A man on a computer screen warns people all over the world not to log onto an unusual glyph for WiFi internet access because it will spread and their souls will end up like his-uploaded to a computer and their bodies dead. Meanwhile the doctor,living as a monk in early 11th century Cumbria received a call in his TARDIS from a women identifying herself as Clara,a nanny who has been having difficulty logging online herself. Thinking the doctor is a computer tech,she guesses "run clever boy" as her internet password. This prompts the doctor to go looking for her,realizing she is in fact Clara Oswin Oswald (who from his point of view has died twice) only to find she again doesn't know him. Skeptical of him in his monk garb,he changes into a new burgundy suit and returns to find Clara apparently dead. She saw a character from a book read by one of the children she was caring for who apparently had uploaded her using the same technology used for all the others. What they don't know is that that a lady named Miss Kizlet is under orders from an unknown client to use an enormous staff and alien technology to upload human minds using WiFi for the clients own personal storage. The doctor is able to use the sonic screwdriver to restore Clara to her body. When she is restored she has enhanced computer knowledge and remembers nothing if their earlier encounter.
Later that day at a cafe,the doctor confirms what he suspected earlier that day: that people the world over are being manipulated by someone controlling biological fields through WiFi-to the point where Miss Kizlet is able to talk to him through the mouths of people within the cafe. By this time Clara has been able to determine Kizlet is operating out of The Shard. Being the only one so far to escape her operation Kizlet wants Clara back very badly. She describes her client as someone who is in love with human minds. By this point however Clara has been fully integrated back into Kizlets system by another WiFi base robot,like the girl she met earlier who appeared to be the doctor. The doctor meanwhile drives his special anti grav motor cycle up the side of the Shard and attempts to convince Kizlet face to face. In a few minutes she learns its not the doctor at all-its the re-programmed WiFi base system robot she used to absorb Clare-now in the doctors control. He manages to lock her into the system-forcing her staff to download all the human minds,whom they were apparently saving for the Great Intelligence,back to where they originally came from. Her staff have no idea what they are doing. And Miss Kizlet in fact only sees herself as a lost little girl. Meanwhile the doctor invites Clara,willing to travel so long as she can return to her life on 21st century Earth,to travel with him on the TARDIS in order to fill her book of places to see. More or less.
Since the beginning of Doctor Who,the doctor is a character who tends to reveal only other questions when it comes to his identity being revealed. While many of his companions have in fact been mysterious at first,Clara Oswin Oswald is literally an "impossible girl" who seems to reincarnate in a similar manner to the regeneration of a time lord. She claims not to remember the doctor,yet he remember her and feels otherwise. So with Clara he has truly met his match of mystery in a travelling companion. Also this story will have computer enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists alike astounding with it's portrayal of modern WiFi connection being used as not only a method of mind control,but of uploading the minds of people as if they were simple computer files. Typically the doctor engages in his "trolling the villain" routine with the manipulated Miss Kizlet-who is actually convinced she is the manipulator. The very unexpected scene in which the doctor climes The Shard in his ant grav motor cycle is a reminder of the epic FX that the modern day Doctor Who is able to realize. So from story line,special effects and the solid introduction of Clara as the 11th doctors companion 'The Bells Of Saint John' succeeds on every possible level.
In Victorian London in 1892,a man named Doctor Simeon promises several men food if they gather snow for him,presumably for his Great Intelligence Industries. Shortly afterward a group of carnivorous snowmen appear and devour the human men. The doctor is using his allies-the Silurian Vastra and her human wife Jenny and the Sontaran Strax to investigate further while the doctor himself remains in the shadows,having lost all interest in helping humanity after the loses of Amy and Rory. A young woman named Clara is investigating too,noticing a disturbances-actually the same snowmen outside the tavern where she is employed. The nearest person she encounters is the doctor,who she
accuses of building the snowmen. From what he sees he's determined the snow has its own life force. But still refuses to do anything-requesting Strax give her a memory wiping alien worm so she'll forget him. He then lets her to understand that her thoughts are creating the snowmen,and of course she uses her thoughts afterward to melt them. She then follows him to a ladder which he uses to ascend on a spiral staircase to his TARDIS but,when he notices Clara she makes a fast retreat.
