Smith & Jones

For the second episode in a row, the Doctor is trying it on with a new woman. Despite losing Rose, and having being rebuffed by Donna, he immediately sees something he likes about Martha Jones. He's indefatigable.

This is the best series opener so far. More ambitious than Rose, more accomplished than New Earth, it has key advantages over both of them. Unlike Rose, the audience is fully acquainted with the show and completely comfortable with the Doctor. Unlike New Earth, this episode still benefits from introducing a new companion. Smith & Jones is a fresh start that merely requires a cursory reminder of the programme's essentials without the weight of having to relaunch the show from scratch.

It's altogether very satisfying. Apart from that silliness with the radiation in his shoe, the Doctor's on excellent form, bright, breezy and mischievously playful. He lies to the doctors with glee and then mugs his way through his confrontation with Mrs Finnegan. It's a classic Doctorish trick to persuade the enemy to underestimate him but one we rarely see anymore, which is a shame. It works especially well here where, although he has already outwitted the plasmavore, Martha must understand what he has done in order to secure the victory. It's as neat a way as any of letting them share the credit.

The whole point of this episode is that Martha proves herself worthy of being a companion, but she manages to do this without being plucky or homeless like some of her predecessors. Her intelligence is key and she uses reason to analyse her lunar surroundings, but what really marks her out from her fellow medical students is her open-mindedness. She is a good thing, level-headed compared with her family, resourceful compared with her colleagues. And she gets her own wonderful theme from Murray Gold too, one of the best in the series, surely a good sign.

The introduction of a new companion might have taken up too much room but Smith and Jones is nicely balanced. The story itself is cleverly contained, almost a base-under-siege, and makes good use of novel locations (a hospital, the moon) to keep things interesting and provide strong visual elements. The plot is tight and clear with key moments hingeing around things we know already: the Doctor's alienness, or the lack of air on the Moon. At no point does the audience feel it has been shortchanged.

Anne Reid is thoroughly pleasing: Mrs Finnegan, far more than just an archetypal witch, exhibits a palpable menace and a real sense of appetite. She sells the gruesome and visceral nature of her villainy in a way kids can understand, even if they can't be shown it.

And the Judoon are good too. To be honest, I'm getting a little bored of this 'alien animals' idea. I can see how it works as useful shorthand for the audience but there comes a point where it begins to feel like an unnecessary shortcut. It will certainly be taken too far in the future, but we're not there yet. The Judoon are effective and the well-executed rhino design is part of that. Their bureaucratic nature works too, making them a formidable obstacle without them necessarily being 'evil'. In a universe of Daleks, Cybermen and (let's face it) Mrs Finnegan, this nuance is very welcome.

The boys couldn't quite share my enthusiasm. Will gave it only 7, Chris an 8. More than anything else, they were very concerned that they didn't understand how the hospital had got to the Moon. "They explained that," I said. "It was an H2O scoop."

"That doesn't explain it!" They cried. "How can water do that? Is it magic?"

"No, does it matter? It's just a teleport. The hospital just has to get there for the story to work. You're missing the point."

"Well, it could have been explained better," said William.

Maybe we'll try Season 18 next, and see how they like that.


NEXT TIME...

The Runaway Bride

I remember that, at the time, the beginning of this story was the most exhilarating twenty minutes of Doctor Who I had seen. It still might be, but overall, this episode is much better now than it was in 2006.

But that wonderful start: everything is fast and funny from the very minute that the Doctor and Donna start to spark off of each other in the Console Room. Say what you like about Rose, but that relationship never produced any on-screen fizzle like this. Tennant and Tate create a thrilling dynamic in scenes full of screwball banter and sharp jokes. And then, joy of joys, what a Christmas present from Uncle Russell: a proper TARDIS chase. It's magnificent and the show knows it. Donna's deadpan "You have got to be kidding me," voices the thoughts of many older viewers while the greek chorus of backseat kids lets children at home connect directly to the wonder of the TARDIS careering down the motorway. It is a high point in the history of a show that must constantly prove it has new tricks up its sleeves. There was some cheering from our sofa as the TARDIS finally spiralled away into the sky.

