Doctor Who's Tragical History Tour

Going out with a …..

-- DSW — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 17:00:06 +0000

Upon first viewing of The Big Bang here at THT Worldwide, the consensus in the room was that while we liked it, we also wondered aloud if the general public would "get it." We then undertook a second, more defined, viewing sharpened all of the marvelous detail that had been laid in not only in the story, also through the season. Although the change in tone from The Pandorica Opens to The Big Bang couldn't have been more stark (just as it was earlier with The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone) the conclusion here was so satisfying that it vaulted both stories to the top of this years Dynamic Ratings Table.

Matt Smith was faultless once again. The Young Man with Old Eyes shone both when speaking to Amy strapped into the Pandorica and when telling a sleeping 7-year old Amelia to love Rory and have a good life. The Piggly-Wiggly Timey-Wimey-ness to get the Doctor out of the Pandorica in the end amounts to something of a cheat, but it was carried off with such panache by Smith that it didn't matter in the end.

The tone in the episode ranged from funereal to whimiscal, and Smith moved through it all amazingly well. More thoughts to come later in the week. The Tour will begin to shift gears back into off-season mode soon enough but for right now… Images and caps for The Big Bang are now online.

Room Without a View

-- DSW — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:00:41 +0000

So here we are… at the precipice of a season-ending (triple) cliffhanger. There are so many story threads dangling, not just from The Pandorica Opens but from the season itself, that it's hard to know what to feel, except that you want "The Big Bang" to come sooner rather than later. Of course any fan from the 2005 onwards also has been informed by RTD-style season finales which always promised more in the first-halves of stories than were delivered in the latter-halves, but with Moffat now there's a different feel this time around, and the sense that it will all in fact make sense in the end.

As such our grades for The Pandorica Opens are scoring it high in the 2010 Dynamic Ratings Table, but this feeling could well swing well up or down based on next weeks conclusion. We can't wait.

There was one unusual thing in this episode however that took the THT Brain Trust (temporarily) right out of the story, and it touches on a Tour pet peeve. Matt Smith has, relatively speaking, quite an asymmetrical face. It's always bothered us when stills are released in publications that have clearly been reversed, mostly to keep drawing readers eyes towards the center of a page. Peter Davison images are infamous in this regard. In The Pandorica Opens there are whole scenes where for whatever reason the picture has been reversed. Once you notice the part in Matt Smiths coif oriented the wrong way it becomes quite distracting, and it happened more than once. When capping this episode we simply couldn't let this stand so caps from the clearly reversed scenes have been corrected. See if you can spot where these have occurred.

Images and caps from The Pandorica Opens are now online.

Up-stares, Downstairs

-- DSW — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 17:00:03 +0000

Another week, another 3-hand character piece. This time however instead of being the change agent, Amy was pushed to the sidelines and it was the Doctor who moved the plot along. While it was feared that Richard Curtis' comedic history would undermine Vincent and the Doctor, that episode felt positively weighty compared to Gareth Roberts' The Lodger.

It's not that the story disappointed in the more traditional sense like Victory of the Daleks did at least for this viewer, rather that it was an inconsequential trifle (save for the last three minutes which served as a setup for the two-part finale), which had more of the resonance of Fear Her than anything else.

Not much else to say. Didn't offend, didn't impress, and as such it settles neatly into the bottom half of the 2010 Dynamic Ratings Table. Lots'o'lots of images this time around though.

Images and caps for The Lodger are now online. See you next week when The Pandorica opens.

Paint it Blue (Box)

-- DSW — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:00:52 +0000

In a season where nods back to "classic" Doctor Who have been more in vogue than at any point since the series came back, it's odd that the more unconventional stories of this season like Amy's Choice and this weeks Vincent and the Doctor have risen to the top of our 2010 Dynamic Ratings Table. Neither change-of-pace episodes or pseudo-historicals are new to Doctor Who, or nu-Who for that matter, and like any Doctor Who they rise and fall on the strength and execution of the story. In this regard Love & Monsters completely misfired while The Unquiet Dead worked wonderfully. And much like The Unquiet Dead, the subject matter has much to do with art and artists.

