Doctor Who Series 11 so far

Doctor Who Series 11 so far

As we are more than half way through Series 11 I thought I'd take a look at the stories so far.

There have been some complaints about the fact that none of the villains/monsters have got their comeuppance, as they have all got away at the end of the story. But perhaps that reflects real life as sometimes justice fails to be served.

Although this has been disproved in this week's episode 'Kerblam!' as the villain is killed by his own plan.

I also like the idea that all of the villains/monsters are either human or humanoid. The creatures (apart from the Remnants who were genetically engineered) have generally been hungry or confused.

In last week's episode 'Demons of the Punjab', the demons of the title were not the aliens who simply came to remember the dead but the humans who because of their beliefs came to cause Prem's death and to make Umbreen a widow on the day she was married.

It was a beautiful episode and for me joint favourite of the series along with 'Rosa'.

And little did I realise that I would be talking to its writer Vinay Patel about his gorgeous cats (who go by the unusual names of Chill Cat and Pretty Cat) just a few days later.

He recommended some books to read on Partition, one or two of which I will be getting at some point soon as I am interested in the stories of the people who were there and the stories of those that made the decision on it.

The preceeding story 'The Tsuranga Condrum' was not liked by all, but I rather enjoyed it. The characters were interesting and I really loved the Pting. The expression on its little face at the end when it has absorbed all of the energy from the bomb and goes floating off into space is wonderful. I really hope that a  plush version of the Pting is released with glowing tummy of course.

'Arachnids In The UK' is a story that many people did not like simply because they do not like spiders or didn't like the feel of the story.

Again I rather liked it; the spiders were quite cute and I like to think that before the Doctor picks up 'Team Tardis' that she not only rescues the spiders from Robertson's panic room but takes the one trapped in the flat and drops them of somewhere safe. Metebelis Three perhaps?

As I mentioned above 'Rosa' was until last week's episode my favourite of the series, featuring the inspiring story of Rosa Parks, who to my shame I knew very little about before this story and the little bit of research I did prior to it. I now have her autobiography and look forward to reading her story.

'The Ghost Monument' felt very like 'The Keys of Marinus' as it has aspects of that story and even an Arbitan-like figure in Art Malik's Ilin, though he is a less likeable character.

And Shaun Dooley's Epzo and Susan Lynch's Angstrom are certainly wearing more clothes than Altos and Sabetha and possibly have more in the way of character too.

Jodie's debut episode 'The Woman Who Fell To Earth' has many moments that I love, with one of my favourite moments being the snatch of the new theme tune under her first scene.

I also love the scene in the charity shop when the Doctor is choosing her new outfit, though I hope she helped tidy up all of the clothes she rejected.

And the TARDIS must provide her other similar t-shirts to match the one she starts with, or else she has been round a lot of charity shops offscreen.

All in all I'm really loving the feel of this series so far; it's fresh and each story is very different to the one before. I like the fact that we've had no returning monsters and that we are getting lots of different threats.

We've just watched 'Kerblam!' and I must say that I really enjoyed it. I think I need another viewing of it to get some of the finer details as I got a little bit distracted trying to work out the name of the actress playing Kira, but on the whole I really enjoyed it.

Next week 'The Witchfinders', a story I'm very much looking forward to for lots of reasons. The period is one I'm very interested  in and of course the wonderful Alan Cumming, who is King James, is a great actor and once sat next to Warren on a plane to Scotland.

So he's almost part of the 'Round The Archives' family.

(Written by Lisa Parker)