Tag: David Tennant

Doctor Who Review – 50th Anniversary Specials

Yes, I know, we already celebrated Doctor’s Who’s 60th anniversary a few years ago. It’s all a bit wibbly wobbly timey wimey. But this epic post for the bank holiday weekend is part of my ongoing series of reviews for all the series in the modern era, as I’ve been rewatching them in order. Recently I wrote about Series 7 (Part 1 & Part 2), and the cliffhanger at the end of it directly leads into the 50th anniversary specials, so naturally I wanted to move straight on to those.

The 2013 specials mark the end of Matt Smith’s stellar reign as the 11th Doctor. Some people had doubts about him when he took over from David Tennant – who also appears in the anniversary story, along with John Hurt as the War Doctor – but he really made the role his own, and showed he was capable of everything from chirpy humour to dark intensity. So he’s been very much missed ever since the brilliant send-off he had in these specials.

Meanwhile Jenna Coleman (who dropped the “Louise” from her name from this point onwards) continues to be a wonderful companion as Clara Oswald, with the mystery of why she’s the ‘Impossible Girl’ having been resolved at the end of Series 7. And there’s the welcome return of Billie Piper as a version of Rose that we’ve never seen before.

The score by Murray Gold is sublime as usual, so I’ll be picking out some of my favourite pieces from his soundtrack album in these reviews. And of course everything was overseen by showrunner Steven Moffat, who somehow managed to fit it all in alongside Series 7 of Doctor Who and Series 3 of Sherlock. Plus there was a biographical drama about the origins of the show, written by Mark Gatiss and featuring music by Edmund Butt, that I’ll also be reviewing in this post.

Altogether there’s a lot to mention from the Blu-ray set, along with additional stuff that wasn’t included in that release, and as always I’ve put together an extensive playlist of clips, behind the scenes material, music, interviews, reactions, conventions and much more. So I hope you enjoy celebrating this key milestone in the show’s history with me.

Continue reading “Doctor Who Review – 50th Anniversary Specials”

Aardman Animations Reviews

Back in December I rewatched all of the old Wallace & Gromit films, and then thoroughly enjoyed their latest special that came out at Christmas, called Vengeance Most Fowl. You can see my thoughts about all of those in my comprehensive review post that I published shortly after Christmas.

Consequently, I thought I would further celebrate the amazing talents of Nick Park and the team at Aardman by checking out all of their other animated films as well, plus a classic TV series. I’m not interested in seeing absolutely everything they’ve done, as I don’t have the time or desire to do so, nor do I feel a strong urge to buy any of these titles I’m about to mention either. And this post isn’t sponsored of course. It’s just been fun to look at a selection of things that I either haven’t watched for ages or have never seen before, and I hope you enjoy reading about them!

Continue reading “Aardman Animations Reviews”

Doctor Who Review – Sarah Jane Adventures – Series 3-5

Happy Doctor Who Day! To mark the 61st anniversary of this sci-fi institution, here’s the second and final part of my review of the children’s spin-off The Sarah Jane Adventures, following on from my previous post about Series 1 & 2.

Starring the delightful and dearly missed Elisabeth Sladen in the title role of Sarah Jane Smith, the series is available on BBC iPlayer, but I’m going through the complete DVD boxset here,

Throughout Series 3-5, Sarah Jane continues to be accompanied by Luke Smith (Tommy Knight, whose role was reduced due to his real-life studies), Rani Chandra (Anjli Mohindra) and Clyde Langer (Daniel Anthony), plus Sky (Sinead Michael) in Series 5. Vital assistance is also provided by supercomputer Mr Smith (Alexander Armstrong) and robot dog K9 (John Leeson), who have an amusing rivalry between one another throughout the series. Rani’s parents Haresh & Gita, who live across the road from Sarah Jane, also appear in some stories, played by Ace Bhatti & Mina Anwar, as does Clyde’s mother Carla (Jocelyn Jee Esien). And the Doctor also appears a couple of times, played by David Tennant and Matt Smith.

Clyde gives a generic introduction to every 25-minute episode (30 seconds in Series 3-4, and 45 seconds in Series 5) about what it’s like having adventures with Sarah Jane, with the illustrative clips updated accordingly in each series. This wasn’t a feature of the first two series. It makes sense to have it for the first episode of each series to guide any new viewers in, but it feels repetitive thereafter, so I always fast forward through it.

So let’s jump straight back into the episodes, as all the other introductory stuff was dealt with in the previous post. I’ve also created a Youtube playlist for Series 3-5 (just like I did for Series 1-2) with hundreds of clips, including a lot of videos from the show’s official Youtube channel, if you want to dig through that as well. I hope you enjoy!

