The Name of the Doctor: Mini-Review

(Rated 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8.5?!, 9, 10 and 11/5)

OUTSTANDING, HEART-POUNDING high level drama from the pen of Stephen Moffat! This half-series had taken a bit of a dip for me up until this point. It was good, but not great and I struggled to connect with Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) and felt The Doctor did too. Who IS she?! (Not in the voice of that Big Brother star but maybe in a similar disbelieving vein as to why she is so important!) And then we discover and suddenly her ratings in each of our hearts - and his two hearts - climb universe-high! If you will forgive the use of this word, this episode was orgasmic for fans of Classic Dr Who - as we see - SPOILER alert - Clara save all of them! And for this Nine-fan an extra rush for me as she crosses paths with him! And spoilers OMG!! Dearest loveliest Prof River Song (Alex Kingston) also returns to - well yes spoilers - but has a gorgeous interaction with Sweetie Doctor Matt Smith! Matt put in yet another great performance - he is excellent as the Professor/Public School-Boy Doctor creating toy-boy feelings in this Whovian ;). And then at the end we have the man whose name we still don't know! - played by John Hurt - but have to wait til November 23rd 2013 for our climax! 

Broadchurch ITV Closure 22nd April 2013

(Rated 5/5)

Broadchurch will return... but should it?! Now we know who killed Danny do we really need anything more? Series one had all the ingredients of a truly cracking whodunnit and suitably traumatised lead investigators with mysterious pasts - well in fact who did not have a mysterious past on the show?! - but to me it felt like an extremely good but self-contained piece. When something is that good should it really be repeated or stop when the going's good. Then again The Killing and other shows have successfully done it. I just hope it does not get over-milked. The acting was truly superb from everyone - I was particularly moved by Pauline Quirke's performance during her revelatory story... and then later Olivia Coleman in response to the final awful resolution. David Tennant was brilliant at stepping into a fully-rounded, damaged and flawed slightly cruel; later sympathetic character - even though I struggled for just a while with "DT is always nice DT deep-down really and that's it" - goodness knows how I will respond to him in The Politician's Husband when he will apparently be truly not nice! Arthur Darvill also did very well in a non-RoryPond role as the supportive yet challenging vicar... and Jodie Whittaker truly heartbreakingly wonderful as Danny's mother. The linking theme is abuse and love of children - where the two may even meet and the rights and wrongs of that - very emotive and powerful.

Broadchurch – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2013

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