New episode! Back again, a week after Conrad’s intervention session, to watch this. I honestly forgot about watching this for almost the whole day. There’s a general air of unenthused attention to this series. Ideally, episodes should be broadcast around 19:00, as they tended to be early in the Revived Series’ lifespan. This grew earlier as it went on generally, except for Series 8, which was much later. The previous series released each episode at midnight at the earliest, which I stayed up for every night. These episodes are available from 08:00, very much not the right time to be watching Doctor Who in my estimations. It should be getting dark outside, a growing sense of unease and trepidation, the imagination growing more vivid surrounded by shadows, and Doctor Who goes on. Not in the morning. Just have to wait for the actual broadcast then, not keeping the episode broadcast much of an event. The finale of this series is to be broadcast later in the day and only available then, making all these earlier-released episodes seem clearly less relevant or worthwhile.

Back to the basement to endure another beating, crying as one recollects all the golden memories from the days of yore. That’s how watching this series feels, before, during and after. These reviews are a post-mortem. To watch is an obligation, a necessity not borne of fun, but a memory of better days. The Story & the Engine, don’t like the uncapitalised “the” there, although more excitingly, the return of the ampersand! Not seen since Love & Monsters. I rate the title 6/10.

Here we go then. The Story, and also, the Engine. Well, there’s an engine, on a giant spider’s back. Any story? Not really. The imagery is rather remarkable in places - the idea of a barbershop in Africa being simultaneously situated upon a giant arachnid trundling along a timeless web is not altogether a common sight, and there are some other fabulous ideas and images on display - the giant maze, a kind of metaphor for the ever-weaving unravelling stories, a labyrinth of such concern for the protagonists, getting right in the Doctor’s hair. Wonderful idea, but just go left every time, don’t you know anything about mazes?

Almost the entirety of this episode takes place inside a barbershop. Quite a nice idea, trapping it to one room, just as The Well, and even more so; lots of fantastic Doctor Who episodes are about being confined and locked in, that is almost intrinsic to the nature of the programme. It wasn’t all that suspenseful here, and it did look rather as though there was a back entrance that lead out of the room (alternatively referred to as an “exit”) beyond view, the way the room was shaped, distracting a little. The Doctor acts very human-like here, more than usual and more than desired; chatting to the locals, wanting to go and converse with his old friends the hair-cutting fellows, that doesn’t seem quite how the Doctor should behave around people. He is a Time Lord, observing the turn of the universe. Well, maybe that’s by his title, how he sometimes wants to be seen, a promise often not lived up to, but this total alteration makes him seem too common, not giving Gatwa much opportunity to develop himself in the role. He isn’t very proactive, mostly just sitting down talking, which could work as in many previous stories, but is rather dull here, which is a problem for a story based around talking about stories. Perhaps the entire concept of telling a story about storytelling is better suited to the narrative medium of reading, rather than this visual feast of gluttonous repetition.

The giant spider doesn’t do much, a shame it was blown up at the end. There is goes, frolicking on its merry way down the web of time, when some people run through a maze and end its life. Must have been fairly uninteresting for a being as that, living on eternally, but still, quite sad to see it go, and no thought whatever is given in suggestion of redemption or care for this mighty, beautiful organism; imagine this resolution in The Beast Below.

Belinda spends most of the first half standing around in the console room, rather like Amy in The Lodger. When she does leave, she quickly finds the Doctor, without much challenge or additional input, and generally doesn’t have much to do. She spots a mysterious girl, mentions it at the end, but nothing comes of this; a question for the future, it seems, giving off a strong impression and intrigue, lacking elsewhere, that doesn’t result in anything. With no difficulty, she spots the missing posters, wanders into the barbershop and promptly points out that they were on the posters, information the Doctor has already relayed, making her rather redundant to the plot.

