MICROGORIA 32 - Stranger Things II

Warning!  We are unlocking the curiosity door! In a second show on the marvellous Stranger Things, Mr Jim Moon is joined by Odile Thomas to embark on a SPOILER-FILLED discussion of the Duffer Brothers series that's taking the world by storm! 




DIRECT DOWNLOAD - MICROGORIA 32 - Stranger Things II

Find all the podcasts in the HYPNOGORIA family here -

HYPNOGORIA HOME DOMAIN - Full archive, RSS feed and other useful links

HYPNOGORIA on iTunes

HYPNOGORIA on STITCHER

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS

DOCTOR WHO - A GOOD MAN GOES TO THE SPOILER ZONE

So then the battle for Demon’s Run is over, and at last I can remove the spoiler gauntlets and reveal some more detailed thoughts on this first ever mid-season finale. Now as I’ve already stated in my spoiler-free write-up, this was a great episode, fast paced and full of action, drama and humour. It was a thrilling and fun way to round off this first half of the season, with many great moments and fascinating elements.

First off, I was highly delighted that the inclusion of the Sontarans, Silurians and Cybermen did not herald anything as prosaic as the Alliance from the end of last season reforming. I had a sneaking suspicion that Moffat was going to subvert such expectations and feature a very different alliance, one formed by the Doctor...

And indeed this was the case. From the somewhat sentimental point of view of an old fan, it was a real pleasure to see the Doctor and the Silurians working together at last, after all those past clashes where his attempts to establish a detente had come to naught. Neve McIntosh, with previously played Alaya and Restac in last season’s Silurian two parter, gives us another memorable performance, and shows she could easily carry a series of her own - and I’m guessing I’m not alone is wishing for a spin-off series for Madame Vastra and Jenny.

The on-going adventures of a Silurian lady in Victorian London has great scope; not only do we have rich characters and a vivid setting but there’s also room for some classic fish-out-of-water antics as Vastra comes to terms with living in a completely alien future society like a Jurassic Adam Adamant. It may sound something of a far fetched concept, but the Victorians were quite as stuffy as we believe them to be *; theirs was a society based on cutting edge technology and delighted in new sensations, and many differently abled persons turned their physical misfortunes into success and celebrity in this culture that sought the shock of the new. Hence Madame Vastra could easily integrate into Victorian society by claiming she was afflicted with an unusual skin condition.

Equally pleasing for dyed-in-the-scarf Who fans was Commander Strax, played with aplomb by Dan Starkey. The concept of a Sontaran doing penance as working as a nurse was a delight to behold, and aside from providing some very fun lines, the idea itself is exactly the kind of intelligent inversion that the race’s creator and legendary Who scribe, Robert Holmes revelled in. And while Strax’s statements did produced some great laughs, these funny to human ears pronouncements give us an insight into an alien society who view things very differently. Too often in the show’s past, the Sontarans have been written as the run of the mill intergalactic warmongers, and so far the new series has gone to the back to basics established by Holmes in their first appearance The Time Warrior; that this race is not evil per se, but just hold different values to us.

I do have on very minor quibble here though, where Moffat missed a trick. When Strax is dying, he objects to Rory referring to him as ‘a great warrior’, countering that he is just a nurse. Now personally I’d have had The Last Centurion gently reply ‘So am I...’ Feel free to add that to the fan edit that runs in your heads.

Moving swiftly on, the Cybermen’s appearance was brief but spectacular. The scenes of mayhem in the Cyber Legion’s HQ was truly cinematic and also delivered perhaps my favourite moment of the episode - Rory facing down a room of silver giants and saying ‘Do you want me to repeat the question?’. As well as air punching all round, sharp eyed viewers may have noted that these Cybermen appear to be native to our universe, rather than those from Pete’s World, for if you look closely they do not have the Cybus logo on their chest plates.

But enough of remarking on the little details, what of the big reveal that River Song is Amy and Rory’s daughter? Well, I have to say that I did see it coming, although to be honest I can’t claim a right guess here. You see the thing is, I’ve read, heard and indeed indulged in so much speculation as to the truth about River Song, I had hit on the idea she was Amy’s child. But with so many other possibilities for my imagination to play with, I’d never selected it or any other theory as my best guess. After all this is Moffat story line, and he’s good at weaving plot threads in unexpected ways, so I was content to speculate without reaching a firm conclusion and just enjoy the ride.

However in the opening scenes of this episode when Amy named her baby ‘Melody’, I became fairly sure that River was her child. And when River told Rory that she could join the battle for Demon’s Run until the end, I became certain that not only was this was the case but also that little Melody wouldn’t be safe with her family.

And why? Well in the Doctor Who universe there is a thing called the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. The exact nature of this law of Time, first mentioned in Day of the Daleks is uncertain, but what we do know is that it is extremely hazardous to cross one’s own time stream. Remember how Rose was instructed to stay away from her baby self in Father’s Day, this is because if they touched there would be an explosion of time energy, potentially opening a rift in the space-time continuum. And we have seen this in the show before, firstly in Mawdryn Undead in the classic series, but also last year in The Big Bang. In the latter we saw the Doctor test to see if the multiple sonic screwdrivers were the same item and there a resulting ‘pop’ – now I know it didn’t look terribly serious but remember that at that time the Universe had all but collapsed and so the energy discharge was tiny.

