The Pyramid at the End of the World written by Peter Harness & Steven Moffat and directed by Daniel Nettheim

This story in a nutshell: The Monks want the planet Earth but only if you give it to them out of love…

Indefinable: What is this obsession with making the Doctor the President of the World? If there was ever a time when that was necessary surely it would have been when he was exiled on Earth in the 70s and he stood as the planets protector without a means of escaping? It feels like such a comic book idea and far less impressive than it is probably meant to be. It’s the sort thing a five-year-old might come up with in a moment of excited madness. He might have proven himself to be loyal to the Earth but to give absolute power to one individual, especially one as emotional and reactionary as the Doctor seems really inadvisable. It strains credulity that the powers of the Earth would surrender control to an alien. Billy (my other half) made a rather sick joke about refusing to watch the series anymore now because the Doctor has been incapacitated – to the point where he left room at the beginning of this episode in a fit of pique when he realised the Doctor was still blind. I fell for it and he returned laughing his head off at me. I should have left with him, I think. It’s a bit cack-handed, this approach. I thought I was stuck in a time loop the amount of times the Doctor tried to tell Bill that he was blind and the way Nardole relays the information to him feels much less subtle this time around because Bill is listening. She must really be distracted not to realise. He’s really trying to take the mantle of Kathryn Janeway this season for blowing stuff up without good reason. Smile and Oxygen have already seen his finger hovering over the self-destruct button and to make up for the fact that he didn’t want to destroy anything last week he makes two attempts at devastation this week. When was the Doctor’s go to response to fire a missile? 

Groovy Chick: I was less thrilled about Bill’s love life making an appearance this week, simply because it has no impact on the plot whatsoever. What’s sad is that it is the one moment of true characterisation in the whole piece and it has nothing to do with the central plot. Replaying the same gag as last week elicited more a sigh than a laugh too. Would Bill really tell her date that the Doctor is an alien and catch her up to speed on the events of Extremis so faithfully? Actually, maybe she would, my boyfriend claims to be on good terms with a race of giant clams on his jaunts around time and space so I guess any amount of bizarre behaviour is possible. It’s certainly not something I would advise though. I like Bill a lot and I think Pearl Mackie is proving to be something of a revelation. She brings a sense of realness to the show that has been lacking for quite some time. So it irritates me that she written so stupidly at the climax. I don’t buy that anybody would make the decision that she does at the climax. Weighing up the fate of the entire human race over the life of the Doctor and opting for the latter. If you think about the implications of that for one second you’ll see that it is an insane bargain. I get that Bill figures that he will save the world ultimately but for that one moment she sold out the entire human race to give the Doctor back his sight. Please let’s not have this be her defining moment. Even the Doctor is appalled.

The Good:

· How nice for Doctor Who to feature a little person as a guest character. It really is a diverse show in how it showcases everybody these days. Boo hiss for failing to give her a role beyond ‘scientist.’ Erica features in about 15 minutes of this episode and I learnt exactly one thing about her. She wanted to be
· The visual of the pyramid is a striking one and the director has taken some sweeping Ariel photography of Tenerife to make this alien ziggurat as impressive as possible. During the first ten minutes, Pyramid feels genuinely epic. The music is phenomenal here too, listen the score as the Doctor approaches the Monks’ new home. Watching them bring down the plane and dumped a submarine in the middle of the desert was beautifully done too (although the Monks in the cockpit looked very funny at the controls). Turning people into dust isn’t a new idea but the visual effects make it look like a truly horrible way to die.

The Bad:

· How do the events of Extremis impact this story in any way? Why was it necessary? The Doctor had an early warning that the Monks were coming…but the whopping great pyramid would have soon alerted him to the fact anyway. Had the Monks staged a sudden attack then an early warning would have been a strategic advantage.
· This is the third episode on the trot that has begun with a voiceover. I realise it might make the story feel more important but please let next week’s just start on its own terms.
· The Doctor poses that the Monks could do powerful things with the knowledge they have gleamed from studying history back to the dawn of humanity. I certainly hope they get the chance to act on that knowledge because it isn’t followed up in Pyramid.
· I like the idea of the Monks hanging around and waiting for a cock-up on humanity’s part that might cause the end of the world and then stepping in and being held as our saviours. However, the way that cock-up is presented is so ham fisted it almost felt as if the script was talking down to its audience. It’s like it’s being pitched at a very young audience. Broken glasses, a scientist with a hangover, poor safety measures, a tumbler lock rather than a keypad…where Extremis felt as if it was subtly building to its big revelatory moment, Pyramid might as well have big arrows pointing at these things screaming DISASTER IMMINENT! The Monks themselves are an interesting prospect, but I’m not entirely sure that they are a particularly exciting one. I can see why the idea of a race of beings that don’t invade but wait until humanity is ready to let them take action as their Gods is an original one. But it means instead of lots of exciting scenes of the monster of the week attacking we get lots of hanging about and fondling of their timeline fronds in their spaceship. Hardly thrill a minute. So, I respect this on an intellectual level, whilst I’m being bored to tears. Because if there is one thing this episode needs it is more action.
· The last time Peter Harness took a stab at international politics he reduced the fate of the world to two big boxes with shiny red buttons. That’s probably not very fair, one of the reasons that the Zygon two parter was one of my favourites of that year was because it dared to dabble with politics and social commentary. Even if it didn’t have the nuts to take any of it into grey areas or to push that commentary in a way that held a mirror up to our uglier characteristics. Neutered as it was, it proved that Doctor Who could, with a little more bravery, have something vital to say. Pyramid on the other hand, lacks any intellect when it comes to its politics. This us the Ladybird book of government where three of the super powers are represented by their military leaders, ill-defined and characterised (as in they have no character whatsoever) and ready to make a deal to hand over the world at the slightest provocation. It’s appallingly simplistic and how the Doctor simply collects them up and brings them together, without argument or differences, feels for once that Doctor Who is completely mis-representing the political climate. It’s so juvenile. I would rather Doctor Who’s usual representatives in this kind of negotiation were involved (Kate Stewart and Osgood) because at least it would have been nice to see them. Possibly we should feel something as the military leaders are turned into dust…I was just pleased that this retarded attempt at politics was over. The scenes where they are discussing the future of the Earth with the Doctor are painful, I couldn’t buy into the characters at all.
· Did anybody wonder if the Monks might have been lying? That they had just created their vision of the Earth’s future to get the powers on Earth to capitulate?
· The Doctor and Nardole walk out of the TARDIS into a bio-hazard area without protection? Come on.
· I can’t think of a Doctor Who story that hasn’t used a standard keypad as a door mechanism in years. However, the Doctor is blind and would be able to work his way around a key pad (three rows of three) and so just this week we’re faced with a tumbler locking mechanism. And thus the danger of the climax he faces makes sense. Go figure. It’s all so contrived…and all so Bill can make the stupidest decision in companion history.

Result: A bit of a struggle, actually. This is a largely empty affair that feels once again like set up for the main event rather than the meat in a three-part sandwich. The Pyramid at the End of the World sacrifices its characters to the plot, a typical trait in this period of the show. There are a wealth of guest characters in this story but I at no point felt as if I got to know them, they are simply functions of a glacial plot. I’m not sure what to think of the Monks. On the one hand it is novel to have a different kind of invasion story, one where they will only invade once humanity has given its consent. However it doesn’t make them the most exciting of monsters, fondling their tendrils and hanging about waiting for a duff move to be made on humanity’s part. And they’ve featured in two episodes now and feel as I know absolutely nothing about them, their motives or their history. The first ten minutes feel fresh and interesting, the idea of the 5000-year-old pyramid that appears overnight is striking but I expected the initial talk to give way to some action that never comes. It doesn’t help that things are boiled down to their most simplistic level with both the disaster that will bring the world to its knees being insultingly signposted and the bringing together of the military leaders failing to work on any plausible level. This is The Sound of Drums. It’s The Day of the Doctor. It’s Heaven Sent. It’s the middle of a three-part Doctor Who epic and yet it feels so conversational and paceless. The Pyramid at the End of the World is trying to do something different, which should be applauded. However, within it’s intriguing premise it is plodding and childish and the talk there is lacks punch. Let’s hope that Bill’s ridiculous decision shifts things into a more engaging gear. A few extra points for some powerful visuals: 5/10

Extremis written by Steven Moffat and directed by Daniel Nettheim

This story in a nutshell: Who would have ever thought that The Android Invasion would be the inspiration for a story many decades later? 

