29 April 2013

Series 7 Episode 10: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

Summary:
The Doctor allows Clara to pilot the Tardis but suddenly they are pulled on board of a salvage ship. There is an explosion and the Doctor is thrown out of the Tardis. When he wakes up again, he is surrounded by the salvage crew but Clara is still inside the Tardis. The Doctor promises the men that they can have the engine when they help him to save Clara, though when they are inside his ship he forces them by turning on the self-destruction. Clara wanders through the endless corridors of the Tardis but there is something that chases her. She hides inside the library and finds a book about the Time War in which she reads the Doctor's name. After a while she ends up in an echo of the control room where the Tardis tries to keep her save. The Doctor and two of the salvage crew are also chased by these strange creatures and end up in another echo version of the control room. There the Doctor can hear Clara and he is able to bring her into the echo room he is in and save her from the burned creature. Together they venture into the centre of the Tardis and the Doctor tells Clara that there is a rupture in time and images from the past leak through. She forces him to tell her what these creatures are which are inside the ship and he has to tell her that they are their future selves. They move on but the heart of the Tardis is already exploded. Is there a way to save all of them?

This was definitely another episode with a lot of action in it and it was the first one where we could see something of the inside of the Tardis. It was so cool to see the swimming pool although I would have liked to see more than a glimpse of it. The library was just beautiful and Clara read the name of the Doctor in the book of the Time War. Unfortunately she can't remember it because the Doctor has turned back the time to save the Tardis from exploding. I still wonder how much she remembers of it because it seems that some things aren't forgotten. There are so many mind blowing moments when time collides in the Tardis and there are past, present and future in one place. The guys from the salvage crew where alright for the story but I didn't like the characters very much. Maybe that was just the intention of the writer, I don't know. All in all, this was a good episode and I especially liked to see something of the inside of the Tardis. It has helped to develop the relationship between the Doctor and Clara and I think he is happy that she isn't afraid to travel with him but he still has to find out who she is.

24 April 2013

Quotes from "Ghost Machine"

Gwen: I've lost him, Tosh. I've lost him.
Tosh: I swear, whatever it is, you're holding it. 

Jack: Gwen? Are you all right?
Gwen: I've just seen a ghost.

Owen: Intense emotions can be part of a neurological event. Hallucinations. Dementia.
Gwen: I wasn't hallucinating, Owen. And I'm not bloody senile.

Jack: You pushed this button and that caused this apparition moment?
Gwen: Yeah. Jack starts fiddling with the device. Jack, no!
Jack: As if.

Jack: Run a full check. Births, marriages, deaths. Criminal record, passports. However long it takes, wherever he is, we'll find him.
Owen: Found him.... He's in the phonebook.

Rhys: Gwen, I can live with all the Secret Squirrel stuff, but if you can't even tell me if you're coming home.
Gwen: Well, nagging isn't helping. 

Jack: Gorgeous nanotechnology. Makes NASA look like Toys 'r' Us.

Jack: Human emotion is energy. You can't always see it or hear it, but you can feel it. Ever had deja vu? Felt someone walk over your grave? Ever felt someone behind you in an empty room? Well there was. There always is.
Gwen: A ghost.

Gwen: I don't even kill spiders in the bath.
Jack: Nor do I. Not with a gun.

Jack: The problem with seeing the future is you can't just sit and look at it. You've got to try and change things.

22 April 2013

Series 7 Episode 9: Hide

Summary:
The Doctor and Clara are travelling to Caliburn House to find out more about the ghost who dwells there. Alec Palmer and Emma Grayling try to find out more about the ghost too and they have been able to take some pictures of the "Witch in the Well". Emma has psychic abilities and so she is able to feel that the ghost is afraid. The Doctor and Clara look around the house and they somehow feel watched. Clara notices that the ghost is always in the same position in every picture and so the Doctor borrows Alec's camera to travel to different times in the history of the spot where Caliburn House is built. When he and Clara come back he has a series of pictures, which show that the ghost is a person that is trapped in a pocket universe. With Emma's help, the Doctor is able to open a wormhole and save Hila from the pocket universe but then the connection breaks and he is trapped with the monster. Clara can convince the Tardis to help her save the Doctor and she is able to get him out of there. But there is still something nagging at the Doctor. Is the monster really evil?

The setting of this episode was really spooky and it felt like one of the old ghost movies you can watch on TV sometimes. There is the huge manor in a thunderstorm and you have a ghost and a strange monster. Everything a good horror story needs but when you throw in the Doctor it also has many funny moments. I kind of like it that the Tardis has an issue with Clara and doesn't like her as much as she liked Amy and Rory. Maybe that'll change over time but right now it's a funny little side story. I think the explanation that the ghost isn't really a ghost but a time traveller in a pocket universe is quite interesting. This episodes is one of the few where the Doctor is really afraid and I don't know what he would have done without Clara. That shows again that the Doctor can't solve every mystery on his own and sometimes needs help too. I wouldn't have thought that the Doctor just came to the manor to ask Emma if there is something strange with Clara. He is not really happy with her answer and I can't say if it was really the truth or not. I guess we'll find out soon enough. This was a good episode, maybe not the most brilliant one, but a really good and spooky Doctor Who episode.