But what of all those Doctor team-up stories, you say… Well, apparently as Time-sensitive species, they are at least partially immune to the effect but still it’s generally considered bad form to go messing about in your own time stream. As Time Lord or not, there is the possibility of creating damaging paradoxes and time loops, not to mention risking attracting the unwelcome attentions of the denizens of the Time Vortex like Reapers, Chronovores and continuity obsessed fanboys.

Therefore as a time traveller, and indeed as an associate of the Doctor, River no doubt realised that appearing early would be temporally risky. Plus she probably already knows the story of the events surrounding her birth, and therefore she can’t appear until the allotted moment without rewriting time.

But anyhow all that’s beside the point (what were you saying about continuity obsessed fanboys, hmm? Mr Kettle meet Mr Pot… - Ed. ), back to the reveal proper. Now, the big problem was setting up big mysteries is that now matter how well you execute them there is always the risk that when you finally lay the cards on the table, it’s going to be a let-down. Of course, you are on better ground if you have planned your story arc out properly from the beginning for cobbling something to fit at the last minute is rarely successful (looks disapprovingly at Battlestar Galactica), but even then it is a bit of damned if you do, damned if you don’t scenario. If you lay down clues and allow your audience a decent chance of guessing, some will be disappointed even though they were right, while if you pull something out of left field in a sneaky fashion, other will cry cheat.

Now personally, I was just a tad underwhelmed by the reveal as I’d put the clues together beforehand. But I stress just a tad, for I didn’t get there until this episode. But all the same it was beautifully played, and actually the more I think about it, the more questions it raises. River being Melody isn’t the final answer, it’s just another piece, albeit a big one, to a larger puzzle.

To begin with, if River is Melody why doesn't see remember being in the spacesuit and killing the Doctor? Could this be down to Silent-generated amnesia? Or are we barking up the wrong tree in assuming that the little girl astronaut who later regenerates is River Song?

Remember we have already seen River die in Forest of the Dead and there was no regeneration then… Of course, the incident at the core could be one of those sudden fatal events that not even regeneration can save. Or possibly she has lost this Time Lord ability in later years.

And there is also the mystery of why their time lines are running in opposite directions. Of course skipping about the whole of history is going to lead to meeting folks out of sequence, but it seems mightily suspect to me that every River we met is at an earlier point in her time line. Surely sometimes they’d managed to meet in the right order? And when you consider that in the classic series, there appeared to be some mechanism which ensure Time Lords always met in the right sequence (i.e. the latest incarnation of the Doctor always encounter the latest version of the Master), the fact that River and Doctor’s time lines are running in opposite directions suggests there’s something very unusual going on here.

And there’s an even bigger question looming over us - we still don’t know who ‘the good man, the best I ever knew’ she killed is…

However, as she takes the name River Song, this could suggest she ends up spending part of her early life in the Gamma Forest. Certainly the scene when the Doctor and Lorna Bucket finally, and tragically, meet again could be read as indicating that the meeting with child Lorna has yet to occur. Yes, I know he claimed to remember her but after her passing he does ask Madame Vastra who she was and also bear in mind River’s First Rule About The Doctor - he always lies. So then, could we be set for a trip to the Gamma Forest in the second half of this season where maybe the Doctor will meet the young Lorna?

On firmer ground, River being at least part Time Lord certainly makes more sense of their future relationship. Aside from being exactly the Doctor’s kind of woman (see here for a previous discussion of this), being as close to one of his own race as is possible in the cosmos certainly, and understandably, adds to the attraction.

Now also we should assess how well this reveal lives up to Moffat’s claim that it would be ‘a game changer’. Now this statement has generated a lot speculation over the last few months and while this episode was heaps of fun, some have rightly questioned whether it delivered all that was expected.

Firstly, in the story line itself we were built up to to the Doctor ‘never rising higher’ only to tumble into ‘his darkest hour’. Quite a claim to live up too, as the Doctor has pulled some massive strokes in his time, such as saving the entire cosmos on more than one occasion not to mention giving beings with the powers of gods a good drubbing to boot. Therefore at first glance, the battle for Demon’s Run was pretty much business as usual.

But perhaps we should remember that the only person saying this is River Song; it’s not an ancient prophecy but a personal interpretation of events. So then, from her perspective, from what she has seen the Doctor do in her lifetime, her assessment of the battle for Demon’s Run, could well qualify for the zenith and nadir of the Doctor. Plus this is her story, so there is bound to be some bias, particularly as her foreknowledge most likely comes from her parents.

But that said, his battle at Demon’s Run is notable for two reasons. Firstly we have him allying with old adversaries and win without bloodshed. But secondly, and more importantly, this victory is fleeting. Not only are there causalities, but actually the Doctor ultimately loses. Not only does he fail to rescue Melody, but Madame Kovarion has tricked him twice and he has badly let down Amy and Rory.

And all this has come about becomes of his own hubris. And it’s not just in the confident jokey business-as-usual manner he tackled the rescue operation but in the general way over the last several incarnations he has unthinkingly become oblivious to the consequences of his actions. As River Song points out he is now so feared that Kovarion and co. are waging a war against him and this chain of events stem from his recent grandstanding.