Indefinable: There was a rumour that the Doctor was enjoying domestic bliss on Darilium. Or at least that was the gossip amongst the Daleks. I didn’t believe for a second that the Doctor would pull that lever and kill Missy…or that Steven Moffat would write her out so casually. His specs that give him partial sight are a neat visual and nice way to excuse the ‘Dr Disco’ shades making another appearance. He’s never going to be cool, Moffat, face it. This is another fantastic story for the Doctor, Bill and Nardole with the three of them making an effective investigative team. Moffat takes time to have them all engaging in scenes together but breaks them down into twosomes (I think the Bill & Nardole scenes were my favourites) and all of the combinations work really well. I think we are in good shape for the rest of the season as far as the regulars are concerned. The idea of the Doctor stealing abilities from his future self to cure his disability for a while doesn’t sit well with me. Just what would the Kris Marshall Doctor have to say about that (hehe). Good thing it was all an illusion then. The whole notion of borrowing from your future is implausible. Gasp in the scenes where the Doctor looks like he is going to go the same way as the President in the sheer impossible nature of his situation. And then revel in his victorious actions despite all the odds of the nature of the universe around him because no matter how he was created he is still the Doctor. It’s a glorious victory. 

Groovy Chick: Glorious, Doctor Who includes scenes of the female companion bringing home another girl and makes very sweet, very tentative and ultimately very funny. Look how far we have come. Big Finish Productions introduced a gay male companion into the first Doctor’s life for a trilogy of stories as a ‘wouldn’t it be nice’ idea that would never happen at the time. Nowadays the show doesn’t batter an eyelid at being so bold. And Bill, so awkward in love, just feels so real. Both Bill and Nardole trust the Doctor enough to head into danger on his behest, but are still wary enough to doubt whether it is a good idea. Pearl Mackie’s performance when Bill comes to terms with the reality of her situation is quite extraordinary. It is quite an ask of an actress to play a person who realises that they aren’t real and instead of going down the obvious route of being angry she plays it very quietly. It is unnerving acceptance of a nightmare. 

Faithful Sidekick: When did Nardole become such a vital part of the show’s success? His appearance in Husbands was far too slapstick for my tastes but with each subsequent appearance he has been wearing me down. It’s almost as though the showrunner knew how resistant people would be with a ‘comedy performer’ (I hate that term but even I have to face the fact that Lucas is mostly known for making people laugh) taking a dominant role and so has worked overtime to give him a tasty role in the series. In Extremis he is the Doctor’s eyes and ears, by his side and spelling out as subtly as he can what is in front of him. Lucas plays these scenes with real charm and I laughed a lot. Watch Lucas as he effortlessly bounces from righteous importance with Bill to sassy friend in a heartbeat, in one of his best scenes yet he bares his teeth and proves that he will protect her no matter what she says. 

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘They read the Veritas and chose Hell.’
‘Those pretend people you shoot at in computer games. Now you know. They think they’re real. They feel it.’

The Good:

· The opening scenes with Missy that we keep cutting back to throughout the episode are indicative of the story as a whole, initially frustrating because you cannot tell how they are relevant but ultimately rewarding once the piece has played out. It’s lovely to see Michelle Gomez back and we had better lap her up given her imminent retirement from the series. How they fit into the Extremis plot is baffling purely because they aren’t supposed to. These are the only ‘real’ scenes in the entire episode and the only ones that are truly relevant. I like how they fill in the blanks too, showing us how Nardole became the Doctor’s associate after Husbands and explaining who has been hiding in the vault all season. They might play out in an irreverent fashion but these scenes are actually extremely important if you want to understand series 10 as a narrative. There’s no explanation as to how Missy escaped her fate in The Witches Familiar so let’s chalk it down to another ‘I’m indestructible the whole universe knows that!’ explanation.
· I love stories that slot into place with the advent of a massive twist. Bruce Willis has been dead the entire film. Kevin Spacey is the titular villain. Everybody in the motel is a different aspect of a psychotics personality. Twists which take a struggling narrative and snap everything into sharp focus and suddenly everything makes sense. It really isn’t the style of Doctor Who to play with these kinds of shock plot hinges and it is one of the reasons that Extremis stands out so vividly. Even the twists like River being Amy’s daughter and Amy being the Flesh didn’t have this kind of impact. One was obvious and the other had barely been hinted at (whilst both were performed and written exquisitely). Extremis is a proper Doctor Who mini movie with a terrific sting in its tale. If you find the surprise dulls the episode for you (because it basically leaves the episode as a non-entity) then I wouldn’t blame you, but as a chance to do something completely different and pull it off with such style I really applaud Steven Moffat for having a go. I especially love the way the titles judders through static into the main bulk of the episode to make the link that this is a simulation. Very nicely done. What’s clever is how Moffat plays around with expectation. There are enough clues for you to suspect that the Doctor, Bill and Nardole are in some kind of mock-up environment but the real kick in the gut is when you realise that they themselves aren’t real. My boyfriend suspected the former and said so but had no idea about the latter. How this then loops back to the start of the episode to the (real) Doctor receiving the data and making sense of the pre-credits, is sublime. For once timey winey pays off in spades.
· The Pope visits the Doctor on campus. Let me say that again just so you can take it in. The Pope takes a trip from the Vatican to England to visit the Doctor and give him a mission. Either Moffat has gone completely insane (no, actually that was Terrance Dicks when he had the Doctor on a mission for Margaret Thatcher) or he’s pushes the shows boundaries to their limits. The Catholic Church is respectfully presented (I dread to think how Davies would have handled this) and I really appreciated the moment where the Doctor is offered the chance to absolve his sins. The idea of the Veritas, a document that people have read all around the world and it has driven them to suicide, is like something from a movie starring Tom Hanks and written by Dan Brown. I think that is the tone Moffat was aiming for and it is certainly an impressive hook.
· The Pope interrupting Bill’s date is simply the funniest gag to have stepped out of the Moffat era. I just couldn’t stop. It’s outrageously funny and utterly implausible they get away with it too because none of it was ever real. Bill’s reaction is a scream (‘I am about to have a truly awesome word with someone…’).

· We’ve come to take the production values on this show for granted in recent years. I think since the advent of The Day of the Doctor and its cinematic visuals, I have found that the show has been catching up with, if not matching its American counterparts. But I have to say something about the sheer visual splendour of Extremis which juggles countless locations as though the show has a budget ten times its size. The Monks are suitably grotesque, promising much for the next episode.
· There is a palpable sense of tension in the scenes at SERN from the second Bill and Nardole meet the anxious scientist. The sudden reveal of the explosives made me draw breath and the numbers game left me truly perplexed and intrigued at the same time. The twist is around the corner but at this point I was truly baffled but it was all so brilliantly directed and performed I just went with it. Re-watching has made me appreciate these scenes all the more. · Nobody has had the gall to write a Doctor Who story where the Doctor and his companions are not real before and hats off to Steven Moffat for giving it such an engaging spin. The reason he gets away with it is because they believe they are real (and why wouldn’t they?) and so we go along on the ride like your everyday Doctor Who episode until it is revealed otherwise. I got chills when Nardole stepped out of the projection. Partly because it is so chillingly directed and partly because my brain started playing out so much of the rest of the episode with this fresh information and it all started to make sense. It makes perfect sense of the Veritas and the suicidal actions at SERN too…if you found out you weren’t real but the product of an alien civilisation to practice an invasion of Earth wouldn’t you think about ending it all too? It looks like the Monks have been watching The Android Invasion for inspiration of how to conquer the Earth. I never thought I would write that sentence. It’s not a wholly original idea then, but handled far more dramatically here.
· Just to justify my clever clever remarks about Steven Moffat’s writing over the past six season (in particular during the Matt Smith era). This is a genuinely clever piece of writing. It has been crafted intricately. It leads to climactic moment that is earned. If this had been the level of sophistication in the plotting during the Eleventh Doctor’s era as opposed to stories that kept celebrating in a very self-satisfied way that they are clever just by hopping about in a non-linear fashion then I would have been a very happy bunny indeed. The difference between a genuinely clever story and a clever clever story (that’s a story that thinks it’s smart) is that one earns its big moments by paying off everything else around it and the other just keeps throwing random surprises at you and hoping you will relent and declare it shrewd. Extremis is the sort of episode Moffat wrote under Russell T Davies and completely lacked the ability to write in his first three years as showrunner.

