Some of you may not know but the BBC commissioned a 45 minute Radio Play with the Torchwood cast for ‘Big Bang’ Day last week. It was exceptinally good and if you missed it, (and yes their was serval , Jack stop it moments’..) you can get it from Amazon.co.uk
Tom Baker as the doctor, his first episode. It is brilliant to see him and sad to see Jon Pertwee go.
The story line not only includes a brilliant costume change scene, whereby the Doctor tries to define his image, a crazed Robot and the brilliant Brigadier!
The entire story is about a group of scientist on Earth who are part of an organisation called ‘Think Tank’. They are to create a new world order based upon the leadership of the elite. The scientific elite.
The Robot element in this story arch is a Robot created by their founder who is the hunter and gather of the group and generally does all of the dirty work.
They try to take control of the Earth by steeling the codes to launch all of the Nuclear missiles and the Robot goes mad with the conflict as he has a intelligence and prime directive not to hurt Humans.
And it is created out of a living metal which enables it to grow to a size that makes it dwarf the other people following the Brigadier trying to destroy it with a Ray Gun.
The Doctor, now fully aware of himself, creates a solution that will attack the metal of the deranged Robot.
The day is won, and not only does the Doctor have a new body but a new assistant alongside Sarah Jane Smith - Harry.
Cliff hanger, no cliff hangers, everything and anything can happen.
Rose is back and reunited with The Doctor, but during their classic run to each other’s arms moment the Doctor is attacked by Dalak. Jack, the ever faithful, captain, teleports in and destroys the Dalek. The Doctor is taken to the Tardis by Rose, Donna and Jack where we see him start to regenerate.
Torchwood is under attack by the Dareks and Sarah Jane Smith appears about to be exterminated by two Daleks….
Well, the Doctor regenerates and pushes the regeneration energy into his hand, the one that was cut off. He is him, unchanged. The regeneration energy has been contained..
Jackie, roses mum and Mickey materialise and save Sarah Jane Smith. Torchwood is trapped in a time bubble that holds the Dalak in place.
In the Tardis, Rose, Donna and Captian Jack are delighted that the Doctor is ok. Amidst their celebration, the Tardis is transported to the Dalak crucible at the centre of the planets.
There, the Doctor and Rose walk out and Donna remains for a second. As she walks out the Tardis doors close on her. Panic the doctor blames the Dalaks, Donna is terrified. Both are trying to get the door open. The Dalak says, ‘this is Time Lord trickery’ and declares that the Tardis must be destroyed. A door opens beneath it and it falls…. the Tardis falls into the core of the Dalak’s base. The Doctor realises it will be destroyed and there is nothing he can do.
Meanwhile, Jackie, Mickey and Sarah Jane Smith surrender to the Dalaks as all humans are being transported to the Dalak’s base to test their weapon.
The Tardis is being ripped apart, Donna is being thrown around. She falls to the ground and sees the Doctor’s hand… The case breaks and the regeneration energy flows into her. Then the hand glows and out of it grows another Doctor, although… Naked… Which she observes. The new Doctor acts fast and makes the Tardis dematerialise….
The original Doctor and Rose think both the Tardis and Donna are dead.
The Doctor and Rose are then transported down to the vault where Davros awaits…
Mean while, Jackie, Mickey and Sarah Jane Smith have been usurped under a large green glowing device. The Dalaks are getting ready to test it. A lady falls and Sarah Jane and Mickey take the opportunity to run for cover. Jackie, kind hearted as she is, helps her up, the machine starts up. Before it is fired Jackie is able to use her teleportation device to teleport to safety. The remaining people start to disintegrate and turn to dust.
Back inside the vault Davros has appeared to gloat of his triumph, he explains this triumph is over reality as the 27 plants create the ‘Reality Bomb’ which will break down the bound between atoms and cause everything to cease to be.
The new Doctor and Donna are safe in the Tardis that is in stealth mode so the Dalaks cannot detect them. They realise it was the result of the regeneration energy and the transference to Donna and back to the hand creating a part human part Doctor Timeload…they observe the effects of the test of the ‘Reality Bomb’ and the new Doctor and the original Doctor realise at the same time what it is… The new Doctor realises that he could use Davros’s passion for the Dalak race against him. If they could get a probe to him they could us the energy to destroy the Dalaks.
Mean while, the mystery of the osta hargon key is revealed. There is a nuclear self destruct created in the Earth and the key fires it. Also, Sarah Jane Smith has a Warp Star, as Jack says, an explosion waiting to happen. Both of them tell Davros this via a communication, but after several protests from the Doctor at their actions the Dalaks teleport Martha, Sarah Jane Smith and Jack (with Micky and Jackie) to the volt.
Davros orders the firing of the “Reality Bomb”, in true Davros style, manic and crazy!
