Okay, so the episode opens showing an idyllic, little cottage and inside we see a very pregnant Amy. The TARDIS materializes in the garden and we discover that it’s been five years since Amy and Rory have traveled with the Doctor. Amy and Rory show the Doctor around their sleepy little village and the Doctor seems to be so bored that he falls asleep on a bench (well, they all do). They then wake up in the TARDIS. Was it all a dream or are they dreaming now? That’s the question put forth by the Doctor’s newest adversary, the Dream Lord. He has given them two realities. One, the world of the TARDIS, excitement and adventure, the other, a mundane, quiet life in the boonies. They have to decide which reality is real and which is false and they have a limited amount of time to do so because they are in real peril that will destroy them all.
This is one of the least bombastic episodes of the season, which makes for a nice change of pace. It’s not really effects heavy, instead relies on a lot of dialog instead of explosions to move the plot forward. Simon Nye wrote some really great lines for this episode, some of them you’ll have to get on the second viewing because they just whiz right on by. My favorite is the Doctor’s line, “You haven’t changed a bit, apart from aging…” Toby Jones (Dobby from Harry Potter for the American readers…) is actually very creepy as the Dream Lord. There’s a hint that he may return which would be interesting concerning the true nature of his character. The other thing that I found really touching was the moment in which Amy realizes how much she has taken Rory for granted and how much she really loves him. Why? We don’t know, Rory is still played as kind of a goober, but he does seem to have a strong, inner quality like Mickey. The other thing I really liked, and as was mentioned in Confidential, was turning something ordinary into something scary. In this case, old people. Can you imagine now, every little British child who saw that episode now being terrified of getting a hug from Nan because an eyeball is gonna pop out of her mouth and eat him? Awesome! What did you guys think?

Sorry about not having any reviews for the last two episodes. My real life decided to take over for a while. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Anyway, I’m back on track and should have a new review for this week’s episode “Amy’s Choice.” As for the previous two, I really liked “Flesh and Stone”. I was particularly creeped out when Amy had to walk through the Angels with her eyes closed. And I guess we’ll be seeing more of River Song as well. The scene that most stood out for me though was the scene between the Doctor and the Bishop when the Bishop had been caught by an Angel. The tears that were welling up in the Doctor’s eyes out of sadness and frustration… very powerful I thought. And then the ending when Amy starts getting a little too frisky with the Doctor. I was laughing my butt off. I had a redhead try to do something similar to me once at work. Sadly, unlike Karen Gillan, she was not a beautiful, tall and leggy ginger but short, two hundred pounds and missing a tooth. THAT got her fired…
ANYway…. “Vampires in Venice”. Toby Whithouse who did the series Being Human wrote this episode. Right up his alley, right? It’s the episode that had that great line. The Doctor is surrounded by vampire girls and he says, “Tell me the whole plan!” They hiss back at him and the Doctor whirls around to run away saying to himself, “One day that’s going to work…” Hilarious! Plus the opening when we see Rory’s stag party. The cake comes in and the Doctor pops out of the cake. I’m pretty sure that’s not what the best man had ordered. Kind of like when the dancers showed up at my best friend’s stag party… Helen McCrory was a decidedly sexy vampire/ fish woman. And we finally see the face of the narrator of Doctor Who Confidential. He plays McCrory’s son. There was a great moment when Rory tears into the Doctor. He tells the Doctor why he’s so dangerous. It’s because he makes people want to impress him. Now Rory does seem kind of like a wishy-washy type of guy and one has to wonder why an alpha-female like Amy would want to marry him, but as he seems to be a new companion, we’ll find out. Plus I like the idea of having a third companion. It’s been quite a while. By the way, I wonder if the BBC would actually make the Rory’s Stag Party t-shirts available? Would I wear one normally? No, but I would at the cons. Well, off to get ready for my gig. New review tomorrow.

