After watching a few random episodes of Doctor Who over the previous several years (I saw the 2006 Christmas special live on TV, and then a selection of episodes from Series 4 and 5 around Christmas 2011), I started to get seriously into the franchise around Christmas 2014, and now consider myself a fully fledged Whovian, having watched over two-thirds of all New Who episodes in not much more than a year. Series 9, the most recently released, was the first Doctor Who I’ve watched week by week while it was coming out.
The series was largely well received, having been hailed by various critics as the best Moffat season yet, the best since Eccleston, or even the best season of New Who. Personally I think Series 4 is still my favourite New Who series, but I did very much enjoy this new one, and Capaldi could now give Tennant a run for his money as my favourite Doctor.
This series contained more multi-episode stories than any other for a long time. This allowed more time for each story to develop, mature, and conclude without feeling overly rushed; on the other hand, it detracted from the self-containedness that many of the best Doctor Who episodes have, and made it harder for casual viewers to ‘drop in’ for just a single episode.
Jenna Coleman secured the title of the longest-serving Companion of New Who towards the end of this series before her eventual departure. Peter Capaldi has now really settled into his role as the Doctor, bringing some of his own flair to the show and ensuring his place in the annals of Whovian history. In Series 8 he had to spend too much time acting grumpy and proving that he wasn’t Matt Smith, but now he’s been able to spread his wings, let his hair down a bit, and establish himself as (in my view) the best speech-making Doctor in all of New Who. Oh, and speaking of hair, was I really the only one to notice the swap in hair length between the two main characters?
Good hair day or bad hair day?
Now without further ado, let’s start on the episode-by-episode summaries. Naturally, SPOILER ALERT.
Thanks to the more intimate experience at FanX 2016, I was able to attend several celebrity panels. Here are some notes from these experiences. Included here are Levar Burton, Alan Tudyk, Chandler Riggs, Gillian Anderson, and Kate Beckinsale.
Levar Burton
After receiving the first three questions in panel, which were all relating to Reading Rainbow, he made a comment that the people in Salt Lake City were a lot more sophisticated than those at other conventions. About half of the questions in the 50 minute session were focused Reading Rainbow.
The TV mini-series Roots has been remade and will be released Labor Day weekend. 4 two hour parts with 4 different directors. Levar Burton, a producer of the mini-series (and star of the original series), said it was an amazing feeling to be working on the project 40 years after making the first one.
Question: Why didn’t you have more relationships on TNG?
Burton: I don’t know. I mean, I think I’m a decent looking guy. Every member of the crew had sex on that ship, except for me. Even the android.
Question: The Leah referenced in “All Good Things…”, was that Leah Brahms?
Most people (myself included) thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Daredevil. It wasn’t perfect by any means, hampered by an increasingly meandering story as it went on and a finale that dropped the ball in a multitude of ways, but as an introduction to this new part of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe? It did a good job of setting the tone for the rest of the Netflix shows, something followed up by and capitalised on by the significantly better Jessica Jones.
Although the second season of Daredevil fails to reach the heights set by Jessica Jones, it’s still an improvement over the first season in nearly every way – primarily thanks to the way that show-runners Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez seem to have listened to and acted on criticisms of the first season. The most obvious strength that the second season has over the first is also the most simple – the second season of Daredevil has enough going on to actually justify it’s length.
There are two fairly distinct stories at play in the second season of Daredevil. The first sees the introduction of fan-favourite character Frank Castle (also known as The Punisher) to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a murderous vigilante who is terrorising Hell’s Kitchen as he seeks revenge for the death of his family at the hands of criminals. The other sees Matt reunite with Elektra Natchios, an old girlfriend from Matt’s time in college who is significantly more dangerous than she may appear at first glance.
