Image of the Fendahl

Image of the Fendahl
by Chris Boucher
Originally Broadcasted: October 29th-November 19th, 1977

The Doctor and Leela land in present day England, and come across Professor Fendelman, who is experimenting on an ancient skull which science says should not exist. Turns out this skull is actually an artifact of an ancient race called the Fendahl. They are awakening, and they're ready to kill...

At the time Image of the Fendahl was made, Doctor Who was trying to stray away from the gothic horror themes of the Phillip Hinchcliffe/Robert Holmes era. You started to get more comedic and lighthearted stories, like The Invasion of Time or City of Death. So Image of the Fendahl was sort of a last holdout from the gothic era. This is a wonderfully creepy story. The first episode features no background music and The Doctor and Leela wondering around in the deep of night in a forest, very uncommon in classic Who. I believed Professor Fendelman to be the real bad guy, but it turns out he was a pawn in the real bad guy's plans, Max Stael. The actual plot is a little hard to grasp, but somehow he turns the ancient skull of the Fendahl reawakens both the Fendahl creatures, and also somehow takes over a female scientists' mind and turns her into a Goldfinger-esque golden goddess. Kind of confusing, but it makes for a really creepy character. The way she smiles scares me more than a Dalek ever could. Now as with most classic Who stories, the small budget means the monster will quite often be a let-down, as is the case with the Fendahl monsters here. But the golden Fendahl more than makes up for that. With great leads and a great supporting cast, Image of the Fendahl is one of the better stories from the late Tom Baker era.

Luke's Rating: 8/10

The Snowmen

The Snowmen
by Steven Moffat
Originally Broadcasted: December 25th, 2012

After the departure of Amy and Rory, The Doctor has given up saving the universe, until a plucky young girl named Clara rekindles his interest. It's up to The Doctor and a gang of misfit aliens to stop a snow parasite swarm from taking over planet Earth, and save Clara herself...

I thought A Christmas Carol back in 2010 was pretty good, however I was pretty underwhelmed with last year's The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe. So my expectations weren't super high for The Snowmen, but boy was I surprised. This is by far the best Christmas special of the Matt Smith era. The story provides a wonderful (second) introduction for the new companion, Clara Oswin, played by Jenna-Louise Coleman. She appeared in Asylum of the Daleks as a different character, Oswin Oswald, who is revealed to be sort of the same character. By the end of the story, The Doctor realizes who she is. Her full name is Clara Oswin Oswald. She dies and reappears in other points in time. Now of course in traditional Steven Moffat style, there is still much to be revealed, which makes me very excited to learn more in the upcoming eight episodes of Series 7. I really love Clara already though. What an awesome introduction to the character. She gives a completely different vibe from Amy, yet is still completely enjoyable and compatible with The Doctor. The big surprise of this episode was a rather subtle one, and that is the return of the Great Intelligence. The same Great Intelligence from the stories featuring the Yetis in the Patrick Troughton era! That's who was controlling the snow in this story. I always love it when things from classic Doctor Who return to the new series. There were some rather lovely moments in this beautiful story, mainly the scene showing Clara ascending the stairway to the TARDIS in the clouds. Murray Gold's score for this episode was one of his best yet. And the humor provided by the terrific Sontaran Strax was laugh-out-loud every time. New to the series in this episode is the new TARDIS console room, which has just enough of the classic design from old Who to be recognizable, but still strikingly new at the same time. It even has a rotating ceiling! The other new thing in this episode is the new title sequence and theme song. The new version of the theme is good, but I was really impressed with the visuals in the new title sequence. Seeing Matt Smith's face integrated made me immensely happy, as it's a return to the way the titles were done in classic Who. The new things are excellent, Clara is excellent, the episode is excellent.