There's only one thing wrong with this opening and it is the bright summer sunshine that threatens to wash all thoughts of Christmas from the screen. It hardly matters, and it certainly doesn't spoil anything, but it is odd how the festive specials have so often concerned themselves with the mere trappings of Christmas. This time we get robot Santas, exploding baubles and (a very loose connection this) the star-shaped, but web-constructed, Racnoss spaceship. It's not a problem though because suddenly Doctor Who itself had become a Christmas tradition. All these years later the idea of a seasonal episode has been cemented into our expectations along with paper crowns, sprouts and Slade, but even back in 2006 it was starting to feel quite normal. Is it a little unsettling that customs can be created so very quickly?

Doctor Who fans are used to such sudden changes, constantly being given new Doctors, new companions, new series schedules and so on. I certainly don't have any problem getting used to Donna. She is so much fun to watch, so funny, so prickly but deeply compassionate. Tate is excellent too and she makes Tennant raise his game - or is it just that this is the first time we see the tenth Doctor meet somebody he has to win over? Either way, this pairing is a joy.

Some of this is hindsight though. I didn't feel this strongly about Donna at the time and the difference is that I know now that she will return. RTD has experimented a lot with 'one-off' companions, and it's definitely an interesting idea, one that is perfectly suited towards the Special episodes. But these guest characters never quite have the same impact. Astrid, Christina, Jackson Lake - although I can enjoy their story, there's no point in becoming attached to them as they'll be gone again in a moment. This was true for Donna originally, but now The Runaway Bride is only the beginning of her story and, in retrospect, her being in this story feels like foresight. Clever trick that.

I didn't much care for the second half of this episode on first viewing. It felt disappointing after that great opening twenty minutes and I didn't appreciate the oddness of Sarah Parrish's Racnoss Queen. Was no-one taking this seriously? This time there was none of that. It's just flat out fun. The Racnoss is visually fantastic and Parrish hardly seems over the top at all. I still don't understand what the Segways are for (do the robots use them? What did the production team feel they added?) but everyone looks like they are enjoying themselves and, believe it or not, that's actually what Christmas is all about.

We enjoyed ourselves too, although William could only give this a seven. "I liked the TARDIS chase and I'm impressed that the military showed up at the end. It wasn't all left to the Doctor this time." He also liked the references to Rose, which, if nothing else, help tie this all together with the immediate events of Doomsday. Christopher continues to perplex. He said Donna was "a little bit rude" and that the Racnoss was "a bit talky" without explaining whether these were things he liked or not. Then he gave this episode nine out of ten and I asked what had made him deduct a point.

"The Doctor defying the law of weather [making it snow]," he said. As ludicrous fan-complaints go, at least it's original.


NEXT TIME...

Doomsday

I like series finales, but I often wish they were different. There's usually a whole whoosh of spectacle thrown in to these episodes and here we are tantalised with the prospect of Daleks versus Cybermen. I just wish this confrontation was the point of the story rather than being a mere decorative adornment. The scene in which these two races finally confront each other is a delight, despite the emotionless, logical Cybermen demonstrating an incomprehensible capacity for bitchy putdowns. The best thing is that, in comparison, the Daleks finally behave like living creatures with individual characters. Withering scorn should be their trademark.

It's right that the Cybermen should be inferior to the Daleks (especially these Cybus neophytes), but their inability to even put a dent in the dalekanium means that the significance of this face-off drains away pretty quickly: after the war of words and a brief skirmish, the laser fire becomes an irrelevant backdrop, CGI wallpaper behind other events.

I suggested last time that perhaps the boys were a little jaded about all this hoopla. That isn't true. They saw this episode as a Big Thing, and what they really wanted was a Big Battle. After this finished, the two of them had quite a heated argument about whether the Cybermen could hurt a Dalek or not. Chris maintained that they had, during the fight in the Voidsphere chamber. William pointed out that that was only when they had been given one of Alt-Torchwood's big guns. Well it went on from there and I couldn't quite bring myself to meticulously note it all down. Suffice to say, they - like me - were more into this aspect of the story than the Whole Rose Thing.

I've been mean about Rose, I know. She has been a great companion, but I never understood why she had to be more than that. Once again, I've never been one of those fans who were so desperately folded in on themselves that they could only cope with an asexual Doctor. Never bothered me that he might have relationships. Never bothered me that a companion might fall in love with him. The River Song arc is absolutely one of the best things that has happened to the show. But Rose is too much. She's too intense. She gets in the way of our relationship with the Doctor. (I sound jealous - I guess I am.) And Rose refuses to play by the rules of the programme, she doesn't accept that she will have to leave. This means that the story had to exert a huge force to physically drag her away and the episode becomes unbalanced, with a long coda that feels (if you're like me) indulgent.

