Showing posts with label Moffat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moffat. Show all posts

Friday, 24 May 2013

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! 

Monday, 1 October 2012

Doctor Matt and The Ponds - a very mini review

Farewell Amy and Rory Pond... the Weeping Angels finally got yas...

(Rated 4/5... on a scale where I'd rate Doctor Chris and Rose at 6/5 and Doctor David and Donna as 7/5.)

This little snippetty review is really just to say something about the relationship developed between The Doctor (Matt Smith), Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill). For me, amidst all the excitement of monsters, aliens and Sci Fi, the interaction between the Doctor and his companions - how he influences them and vice versa, and each companions particular story - is the most interesting part. I have a big penchant - not nose or chin - for relationships!

I think writer Stephen Moffat has great storytelling skill - he is superb at that - and keeping you on your toes with excitement and Geronimo! ... here we go! But something lacks in emotion between characters and from them. The dialogue is genius and witty in the extreme... totally yowza! And the delivery of that dialogue from all three lacks nothing at all. Oh and have to mention Alex Kingston as River Song too and her contribution in chemistry with The Doctor - charged? yes - highly? no.

The acting is faultless. Every actor brings something different to The Good Doctor - the very best of themselves - and just as Chris Eccleston and David Tennant nailed that - so does Matt Smith. And wonderfully fantastically brilliantly they all look like they could be an alien and give us the majestic, strong yet traumatised doctor from the North, the all-round funny yet high EQ expressive doctor from North of the border and the professor, public school-boy doctor from somewhere a little bit posh ;)

BUT there is an emotional quality that Russell T. Davies and his Whovian team of actors - Billie Piper's Rose Tyler and Catherine Tate's Donna Noble in particular with their respective doctors - gave that, for me, never comes out in the Moffat-lead series. Russell's writing and their performances tore at my heart strings in ways these guys just can't somehow. I was addicted and couldn't get enough. Now I love it but can cope without.

So I do feel sad to see The Ponds go... but not as upset at the loss of Rose... or devastated at the loss of Donna.

The Eleventh Doctor and The Ponds – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2012



Twitter: @RestrictReview