Luke's Rating: 9/10

Utopia/The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords

Utopia, The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords
by Russell T Davies
Originally Broadcasted: June 16th-30th, 2007

The Doctor, Martha, and Captain Jack travel to the end of the universe where an old enemy, The Master is awakened. The Master steals The Doctor's TARDIS and returns to modern day England where he hatches a plan to become Prime Minister. But The Master is after much more than just England, he's after the whole planet. Seizing control and aging The Doctor beyond belief, it's up to Martha to save Earth and potentially the universe...

The first series of new Doctor Who brought us the inevitable return of the Daleks, the most famous Doctor Who enemy. Series 2 brought back the Cybermen, so then the obvious choice to bring in for Series 3 was The Doctor's greatest enemy, The Master. Every bit The Doctor's equal, The Master knows how to get to The Doctor and delights in seeing his pain. But when we first see The Master in Utopia, he doesn't actually know who he is, thanks to the chameleon watch device introduced earlier in Series 3. Thanks to some unfortunate prodding from Martha, Professor Yana (the human version of The Master) opens the fog watch and the evil inside is rekindled. Derek Jacobi's version of The Master then regenerates into John Simm, and that's where the mania really kicks in. Throughout The Sound of Drums and Last of the Time Lords, The Master is portrayed as a raving lunatic, more so than he's ever been before in the history of Doctor Who. But the thing is, he's also extremely powerful. Right under The Doctor's nose, he becomes prime minster of Great Britain and The Doctor is virtually powerless against him, which is so unusual to see. The tables are completely flipped in this story. With some remarkable special effects and makeup, The Doctor is twice aged, so old that he can barely move. It's up to Martha to spread The Doctor's name around the world. It's such a clever way to defeat The Master. Just through the power of words. Two other clever things in this three-parter is Yana's name, which ends up being an acronym of what the Face of Boe said to The Doctor in Gridlock: "You Are Not Alone". And then the reveal that the Toclafane are actually the humans from the end of the universe is clever, yet really terrifying at the same time. The season finales during the Russell T Davies era were always really clever and epic, but I think if I had to pick a favorite, it would be this one. The Master has always been my favorite Doctor Who villain, so getting to see his grand return to "new Who" was just amazing to me at the time. Here's hoping he'll make another return next year for the 50th anniversary!

Luke's Rating: 10/10

City of Death

City of Death
by David Agnew
Originally Broadcasted: September 29th-October 20th, 1979

The Doctor and Romana are on holiday in Paris, but things get back to normal as they experience a time distortion. They visit the Louvre and are trailed by a detective who gets them tangled up in the affairs of Count Scarlioni, who plans to steal the Mona Lisa from the Louvre to save his ancient race, the Jagaroth...

City of Death has a spirit all of its own. It has a bouquet. This story stands up high as one of the greatest Doctor Who stories of all time. Originally penned as The Gamble with Time by David Fisher, it was re-written as City of Death by the legendary Douglas Adams. The best elements of Fisher's script are kept, but interjected with Douglas Adams clever storytelling and witty one-liners. In fact the comedic element may be my favorite part of City of Death. The scene in Episode Two where The Doctor, Romana, and Duggan meet the Count and Countess Scarlioni is just pure comedic gold. "You're a very beautiful woman, probably." That sentence right there sums up The Doctor's views on romance, at least until Paul McGann came along... This story featured Doctor Who's first ever overseas shoot, and they picked an obvious, yet wonderful choice in Paris. The scenes of The Doctor and Romana just enjoying the sights of Paris in Episode One are fantastic. Add to that one of Dudley Simpson's best ever scores for the show and you get a rather lovely piece of television. The supporting cast has a lot to live up to with a leading actor as great as Tom Baker, yet City of Death's cast delivers. Julian Glover, who would later go on to portray the baddie in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, as well as the baddie in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, plays the villain in this story, Scarlioni, otherwise known as Scaroth, the last of the Jagaroth. His intentions are actually not that evil, he just wants to save his own race. Unfortunately, to do that would mean stopping the human race from ever developing. Even more awesome is Duggan, the Detective sent to investigate the art scene in Paris. This guy thinks with his fists, and while his chemistry with The Doctor and Romana was a little tense, they still got along. I think he would of made a great companion, but sadly The Doctor had to say "Bye bye Duggan!" Due to a strike that caused the only television rival at the time, ITV, to go offline, City of Death became the highest viewed Doctor Who story of all time, with Episode Four getting 16.1 million viewers! With its hilarious one liners, fantastic script, and excellent cast, City of Death stands as a prime example of a good Doctor Who!