Continue reading “Doctor Who Review – Sarah Jane Adventures – Series 3-5”

Doctor Who At 60 Review – The Whoniverse

For the final part of my trilogy celebrating the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who – following on from my reviews of the specials and radio shows – I’m diving into The Whoniverse on BBC iPlayer.

This treasure trove of televised time-travelling treats came as quite the surprise when it was launched by the BBC at the beginning of November. At its heart are over 800 episodes from the series, accompanied by several spin-offs, documentaries, other programmes and accessibility features, all for free (well, with no subscription required on top of your TV licence anyway).

So there’s a lot on offer, and I hope you enjoy my trawl through the various special programmes I’ve been watching. As always, none of this is sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else connected with Doctor Who, and all opinions are my own.

Continue reading “Doctor Who At 60 Review – The Whoniverse”

Doctor Who At 60 Review – Radio Celebrations

Welcome to the second part of my trilogy celebrating 60 years of Doctor Who. Having reviewed the specials and the Blu-ray steelbook, I’m now going to talk about the various radio programmes I’ve been listening to on BBC Sounds, which have been a great mixture of documentaries, interviews and music. Then next time I’ll conclude with the various TV shows I’ve been watching in the Whoniverse on iPlayer.

As usual, none of this is sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else connected with Doctor Who, and these are just my opinions as a big fan, so I hope you enjoy!

Continue reading “Doctor Who At 60 Review – Radio Celebrations”

Doctor Who At 60 Review – The Specials

Updated in November 2024 to include the newly released deleted scenes.

Happy 60th anniversary to Doctor Who! The BBC have quite rightly been celebrating one of their biggest, best and longest-running shows in style recently, and I’ve been very much enjoying the various ways they’ve marked the occasion.

In particular, we’ve had a new trilogy of hour-long specials, featuring the wonderful return of David Tennant as the Doctor (designated Number 14 rather than 10 this time), Catherine Tate as Donna Noble, the late great Bernard Cribbins in his final appearance as grandfather Wilfred Mott, and some other important characters, plus the introduction of Ncuti Gatwa as the 15th Doctor. And behind the scenes we also warmly welcome back composer Murray Gold, executive producers Julie Gardner, Jane Tranter & Phil Collinson (along with new arrival Joel Collins), and showrunner Russell T Davies.

It really is wonderful that the old team have been reunited, and that they’ve been given a bigger budget too, partly thanks to the BBC’s new global streaming deal with Disney+, so the show looks even more impressive than it already did. And there’s greater representation of diversity, in ways that are genuinely inclusive rather than just ticking boxes, which is fantastic.

So it does feel like we’re entering a fresh new era, which has been given its own section on BBC iPlayer (alongside others for the earlier Classic and Modern eras as part of the wider Whoniverse). It is rather a shame that Disney+ viewers won’t have access to older episodes – hence the numbering is being reset to Season 1 for Ncuti Gatwa’s debut, instead of confusing their users by calling it Series 14 – but hopefully these latest episodes will tempt new Whovians overseas to find ways of looking back at previous adventures.

So, much like my deep dives into the TV adventures of the 9th and 10th Doctors (in Series 1, 2, 3 & 4 and the specials), in this post I’m going to review the 60th anniversary episodes and the extras in the latest Blu-ray steelbook. Unlike my older reviews however, of episodes that I’ve seen countless times before, these are my first reactions to seeing these new adventures.

Later on there will then be additional posts to review some of the other goodies I’ve been enjoying on the BBC website, that have been generously made available for free. It really does feel like they recognise what a valuable and significant asset they have in this show, given the attention they’re lavishing upon it – which sounds obvious, but that hasn’t always been the case.

As with all of my Doctor Who reviews, this isn’t sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else involved with the show. I’m just a keen fan who enjoys exploring the series and writing about it, and as a result there will be lots of spoilers ahead as well. So I hope you enjoy!

Continue reading “Doctor Who At 60 Review – The Specials”

Christmas 2023 Favourites – Part 1

Seasons greetings, I hope your preparations for Christmas are going well, November always feels a little bit festive, but for me it was even more so than normal this year, because I’ve already explored a variety of London’s displays, seen a bunch of snowmen on a sculpture trail, and had a free Christmas dinner courtesy of a PR invite. On top of that I’ve also seen a couple of theatre shows, while at home I’ve been enjoying some more TV and music as always.

Consequently it makes sense to treat this as a festive Favourites post and video, and spread the joy over 2 months. It’s not too early as far as I’m concerned. So with the usual disclaimer that all opinions are my own, including for the free food, let’s crack on with it, and I hope you enjoy!

