Doctor Who - Series ten on Target

I have to say that series ten is one of my favourite series of Nu-Who. In fact, it's a close second only to series four. 

The first episode takes the show back to square one again - something a series that has run as long as Doctor Who has to do occasionally. I love this aspect and the wittily titled The Pilot is a strong opener for Peter Capaldi's final series. In some respects, this freshness offsets the build up to his departure with Pearl Mackie's Bill offering new takes on old companion tropes through the entire run. 

Favourite episodes are many but I would pick out the aforementioned The Pilot, together with The Eaters of Light (A straightforward self-contained historical mystery with some great character moments) and World Enough and Time (a story that mixes humour and tragedy in exactly the same way that the adventures in series eight didn't.) 

My primary issue with the series though comes with the trilogy of episodes concerning the Monks. It starts off with the imaginative Extremis and promptly goes hill as the Monks' plot is revealed and implemented. The first two stories come across as dual scene-setting prologues setting the scene for a bigger adventure. But this final part deals with the crisis too quickly and desperately needed a second episode to flesh out life under the Monks' control before resolving the situation.

On a personal note, I had a heart attack on the Saturday that Oxygen was broadcast. Ironic that - being stuck in casualty on real oxygen whilst the episode went out. 

Ho hum. Life is a beautiful irony. 

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Doctor Who - Series nine on Target

I have serious issues with series eight. There were some bold ideas, yes. Two-part stories, plenty of Daleks, top drawer guest actors... But as a whole, it felt too dark - particularly for a Saturday night. The storylines were grim and were of the kind that no doubt alienated the popular audience - particularly since it was screened at irregular later times with episodes occasionally ending after the watershed. It was also at this point 

I also felt there were issues with Clara's character. She's saved all of the Doctor's incarnations for his anniversary and loved and lost her man so her story had virtually been told by the time we saw her "die" in Last Christmas. But since that was a dream, we ended up with her for another year when it would've done the series a world of good by starting off with a new companion for series eight. 

Her eventual death, resurrection and departure was protracted and maudlin doing neither the actress or the audience any favours. One minute she died, the next she's back. And then she's dead again. And she's back... but the Doctor doesn't know that. Good job too as he'd be bloody livid at what it could potentially do to the fabric of time!

Favourites in this series is Heaven Sent - a tour-de-force from both Peter Capaldi (in a solo performance) and Steven Moffat (for a tale of self-discovery and revelation worthy of 'The Twilight Zone'). Such a pity it was connected to the convoluted mess that was Hell Bent. 

Ah, well. We're back to square one for the next series...

If you've enjoyed viewing this page of artistic delight, then you can show your learned appreciation by purchasing for me of a coffee via my Ko-fi account here. Thanking you. 

Doctor Who - Series eight on Target

I did these some time ago. As I think I may have said before, I ended up doing all these new retro Target covers in reverse, beginning with Peter Capaldi's final series (which I adore and that's probably the reason why I started there.). 

Not a lot to say about series eight that hasn't been said already. Capaldi hits the floor running with his portrayal. There's a good repartee with Clara despite her story having reached a climax with The Name of the Doctor. It has a reasonably subtle story arc to it that doesn't get in the way of the standalone nature of the individual episodes. 

My favourites here are 'Listen' (a great meditation on fear and its sources within the subconscious mind) and 'Flatline' (Great variation on an old SF idea with some mind-blowing visuals). The worst is undoubtedly 'In the Forest of the Night' which, whilst elegant to look at, feels patronising in its storytelling - like a kids' TV show that needs to emphasise its subtext via the characters' posturing and lengthy bouts of exposition. 

And Doctor Who is never like that... it?

If you've enjoyed viewing this page of artistic delight, then you can show your learned appreciation by purchasing for me of a coffee via my Ko-fi account here. Thanking you again. 

Doctor Who Lockdown Cinema Posters - part two

Here's the rest of the retro cinema posters I did for the Doctor Who Lockdown tweet-a-longs. 

As before, most of them are based on actual posters. You're welcome to guess which films are the inspiration in each case. I tended to go with designs that fitted the episodes rather than the original films themselves. 

The Fires of Pompeii appeared on the back cover of issue 507 of the DWAS's Celestial Toyroom in an anglicised form. The original Italian version is here along with the textless art.

Click here for part one.

I also did a few random original series ones and I'll upload them as a separate post.

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Doctor Who Lockdown cinema posters

It all started when the lovely Emily Cook ( @Emily_Rosina ) sent out a tweet suggesting that, under lockdown conditions, wouldn't it be lovely to have a nationwide tweet-a-long to the first episode of Doctor Who (2005) 'Rose' on its fifteenth anniversary. By all accounts the suggestion snowballed into a worldwide trending event for which Russell T Davies himself appeared on Twitter to join in and even supplied a new ending for the episode. 

The tweet-a-longs are now a regular event. Loads of creatives join in with the fun along with many of the cast, writers and producers. 

I did my bit and added a few retro cinema posters to the melee. A few. I say "a few". I've now done ten - one for each episode. I even threw in a few classic series stories too.

Each of these posters is (sometimes loosely) based on ones for old feature films. I'll tell you which at the bottom of this post but in the meantime, see if you can spot them. Some are pretty obscure... 

The designs are based on the following feature film posters:

Dalek - Kronos (1957)

The Eleventh Hour - The Blue Bird (1940)

The Girl in the Fireplace - The Virgin Queen (1955)

Human Nature/The Family of Blood - Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)

Heaven Sent - Death in Venice (1971)

The Sontaran Stratagem/The Poison Sky - Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

Planet of the Spiders - Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)

Remembrance of the Daleks - Saturday Night, Sunday Morning (1960)

Rose - Invaders from Mars (1953)

The Stolen Earth/Journey's End - War of the Worlds (1953)

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