Now in a comment to my spoiler free review, Mr Lee Medcalf of The Black Dog Podcast, wondered why the Doctor was in the main so causal in his reaction to this assault on his loved ones. Was this misjudged writing, direction or performance? And indeed I must admit to wondering the same. But having reflected on the matter, it becomes clear that this wasn’t a dramatic misstep but the final act of a man who has begun to believe in his own legend too much. For it is precisely because he believes he can outfox anyone or anything in the universe that he fails to notice that his victory is, as Dorium points out, ‘too easy’.

Now then the Doctor being defeated is indeed a rare thing and equally uncommon is a whole situation being his own fault. So then, while he has tackled far bigger threats, such as would-be universe devourers like The Beast or Sutekh, this truly is a very personal dark hour.

But is it really game-changing? Well, at first glance no. But considering the implications, it certainly changes all the key dynamics between the regular cast. But also we should remember that the story is far from over, and I suspect there are further troubles to come and the dark hour may not have concluded yet. For example, consider the final post credits sequence - the caption ‘Time is running out..’ and a skeletal hand clutching a dying sonic screwdriver. So then I’m guessing that we don’t yet realise the full consequences of this episode. It could well be a pivotal point in the Doctor’s history.

And the title for the next episode - Let’s Kill Hitler - while hinting at a monstrously cheeky story line also has more sinister undertones. For while it seems to promise another venture to World War Two, complete with Churchill, spitfires and possibly more ‘ironsides’, we should note that this could be reference to that old time travel moral dilemma - if you could go back in time, would it be ethical to kill Hitler as a child? Now bearing in mind, we have a theme developed in this story about the consequences of the Doctor’s actions, this reference to that classic moral maze becomes somewhat ominous...

Certainly it would appear that Moffat has a plot line in mind that is going to change the way the Doctor’s operates and possibly redefines the character itself. And while the cliff-hanger to A Good Man Goes To War might seem a little in the shadow on the climax of The Almost People in the leaving the audience in suspense stakes, the more you consider what it may be leading too the more the speculation engine overheats... Which is the ideal place to leave the series for the break; an open door to new adventures that a bouncer called ‘summer’ won’t let us through yet... Roll on autumn, dark nights, and more Doctor Who!

* Interested readers should check out Matthew Sweet’s Inventing the Victorians, a fascinating tome which demonstrates how wrong the popular image of this period is.

DOCTOR WHO – The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People Spoiler Zone

Scanners indicate… Look, you did read the title right?

Fittingly enough, this assortment of ill judged ramblings will be in two parts just like its subject. Firstly we’ll weigh up the episodes themselves and then move on the realm of wild speculation regarding its possible implications for this Saturday’s mid season finale and the wider story arc.

So then, what of the story itself? Well firstly, and most flippantly, I do have a problem with the two parter format in new Who and that is this – what the hell do we call the story as a whole? Although individual episodes having their own title is a nice return to the naming conventions of the days of the First Doctor, in returning to this, it also sees the rebirth of the long running fan headache of what are these stories actually called. And there are no Target Book adaptations these days to help out either! Mind you, these paperback archives of the old shows sometimes confused matters further – I would be at all surprised if in a parallel universe where they are still being produced, the tome for this brace of episodes is entitled Doctor Who And The Acid Factory…

…Which actually isn’t a bad moniker for this adventure, considering its mind bending twists and turns. For besides delivering two top class cliff-hangers that gets fan theorising engines blowing gaskets left, right and centre, this story made excellent use of that old genre favourite, the doppelganger. The usual fun and games of such tales was much in evidence here – keeping track of when characters were the originals or their Flesh doubles – and with some rather neat swerves thrown in. But it was also refreshing that Matthew Graham’s script didn’t take the easy, expected route of having the Gangers be purely evil twins.

Now the moral dilemma is a classic Doctor Who plot element, providing the backbone for such classics as Genesis of the Daleks and The Silurians. However this two parter rather neatly delivered two for the price of one, with both the humans and the Gangers debating the ethics of their planned actions. And not only did this nicely mirror the wider themes of duality in the script but also led to some interesting reversals of opinion. For example, while in the first part it looked like that crew leader Cleaves (Raquel Cassidy) was going to be the usual hard headed aggressor that blows any chance of a peaceful solution (a common trope in classic base-under-siege stories) , the second showed both versions of her revising their stance.

And we had some great performances to back up the script, with the afore mentioned Ms. Cassidy and Michael Bonnar as Jimmy bringing wonderfully played subtle nuances to their roles. And the regular performed very well – Arthur Davril in particular was wonderful in this outing. Again we see that beneath his klutziness, there is a brave and noble man. He’s equally committed to doing the right thing, but is not afraid to question or even call out the Doctor on his decisions. I’ve really warmed to Rory this series, and this adventure definitely had me tipping into a genuine love for the character.

Karen Gillan was on top form too; it was nice to see her get plenty of solid dramatic meat to get her teeth into. Obviously this script itself required her to deliver more than just screaming, sarcasm and a lot of leg, but it was the little touches she brought to the performance that show off her talents. For example, I loved the way that when she was finally reunited with Rory, she hugged him passionately and then gave him a little playful punch which clearly said ‘that’s for running off and locking us in a crypt, stupid…but I’m still awfully proud of you!’