21 April 2013

19 April 2013

17 April 2013

Quotes from "Day One"

Jack: Alright, usual formation.
Gwen: What's the usual formation?
Owen: Varies.
Gwen: How can the usual formation vary?

Private Moriarty: Who the hell are you?
Gwen: Hi. Sorry.
Sgt. Johnson: This area’s restricted.
Gwen: No, it’s alright. I’m with Special Ops. I’m Special Ops. Torchwood? I’m with Torchwood.
Sgt. Johnson: Don’t mess with me, little girl. You’re not with Torchwood. And even if you were...
Jack: You’d have put out the welcome banners. Now, first of all, she’s no little girl. From where I’m standing, all the right curves in all the right places. But she is Torchwood, we both are, and we’d appreciate it if you’d leave us to do the real work.

Jack: What do we know?
Owen: Bog standard space debris. That’s the technical term.

Owen: Make yourself useful, sweetheart, pass us the big chisel from the toolbox.
Gwen: Not "sweetheart". Gwen. One syllable, sure you can manage it.
Owen: Not "Sweet-cheeks"? "Freckles"? "New Girl"?
Gwen: It’s a shame your tool’s not big enough for the job, darling. Catch.

Gwen: What do you think has happened? I mean it was just gas, wasn't it? Can't be too bad, can it?
Owen: Right because gas never did anyone any harm.

Gwen: He just...
Jack: Came and went.
Owen: Now that's how I'd like to go.
Tosh: I'm sure we could arrange it.

Gwen: What about his family? You can’t just fake his death!
Jack: You want to tell his family he died screwing an alien?

Gwen: So what's this supposed to do?
Jack: I'm using satellite tracking data to determine the inward trajectory of the meteorite.
Tosh: He means he's trying to find out where it's come from.
Jack: Hey! Sometimes a little technobabble is good for the soul!

Gwen: So this is like a route plan.
Tosh: Not far off.
Gwen: Rhys, my boyfriend, he's a transport manager, he does this sort of stuff...on a slightly smaller scale.
Tosh: You have a boyfriend?
Gwen: Yeah. Have you?
Tosh: Don't have time with this job.
Gwen: What about you, you seeing anyone?
Owen: You've gotta be joking. I can get all the grief I need here.
Gwen: None of you have partners?
Owen: Just you, newbie.
Gwen: I'm not being rude or anything, but...Well, maybe I am, but...How do you switch off from all this stuff? What do you do to relax?
Owen: I torture people in happy relationships.

Jack: Put your trousers on and get out. NOW! It almost breaks my heart to say those words.

Jack: See what you can find out from her.
Gwen: But aren't you going to help me? I don't know what I'm doing.
Jack: It's usually better if you don't say that in front of the prisoner.

Jack: You know, strictly speaking, throttling the staff is my job.

Jack: She's a walking aphrodisiac.
Gwen: I did wonder why I...actually, I've sort of... snogged her.
Jack and Tosh: We know.

Jack: So what’s our next move?
Owen: Stop the entire city of Cardiff from shagging?
Gwen: Put bromide in the water supply?
Jack: No. Too hit and miss.
Owen: Yeah, and the water company got really pissed off the last time we did that.

Carys: (possessed by the alien) All this sex. All we see, all we think. So much beauty and so much fear. We want it but we’re so afraid.

Jack: Travel half way across the universe for the greatest sex, you still end up dying alone.

Jack: Do one thing for me. Don’t let the job consume you. You have a life. Perspective. We need that.
Gwen: Who are you, Jack?
Jack: I’m sorry?
Gwen: You can’t die. You tell me the twenty-first century’s when it all changes, that we have to be prepared.
Jack: So you do.
Gwen: But how can you know?
Jack: You think knowing the answers would make you feel better?
Gwen: Who are you? What are you doing here?
Jack: Go home, Gwen Cooper. Eat lasagna. Kiss your boyfriend. Be normal. For me.

15 April 2013

Series 7 Episode 9: Cold War

Summary:
The Doctor and Clara wanted to go to Las Vegas but suddenly they land on a Russian submarine during the Cold War. When the submarine sinks, the Tardis vanishes and the Doctor and Clara are stuck on the submarine. As if this wasn't enough, they soon find out that the crew has dug an Ice Warrior out of the ice of the North Pole who now wakes up after sleeping 5000 years. The Ice Warrior tries to contact his people but when he gets no answer he tries to kill everybody on board the submarine and to launch the nuclear missiles. He wants revenge because he thinks all of his people are dead. The Doctor and Clara try everything to avoid a war that would change the future of humanity but it's not so easy especially when you are scared like Clara. When the submarine sinks deeper, a spaceship appears suddenly and brings it to the surface. Will everything turn out alright now?