The countdown is on… But the Tardis reappears, no-one including the Doctor can believe it! The new Doctor runs out and tries to get to Davros but that hand, the hand that always pushes a switch to make evil happen has evil it’s self. Lighting, electricity fly’s from it and throws the new Doctor away. Donna runs out, grabs the probe and shouts I got it but I don’t what to do with it. She too is hit and is thrown back….
All is lost - all are down. The countdown goes down, down to zero… Nothing happens.. Shock everywhere..
This is the age of the Doctor Donna, there is donna, standing by a consul.. She explains some technical reason, Davros tried to zap her again, she presses a few switches and he gets shocked.. Then Davros orders her extermination, and she again flips some switches and the Dalaks have no weapons. Everyone is triumphant! The Dalaks are helpless.. The Doctor’s ask how… It was a two way biological l Meta crisis she calmly explains! .. When Davros shocked her it made he become part Donna part Timeload.. The Doctor Donna
She says she will send the planets home, and says, did you know I was the best temp.. 100 words per minute!
She starts at the controls like a typewriter. Brilliant was my thought at this point…
All is over, but the new Doctor starts the feedback and destroys all the Dalaks.. mass genocide
The original doctor is not impressed and Davros, from behind burning rubble shouts to the doctor… “Remember, you did this!”
There is a twist at the end that I think I will leave a mystery as I want to leave something for you to discover as this is a brilliant episode…..
The end for now….. 
(sorry for the delay in this review)
Doctor who’s arch nemesis has returned, the Master? No, the Dalaks, yes and no, DAVROS!
What joy to see the crippled hand moving towards a switch, slowly, what does it do, something dreadful, it must be something hideous. This time one of those switches has Stolen the Earth, and 26 other planets.
The Doctor and Donna Noble, are desperately trying to save the Earth - even going to the shadow proclamation for assistance, intergalactic police.
But they are not alone in their efforts, Torchwood with Captain Jack, Yanto and Gwen (please Dalaks do us all a favour here!) As well as UNIT headed by .
Martha Jones, also Sarah Jane Smith and Rose Tyler are trying to save the world. These companions and friends of the Doctor are coordinated by, the former Prime Minister.
They all coordinate every telephone in the world to call the Doctors mobile, through the power of the rift of Torchwood in Cardiff.
The Doctor is coming warns a twisted and damaged Dalak, who we later found out rescued Davros from the time war!
The Doctor follows a teleportation trail to an empty region of space and it is only the telephone signal that leads him to Earth.
He has a video conversation with Torchwood, Unit and Sarah Jane Smith… The signal breaks and a familiar voice comes over the screen… Davros ..the Doctor is speechless and shocked.
The Doctor speeds off to Earth whereby he lands and sees Rose, he runs to her and a Dalak attacks. He is hit and taken back to the Tardis… We see him start to regenerate …
Continues next week
This Doctor Who episode is centred around Donna, with the Doctor not having many lines. A complete contrast to the episode last week that was primarily the Doctor.
A question: What if you had turned right instead of left, what if you had missed that train, what if…
It is a theory that for every choice we make, we create a series of infinite possibilities, a series of infinite parallel dimensions.
So the big ‘what if’ is what if the Doctor died! What if he was unable to stop the Titanic from crashing into London? What if the Adepos where not stopped?
This is the brilliant thing about sci-fi, you don’t have to talk about it, it can happen. And happen with a giant beetle, in true classic Doctor Who style!
This all starts as we see Donna and the Doctor arrive as what appears to be a Chinese style market, obviously in the future, they both look to be having a great time. Donna is beckoned into a fortune tellers tent. The fortune teller asks her to tell her about her past so that she can see her future.
Donna explains how she met this man, and when she recalls she has a vivid flashback. The fortune teller makes her describe a point in time when she would not have gotten the job that led her to meeting the Doctor. As this happens a scurrying is heard and we see a large beetle like creature on Donna’s back!
The next thing is Donna sitting in her car, her mother saying to her to turn right to go and get a job at a shop and she wants to turn left to go to the job that eventually leads her to meet the Doctor. Instead of turning left she turns right.
She never meets the doctor, which means he dies as she does not pull him out of the building two Christmases ago before it is destroyed.
With no Doctor, all the events the Doctor has prevented happen. The Sontaran’s attack, the Titanic crashes into London and the adipose consume most of the United States.
Donna is left in this altered reality. Although there are two distinct bizarre things that keep on happening…
People keep on looking at her back, some people do, looking like there is something strange on it.
She keeps on seeing a blonde lady, who helps her and her family escape the tragedy of the Titanic crashing into London. The blonde lady is Rose Tyler, she is there to save The Doctor and every Universe in existence. Donna doesn’t believe her at first, but it is only when all of the stars start to extinguish does Donna go with Rose.