Mostly we sit around, hearing people proliferate some tale as their hair is cut, whereupon up they get and their hair grows greatly. An interesting image, a strange concept, not developed as much as the hair growth itself. I did not care for any of the characters particularly besides the main protagonists, and why the Doctor would remains unclear. This incarnation, acting more human, wanting to be around people more, to be accepted and invited under similar pretences, undermines some of the mystique and power of his real self. There was little attempt for any real wit or speed in the dialogue, or much sign of intelligence beyond man from the Doctor. Attempting something different could be interesting, a story stipulated around slowness, an appreciation for time and place, but I didn’t appreciate it much. Rather akin to The Rings of Akhaten, but even there, the Doctor told a much more interesting story than anything here.

Every time one is at risk of falling asleep, a royalty-free alarm sound blares out, awakening the audience and characters. There is a sense of tension and rushing around briefly, then we sit back down again and carry on with the hair-cutting fantasies. “We need a story now” they say. Well go on then, tell me something. There wasn’t much of a moral here, a purpose, the spider seemed there just as a precautionary enforced addition, the old JNT gambit of putting a monster into every story, irrelevant of whether it was needed. RTD’s obsession with gods strikes again; the leader of the hairdressers claims to be several old gods, then perhaps the ruler of them all, and it’s just so tedious to hear this tripe again. Wasn’t Sutekh the one behind them all? Even in this low-stakes slow-ache of a story, we have to get some almighty evil, that isn’t really there.

Praise may be awarded to Murray Gold, as ever, the singular singing point of real wisdom amongst the monotony. Good use is made of instruments relative to the geography, and the string textures at the end adorn one’s mind with a sorrowful, yet hopeful sentiment, a feeling much more than any words may carry. Lovely guitar coming in, as well. The 15th Doctor’s theme is comparatively much more traditional in structure, dynamics and tempo, rather at odds with the rest, a clear presentation of the clash of styles here, and in itself, carrying those simultaneous major-minor modal chords, which I’ve never really enjoyed hearing. Otherwise, in audio format, a job well done.

Previous Doctors appear on the monitor, which, as a devoted fan of the programme, naturally resounds well, although every time this sort of montage transpires, it grows ever more weary. As most of the Classic Series, and every episode from 2005 is available on iPlayer, this kind of brief cutting of previous moments appears in a veil opposed to its apparent intention - instead of being an exciting fun moment, it totally distracts from the adventure, simply reminding one of all the better days. These episodes are all easily watchable now (in the UK at least), undoing what makes this sight special, at least somewhat, twisting it, just as in The Magician’s Apprentice, to another tedious moment. Seeing Eccleston’s delight as “everybody lives” is particularly effective in this juxtaposition. It’s been very nearly 20 years since that exact episode was broadcast, 20 years since, and yet the quality and lessons learnt have all been forgotten in favour of this nauseating collection of emotionless soundbites. Just as in The Timeless Children, it lacks effect.

While it may be liked, showing a moment from The Daleks in Colour makes it easy to imagine the production team emphasising their own version of history, stamped over the original, a seeming disrespect, rather than adoration of the original adventure. Little skill is required to envision their version of the world, with their newly-coloured edits of old stories, changing and splitting apart the original narratives in favour of a twisted, fan-centred, unimaginative new order, in contradiction to the first works, emblazoned in television sets around the world. Adding in the Fugitive Doctor simply reveals the nonsensical continuity; they just plop an old Doctor in for a few seconds, and off she goes. Why put any effort into cause and effect, repercussion, purpose, justification and intention then? What remains is a meaningless big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey… guff.

A few miscellaneous nitpicks, as they are easy to spot throughout. Belinda rushes into the shop and before anyone says anything, she closes the door, trapping herself in. Why did no one shout for her to hold the door open? Or put a stick there to prop it open?

The Doctor seems about to cry this week, but actually didn’t, a welcome reprieve. Near the end, all the people in the barbershop bomp their heads together and stare at different little patches of the ground in hope, down at the camera, which is rather bizarre. The “six word” story idea, stolen from Hemingway, was more powerfully achieved in The Christmas Invasion, and since the Doctor doesn’t even recite the original story (perhaps to inspire a curious viewer to investigate it themselves?) seemed to make the whole idea a little irrelevant. The author appears to place less value in the meaning of a story than its length, a case of mistaken quantity over quality, showing their own ineptitude, and massively contradicting the presumed-intended idea of this story itself.

