Doctor Who Christmas Casting 2011 Revealed

So it seems we have our guest cast and a setting for the story of this Christmas' Doctor Who special! If you don't want to know then do not read any further (although with the photos and all it's probably too late). It may also be worth you living in your basement eating nothing but rice with no contact with the outside world until December, too... This news will be out there tomorrow morning.

The guest stars this year are:

Arabella Weir; former Fast Show actress.

Bill Bailey; troll-like funny man.

Alexander Armstrong; Pointless tv bloke, funny man and voice of the computer Mr Smith in the Sarah Jane Adventures.

And the one we already knew about, Outnumbered star Claire Skinner.

The story takes place during World War Two which lends more truth to the rumours of a Doctor Who take on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. I wonder just how well that will play? I suppose we shall see. Actual story detail is thin on the ground, as is to be expected at such an early stage, but the 'Star' newspaper claims "The special sees the Time Lord (Matt Smith, 28) crash land in war-torn England. Posing as the caretaker of a creepy old house in Dorset he embarks on a magical mystery adventure with Madge Arwell and her two children, Lily and Cyril."

As for the cast, I'm more than happy with that. Looks like this will be a jolly old episode, funny too! There isn't anything official on which characters they'll all be playing but we know Claire Skinner is playing "a Mum" (presumably the companion for this one) and I would put money on Alexander Armstrong being a bumbling professor type. As for Bill Bailey and Arabella Weir - who knows?! But I can see Bill being some magical, alien being - all made up and all. 

I'm quite excited about this now! Roll on Christmas!

The God Complex

Okay. Let's get what I didn't like out of the way first, then I'll tell you how much I enjoyed the latest episode of Doctor Who. This one felt a bit rushed. And yet, at the same time, lacking in reach. It felt that they rushed through so much that it left a large hole in the middle of the episode. But, as I shall explain, The God Complex redeemed itself. Luckily.

Let's accept this one for what it was; nothing spectacular, but nice all the same. The idea was lovely - a sort of modern take in the Minotaur in the Labyrinth... And an effective one! I almost wish they'd not bothered with the "fears within rooms" thing though. What would have been wrong with a spacey prison, floating about keeping its Minotaur inmate out of harm's way, yet picking up the odd snack for him while it did so? Yes, there would have to be a reason, a method of selection for these snacks, but that would be worked out...

The Minotaur looked great, it worked well as a "chase" villain. I wish it was the Doctor and a group of people running away from a big monster. Something that simple would have worked very well.

That's not to say this episode didn't work as it was. As I've mentioned, the idea was good! They missed a trick not including some seriously creepy fears (the nerdy blogger afraid of girls, the clever would-be companion afraid of being a disappointment, they all seem a bit by-numbers for my liking) within the rooms and, given time, the whole "Rory not having a room" thing could have been explored in far more interesting ways. It was basically overlooked in the episode. Such a shame!

But what really did work well here was the tone. It was well-lit (as in bright) and it was familiar. The Muzak was a lovely touch and the ventriloquists' dummies were wonderfully creepy. As was the clown. It seemed that the forgotten fears, left behind long after their hosts had died, were worse than those of our survivors. Another shame.

Aha! Now, our survivors! There's a thing! I won't talk about the obviously meant-to-have-been-thought-as-the-next-companion Rita - everyone's talking about her, so I won't. I will, however, talk about Gibbis. Yes, I know everyone's talking about him too, but I want my say. I thought David Walliams' performance as the alien afraid of everything was wonderful. You could tell it was Walliams, but you never felt - or at least I never felt - as though it was a parody character. I think we all expected "a funny, cowardly alien" and what we were given, subtly, was a back-stabbing swine who would sacrifice the lives of anyone else, willingly, in order to survive himself. Now that's about as dark a character as we're likely to get on a Saturday tea time. Truly chilling, especially as most of Gibbis' darker, more selfish lines were delivered with a knowing smile behind the eyes.

Visually, this one was a treat. I thought the direction was faultless and the performances across the board were incredible. I also think that the monster of the week was one of the better we've had. I just wish it was all about him.

I can't say I DIDN'T enjoy this episode because I really did! I scored it 7/10 on the Gallifrey Base Rate and Review thread. But it gained a whole point for the last ten minutes. Yes, boys and girls, it would seem that for once we have a happy departure from the TARDIS. So far, just since 2005, companions have been fired, abandoned, lost in parallel universes, neglected, mind-wiped, dropped into burning engines and - in the case of so many would-be companions - completely overlooked before the adventure had a chance to begin. But with Amy and Rory it seems the decent thing has been done; before their lives can get any more fucked up the Doctor has bought them a house and a flash motor and allowed them to live happily. This obviously means that sometime in the near future something terrible will happen to them. Allowing companions to just leave is against everything Doctor Who holds dear. We shall see.