Clara then resumes another job-this one as a governess for two children of a Captain Latimer-one of whom is having nightmares about their former governess coming back from the dead and telling her they've been bad. When Clara learns that the deceased governesses body is buried beneath the only nearby frozen mass of ice,she takes the children to bed-promising them comfort in the form of a story about the doctor. She believes he will appear,however they are visited by the frozen form of their former governess,just as in the Latimer daughter's dream. Luckily the doctor is also there,using his newly refitted sonic screwdriver to temporarily melt the ice creature. While it does reform and give chase,Clara and the Latimer children follow the doctor-disguised as Sherlock Holmes,to Doctor Simeon's Great Intelligence Institute where he confronts the Simeon of the revelation of the psychic snow-able to conjure thoughts into physical being. The ice governess then re-appears while the doctor drags Clara back to the TARDIS-where he entrusts her with the TARDIS key after her awareness of it is revealed.
While the doctor prepares to complete the mission in the TARDIS,Clara is captured by the ice governess and hauled back to Doctor Simeon. The doctor materializes the TARDIS over Clara and reveals his confidence that she will stay alive while he confronts Simeon. He's now deduces that psychic snow is actually a receptacle for the anti social thoughts that Simeon has had since he first encountered the Intelligence as a child. Intending to invade the world with an army of deep frozen snowmen,the doctor manages to use the memory worm to erase Simeons memory-which inadvertently allows the Intelligence to fully take over his body and he attempts to kill the doctor. But the snow suddenly turns to rain. Apparently Clara and the Latimer family's sadness is also affecting the psychic snow. And Simeon's body dies in the process. And Clara dies on Christmas morning,so the doctor is lead to believe. Later at Clara's funereal he notices her middle and last initials are Oswin Oswald. Remembering his encounter with her on the Dalek Asylum and her death there,he leaves to go searching for whom he has now christened "the impossible girl".
Statistically this Doctor Who Christmas story is the fourth most viewed TV show in the UK on Christmas. There are many important features to this story. The use of the great intelligence again-from the Patrick Troughton era of the show. Also theirs the introduction of the doctors new burgundy suit and a newly redecorated TARDIS control room-which is far more streamlined and space age in the manner of the classic TARDIS interior design. This story serves mainly as an introduction for the doctors mysterious and mercurial new companion Clara Oswin Oswald. However Richard E. Grant's Doctor Simeon and Sir Ian McKellan's voicing of the Great Intelligence is often underscored by the massive changes to the doctor himself. In the beginning the doctor has become an uncharacteristically EMO type character-avoiding any attempts to show caring for humanity-even to the point of verbal cruelty to Strax and showing mistrust of Clara as he uses Vastra to test her knowledge of the situation with a one word test. Considering the thrust of the whole story is literally emotion driving everyone's actions and motivations, this is a very dramatically heady but strong Doctor Who Christmas story.
In 1938 New York City,a man named Grayle hires a PI named Sam Garner to investigate a group of moving statues at the Winter Quay apartments. Upon going there he finds himself unknowingly surrounded by weeping angels,who have also taken over the statue of liberty on the rooftop after he's found his elderly future self in one of the apartment bedrooms. Meanwhile in 2012 NYC,the doctor is vacationing with the Ponds while reading what he thinks is a functional book about a NYC PI named Melody Melone he found in his pocket. All of this changes when the doctor notices Rory's going to find coffee for Amy is recorded in the book. And he realizes the future of his companions is being written as he speaks. By this time,Rory has already been sent back in time by the angels. Following clues from the book,the doctor attempts to take the TARDIS back to 1938 but finds massive temporal displacements there. But not before he and Amy discover Rory's name on a gravestone. Again using the books clues to travel to ancient China for yet more clues,he finds out the identity of Melody Melone is actually River Song.
It was River who'd pulled her own father backward in time as she investigated the angels Grayle was keeping as part of his personal collection. And River's Melody Melone book is based on her experiences of investigation as a warning to the doctor. Rory is sent to the basement of the Winter Quay where he is menaced by a group of cherub angels. He ultimately does escape to Winter Quay. Trapped by an angel grasping her hand,River breaks her own wrist to free herself Following the doctor using his regenerative energy to heal her she,the doctor and Amy follow Rory to Winter Quay where they find an elderly Rory who has died. The doctor realizes the angels,who feed of time energy have turned the massively populated NYC into a giant repository to feed off of. Understanding it would take a massive paradox in order to keep angels repository at Winters Quay from existing,Rory deems to throw himself from the building-believing since the building never existed he won't die. Amy chooses to fall with him,after which they wake up together with the doctor,River and the TARDIS in a graveyard. When Rory notices his name on a grave,he disappears back in time as the doctor notices a surviving angel. Realizing its the only way she can be with Rory again,Amy joins him much to the distress of a distraught doctor-who departs with River Song in the TARDIS-in order to read the afterward in the Melody Melone novel written by Amy Pond herself.
