One thing I just have to mention: LENS FLARES!! What is so special about them that they have become a form of art in film?! There's a scene with The Doctor and Amy where slow motion reigns supreme, and with no visible source, a blue lens flare is cast across the screen during the slow motion sequence. Didn't like it then, and I never will in anything. All I can think about is how Abrams butchered Star Trek with them.

That about covers the comparisons between Moffat and Davies, as well as most of what I disliked about this episode. The Doctor saves the day instead his companion for once, which was also a plus. This episode felt more like Doctor Who than "Rose," so I was eager to see what was next.