The barbershop is closed by the end, leaving a poor lady jobless. “What will you do now?” “Anything.” Back on the prowl for work. Just like Mickey in Journey’s End; so one imagines she’ll marry someone and get nearly shot by a Sontaran. Or maybe not.

What makes a good story? Many elements that are generally common, such as interesting characters, well-paced dialogue, a gripping narrative, a lesson, a sense of deeper thought and purpose, are absent here. The music is quite nice in places; some ideas are intriguingly creative; the image of a giant spider will always be welcome, and we may easily add this to the list of stories which have tried and failed to make any exciting use of spiders, along with Planet of the Spiders and Arachnids in the UK.

The Story & the Engine. Not much story; a rusty throttling engine, chugging along and winding down.

A frivolous fun feature! Clive Dunn is spectacular as this version of the Doctor, even going so far as to get his lines wrong, come in at the wrong time, all fitting the character flawlessly. The jokes are the sort as featured in Christmas crackers - absolutely lame to the point of amusement. For being so early on in Doctor Who's history, it's worth watching, as the first ever clear glimpse of anyone making fun of the programme, so it's interesting to see what they make of it, the Doctor (as he is) just being a rather ridiculous boffin. Overall, this is the kind of feature I love, it's comedic, much more enjoyable than many Doctor Who stories, and relevant to that, nice and short.

Lucky Day - a review based on first impressions:

I place great value in the title of an episode. The connotations, ideas and imagination spurred from a combination of words is often far in excess compared to what the episode results; perhaps the mark of a strong storyline is an episode that least diminishes away from its potential. “Lucky Day” suggests this could be a pivotal, fairly friendly good episode of Series 15, a rarer enjoyable well-crafted piece of entertainment. Well, to that end it is rather, and elsewhere, less than it strives.

The now-expected traditional “Doctor-lite” episode, Lucky Day focuses on Ruby Sunday, the companion from the previous series, rather unexpectedly. The Doctor is hardly in it, but very alike to Love & Monsters, in his absence can one sense the power of his presence. One may easily draw such comparisons (also to 73 Yards last year, especially with the pub crawling activities present in both). The entire episode basically revolves around Ms. Sunday and her new boyfriend, Conrad, a name somehow incredibly fitting to his character. It is apparent fairly early on that Conrad must be the antagonist, since there is little room elsewhere to which the plot may manoeuvre, reducing the surprise of the occasion. Perhaps this predictability adds to the overall themes of the story, concerning the uprising of people in opposition to the common view, the more challenging, anti-consensus populous, just like the conning, radical Conrad. For all one may say and infer from the simple story, there is little else going on here, meaning if one is not drawn in by the plot and characters, there isn’t much to consider or praise. The episode is more magnetised to analysis and discussion than producing an exciting, interesting piece of escapist fiction.

The aliens themselves, when they have little time to feature, reminded me of those from the film “Attack the Block” (featuring Jodie Whittaker), except using a different colour, red instead of blue. The Shreeks differ, however, in being worthy of even less time considering them, for they appear emblematic of any Doctor Who monster - Cybermen, Daleks, Ice Warriors, Shreeks, any threat terrorising the land, seen as a fiction to the general population. This idea was set forth clearly back in Series 1, World War Three, with the “hoax” newspaper article. Such themes were very heavy in the following years, such as the Master commenting on the invasions in Series 3. One gathers RTD must have had quite a hand in developing this concept, or inspired, since those old episodes are now over two decades old. Ruby being escorted in a car is another similar call-back. I quite liked seeing such beats in the story, cutting to news programmes, seeing Trinity Wells, even if it does strike in the usual self-indulgent, distracting manner. One suspects that lift shot from Series 1 and 2 could have been re-used here, too. At least there was a variety of setting and pacing, even virtually, more than can be said for the preceding episode. In the rapid montage, as well as the naturally dynamic relationship between Ms. Sunday and the surnameless Conrad, a fun momentum builds, which I enjoyed.