Luke's Rating: 10/10 

Colony in Space

Colony in Space
by Malcolm Hulke
Originally Broadcasted: April 10th-May 15th, 1971

For the first time since his exile to Earth, the Time Lords call on The Doctor for a special mission to the planet Uxarieus. There he becomes entangled in a struggle for control of the planet between colonists and the Interplanetary Mining Corporation, and to make things worse is an old enemy waiting in the wings...

I saw Colony in Space for the first time a few years ago on a recorded DVD and I remember I wasn't too keen on it at the time. Now that I've bought the DVD and watched it again, I actually liked it a lot more. Perhaps it was the realization that this story was written by Malcolm Hulke, who is one of my all-time favorite writers for Doctor Who. He always comes up with very clever, and also very political stories that have a deep meaning to them. The plot of Colony in Space closely parallels the real-life occurrences of settlers coming to distant lands and paying no attention to the often primitive life already there (for example, the struggle of the Native Americans). This is actually shown to happen twice, first with the colonists and the "primitives" and then with IMC and the colonists. The struggle between the colonists and IMC is actually quite exhilarating and made me want to keep watching. And then when The Master got in the middle of things, it just got more interesting. At this point in the season, it was Roger Delgado's fourth consecutive appearance as The Master. His appearance was inevitable, but it was clever to have him not appear until mid-way through the story. Just when you thought he wouldn't appear in this story, there he is! Even though it was Jon Pertwee's 8th story as The Doctor, it was the first time he, and indeed Jo Grant, had gone to outer space. So it really added an extra dynamic to this great duo. It was cool that you could have both these kind of stories, as well as the equally wonderful UNIT stories. Oh, and as always, Jon Pertwee is awesome!

Luke's Rating: 8/10

A Good Man Goes to War

A Good Man Goes to War
by Steven Moffat
Originally Broadcasted: June 4th, 2011

After discovering that the Amy in the TARDIS was in fact a Ganger, The Doctor proceeds to gather up all those who owe him a favor to retrieve the real Amy from Demon's Run. Good and bad will come, as a good man goes to war...

If there's one thing that Steven Moffat is good at, it's amazing cliffhangers and revelations. This is the story where we finally figure out who River Song is, and my god is it clever. Turns out she's the daughter of Amy and Rory, that they didn't even know they were having until this episode! Melody Pond=River Song. My mind was blown when I first realized that. The story simply ended with that, and we had to wait about 3 months to see the story continue (and then get my mind blown all over again!). Not only did this story have a great cliffhanger, but it also had a great pre-title sequence. Rory delivers a message from The Doctor and a question from himself to the Cybermen. He asks: "Where is my wife!?" and behind him appears the message from The Doctor: all the Cyberships blowing up. Rory then says "Should I repeat the question?" Roll title. Chills. Aside from those two fantastic moments, this actually is a pretty darn good episode. It's your typical season finale (or in this case, mid-season finale) extravaganza. The Doctor is on the top of his game here, but as River notes at the beginning of the episode, he rises as high as he's ever been, and then comes tumbling down. There's also some nice humor here between the Silurian Madame Vastra, Human Jenny, and Sontaran Strax. Moffat must have liked them, as he's bringing them back for The Snowmen! A wonderful story, but sadly, overshadowed by the brilliant episode that follows it in part two of Series 6...

Luke's Rating: 9/10