Result: ‘I’m calling the Doctor…’ One of Steven Moffat’s tightest scripts, that pretends it is a scattering of ideas and random scenes for its first half and that coalesces beautifully around its big twist. I was frustrated, then I was shocked, then I was impressed and now after subsequent re-watches I’m ready to declare this one of the strongest of the season to date. How the clues are staggered throughout the episode (the static in the titles, the absurdity of the Pope visiting the Doctor, the nature of the Veritas and its suicidal effect of people, the first window of light in the vault, the apparently random skip to the Pentagon and SERN, the room of projections, the zombie Monks…) is expertly done with each step taking us closer to the truth. It’s an episode the rewards subsequent viewings in that respect. But along the way there are great lines, an intriguing plot, some real belly laughs, further examination of the Doctor’s blindness, some gorgeous moments between Bill and Nardole and terrific production values. It is the last ten minutes that astounded me; Nardole confronting the truth of reality, Bill struggling to come to terms with her situation and the Doctor proving that he is the hero no matter how he has been constructed. These are some of the most shocking, disquieting and triumphant scenes since Moffat returned to the show. If the series had been this on form for the past six seasons I would be hailing it the Golden Age of Doctor Who. Is this really the same writer who gave us The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe and Time of the Doctor? Astonishing. The icing on the cake is the return of Missy and the knowledge that she has been in the vault all this time, hardly a surprise but it means that we can finally move on with the arc plot as well. Moffat couldn’t be cheekier…fandom has often accused him (rightly or wrongly) of taking liberties with the series and now he has written a script where he is able to get away with any damn thing he wants. And instead of taking the piss to give the game away, he writes the regulars and the episode at large as efficiently as possible to disguise his twist. As a prelude for the next episode, I couldn’t be more excited. Bring on the Monks!: 9/10

Absent Friends written by John Dorney and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: Earth. The late 20th century. Across the world, the mobile phone is gaining popularity as more and more people decide to join the digital age. But for the residents of a sleepy English town sitting in the shade of a new transmission mast, that ubiquity has a troubling cost. When the TARDIS veers off-course, the Doctor and his companions find themselves in the middle of a mystery. Sometimes the past comes back to haunt you. And sometimes the future does as well.

Physician, Heal Thyself: The Doctor is willing to give the TARDIS a complete overhaul but that means jettisoning his companions for a day. He goes straight for the more obvious examples of an alien presence such as strange lights in the sky and completely ignores the less fancy notion of troublesome telephone calls. The Doctor and Liv are so in sync with each other these days that I’m not entirely sure where one begins and the other ends. She’s not the most effervescent of companions for him but she does ground him a lot and the trust that they have in each other is palpable. Nothing he expect to be wrong is wrong today, which is very disconcerting. Liv is angry that the Doctor made her take the call from her dad, suggesting that he just doesn’t understand people and what they go through in his adventures. His response, that he will never understand if nobody explains it to him, is perfect. Isn’t it wonderful how the Doctor is so used to dealing with madmen with grand schemes that he automatically thinks that is going to be the case…and yet in this story things are genuinely as innocent as they seem.

Liv Chenka: Live getting the chance to speak to her dead father really shocked me because it was the point where the story makes it clear that this isn’t people who are pretending to be the dead loved ones but it is actually them. That was even more unnerving. The story doesn’t resort to screaming and shouting but one last, gentle moment between Liv and somebody she loved a great deal. It’s almost painful in its lack of melodrama. Liv was out working when her father died and she’s bitter because he was misdiagnosed. She could have done that properly and saved him. She could at least have been there with him when he died. It’s a huge regret in her life. She gets the chance to tell him that she loves him in a heart-breaking moment.

Helen Sinclair: The differences between Liv and Helen continue to stack up. Helen is delighted to be back in England but Liv states, quite bluntly, that it isn’t her world. I should have realised that something was going to be amiss when Helen disquietingly reacts to the fact that it is 35 years after her time. This isn’t the future, it’s her future. The people she knows will still be alive. The dangers of going to see her family and how they turned out 35 years after she left them are manifest. Imagine returning home after a trip in the TARDIS to discover that your very disappearance ruined the lives of those you left behind? Imagine this being the future when you discover all of this and you cannot go back and make amends because those events are now fixed in time? Poor Helen, what a devastating responsibility to have to face. When facing her brother in the future, Helen has to face up to the fact that she appeared to be guilty of her crime by the very fact that she ran away. Not a letter, not a phone call after she left…the feeling is that Helen was a criminal and she didn’t care one jot about her family or their reputation. After Helen left the family name was not exactly a desired commodity. Her brother asks the very awkward question that if she is Helen’s daughter then why hasn’t she looked up the rest of the family? To which there isn’t really an adequate answer.

Standout Performance: All three regulars are exceptional, but Nicola Walker gets her best ever moment when she screams at her father to get the medical attention he so badly needs. After she has hung up on him.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The 21st Century is just around the corner…and everybody has to be ready’ – a nice, sly dig at Torchwood there.

Great Ideas: To sweeten the deal of putting in an ugly new telephone mast in town, everybody is being given a spanking new, state of the art mobile phone. But with that comes a price…the dead long buried and burnt alive are calling and haunting those who have been gifted. Such a simple, but chilling idea. It’s not that the episode tries to dazzle with its emotional content, it simply presents various well played characters with the disturbing situation of having to take a call from a deceased loved one. A mother from her son. A man from his gay lover. Liv from her father. It’s all so dexterously handled and it is all the more effective because of it. You never forget losing a loved one and the idea that somebody is using that loss as some kind of weapon is horrific. The New Adventure Nightshade had a similar unsettling effect, for the same reason. The assertion that self-interest outweighs conviction is an interesting one that could be debated for a long time. From my experience of people, this is a true statement. The dead are phoning from when they were alive, somehow it is all true. A clock, attached to the workings of the mast, that is allowing people from the past to interact with those from the present. The only hint of a connection to the larger arc, but an intriguing one.

Audio Landscape: Babble of conversation, clapping, cheering, birdsong, Big Ben, traffic.

Musical Cues: A subtle score, most unlike anything I have heard in a Big Finish for a while. You cannot stamp all over a gentle character tale like this with bombast and the gentle music that plays enhanced the emotions I was always feeling. It’s much more effective because of it.

Standout Scene: The moment the phone rings and Liv realises she has the chance to save her father. My heart was in my throat.

