Been meaning to make one of these for a long time, and I think my adventures revisiting 13’s era is the perfect time! Though any and all reviews I do will be uploaded here regardless of medium (if I remember)
Starting off with The Woman Who Fell to Earth and Ghost Monument!
TWFtE is a very strong tone setter for a new Doctor and era, only really held back by a dialogue style that doesn’t land for me. 4*!
The Ghost Monument? Well I’m afraid I found it lacking. Boring with annoying side characters, but the performances (especially from Whittaker, who’s even better than I remember) and the visuals carry it. 3*
Rosa has some great performances and tone setting that I think make it land well, though the educational aspect does seem to be a bit more tell than show than I’d like, which appears to be a recurring issue with this era so far for me vis a vis dialogue. 3.5*
Admittedly, I could only watch the episode properly half the time due to a phobia. But Arachnids in the UK is really really bad! It’s soooo boring whenever it focuses on the A-plot, but I loved the B-plot with Yaz’s family and Graham’s grief, which save the episode from being completely awful. Even with such a horrendous and kinda disgusting moral decision from 13. 2*
Very well articulated and I agree with everything you say. I do like spiders so that didn’t bother me, but I remember this one as dreadfully disjointed and quite terribly boring.
The shit I do for the Narvin badge… I hate Garundel and he drags down any attempts to find positivity in this absolute boring, inaccessible, dry mess. 2*
A good setting, great antagonist (unironically!), mostly interesting side cast and amazing performance from Jodie Whittaker sadly don’t undo the incredibly dodgy pro-life politics and pace that’s just a bit too slow for my liking with Tsuranga Conundrum. 2.5, but would have been a 3 if it weren’t for the mpreg subplot.
Demons of the Punjab lives up to its reputation. So much so that I wrote my second or third longest review ever, and it’s 99% gushing about it other than one issue that holds it back from being a personal 5*. 4.75*
Kerblam! is 90% just solid fun Doctor Who let down not by the systems line itself, but by the entire speech and ending. If the villain was the warehouse boss, things would have been MUCH better instead of this politically muddied corpo apologia. What a pity. 2.5*
A second half that somewhat loses its way leading into an incredibly rushed and unsatisfying climax holds The Witchfinders back from truly being great, but it’s still a very good darker episode that also happens to have one of the most entertaining guest performances in the show’s history, courtesy of the GOAT Alan Cumming. 3.5*
Great Review! Yeah, I am not too fond of the Resolution either, it’s a very entertaining Episode outside that and I do highly recommend the Novelization of it, arguably the best Version of the Story (in my Eyes at least), if you are interested, that is!
It Takes You Away is the most thematically rich Doctor Who story since Heaven Sent, and probably until 73 Yards. It’s weird, it’s unique, it’s mature and it sure as hell is experimental. And I absolutely adore it. Somewhere between 4.75 and 5*
A great companion subplot doesn’t make up for a boring story with characters I don’t care about and the blandest direction and lighting of the era yet. I’d love to rate this lower but the Graham and Ryan stuff saves it from being entirely nothing. 2*
