Doctor Who s3.12 review

Andrew Mickel

John Simm must be made the new Doctor. No, that isn't a suggestion, it's the one guaranteed way to keep what has recently been an increasingly flagging programme afloat. He must be made the Doctor!

Published on Jun 25, 2007

This week was awesome and while John Simm certainly didn’t do it alone (all the BBC wonks who issued slurs against Freema Agyeman that she got rubbish towards the end of the series, hang your heads in shame), he bought an unbridled bucket of fun to the end of the world. The high-pantomime routine of watching Sheila Sabatini cark it at the hands of the Toclafane was great. Giving a big thumbs up after gassing his entire cabinet – I’ve always been wary of those conferencing phone dooleys – was cheesetastic. Taunting the US President stayed just the right side of offensive. And the Master eyeing up everyone more than Captain Jack does is a nice antidote to the increasingly creepy Doctor (you can imagine that it’s actually the Doctor who would be successful at murdering someone, so that everyone afterwards could go ‘but he seemed like such a nice man’. Just a thought.)

Other possible distractions were kept at arm’s length. The hilarious way that Torchwood was kept out of it (they’re quite stupid and on holiday) was a relief after the self-important music almost heralded the coming of the loved-up Welsh idiots. Martha’s stupid family was also a minor side show (I’m changing me earlier opinion of them to ‘they’re all stupid and deserve to die’).

It’s also quite incredible how the T Davies keeps finding these motifs to subtly thread through entire series of Who and not have anyone notice. Next series – that dot between ‘Doctor’ and ‘Who’ in the opening credits is a portal to another world – or is it? It will be a shame to lose him from the programme. As much as Moffat is probably a better writer of individual episodes, the T Davies does have an unparalleled ability to pull it all together for an absolutely massive pay-off.

So, I think it’s pretty safe to take a guess at where the series is going to go now, as it will doubtlessly veer off in an entirely different direction. We didn’t exactly get good resolution as to where humanity went at the end of the universe, but the toclafane don’t exactly seem bad, just a bit daft. The Tardis is hooked up for nefarious purposes. There’s no way they can’t all be linked, and it can all end with John Simm being the new Doctor thanks to some Chameleon Archiness.

Seeing as Doctor Who is on good form, it’ll be a massive surprise and probably turn out instead that the toclafane are all made of marmalade and under the control of the Tiptree Jam Company. Either way, it’s great to see the series go out on an unrepresentative high.

Users Comments

Re: Doctor Who s3.12 review
Posted By Robmac 1 June 25, 2007 02:04:16 PM

And so the rot set in... after 5 episodes worth of Who brilliance Mr T Davies once again gets his claws into the show as writer and ruins everything. I really hated this episode, from the use of laptops that could do everything to bad guys whos couldnt shoot straight to somebody nicking Marvels SHIELD hellicarrier to John Simms hamming it up as the Master it was all so so wrong - could you ever see the Master from the classic Who doing soundbites to a to the tv crew like Simms did in the episode..no you bloomin wouldnt, the Master is supposed to be scary and DOES NOT sit and have a lovely chat to the Dr about Galifrey and would have gassed the entire parliment for good measure, not just his cabinet. To make matters worse there are so many holes and unexplained things in the episode for example why is Captain Jack in these episodes? ( cuz he's Russell T Davies mate?) Why do we need corny pop songs playing when there is an invation going on ( to be young and hip and down with the yuff of the country?) and why oh why do the baddies looks like the Zeriods from Terrahawks ( cos we run out of budget from the gallifrey flashback?..and damn I still havent found that annual). Utter and complete rubbish and a good waste of a hours worth of my time. Davies is a hack with no clue how to write the character, Who is supposed to be timeless with episodes set anywhere in space or time so why is it whenever he writes one its in modern day with loads of poor pop culture references, leave that to the likes of Kevin Smith, the robot chicken crew, Seth Mcfarlane (of family guy) or even Have I got News for you. Just because you are a fan with a bit of knowledge of Who history doesnt make you a good writer. Look at what the other writers of Who have done this year, some superb episodes and some fantastically tight scripts and concepts that will go down in Who lore and see what he has done...its a shame really and to be honest if he leaves after this season then great, bring on the new guard. yup - and now thats out my system - I did like the bit with Gallifrey in it!

Re: Doctor Who s3.12 review
Posted By simonbrew 1 June 25, 2007 03:13:46 PM

I liked this episode. While it's weaker than the four that preceeded it, it was still, well, just *exciting*. Things were happening, a few missteps, but really entertaining. And I think those stange round robots might be Time Lords. Whaddya reckon?

Re: Doctor Who s3.12 review
Posted By Robmac 1 June 25, 2007 03:58:39 PM

Time Lords..hmmmm. Or even future Daleks as the contract with Terry Nations estate finishes soon so they might be using the spheres as new 'big bads'. Or they could be rejects from the Phantasm films and be the inhabitants of the Tall Mans dark dimension

Re: Doctor Who s3.12 review
Posted By simonbrew 1 June 26, 2007 07:09:30 AM

With the amount of money the Terry Nation estate have raked in off the Daleks over the last three years, can you see that deal *not* being renewed? Really?

Re: Doctor Who s3.12 review
Posted By Robmac 1 June 26, 2007 09:08:48 AM

I agree with you there - there will be some minor 'dispute' with the beeb about the use of the Daleks in teh next season and then as you say everything will all be fine and dandy and made better by a big pile of cash. It would be interesting to see if the beeb we also go back over the original Dr Who novels that Terry Nation and Terrance Dicks wrote around Who, it worked well with the recent novel adaptation and now with a little more budget and CG some of the more unfilmable books could be polished a little, updated and bought to the screen