Tag: Doctor Who series 5

Episode 08: Vincent and The Doctor

Vincent and The Doctor is discussed and Martyn reviews the Big Finish audio ‘The Boy That Time Forgot’.

“Vincent and the Doctor” is the tenth episode of the fifth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 5 June 2010. It was written by Richard Curtis and directed by Jonny Campbell and featured an uncredited guest appearance from actor Bill Nighy.

Intrigued by an ominous figure in Vincent van Gogh’s painting The Church at Auvers, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) and his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) go back in time to meet Van Gogh (Tony Curran) and discover that Auvers-sur-Oise has been plagued by an invisible creature, known as the Krafayis, which only Van Gogh can see. The Doctor and Amy work with Van Gogh to defeat the Krafayis, but in their attempt to have Van Gogh realise his legacy through bringing him to the future they ultimately realise that not all of the time can be rewritten and there are some evils which are out of the Doctor’s reach.

Curtis, inspired by the fact that Van Gogh never knew he would be famous, had the idea for an episode centred on him. He left the script open to criticism from the crew and made many revisions as a result. Curtis wanted to portray Van Gogh truthfully, rather than being cruel by writing jokes about his mental illness. Most of the episode was filmed in Trogir, Croatia, and many of the sets were modelled after Van Gogh paintings. The episode was watched by 6.76 million viewers on BBC One and BBC HD. Reception to the episode was mainly positive. While the amount of emotion in the episode was debated, many reviewers praised Curran’s performance as Van Gogh, but that the Krafayis was not a sufficiently threatening “monster”.

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Episode 07: The Hungry Earth & Cold blood

The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood get discussed.

In the episodes, the Eleventh Doctor—a time-traveling alien played by Matt Smith—and his companions Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill) land in Wales in 2020, where a drilling operation headed by Nasreen Chaudhry (Meera Syal) is drilling deep into the earth and disrupting a civilisation of Silurians who dwell beneath the earth. The Silurians cause holes to open in the earth, one of which consumes Amy. The Doctor and Rory capture one Silurian, Alaya (Neve McIntosh), and the Doctor instructs Rory and a local family to not harm Alaya, as it could spark a war. He then takes Nasreen in the TARDIS to the Silurian civilisation to rescue Amy and kidnapped locals Mo (Alun Raglan) and Elliot (Samuel Davies).

Deep under the Earth, Amy and Mo escape from Silurian doctor Malohkeh’s experimentation and Mo discovers his son, Elliot, sedated in a chamber and under observation. The leader of the Silurian warrior caste, Restac, insists both the Eleventh Doctor and geologist Nasreen Chaudhry be executed and escorts them to a Silurian court; though Amy and Mo interrupt the trial with stolen weapons, they too are captured. Eldane, Restac’s superior, is called in by Malohkeh and demands a halt to the hostilities.

The Doctor makes contact with Rory; Mo’s wife, Ambrose; and Ambrose’s father, Tony, reminding them to keep their captive Silurian, Restac’s sister Alaya, alive. They are unaware that Ambrose has already killed Alaya because she would not help Tony, whom she had infected with Silurian venom. The Doctor arranges a conference between Eldane, Amy, and Nasreen; the three discuss how humans and Silurians can co-exist on the surface. Ambrose and Tony, worried about the Silurian reaction when they discover Alaya’s death, set Nasreen and Tony’s drill to burrow into the oxygen pockets of the Silurians’ underground city fifteen minutes after they depart, which would destroy it. Meanwhile, Restac has killed Malohkeh for his betrayal and awakened other members of the warrior caste, intending to stage a coup against Eldane.

The Doctor escapes with the humans and channels an energy pulse to the base of the drill before it impacts the city. Eldane returns the warriors to hibernation by initiating “toxic fumigation”; the humans escape, and Eldane hopes that in a thousand years, peace between humans and Silurians can occur. Tony, still affected by Silurian venom, opts to stay behind to be cured, and Nasreen stays with Tony. The Doctor, Amy and Rory find a crack in the cavern wall similar to those they have seen before. The Doctor surmises that the crack was caused by an explosion in time, which might have left shrapnel behind. He reaches in and pulls out an object which he wraps in a handkerchief. Restac, dying from the toxic exposure, crawls around the corner and fires at the Doctor, but Rory pushes him out of the way and takes the shot, dying in Amy’s arms. The crack absorbs Rory’s body, erasing him from existence and causing Amy to lose her memory of him. Returning to the surface, the Doctor takes out the object he pulled from the crack–a burned piece of the TARDIS’s sign.

“The Hungry Earth” was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 22 May 2010 at 6:15 p.m.

“Cold Blood” was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One and simulcast on BBC HD on 29 May 2010.

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Episode 06: The Vampires of Venice

In episode 6, Gerrod and I discuss ‘The Vampires of Venice’, ‘Amy’s Choice’.

“The Vampires of Venice” is the sixth episode of the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was broadcast on 8 May 2010 on BBC One. It was written by Toby Whithouse, who previously wrote “School Reunion”, and was directed by the first-time Doctor Who director Jonny Campbell.

Following from the end of “Flesh and Stone” where his companion Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) had kissed him, the alien time traveler the Eleventh Doctor (Matt Smith) picks up Amy’s fiancé Rory (Arthur Darvill) and takes the two on a romantic trip to Venice in 1580. There they are intrigued by a girls’ school whose students appear to be vampires and discover that they are really alien refugees in disguise, who plot to make Venice their new home.

“Amy’s Choice” is the seventh episode of the fifth series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It first broadcast on BBC One on 15 May 2010. It was written by sitcom writer Simon Nye and directed by Catherine Morshead.

In the episode, the Eleventh Doctor, a time-traveling alien played by Matt Smith, and his human traveling companions Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), are in a trap set by the mysterious “Dream Lord” (Toby Jones), wherein they repeatedly fall asleep and wake up in a different reality. In one, Amy and Rory are happily married but pursued by elderly people possessed by aliens, while in another they are on board the Doctor’s time machine, the TARDIS, where they anticipate being frozen to death by a nearby astronomical phenomenon. They must decide which is the real reality and die in the dream, to wake up in reality and escape the trap. At the episode’s conclusion, the Dream Lord is ultimately revealed to be a manifestation of the Doctor’s dark side and self-loathing.

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