*SPOILERS* Christmas is, famously, a time for indulgence and “Twice Upon A Time” finds demob happy showrunner Steven Moffat and his leading man in very indulgent mood indeed. Still refusing to regenerate following the events of “The Doctor Falls”, The Doctor (Peter Capaldi) finds himself at the South Pole, a very familiar South Pole as it turns out because his previous self – his ‘original’ self…

*SPOILERS* I’ve taken the luxury of watching “Hell Bent” a few times now, savouring its courage and ambition. As a season finale it’s a curious beast, lacking the overt bombastic urgency of a universe-ending threat, instead underplaying the threat of a threat from the ill-defined ‘hybrid’ and allowing character driven action to take centre stage. Freed from the purgatorial confession dial, The…

*SPOILERS* I wonder if there was a thematic echo of last week’s ‘Let me be brave’ motif as, a mere two weeks after the failed experiment of “Sleep No More”, Steven Moffat brings us another bold twist on the usual “Doctor Who” format? Materialising in a mysterious fortress, the Doctor finds himself stalked by an eldritch half remembered creature from his childhood nightmares. But why has he been…

*SPOILERS* Brushing off the experimental disappointment of last week, “Face The Raven” sees the superlative ninth season of “Doctor Who” soaring back to the top of its game on black and deadly wings. In a season which has already seen atmospheric homages to the eras of previous Doctors, “Face The Raven” tipped its hat to the grand tradition of one of the Doctor’s companions being accused of a…

*SPOILERS* “Love And Monsters”, “Blink”, “Midnight”, “Turn Left”…“Doctor Who” has often been happy to experiment with its storytelling format (but thankfully only dabbled once in fellatiory paving stone humour). “Sleep No More” pushes the boundaries further than ever before, and in doing so reminds us why those boundaries existed in the first place. The episode is presented as an edited…

Oh me of little faith. After lambasting the overstuffed and eventless “The Zygon Invasion” last week, my expectations for this week were rock bottom. Even with such an easy hurdle to clear, “The Zygon Inversion” soared way, way above my expectations and fully restored my faith in series 9. Opening, as is now par for the course, not with the urgent cliff-hanger but a rewind to sometime before, we…

*SPOILERS* For me, this is the first time this series that a first episode of a two-parter hasn’t set the bar particularly high for the conclusion to come. In fact, I really hope this turns the whole convention on its head and next week’s “The Zygon Inversion” retrospectively manages to salvage something from this dull, frustrating set-up. When the Doctor is summoned back to Earth by a message…

*SPOILERS* “The Woman Who Lived” is much more of a philosophical piece than its immediate predecessor but the richness of the metaphysical musings can’t cover for the paucity of the rest of the episode. It starts promisingly enough. On my first watch, I missed the throwaway comment about her ‘teaching the year 7s judo’ but it was still some considerable way into the episode before I wondered or…

*SPOILERS* Not a fan of the sonic shades? Then today’s your lucky day, as they’re quickly disposed of by an irate Viking (The post credits ‘Next Time’ sequence hints they’ll be back though). And all of this happens after the Doctor has already defeated four and a bit battle fleets and saved Clara from asphyxiation and death by love sprite. It’s a whirlwind start to an episode that’s cunningly a…

*SPOILERS* Usually, the habit of not immediately addressing the previous episode’s cliff hanger at the start of the episode bugs me but this time out, with Capaldi’s Doctor back in “Listen”-style lecture-the-audience mode is just so good it didn’t bother me. I’m really starting to like the 12th Doctor’s fondness for the electric guitar (it’s becoming his scarf, his stick of celery or his question…

*SPOILERS* Well, that was a deliciously retro treat, wasn’t it? Since “Doctor Who” returned in 2005, I don’t think there’s been an episode which evoked the original series in quite so pure a form as “Under The Lake”. The classic atmosphere was so strong that when the first caption set the adventure in Caithness and there was a mention of a mysterious spaceship found underwater I had a brief hope…

*SPOILERS* It was only to be expected, after last week’s bravura opener that the follow up would struggle to maintain the same level of energy and invention. Standards do slip in “The Witch’s Familiar”, but not by much and the deceptively small cast make the most of the meaty moral dilemma Steven Moffat has cooked up for our favourite Time Lord. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shed his tendency to set…

*SPOILERS* So…he’s back – and he’s not hiding from his enemies. If anything, he’s doing the exact opposite and trying to provoke them: cavorting around the universe like his own private playground, having a blast and taking on his fiercest foes with a brash confidence and an almost complete absence of f**ks to give. I am, of course, talking about Steven Moffat, who brings us his fifth season…

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A festive special which is unlikely to reconvert any of those who checked out during the last season, “Last Christmas” still offered us a rich and fruity plum pudding of entertainment, perfect for a Christmas Day tea time.

There wasn’t, to be honest, a lot of originality in this year’s Christmas special but at least it didn’t waste any time trying to hide the fact it was repeating a…

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As the brief cold open crashed into the opening credits, my heart was warmed by the thought of hundreds of bitter, angry Whovians, who were only hate watching the episode to stoke their rage about Missy’s reveal last week, doing a hilarious spit take at Clara’s declaration that she, in fact, had been the Doctor all along (even going so far as to alter the title sequence). Of course, it…

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I’m going to keep this as brief as I can, because it’s tricky to judge a ‘part one’ in isolation without having seen the second episode. As it was, we got a couple of answers to two questions which have run the length of the series (one we were actualy interested in and the other one to do with Danny Pink). There was a bunch of cool visuals, a couple of teases and more than a few new…