I liked this episode more than the last one. Maybe it was because it had more action or because it played in a submarine. In this episode the monster was more present than in the last one because an Ice Warrior is something different than a being that looks more like a sun. It was really creepy when the warrior got out of it's armour because you didn't really see him only his hands or a part of his face. So it's still a mystery how he looks beneath it. The setting of the submarine makes everything a bit more dramatic because you know that there is now way out for the Doctor and Clara with 700 metres water above them and the Tardis gone because of an emergency protocol. This episode was darker than the ones before but it still had some funny moments in it. I really liked the mix of dark and light moments that Mark Gatiss has achieved in this episode. This was probably the first episode in which Clara was really scared because until now she had only seen the exciting but not that dangerous things with the Doctor. Now she knows that there will be situations where even the Doctor seems to be helpless sometimes.

10 April 2013

Quotes from "Everything Changes"

Jack: There you go! I can taste it! Oestrogen. Definitely oestrogen. Take the pill, flush it away, it enters the water cycle, feminiaes the fish, goes all the way up into the sky then falls all the way back down onto me. Contraceptives in the rain. Love this planet. Still, at least I won't get pregnant. I'm never doing that again. 

Gwen: Who are they, Torchwood?
PC Andy: I'll bet you ten quid they're DNA experts. It's all this CSI crap these days. CSI: Cardiff. I'd like to see that! They'd be measuring the velocity of a kebab!

Jack: Before we go any further, who the hell orders pizza under the name of “Torchwood”?
Owen: Er, yeah, that would be me. Sorry, I’m a twat.

Gwen: I’m getting tired of following you.
Jack: No, you’re not. And you never will.

Jack: The 21st Century is when it all changes, and you've got to be ready.

Jack: That is so Welsh.
Gwen: What?
Jack: I show you something fantastic. You find fault.

Jack: I can’t die.
Gwen: Okay.
Jack: But I can’t. Something happened to me a while back. Long story and far away. But I was killed.... and then I was brought back to life, and ever since then... I can’t die.
Gwen: But how...?
Jack: I don’t know. One day I’ll find a doctor, the right sort of doctor and maybe he can explain it. But until then...
Gwen: Nothing kills you?
Jack: Well, it kinda freaks people out, so best if you don’t say anything.

08 April 2013

Series 7 Episode 7: The Rings of Akhaten

Summary:
The Doctor takes Clara on her first trip in the Tardis and brings her to the Rings of Akhaten. Clara is quite impressed by the alien planet and the many alien beings she meets. When she wanders off, she meets Merry, the queen of years. The young girl is scared because she has to sing a song for the Old God at a festival which happens every 1000 years. Clara reassures her that she won't get the song wrong and the girl leaves with some priests. The Doctor finds Clara again and they both go to the arena to hear Merry sing. Something goes wrong and the girl is taken to the temple by a kind of beam. The Doctor and Clara follow her to the temple ad try to save her but they aren't able to keep the Old God from waking up. Clara takes Merry away but she leaves the Doctor in the temple where he gives his memories to the Old God, so he won't consume the people in this galaxy. His memories aren't enough but when Clara gives the Old God her biggest memory he seems to be satisfied.

I don't know why exactly but somehow I liked the last Doctor Who episode more than this one. The alien planet looked brilliant and the masks were great but somehow the story wasn't that good. I enjoyed it but something was missing that would have given the episode this little bit extra to make it spectacular. Maybe I will change my opinion when I watch the episode again but for now I liked the last episode more. Somehow it was strange that the Tardis didn't translate what the aliens said because she normally does that. I guess we've seen this more through the eyes of Clara this time and she probably hasn't been in the Tardis long enough for the translation to kick in. That's the only possible explanation for me. I wonder if the Doctor will bring Clara home at the end of every episode which would be a bit boring for me I think. Well, I will see what the next episode brings and I guess it'll be better again from what I've seen in the trailer.

03 April 2013

Quotes from "The Snowmen"

Madame Vastra: Was she nice?
The Doctor: I just spoke to her.
Madame Vastra: And made your usual impact, no doubt.
The Doctor: No, no impact at all. Those days are over.
Madame Vastra: You can't help yourself. It's the same story every time and it always begins with the same two words.
The Doctor: She'll never be able to find me again. She doesn't even have the name. "Doctor." What two words?
Clara: Doctor? Doctor who?