Much as with some recent efforts from the Revived Series, such as Praxeus, this episode has a very definitive theme that less distracts from the story, more-so grows from it, and takes it over entirely, which produces the same positive boon as in a caterpillar when a parasitoid wasp intervenes (for more information, see The Ark in Space). Exploring this idea could prove insightful, making one question the reality of UNIT, whether the aliens are real, perhaps suggesting that many stories in Doctor Who act in a fictitious meta-narrative, unreliably set-up stories. This may push some motivation towards the inexplicable dates of the UNIT stories, set in some unestablished paradoxical time around the “near future” of the ‘70s, ‘80s and beyond.

But Lucky Day does little to really dig into these themes. It presents ideas most topical to this time, about denying reality, yet by presenting these anti-establishment views as wholly misguided and leading to evil, is unlikely to really convince anyone of anything, good or bad, about how to think. The Doctor himself shows up at the end to scold Conrad, and basically inform the audience of the lesson - the notion that the Time Lord can effectively appear at will and know basically everything indicates his vast comprehension beyond humanity; adding to that his simple click that makes the TARDIS disappear, as if it, too, were but a fantasy, shows his true abilities above humanity. This last scene simplifies the story too much, makes the “lesson” of the parable all-too evident, ironically denying much thought besides its idea as the “good” option. It appears utterly reduced in power as old Mrs. Flood returns to free Conrad, although one could argue gains a greater realism in allowing him to live on free, really was just a feeble decision, tying into the series’ tedious mystery as a whole rather than letting this narrative to reach its conclusion.

Much like 73 Yards, this incarnation of the Doctor is insistent on enabling any life, even those who disagree with his ideas of the universe, to live (and even prosper? Sadly no one says “I deny this reality”, like in The Deadly Assassin). One simply wishes for one of the “old” Doctors, and may happily imagine Tom Baker’s brief interaction, rather like his treatment of Scorby in The Seeds of Doom, or better yet, Conrad, meet Colin Baker and a coincidentally-placed acid bath. The Doctor’s assertion that Conrad is “exhausting” and “choke(s) our bandwidth” is completely contemptible and laughable, in total defiance of the whole concept of the Doctor being above humanity and just sounds ridiculously absurd, as if he’s just irritated at this conniving little man. Attempting to raise our morality a step towards the deistic heights of perfection, in combination with complaining about “bandwidth” size, is a brave choice; it takes courage to write the words that totally undo a story’s purpose and power in seconds, but Pete McTighe pulled it off.

The author himself can be seen regularly stating his own love of the Classic Series in non-specific ways, on the Behind the Sofa features. Lucky Day fits rather well with the idea of what a man as he would write - an attempt to be challenging and provocative, while continuously repeating the same looping notions that refuse any thought against themselves. A half-witted satire. As the thematic aspect’s shadow looms throughout, the plot falters to accommodate: UNIT just happen to have a Shreek right next to the main office, which just so happens to only be hunting Conrad, and doesn’t care about or attack anyone else. All aspects must correlate in contrivance to prove what McTighe wants the world to be; perhaps it is impossible to not be hypocritical when attempting a story of this kind. Having Conrad beg for forgiveness was completely unrealistic; then it transpires he was lying and the Shreek bites his arm, which amuses briefly but reveals how irrelevant the Shreek really are in the story. At least in using them for costumes in his fake invasion, a kind of reference was made to The Rescue, and the “Think Tank” is reminiscent of Robot.

Lucky Day entertained, more-so as it preceded, and much more-so than last week, gaining momentum as it gathered the puzzle pieces, but by its end, with the plot crumbling into dust, the Shreek made irrelevant and even the Doctor incapable of ever acting tough, just a pathetic shell of his former self, the episode falls apart, leaving a broken jigsaw of an empty painting frame.