Of course there was a brilliant performance from Matt Smith. It was a real delight to see two Doctors playing off each other – not just double the now typical excellence but a chance to see a wider than usual range of emotions from the character. But it was also a relief that the Ganger Doctor plot strand didn’t head down the evil double route. Aside from the fact that the bad twin plot has been done to death, I think it was important for the second Doctor to remain clearly on the side of good in a story that was potentially very frightening for younger viewers. Now much has been said about how this series is a lot more frightening for children, but the great thing about the show is that despite how terrifying the monsters are – and indeed they were rather horrible and creepy in this adventure – there is always the guarantee that the Doctor will be bright and funny and save the day. And so it was very appropriate to have the dark scariness leavened with two versions of our favourite Time Lord running about and having a ball together.

But the real star turn for me was Sarah Smart as the real villain of the piece Jenn, impressively delivered both touching innocence and psychotic revenge. And again the script was very deft in making sure that even when she had turned to the darkness, we could still understand the reasons for her actions – this wasn’t just simple hostility or cardboard evil but the result of a mind broken by the burdens of shared pain and the knowledge of real injustices.

While the first episode would remind sci-fi fans of John Carpenter’s The Thing, the second part, although there would still be a similar ‘who is friend and who is foe’ dynamic at work, the overall thrust became more reminiscent of Moon, with the reveal of the discarded Flesh pile. However rather than cookie cutter evil corporation antics at work, it was very pleasing to see that the whole sorry situation was born out of that usual source of misfortune, human ignorance – no one had realised that the Flesh was capable of memory and independent sentience.

Now I will admit that I did have some slight concerns throughout both episodes that possibly this story would just morph into a Doctor Who remake of either of the two classic movies referenced above. However as it turned out, Graham’s tale resolutely forged its own path, which while exploring similar territory asked different questions and brought its own revelations.

It also was a winning fusion of new and old Who. Aside from the cheeky nods to the show’s past – both overt like the sampling of previous incarnations in the Ganger Doctor’s stabilising scene, and subtle like the record player in an ancient monastery (that’s a wink to the Hartnell story The Time Meddler ) - this outing featured a classic serial structure and top quality corridor action, allowing the story to breath and develop and deliver some distinctly old school thrills. But at the same time, its character depth, crafty plotting and emotional punch showcase the best elements of the reborn series.

This is an adventure of many different levels and the more I consider its well crafted layers the more I like it. For besides having an impressive amount of character depth, it also ties in nicely to the on-going themes of memory and identity that have been running throughout both this and the last series. Apologies if this all sounds a little too much like bringing pretentious literary criticism into a Who review but clearly as well as a stronger story arc, the Moffat tenure has seen the introduction of proper recurring themes – if the RTD years had a not so subtle ‘humans are great’ subtext, now we have adventures that are linked by an exploration of how the stories we tell ourselves - the narratives formed by our memories - define both who we are and the worlds we inhabit.

However as I stated in the spoiler free review of the The Almost People, the trouble for this story is that all of the above will be somewhat overlooked thanks to the revelations and implications for the rest of the season.

But before we start mucking about with these intriguing titbits and possible clues, allow me to properly answer a question posed in the afore mentioned spoiler-free write up . So then, to swiftly recap, I wondered whether Moffat and Graham were pulling a similar manoeuvre to the end of Series 3, where a seemingly stand alone episode, Utopia was in fact the first part of a three part finale.

Now if you’d checked the official Doctor Who website or encountered more spoiler happy news feeds, you’d have seen the return of the Sontarans and the Silurians announced for A Good Man Goes To War and talk of The Almost People containing an epic cliff-hanger.

And if you did, hands up who thought that this episode would be largely unconnected with the rest of the on-going story and just feature a surprise appearance from this pair of old enemies at the end. You know the kind of thing – a completely tacked on epilogue with them popping up waving jazz hands.

Thankfully though, that wasn’t the case. But at the same time, this adventure isn’t just the unofficial parts one and two of a closing trilogy either. Largely the story can stand on its own, but at the same time once you get the end and discover that Amy has been replaced by a Ganger, you find that a lot of what the Doctor(s) say and do in this adventure has a wider relevance; he’s not just working out the details needed to solve the immediate situation but studying the properties of the Flesh.

Again this is rather neat plotting. For a start, it’s far more elegant than the story arc linkage in Graham’s last outing Fear Her which lazily closed with the Doctor intoning “There’s a storm coming”. Instead we have a story that works in it’s own right but also builds up the momentum of the on-going story line, and weighted I think just right. There’s enough to get regular viewers excited (something of an understatement there) but not enough to alienate the causal audience. Indeed for the latter, I suspect the way this one unfolded will have many tuning in again next week and going back to catch up on what has come before. In other words, it’s a real demonstration of having your cake and eating it.

So then what potential hints do we have in here? Well, to begin with there is the Ganger Doctor. At the end of The Rebel Flesh, the obvious conclusion was that the man who we saw killed by the Impossible Astronaut was the Flesh double. However seemingly, this ‘spare’ is promptly taken off the board at the end of The Almost People with the Almost Doctor/John Smith dissolving.

However is it really that simple? Remember that Jenn’s descent into villainy comes because she can remember her previous incarnation and their painful decommissioning, and more importantly, the original Doctor explicitly says to his counterpart that the Flesh has memory and there might be a way to return.

