Doctor Who – Nikola Tesla’s Night of Terror

January 20, 2020

Now after last week’s episode I went into this story wanting to be reassured that episode 3 had just been an exception to an otherwise good start to the season. And I found that my wish was granted. As a story taking place in the past, the writer’s did an excellent jo of capturing the rivalry between Tesla and Edison. A lot of people when asked will come up with a list of things Edison is supposed to have invented, very few will mention that he was proobably the first person to use public relations in an attempt to win the War of the Currents.

The difference between Tesla and Edison is clear when they are inside the TARDIS. Tesla is a scientist and an inventor, he understands how the TARDIS work. Edison doesn’t need to understand how it works, but you can bet he knows how to make money out of it.

The actual villain of the week was a little disappointing. It looked like somebody had been searching through a list of old villains and decided to retool the Ragnoss. I have no problem with alien scorpions (although I’m not sure why they seemed incapable of running), but I think they could have come up with something a little better.



 




Doctor Who, Series 12 Episode 3, Orphan 55

January 13, 2020

Going to try to stay positive about this episode, but really could have done without the rant at the end. Okay they were wrong, it was Earth all along… If they had not decided the Orphan 55 would be Earth and had made it a planet very similar to Earth they could have gotten the message across just as easily.

I admit that when I saw the cube at the start of the episode I thought it was one of the Hypercube’s Time Lord’s use to communicate. All in all not as good as the previous two episodes.



 




Doctor Who, Series 12 Episode 2, Spyfall Part 2

January 6, 2020

So the Master returned to Gallifrey and uncovered something he considered so bad that he burned the entire planet. What on Earth could have been that bad?

now don’t get me wrong here the Master has absolutely no love for Gallifrey or his fellow Time Lords. He has put the planet in danger numerous times for his own selfish reasons. So the knowledge that he decided to turn his homeworld into something resembling Australia at this time, was not shocking. That he did so without having anything to gain from the act was surprising. Of course that raises the question of why he went back in the first place? The Master never does that sort of thing without a sinister reason.

And still there is the question of where does this Master come in relation to Missy? The obvious answer would be that he comes after Missy who somehow managed to survive being shot. But there’s also the possibility that Missy did not follow immediately after the Simm Master. Perhaps there is a regeneration in between. There could actually be a number of regenerations in between and Missy acts as the Master’s final regeneration many incarnations away.



 




Doctor Who, Series 12 Episode 1, Spyfall Part 1

January 1, 2020

The Master is back! Woohoo, one of my favourite Doctor Who villains has returned. And it was a return to for for the character as at the end of the first part of the adventure I had no idea what he was planning. Was this entire plot a scheme to draw the Doctor in so he could reveal himself? Or was this one of those old fashioned Master decides to piggyback on someone else’s scheme things?

Blowing up the cockpit of a plane and then taking the Doctor away before she could save everybody’s life was just the sort of thing I’d expect from him.

Unfortunately there were some things that did not work. I really wish Lenny Henry and Stephen Fry ha switched roles for this episode. Fry would have made a more interesting secondary villain while Lenny was clerly the stern head of MI-6. While I enjoyed the discussion between Fry and the Doctor, he was wasted by such a short role.