Donna is taken to a Unit base, where Rose is in control. The Tardis is there, looking like they are trying to reverse engineer the technology. Donna is shown the creature on her back. In true classic Doctor Who style it appears to be an oversized Beetle! It is explained that she needs to turn left not right on that fateful day, and she must travel back in time to do this, Rose tells her that she is going to die. Donna is determined that by going back she will prevent her death. She returns, she but she has landed half a mile away and has 10 minutes to get there. She is running, and realises that the only to make her past self turn left is to cause a traffic jam - she steps out and it hit by a van. As she drifts away, Rose comes up and tells her to tell The Doctor two words.
She regains control, she is in the fortune teller’s tent, and the creature has fallen from her back. The fortune teller is cowering.
Telling The Doctor about it later, he points out how strange it is how they bumped into each other again and also how she seems to be in several parallel realities recently..
Donna, then remembers more. She says there was a blonde girl, The Doctor says, what was her name, looking shocked! She never said, said Donna, but she did give me a message. ‘Bad wolf’..
The Doctor runs out of the tent, every sign post, says ‘bad wolf’, even above the Tardis! Donna asks what that is, The Doctor says; “The end of the universe!”
Next weeks – well it looks brilliant! As we have all of the (new) old assistants, Sarah Jane Smith and the Torchwood team including Captian Jack….
Midnight, the name of a distant world in a distant time. Where the light is deadly, it will vaporise you on contact and also not forgetting it there is no air outside either! Although this planet is made of precious gems, the majority of which are Diamonds, and a tourist company has built a tourist resort here.
This where Donna and the Doctor have gone, I assume as a well deserved pool holiday to recover from the Library.
At the start of the episode we see Donna sitting in a reclining chair at the beginning of the episode drinking a rather exotic looking drink next to a pool.
The Doctor, being an explorer of time and space just can’t sit there. He has to get out and absorb every moment. He is taking a transport to see a gemstone waterfall erupt all manner of delights. But, of course nothing goes according to planned.
The transport has an eclectic range of people, a family consisting of wife who not only wears the trousers but the overalls as well. A father forever struggling against the alpha (male) female to prove himself. A teenage son who has been forced to come along undoubtedly with the mandate that ‘you might just learn something’. In addition to them, there is a retired professor who has been on that very same trip for 14 times and believes he is the most impressive person in the world. His companion is a student/intern who admires him but has her confidence stiffened by his complete and utter disrespect for her intelligence. We have the hostess who is keen to please and create calm for her charges. Then we have, Sky Silvestry, who immediately feels like she should not be there or at least her intentions are not exactly in-line with anyone else. She reveals to The Doctor that she is recovering from a nasty break up and is trying to recover.
The scene is set and the transport, which has the appearance of a first class transcontinental cabin, sets off. The route has been planned by a computer and is guides by a pilot and co-pilot.
The journey is normal, long and uneventful until the event happens. The transport stops! For no reason. All the systems are ok.
With the help of psychic paper The Doctor is able to gain access to the cock pit, and they have a glimpse outside. An amazing crystal landscape lays before them. The co-pilot spots something moving, only he sees it and it is dismissed by everyone else.
Later, there is a banging from the outside. It is impossible, states the Professor, nothing can live there. Then a smash and the cockpit is ripped off, the pilot and crew are gone.
All is quiet. In the corner is Sky Silvestry huddled in a ball. She is quiet. Everyone asks her if she is ok. She starts repeating everything they say with pure accuracy. Panic grips the cabin, arguments are echoed by Sky Silvestry voice. The Doctor surmises that a being is trying to take control of them by stealing their voice and eventually it will be you who is repeating.
Then it is only The Doctors voice that is repeated, the sinister presence has detected The Doctors knowledge and power and has started a full assault.
The rest of the passengers turn on The Doctor and they are determined to throw him out into the deadly environment that even a Timelord cannot regenerate from.
The Doctors voice, stolen and controlled by the possessed Sky Silvestry, is recognised by the humble hostess who drags the distracted Sky Silvestry to an airlock and scarifies herself to save the passengers. The Doctor is released as the sinister presence is ejected.
Upon his return to the resort he is reunited with Donna to a hug and words of comfort.
Torchwood returns for season Three on BBC1
It has been confirmed that Torchwood is to return, but only for a planned 5 episodes. This has been rather aptly reported in the Swansea Evening post. I will welcome more Capitan Jack antics although I am disappointed that it will only be on for 5 episodes. I also hope the move to BBC1 will not effect the adult orientated material that has been previously used. Torchwood needs random sexual tension and lots of violence, fingers crossed it is still after the watershed!
Original article is here.
.. Cornered between the darkness and the space suit full of flesh eating hive like-minded creatures. The Doctor and the survivors of a scouting party seem doomed…this is where we were left in the previous episode of Doctor Who, Silence in the Library (Review)
But the mysterious ‘Vashta Nerada’ is to hand with the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver… And cuts a whole in the wall and they run.
