Doctor Who
Doctor Who: Deep Breath
And we have returned…as this episode takes place moments after the events of last year’s Christmas Special and after the regeneration of Matt Smith’s Doctor. We begin in Victorian London, reuniting with the Paternoster Gang, Madame Vastra, her Jenny, and Strax when they are summoned by the police force. Out of nowhere comes a dinosaur in the river Thames. As they observe, the dinosaur spits out the TARDIS onto the banks of the Thames. They investigate only to find a newly-regenerated Doctor a very confused Clara Oswald. The Doctor deliriously begins speaking to the dinosaur, and struggles to remember who the people around him are before collapsing. Ouch Capaldi…not a good way to start off.
The Paternoster Gang take him and Clara back to their residence to help him recover. Vastra confronts Clara on her attitude to the Doctor’s changed face as she struggles to adapt to the new Doctor. Trust me Clara the whole world’s with you…somewhat. The Doctor awakens and hears the dinosaur’s pleas for help, and heads down to the river followed closely by his companions. As they arrive, the dinosaur bursts into flames and dies. The Doctor, angry and seeking answers, discovers that this is not the first case of spontaneous combustion in London recently, and after spotting a seemingly unfazed man across the river, he jumps into the Thames to begin investigating. Clara is convinced to return home with the Paternoster Gang, and Vastra asserts they will find the Doctor if they study the same mystery that he is.
The next morning, the Doctor is roaming the back streets for answers, and questions how his body chooses a new face when regenerating. He steals a man’s coat and finds something in a discarded newspaper. Back at Vastra’s house, Clara reads the same newspaper and discovers a message, reading “The Impossible Girl”, pointing her towards a restaurant across London. Clara believes the Doctor left this for her, and heads there. The Doctor joins her shortly afterward, but reveals he didn’t leave the message. Before they have time to contemplate who did, they realize that the restaurant is full of robots that prevent their escape. They become entrapped in their seats and are lowered into a lair, where they find the man they saw at the river sitting in a chair among several other idle human-like robots. The Doctor frees them with the sonic screwdriver, and they investigate the man. The Doctor and Clara find that this robot is replacing his parts for biological ones taken from the victims of spontaneous combustion, including the dinosaur. The cyborg insists it is trying to find a so called promised land and justifying its need to extend its life via parts replacement.
The cyborg and other robots begin to wake up as The Doctor manages to escape and appears to leave Clara to die. Clara recalls the Doctor’s earlier advice about holding her breath to hide her humanity from the robots, but couldn’t hold it for long as she passed out and is captured. He questions her on the Doctor’s whereabouts, only for the Doctor to reappear, having disguised himself as one of the humanoid robots. The Paternoster Gang arrive soon after, and join in alongside Clara to fight off the robots while the Doctor chases down the cyborg back to the restaurant. The cyborg releases a hot-air balloon made of human skin, lifting the restaurant into the London sky with the Doctor and him inside.
The Doctor interrogates the cyborg, who reveals it is from the SS Marie Antoinette, the sister ship to the SS Madame de Pompadour (Season 2 Episode 4: The Girl in the Fireplace) The Doctor, still recovering from his regeneration, does not recall this earlier adventure, but recognizes that the cyborg has made itself more human than machine with its goal to find the promised land. The Doctor warns the cyborg that it will either have to kill itself, or he will kill it to protect the humans in London. The cyborg takes its own life, jumping out and impaling itself on the spire of Big Ben. Clara and the Paternoster Gang see the other robots go lifeless at this point.
After regrouping, Clara finds the Doctor and the TARDIS have vanished. Vastra assures her that the Doctor will return, pointing out that Clara as the person that knows the Doctor the best is already prepared to leave. The Doctor and the TARDIS soon reappear, and prepares to take Clara home after she tells him that she does not know who he is any longer. The TARDIS lands in present day Glasgow, when Clara’s cell phone goes off. She takes the call outside and finds it is the Eleventh Doctor, calling her during his last moments before regenerating (Season 7 2013 Christmas Special: The Time of the Doctor). He tells her that the new Doctor needs her more than ever, and she agrees to help him adjust to his new body. The Twelfth Doctor, remembering the conversation, asks her whether she will help him, and she agrees to go with him for coffee.
In the final scene, the cyborg awakens in a beautiful garden, and meets Missy, a mysterious woman who claims the Doctor as her boyfriend. She tells him that it has reached the promised land at last before departing…so who is this mysterious Missy? What should we be expecting from the Doctor and Clara?
This was a very dark start compared to the previous starts to Matt Smith’s and David Tennant’s Doctors. For sure we have come to know of the Doctor as very fun loving but now it seems that dark days are ahead for the Time Lord. What’s to come in the weeks ahead and how will Clara’s story end as Jenna Coleman announced a week ago that she is leaving? More to come!!!
It’s beginning to look a lot like the holidays.
And that can only mean one thing — a special holiday episode of Doctor Who.
BBC America announced the episode “Revolution of the Daleks” will air at 8 p.m. ET on New Year’s Day.
The announcement was accompanied by a trailer that includes Chris Noth, John Barrowman, and Jodie Whittaker’s Time Lord coming to you from behind a high-security alien prison.
Oh, there’s also flying Daleks.