Result: Unnerving, emotional and effective, this is a perfect character tale that enhances Helen Sinclair and Liv Chenka exponentially. I have one major problem with Absent Friends and that it is that it has very little to do with the Doom Coalition arc that it takes place alongside. Since this is one of the best stories yet, that is a bit of a problem with the overarching narrative but it is not a problem for Absent Friends, which stands proud and alone. The first two thirds are almost overly simplistic in plot terms and we actually don’t learn an incredible amount more than is revealed in the pre-titles sequence. But it is packed to the gills with useful character development for Helen and re-affirmation at just how effective the Doctor/Liv partnership is. The last 20 minutes is where all the gold lies though, a triple whammy of emotional scenes for each of the regulars. Helen facing her brothers anger is the most obvious but still the rawest scene, Liv’s phone call comes right out of the blue and winded me and the Doctor facing up to his voice from the past is kept agonisingly secret until the very last second of the story. In the plot dense period of Dark Eyes and Doom Coalition, character development can be pushed to the side-lines but Absent Friends makes up for that in spades and shows just how rounded these regulars are. More than that it is an audio that doesn’t use any cheap tricks to get you close to its characters and impresses due to its delicacy. Appropriately, Paul McGann, Nicola Walker and Hattie Morahan give their most effective performances to date too. Absent Friends wont present you with dazzling science fiction but it will creep inside you and make you feel. Who ever knew that a ringing phone could be so terrifying: 10/10

Cortex Fire written by Ian Potter and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: The Doctor brings Flip to the futuristic city of Festin, the best vantage point to witness a unique astronomical light show. In a city governed by the all-powerful network known as the Cortex, they’re soon identified as outsiders – nihilists, perhaps, responsible for a wave of terror that’s been sweeping the city… But the truth is different. The people of Festin are burning up. Spontaneously combusting. And no-one knows why.

Softer Six: The TARDIS is a ship of immense power, a delicacy and she has to be coaxed into normal space time by a pilot of enormous skill. The Doctor has bought Flip here to see a show. He’s still dazzling her with the wonders of the universe. The Doctor has seen this kind of light show before…but never through Flip’s eyes before. It’s nice to hear him admitting that this is a reason that he travels with a companion. Déjà vu is a strange feeling to have when you have vu’ed as much as the Doctor has. Where he comes from he is considered positively Plebeian. The Doctor is such a menace on the roads that he has to be restrained by his own air car, the air bags being used to hold and incapacitate him. Pertwee’s Doctor would have respected the road, Colin’s just tears from roadway to roadway maniacally. Sixie is never more effective than when he gets to unleash moral outrage and an extra dimensional force that has raised and is willing to destroy an entire civilisation as a bridge to get home is just the sort of abhorrent force he can rail against. I like that he tries to reason with them before bringing them down. This is a Doctor who will give you a chance before he bludgeons you with a pipe. He can’t punish the Urge by killing it, that would take the destruction of a whole world.

Flippin’ Heck: Another confident showing for Flip, with Greenwood effortlessly established in the role by now. She has the advantage of youth, so why does she complain so much about the physical aspects of their adventures. She’s not great with musicals either. Is she good at sweet talking aliens? She must be, she travels with the Doctor after all. She’s met people from other worlds before and she forgets what it must be like for other people meeting her. Flip is particularly adept during stressful moments, thinking quickly and acting even quicker. She frees the Doctor from incarceration in the least subtle way imaginable, but it’s very effective all the same. She’s making a habit of rescuing people these days. Flip doesn’t need grand operas and star destroying light shows, Punch and Judy and a bag of chips will do her. I like that she can bring the Doctor down to Earth like that. Flip questions her own impulsiveness, wondering if the Urge is something that is in everybody or whether it is just a local phenomenon.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Let’s just hope the Festin unconscious isn’t like your mum.’
‘This whole civilisation exists simply for you to annihilate it!’
‘Destruction is what you crave…and for that you deserve to live.’

Great Ideas: You almost have to admire the gall of audio Doctor Who adventures that stress impressive visuals as the centre of attraction on a planet when we will never get to see what they are talking about. However, there is nothing so limitless as the imagination and I can certainly conjure up a dazzling effect given the writers description of the light shows on this planet. The cars on Festin are levitated electromagnetically since Festin has an exceptionally strong electromagnetic field which the locals have exploited. The skies of Festin are a constantly shifting lattice of projected energy roadways. The magnetic field causes glorious light shows where charged particles enter the upper atmosphere, a lot like the Northern Lights. And it is this light show that the Doctor has bought Flip to see, a display that brings alive an unforgettable opera. Light days are a sub division of light years. The closest star exploded one and a half days ago but it can still be seen intact because the light from it exploding hasn’t arrived yet. As the Doctor and Flip sit in the arena, energy from it’s death will bombard the ionosphere and cause a spectacular light show with a suitable tragic edge, the perfect staging for an opera. Gay characters in a 1980s story is something that would have been absolutely forbidden but it’s nice to see that being addressed in the audios, especially when it is done as subtly as it is here. The Cortex is the city admin net, it assigns employment, plans airways paths, enforces law… Are the people being nudged along pre-determined tracks, just as the cars are being directed along airways? Why would the Cortex be building roadways in the atmosphere where the destructive light of a dying star could reach them? A whole society that has been kept deliberately on edge for some time. The Nihilists are the ones who simply cannot cope with it. Time Lord books reach into dimensions that normal books cannot. The people of Festin have turned something that once helped their people survive into something that now threatens their existence. The Urge is from another dimension, anchored in this space and wrapped in matter and serial time, woven into every creature that exists here. It’s only a slither of themselves. They wish to enter their own realm again and the organisation of Festin’s destruction is to help achieve that. The space programme’s function was to take rockets to Fetonus and destroy it. The whole planet, it’s roadways, it’s people, have been engineered to create a way home for the Urge. A planet sized neural network.

Audio Landscape: Air cars tearing through the sky, screaming, sirens, a raging explosion, car horns, running water, water and electricity mixing, causing sparks, a collapsing tower, police robot, heart monitor, cell door hissing open, rewinding a tape, madness on the roadways.

Musical Cues: Like Vortex Ice, the music has a refreshingly melodramatic 80s feel to it. This time it is like plastic wallpaper, not unpleasant to listen to but persistent during the action scenes and dragging the story to a sprint at times.

Standout Scene: Self-sacrifice runs deep in this culture, and a scene that features suicide of one character to try and control the urge to hurt others is very effective. I’m not sure this sort of thing would have ever passed the censors on television.

Result: Some impressive high concept world building, conjured up at real speed. The Doctor and Flip are dropped into a deadly situation that is already in full swing and are forced to keep up with the local developments. Cortex Fire covers a lot of ground and moves at an incredible rate, quite the opposite of your standard main range adventure. I might run the risk of contradicting myself and say that this needed the length of a full length four parter to justify and explore the ideas that are presented here but I was certainly engaged by the rate at which new ideas kept coming. Ian Potter lays out all the ingredients in the first episode (the destruction of a nearby star, the nihilists, the destructive capability of the people, the Cortex) but without the explanation of how each element segues together it feels heavy with concepts. The second episode strikingly weaves everything into an epic masterplan, even ideas that feel superfluous contributing to an impressively arresting scheme. Whilst there have been monsters from other dimensions before, the Urge is presented in an original way with a way of thinking that simply does not recognise humanoid life as anything other than disposable tools. The Doctor and Flip continue to shine together with more moments of the pair of them trying to see the universe through each other’s eyes. Pairing this story with Vortex Ice is effective in that regard, they’ve each been given an insight into the others way of thinking across the pair of tales. I would like to hear more from Ian Potter in this range, he clearly has a fertile imagination and Cortex Fire bursts with inventiveness: 8/10

Damaged Goods written by Russel T Davies and Jonathan Morris and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: The year is 1987 and there’s a deadly new narcotic on the streets of London. As part of their investigations the Doctor and his companions Chris and Roz move into the Quadrant, a rundown housing estate. An ancient alien menace has been unleashed, a menace somehow linked to a local gang leader known as The Capper, a charmed young boy called Gabriel and his mother Winnie, the enigmatic Frei Foundation, and Eva Jericho, a woman driven to the brink of madness. As London descends into an apocalyptic nightmare, the Doctor must uncover the truth about the residents of the Quadrant and a desperate bargain made one dark Christmas Eve.