Sorry about the delay for the review, been real busy lately. Like making the above video (if you haven’t watched it yet the sound for the dialog is a bit weak, don’t know why that is, so adjust volume if need be).

ANYway… This episode has probably had one of the best openers yet. River Song all glammed up on a spaceship cracking into a secure room. She then uses her multi-tool to start burning letters into a metal box. Twelve thousand years later, the Doctor and Amy are at the largest museum in the universe checking out the various displays. Amy figures the Doctor is just trying to keep score of his past accomplishments. They find the box that River had torched and the Doctor, seeing as it has a message for him on the box, steals it and they run back to the TARDIS. The box as it turns out is like an airplane’s black box recorder. They see River cornered by a man and two soldiers. The Doctor takes the TARDIS back in time while in River’s present she opens an airlock into space. The TARDIS materializes just in time to catch River. They chase after the spaceship, Amy wanting to know the whole time who the heck River is and how does she know how to fly the TARDIS. They land only to find the ship has crashed. They are joined by paramilitary clergy in the hopes of finding what was inside the vessel. As it turns out there is one survivor which is what they are after, a Weeping Angel. The group must now go through a huge cavern known as The Maze of the Dead to try and find the Angel all the while it is stalking them. However, the Angel is not alone…

Like I said, this episode probably had the most exciting opening ever. Plus Moffat’s really got a way of plating around with time travel. In most episodes it’s just to get from point A to point B, but Moffat really uses it well here. This episode also happens to be the first one filmed and watching the interaction between the Doctor and Amy you would never know. They already seem so settled into their characters. They seem to be in an almost teacher/ student relationship. Amy teasing the Doctor about his Mr. Grumpy face and teasing him about his status with River was hilarious. There’s also some great callbacks to the earlier Silence in the Library two-parter. River has her diary and we find this is before she becomes a professor. And as it happens the ship that crashed is the Byzantium. You may remember when we first meet River she asked the tenth Doctor if he had done the crash of the Byzantium yet. She does tell the Doctor that she has pictures of all his incarnations but apparently she does not know their order. This episode also has a pretty good amount of scares in it as well. Being stalked by something you couldn’t see, dirt leaking from Amy’s eye, the Angel coming out of the television screen, all really creepy moments. I really can’t wait until Saturday to see how this all plays out. What did you guys think?

i09t has reported that Fox has decided against producing an American version of Torchwood. As it’s Fox, let’s think of this as a blessing. Fox is notorious for canceling shows if they are not the number one thing everyone is talking about right off the bat. Look at Joss Whedon, the man was screwed TWICE by Fox. You think he’s learned his lesson now?