But so what? That's fine. Let her have her moment. It's great drama and it's something Doctor Who has been incapable of doing before, with only the departures of Sarah Jane or Jo even beginning to approach the same level of emotional drama. Even better, it's a perfect ending. Like the great tragedies, Rose has brought this on herself. Unlike any sort of tragedy, she gets to live in luxury with her Mum, Mickey and her revivified Dad. Perhaps she should call it quits and let us get on with the show.

William sort of agreed (after banging his Cyber-drum: "Daleks versus Cybermen was rubbish! Not one Dalek died!"): "I think Rose was too attached to the Doctor. She should have known it wouldn't be forever. I give it a seven."

Chris gave it an 8 and wasn't sure about the cliffhanger arrival. "It shouldn't have ended with Donna turning up. It spoils it. It should have ended with the Doctor crying." I can see his point but, really, if Daleks versus Cybermen has been eclipsed by the Doctor/Rose break-up then we need to just put as much distance between us and Bad Wolf Bay as possible.

Thank goodness for Donna.


NEXT TIME...

Army of Ghosts

I can tell I am terribly old because the thing I like least about modern Doctor Who is the way in which it is compelled to shout "Watch me! You have to watch me!". It's just a fact that television has changed. The monolithic structures of the Sixties have been replaced by a brash digital arena in which programmes and channels must compete for our attention. I don't like it because I grew up in a time when Doctor Who was Just On and everybody (or nearly everybody) watched because the ITV regions hadn't agreed on what to schedule against it.

Things began to slide in the Eighties. I distinctly remember the agony of a school playground full of children who had watched The A-Team instead. Boys and girls, running, shooting at each other, plucking imaginary cigars from their mouths, and me stood in the middle of it all, arms folded, alien. Doctor Who's producer, John Nathan-Turner, seemed to spend all his time courting publicity, leaking stories to the tabloids, provocatively suggesting that he might do away with the Police Box, give the Doctor a wife, or cast a slew of light entertainment stars. His catchphrase, "Stay Tuned!", had an increasingly desperate edge to it as ratings dropped and the show faced first a hiatus and finally cancellation. In those last years, the BBC put Doctor Who on against Coronation Street, the dreadnought of the ITV schedule, as if to hasten its departure.

When the show came back and confounded the doubters, it felt wonderful. Suddenly Doctor Who was the BBC's big beast, dispatching whatever ITV offered on the other side. And yet, it still had to compete, to plead for every viewer. It always makes me think, with distaste, of the years when the show was in trouble and (often) a bit rubbish.

Publicity, these days, is a good thing of course. It means the show is being backed heavily by the BBC and that the papers are interested enough to write about it. Billboards, press launches, Radio Times covers, live shows revealing casting decisions(!) are all evidence of the show's tremendous strength. But sometimes, still, the show does things to itself, contorts itself unnecessarily just so that there is something new with which to try and ensnare viewers and win over TV journalists.

"This is the story of how I died."

It's not quite a lie, but Army of Ghosts does begin with brazen hyperbole. She doesn't literally die, although that is presumably not what she means: Rose is sufficiently self-absorbed that she might claim that life without the Doctor is as good as being dead. We can't, surely,be expected to agonise about someone being mistakenly counted amongst the dead. But using this language, referring to a "war" when subsequent episodes will simply call it a "battle", is artificially raising the stakes. These exaggerated claims will not be substantiated by the rest of this story and, much worse, they will be utterly undermined by Journey's End. This opening is pure snakeoil.

Agh, such a small thing to write so much about, but it is so prominent. Front and centre, at the top of the episode, it might as well be written in fire: WE WANT YOU TO WORRY IN CASE ROSE DIES. But watching this, knowing it's a two-parter, it is as if we are already being told that only the end of this story matters. We'll come to Doomsday, but Army of Ghosts should be worth a look all by itself, and the problem sort of is that it is only really a stepping-stone, to get us to the finale.

