Join the Doctor and his new companions Bill and Nardole for brand-new adventures on board the TARDIS in this year’s Doctor Who Annual.
With secrets from the latest series, fact files on the latest terrifying monsters, exciting comic strips, stories, puzzles and activities, it’s the perfect read for any fan of the brilliant BBC show Doctor Who.
On sale from: 21 Sep 2017
With that shocking opening sequence of the regeneration of the 12th Doctor, and the fate of Bill Potts hanging in the balance, last week’s episode of Doctor Who left lots of unanswered questions. But we know one thing for sure: Saturday’s season finale, The Doctor Falls, will be the last episode of a regular series with Steven Moffat at the helm. While we wait to find out how the Doctor will escape, and who he or she will be next, it’s the perfect opportunity to assess Moffat’s seven years running the show.
Moffat had a task like no other. In the 1960s, 70s and 80s, producers and script editors came and went. But nobody had the iron grip of both showrunning and writing that Russell T Davies did when the BBC revived the show in 2005. The new Doctor Who was very much Davies’ vision – and Moffat was the first person to step into those shoes.
Having written several stand-out episodes of the Davies era, anticipation was high. And it was a bright start: The Eleventh Hour remains one of the finest introductions to Doctor Who. After almost five decades as a teatime show aimed at families, we were introduced to a brand-new Doctor Who through the eyes of a child. The “fishy custard” sequence with Matt Smith and a young Amy (Karen Gillan) is hilarious and ridiculous, then suddenly scary, and his departure (combined with her patient waiting) heart-rending. It’s all the things you want in Doctor Who.
Moffat’s first team – Smith, Gillan and Arthur Darvill as the Doctor, Amy and Rory – had great screen chemistry, and he has since cast two other Doctors, with the inclusion of John Hurt. They’ve all been white men, a situation that is increasingly untenable, but they have all excelled in the role. Smith brought a youthful face, with eyes that managed to convey the Time Lord’s age, whereas Peter Capaldi has brought the opposite – an older face and eyes that sparkle with the mischief of youth.
It has become common for fans to say that Capaldi has been good in the role, but hasn’t had the best stories to work with. That ignores episodes such as Listen, Heaven Sent/Hell Bent, Flatline, and the stupendous anti-war speech in two-parter The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion. It is a shame though that Moffat opted for two seasons of Capaldi paired with Jenna Coleman’s Clara, rather than allow the new Doctor to explore the universe with a brand new companion, as Smith got to do.
There have been some absolute clunkers along the way. The Curse of the Black Spot and Robot of Sherwood are notorious. And the plot resolution of Kill the Moon – that Earth’s satellite turns out to be an egg – has become a running joke on social media to express absolute disbelief. But no era has been immune to duff episodes; even the Davies years gave us Fear Her and Planet of the Dead.
Credit to an ambitious Moffat for enticing writers of the calibre of Richard Curtis, who penned the exquisite Vincent and the Doctor, and Neil Gaiman, whose extraordinary The Doctor’s Wife featured Suranne Jones’s virtuoso performance as the Tardis trapped in the baffling experience of being a living being.
A criticism of his era is that he has often offered up complicated plots that are difficult to follow, and resolved them with some unsatisfactory reset button. In fairness, the show does have a rich history of convoluted stories fixed with a wave of the sonic screwdriver. But if you’ve ever tried explaining to a child who River Song is and how her timeline works, you’ll appreciate how overly complex the plots have become.
Moffat should be praised for his handling of the show’s 50th anniversary. Previous on-screen celebrations have been hit and miss (nobody holds much affection for the 30th anniversary Doctor Who/EastEnders crossover) but Moffat absolutely delivered. His hand may have been forced with Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston’s refusal to be involved, but by pulling a mysterious incarnation of the Doctor we’d never met before out of the bag, Day of the Doctorwas both a celebration of the show’s past and a pointer to the future.
As a bonus, fans got the unexpected treat of a mini-episode with Paul McGann, who got more precious minutes as the Doctor, and a tear-jerking cameo by everybody’s favourite 70s Doctor, Tom Baker. That McGann and Baker’s returns had been kept under wraps made them even more special.
