DOCTOR WHO s13 e1: Chapter 1: The Halloween Apocalypse

Okay, so this season will be one six part story. Fine. I like that new idea for this show, it had to do something to make things better than the boring last season, which overall was…well, really boring and about as meaningful as an episode of PHOTON or POWER RANGERS but at least those are entertaining and shorter.

For one, I liked this episode for what it was but without seeing the whole story it will be hard to completely judge it. I mean I though season six’s first two “stories” as episodes weren’t terrible. That being THE IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT and DAY OF THE MOON. Both seemed okay on first viewing but when one finds out about the mysteries that are actually happening in them, they’re really both awful, badly plotted, illogically written, and frankly, boring now. This…seems like more of an adventure than a Moffat Gimmick. Frankly, though Chibs is the Jekyll (season 11) and Hyde (the horribly boring and irritating season 12) of DOCTOR WHO, I’d trust him MORE…much more than Moffat to deliver a more straight forward adventure any day of the week. Moffat is just such a poor plotter and poor writer.

In any case, there does feel as if there are FIVE new companions or more as more plot threads than ever before start and don’t finish here as part of the overall plan. Jacob Anderson as Vinder strikes home as a man on a station in space (not sure of the time zone or whatever but WHY oh WHY was his space station named SPACE STATION ROSE?). Is the name of the station (ROSE!?) a clue to something? In any case, he seems as if he’d make a great companion and the actor might even make a great Doctor.

We also have the fine John Bishop as Dan Lewis who instantly becomes a likeable companion, despite some unlikely events happening to him and his house early on in the episode. His early scenes establish him as a nice guy with some quirks and friends and charity work. His girl slash friend Diane seems as if she might also be a companion or at least lured into a house by two…horrid looking monster aliens that we don’t know the name of…though….SPOILERS

SPOILERS

…the sub titles call the main villain SWARM (please not that awful Swarm thing from the awful INVISIBLE ENEMY?). He looks more like the emaciated Master and I kept figuring this might be Omega because he keeps disintegrating people with his touch. He also tells the Doctor in her head (?) that he has had previous battles with her before (seen or unseen we do not yet know).

Then there’s a girl called Claire who has met the Doctor and Yaz though they haven’t yet met her. A red flag might come up here as a OH NO! It’s Moffat timey whimey but let’s give it a chance. Claire…despite looking at the Angel gets taken anyway. The Angels are great aliens and possibly this one is a villain but…Moffat so changed their powers and abilities and motivations, it’s hard to tell why Claire was taken. Was the image in her eye making her become an angel and that is why she vanished? She became an angel? She clearly was looking at the Angel so it shouldn’t have been able to make her vanish. In any case, Claire is another stand of the plot.

There’s also two people murdered at some arctic base for some reason that seems purposeless.

And a dog alien. Really. I thought when it first appeared that this was going to be the worst DW story ever but it’s not. In fact, as the story went on, and the dog tells how he is bonded to Dan, I thought it was a great idea. Of course, it’s not a new idea but every dog alien is bonded to one human on Earth and what’s new to DOCTOR WHO is that the alien dog people are going there to save every human from the season ending big bang finale…and this ALL seems like a season ending now…with big universes destroying FLUX.

There’s lots of action, clever visuals, and a fast pace. I just hope the future episodes can follow this up with less pessimistic outcomes and depressing conclusions, like that dismal last season ending and actually quite like most of last season’s dismal and dark and depressing episodes. I’m not convinced it can but I’m more convinced that it might over what I thought about Moffat’s nonsense from season six’s middle to his finale horrid story TWICE UPON A LIFE or whatever that was called.

Oh and almost forgot: in one quick scene Chibs finally makes the Sontarans evil again…funny a bit but mostly evil war mongering ugly disgusting personalities of war. That scripting was brilliant. They are using this FLUX to attack…though I’m not sure what they are attacking…Earth? The space stations? Rutan home world? Gallifrey?

In any case, this was worth watching, certainly more than most Moffat Era crap and certainly more than any episode last season, which was mostly a huge borefest with a few exceptions (the bird flu one).

As a part one only time will tell if it becomes part of a better story whole. There’s also lots of going over past material here and there but not that it overwhelms us. The voice recognition lock thing doesn’t really work all that well but good action scene.

Almost forgot: there are some dudes in the past that are working on something that one of them knows what it is and the other doesn’t seem to? This gave me a distinctive EVIL OF THE DALEKS feel so I’d say that the Daleks are probably behind this somehow or involved here in some way. The dialog seems to want to have these two old guys become the next Jago and Litefoot but no chance of that as only Robert Holmes could create such men in his stories!

A word of note here: I have to say that the NEW SERIES has never had the interior of the TARDIS right at all. Every console room is far too scattered, far too dark, far too NOT the TARDIS and this season it’s rather distracting. Sure, I could tolerate the season one through four console room but hated the Matt Smith one(s). Capaldi’s interior set is probably the best one the New Series comes up with but even that felt wrong ---like a college professor’s library or something or a college lecture hall, and didn’t it have a black board? Then we have the 13^th Doctor’s interior and it looks awful and is far too dark. We also don’t learn why the TARDIS doors are appearing inside all over the place and/or how the Flux can open them and get inside. Just thought I’d mention that the interior of the TARDIS hasn’t been right since the classic series.