It's a strength and a weakness, but this episode trades a lot on the fact that the audience thinks it knows what's going on. After two series and especially after the previous year's Dalek stories, it is beginning to feel like a template is being assembled for Doctor Who. Introductory episode, historical, future, early two-parter, mid-season odds and sods, later two-parter, a cheapish filler and then final two-parter that brings back the big baddy. We know what's coming and we feel clever that we know. It doesn't matter that last week's Next Time made it explicit, that the trailers were full of Cybermen, that this episode features images of Cybermen from an early stage, we still feel like we've cracked the code. We don't notice that we've actually been tricked.

It's good misdirection. And it leads to one of the greatest cliffhangers in all of Who. We weren't expecting anyone else: the unknowable laws of Doctor Who tell us that the Cybermen are strong enough bad guys to warrant a two-part finale story. We, like Mickey, are thinking that there must be a Cyber-Something inside the Voidsphere. When it opens, it is thrilling and mind-bending: nobody expected Daleks to fly out. (Okay, I know you did, clever-clogs, because you spotted the tell-tale extermination visual/sound effect in the Next Time trailer, but you're special.)

But here's the problem with this legerdemain. Firstly, whilst we are waiting for the surprise that we don't know to expect, it all seems a little obvious. Yes, the ghosts are Cybermen. Is that it? The main part of this episode is spent waiting for the Doctor to catch up with us, or at least to say out loud what we guess he has already deduced. Secondly, it turns out that the Cybermen aren't strong enough bad guys that they get their own finale. The impact of the Cybermen is sacrificed wholesale so as to convince us not to expect the surprise that we didn't know we weren't supposed to expect. The Daleks are still the bigger draw, top of the bill and this diminishes the Cybermen - even more so when the two species duke it out next week. I'm not sure that the Cybermen have ever recovered either; I'll let you know when we've rewatched Nightmare in Silver. Thirdly, well, it's the Daleks again. Watching this for the first time I remember my excitement tempered by those insuppressible fan anxieties: are we going to have Daleks in every series finale?

For all that, there are some great things in Army of Ghosts. The wonderful idea that people, like Jackie, can't help but impose human memories onto the blankness of the cyber 'ghosts'; the excellent joke "Peggy heard this noise in the cellar..."; the enigmatic Torchwood being revealed as nothing more than a ghastly modern workspace, bedevilled with corporate-speak and office politics. And the Cybermen, before they are revealed to be a sideshow, are tremendous. Yes, the CGI makes them look a little like a synchronised swimming team as they materialise en masse around the world, but their sheer physical presence is literally brought home during this invasion: most terrifying of all is the Cyberman that appears at the top of the stairs, just as a young boy is running for the safety of his bedroom. For the first time ever in Doctor Who, I was worried about the impact it might have on children - that single image is devastating and brings the imaginary threat right into a child's real world. Scared me, I can tell you.

Christopher, the contrary so-and-so, disagreed. "It was scarier when they were hiding in Torchwood. That was quite creepy. Really good episode though. Nine out of ten."

William is beginning to get a little pernickety. "Why did Rose follow Mickey? Did she recognise him? That makes sense. Except she was surprised when he turned around later on. Hmmmm. And I'm not sure if Daleks versus Cybermen is a good fight. Eight out of ten."

And this is why Doctor Who needs to scream and shout. They are, partly because of me, committed fans, but they are also eight and ten years old: at any time their enthusiasm could flip to cold ambivalence. And if they can't get excited about Daleks versus Cybermen, we're all in trouble.


NEXT TIME...

Fear Her

This is another one with a dodgy reputation. I'm pretty sure that it's not as bad as everyone thinks it is - but it's still on the wrong side of middling. Fear Her has a few nice moments, but it's a hodge-podge, a muddle of different ideas that don't quite gel and steal time from each other. What's worse is that it feels undercooked and is seriously lacking the confident glow that The Christmas Invasion had in spades.

For a start there's the alien. Normally, this creature lives as part of a hive, emotionally dependent upon its billions and billions of siblings. When it crashes on Earth, it is so desperate to regain this sense of community that it infests the first human it finds and starts grasping other children and stuffing them into some other dimension. It's a good idea (although why send the other children away if it is so lonely?), but the name of this alien that wants to be with its family, indeed the name of its species, which lives (as I said) in swarms of many billions, is Isolus. What? As in 'isolation'? Why would it be called that? That's the opposite of what it should be called. That's like calling the Cybermen 'The Emoticons'. Doctor Who has a long tradition of silly names, but at least the planet Arridus was dry and the Monoids only had one eye. Isolus is a name that only describes the business of the story itself. This is a silly, tiny thing to complain about, but it's an example of how Fear Her feels as if it has not been fully thought out.