But there’s more… If you watch very closely, as I did, you will notice there is something fishing going on with the sonic screwdriver. We see the original surreptitiously chuck over the trusted multi-purpose tool to Smith. However later on, when they are trapped facing rising acid, the ‘real’ Time Lord has it back… Now this isn’t a case of him having two in his famously capacious pockets, because he needs to give it back to Smith to destroy the Jenn-Beast at the finale.

Now this has been flagged up as a continuity error. And an obvious explanation is that there is a missing scene where they pass the sonic but honestly it’s hard to see when this could occur. But I suspect there’s something more sinister at work, for in the last series there was a similar supposed continuity cock-up. In Flesh And Stone the Doctor regains his jacket for a scene. Of course, now we know that this wasn’t a production assistant losing track of props, but a Doctor from the future rewinding through his time line. So then I suspect there something similar going on here and possibly there is more than one duplicate of the Doctor strolling around in this story…

…After all, now seemingly the Doctor knows that Amy has seen him die in the future – note his remark about “being invited” when Smith is facing his doom holding the door.

Of course there are many more questions raised in this story. How long ago was Amy replaced? Well, the obvious point would be in the “3 months later” gap at the beginning of Day of the Moon - well, I did say in the spoiler piece for that episode, we would be returning to that section of missing time, didn’t I?

More puzzling, does the Doctor have an idea who the Eye Patch Lady actually is? Him saying to Amy “push but only when she tells you too” and the fact he seems familiar with the future use of Flesh technology, seems to indicate he knows something more than he’s letting on.

Finally then, let’s round off with some speculation as to how the Sontarans and Silurians are going to figure in A Good Man Goes To War. Firstly, we should note that as I discovered here, the Silurians were aware Amy is pregnant, it’s not too surprising they are going to figure in the next episode.

Now on the subject of Amy’s pregnancy, considering that in Amy’s Choice she is dreaming of future where she is with child, it would suggest that subconsciously she was aware she had conceived. And furthermore, as she had been reunited with Rory in the previous episode (The Vampires of Venice) and we got the potential love triangle dealt with, I suspect it was during *ahem* the post fish-battering celebrations that conception occurred.

But what of the Sontarans? Well, firstly these fearsome alien warmongers are a clone race, and in The Sontaran Stratagem/ The Poison Sky we did see them using their technology to duplicate humans. Is the Flesh something back engineered from the cloning devices left behind? After all, UNIT and Torchwood are known to seize such alien tech and tinker with it, not to mention independent collectors like Henry Van Statten. And furthermore, the acid proof suits look suspiciously similar in design to Sontaran battle armour…

Of course with Cybermen and River Song returning too, all of the above might not be relevant and it’s just the Alliance of Famous Monsters having another pop at the Doctor…

 …But that seems far too simple! One thing is sure though – whatever happens you can bet Moffat’s got something up those sleeves that no one has seen coming yet!

DOCTOR WHO 6.04 - The Doctor's Wife Spoiler Zone

For a spoiler free review from Mr Moon, go here!

But now, run for the corridors! The spoilers are free!

Well, I couldn't just let such a lovely episode pass by and not remark in detail on its merits could I now?

To begin with in the opening scenes we have a whole slew of little nods and winks to the Doctor’s past travels. In the run up to this season, hot on the heels of the news that Mr Gaiman’s episode would be appearing, came the titbit that the story would feature something or some one not seen since The War Games.

Now for those of you who don’t know, The War Games was final epic adventure that ended the Second Doctor’s run. And this tale was a real landmark in Who history, as it finally revealed that the Doctor was a Time Lord, met other members of his race, saw their home Gallifrey (though it wasn't named until much later on) and we discovered why he’s been roaming time and space all these years.

Therefore when the title of this episode was revealed and the teasers and trailers told us that it took place in a bubble universe, in conjunction with the afore mentioned titbit everything seemed to be pointing in the direction of meeting some surviving Time Lords. However this wasn't exactly the case and the call back to The War Games turned out to be a hypercube, the method by which the Second Doctor summons the Time Lords to sort of the War Chief’s mess.

Now while some viewers might feel a little disappointed we only found the remains of dead Gallifreyans, it was a nice little swerve. For while the fan genes have always clamoured to see an appearance of Time Lords, even before RTD wiped them out in the returning show’s mythos, when they have manifested in a story, it hasn't always been for the best. For if they are mishandled – which they had been in the past in some stories – you damage the mystique of this powerful ancient race that effectively rules all time.

However while The Doctor’s Wife may not deliver on-screen Time Lords, among the wreckage of the countless TARDISes (TARDII maybe? Yes, we’ll go with that…), we get a lot of hints and odd little details that reveal just enough to fire the imagination but not drag the lore down into mundanity. For example, who exactly was the Corsair – the very name is laden with untold stories! And while his introduction into what we know about the Who universe confirms that Time Lords can indeed regenerate into different gender, fans no doubt will be more intrigued by his tattoo –what does it signify? Is it a Time Lord brand marking his as a criminal, which fandom has suggested the tattoo we see the Third Doctor sporting in Spearhead From Space is?

But as well as the hypercube, this adventure brings back lots of other classic flotsam and jetsam. Of course the reappearance of the Ood and the console room used by the Ninth and Tenth Doctors need not be remarked upon. However more obscurely, the bubble universe sounds very similar to E-Space where the Fourth Doctor adventured for a spell. And the deleting of rooms within the TARDIS to provide an energy boost has been done before too – in Castrovalva where the Fifth Doctor jettisons a quarter of the Ship’s interiors for extra thrust to escape being sucked in the non-time that existed before Event One (or The Big Bang to you and me).