This episode also sees Donna ’saved’ in what we now know to be a giant hard drive at the core of the planet, which also contains over 4000 survivors from over oo years ago when the Vashta Nerada first started to attack. The operating system is in fact the consciousness of a small girl, dead for 100 years, which we see get distressed more and more and eventually puts herself, and the entire planet, into self-destruct mode, even though she is protected by an anti-virus program called ‘Doctor Moon’ who is unable to help her calm down…. The only answer is to remove the people saved on her hard drive. While at the same time dealing with the vas..
Thank you Steven Moffat…you are a genius! Pure and utter!
The main two main elements of this episode are the developments of a life and family for Donna in a virtual world in a matter of minutes. This world is then torn apart by the appearance of Miss Evangelitser, the first victim of the ‘Vashta Nerada’ in the last episode, who reveals the truth of the illusion to Donna.
The other story line is the apparent relationship between the Doctor and River Song. This is summed up by the fact that she knows the Doctor’s real name!
It turns out the ‘Vashta Nerada’ did not come to the planet, they where brought there by the Library’s creators of in the books. They are forest dwelling creatures that have been transported and now have hatched in this new environment.. Hungry… The Doctor finds this out by communicating with one through the space suits interface that has a neural link - of course!
The Doctor threatens the ‘Vashta Nerada’ and says that he will destroy them of they do not let he rescue everyone. He states, I am The Doctor, look me up… After a pause, they agree to one day’s grace.
So, this episode introduces some wonderful ideas, one being that no one will die today. As at the end everyone is either restored to their normal selves or exists in the virtual world of the ‘hard drive’ operates by the child mind of cal.
Still scary but with a happy ending..
For those of you not aware, when you have a Doctor Who that is scary, it is the result of the (as Russell T Davies) Says, genius of Steven Moffat. Like ‘Blink’ the story line about statues that moved when you did not look at them, the silence in the library is an episode full of suspense. Taking an everyday primordial fear and turning it into something that is a real threat. Russell T Davies explains his plan for the episode; it is to have a classic Zombie walk and a space suit full of these intelligent microscopic Parana’s moving towards the Doctor with its deadly shadow extending in several directions. He also says the show will be a success if just one child in the school playgrounds of the UK is mimicking the spaceman zombie.
‘Stay out of the shadows’ is what The Doctor warns us to do. So in the making of this episode shadows where used to create fear. Because how can you stop a shadow (the Vashta Nerada, as The Doctor later explains), the only thing to do is Run!
The location for all this fear is based upon a brilliant idea, you take somewhere that should be full of people, say a Library that is so big is requires an entire Planet and empty it! Oh, and the only information is from these creepy nods that have people’s faces that speak to you - real faces! And at the end of the actual episode (Spoiler) Donna is a nod, and we see the production technique to achieve this.
The locations used seemed destined for this episode, a reception that is the size of a concert hall and a wonderful old circle library that was not being used. One technical complication was the library had no books so the BBC had to buy fake books and put them in place, taking several days!
We also see some rather nice behind the scenes elements of the production, the game of cards that David Tennant wins but Catherine Tate kindly points out he is still three behind her!
Also, the scene where the girl is talking to the doctor through the TV, showing David Tennant sitting in the place of the TV saying his lines in reply to her off camera is a nice touch.
This episode, like all of the confidential allows the viewer to see different angles and elements of this brilliant series!
image from BBC copyright 2008
The Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, is trying to keep an eye on a group of scientists are dabbling in elements that always lead to some kind of disaster. Yes, they are trying to penetrate the Earth’s crust.
In a secluded location the Government is carrying out secretly drilling operations to tap an ancient power source know as ‘Stahlman’s Gas’. This has been around since the dawn of the universe. At the same time the Doctor is trying to ‘kick start’ his Tardis with the power from the onsite power station.
All is not well, a humble engineer gets exposed to a mysteries green liquid and is transformed into a feral primordial man, that is so hot that everything, bar his clothing seems to be burned.
During one of his experiments with the Tardis he is transport to a parallel earth that is ruled by a powerful dictatorship. In this we see a one eyed Brigadier who is anything but nice and Liz Shaw as authoritarian Section Leader Shaw.
This Earth is suffering the same problems as The Doctor’s Earth in our dimension but they are advanced.
The Doctor struggles to try to save the parallel Earth, but it is too late but not for our Earth.
The Doctor returns to his own dimension and uses the lessons he has learned to save the day.
This episode has the full array of the Jon Pertwee era, Liz Shaw as his assistant, the Brigadier, Sergeant Benton and of course random shooting at creatures and The Doctor!
A brilliant story line that will make old and new fans smile!