The Doctor: When you find something brand-new in the world, something you've never seen before, what's the next thing you look for?
Strax: A grenade!
The Doctor: A profit. That's Victorian values for you.
Strax: I suggest a full-frontal assault with automated laser-monkeys, scuttle mines, and acid.
The Doctor: Why?
Strax: Couldn't we at least investigate?

The Doctor: I've had a thousand years of saving the universe, Strax. You know the one thing I've learned? The universe doesn't care.

The Doctor: Sontaran. Clone warrior race, factory produced, whole legions at a time. Two genders is a bit further than he can count.
Strax: Sir, do not discuss my reproductive cycle in front of enemy girls. It's embarrassing.
The Doctor: Typical middle child of six million.

The Doctor: Clara who?
Clara: Doctor who?
The Doctor: Oh, dangerous question.
Clara: What's wrong with dangerous? 

Great Intelligence: Tomorrow the snow will fall and so will mankind.

Strax: Do not attempt to escape or you will be obliterated. May I take your coat?

The Doctor: Nice office. Big globey thing. Now, don't tell me. I see from your collar, sir, you have an apple tree and a wife with a limp. Am I right?
Dr Simeon: No.
The Doctor: Do you have a wife?
Dr Simeon: No.
The Doctor: Bit of a tree? Bit of a wife? Some apples? Come on, work with me here.

The Doctor: Talking snow. I love new things.
Great Intelligence: You are not of this world.
The Doctor: It takes one to snow one.

The Doctor: What are you doing here?
Strax: Madame Vastra wondered if you were needing any grenades.
The Doctor: Grenades?
Strax: She might have said "help."

The Doctor: Don't be clever, Strax. It doesn't suit you.
Strax: Sorry, sir.
The Doctor: I'm the clever one. You're the potato one.
Strax: Yes, sir.
The Doctor: Now go away.
Strax: Yes... Mr. Holmes.
The Doctor: Oy. Shut up! You're not clever or funny. And you got tiny little legs.

Strax: It's the human male from the Institute. What's he doing here? Suggest we melt his brain using projectile acid weapons and then interrogate him. (Vastra and Jenny stare) Other way around.

Francesca: Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?
Clara: Ha. All my stories are true.
Digby: Like how you hid a bomb behind the face of Big Ben.
Clara: Accounting for my acute sense of time.
Francesca: And you invented fish.
Clara: Because I dislike swimming alone.

Strax: Sir, please do not noogie me during combat prep.

The Doctor: Oy, I told you to stay in here.
Clara: Oh. I didn't listen.
The Doctor: You do that a lot.
Clara: So you like me.
The Doctor: Who said I like you? (Clara kisses him) 
Clara: I think you just did.
The Doctor: You kissed me.
Clara: You blushed.
The Doctor: I... when... shut up!

Clara: After you.
The Doctor: After you.
Clara: After you. I'm wearing a dress. Eyes front, soldier.
The Doctor: My eyes are always front. (starts climbing) 
Clara: Mine aren't.
The Doctor: Stop it.
Clara: No.

Clara: Look at this.
The Doctor: Go on, say it. Most people do.
Clara: It's smaller on the outside.
The Doctor: Okay. That is a first.

01 April 2013

Series 7 Episode 6: The Bells of Saint John

Summary:
The Doctor is living a monastery when suddenly a monk arrives and tells him that the bells of Saint John are ringing. He rides as fast as he can to his Tardis and wonders who is calling him on this phone. Soon he works out that it is Clara, whom he has searched for a while now. When he arrives at her doorstep he has to save her from a spoonhead who wants to upload her mind into a data cloud. The Doctor manages to save her in time but now he wonders who is using the WiFi to collect people's minds. Clara can't remember what happened to her but suddenly she knows a lot about computers, so it seems that the Doctor has downloaded a little extra into her brain. The lights around them suddenly go out and they see a plane coming towards them. The Doctor jumps into the Tardis with Clara and saves the people in the plane. The next morning, Clara tries to find out where the people are but her mind is uploaded into the data cloud before she can tell the Doctor. He sends a spoonhead that looks like him to his foes but will he be able to save Clara and all the other people?

I think this was a great first regular episode with Clara as a companion. The episode had great action scenes but also some calm moments between the Doctor and Clara. The Doctor is more than happy that he has finally found Clara and now he can figure out why she died twice before and can't remember anything of it. I liked the spoonheads but it was a bit creepy when the turned their heads and there was suddenly nothing else than this electronical spoon-like thing at the back of their heads. The Great Intelligence is back which also appeared in the Christmas Special but now it seems to be stronger than then. I guess that's normal because there lies quite some time between the Christmas Special and this episode which takes place in 2013. That's probably not the last time we will see the Intelligence. It's really creepy when all the people who worked for the Intelligence are resetted in the end. Clara will be a good match for the Doctor because she does so many things he didn't expect her to do. Sorry, I'm just excited that the Doctor is back and I'm really lookin forward to the next episodes.