And as well as all these tips of the hat to the show’s long history, there’s a pleasing return of some classic thematic elements. Firstly we have the long running staple of the original series, running down some corridors! And better still, they are corridors in the TARDIS! It’s always fun to get a peek at the Ship’s interior, but like the Time Lords, it’s best if that’s all we get – the TARDIS rooms you can imagine will always be more fun that whatever we see on screen.

Now while I delighted to learn that all the old console rooms are archived within the depths of the TARDIS, I was little disappointed we did get to a version from the classic series (and indeed from my web surfing this morning it would appear that every one who feels the same way would like to see the wood panelled secondary console room from the Fourth Doctor’s era). However we did get a third console in the shape of the lash-up TARDIS the Doctor and Idris cobble together, and this looked not unlike a strange mash up of TARDII desktop themes past. And even more fun is the fact that this improvised console was dreamed up by a child in a Blue Peter competition (details here).

Now what I really love about it is that a young viewer has taken the shape of the classic era console and made it over with the mad bric-a-brac stylings of the current TARDIS. But not only is it a great bit of design but it fits so perfectly with the themes of the episode. And speaking of which…

…We have the junkyard planet – now that’s not a reference to an older adventure per se but junkyards in general are important to Doctor Who lore. Our first meeting with the Time Lord and his TARDIS in An Unearthly Child occurred in a scrap yard on Totter’s Lane owned by one I.M. Foreman. And over the years, the Doctor has been back there several times - twice on screen in Attack of the Cybermen and Remembrance of the Daleks and on a few other occasions on the printed page. And it’s not the first time we've seen a spaceship graveyard too - all that interstellar wreckage reminded me of the wastes of Karn in The Brain of Morbius - and House is not the first villain who lures in spacefarers to stock his larder. It’s a vintage Who set up all round!

And so to then let’s talk a bit about the Doctor/TARDIS romance in this story. While any whiff of the ‘L’ word around the Doctor is seen as heresy for some fans, I thought the relationship portrayed in this episode was spot on. Now I’m not against the Doctor having a relationship per se – after all he is a grand father remember – but in the past I’ve never been quite convinced by what we've seen on screen in the new series.

For example, although I can understand the Doctor would have a lot of affection for Rose, as she seems to connect him back to the world after the traumas of the Time War, I didn't think she have the intelligence and resourcefulness to win a place in his heart next to Sarah Jane or Romana II, the two past companions who it would appear he had relationships that ran deeper than just friendship. And while I enjoy The Girl In The Fireplace, it’s main flaw is that I don’t really buy that the Doctor would seemingly fall for Madame Pompadour as quickly as he does – again I can see why he wants to whisk her away in the TARDIS – she has many of the qualities of Sarah and Romana but the gloss that there was love blossoming there just seemed too much to soon. But as I said, I’m not against the idea in principle. For example, you can see why he’s going to become River Song’s ‘old man’, as she’s obviously his sort of girl!

However what we have in this adventure is a different kettle of fish. For this is a love that is as deep as that we associate with Cupid’s arrows but it’s far more than the usual hearts and flowers. This is the Doctor meeting the human embodiment of his beloved Ship; as his oldest companion, his real home, the TARDIS is part of who he is. Yes, The Doctor’s Wife is a love story of sorts, but it’s not one that trivialises who the Doctor is by giving him a conventional love interest as a gimmick. Rather it’s an exploration of what the TARDIS means to the Doctor, and most deliciously, vice versa.

Now in the various books and short stories produced in the Who cannon, there has long been the idea that as well as being somehow alive and in some fashion intelligent, the TARDIS is also sentient and that they are as much grown as built. Indeed in the Eight Doctor series of novels we have the concept that in the future (well, the future that was to be before the Time War) TARDII would evolve beyond taking the form of inanimate objects and manifest as sentient beings.

Furthermore, fans have evolved a theory that the TARDIS takes the Doctor to specific places rather than just being somewhat erratic in where it lands. An early piece of ‘evidence’ for this is way back in the First Doctor’s time. In The Massacre, the Doctor’s companion back then Steven meets a girl called Anna Chaplet and it would appear she perishes in the titular tragedy. And Steven is most grieved that the Doctor is content to allow history to play out. However as they are arguing the TARDIS lands, apparently randomly, in present day London and a young woman enter, one Dodo Chaplet… Seemingly the TARDIS had sensed Steven’s grief and materialises at exactly the right time for his to meet one of descendants, proving that she survived the massacre.

Now then The Doctor’s Wife confirms both the above theories that have accreted over the years. And it does so in a wonderful fashion – solidly there in the script, yet not the main focus of the story.

The inclusion of all these little nods and winks, not to mention the new hints revealed will certainly play well to all those who love the show. But the story is so well crafted that causal viewers will equally enjoy encountering the conceits the plot is built around for the first time. Mr Gaiman has pulled off the perfect balance of an adventure that will appeal to both those steeped in Who lore and those who can’t recite the titles of Dalek episodes in order. As I said in my spoiler-less review, it is the a love letter to the series, but one that everybody can read.