Under Moffat, the show has also coped with the pressures of being a globally marketable commodity for the BBC. Screenings of episodes in cinemas and world promotional tours have upped the ante in terms of promotion, and eclipsed the effort put in by Davies. Sometimes it has caused the programme to suffer on-screen. The ill-fated Teletubbies redesign of the Dalek was a bad misstep. And there have been several episodes, such as Dark Water, where beautiful production design details gradually hinting at the reveal of a returning foe have been blown away by publicity screaming about who is making a comeback.
Perhaps the most consistent criticism has been Moffat’s poor grasp of writing women characters. Whether River Song, Clara or Madame Kovarian, the enigmatic female character trope has consistently aggravated fans.
It feels as if Moffat has made some effort to create more diverse female roles. Despite some foreboding about him writing a gay woman, Bill Potts has been genuinely fresh. And he has made huge strides in setting up the possibility that a woman could play the Doctor in the future: during Hell Bent, we’ve explicitly seen Ken Bones’s white male Time Lord regenerate into T’Nia Miller’s African-Caribbean Time Lady.
Ultimately though, the job of the showrunner has always been to hand it over in a decent state to the next one. Moffat has, without a doubt, achieved this. Overnight ratings may be down from the heyday of the show’s relaunch, but the way people watch TV has changed significantly in the intervening 12 years. The Audience Appreciation Index figure for Doctor Who is still regularly in the mid-80s.
So it is the end, but, as ever with Doctor Who, the moment has been prepared for. Chris Chibnall will be in charge next year, but Moffat is handing over the keys to a show still in decent shape. When the BBC declared that Doctor Who was coming back in the early 2000s, who would have dreamed it would still be running over a decade later, with Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matt Smith, John Hurt and Peter Capaldi all taking on the iconic role? Steven Moffat has been vital in that.
With the Doctor Who series 10 finale only one day away anticipation is at a fever pitch, with the whole world desperate to know how Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor will defeat the Cybermen, save Bill (Pearl Mackie) and bring both Masters (John Simm and Michelle Gomez) to heel all while dealing with the prospect of his own imminent regeneration.
And now series guest star Samantha Spiro has shed some light as to what we can expect from The Doctor Falls, describing the story in three words for one of the more succinct hints for the series we’ve seen so far.
“It’s moving, scary, and the thing that comes mostly to me is that it’s emotional – but that’s moving really,” the actress told RadioTimes.com, before settling on a different combination: “Emotional, scary and unnerving.”
Now, if that doesn’t sound like a classic Doctor Who episode we don’t know what does – and Spiro says that working on this story gave her a new appreciation for the sci-fi series.
“I was a fan when I was a kid, then I sort of dipped in in the ‘modern era’ of the Doctors, I can’t say that I’ve watched it week in and week out and really know what’s going on,” she told us.
“Luckily [my character] Hazran didn’t need to know that information either because I wouldn’t even know where to begin! But I’ve been watching this series because you have more of a vested interest.
“I think Pearl Mackie is fantastic, watching Peter and Pearl work together I just love their relationship – and watching Matt [Lucas as Nardole], he’s just hilarious in it. It’s lovely to be able to watch it and have a connection to it.
“It’s really good fun,” she concluded. “You just love all those things as an actor. It’s just mucking about really, like being a little kid. So yeah, really good fun.”
With that crucial element of fun added, we’d now say this is sounding like a vintage Doctor Who adventure. If only we too were in a faster timestream that could get us to Saturday night a bit quicker…
Doctor Who series 10 concludes on BBC1 this Saturday 1st July at 6:30pm
This weekend sees the gripping finale to Doctor Who Series 10 airing across the world. The latest edition of Doctor Who Magazine – out now – includes an exclusive look at the episode, The Doctor Falls.
DWM spoke to both writer Steven Moffat and its director Rachel Talalay about the return of the Cybermen and their battle with the Twelfth Doctor. Talalay said:
“I always worried, in Death in Heaven [Series 8, 2014], that we had this army of Cybermen, and then they take off into the air, and there’s never a battle so I was really thrilled, in The Doctor Falls, that we get to actually have them fight. They do battle. My approach was, you know, ‘Bring it on! Let’s blow up as many things as we can!’”