Which brings us to the Olympics. Firstly, there's no harm in trying something audacious. Good for them for wanting to show glimpses of the opening ceremony, or the torch relay, that far in advance. And, okay, it looks much worse post-2012, now that we've got an image in our heads of how big and splendid and spectacular the actual Olympics turned out to be. But really, what's on screen here looked quite rubbish even in 2006: the entire hoopla of the greatest show on Earth reduced to half a street, some stock footage of a stadium and a Huw Edwards voiceover. And again, behind the lacklustre execution, the ideas don't make sense. When the people in the stadium vanish, nobody other than Huw cares. The horrendous, startling, Earth-shattering news that 80,000 people have disappeared from the Olympic Stadium either does not reach or does not matter to those lining the streets and cheering on the torch relay just a mile or so down the road. In Series One, in episodes like Rose and Aliens of London, ridiculous incidents like this were sold to the viewer with utter conviction. It was a real strength of the show, but Fear Her can't manage it. This feels fabricated and unreal, even down to the freezing breath pluming from everyone's mouths in 'July'.

The third strand of all this is the drawings. It's a neat idea, a great spooky SF concept, perfect for Doctor Who. But it should have had a whole episode devoted to it, not thrown into this mix. All these good ideas are jostling with each other for screen time, for a chance to be developed and, as a result, it's never totally clear what is going on. The 'real' pictures release their captives at the end, including the Doctor and the TARDIS, but the drawing of Chloe's dead father also comes to life. Why? What happens to the picture she drew of the Isolus? Or the Olympic torch that the Doctor (er, somehow?) drew whilst himself trapped inside a drawing? Did they make it through to the real world too? Why not? If there are rules, then it feels like they are being applied inconsistently at least.

But for all that, the heart of Fear Her, the emotional heft, does feel convincing and genuine. Chloe's mother, Trish, nicely played by Nina Sosanya, is scared of her daughter and desperately pretending to herself that everything is going to sort itself out. But it is her very inability to engage with Chloe that draws the Isolus to their house, and it's only when Trish and Chloe connect that they can dispel the ghost of Chloe's father. It's good, it feels true - but it's a very slender spine that can't quite support the rest of this episode.

And also, as William pointed out, how does the singing make the living drawing go away? "I didn't understand that at all," he said. "Just how was the Father defeated? And how did Rose throw the ship-thing into the torch? It can't have flown there if it needed the torch itself to make it wake up." For all that, he still gave it a 7.

Chris was also a bit confused. "So the girl was the baddy and the goody then? Is that right? They really needed to explain how the song killed the monster." And he gave it an 8! Which, for him, admittedly, is quite a low score.


NEXT TIME...

Love & Monsters

I hadn't watched Love & Monsters since its first transmission and the reason is, I think, that I didn't want to have to make up my mind what I thought about it. I know better now, but back when it first aired, I was in the habit of lurking in the online forums; there was an immediate and lasting reaction, an extraordinary division of opinion. The fans either loved or hated it. If only because having an opinion would require me to pick a side, I ran away.

But we've watched it now, all three of us, and I'm still not sure what I think. The boys were absolutely certain. Once it finished, they slumped on the sofa with some dejection, as if I had rather wasted their time.

"The Doctor didn't do anything!" said William. (His only comment during the episode was when the TARDIS arrived to save Elton: "Oh finally!")

"You have to have the Doctor in Doctor Who," he carried on. "That's the point. The baddy only showed up for a short amount of time as well. It's weird this one. A lot of it just doesn't make sense."

Chris agreed. "The baddy wasn't scary, but he was good because he had a good disguise. He wasn't fat like a Slitheen. But I didn't like how the Doctor wasn't in it much."

What about Elton, I asked. Did they boys like him?

"I liked him a bit," said William begrudgingly. "But he's not the Doctor, is he!"

Given their strong reaction, I thought I should explain what had happened. I told them how this episode had been written to work without the Doctor and Rose so they could make another episode at the same time. I told them how it had needed to include the Abzorbaloff, the winning entry in a Blue Peter 'Design A Doctor Who Monster' competition. I also mentioned how some episodes just needed to be cheap. Once we'd gone through all that I asked them if they thought the writer had done the best he could to accommodate all those requirements.