As a vehicle for the departure of Amy Pond and Rory Williams as companions,this story also showcases enormous personal growth for the doctor as well. Especially in the presence of the extremely powerful weeping angels,who hold the power of time in their hands to such an enormous degree they force others to literally pay attention to them,the stress level amid the characters comes to critical mass. River Song's relationship with the doctor has become strained,as she's come to view him as every bit the deceptive individual that she can be. Her increased cynicism in regard to the doctor is equally matched by Amy's intense feelings of love for Rory. Understanding his impending death leads her to making one sacrifice in this story after another to try and save his life. Including joining him for a life lived in the past,a fixed life the doctor cannot alter without a literally Earth shattering temporal paradox. I've never actually seen the doctor show such intense emotion at the loss of companions before-not even in cases of enormous personal sacrifices such as the fates met by Adric or Donna Noble. This is one of the finest weeping angel stories done in the series. And a very poetic and emotional send off for Amy and Rory. At least we think its a send off. One never knows with the last of the time lords,do they?
While contemplating leaving behind their life of space/time adventure with the doctor on the TARDIS,Amy and Rory find their private lives interrupted by the arrival of identical black cubes all over the planet. The doctor of course is already investigating-agreeing to stay with the Ponds and Rory's father Bryan while they investigate the situation further. As humanity struggle in the media to find meaning to these mysterious objects,the doctor leaves the Earth for a time to investigate on his own. Returning as the Ponds have elected to make commitments to in their own lives,the doctor returns to investigate further. This time the cubes have begun to move,one even penetrating Amy's hand to take its pulse. Meanwhile,patients at the hospital Rory works in have suddenly been disappearing. The Ponds home is then chanced upon by Kate Stewart of UNIT-now a more scientifically based organization seeking to investigate further. None of their experiments have been able to harm the cubes. Having taken some of the cubes into custody,each react in a different in a totally different way. And each have begun counting down.
The doctor volunteers to remain confined with one cube as it counts to to zero. When the cube opens Stewart,now realized as the deceased Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart's daughter-along with Amy and Rory notice on the monitors that anyone near the vicinity of a cube,all seeming to land en mass near seven important electrical power installations word wide,have all began to suffer cardiac arrests and starting to die. One of the doctors hearts begins experiencing the same effect,though he is able to stay focused enough to deduce that the cubes were actually advanced scanners-designed specifically to short out human cardiac functions. He manages to localize an electrically charged portal that leads he and the Ponds to an orbiting spaceship where the vanished patients,including Bryan,and subject to the mercy of the Shakri. A race understood by Galifreyeans to be a myth,the Shakri are using the cubes to destroy humanity-seeing them as an infestation according to their own personal mythos. The Shakri they meet up with is only a hologram luckily. And the doctor is able to feed back to control the cubes to reactivate the cardiac functions of all effected humans. Before departing Earth again,the Ponds return on their journey's with him with the kindly encouragement of Rory's father Bryan.
While an excellent story on many levels,including the introduction of the Brigadier's daughter Kate as a story element with UNIT along with Bryan Williams again as a temporary companion,the main thrust of this story is synergy. The Ponds are debating within themselves which is the more productive life for them: the breakneck speed at which their lives move in the company of the doctor,or their relatively mundane life as regular human citizens. The doctor meanwhile faces up to the fact that he has actually developed a closely intimate friendship with Amy and Rory-much as he had with Sarah Jane Smith many regeneration's before. In their mission to solve the mystery of the Shakri cubes,they of course all end up saving the world. Yet its the sometimes slow journey to that which makes all the difference-especially for the doctor. He is forced to slow down to the (in his eyes anyway) plodding pace of average human existence-resorting to household chores and even a few Wii games to alleviate boredom. By elevating a tale essentially about the intensity with which the doctor experiences friendship,this is probably one of the best stories focusing on the inner psyche of the doctor himself.
