Doctor Who Season 7

SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.

051: Spearhead from Space

(First watched 2024-06-04, -05, -09, -11) First impression of the new Doctor... not much, since he spends most of the episode unconscious in bed Pretty speedy with a wheelchair, though.

It's a weird thing how the show went from looking like one type of very retro to another type of very retro.

New Doctor stealing his clothes from a hospital. I believe Eleven did the same thing. I hadn't seen much of Pertwee prior to this, I kind of expected a deeper voice. But maybe that's just the kind of impression a guy with a cape gives off.

The Brigadier is a pretty credulous guy. He first thinks they've found the Doctor, then sees it doesn't look like him but the man claims to know him... so he figures: Well, if the Doctor is some kind of alien that travels in a magic box, the ability to change his face isn't any crazier, so I'll run with that until given reason to believe otherwise.

The hospital security sucks, not sure whether to blame them or UNIT. After the Doctor has already been kidnapped once, he's apparently given no kind of protection since he just gets up and sneaks off while the doctor (lowercase d) is out of the room.

The default Autons are a lot like Michael Myers. Blue jumpsuit, fake face, don't talk, can withstand attacks that would take down normal people.

The Doctor says that since the Nestene are/is (?) telepathic any off planet surely know what happened here on Earth. But being telepathic doesn't imply infinite interstellar telepathic range, does it?

I like how at the end the Doctor and Brigadier try to come to an arrangement. The Doctor doesn't care about having a salary, but DOES want a cool car. I'm kind of curious what the Doctor's living space in this era is like, I wonder if we ever see it.

052: Doctor Who and the Silurians

(First watched 2024-06-12, -14, -16, -18, -26, -30, -07-05) The only serial to slap Doctor Who in the title like it's a novelization, I think? His new non-stolen car is more of a jalopy, but a good fit for him. Unless it rains, I guess.

I'm with the Brigadier on this one, a scared man going nuts and drawing on the wall doesn't imply much... certainly not that he's reverted to a caveman state making cave drawings. Those caves down there must be pretty huge, though, to have room for what seemed like a pretty big dinosaur.

Through episode 5: if this serial were part of most other shows I'd probably describe it as "very Star Trek", but the aspects I mean are very The Doctor, too. We have humanity and Silurians, both distrustful of each other and with scared people who'd rather see the other side wiped out, and the Doctor in the middle trying to forge a peace.

I already knew the gist of Silurians from Eleven-era episodes, but it is a very interesting one. A previously dominant species goes into hibernation, and takes so long to come out of it that a new intelligent species has evolved and taken over the planet. I don't think this jives with modern theory, but here they seem to explicitly connect the Silurians' hibernation as a reaction to the Moon appearing, which they did not expect to become a moon but to remove the planet's atmosphere and make it unlivable for a long period.

So in the end the Silurians' attempt to kill humanity by disease fails, they're tricked to going back into hibernation, aaaaand UNIT seals them for what they hope is permanently. Though when the Doctor sees the explosions, he thinks they've killed them. Which one? Well, I kind of have to lean to the former, because it's much harder to imagine the Doctor going "Oh well, just gonna keep working with these people who have just committed genocide."

Not something just with this serial, but about the Brigadier. As someone who's been watching Who in one form or another for nearly two decades now, he's been a name that has frequently come up but I haven't seen much of myself until lately, so I've been very curious to see what makes him such a big deal. I've previously noted his willingness to roll with the unbelievable when presented with it, but his unusual relationship with the Doctor must be another thing. Most people who spend much time interacting with the Doctor either become great friends or great enemies with him. Whereas the Brigadier is in an unusual position of being an ally who doesn't always agree with the Doctor, and thanks to having other loyalties and being part of a chain of command, sometimes goes directly against the Doctor's wishes as in this serial with the sealing in of the Silurians.

053: The Ambassadors of Death

(First watched 2024-07-07, -10, -12, -21, -23, -24, -26) I like how they try to make even the title ominous with just text, by a bit of zooming and saving OF DEATH for a second later.

The space center has pretty shit security, the Doctor just drove and walked past everyone. Damn good thing he wasn't, like... any number of dangerous people or entities that can be found on this show.

So so far our situation is that a mission to Mars has returned, but with no communication from the astronauts. Another capsule meets them in Earth orbit, they dock, and... unknown. Now communication is lost with another astronaut, and some coded communication happens between the Mars ship and (of course) London. Given the title of the serial I can only assume this is bad news.