Vincent and the Doctor is basically a three-man play, and that specifically excludes the "monster." It's hardly an accident that the Krafayis is invisible, as the artist is really the subject in this episode. It's hardly conventional Doctor Who, a point driven further home during the last 12-15 minutes beginning when Vincent demonstrates how he sees the night sky (a gorgeous show-stopping morphing) straight through to the daytrip to the present day so that the Doctor could show Vincent that he really was appreciated (again just like The Unquiet Dead) when Vincent and the Doctor becomes more of a Richard Curtis film in tone and direction than Doctor Who.

But this is why we love this series. What other show could run episodes like The Time of Angels and Vincent and the Doctor in such close proximity. We loved it.

Images and caps for Vincent and the Doctor are now online.

Worriers in Too Deep

-- DSW — Sun, 30 May 2010 19:55:33 +0000

The problem with Cold Blood lies not with the story but with ourselves. When a story, inadvertently or otherwise, steps all over cherished remembrances of stories and monsters past, it wrong-foots itself into a hole which is hard to climb out of. Last week in this space we lamented this occasion, at least for the THT Brain Trust, with regard to the Silurians. Perhaps the worst part of all for those of us plagued with long-term memory, it that this has all happened before. Back in 1984 when JN-T was hip-deep in needless continuity with the past, Peter Davison's final season led of with Warriors of the Deep, one of the few stories in classic Who which often elicit visceral negative reactions amongst long-term fans.

It's certainly unfair to visit the sins of Warriors of the Deep upon The Hungry Earth / Cold Blood. For a start the latter is simply a much better story in concept and execution than it's distant cousin, but as we started with in this post, the memory simply does not cheat in this case. This story was probably tasked with the charge of being "the one to evoke Classic Who," but for anyone familiar with The Silurians the societal breakdown in Cold Blood seemed all-too-familiar, and needless. Matt Smith channeled his inner-Pertwee as best he could, but he seemed a little too-distant in this story.

And then there's Rory, who's happily did not turn out to be Adric in any sense of the word. The little bit with the engagement ring in The Hungry Earth should have been a dead-giveaway (pardon the pun) about what was to come, and while it seemed rushed in terms of it's abruptness it also book-ended the crack-o-doom appearances quite nicely. Thank you Arthur Darvill. Perhaps we'll be seeing you again when the Pandorica opens.

Images and caps for Cold Blood are now online.

The Pertwee Sobriety Test

-- DSW — Sun, 23 May 2010 23:27:02 +0000

A few weeks back when Victory of the Daleks was broadcast, many fans–particularly British fans, were upset, and rightfully so in the eyes here at THT Worldwide, at the redesign of the Daleks. Previous new series updates to the basic Dalek design had made them beefier, but stayed largely true to the original series variations of the basic 1963 silhouette. Now the Daleks were dayglow, bigger, and more plastic and many noted the change as change for change sake. But longer-term readers of this space also know that the Daleks have never been in our wheelhouse.

This week however the series nods decidedly to the Pertwee era with part one of a two-parter that touches on many a Pertwee story, including some of the THT Brain Trust faves (Doctor Who and) The Silurians, Inferno, The Sea Devils, with a nod even to Frontios thrown in for good measure. Once again there's been a re-design, adequately explained in story it has to be said, so now we have come to the position occupied by others just a few weeks ago. And it grates. We also are having a hard time getting past the Sleestak similarities in these nouveau Silurians (we confess this is shallow on our part).

We have the definite feeling that this story was much more about set-up than The Time of Angels was, but time will tell. Always does.

Images and caps for The Hungry Earth are now online.

A Little Birdie Told Me …

-- DSW — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:20:50 +0000

It's rare we stray off the reservation , especially in season as it were, but the THT Brain Wizards stumbled across this on Deviantart yesterday. Too cute for words.

BTW Doctor, how many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? The world may never know.

Not the Boneyard, Scrapyard or Knacker's Yard

-- DSW — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:24:44 +0000

Amy's Choice is a sneaky, sneaky beast. Quite likely not tilting towards the populist end of Doctor Who stories and instead into more of the esoteric, the first viewing of this story with it's laconic pacing and lack of the "monster" per se was merely "whelming." A second, and it has to be said, more alert viewing, brought all sorts of revelations, most notably the nifty plotting and the amazing performances of Toby Jones and Karen Gillan. Perhaps what satisfied most wholly was the revelation that Dream Lord was in fact the Doctor himself, admittedly under the influence of "psychic pollen." Since this is becoming a season for callbacks, both obvious and oblique, we loved this variation on The Ultimate Foe, Robert Holmes' last contribution to the series was the idea that the Valeyard was a dark distillation of the Doctor, somewhere between the last and next to last incarnation.