The doctor,Amy and Rory arrive in a 19th century American frontier town called Mercy,which has a puzzling keep out sign. When the doctor dismissively crosses that line,he finds a group of towns people drawing pistols at him. He and the Ponds are taken in by Sheriff Isaac,who at first tells them that a mysterious gunslinger is blocking the town off from food and supplies and killing anyone attempting to leave-that is until an "alien doctor" shows up whom he's looking for. When the doctor agrees to sacrifice himself to save the town,Isaac confesses the alien doctor is already in town. He is a Kahler Jex,a surgeon from a race of ingenious engineers who has not only cured a cholera epidemic in Mercy but also provided them with electric lighting. So the doctor agrees to go with Isaac,Amy and Rory to the outskirts of town to seek out the gunslinger pursuing Jex.
While he companions successfully fend off the cyborg gunslinger,the doctor manages to use his sonic screwdriver to to access the personal database in Jex's egg like spacecraft. He returns to the town to find the Jex has been lying all along. Jex was in fact a military surgeon who had created the gunslinger,actually called Kahler Tech,through cruel medical experiments on sentient beings. Tech has been pursuing him to gain justice for Jex's misdeeds as a war criminal. While the doctor is equally as furious,Amy reminds him of the irony of his attitude towards Jex-even as Isaac is killed in crossfire. Now the sheriff,the doctor agrees to protect Jex from his creation-even fending off the frightened towns people in a lynch mob. The situation is handled when the doctor agrees to face of Kahler Tech in a shoot out-creating a distraction while Jex escapes. Jex invariably agrees to end his life to face his misdeeds. Unsure of his place on his own world following Jex's death,Tech elects to remain as a peaceful protector of Mercy as the doctor and his companions depart in the TARDIS.
This is one of the strongest and most cleverly conceived stories of Matt Smith's time on Doctor Who. The plot itself blends the themes of revenge and redemption found in a quality Western with a science fiction twist-in this case an alien character who attempts to redeem himself in a small and less advanced community to make up for his Nazi doctor-like war crimes. In a theme that's played out ever since Galifrey was destroyed in the last great time war,Jex and Amy alike both question the doctors anger at the immorality of Jex's actions and self preserving attempt at redemption. The doctor redeems this when he faces off the towns lynch mob,contradicting their original principles as they demand Jex be handed over to them,by delivering an iconic line: "Violence doesn't end violence-it extends it". Reminding himself of the oath he took for himself before his home world was destroyed,the doctor manages to restore the peace Mercy had found by part of the very means that almost threatened it in this quality story.
The doctor journey's throughout time to convince Queen Nefertiti in ancient Egypt,an English big game hunter in Africa named Ridell and of course "the Ponds" to investigate a massive spacecraft about to crash into the Planet Earth in the mid 24th century. Materializing around the Ponds home,the doctor doesn't realize he is about to take on not only Amy and Rory but his father Bryan,a homebody whose never ventured much beyond his own neighborhood. Once on board the ship,they all confront the seemingly impossible presence of dinosaurs on board-including a Triceratops and flying Pterodactyl .Splitting into teams the doctor,Rory and his father find themselves in the spaceship's hydraulic engine core-only to discover using a computer interface that another ship within this one is causing its course to Earth. Amy has encountered another console at random-managing to ascertain from found log records that the TARDIS is on board a Silurian ark-containing a number of different lifeforms from Earth.
Tracing the signal from the intruding spaceship to its source,it turns out that the ship was piloted by an alien trader named Solomon-who planned to impound the Silurian ark to trade in for a large personal profit. Unfortunately his ship damaged the ark,setting it off course towards its possible collision with the Earth. Solomon then attempts to hold the doctor hostage by means of his two temperamental (and apparently second hand) robot lackey's in lieu of the doctor conceding to his agreement that Nefertiti join him as a personal consort in exchange for Solomon departing in his spaceship The doctor escapes and Nefertiti,having heard and understood Solomon's demands on the ark's communication grid agrees to his demands as the doctor,Rory and Bryan manage to get past Solomon to the ships control deck-but not before Solomon murders the Triceratops. Rory and his father manage to reverse the course of the ark-separating Solomon's from it as the missiles already launched from Earth are redirected to his ship rather than the ark. After returning everyone to their proper time periods,including uniting Ridell and Nefertiti,Rory is now confronted by his father suddenly becoming a world traveler.