Master Manipulator: It says something about how relevant the Doctor was in his own series of novel adventures that it takes him ten minutes to turn up in this audio. The New Adventures were as interested as telling stories that featured the Doctor heavily or not and at times he could feel like a cameo in a Doctor Who range. However, as soon as the Doctor does appear in Damaged Goods (the audio), he is a major player and this the one adjustment that has been made that really stands out above the rest. He’s so much more likeable in this version, so much more dominant and Doctorish. In the original he walked about like a despairing ancient Time Lord, at a loss at how to handle the despair that filled his adventures these days. In the audio he feels much more in control, much more ready to engage with people and whilst melancholic in places, he feels like a keen observer of human behaviour and that he is there to help these people as much as he can. It’s a huge shift, and a very welcome one. As a result of his excellent characterisation, Sylvester McCoy gives a terrific performance, one of his very best as the Doctor. I would recommend this adventure just for a chance to hear McCoy’s Doctor at his powerful, dominating and yet heart-warming best. The image of the Doctor as a ghostly figure emerging from the shadows on a dark night being observed by a terrified child is a potent one. The Doctor has so many bad memories that if he started to cry he could flood the world. The Doctor was often making way for himself in advance in this period of his life and the lovely mention of a pools win for the family that lived in the flat that would allow him to do his work in the Quadrant made me smile. All these years and it still feels like he is starting from scratch every time. The Doctor admits he might not be at his best in a domestic setting like this (ultimately he is wrong) and that’s why he needs his companions to inveigle themselves into the lives of those on the Quadrant. My strongest objection to the novel was that the Doctor’s companions are treated more like his work associates than his friends…but here Morris smooths over that problem by allowing the Doctor a moment to explain why he needs his companions to head out and get close to people. Wherever he goes in the universe he has a habit of getting straight to the centre of power…and this place simply doesn’t have one. The Doctor embarrasses himself horribly when he says ‘wicked’ to a teenager, swearing that that was all the rage in 1987 (I nearly spat out my coffee at that one). His life used to be a lot simpler. Questions would be asked and he would be there with all the answers. Happy days, but dead and gone now. He misses the carefree life when he used to knock up gizmos from bits of this and that. The moment when the Doctor states that Mrs Tyler’s tragedy is an entirely human one and that he doesn’t have time for such things I saw a glimpse of that ruthless NA Doctor emerging. He condemns her, not outright but be refusing to comfort her. The Doctor is effectively useless when it comes to human understanding but is in his element when facing up to the N-Form. Bamboozling a piece of Gallifreyan war art, piece of cake. Comforting a grief-stricken woman, he wouldn’t have a clue. But at the climax he has to do both.

Ruthless Adjudicator: Yasmin Bannerman gives a perfectly fine performance…but she just isn’t Roz. The Roz I know is aggressive, unreasonable…a bit like Alfie Woodard from First Contact (that’s how I have always envisioned her). Bannerman plays the part earnestly, like a Doctor Who companion. I don’t get the impression she is a hardened Adjudicator. Frankly, she’s too nice.

Puppy Dog Eyes: In Travis Oliviers hands, Chris is much less the droopy eyed puppy that he could sometimes come across as in the books and is far more professional and able. He’s seen in this story mostly through the eyes of David Daniels, a gay guy who wants nothing more than to get inside his pants. God bless him for suggesting that maybe for once everything will be simple and they will have it sown up in a night. Simple? Doesn’t he know this is a New Adventure adaptation? David mistakes his misunderstanding over talk of their sexualities for Chris being innocent and new in town. I loved how Chris simply told David to ask him to snog him. That it is that simple. It sounds like he was going to too. 

Best Guest Cast: ‘The night I sold my child…’ It’s an astonishing cast of characters, whether you’re reading the book or listening to the audio. For the most part they are confined to one setting: the Quadrant and it is a literal interpretation of you don’t know what is going on behind closed doors. Well now we get to get up close and personal and find out exactly what and the truth is the truth of humanity: there is happiness, pain, loss, despair, sex, love and everything that comes in between. The story makes the observation that just because the people in the Quadrant don’t have much money it doesn’t make them bad people. There is sometimes a terrible injustice that befalls the lower classes on Council Estates. Davies would go on to prove his point with more alacrity when Rose Tyler leaps from an Estate to the TARDIS and prove such a delightful companion that the Doctor falls in love with her. I love the idea of the Doctor and his companions moving in to the Quadrant as a very dysfunctional family, simply there to help the inhabitants. In the novel it felt like they were there just to stop the N-Form and that the people they came across were just in their way. In the audio, it feels like they genuinely care and that they are there to make a difference to people’s lives. It really helps to sell the idea as a Doctor Who story. Populated within the Quadrant are Winnie Tyler (Davies does love that surname), a single mum who has struggled to put food on the table of her children and once made a terrible deal on a dark night to try and provide the best possible life for her two children (ahem). Gabriel, her son, goes through life looking very attractive to people because he is affected by a glamour, which allows those who perceive him to see something of themselves reflected back at them. 

Standout Performance: It is a story packed full of memorable performances, Denise Black stood out for me as the finest. She has performed in all sorts of Russell T. Davies series (most memorably in Queer as Folk) so this seem a very apt casting choice. The madness of Eva Jericho is a difficult part to play without going insanely over the top and Black resists, feigning a polite insistence that her horrific acts are reasonable. That’s much scarier. 

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘The Capper is dead…long live the Capper.’ 

‘The world’s more full of weeping than you could understand’ – that’s a line weighed down with so much heart-breaking subtext.
‘I’ve wasted my life sitting at that boys bedside unaware that a perfectly good replacement was on the rack.’
‘I’m not saving the world over the phone!’
‘What would any mother do? Any real mother!’

Great Ideas: Smile is an illicit substance that has found its way to Earth and whenever one of the inhabitants comes in contact with it death is never far behind. It kills people in a remarkably violent and inelegant manner. The Capper is a genuinely ghoulish and fearsome monster, quite unlike anything else that has featured in a Big Finish audio. A resurrected drug dealer, touched by sophisticated weapons technology and featuring the worst aspects of humanity and Time Lord society. He’s astonishingly powerful, but crude and violent with it. He’s quite simply terrifying and the performance and direction work in unison to make him so. Those people who are capable of casting a glamour are low level psychics. Why would the Capper being selling Smile at such a ridiculously low price? Unless he wanted the drug to spread as far and as wide as possible, so everybody has had a taste. Tribophysics (mentioned in Pyramids of Mars) is an ancient art dating back to the time of legend, a means of slipping between dimensions, which is very convenient when your home world is under attack. The time of legend might as well be named the time of war, and not just for Gallifrey. There were countless civilisations forging their way through the stars, all too many of them with a taste for conquest. The technology that has fallen to Earth might be a product of any one of those races and the Doctor thinks it is being carried in the Smile. The ideas have been altered ever so slightly but the emphasis is very much the same. This was one of the major strengths of the novel lines, the New Adventures (and by extension the 8DAs) in particular, they played about with huge, mind blowing notions and had the time to explore them in some depth. These books took the science fiction that Doctor Who could handle to another level. At their best, it was a level of sophistication that the series could only hope to aspire to and could rarely reach (simply because the shows purpose is to entertain). Steven and Gabriel are part of a telepathic gestalt, and one boy would always be stronger and their separation has made Steven even weaker, close to death. They need to keep the Tylers and the Jerichos apart because if the two boys come together now…boom! Torchwood being name checked took me completely by surprise and the Doctor’s comment (‘never heard of them’) is chucklesome. I question whether news reports would have been used to inform the listener about the widespread panic about the Capper bursting free if that wasn’t a regular feature in Davies’ Doctor Who to come. However, again, it feels right. I love the moment the newsreader succumbs to the drug, proving that he too was a user. Long ago the Time Lords were artists of war. They revelled in the beauty of dying suns and they built the N-Form, a sentient sculpture that kills without compunction. There’s a piece of N-Form in every gram of Smile and once it’s ingested it becomes a dimensional vent through which the N-Form can enter the physical world. A weapon from the past (the N-Form) being activated by a War from the future (a Time War that this Doctor knows nothing about). The climax of the story featuring Mrs Jericho as the dominant mind inside the N-Form, claiming the monster as her child, is perfectly gripping. The fact that every action she has taken is from a maternal instinct to have and protect a child makes her ultimate fate, how that instinct has twisted her into a monster, all the more heart-rending. Now she’s a mother to 11,000 children. A grotesque monster of a mother. Whether it was his suggestion or not, I bet Davies was thrilled with the new ending of David and Harry bringing up a pair of children. Again, given Davies’ other output on television, it is spot on.