And much has been made of the fact that this story is a wonderful stand alone adventure, but I do wonder it is as self contain as it first appears. Are the echoes of Totter’s Lane foreshadowing a new beginning for the Doctor? Remember, Moffat has promised us 'a game changing cliff-hanger'…

Also I do suspect we haven’t seen the last of Idris, or rather I can see the TARDIS taking on human form again for a chat, although her dialogue suggests that it might not be to speak with the Doctor...

And to briefly open the TARDIS doors while in the wild vortex of speculation – the Corsair? Piratical sounding handle isn't it. And what do pirates wear? Eye patches… Now we know he changed gender…

...But enough of that! Probably nonsense!

DOCTOR WHO Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon Spoiler Zone

Shhh! Spoilers!

Well, it certainly was a wild way to open your new season! The Doctor it would appear is dead, killed by the mysterious astronaut, River Song definitely seems to his (future) wife, there’s an enigmatic little girl would may or may not be in the space suited figure that slays our Time Lord hero, and Amy would appear to be potentially pregnant (and I’ll explain that later). Last summer, Moffat promised us that the mid season finale would be a “a game changing cliff-hanger that will change everything” and Series 6 of new Who has clearly begun with the kind of almighty set-up that such an epic storyline would need…

Now first of all, let me nail my colours to the mast (Getting ahead of yourself there Mr Jim, the pirate ship’s next week! – Ed) – this brace of episodes really impressed me. Cunningly plotted and equally packed with scares and wit, this opening stories hits all the right marks for what I want from Doctor Who. But aside from all of that, I have nothing but admiration for the Grand Moff for kicking off the new season at the level most other series only climb up to for the closing episodes.

For example, the final cliff-hanger in Series 4 was the Tenth Doctor seemingly exterminated by the Daleks. However being an RTD story there was a convenient deus ex machine suddenly popping up in the form of some hitherto unknown wrinkles in the regeneration process to quickly tidy it up. However Moffat has significantly raised the stakes – the Eleventh Doctor is dead with no hope of regeneration and, more to the point, rabbit-from-the-hat solutions just aren't his style.

So therefore, I wasn't at all surprised that the Doctor’s demise wasn’t reversed by the end of Day of the Moon. However from sampling various reviews here and there across the net, it would seem a fair few were somewhat disgruntled that everything wasn't neatly tied up. Well sorry folks, we’re in a new age of Doctor Who now where’s there’s going to be proper story arcs, with episodes linked by a lot more than just dropping in a token reference here and there. And this is a good thing! No, honestly it is! Let’s address the various concerns…

The one I'm hearing the most is that “it’s going alienate causal viewers”. Well despite the now annual exercise in lazy journalism that claims that Doctor Who is falling in the ratings, if you visit the Doctor Who News page which regularly reports the stats, you’ll see that the figures are actually very, very healthy. Yes, the guesstimated overnight numbers are lower than usual but that is a combination of hot weather and both episodes falling in Bank Holiday weekends. However the properly calculated figures are a different matter demonstrating that the show is respectably holding its own, competing with those ratings heavy weights, the soaps, gaining a large share of the viewing audience and scoring very high on audience appreciation.

And all of this despite being screened after the TV train wreck that is Don’t Scare The Hare - if you are looking for a show that is really is well and truly failing, seek no further!

Plus The Impossible Astronaut is well on the way to breaking the record for most watched/downloaded show in iPlayer history and Day of the Moon in just fours days has clocked up over a million plays – and that’s nearly double the hits the Royal Wedding has got.

So can we finally put this one to bed? Next time some idle fuckwit at the Daily Mail or whatever starts bleating about how Doctor Who is dying, just remember there’s more chance of finding a Yeti in the loos at Tooting Bec than discovering a true fact in such vacuous scare-mongering rags!

But the figures, which you can check for yourselves, also effectively counter the other most heard complaint about Series 6 “that it’s getting too complicated for ordinary viewers”. As I stated in my review of Day of the Moon, we forget that the general public like serials; those oft despised reality TV shows only succeed because they are edited to make an on-going story line. And soap viewers are used to dealing with the kind of labyrinthine continuities that rival the complexities of the Marvel and DC Universe. So I doubt that more closely linked stories in Doctor Who are going to prove too much of a problem.

And it’s also worth paying close attention to what Mr Moffat says in the interview linked above. He clearly says that the epic cliff-hanger he’s planning is possible because of the two halves structure of Series 6. He understands very well that setting up big mysteries that don’t get resolved for ages is a sure way to alienate viewers.

For this whole business of long story lines in genre shows causing the ratings to haemorrhage like an impaled Cyberman in The Five Doctors isn't down to the general populace being too thick to appreciate scifi or any such nonsense, it’s due to shows like Lost and Battlestar Galactica treading water and testing even genre fans’ patience by not developing the on-going plot lines swiftly enough. Now I'm not saying they were terrible shows here, but I can understand why viewers drifted away after being kept dangling for so long at certain points in their histories.

Rather there’s a fine balance between developing a satisfying story arc and telling individual stories, and Moffat understands this well. Consider, for example, how the last season played out – instead of the Cracks just being a repeated visual equivalent of past seasons’ catchphrases like ‘Bad Wolf’ or ‘Mr Saxon’, we actually continued to learn more about them and what they signified steadily throughout the series. So it’s safe to say that more will be revealed in the coming weeks and there will be some answers to the big questions by the June break rather than a big reveal in the final episodes in the autumn.