In this story history,science,comedy,drama,adventure and pointed social commentary blend together in such epic and ultra fast paced proportions its hard to know where the story is going sometimes. Much of the social commentary is linked the the comedic elements-such as the regal and proud Queen Nefertiti generally only being able to relate to Amy Pond's strong assertions of femininity. Rory's father Bryan,an accidental character if their ever was one,proves the most altered by his adventures on the runaway Silurian ark. His best scene involves him,eating a simple lunch from his metal pain look down at the Earth from the steps of the TARDIS,similar to what his daughter and law Amy experienced during her initial voyages with the doctor. One particular touching scene is how much compassion the doctor shows the Triceratops as its dying, after being shot by Solomon in under twenty seconds. The dinosaur chases in this story are extremely well done and is probably some of the best realized dinosaur related effects in any Doctor Who era. Though it does a lot,this is a story that genuinely benefits from the modern shows higher octane pacing.
After being summoned to Skaro by someone who presents themselves as someone whose daughter is being held captive by the Daleks,the doctor finds himself whisked away by this apparent Dalek/human hybrid to an unknown holding cell. Meanwhile Amy Pond,apparently having marital troubles,finds herself and Rory both facing the same situation-finding themselves before the Dalek parliament who,for once require their help. A unknown spaceship has crashed on a planetary asylum for damaged Daleks and the parliament wish the doctor,Amy and Rory to help track it down. Meanwhile the parliament receive a signal before the doctor confirming this by an unusual humanoid girl who along with her ship have somehow managed to evade the Daleks. However the planet contains a protective nano cloud that transforms any living creature,living or dead,into an adjunct Dalek hybrid. So before teleporting down the trio must use a specialized device that allows them to travel there safely.
Once arriving Amy encounters an individual from the Spaceship Alaska,ostensibly the ship the crashed there. The doctor has encountered a Dalek eye piece through which he is communicating with the unusual spaceship passenger,who addresses herself as Oswin Oswald,a crew member on board the Alaska. Rory for his part was deposited deep within the center of the Dalek asylum-facing a group of semi conscious Daleks. As the doctor and Amy investigate the remains of the spaceship,the find the man Amy first met is actually dead,as is his crew having been effecting by the Dalek nano cloud. Fending off what essentially amounts to Dalek zombies,the doctor discovers Amy's nano proof bracelet has been removed. As her neurology is being altered,the doctor and her teleport below to discover Rory while the doctor,after fending off and overloading a group of the prisoner Daleks, goes searching for the elusive Oswald.
Recognition of Amy's symptoms helps Rory to resolve their personal differences. Realizing his love for Amy is stronger,he offers her his anti nano bracelet while the doctor completes his own mission. He finds to his disappointment that Oswald was apparently so clever a human on the Alaska that the Daleks' made her completely into one of them-without her being aware of it. At first almost overcome away from her humanity by the revelation,the doctor convinces her to stay human long enough to go through with her plan to knock down the shield preventing them from leaving the telepad. And upon doing this the signal feeds back and the asylum planet is destroyed just after the transport is completed. Thankfully upon arriving back at the Parliament ship,the hive mind located on that world linking them all together is severed. And the Daleks no longer remember the doctor as their enemy. Liberated from the effects of the nano cloud,Amy and Rory are returned to a hopefully happy future as the doctor departs yet again.
The conclusion to this story offers up a concept that,if followed through in the future,could represent the end of the Daleks confrontation with the doctor. There are a couple perhaps unintended Star Trek references in this story. In her first appearance in Doctor Who,Jenna Louise Coleman's "Oswin" Oswald makes mention of a planet Vulcan,where the doctor has been before. Also the idea of the Daleks being interlinked by a hive mind controlling them to a degree is closer to Star Trek's Borg than Doctor Who's cybermen,who assimilate but are individuals. This is also an important story,not only with its epic production scale but for the Amy/Rory relationship-with Amy revealing in a rare moment of vulnerability to Rory that the events of Series 6 involving her daughter motivated her to attempt to end their nuptials-due to being rendered sterile apparently. It is a fitting way to begin series 7 of Doctor Who and opens the door for a number of possible new directions as well.