Audio Landscape: Listening to the soundscape on this story. It’s like Big Finish know that they have gotten their hands on something truly special and have gone all out to make sure it is brought to life with as much care as possible. Crying in agony, the Tall Man’s muffled voice, a squeaky door, pouring tea, the Capper devouring its victims, a dog barking in the distance, traffic, siren, keys, a car pulling up, banging on a door and then kicking it in, smashing a window, firebombing a flat, explosives going off inside the fire, heart monitor, hospital atmosphere, Alfred choking and gagging, vomiting, destructive N-Form extraction, the ground tearing apart and the true terror of the N-Form emerging, making a cup of tea. 

Musical Cues: Howard Carter has long been my favourite Big Finish composer (although Russell Stone, Jamie Robertson and Fox & Yason also qualify with top marks) and this is one of the most impressive scores he has written. That means it is a very high standard indeed. The melancholic piano introduction gets me every time I listen to this. It screams subtly that this is going to be something quite distinct. The fresh, exciting title music gives me goose bumps, it’s one of the best versions of the original theme that Big Finish have produced (and they’ve had a fair number of stabs now). It’s a gorgeous melding of McCoy’s original and McGann’s to come, suggesting the placement of the new Adventures in between the two. I loved the apocalyptic score when the Capper tore free of its human prison and started attacking London. 

Isn’t It Odd: The subplot featuring Harry coming to terms with being gay and being assaulted and almost killed as he explores it is so watered down in the audio to be practically excised. It means the few scenes that are included from the novel feel out of place in the audio. They are typically well done for this production, but having one of his only scenes come after the theme music suggests Harry is going to be a major player in the story when that is absolutely not the case. It serves as an introduction to the Capper, I suppose.

Standout Scene: The twist that this story hangs on is rightly saved for the cliff-hanger. It’s a great cliff-hanger because it projects the story in a whole new direction that starts to make sense of Gabriel, of Eva Jericho and her son and why Winne Tyler is so protective of her children. One dark night she made a deal to protect her children, selling the sickest of them for a lump sum of money so she could look after the other two. It’s a stomach churning reveal and it comes with a bucket load of genuine emotion (regret, hatred, despair, hope). It grounds this story in real human misery in a way that Doctor Who very rarely touches. Eva Jericho couldn’t have children and had the money to buy the little boy. £30,000 was all it took. A business transaction. Who would have thought that that deal could go so wrong for the person buying the merchandise? The child was sick and has had nine painful years of treatments that has almost brought the Jericho’s to their knees. Eva Jericho in particular has been saturated in psychic misery, enough to induce madness and when she discovers that her sick boy is one of twins it sends her over the edge. The sequence of events where Eva Jericho poisons her husband’s dinner for keeping the truth from her and then turns up at Winnie Tyler’s house to exchange sons (or to return her damaged goods as the title is so horrifically revealed) are some of the most discomforting Big Finish have ever put out. The examination of madness, the implication of the sale of the child, the idea that a child can be returned so calmly as defective stock…it’s brutal human misery at its rawest. I was compelled and repulsed and I haven’t been made to feel that way on audio for a long, long time. A huge bravo to the performances in these scenes, which go above and beyond anything that I would expect in an audio drama. The small touch that Mrs Jericho is a racist and insisted on a white Anglo Saxon child, which is the cause of her calamity, adds further depth to her misfortune.

Result: An outstanding entry into the novels range and the Big Finish story of modern years that reminds me most of the main range at its densest when it producing works such as The Holy Terror, Jubilee and Davros. I had problems with the novel of this story because it was a truly ugly thing, one that focussed on the dark underbelly of domestic society in such a dark way that it made me feel uncomfortable that Doctor Who was tackling issues such as drugs, abortion and the disturbing psychological effects of loss in such an intimate and destabilising way. It was beautifully written, of course it was as it was written by Russell T Davies and the characters were painfully real in a way only he can write them but the story never felt quite like Doctor Who to me. It didn’t feature the Doctor, Chris and Roz…it featured a cold businessman and his two associates. What Jonathan Morris has done so adeptly is to take hold of that work of human cruelty and turned it into a much more accesible, slicker, pacier Doctor Who story. Whilst there is still the power of the original work and the stunning ideas, some of the more forceful characters scenes have been removed entirely or tamed to an extent so the story doesn’t feel like an emotional assault. As a result, Damaged Goods the audio is bursting with energy, creativity and humanity; scene after scene of memorable dialogue and fine performances and the whole piece culminates in an unforgettable climax. It’s a beautifully told Doctor Who story now and Morris deserves a lot of kudos for pulling that off. I’m not surprised it was nominated for an award, this is audio Who at its richest. All the ingredients are stacked up and slotted into place perfectly; unforgettable guest characters, sincere emotional interest, a fascinating science fiction concept fuelling the drama, a vivid Doctor, a plot that surprises and twists like a knife attack to the belly, genuinely frightening moments, stunning dialogue throughout and a climax that refuses to tidy things up after such a messy human ordeal has taken place. The director, sound designer and musician all deserve a great deal of credit for this story turning out as effectively as it does and the performances were all of a very high standard. I especially love the change that ties the N-Form into the Time War rather than just Ancient Gallifreyan history. Given this is written by Russell T Davies it feels right that this should be a prelude to the horrors to come to which he would thrust upon the series and deal with the aftermath. My favourite New Series writer and my favourite Big Finish writer in collaboration and what they pull off is a beautiful thing indeed: 10/10

Vortex Ice written by Jonathan Morris and directed by Ken Bentley

What’s it about: In search of ‘exotic particles’, the Doctor and Flip arrive 700 feet underground, in a mine in Northern Mexico – only to run into a scientific expedition. Among their number, an exobiologist. They’re all on the hunt for alien life! Deep underground, the team finally uncovers a cave of vast crystals – like ice, despite the heat. And inside the crystal: something frozen. Something trapped in time. If only it were something simple, like a monster. But it’s far, far worse than that.

Softer Six: The Doctor and Flip are great fun together, concocting a silly cover story as to how they found themselves in the mine. If there is a Time Lord down the mine, there are quite a few candidates that he has no desire to meet up with. Proceeding with caution, then. Asking the future Flip whether the rest of the characters make it out alive or not is a violation of temporal law…but I’d probably be cheeky and just do it anyway. The temporal jiggery pokery that the Doctor has to explain in episode two is nothing to Colin Baker, he doesn’t even break a sweat. The Doctor leaping from the TARDIS and tempting the cyborg with tasty Artron energy is a lovely image. Ever the showman, he loves to make an entrance. The Doctor thinks his future self is the most rude, incorrigible, handsome and intelligent person he has ever met. It is the curse of the time traveller to know there are lives you cannot save and injustices that you cannot avert.

Flippin’ Heck: Flip continues to impress, asking lots of sensible questions about their location and the temperature. Jonathan Morris practically seems to acknowledge that they have finally figured out how to make this character work when he has the Doctor ask ‘you’re full of questions today, Flip.’ According to the Doctor, one of her most likeable qualities is her recklessness. Because she is so salt of the earth and friendly I can believe that Flip could get along with pretty much anybody. For me that is one of her best features. She develops friendships quickly with guest characters in her stories because they take a shine to her. Going back to her opening salvo of adventures I think that the majority of listeners would be appalled by a Flip meets Flip adventure, such was the reaction to her character. But now opinion seems to have mellowed considerably and it is an engaging idea to have her meet a future iteration of herself. To have your every characteristic mirrored back at you. Flip being told to let people die to maintain the timeline is a very powerful moment, because it is antithetical to her character to not at least try and help. Flip gets a valuable insight into the Doctor’s responsibility as a time traveller. For once it’s she who has the foresight and cannot do anything about it.