Anyway, bottom line: not a bad episode, by any means. Exciting enough, full of ideas and a fine example of the show looking as good as it ever will. But there was something lacking this week. I just don't quite know what. That last Goodbye scene saved it from a far smaller place in my memory. So, once again, the Ponds make Doctor Who for me. Awesome. 

OH! And next week we have Cybermen. I love Cybermen. I have one in the title-bar of this very blog. I can't wait :)

The Girl Who Waited

So, this was the mysterious one that nobody knew anything about! Tom MacRae's Doctor Who offering. The elusive Episode Ten. And I'm so glad I knew very little about it! This is one of those episodes that sounds a bit rubbish on paper, but shines so brightly on screen (literally, in this case) it hurts.

The premise was this: The TARDIS lands on the planet Apalapachia (or something) and find themselves under a quarantine. There's a plague that kills only two-hearted life-forms, Chen 7, so our Doctor has to sit this one out in the TARDIS. "Sit what out?" you ask?

Well, due to a forgotten phone, a wrong button and an accelerated timeline, Amy's got herself stuck in an alien clinic, pursued by well-meaning but deadly Handbots. When Rory heads off to find her he doesn't expect 36 years to have passed for her during the 10 minutes or so he's been gone. And so begins one of the most emotional and well-acted episodes of Doctor Who I've ever had the pleasure to sit through.

Seeing a main character aged is something that's been done before, but always superficially. Martha was aged in Torchwood's second series but it didn't last long, and we've seen the Doctor himself aged to hundreds of years old in the finale to series three, but again, it wasn't for long, or for real.

This time, it's done properly. Kudos to Karen Gillan who carries this episode almost all alone and does so expertly - this should be enough to shut the "Karen Can't Act" lot up for good! She clearly can. The subtleties she shows in her performance as "Old Amy" is a pleasure to behold. She's such a bitter, hard, unforgiving character that you almost see her as the villain of the piece, especially when she refuses to help save "Our Amy" from her lonely, heartbreaking fate. And she plays the same person "as a different character" as well (if not better) than Tennant did as John Smith in The Family Of Blood.

More than anything else it's the relationship between Rory and Amy that makes this episode so wonderful - lots of little things are revealed about their past together that cements these two, in my mind, as the best-fleshed-out companions we've had. Sure, Russell gave us families and friends to potter about with, but in Amy and Rory we have a real sense of knowing all about them without ever having seen the life together we know so much about. Their first kiss to a silly song, in particular, was a lovely beat; a "get out of this" plot resolver and a beautiful nod to a history unseen. The story is simple, the conclusion a little simple also, but the episode looks, feels and sounds so perfect that it's difficult to find anything at all to complain about.

So I won't. As you know, I have an almost medical inability to criticise Doctor Who - you should never, ever use my reviews as a measure of quality, I always like it. But this time, even if I DIDN'T always enjoy the show, I'd be singing its praises. It seems that, in many different forms, this series is throwing out some great episodes: For emotion, this one is up there with 'Vincent and the Doctor'. For excitement, it's up there with 'The Pandorica Opens'. For pure good looks it beats almost anything we've been given before. And for making a grown man cry... well, we'll leave that, okay? Rory's choked "I'm sorry, I can't do this!" at the TARDIS door, when "old Amy" is begging him to let her in while at the same time telling him that he really, really shouldn't, broke my heart. And when Doctor Who can do that, you know you're on to a winner. 

And the Doctor's cruel and deceitful means of "saving Amy", then dumping the responsibility of Old Amy's inevitable death/non-existence firmly within Rory's hands brings up an important question: Now that Amy and Rory know how ruthless the Doctor can be, even to the people he cares about most of all, will they even want to travel with him anymore?

Whatever the fallout from this beautiful episode, it's a relief to know that, no matter what, Rory will do all he can to assure his wife is safe. He loves her, she loves him, they are perfect together. I've never been one to gush over in-show relationships, but I love this dynamic so much. It really is true love - rarely at the forefront of everyday life, but always there as the most important emotion you can ever feel. And both parties know the other feels it. It doesn't get much better than that. And as far as this episode of Doctor Who is concerned, that same sentence will do just fine.