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Review of Doctor Who

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A Review of Doctor Who

By Dakota Wiegand

Hey all! I know it’s been a long time since I have done a review, but I promise you that you will have a couple before Christmas! So lets get started with a show that just celebrated its birthday, Doctor Who 

Celebrating 50 years of commercial success in November, Doctor Who has been capturing new audiences with its strange story lines and memorable characters. But the show has two series, classic and modern. In this review we will be talking about the modern series, not the classic, due to the lack of available episodes of the classic series. The modern series can be watched on Netflix and anywhere else you can watch video.

Premiering in 1963, Doctor Who made an incredible run in Europe and British Commonwealth countries on the BBC, bringing a mainstream sci-fi show for children and adults for several season until 1989. The show was not resigned for additional seasons after that, but made a small revival in 1996 with a movie made by FOX studios. After that, Doctor Who made its way back into living rooms around the world in 2005, the start of the modern series. After 8 seasons, 3 different Doctors, and numerous companions, Doctor Who is thriving and is still bringing smiles to the faces of fans.

Like I mentioned before, the modern series has had 3 Doctors. Each Doctor brings a new personality to the character and a different atmosphere to the show. So far Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, and Matt Smith have been the mad man with a box. Lets take a look at each of them. 

Christopher Eccleston was the first Doctor in the modern series, number 9 overall, with the catchphrase Fantastic! Eccleston brought a unique look to the doctor, being a war veteran dealing very dark and recent demons. He was quirky and lovable, but can be very dark and intense. My only wish about Eccleston is that he had more than the one season. The BBC wanted to keep Eccleston on for another season, but due to creative differences, Eccleston declined to return for a second season.

Best Eccleston  episode: Dalek movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?mo… 

The next Doctor to come after Eccleston is David Tennant, number 10, with the catchphrase Allons-y!  Following up Eccleston’s Doctor, Tennant had a very similar style of Dcotor, though with more of a relax nature. He’s still dealing with the demons of the Time War, but he is starting to heal and come to grips with what happened. Tennant also brought more of technological aspect to the doctor, being able to explain scientific results at fast paces to the point where you look at the screen going, what? The show brings up the fact that he talks fast every now and then. He’s just a fun actor to watch and he makes the roll his own. By far, Tennant is my personal favorite Doctor.

Best Tennant episode: Girl in the Fireplace movies.netflix.com/WiPlayer?mo… 

Matt Smith who coins the catchphrase, Geronimo, plays the present Doctor. After three seasons with Tennant and the change in management, Smith took over the roll. Smith has a more child-like performance where he is sillier and stranger most of the time compared to other Doctors, but can turn cold and serious at a moment’s notice. I’m not going to lie, it took me a while to get used to Smith being he Doctor over Tennant… like a whole season. He jus seemed way too young for the role since all the doctors were 40+, classic and modern series. Having a 20 something Doctor just doesn’t seem right. Like would you listen to him if he ran up to you and said a bunch of highly technical stuff? Yes…you still would but that’s not the point! However, he does grow into the role and does produce very good performances. But he’s not my favorite Doctor. Out of the three, he easily sits at number 3.  Mainly due in part by the fan girls and how the two part episodes disappeared. A lot of Smith’s episodes feel rushed. I found myself watching an episode 30 minutes into it and going, “Wait, they are going to wrap this up in 15 minutes? They just explained what was going on!” The episodes were following the old format for the two parters, setting up the situation in one episode and solving it in the second, but they condensed it into one episode.

Best Smith episode: Day of the Doctor

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Now a quick look into the companions! The show sported a handful of companions through its current series, each one bringing something different to the show and to the Doctor. Let’s start with the first character of the modern series shows: Rose.

Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper, is the companion to the 9th and 10th Doctor, with special appearances with the 11th.  She is a 19-year-old English girl who lives with her single mother Jackie. She falls in love with the Doctor, but unlike the other companions in the original series and in the modern, the Doctor falls in love with her. She seemed to have a unique talent for getting the Doctor, who is fresh out of a war, to become himself again and starts to heal his soul. However, she can make fun of and push around the Doctor too.

Next up we have Capt. Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman. He is an on and off companion to the 9th and 10th Doctor, but is mentioned several times with the 11th Doctor. Jack is a light hearted and strange character who is obsessed with sex, with anyone and everyone, and his good looks. He is a former Time Agent who turned into a conman until the Doctor shows up and saves his life. He ends up getting killed in the episodes Bad Wolf and The Parting of Ways and through the newly acquired powers of Rose, is brought back to life, making him immortal. Well… quasi immortal. That’s a great twist which is explained when the Doctor is with the next companion, Martha Jones.

Martha Jones, played by Freema Agyeman, was the companion of the 10th Doctor. She is a spunky medical student who ends up falling or the Doctor, but realizes he doesn’t feel the same way about her. However, she does help save the Earth from a total take over by the Master and joins UNIT as an officer and acts as a liaison between UNIT and the Doctor. 