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘I’ll explain later’ – we’re used to the Doctor saying this to chip his companions off so it is especially satisfying to have Flip toss the phrase at the Doctor in a similar way.
‘I’ve always wondered what it’s like when I come to the rescue.’
‘You did not set the TARDIS to vanish when you say hey presto!’ ‘No, it’s on a timer.’

Great Ideas: It’s fascinating to see a Main Range story being told in such an economic way (with regards to time) because Morris immediately cuts out all the flab of the first episode and has the Doctor and Flip meet the guest characters instantly (no overlong TARDIS scene here, unusual for this period of the series) and gives us a clear introduction of them. I have long complained that the Main Range stories are far too long and meander but Vortex Ice gets right to the point in a very engaging way. Much more like it. Trapped underground, you already have a claustrophobic environment. Over 100 miners were killed in an explosion in the mine years ago and their bodies were never found. Artron energy has been detected in the mine, energy that is only usually found in the brain of a Time Lord or a TARDIS. There’s oxygen and condensation to drink in the lower levels, so the trapped miners must have died of starvation. 100 years ago the miners dug up the remains of an alien spacecraft that had been under the ground for millions of years. A creature trapped in the crystal like a fly in amber. It is the pilot, half organic, half machine trapped in vortex ice, crystalline stasis. Within the ice the passage of time is brought to a standstill.

Audio Landscape: Falling masonry, creaking TARDIS door, sliding down ropes, cracking ice, a scream in the distance, lots of atmosphere down in the caves, the screech of a cyborg pilot, the secretion of vortex ice, freezing and cracking into place, time freezing around the Doctor and Flip.

Musical Cues: Listen to that 80s-synth slavered all over this story. It’s Vortex ice has gotten up on its hind legs from that decade and tottered along to the release schedules three decades later. It’s wonderfully authentic. There’s even a little snatch of the theme tune, Keff McCulloch style.

Standout Scene: It worked a treat in The Space Museum when the Doctor, Ian, Barbara and Vicki saw a portent of their future as museum exhibits…and it works just as well in Vortex Ice when the sixth Doctor and Flip come face to face with themselves trapped in the ice. Wearing the clothes they are wearing now, it is a shocking vision of what is to come. It was especially satisfying because I was sure it was going to wind up being the Master (especially when the Doctor sighed ‘not him!’). The last line made me laugh out loud.

Result: Trapped underground and with lots of nasty surprises awaiting them, Vortex Ice hands the sixth Doctor and Flip a punchy, engaging adventure. Some audios struggle to find one decent idea to hang their narrative on and Vortex Ice greedily has three and a mystery; the Doctor and Flip encased in the ice, the alien spaceship that was disturbed and Flip meeting a future iteration of herself…and the mystery of what happened to the miners to boot. Condensing a main range story down to two episodes has done them the world of good, slicing away all the narrative belly fat and paring the story right down the bone. It’s tightly plotted and there are surprises every few minutes or so. The guest characters didn’t exactly light my fire but there are simply there to service the plot and for the regulars to discuss the ideas with. A strong set up episode leads into a complicated but satisfying conclusion, giving Lisa Greenwood some really fun material to play with. Having the Doctors meet one another is old hat (and Sixie even got to meet himself in The Wrong Doctors to excellent comic effect) but companion squared is fresh and interesting. I’m surprised at how much effort Big Finish have put into making Flip work as a companion given it appeared she was written out very early on in her run, but I’m not disappointed because it is paying off in spades. She’s a lot fun and very likeable and Greenwood (who has always been very engaging) is finally getting the plaudits she deserves. You might need a couple of listens to this to get your head around the spaghetti junction plotting (I heard it twice) but it’s worth it because the resulting story is very entertaining. It’s my first footsteps into the main range since the last sixth Doctor trilogy and I’m pleased I did: 8/10

Oxygen written by Jamie Matheson and directed by Charles Palmer

This story in a nutshell: The Silence in the Library meets The Waters of Mars meets Deep Breath…but so much more than an amalgam of those adventures…

Team: The Doctor, Bill and Nardole are such a collection of oddballs when put together that at the beginning of the season I was wondering how that was going to pan out. Basically, the Doctor and Bill works, immediately in The Pilot so it was the addition of Nardole, who has been hanging around for a few years now (technically) on the side-lines. The Doctor and his companion have been enjoying adventures for the past five weeks and Nardole has been making little cameos in each story to remind the Doctor of his responsibilities but now it is his turn to join them in a story and their lives full time. Is that something that can be made to work? I’m pleased to say it is a categorical yes. Oxygen gels the three of them in a way I could have never foreseen and cements them as firm friends and potentially the greatest set of regulars in the Moffat eras. The solution was simple, apparently. Put them in mortal danger in a terrifying setting and watch them suffer but get closer as a result. Throughout you feel that bond between the Doctor and Bill as he agonises over what he has to put her through. Nardole’s humour and sarcasm is much needed in this setting, sometimes it is the only source of levity. At the end once they have been through the excruciating ordeal of thinking that one of their number has died, they come together for a cuddle. It should be twee but it feels triumphant. It feels like the show is celebrating their survival and the fact that it has three likeable, well defined characters spearheading the show once again. Bravo, is all I can say. 

Indefinable: ‘What if you’re wrong?’ ‘Well, we’ll be horribly murdered!’ I have to restate my love for the Doctor as the university lecturer, a role that Capaldi seems immensely comfortable playing. I love it when the Doctor’s academia is stressed and this is done in a way that grounds him on Earth and allows him to be utterly flippant within the role too (he’s supposed to be teaching about crop rotation and instead chatters on about the dangers of space). I’m loving this new approach in series 10, giving the Doctor a responsibility that ties him to the Earth. The Doctor so often freewheels about space and time and it does give the show a wonderfully anarchic and formula breaking premise but every once and a while (the early Jon Pertwee years, the Key to Time) it is good to give the Doctor a responsibility that focuses both the character and the show. It’s impossible to engage him the subject of staying on Earth when he wants to pop off somewhere though, he has all the answers. This is simply a wonderful episode for Capaldi’ Doctor whatever way you look at it. He’s witty and verbose in the first ten minutes, out thinking Nardole into a trip into space. He walks around the station like an animated corpse, horrified by the terminal action that has taken place. At times he’s the scariest thing there. And he’s dangerously intelligent in outthinking the suits and figuring out just what is going on, his brain working until it overheats and forces him to put his companion in terrible danger. And most importantly of all is his dealings with his companions; tender, smart, funny and concerned. Matheson is the ultimate Capaldi writer for me, he just flies off the page in his hands. Giving the Doctor a disability is simply the icing on the cake. Watching him calmly trying to cope with being blind and how it doesn’t affect his ability to heroically work his way out of the situation shows his strength of character. And says to the audience at large that a disability, whilst debilitating, should never hold you back. I can only think of one other time where the Doctor had to fight a capitalist system like this (the BBC novel Anachrophobia) and he walked away from that story in burningly intelligent form too. Although he is becoming something of a modern-day Kathryn Janeway, reaching for the self-destruct button when there is no other option. This is the antithesis of Smile though; the Doctor is given a logical reason for blowing up the station, he’s not just doing it because it feels like it’s the only option left to him. This time, the threat of pressing the button is enough to keep everyone alive. 

Funky Chick: Naturally Bill thinks like a modern-day girl and so when confronted with the idea of going to space she asks the Doctor if there are any reviews of hotspots (the space version of trip advisor). I thought that was very funny. It’d love to work my way through that review site. I’ve seen the ‘oh wow, I’m in space’ a few too many times on NuWho for it to be novel (Cribbins in The End of Time is still my favourite, his sense of wonder is wonderful) but it is still a trademark moment for any companion (it’s certainly more impressive than Adam Mitchell fainting). Bill isn’t being racist when she reacts badly to a blue alien, but I like the idea that she can be accused of being one. More references to Bill’s mother…she’s going to be in this series I tell you. 