A review of The Well, written from first impressions:

Well, well. Not exactly the best. To say the least I’d rather watch the first two again, I definitely enjoyed episode two more, for it was more fun and enjoyable. But this one, I feel much more strongly compelled to write about…

Now, I love Midnight. Fantastic episode, absolutely one of the best episodes ever - tense, frightening, sombre ending, claustrophobic, great dialogue (if a bit repetitive haha), overall, incredible, pretty much my favourite and most-watched episode of all. Naturally, therefore, I am a little more critical of this than usual, since I’ve spent years thinking about Midnight, about the mysterious entity, watching it carefully, reading the script, considering the metaphors and symbolism and ideas, how it creates effects, etc. This episode is deliberately playing into the greatness of that, featuring a little scene from it. Nice idea maybe but I didn’t like that, just showing the old episode, it’s kind of like they’re saying “hey, look, remember this old great episode? We’re doing that again!” A bit like that, just like the opening of The Star Beast. I don’t like that. It suggests they’re not so confident, sticking to where they are right now, they have to make a jump from over a decade ago, literally showing it, just to remind everyone. Maybe if one hasn’t watched Midnight for years it would be a lot more effective, but in my case of course, it was quite laughable, like a lot of it.

Great atmosphere for a while here, very much seeking inspiration from Aliens and a number of other DW stories (namely, The Impossible Planet with its equivalent big hole, more mysteriously arrived at and revealed there). Some nice music, although re-using the bit from Midnight (twice even?) was just as over-bearing and over the top as it was the first time. All quiet, subtle, then suddenly WHAM! Really loud crazy theme when everyone’s getting flung around. Reduces the fear, it kind of fits for Doctor Who but it takes away all the build-up. Same with the jump-scares. Every moment building up a sense of fear, relishing in anguish and torment, I love, but then every time there’s a big loud sound, it takes away completely. It’s (sort of) like a drop on a rollercoaster, like, there’s the big scary moment, now we can relax for a bit. Woah! Scary noise. Ok, now let’s calm down. Takes away the rising tension which Midnight handled a lot better over a longer sustained period. Since anyone can just walk out of this room that the creature-infected Aliss is in, it cannot hold such a sense of being trapped in a room, naturally.

This episode demands comparison to Midnight, it outright wants one to go back and watch that episode, it seems, based on showing it in the episode, directly referencing it all over the place. Why does the Doctor act so strange about it? All right, yes, it was a terrifying experience for him the first time, but inevitably in doing a sequel to Midnight, the power of both parts, here and there, are reduced. The compelling aura of Midnight, the name, the planet, the whole original story, is the mystery, much like the mystery of who the Doctor is - of course, showing more of the monster makes it less mysterious, in such a way as it would be very hard to do a sequel without lessening the impact of the original. This seems a lot like the writers wanted to do another go at it, having loved the first one (and since it wasn’t just written by RTD, I wonder which one had the idea), and then to show how massive a fan they are, they show a clip from the old episode. Halfway through, we find this out, it’s like the Sutekh reveal, like the Master reveal in Utopia, but it shouldn’t be, I don’t think. Why must we treat all these monsters like gods? Like the great evil of the universe?

The excellence I love in Midnight is the lack of knowledge. As Professor Hobbes says, “there is no history”. We know very little of the Midnight entity. We don’t know what it looks like, other than Claude’s description of it. Now we have a clear CGI image of it, well, all right then. Shame really. Just like the grey creature behind them in Listen. Showing it directly will always lessen the power of course. Why is it we treat this creature as though it’s the same one? This is set thousands of years later, isn’t it? Way, way after Midnight was set, and that was already a long time in the future. So why would one assume this is the same organism? Why does the Doctor talk to it as though it’s the same thing? Or that it’s evil? It’s just taken ahold of someone, Aliss, that’s how it operates, surely, maybe it’s just curious, not necessarily evil. But, oh, it smashed, or it made her smash, all of the mirrors. Did she forget this, was she possessed, did it do it and then take over her? I’ve only just watched The Well so I’m sure I’ve missed some particular pieces of dialogue, but whatever the explanation is, trapped to those results, not a very good look for poor Aliss. Since this being, behind her apparently, lives on her back, and makes people fly up in the air for some reason, kinetic force as someone says, well, that doesn’t make it evil, does it? Maybe it just has that effect on living organisms altered to its state? For all we know, only this species can survive in an Xtonic light. It acts nothing like the original creature so why does everyone, especially the Doctor, act like it’s the ultimate evil? Not much attempt to reason or comprehend or calm people down.