The joy in this story, owing to Toby Jones' performance, is what a mean-spirited imp the Dream Lord is, always being derogatory and yet playful as well to the Doctor at the same time. The story also advanced, in a much more satisfying way, the Doctor-Rory-Amy triangle, begun in The Vampires of Venice. Last week we said Rory was fairing better than the Tin Dog, and he's certainly no Adam either, this is a threesome that has the dynamics that, at least for this fan, go back to Season 12 and Sarah Jane and Harry. High praise indeed.

As a result of all this we've put this episode at the top of the 2010 Dynamic Ratings Table. How 'bout you?

Images and caps for Amy's Choice are now online.

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

-- DSW — Tue, 11 May 2010 01:47:33 +0000

It's a syndrome I-tells-ya. Let's call it OFS or Old Fan Syndrome. It's an affliction borne of too many years watching and more importantly remembering all too well our favorite TV program. When you begin spotting elements from other stories, too many other stories, within the story you're watching, it could well be the onset of OFS, or it could be The Vampires of Venice. The THT Brain Trust have been struggling with what to think of this story and have delayed putting forward our remarks for this very reason. In the Dynamic Ratings we have originally put this story 4th out of 6th but have now reluctantly moved it down below The Beast Below because whereas the latter was trying to do something different and had elements which recalled earlier stories in some degree, The Vampires of Venice ramped this up to a distracting degree.

The whole of the story exceeds the sum of it's parts, but ask yourself if you also saw elements of The Idiot's Lantern, School Reunion, Tooth and Claw, to name just a few. Matt Smith was his usual excellent self and the addition of Rory showed he was certainly no Tin Dog. It should also be noted that the slightly longer running time was used well to let the story breathe in a well that The Beast Below and Victory of the Daleks simply couldn't.

This proved to be a sumptuous story to cap so there's a larger set to move through this time. Images and caps for The Vampires of Venice are now online. Next up the surreal Amy's Choice. Can't wait!

After Taste and After-Shave

-- DSW — Sun, 02 May 2010 20:07:33 +0000

It's a curious thing, this continuation of The Time of Angels is. While it certainly provided the back half of this story, the pacing and segmentation of the story (Escape, Forest w/Dr, Forest w/o Dr, bridge, and coda) made it feel, at least in the minds of the THT Brain Trust, to be equally interested in setting up the season-long storyline as resolving the plot involving the Weeping Angels. There's been a fair amount of discussion out there (you know… THERE) about the parallels between this season and the Eccleston season in 2005 in terms of story choice and underlying running story. But whereas the clues planted in 2005 were quite, quite subtle (for those who even knew to be looking for such things at the time) there's no subtlety this time around.

It's a bit of a surprise to see the "crack" motif taken on head-on, though not unwelcome it has to be said… But one wonders if this will begin to exclude casual viewers should it feature too prominently from here on out. We suspect Moffat is too canny for that. As for Amy, Moffat seems determined to put this character through the ringer, but it should also be noted that half of the Moffat scripted episodes are now out of the way. Will other writers be as determined to put Amy through her paces?

Paces and pulses also quickened at the end of the episode with the Smoochie, Smoochie Time (as described by Smith and Gillan). At the risk of sounding die-hard traditionalist, we 're always a but discomfited by overt sexuality in Doctor Who. Amy seems to switch into this mode in odd ways and odd times–but it also seems this ties back to the overall theme for the season. As for timing–she's getting married during the World Cup! But because June 26th, 2010 is also a Saturday, what will be the schedule implications for the rest of the Season? Should the season run uninterrupted, June 26th would be when episode 13 airs. Hmmm.

Images and caps for Flesh and Stone are now online

A River Runs Through It

-- DSW — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:02:56 +0000

This is what we as fans expected the Moffat era to be, whereas The Eleventh Hour split the difference between styles for himself and RTD and The Beast Below honored the notions of many stories–including those of RTD–into a pastiche that worked for the most part, The Time of Angels carried forward not only some of his previous themes and characters, River Song from Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead and the Weeping Angels from Blink, but also the hopes of many fans and non-fans alike.

This was the first story into production so we here at THT Worldwide, and we'll wager you too, were wondering if we'd see a Four to Doomsday / Castrovalva situation regarding Matt Smith getting to grips with character. Our observation is that he succeeded quite, quite well, as does everything else with this story. Now experienced Who fans are thoroughly acquainted with two-part story syndrome in which back halves of two-part stories fall well short of the promise of the first half. While that remains to be seen as of this writing, do you have that underlying sense that this will happen again? We don't.

