Pete Messum Reviews...

So here we are with the first part of the Doctor Who Series 12 finale, ' Ascension of the Cybermen ', which for no reason at all doesn't feature a "...Part One" in the title, which seems a bit odd after the opener ' Spyfall ', but oh well. Despite what the title may suggest, this isn't a standalone episode, and like a good few episodes of Series 12, feels like set-up with no pay-off whatsoever, meaning that I am once again trapped on the edge of my seat wondering if Chris Chibnall really can stick the landing with so many dangling plot-threads. ' Ascension of the Cybermen ' starts off with the Doctor ( Jodie Whittaker ), Graham ( Bradley Walsh ), Yaz ( Mandip Gill ) and Ryan ( Tosin Cole ) attempting to defend the last seven humans that side of the universe from a Cyberman attack. I say attempting because they are quickly defeated by flying Cyberman heads that looked so utterly ridiculous that all sense of tension vanished immediately. Se...

' The Haunting of Villa Diodati ' is one of the few Doctor Who historical stories I've actually been able to look forward to recently. Having studied ' Frankenstein ' at A Level, I did a lot of research into the development of Mary Shelley's iconic novel, and her time at Villa Diodati on one rainy summer with Lord Byron ( Jacob Collins-Levy ), John Polidori ( Maxim Baldry ), her stepsister Claire Claremont ( Nadia Parkes ) and and husband Percy Bysshe Shelley ( Lewis Rainer ) is quite an interesting one. ' Frankenstein ' was inspired by new experiments with electricity, and as the group were challenged by Lord Byron to come up a spine-chilling ghost story, Mary ( Lili Miller ) ended up writing ' Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus ' in answer. Polidori, meanwhile, wrote ' The Vampyre ', a novella that pre-dated ' Dracula ' with a Byron-inspired vampire antagonist. ' The Haunting of Villa Diodati ' opts to streamline ...

What are you afraid of? And afraid to talk about? What everyday things seep into your nightmares? Charlene James ' ' Can You Hear Me? ' sets out to discuss these questions in an eerie, emotional eighth episode to Doctor Who 's twelfth series, co-written by showrunner Chris Chibnall . It's an episode with a tough balancing act, and I do think that ' Can You Hear Me? ' suffers from the three-companion issue the series currently has, but it does manage to recover from this much better than previous episodes. Ryan (Tosin Cole), Yaz (Mandip Gill) and Graham (Bradley Walsh) all feel like fully-rounded characters here, each with their own stories to tell, each with their own friends, (real) lives and concerns. Ryan's afraid of not being there for his friends when they need him, especially his best friend Tibo ( Buom Tihngang , reprising the character from ' Spyfall ' Part One). Yaz is worried about leaving her sister Sonya ( Bhavnisha Parmar ) behi...

' Praxeus ' is a rather unfortunately placed episode in Doctor Who : Series 12. After the surprising twists and turns in last week's ' Fugitive of the Judoon ', with a cliffhanger ending leading into this episode and a co-writer credit to series showrunner Chris Chibnall , I (and I suspect many other fans) went into ' Praxeus ' expecting a direct continuation that would further the series arc in a new and interesting way, whereas what we actually got was a run-of-the-mill, monster-of-the-week episode in a slot that really needed something more interesting and "important" to the series. This all contributes to my general indifference towards ' Praxeus ' as an episode; it simply did nothing to really maintain my investment, and instead I found myself waiting patiently for some indication of where the series would actually be going next in terms of the big arc plot. It also doesn't help that ' Praxeus '' themes of plastic w...

I've been waiting to see what big, mad idea Chris Chibnall has for his Doctor Who for a while now - essentially since a "five year plan" was teased back in 2017 - and whilst ' Spyfall ' earlier this season teased a new status quo for the Doctor, ' Fugitive of the Judoon ' comes along as a big mid-season shake-up that the show desperately needed, and something that the Who fan-base definitely needed. But despite being possibly the best thing to happen to the show for a long time, ' Fugitive ' is also quite possibly the worst thing to happen to Doctor Who for all of the same reasons. The episode was teased as a fun monster-of-the-week episode featuring the return of the Judoon (voiced by Nicholas Briggs , first seen in Series 3's ' Smith and Jones '), who were hunting a mysterious fugitive character ( Neil Stuke ), except then it turns out that he's not the real fugitive, and that his wife Ruth ( Jo Martin ) is. The Doctor and ...

After last week's disastrous ' Orphan 55 ', Doctor Who returns to form this week with ' Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror ', and with a name like that, you can expect some historically inaccurate pulpy sci-fi fun, which the episode provides in spades. In fact, the word "fun" is the best adjective for this episode, as it manages to tackle a rather by-the-numbers alien story with a lovely history lesson on Nikola Tesla ( Goran Visnijic ), courtesy of the Doctor ( Jodie Whittaker ) fan-girling out throughout the episode. ' Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror ' put me in mind of stories like ' The Unquiet Dead ' or ' The Unicorn and the Wasp ', in which the Doctor meets a prominent historical figure, gushes about them for ages and then teams up with them to fight a surprisingly appropriate alien menace. I didn't realise how much I'd missed these kinds of episodes, and whilst I appreciated the more mature ' Rosa ' and ...

Series 11's penultimate episode ' It Takes You Away ' was a bit of a controversial one with Doctor Who fans. Some loved it, some hated it, but personally I found the episode to be a bit of a missed opportunity, trying to develop an hour-or-so's worth of story in only fifty minutes. ' It Takes You Away ' could have easily been a two-parter and been all the better for it, but Ed Hime 's script was filled with great concepts, strong emotions and a talking frog, so I thought it was "good, but could have been great". I mention this because ' Orphan 55 ', Ed Hime's second Doctor Who episode, and the third of Series 12, is an absolute mess of an episode. Believe me when I say that ' Orphan 55 ' is a strong story, but is completely wasted in this fifty-minute format. The plot is so unbelievably rushed, the characters are so underdeveloped, the big sci-fi ideas feel half-baked, the editing is absolutely atrocious in terms of pace ...