Now with all of that out of the way, let’s move onto the meat of the episodes themselves. Now to address another common issue, quite a few folk have remarked on the swerve Day of the Moon opens with – we rapidly jump from the cliff-hanger to ‘Three Months Later’. And naturally this has prompted a good deal of head scratching. Yes, the episode does give you enough detail to work out that Canton hunting down the Doctor and his friends is a ruse to fool the Silence, however many have felt that it was insufficiently explained.

And initially this was my reaction too. However having seen the rest of the episode and discovered exactly what is resolved, I’d have to say that why this start is a little jarring, it’s fairly clear that this missing chunk of time is going to be revisited later in the season. Remember how in the Weeping Angels story last year, we had the mystery of the Doctor’s reappearing jacket and the revisiting of those scenes at the conclusion? Well I think Moffat is doing much the same here as there is a lot still to be explained that we can’t pick up from Day of the Moon…

…The big one being the Doctor’s Area 51 cell being made of dwarf star alloy. Now this is an alien material and there are questions therefore on where it came from. Viewers with long memories may recall that the Tenth Doctor chained Father Of Mine with chains made from this substance in The Family of Blood, but long-time Who watchers will be thinking of the Tom Baker era tale Warriors’ Gate…

Now in this story featured a race called the Tharils, who could cross time lines at will, and also looked like contemporary popster (and later urban reformer) Daryl Hall … Well, it was the ‘80s!

Daryl Hall

A Tharil

But aside from cheap gags, the point of mentioning this tale is that it might have a clue or two for the current story line. You see the Tharils could cross time lines at will, and where being enslaved to use their innate abilities to power spacecraft across hyperspace. And they were being contained by dwarf star alloy which inhibited their abilities to cross into different dimensions of space-time. Furthermore this whole adventure took place in another universe called E-Space. Now obviously all of the above raises some interesting possibilities for resolving the Doctor’s apparent death…

…But of course it might not! It could just be one of Moffat’s call-backs to the classic series – the Doctor’s mention of being present at the Fall of Rome wasn't just a bit of showing off; he was there and we saw this in the William Hartnell adventure The Romans. But certainly there will more detail on the dwarf star alloy I'm sure. Moffat plays a long game!

Amy’s pregnancy is a case in point. Of course, there’s the obvious possible foreshadowing in Amy’s Choice in which one of the dream realities has her with child (quick aside: the mysterious Eyepatch Lady in Day of the Moon says “she’s still dreaming” - does this signify the hand of the Dream Lord at work?). But there’s another more sneaky reference in The Hungry Earth - if you care to recall the Silurians had sucked Amy down to their city and then scan her… And this is what results…

Yes, that is a heart beat appearing when they scan her stomach! Now I clocked this at the time and expected it was setting up getting her out of harm with the old “we will not hurt you as you have young” alien cliché, but the story didn't belabour that old saw and I promptly forgot about it… until last week that is!

You see, looooooooong game! Therefore the missing three months in this opening tale isn’t sloppy writing like RTD resurrecting the Master with a load of never to be explained smoking potion hugger mugger, it’s a deliberate omission; a piece of narrative sleight of hand.

Now I'm not going to speculate on the many mysteries this story presents. There are endless theories online as to what the regenerating child is, who River Song is and how the Doctor will escape – my favourite is the tongue in cheek suggestion made by Mike in the Bigger on the Inside podcast that River Song is the TARDIS - but as the wonderful Nuts4r2 sagely remarks in his own reviews of these episodes, it’s almost pointless to speculate as we don’t have enough pieces on the board yet. However I do think it’s worth mentioning the fact that the TARDIS scanner can’t seem to decide whether Amy is Pregnant or not. And this would suggest that perhaps the time-lines are currently in flux…

Similarly I'm not convinced we’ve seen the last of the Silence. For a start on a technical note, just having the Silence turn out to be just some skull faced aliens in suits is too much of a let down. Admittedly they were superbly scary but not quite big or bad enough to justify the previous season build up. And I'm not sure they are the Silence – they may be part of it but they are not the full deal. Remember what they say to Amy - “You are Amelia Pond…We do you honour…. You will bring the Silence….”

Perhaps we should be calling them the Silents… And also bear in mind that we never did discover what their plan was. And certainly they didn't build the mystery ship we saw in The Lodger or the dwarf star alloy – they definitively state that they use the technology of other races.

It’s an intoxicating brew alright! But the big questions aside, I’ll wrap this rambling up with a final point. If you have any doubts about Moffat’s plotting, consider how clever the resolution to Day of the Moon was. An on-going problem in the Doctor Who universe is that present day Earth has to remain very close to our own real-life continuum yet you have to wonder after all the invasions why the world in the series hasn’t become an alternate universe where every one knows that aliens are real. Yet for this most virulent infestation presented in this tale, Moffat has a very intelligent twist – we repelled the Silence but because of the way they operate no one remembers doing it. It deftly presents a global threat without destroying credibility or continuity, and is also wonderfully ironic dramatically.

Now next week, it would seem we have something of breather with a high seas adventure featuring “a stroppy, homicidal mermaid”. But I’m not ruling out a few more clues surfacing amid the cutlasses and tricorne hats! And if not, who cares – it’s the good Doctor tangling with pirates and Lilly Cole! All board? Yes, indeed!