It doesn’t repeat things as before. Good to do something different, more interesting than a repeat of a repeat, but why treat it as the same organism? Ages and ages dedicated to characters standing around in a room, basically going, there’s nothing there. I just saw something, I swear! No, there’s nothing. No, I saw something. No, nothing. For ages. Predictable. Obviously there’s something, the more we know, the longer we linger, the less scary it is, especially when interrupted by jump-scare sounds, please can we stop having those?

Then people for some reason keep doubting the other people for no reason I see, and walk around the poor Aliss, and die. Predictable. Interesting notion in the sense that no one went “behind” Sky in Midnight, but that was a totally different system of operations. I thought they were going to use the talking function thing, have some kind of dialogue spooky action, using the screens, but nothing came of that, it seemed basically pointless to me. Actually totally pointless from a story perspective. The only one I had trouble understanding was Aliss and she was the only one without subtitles!

They make a huge deal of not walking behind Aliss (leading to a sort of pun, about not turning their back on her, that was fun). A bit like the Time Beetle in Turn Left. But this makes no sense. Someone walks behind her and gets flung, no one ever checks if maybe someone survived, it’s just assumed, oops, they died. I mean, think about it - this creature would be really profitable in a big outer space trampoline party! Flinging people all over the place, great fun! But no, no trampolining here, just everyone gets killed, no point checking apparently. People walk behind Aliss and fly up and back down, but there’s a bit midway through where someone tries walking behind her, leaving someone else directly, 180 degrees behind her, and Aliss turns around to face this person circling her. As she turns her back on the crowd, why don’t they each get flung up into the air? Hmm? What!? I didn’t understand that at all, maybe I missed something obvious. But if it’s behind her that’s the danger, then as she spins around, everyone should just get flung up, surely? I had a huge problem with this in particular, since they make such a big deal of it. Does the person have to be directly behind her, for several seconds then? Maybe she has to maintain that back-view for a while, maybe the creature has to decide to throw people. Calling the entity “behind her” was a little off, as well, I thought, it’s sort of attached to her, “behind” could suggest some unknown distance between her and the creature, rather than attached to her back as it seemed.

It’s left as a mystery exactly how this creature works, why it does this, but treating it like a sort of tutorial, a gimmick explaining the idea for most of the episode takes a lot of time, without really doing anything other than explaining in a slow, supposedly scary way. At least setting it in one room saves money, like a lot of great stories in the past have done. Really nice atmosphere in the first half more-so, good launch into the title sequence, a lot of little… well, some ideas I liked. I will re-watch this at some point and maybe comprehend some bit I missed that explained some of my problems. But overall, I really didn’t care for The Well. Disappointing after such anticipation. Maybe it’s not the best way to view Doctor Who, but somehow the knowledge that a lot of people apparently liked this episode made me even more opposed to it, since I just kept finding problems. Like at the end, when that lady falls back into the Well itself, she just leans back and falls in - gonna hit her head in a few seconds! At least jump into it. All the bits about the people not knowing what humans are, what Earth is, sort of interesting but not very well integrated into the plot. What were they, if not human? Digi-humans, proto-humans, human-ish like Cassandra says in The End of the World, perhaps.

Didn’t make much use of the Well itself, either, it was just in a room, fairly obviously leading to something, the final moment as it turns out. I like the idea of a slow-paced subtle scary story, as DW has attempted many times (loved that it was in a quarry!), but this was really a major failing in many ways. I think if I hadn’t watched Midnight so much, I’d like The Well more, but since the two desire to be linked (and hence compared), the answers as opposed to mystery, the plot confusion and nonsensicality, the simpler characters, the general repetition without much justification, and the general stand-still plot all are factors that negate the merits of the adventure, and my score. Knowing that not much happens, maybe understanding more of the ideas and intentions, maybe I’ll like it more (also from DW Unleashed) but from an initial sudden response, having just watched The Well, … I just didn’t really like it very much. 3/10 = 1.5/5.

Oh and the Doctor cries again.