Next, we have Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate. She was the companion to the 10th Doctor. She is a loud, silly, and slightly slow companion, but she and the Doctor had some of the best chemistry of all the companions and she plays an important role in the series. Before she was a companion, she made an appearance in the Christmas Special, The Runaway Bride, then comes back in the next season as the Doctor’s companion.

I mentioned before that the chemistry between the Doctor and Donna was some of the best in the series doesn’t mean that the other companions had no chemistry. The way the two get along together feels like they have a great friendship, which the Doctor establishes with Donna by being forward about Rose. This leads to several fun and touching moments between the two. Speaking of great chemistry lets move on to the Ponds! 

Amy Pond and Rory Williams, played by Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill respectfully, are the companions of the 11th Doctor. Amy Pond was the first person the 11th Doctor met in his new regeneration. She is a fiery redhead Scottish girl whose life made no sense to the Doctor. However, she plays almost a mother figure to the Doctor by pushing him and slapping him around a bit, but always in a loving way. Rory, Amy’s husband, is a normal guy who is a nurse. However, he gets killed off and is resurrected as a roman soldier. This role carries through the series with the two and they reference it from time to time. The two act as parents to the Doctor and have some amazing and very memorable moments.

Another on and off again companion is Prof. River Song, played by Alex Kingston. First introduced to the 10th Doctor =, but becomes a main character to the 11th. Her relationship with the Doctor is in reverse, meaning when the Doctor first met her, it was at the end of her life and she knew everything about him and he knew nothing about her. It spells for a great adventure between the two, because it has jaw dropping moments and some of the best dialogue.

The finals companion is Clara Oswald, played by Jenna Coleman. She is known as the Impossible Girl for she popped up randomly in the Doctor’s life, mainly the 11th. She is a nice girl with some charm and spunk, but personally, all she does is cry and looks pretty. She is thrown into situations she is obviously not capable of handling, much like the other companions but she just doesn’t fit, and she mainly is a damsel in distress.  The show keeps selling her as like one of the best companions that they ever written and she is a strong character. No! Just no! Example: in The Day of the Doctor, the three Doctors are about to press the red button to end the time war with the complete destruction of the time lords and the Daleks. Clara stands in the background quietly shaking her head no. The Doctor barely notices this! He does ask her what she was saying no to and she gives this dramatic dialogue that convinces the doctor of figuring out a new solution. If Clara was Amy, Amy would have slapped all three of the Doctors and yelled at them in her Scottish fury to come up with anew solution instead of repeating the whole genocide. She’s a crappy character that I hope the new Doctor, in his Scottish fury, drops her off on the planet Scarrow and leaves!

Now I mention some of the alien life that the Doctor encounters throughout the review. I would love to talk about all of them, but I don’t want you to hang yourselves with your own shoelaces. So, the best of the aliens you will see are the Daleks, Cybermen, and the Ood! Look for them when watching the series!

The last character I do want to talk about on the show is arguably the oldest character on the show, the TARDIS aka the Time and Relative Dimension in Space machine. She is the Doctor’s blue box who has been with him in the beginning. The TARDIS does have a personality. She is a stubborn and cranky machine that doesn’t necessarily brings the Doctor to where he wants to go, but where he needs to go. She does materialize into a human form in one episode called The Doctor’s Wife, which is a lot of fun and has a bittersweet ending. Overall, she is the best character, besides the Doctor, to appear on the show.

The show’s character design is great! Each character has a specific style that they stick to and it helps illustrates their personalities. The alien designs though are really fun and very creative. I also give a lot of credit to the show because 90% of the aliens are all practical effects, meaning they are puppets or make up and not CGI. This does help with the realism of the show, because you can see all the non-digital features of the aliens and get a sense of the surrealism of seeing these creatures. 

Even though the show is live action, we can always find some way to talk about animation. So lets talk about the show’s special effects! The show started off very low budget, so any CGI they used was bad. However, as the show grew in popularity, the quality of the CGI and special effects improved. Though the CGI is still crappy by Hollywood standards, the practical effects are still amazing and I wish Hollywood can take a lesson from the show and bring back practical effects. 

The show Doctor Who is a great show full of fun and excitement. The ability of it to suck the viewer into the universe of the Doctor is amazing, then again they have had 50 years to nail it down. The show, going into the 12th Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi, starts up again this coming fall, is already giving me butterflies about what they are going to do.

 

Show Rating: A

Watch what I was Talking about!

Doctor Who movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Doc…

Classic Doctor Who movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Cla…

Check out this Doctor Who spoof! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do-wDP…

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Comments6
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kamikal's avatar
Doctor Who is the best
xD
The :TARD:IS 
Nice review~