Rachel adds:
“I like, if I can, to do a few epic, moving shots where a lot of things are happening, rather than hundreds of action cuts, so we did one really big Steadicam shot with Peter, where he battled through the forest.
It was important to me – and to Peter – that we got that all as one, even though we cut it up in the edit. The adrenaline that happens as you run, and things grab you, and all these explosions go off around you – the excitement! – just adds so much. It gives a visceral sense to it, and Peter really felt that. It is like being on a battlefield. The first time he went through, tons of dirt rained down on him. He came out the other end, with dirt all over him, and you should have seen the grin on his face! He said, ‘Yup, this is action-hero stuff.’
But Steven’s script is, of course, incredibly, ridiculously clever, in a good way, and it does also have the calm before the storm. I love creating that tension as well.”
Writer and outgoing Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat also previewed The Doctor Falls, airing from July 1 across the world:
“An epic battle, even if you’ve got all the budget in the world – and, let’s be clear, we don’t – has to focus in on those tiny moments. Those tiny losses. Those tiny victories. Otherwise it’s just not a story. Embedding the intimate in the epic is what Doctor Who is really, really good at – or expressing the epic through the intimate. The tiny emotional consequences of this vast battle.
We all sort of know that the best bits in war movies are just before the battle and just after it. Those are the bits that stay with you forever; the final hours before the assault, and the consequences.”
This edition of Doctor Who Magazine also includes exclusive interviews with John Simm, Michelle Gomez and Steven Moffat. Issue 514 is available now.
The latest issues of the Doctor Who Figurine Collection feature two iconic monsters from two very different decades.
Every two weeks, Whovians can enjoy an exclusive hand-painted and highly-detailed figurine and a magazine packed with info on its subject.
Check out the details and images below on Issues 101 and 102.
Urak the Tetrap
Doctor Who Figurine Collection: Part 101 (available now)
From the 1987 Seventh Doctor story Time and the Rani.The Tetraps, a giant combination of fox, boar and rat, were headed by Urak, although they were not led by him. Urak was the Rani’s number one on the planet Lakertya, and appeared to be a devoted follower of his ‘mistress’. He was just as cold-hearted as the renegade Time Lord.
The Voord
Doctor Who Figurine Collection: Part 102 (available early July)
From the First Doctor 1964 adventure The Keys of Marinus.
The Voord, led by Yartek, invaded the tower that housed the Conscience of Marinus, a supercomputer that was believed to be the perfect judge while also able to eradicate all evil thought and action. With it, the Voord hoped to control the people of Marinus for their own nefarious purposes.
For more info on the Doctor Who Figurine Collection, visit their website here
Saturday’s Doctor Who finale isn’t quite the end of Steven Moffat and Peter Capaldi’s time on the show but it does herald a break of six months before they bow out for good. So after all the questions raised by last week’s stunning episode, fans are going to need some answers – as well as enough big moments to tide them over until the Christmas special and the Twelfth Doctor’s final farewell. And – spoiler alert! – that’s exactly what they get.
Some loose ends are more or less tied up, others are left trailing invitingly and there’s a massive cliffhanger that sets up a mouthwatering Christmas special of a kind we’ve never seen before.
The extra running time – this is a juicy 60 minutes long rather than the usual 45 – allows Moffat to cram in all these set pieces without things feeling too rushed and there’s even a story of sorts to hang them on, about homesteaders defending their farm against invading Cybermen (even if it’s never really made clear what the point of the Master’s Cyber army is).
There are lots of meaty scenes between Missy and John Simm’s Master, who seem to have far too much sexual chemistry for two characters who are basically the same person (but then he always was an egotist). Certainly, Simm gives the Master a bit more personality than in his earlier appearances, even if the script does at times make him seem like a slightly dense child in comparison with his other half, and especially with the Doctor.
And what about CyberBill? Whether her fate will be decided in this episode, you’ll have to wait to find out, but she’s the focus of a nice analogy about how we treat those who are outwardly different to us, and some moments that I can only think deliberately recall Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s artful stuff at times and Pearl Mackie is fantastic, as she has been all series. What a great companion Bill is, Cyberised or not.