Okay, so last week when we saw the trailer for Victory of the Daleks Churchill showed the Doctor a poster with a dalek on it. The moment I saw that I was hoping the BBC would put that on the official site as a download. They did and now that poster hangs proudly in my living room. Okay, I’m geeking out a bit, let’s get focused. You can get the poster here.
So the story picks up immediately where the last one left off. Winston Churchill has called the Doctor to London, during the height of the blitz. The was doesn’t seem to be going very well and Churchill is trying to keep moral up. However, he has a new secret weapon he can’t wait to show the Doctor. Up on the rooftop as a squadron of Luftwaffe are bearing down, ray beams shoot out from behind a sandbag barrier and destroy all the incoming bombers. The Doctor recognizing the sound of that weapon rushes to the sandbags and finds himself face-to-eyestalk with a dalek. The dalek claims to be a servant England and a soldier. Churchill explains that they are called Ironsides and they were developed by Professor Bracewell. The Doctor tries to convince Churchill that the daleks are the most evil beings in the universe. They are not to be trusted and they will wipe out all of humanity. The Doctor implores Amy, who has lived through the daleks plan to steal the Earth, to try and talk sense into Churchill. Only Amy doesn’t remember the daleks or the Earth being moved. The Doctor in a rage starts hammering on a dalek demanding to know what it’s plan is. The dalek, getting “testimony” from the Doctor then uses a transmat beam. The Doctor races off to follow the daleks only to find out that they have used him to regenerate the dalek race. Now the Doctor has a choice: stop the daleks, or let them go and save the world.
I’ll admit that I was a bit “meh” on the daleks again. I mean how many times can they just barley survive? But I did enjoy the episode itself. It was written by Mark Gatiss who you may recall also played Dr. Lazarus in the series three episode The Lazarus Experiment (he also has a cameo in this episode as a Spitfire pilot…). He has also penned the Ninth Doctor episode The Unquiet Dead and the Tenth Doctor episode The Idiot Lantern. Ian McNiece plays Winston Churchill in this episode. While he doesn’t really look anything like Churchill, he does seem to be channeling the man. When Churchill said, “Action this day,” I (as a history buff…) giggled a bit, as he was known to say that a lot. Bill Paterson also did a wonderful job as Prof. Bracewell, the key to the daleks’ plan. Once again we see the new Doctor has a quick temper. When the tenth Doctor encountered the daleks he had a begrudging admiration for their creativity. The Eleventh Doctor seems to have reverted back to seething rage. It was almost chilling. And what would he do without Amy? Sadly, she doesn’t seem to get to do much in this episode, but what she does do ultimately helps save the world. And she’s not gonna let Churchill get all clever with the Doctor’s TARDIS key either… What did you guys think?

Okay, so here we are in our first proper adventure with the newly regenerated Timelord after he’s all done cooking. The story opens with a scene in a classroom. All the kids are standing in line front o what looks like a carnival fortune teller machine. Well one kid is in for some bad luck. Apparently he’s a “zero” meaning he’s not even good enough to ride on the elevators with other people. He gets on one by himself and the floor opens to show a long, fiery shaft and it’s presumed that this little puke falls to his death! What an awesome way to open the show! Imagine how many little kids hid behind their sofa after that! Yet it gets better.
The Doctor and Amy land on a huge starship, the Starship UK The whole ship is the country of England in space. The Earth was being bombarded by solar flares and so humanity had to escape to the stars to survive. They may have even put their best and brightest on an ark… The Doctor feels something’s amiss, though he can’t quite put his finger on it. He and Amy see a little girl crying silently and the Doctor deduces that the people are living in a police state. The Doctor would like to know why she’s crying. Maybe her great-grandmother was arrested for selling a godfish or something. The Doctor coerces Amy to find out while he goes to the engine room. Amy learns of the dark and terrible secret of Starship UK while the Doctor meets a mysterious, masked woman.
I think we may have our new favorite creepy bad guys. The android Smilers. Seriously, how creeped out were you guys by that over exaggerated frown? That and the fact they have three faces! I would so love to do that for Halloween. This episode also had a great number of lines, my favorite being “…staying out of trouble. Badly.” We also get to see a bit more insight to how the Doctor thinks. He realizes that the people are terrified of the Smiler booths because they are so clean. He can tell that there are no engines running. And he has a mighty temper. No disrespect to the Tenth Doctor, but when he got mad it was, “Oh, the Doctor’s yelling again.” When Eleven starts yelling even I was looking away guiltily. Granted he had a tough choice to make, a choice that Amy tried to hide from him to protect him. That and when he tells Amy he’s taking her back home… Ooo. He got colder there than Tennant could ever do. Sophie Okonedo, who many may remember as the African princess in “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls,” plays a rather cheeky, adventurous, gun toting queen trying to understand why her government is doing things behind her back. And Amy really shines in the episode. I can’t recall ever seeing a companion figure things out before the Doctor does. In fact the Doctor seemed to be a bit unnerved by it. But he and Amy make up just in time to get a phone call from Winston Churchill which leads to next week’s episode Victory of the Daleks. What did you guys think?