Lots of images this time around… many of them stemming from first days filming on the series. Those images will stay up in their special gallery until after next week after which it will disappear. We've also held some back for Flesh and Stone based on pure guess work, but don't be surprised if at least some of the images for The Time of Angels shift around after the concluding chapter. Caps and images for The Time of Angels are now online.

A couple of housekeeping items. Our RSS feed problems of the past few weeks are resolved so please adjust your readers to from here forward. Also we're happy to announce the return of the dynamic ratings table. Each season we rank the stories against each other. Do our ratings tally with yours?

V for Two and Two for V

-- DSW — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 18:29:25 +0000

Ahem. It's probably worth restating for those unfamiliar with the THT Brain Trust that we are not , not have we ever been, ga-ga about our favorite little pepperpots from Skaro. Nevertheless it must be daunting for any production team to do something inventive with the Daleks, and given their recent history on the program, and perhaps their overexposure, this hesitation to use them would be all the more daunting. Still, especially after watching Confidential, it felt a little bit like it was filling in the checkboxes of a tight brief given by Moffat et.al. Now sometimes this works, our favorite example of this being Planet of Fire, but this was also the second straight story which felt like it underran to a degree (was the coda for Bracewell really necessary?).

Still despite it all, a re-watch went down better than the primary viewing, and once again the Doctor-Companion interaction shone throughout. It's no longer a trend but a fact that this Doctor, despite his wisdom, makes mistakes, has time slippages, etc. Why Amy couldn't remember the Daleks was superbly handled as a parallel mystery to run through the season.

Images and caps for Victory of the Daleks are now online.

Song of the Space Whale

-- DSW — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:03:25 +0000

What we only suspected in The Eleventh Hour has come more to the fore in The Beast Below, namely that the first story of the season had a deliberately hybrid-ized tone to it, a mix of RTD's style and the thoughts truer to Moffat's own personal style, more of which we'll no doubt be seeing in subsequent weeks.

The Beast Below shows the way forward much more clearly, and yet had plenty of earmarks of some 'classic' stories as well. I picked up threads from The Happiness Patrol, The Sontaran Experiment, Tooth and Claw, and The Idiot's Lantern (the author of which we'll be seeing next week).

Another story where children form the crux of the story, if somewhat obliquely here. This is a story centrally about the very young and the very old, and it took someone who is both in a sense, Amy, to figure to out. We were moved at Amy's redemption in the eyes of the Doctor (although it sure seemed his dismissal of her was far too abrupt to begin with).

Next week it's the Daleks (again) but for now images and caps for The Beast Below are now online.

Through the Ringer…

-- DSW — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:07:17 +0000

Whilst we're waiting for The Beast Below later on today, the eccentricities of web hosting have caught up with the RSS feed for the site.

Please use this as our feed marker for the time being.

1+1=11

-- DSW — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 20:36:37 +0000

If there was anything The Eleventh Hour affirmed, it was the enduring power of change in Doctor Who. Whereas the remit of Rose was to update Doctor Who in terms of format, pacing, and storytelling style 15+ years after the fact for a general audience, there simply couldn't be a sense of regime change for anyone except the long-term fan. The Christmas Invasion played against audience expectations by removing the physical presence of the Doctor for 2/3 of the story, but because the production team, save Tennant for Eccleston, remained significantly intact, it now seems in retrospect that the level of change overall was less than we all imagined at the time.

Of course it remains to be seen what degree of change we'll be experiencing this time around, but if first impressions based on The Eleventh Hour are to be trusted, the tonal change may well be akin to Innes Lloyd's tenure in the 60's or Philip Hinchcliffe in the 70's. Comparisons to Hinchcliffe are usually, and the THT Brain Trust is no exception in this regard, high praise. And that can only heighten the anticipation all the more.

Some other impressions … while we were completely prepared to be wowed by Matt Smith, we honestly had no idea how good he was going to be, or by how lively his eyes are. The wonder, joy, wit, and concern were all there in his eyes. More please Mr. Moffat.

As for images, The Eleventh Hour marks a new record for initial image offering with over 800 images assembled, and we didn't skimp on the caps either. Images and caps for The Eleventh Hour are now online.