Speaking of companions, Nardole becomes rather heroic too, stepping up to take charge in a way that does not go unnoticed by at least one female character.
And so to that cliffhanger. I can’t give you any details, of course, but here are some adjectives: tantalising, thrilling, nostalgic and, yes, more than a little Christmassy.
Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls is on Saturday 1st July at 6:30pm on BBC1
JOHN SIMM & MICHELLE GOMEZ – THE TWO MASTERS! – ARE BOTH EXCLUSIVELY INTERVIEWED IN ISSUE 514 OF DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE!
As we countdown to the devastating Doctor Who series finale, The Doctor Falls, we speak to the actors who have breathed new life into the Doctor’s deadliest enemy…
John Simm tells DWM about playing the Master with a beard: “Yeah, I just grew it, and turned up at the readthrough, and said, ‘You know, I fancy a bit of this.’ Everybody seemed fine with it. I just thought, ‘Give a little nod.’ It was a nod to the Delgado and Ainley Masters. There’s a line in the final episode where he mentions ‘old-school’, and I made sure to give the beard a little stroke – a small nod to the old Masters.”
Michelle Gomez ponders on whether the Master could ever truly become good: “Even the worst psychopath can’t be entirely bad,” she reasons. “It’s basic math. A positive cannot exist without a negative, and so there always has to be a thread of goodness in somebody. What makes you thoroughly evil, I believe, is when you recognise that thread of goodness – you’re aware of it, you’re conscious of it – and you still decide to be evil. Then, yes, you’ve earned the crown of… of evilness? Evil-ality. You wear your crown of evil-ality.”
ALSO INSIDE THIS ISSUE…
Writer Steven Moffat and director Rachel Talalay give DWM readers an exclusive preview of the series finale, The Doctor Falls.
The writer and actor chats to DWM about his love of Doctor Who, his long association with series, and his most recent episode Empress of Mars.
Showrunner Steven Moffat writes about how he has delivered his final Doctor Who script – the 2017 Christmas Special.
The adventure continues for the Doctor and Bill in Part 3 of our latest comic strip story, written by Scott Gray, with art by Martin Geraghty.
This issue’s Fact of Fiction looks back at the 1981 Fourth Doctor story The Keeper of Traken – which featured an unexpected appearance of an old foe…
DWM reviews the latest TV episodes (The Lie of the Land, Empress of Mars and The Eaters of Light) as well as audio and DVD releases in the world of Doctor Who.
Previews of all the latest Doctor Who CD and book releases.
Doctor Who Magazine 514 is on sale from Thursday 29 June, price £5.99.
Steven Moffat has admitted that he wanted Peter Capaldi to stay on for the next series of Doctor Who – if only to avoid the trauma of watching him quit the show.
Speaking ahead of this Saturday’s series 10 finale, Moffat admitted that it was painful to know that he would have to witness the end of yet another Doctor on his watch.
“I was hoping he would stay on,” he told The Chris Evans Breakfast Show on BBC Radio 2. “There’s only so much emotional trauma you can bear. I have had three versions of my childhood hero hand in their resignation to me, and there is no specific therapy for that; it is really quite difficult. [It’s like] Santa Claus quitting in front of you.”
Moffat said that when he and Capaldi both discussed their decision to leave it was characterised by “a curt exchange of nods and suppressed emotion”.
“We are Scottish and we do not discuss emotion,” he said.
Moffat said that he decided to leave the show partly because he was tired.
“It’s been a long time and it completely fills the sky when you are doing Doctor Who; there’s no time for anything else. It’s so dominant.”
He added, “I just thought, ‘I’m just tired I want to try something else, I want to do other things.’”
He also added that he expected there would be more Sherlock, although he said that he and Mark Gatiss have not yet had time to discuss it properly.
“I sort of assume we will; I sort of assume we will come back,” he added.
The Doctor Who series 10 finale airs Saturday 1st July at 6.30pm on BBC1
Peter introduces his last season finale. And everything is going wrong.
Doctor Who has been nominated for Best Family Drama at the TV Choice Magazine Awards 2017! Cast a vote here