A general comment on this season. It is always presumed there are gaps between the TV stories, which leaves room for all the comics and novels and audio stories and whatnot. But something like this season in particular there are only 4 serials, and all put together most serials cover a handful of days at most. So if this season covers the Doctor's first year of exile on Earth, we're probably left not seeing about 95% of those days.

There was a comedic scene with the Doctor playing around with the TARDIS controls outside of the TARDIS, but it did make me wonder how easily it fit through the door. Bigger on the inside, yeah, but what a bottleneck.

Maybe I am ruined by a 24-hour news cycle, but I was surprised how little coverage the recovery of the space capsule was getting. Both by news and security forces. It doesn't seem like it should be THAT easy for it to have both been hijacked, and re-hijacked by the Doctor, without anyone taking notice. But pretty funny, still. The Doctor has put some sort of force field on his jalopy?

Speaking of weird Doctor tricks, he also made a tape disappear and reappear? I didn't catch the gibberish explanation he gave for it to differentiate from when he sent objects several seconds into the future in the previous episode, but is that something we're going to be seeing more of?

The space center is what I imagine Stargate Command might look like if Stargate SG-1 had been made about a quarter century earlier.

So the astronauts may still be in orbit, while the space suits down on Earth are filled with... something else? When I see them moving around, I can't help but keep thinking "Hey... who turned out the lights?"

Maybe I'm just a more nervous type than Dr. Taltalian, but I'd definitely want to double-check the time bomb settings some time between being given it and turning it on.

I think my favorite twist is that the title is literal. I thought by ambassadors of death they just meant like... bringers of death, or those on the side of death. But no, these are straight up alien ambassadors who have been wrangled into this plot. Which, sorry General Carrington, is pretty stupid. His plan is basically to do some false flag stuff to scare the world into a defensive posture and blowing up their craft, because he assumes they are dangerous, but... why would he think that would end there? Unless they're total wusses or have their whole society on one ship they can't protect from Earth-level tech, his plan would just result in greater retaliation from a powerful force.

The very very ending I find pretty funny. They arrest Carrington, start to arrange to return the alien ambassadors, then rather than sticking around to make sure things go to plan the Doctor is like "Sorry y'all, I have important work back at the lab, LATERS!"

I assume we don't hear more about these aliens, but kind of disappointing. They were willing to establish relations with humanity, and aside from Carrington's small group nobody else really knew about it. So now that Carrington is taken care of, they COULD proceed with first contact with an alien species... but that seems unlikely or the show would be quite different going forward.

054: Inferno

(First watched 2024-08-13, -16, -18, -21, ?, ?, 09-04) Through four episodes now. This one is pretty fun. The Doctor has slipped into a parallel universe, I think a first for the show. Though there are many differences between worlds, the basic problem of a project drilling through the Earth's crust and weird green slime that turns people into hairy creatures is shared. Usually we can be fairly sure the Doctor will save the day (more or less), but this time I'm left to wonder whether he'll succeed for both universes or if the alternate one is doomed.

I'm kind of surprised the TARDIS console can do so much. I guess for the purposes of this season they kind of had to make it this way, but given that (internally) the TARDIS is a huge complicated machine I would've thought the console would be more of an interface rather than something that actually contained the necessary equipment for bouncing around time/space/universes.

A couple more episodes in, and the alternate world is doomed. He's given up on saving the planet, and just needs help getting back to his regular reality in the hopes of stopping the drilling there. Most of the people he's stuck with are willing to make the sacrifice, but local Brigadier "Brigade Leader" is fighting for himself to the end.

The outside of the Doctor's temporary lab being a green screen has been pretty obvious from the first episode, but ending the sixth with a bunch of lava outside rather than a static view of some buildings at least puts it to good use.

So... in the end, not a bad watch, but I also feel like not much got resolved. Why does the goo turn people into heat-loving monsters? Do the heat-loving monsters really desire the destruction of Earth, or is it just their misguided instinct for heat? If drilling through the crust is a destroy-the-Earth event, can the Doctor really convince Earth enough such that nobody ever tries it again?

I liked the character of Greg Sutton. Could've made a companion. Reminded me a bit of Graham. Down to earth, knowledgeable in his field (drilling vs... bus driving), doesn't really understand the advanced science the Doctor knows but is willing to put his trust in him.

Apparently this was the last showing for Liz, too, though she had no sort of on-screen exit.

Doctor Who Season 8