The Doctor has regenerated and crashed in the backyard of a little girl’s house. The girl, Amelia, has a dimensional crack in her wall that the Doctor tried to seal. However, a prisoner from that other dimension escaped into our world. The Doctor then has to rush off before the TARDIS blows itself up, promising Amelia he’d be back in five minutes. Amelia, convinced she’s going to travel with the Doctor, packs a suitcase and then heads back outside to wait for him. When the TARDIS re-materializes, it is now daytime. He goes back inside the house where he’s knocked unconscious and handcuffed by a mini-skirt wearing WPC. The Doctor realizes that there’s an extra room that no one knew about. The “cop” goes to investigate only to discover the escaped prisoner from the other dimension. The Doctor and Amy manage to escape from the prisoner when a transmission starts being broadcast all over the world from the prisoner’s jailers. The Doctor finds out that the jailers, Atraxi, plan to incinerate the planet in order to prevent the prisoner from escapiing again. So the Doctor only has twenty minutes to save the planet and he’s lost the use of the TARDIS and his sonic screwdriver.
Ok, I’ll admit this: I’ve watched this episode about four times now. Heck I had to be the Easter Bunny yesterday and had my iPod rigged inside the head so I was watching this as kids were getting their pictures taken! I just thought it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant. For those of you who were worried about Matt Smith filling David Tennant’s Chuck Taylor’s, all I have to say is Matt Smith IS the Doctor! Right out of the gate, he gets it! When he tells the Atraxi to run, you believe it.
And new companion, Amy Pond, well let’s get this part over with: DAMN! SHE’S HOT!! Okay, sorry about that, but I do happen to have a thing for tall, redheaded women with accents. And to all those complaining about her mini-skirt “tramping up the show”, I got a few words to say to you: Jo, Peri, Zoe, Leela, Romana I, Jack, do I need to go on? Okay. Amy has trust issues. Understandable seeing as she had her heart broken at an early age. And speaking of young Amy, Caitlan Blackwood gave such a charming performance as little Amy (or Amelia as she was known then). She wasn’t written as a smart-alecky, too-clever-for-their-age types that you normally see nowadays. She really seemed to be a child. My favorite scene had to be the one where she’s trying to make the Doctor something to eat but he finds everything horrible. “You’re Scottish, fry something!” As a southerner here in the States, I agree! Blackwood also happens to be Karen Gillan’s cousin, so there is a passing resemblance between the two.
And what about the new console room, huh? I loved it! It kind of looked like Pee-Wee Herman got a hold of it and redecorated. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of the TARDIS interior as well, but I’m not holding my breath on that. The effects on this episode were probably the only things I felt a bit disappointed about. It seemed like they were using the technology available from back in the mid-90s. But then again, when was Who ever known to have spectacular effects? Anyway, what did you guys think?

Den of Geek managed to see the first episode of the new series of Doctor Who featuring Matt Smith’s Eleventh Doctor. I don’t know how they managed such a coup as I didn’t read the article. I’m trying to stay spoiler free and all. But for those of you who can’t wait, you can read the review HERE

Torchwood and Doctor Who star, John Barrowman is set to release his third solo album next week, March 1st. Simply titled John Barrowman the album is comprised of various showtunes that reflect the actor’s life. Among the tracks are songs from The Boy from Oz, Carousel, Cats, Mama Mia! and more. However… if you buy the album from Apple’s iTunes, you get a BONUS TRACK. It is a parody of the song The Wizard and I from the show Wicked. Barrowman’s version is aptly called The Doctor and I and is about Jack’s relationship with the Doctor.