“We’ve crammed this year’s Doctor Who special with an explosion of extraordinary acting talent,” said showrunner Chris Chibnall in a statement. “Where else would you get British acting royalty, a globally renowned US screen star, an (inter)national treasure of stage and screen and one of Britain’s hottest young actors — just in the guest cast! Put those together with Jodie Whittaker, Bradley Walsh, Mandip Gill, and Tosin Cole (and Daleks! Did I mention Daleks!) — and you get a cast to be exterminated for. And things will explode. Promise.”
So, mark your calendar’s and check out the trailer below:
This episode takes place after the events of Last Christmas. Plus if you need a refresher on who the players are involved then I suggest you re-watch Death In Heaven (8X12) and The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End (4X12 & 13).
The episode begins on an extra-terrestrial battle ground where a boy is trapped by “hand mines”, creatures which are hands with eyes, and kill by dragging the victim underground. The Doctor arrives and tries to save the boy, but after the boy says that his name is Davros, the Doctor, shocked, abandons him.
On present day Earth, Clara was in the middle of teaching class when she notices a plane frozen in the sky. She is then summoned to the Tower of London by UNIT to help them contact the Doctor. UNIT reveal that every plane that is currently airborne has frozen and no-one knows why. While trying to work out who it is freezing the planes and what their motive is, UNIT receive a message on a channel specifically created by UNIT for the Doctor should he ever need to contact. The sender of this message is revealed to be Missy, who confirms that she was the one that froze the planes and she needs Clara’s help in finding the Doctor. Missy also reveals that the Doctor’s confession dial, or ‘Last Will and Testament’, has been presented to her, meaning that the Doctor believes he only has one more day to live.
Also looking for the Doctor is Colony Sarff, who has been appointed by an elderly, dying Davros. Clara and Missy track the Doctor down to Essex in the year 1138, where the Doctor has spent three weeks “partying” introducing a number of anachronistic items. The three’s reunion is quickly cut short as Sarff takes them to what appears to be a space station. The Doctor is taken to Davros, who tells the Doctor that he remembers what he did when he was a little boy and reveals that he intends to destroy everything the Doctor loves before finally killing him. In the meantime, Missy notices that the space station’s gravity does not feel artificial, as would be expected on a space station. She opens the air lock and steps out into what looks like space, before realising that they are actually standing on a planet. The planet becomes visible and, much to Missy’s horror, is revealed to be Skaro, the homeworld of the Daleks. The two are then captured by the Daleks who, while the Doctor watches, exterminate both Clara and Missy and destroy the TARDIS, which they had procured from Essex earlier, leaving the Doctor alone and powerless.
The Doctor returns to the hand mine field. Davros asks if the Doctor’s come to save him, but the Doctor, pointing a Dalek gun at Davros, says he’s going to save his friends, and shouts ‘exterminate!’.
Cut to black…TO BE CONTINUED!!!!
This episode marks the return of Davros, the creator of the Dalek’s. His last appearance was with the 10th Doctor in Season 4. This episode also marks the return of Kate Stewart head of UNIT after a short stint in last season’s finale. Also Missy returns after her demise in the season finale but this time helping the Doctor instead of harming him. What will become of the Doctor with everything now taken away from him? What has become of Missy and Clara?
It’s been 10 years to the day since the return of the Time Lord with the blue box time machine the TARDIS. So many fantastic memories that make us want to jump in and say Alons’y or Geronimo! I have my top 10 favorite episode of the last 10 years.
10. The Wedding of River Song: Starting off the list is the finale from season 6 where the time dimensions hold at a specific time. April 22, 2011 at 5:02 PM is the time of death of the Doctor…or is it?
Video Credit: BBC/Doctor Who
9. Rose: This is the episode that brought the show back. As a newly regenerated Doctor emerges from the Time War to help a new companion Rose Tyler stop the Auton’s from invading London.
Video Credit: BBC/Doctor Who
8. The Shakespeare Code: In season 3 following the events of a stolen hospital, the Doctor and a new companion Martha Jones take to the time of Shakespeare and uncover dark magic.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
7. The Eleventh Hour: Following the 2009 Christmas/New Year special a new face takes on the role of the Time Lord as Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor joins Amy Pond in a race to stop Prisoner Zero from invading Earth.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
6. The Power of Three: In season 7 the Doctor gets a first hand account of life on Earth for a long period of time when an invasion of cube like creatures make an impact on daily life.
Video Credit: Doctor Who/BBC
5. Journey’s End: The Season 4 finale brings all the Doctors’s companions since the 2005 return as the Dalek’s take 27 planets from around the universe including Earth.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
4. The Big Bang: The Season 5 finale takes us to a time where the stars go out and the Pandorica opens with the ultimate enemy of of the universe.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
3. The End of Time: The 2009 Christmas/New Years brought the end of David Tennant’s 10th Doctor as the Time Lord’s return and an enemy grows more insane taking over every human on Earth.
Video Credit: BBC Worldwide
2. The Day of the Doctor: The 50th Anniversary Special brings the Doctor’s together as the Zygons take offer the planet. But it comes during a time when even Gallifrey can’t hold on in the final days of the Time War.
1. World War Three: This was the first episode I got exposed to. In Season 1 the Slitheen have taken over London and plan to take over the Earth, but not without igniting World War Three.
You can grab your copies of the last 8 seasons or watch on Hulu and Netflix. Catch the return this fall on BBC America.
Video Credit: VG934
Featured Photo Credit: BBC/Doctor Who
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