"I suppose so," said Will. "I can respect that. I'll give it a six. No, wait. Five."

And the look that came with it suggested that Love & Monsters should consider itself lucky. Chris seemed far less perturbed and gave it a 7.

There are certainly some good things about this experimental episode. The idea of a story about how people are affected by the Doctor is a great one, and does necessarily suggest that the Doctor might not be around in order for us to see what his effect is. Marc Warren is very good as Elton, vulnerable and engaging, and some of the LINDA moments are sweet. But too often we get moments of pure filler, like the montage of Elton dancing around his bedroom. His emotional journey was highly effective the first time I saw this, but watching it again it felt forced and unconvincing: there's really nothing to his story. Peter Kay is pretty dreadful, both as the bland Victor Kennedy and the grotesque Abzorbaloff. There's no menace or chill to either of these characters and very little to explain what he's up to. If he can't track down the Doctor, how has he found LINDA or hacked Torchwood?

Having said all that, I still can't bring myself to hate Love & Monsters. There's nothing wrong with experimenting, and over many series there is plenty of time to give up to see how the Doctor's absence can be as powerful as his presence. The best thing about this episode is Jackie's brush with Elton and it seems that there was a missed opportunity. This could have been a Jackie-centric story - a chance for us to see even more of what life was like for her at home by herself, after the TARDIS has dematerialised. If she had somehow had an adventure, or become entangled with a support group like LINDA, I think that would have been a lot of fun.

I still don't know what to think really - but I am sure that this isn't the classic episode some believe it to be.


NEXT TIME...

The Satan Pit

The second half of this story can't quite match The Impossible Planet. It's a shame but only a slight one, and it shouldn't be too surprising that the resolution isn't able to meet the expectations raised by part one. As I hinted last time, the sharp end of fear is not knowing - once we get a proper look at what the scary thing is, we can start to rationalise it.

Much of this episode hinges around the sight of tiny David Tennant gurning away beside a giant CGI demon-thing. It's fine, but it's not the strongest thing about The Satan Pit. Unfortunately we had to be shown what we were dealing with, but how much scarier was it when it was just a voice in the dark?

When I found out that this episode would see the Doctor facing up against the Devil himself, I was sceptical to say the least. Wisely, we are told very little about the creature but there's still an attempt to claim that it might be the "reality behind the myth", which feels a little presumptuous. On the other hand, while there's just enough wriggle room for it all to work, perhaps some more context would have helped? If other similar ancient and powerful beings (Fenric?) could have got a mention then it might have felt less like we were being asked to accept a Biblical fancy as literal truth.

Still, lots to like. Best of all, for a part two there is almost no padding whatsoever. Everything feels important, whether it's Rose forcing the crew through the ventilation shafts or the Doctor mulling over his belief system in the darkness. He gets two big moments here, the first when his voice bolsters the humans and counters the doubts raised by the Lord of Lies. And then, at the end, he rationalises his way out of the trap - a very Doctorish thing to do. It's edited a little too energetically perhaps, and it's a shame that there's rather too much faith and not quite enough reason in his final decision but at least he is the agent of his own destiny. The sudden appearance of the TARDIS is disappointingly convenient, and why does the Beast chuckle at him if its consciousness has fled? But why would anyone nitpick any of that when we are caught up in the excitement of the climax? Rose continues to be in fabulous form. The way she takes charge, marshalling and motivating the crew is really impressive without it feeling like she is treading on the Doctor's toes. These are her best qualities, rolling up her sleeves, refusing to give up and challenging those around her to raise their own game. She even gets a bona fide action movie killer quip with which to dispatch Toby into space, and the show ends with a wonderful little moment in the TARDIS - the Doctor and Rose: the stuff of legend. Even though it's not a season finale, this two-parter operates on a grander scale: it's our first genuinely epic adventure of the new run.

William was mollified by events. "10! Total despair turns to victory! I liked that the Doctor was clever. But the Beast was freaky. And I'd like to know how the TARDIS got there." Well, quite.

Chris gave it an 8. "Really good. I really liked this story. This was very scary, but not quite as much as the last episode. I really enjoyed how the Doctor fought the Beast because he used his best talent: talking!"


NEXT TIME...