Faithful Sidekick: The best use of Nardole since he was first conceived, bar none. For once he is actively engaged in the story and not just a cute presence on its outskirts. Even Mysterio, which did put him in danger seemed to have him along for the ride just for the fun of it. Matt Lucas seizes the chance to play something this dramatic in the series and the result is very surprising: Nardole is actually a character in his own right and not guest star of the week. What’s incredible is that we don’t learn that much about him still, it’s simply a matter of treating him seriously. Is he his sidekick or his jailor? Nardole says it is the Doctor who told him to insist that he stays on Earth but which incarnation did that? Or are we going to see the 12th Doctor tell him at the end of the year and set this whole thing up as a future version of Capaldi putting the season in place? That sounds like a very Moffat thing to do. The fact that I am asking questions about this means I am already more engaged than I have been with previous Moffat mysteries (the Impossible Girl in particular). I really love the fact that Nardole is knowledgeable about the universe and can chip in with useful suggestions and ideas. He’s not just quips and japes. I’ve been waiting for an ‘alien’ companion for some time, somebody like Romana who could talk to the Doctor on an equal level about the universe and what is contained within, I just never thought that person would be played by Matt Lucas. 

Sparkling Dialogue: ‘Space is great, isn’t it?’
‘The universe shows its true face when it asks for help. We show ours by how we respond.’
‘If we want to keep breathing we have only one option. Buy the merchandise.’
‘Please remain calm while your nervous system is disabled.’
‘Like every worker, everywhere…we’re fighting the suits’ – possibly Capaldi’s best line in the series.
‘Our deaths will be expensive!’

The Good:

· I heard Matheson take questions in a convention once and aside from being a fascinating speaker with lots of interesting things to say about his episodes, he pointed out that when it comes to Doctor Who that the characters are often sacrificed to ensure the plot can breathe. He even indicated some scenes that should have taken place in Flatline that would have allowed you to see apparently one-dimensional bullies like Fenton in a whole new light. I’d say in The Girl Who Died he went the other way, he gave his characters plenty of limelight but at the expense of a very slight plot. In Oxygen he seems get the balance just right – there are an abundance of very affecting character moments (the opening scene is a terrific and this story cements the team of the Doctor, Bill and Nardole like never before) but I don’t think anybody can say they are short-changed on incident and excitement in the narrative.
· Whilst the opening kick at Star Trek is a lot of fun (deliberately referencing Star Trek isn’t something I expecting to see on Doctor Who outside of the grotesquely indulgent Deep Space Nine parody Bang Bang a Boom on audio) but it’s making a very deliberate point too about how space is dangerous. This is one of those Doctor Who episode that features a setting that is out to get you straight off the bat. Matheson takes that danger and cranks it up to eleven throughout the episode but the very idea of traipsing around a space station with no oxygen is tense enough without adding malfunctioning spacesuits and dead eyed zombies. Other notable examples of settings that are instantly buttock clenching are Planet of the Daleks, Planet of Evil and Genesis of the Daleks. The scenes shot on the exterior of the station are outstandingly lit and filmed that they feel as though they could have been actual footage that has been taken and superimposed into a Doctor Who episode. I can’t think of an episode in recent years that has instantly planted me in its location so vividly as this. As if the setting wasn’t scary enough, the Doctor then proceeds to spell out the process of oxygen starvation in space, preparing the audience for what the characters (especially poor Bill) will be experiencing late in the episode. To have had the course of oxygen deprivation spelt out beforehand means we’re suffering along with her because we know what she is going through.
· How far can a show like Doctor Who push teatime horror on a Saturday night? Actually quite far, as it has proven to controversial effect before. It’s not a show that often gets under my skin but I’m quite hardly when it comes to television but there are countless times over its long history where you could point and wince ‘too much for children.’ Oxygen definitely counts and is probably one of the most frightening episode since the show returned in 2005 (for the record I would say that Midnight and The Waters of Mars, both on a psychological level, are still moreso). The character that is savaged by zombies on the outside of the station, screaming for help in her spacesuit that cannot be heard as they advance and murder her, is just your starter for ten. The Doctor, Bill and Nardole discover a corpse that is standing up, simply because the spacesuit hasn’t figured to have him lie down. That’s an alarming visual, especially the dead, oxygen starved fish eyes glaring out of the suit. For me, psychological horror is always much more effective and Oxygen features plenty of that too, particularly when it comes to Bill. We really get inside her helmet and experience hell with her. Or outside her helmet should I say as the suit decides to take it off just as the room is about to depressurise. You’re witness to some of the most accomplished direction on Doctor Who in an age when Bill falls unconscious during this sequence. Palmer captures the disorientation, the claustrophobia and the passing of time as Bill falls in and out of consciousness. It’s remarkably well done. I thought that would be creepiest moment of the episode but boy was I wrong…when Bill is told a few hours later that she is going to have to be left at the mercy of slowly advancing zombies and become one of them. The Doctor walks away from her, leaves her to her fate. That simply isn’t done. And Bill is left alone, screaming for her dead mum and for all intents and purposes dies. That’s a phenomenally scary sequence.

· The concept of oxygen being a commodity is an intriguing one and something that I have been thinking about for many years. ‘One day we’ll be paying for our oxygen and sunlight’ is something I’ve been telling people during debates about capitalism and politics for years (let’s not even pretend that those are my primary topics of conversation…they are usually ‘in episode three of the Androids of Tara, did you notice that Tom Baker let one off when he’s offered the throne?’ and ‘I know the cream cake is 300 calories but factor in the walk it took the shop and back means that once I’ve eaten it I’m in calorie deficit.’ But I do have my moments…) and the idea that something that is fundamental to us staying alive being something that you pay for has always fascinated and frightened me. So, to have that notion explored in an episode of my favourite show delights me. And terrifies me. Unlicensed oxygen is expelled to protect business interests, which means the station is actively working against the TARDIS crew for financial motives. Brrr.

The Bad: I wasn’t that enamoured with the guest characters. But they service as victims and a chance for the Doctor to bounce his ideas off of. And they fulfil that function perfectly well.

Result: ‘Bill I’ve got no TARDIS, no sonic, about ten minutes of oxygen left and now I’m blind. Can you imagine how unbearable I’m going to be when I pull this off?’ Oxygen is Doctor Who firing on all cylinders. If there was any doubt that the series could reach the heights of its NuWho heyday then this was the proof. Whilst it was extraordinary, I can’t include Heaven Sent because it was such an unusual experiment. Oxygen is honest to God, nuts’n’bolts Doctor Who, refined and pitched to perfection. I mentioned in my review of Smile that FCB doesn’t write my kind of Doctor Who (that isn’t to say there aren’t others who find his tensionless sermons perfection itself) and in contrast Jamie Matheson writes exactly my kind of Doctor Who: bold, original, clever, tense, beautifully paced, characterful, funny and satisfying. In the Capaldi era his is the benchmark that everybody else is working to, just as Moffat was the standout under the previous administration. What you have is a threat on the inside (the oxygen suits that are working against you) and the outside (the dead-eyed zombies attacking en masse) and two companions that are allowed to be absolutely terrified. It’s the tensest the show has been in many years, probably since the Moffat era began. And it’s a formula for success that the show traded in for many years in the classic series that I thought had been long forgotten. Add in an already terrifying environment and you have a Doctor Who episode that ticks every single box when it comes to putting the willies up you (oh get a room). This is the bonding exercise that the Doctor, Bill and Nardole needed too, a race to survive together and a feeling that they are a group of friends working together. Each of the regulars gets their best moment of the season to date involving blindness, oxygen starvation and the killer line ‘Look at me!’ Oxygen holds back from being indulgent or overly spectacular like so much of this era, it focuses on a tricky situation with a small group of characters and some dastardly clever ideas. When Moffat makes the joke that he has finally figured out how to show run Doctor Who just as he is leaving is not only very funny in its self-deprecation but also quite true. Charles Palmer directs with exactness, capturing the claustrophobia and terror of the setting with the precision of scalpel. The performances are first rate. The music underscores rather than overwhelming the action. And the final scene is a doozy. I think Oxygen is a modern day classic Doctor Who. I genuinely got short of breath watching this: 10/10