Continue reading “Christmas 2023 Favourites – Part 1”

Doctor Who Review – 2008-10 Specials

The 60th anniversary of Doctor Who is finally upon us, with an exciting trilogy of specials about to air, and a wealth of goodies to watch in the Whoniverse and peruse in the archives on the BBC website. It’s a great time to be a Whovian, that’s for sure.

But before I delve into all of that, I just need to squeeze in one more of my extensive review posts for the modern era. In recent months I’ve written at far too much length about Series 1, 2, 3 & 4, so it’s only right to wrap up this first batch of reviews with the specials from 2008 to 2010 that concluded David Tennant’s run as the 10th Doctor and Russell T Davies’ role as showrunner. Like many people, I was very sad when David left, so it was great to see him return for the 50th anniversary later on, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again in the imminent new trilogy for the 60th.

So in these 5 episodes, David gets a big send-off, alongside some great guest stars and the return of some familiar faces. I have the Blu-ray steelbook edition of this mini-series, so that’s what I’ll be going through here, including all of the extra features. And I’ll be mentioning some related items I’ve picked out online as well, which can be seen on my Youtube playlist for these specials. So I hope you enjoy!

[Note: This post was edited on 30 November 2023 to mention the new Whoniverse collection on iPlayer and the Series 1-4 & Specials box set.]

Continue reading “Doctor Who Review – 2008-10 Specials”

October 2023 Favourites

Hello again, and welcome to my latest little roundup, at a time when I know that things are far from cheerful news-wise. The war in Israel and Gaza is horrific to say the least, and like everyone else I can only pray for peace and express my solidarity with the innocent civilians affected on all sides, just as I do for the ongoing Ukraine conflict. Then there’s the Covid Inquiry, stormy weather and other stuff. But on the plus side, the plans to close railway ticket offices have just been scrapped (for now at least), which I had a little rant about in my July post, so well done to everyone who campaigned against it.

So as always I hope my posts are a pleasant distraction from things like that. And for me this has been a pretty relaxing month really. I didn’t go to any theatre shows this time, but I did revisit a couple of my favourite museums, explored a couple of sculpture trails, and had a nice Halloween tour with my friend and colleague Emily. Plus I got my Covid booster, had a few other nice walks, and went to a retirement party (all the best Pauline if you’re reading this!), but I don’t need to write about those little bits here.

So let’s crack on with this month’s post and video, in which nothing is sponsored or gifted as usual, and I hope you enjoy!

Continue reading “October 2023 Favourites”

Doctor Who Review – Series 4

Here we go again, on what is proving to be a very special day. As part of their celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, the BBC have just launched a massive Whoniverse collection of episodes and extras on iPlayer – including audio description, subtitles and sign language for the Classic series, New era and spin-offs, which is a huge win for accessibility. The extra features include the full-length episodes of Doctor Who Confidential and other documentaries, plus there’s an extensive archive of behind the scenes material as well. So I’m really looking forward to digging through all of that.

And with the anniversary specials now fast approaching, here’s the latest in my personal series of lengthy reviews about the modern era of the show. This time I’m looking through Series 4, using the Blu-ray steelbook edition that I own, following on from my previous deep dives into Series 1, 2 & 3. All opinions are my own of course, none of these posts are sponsored by the BBC, I’m just a big fan.

Russell T Davies is still showrunner and David Tennant is still the Doctor for this series, which is great news of course. And this time the companion is Donna Noble, played by Catherine Tate, returning after her guest role in The Runaway Bride. I’m not a fan of her sketch show, but her appearance in that previous Christmas special of Doctor Who had swayed my opinion a bit more in her favour. And now, in this fourth series, she gets a proper chance to demonstrate what she’s really capable of, both comedically and dramatically, doing a superb job in the process.

Donna is down to earth and isn’t afraid to stand up for herself or others, even if that means putting the Doctor in his place occasionally. But she still has fears and vulnerabilities like every human being, she’s keen to learn, and she also loves to have a good laugh. And she doesn’t fall in love with the Doctor, unlike Rose and Martha before her (who reappear in this series, along with a couple of other companions), so she has a much more relaxed connection with him. They’re just good friends exploring the universe together, and it works really well that way, especially as actors David and Catherine have such great chemistry too. So Donna’s a very well-developed character, who goes on a big personal journey throughout this series, in addition to her trips across time and space, until it all comes to a shocking conclusion.

So we’re treated to another fantastic set of stories in this series, with all the usual action, drama, humour, emotions, visual effects, music and everything else it throws at you. And therefore, alongside a big playlist of clips I’ve put together on Youtube, here’s my lengthy review of it all!

[Note: This post was edited in November 2023 to mention the new Whoniverse collection on iPlayer and the Series 1-4 & Specials box set.]

Continue reading “Doctor Who Review – Series 4”