[UPDATE] Apparently this is for iTunes UK only. Try to search for John Barrowman on iTunes in the US and you only get his previous releases. Guess we’ll have to wait for it in the US…

The Doctor & I - 1′30” by lucidonline

My scarf so far at about eight feet in length…

I don’t know about you guys but since I’ve become a Doctor Who fan I’ve always wanted the Tom Baker scarf. Mainly because it looks cool but also because it’s not very warm where I work. So it’s practical as well. Well I looked up some scarves online and a lot of them sell for around $120-$175. Now I won’t say I’m cheap, but I figured, heck I’ll learn how to knit and I’ll make one of my own! So thanks to my grandma, I learned the basics of knitting. And because a scarf is usually always the first knitting project to work on, it’s perfect! For additional help though I went to Doctor Who Scarf. There he has patterns and color schemes of the different scarves Baker wore in his run. A lot of useful information. I just reached the halfway point on my scarf. So far I average about four to four and a half hours a day working on it. And of course I’ve been watching a lot of old Who while doing it. I’ve gotten through all of Leela’s adventures with the Doctor and most of The Key of TIme serials. Just have the last one to go. It really has been a fun project and I know I’m hoping to expand my skills because there really are a lot of neat knitting crafts out there for Who fans. Well unless you want to make an Adipose doll…

Since I have recently acquired the whole of Sylvester McCoy’s first season on Doctor Who, I thought I’d do a review of his second serial, Paradise Towers. Mel wants to go swimming, but the TARDIS pool had sprung a leak and had to be jettisoned. So the Doctor decides to take Mel to a swank, 21st century resort called Paradise Towers. Upon arriving all is not well. The building is dilapidated and overrun by gangs of teenage girls. The Doctor and Mel are captured by one of these gangs, the Red Kangs. They learn that people are mysteriously disappearing. They become separated when the Caretakers, a group of overly officious security guards, capture the Doctor themselves. Mel is taken in by two kindly elderly ladies who seem to have ulterior motives themselves. The Doctor meanwhile manages to escape from his captors and falls back in with the Red Kangs. Mel in the meantime has left the old ladies with the only young man in the whole building, the overzealous Pex. Pex it turns out is actually a cowardly soldier who went AWOL and hid away on a transport ship to Paradise Towers. He’s now trying to make up for his cowardice by helping Mel. The Doctor in the meantime has discovered that the buildings architect is actually living inside a machine and has been using his cleaning robots to wipe out the citizens of the tower. The architect is extremely egotistic and believes that no one deserves to live in his creations but himself. The Doctor and Mel must convince the various rivla factions to trust each other and team up to rid the tower of this evil.

I know among older Who fans than myself the Johnathan Nathan Turner years are sometimes looked at as a bit of a joke. I can see why. This episode was rather silly in it’s premise and it’s acting. Pex would look right at home on The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers while the Chief Caretaker seems to be doing an impression of John Cleese doing an impression of Hitler. And this is BEFORE he becomes the bad guy! The sets looked nice though and even though low budget had a kind of Judge Dredd feel. You also really have to suspend your disbelief so as not to think why don’t they go some place else? Though they do mention that apparently there is a war on, but no one knows for sure as everyone’s been locked up in the towers for so long. This episode would seem to be a close cousin to the revival series’ Gridlock. But it was all good fun which in the end is the important thing. This serial is currently not available on DVD.

Bit of trivia: Julie Brennon who played the strangely named Fire Escape, was married to former companion Mark Strickson (Turlough). Also be on the lookout for Nisha Nayar as a Red Kang. Nayar would be more easily remembered as the woman programmer in the Ninth Doctor stories Bad Wolf/ The Parting of Ways.

Yes! Neil “Freakin’” Gaiman! My favorite movie of 2009 was Coraline. I’ve read the book as well as The Graveyard Book. I can just about quote MirrorMask verbatim (even made a little music video). I had my favorite comics shop, Local Heroes order Gaiman’s The Tragical Comedy of Mr. Punch which is probably one of the most powerful comics I have ever read. Oddly, it’s also the only one of Gaiman’s comics I have read. Okay, I’m totally geeking out about Neil Gaiman now. So you can imagine how excited I was to hear that Neil Gaiman is actually doing an episode of Doctor Who! Now, Gaiman hinted about this at one time but confirmed it when he was accepting an award for one of his Batman stories. Sadly though we’ll have to wait until next year to see the story. Yep, it’s for the 2011 season. Moffat, Gaiman, what team could bring a better episode of Doctor Who than those two?

Out of all the Doctors, the Seventh is the one I am least familiar. I’ve only ever seen two of his serials, Remembrance of the Daleks and the completely bizarre Ghost Light. Oh, and his cameo in The Enemy Within. Can’t forget that! So I thought I’d check out some more of his adventures.
This brings us to his first adventure, Time and the Rani. In a pre-title sequence the Doctor and Mel are shot down by the Rani. During the resulting crash the Doctor is fatally injured and regenerates to his seventh persona. Apparently he hits his head on the TARDIS console. I guess this is why the Tenth Doctor was so worried about hitting his head on a brick and regenerating. The Rani it appears is collecting various geniuses from previous eras of time. The last one she needs is the Doctor. She has also subjugated a whole civilization in order to do her bidding in some unknown experiment. When the Doctor awakens he has no memory of who he is or where he is. The Rani though has disguised herself as the Doctor’s companion, Mel. And I must say she does a dead on impersonation. The real Mel however has come to and is taken prisoner by one of the locals. However he soon realizes she is not like the Rani. The disguised Rani convinces the Doctor they were iin the middle of an experiment that they must finish. The Doctor goes along with it though he has some hesitation. Mel in the meantime has infiltrated the Rani’s base and after a bit of initial confusion, the Doctor regains his memory. With the help of the local people the Doctor and Mel must stop the Rani from completing her experiment which could allow her to alter the course of evolution itself.
Not a great way to start off the new Doctor. Though I did find the special effects rather effective. This episode also debuted the first CGI TARDIS. And this was with 1987 technology. And of course most of the episode was filmed in a rock quarry. Though right off the bat you can tell that Sylvester McCoy is having a blast. And no matter how many pipes and hills Mel has to climb though or over, her pants stay amazingly clean. My mom would KILL to be able to do that. But most of these are just technical squabbles. I try not to let that interfere with my enjoyment of the story which I did enjoy for the most part. I thought the overall plot was just a bit weak. It felt like they were stretching a two-parter into a four-parter. I really do seem to be of two minds on this don’t I? I liked it, but it wasn’t all that great. I guess knowing that Ghost Light is in the Doctor’s future helps me a bit.
Time and the Rani is slated to be released on DVD on March 10th. So check it out and tell me what you guys think.

A number of Doctor Who costumes are going under the auction block at the end of February. If ever you wanted to own a piece of Who memorabilia now is the time. Up for auction are a number of t-shirts worn during the second series as well as a lot of costumes worn by the various companions. Also up is the Tenth Doctor’s unlucky tuxedo as featured in the Series Two Cybermen two-parter, Voyage of the Damned and The Lazarus Experiment. The tux itself is expected to fetch somewhere between $3,100 to $4,700. A number of props are also slated to be ationed as well. Proceeds from the sale are going to be used to help produce new episodes of the Doctor Who series. So you know it’s for a good cause!

Go to Bonhams for more information.

[EDIT]
You have to pay when you sign up for the auction. The money collect for the sale of the catalogs goes to the Children in Need charity. Link has also been fixed…

Actress Carey Mulligan was nominated today for a Best Actress Award for this year’s Oscars. Mulligan is best known amongst us Whovians as the best non-companion on Doctor Who. For those of you who are new, she played Sally Sparrow in the Steven Moffat written episode Blink. Mulligan was nominated for her role in the film An Education. In the film Mulligan plays Jenny, a girl growing up in 1960’s London who starts dating a much older man and gets involved in his playboy lifestyle. The film is based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by Lynn Barber. Mulligan is in heavy company as other nominees include Oscar favorite, Meryl Streep, Helen Mirrien, Sandra Bullock and Gabourey Sidibe.