Tag Archives: Pearl Mackie

Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, David Bradley, Mark Gatiss, Pearl Mackie, Lily Travers, Jared Garfield, Toby Whithouse, Jenna Coleman, Jodie Whittaker, Matt Lucas, Nikki Amuka-Bird.

How many regenerations have you lived through? It could be a question in which the critics decry as nostalgic, one that avoids a sense of action or purpose to the story line, the conclusion to a life is the only thing worthy as a new set of eyes to see the universe with fresh hope and a new catch phrase. To do this though misses the point, it shows that arguably you might not have been paying attention, or consumed with eager optimism for the fresh face to appear at the end.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon A Time. Television Review. full post

(627 words, estimated 2:30 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, John Simm, Briana Shann, Rosie Boore, Samantha Spiro, Simon Coombs, Stephanie Hyam, David Bradley.

“Without hope, without witness, without reward…” except for fan and casual viewer of Doctor Who alike, The Doctor Falls is an episode that gives that last part of the speech cause to contradict itself, with reward, the great return of a series that always seems under attack from a section of society that doesn’t know how to handle well made science fiction without denigrating it to the base offence, that somehow by striking a cord with its fans it somehow means it has to be assaulted and confronted on all sides.

Doctor Who: The Doctor Falls. Television Review. full post

(452 words, estimated 1:48 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: World Enough And Time. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, John Simm, Oliver Lansley, Paul Brightwell, Alison Lintott, Nicholas Briggs.

To the coy Mistress, all will come to pass when she meets her former self, till then “Had we but world enough, and time” then perhaps the puzzle and the death of a friend might be more easily dealt with but then nothing is that simple in the world of the two part finale and especially not in the realm of Time and the Doctor.

Doctor Who: World Enough And Time. Television Review. full post

(621 words, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)

Doctor Who, Empress of Mars. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, Anthony Calf, Ferdinand Kingsley, Richard Ashton, Adele Lynch, Glenn Spears, Ian Beatie, Bayo Gbadamosi, Ian Hughes, Lesley Ewen, Ysanne Churchman.

 

The road to Empire, as the American band Eagles once sang, is a bloody stupid waste, yet almost country in Europe has hand in its senselessness and shame and there are a few notable countries around the world that still would find the appetite to bring back what should be a dead and buried black mark around humanity’s history.

Doctor Who, Empress of Mars. Television Review. full post

(517 words, estimated 2:04 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Lie Of The Land. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, Emma Handy, Beatrice Curnew, Stewart Wright, Solomon Israel, Jamie Hill, Rosie Jane.

How easy is it to swallow a lie, to take what you read as the gospel truth and all because it fits in with your narrow view of the world is the truth you seek without having to investigate further. False News has become the word of our times, perhaps the rise in social media has become part of the problem as certain people, certain organisations, have invested their time and energy to promoting The Lie of the Land.

Doctor Who: The Lie Of The Land. Television Review. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: The Pyramid At The End Of The World. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Ronke Adekoluejo, Tim Bentinck, Andrew Byron, Daphne Cheung, Rachel Denning, Tony Gardner, Nigel Hastings, Jamie Hill, Togo Igawa, Eben Young.

The question is, do you give away your freedom to be saved? If you are drowning, if you are there in the water struggling for each breathe and someone offers to save you but at the price of slavery for your family forever, would you take it, knowing that the servitude will be relentless, that the abuse on those you love would be without pity, remorse or justice, would you still ask them to throw a lifebuoy?

Doctor Who: The Pyramid At The End Of The World. Television Review. full post

(544 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Extremis. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Michelle Gomez, Corrado Invernizzi, Francesco Martino, Ronke Adekoluejo, Jennifer Hennessy, Ivanno Jeremiah, Joseph Long, Alana Maria, Laurent Maurel.

 

The truth we seek, for the vast majority of times we find we cannot handle the revelation, that for all our sophistication and 21st Century thinking, we are still creatures often afraid of the dark and superstitious of what the light might bring; that we huddle together to plot the downfall of one because they bring knowledge that might disturb our tranquillity and comfort. In the veritas we seek but in the extreme and revolutionary we become as blind as those who refuse to bear witness.

Doctor Who: Extremis. Television Review. full post

(453 words, estimated 1:49 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Oxygen. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Kieran Bow, Justin Salinger, Lewis McGowan, Mimi Ndiweni, Peter Caulfield, Katie Brayben, Clem So.

All that you need is the air that you breathe…and a superbly written Doctor Who story in which the means of Capitalism are shown for what they truly are, the means of control, supply and demand and when demand for labour is non-existent, the way that the economic and political structure survives is to terminate all who cost too much to be involved.

Doctor Who: Oxygen. Television Review. full post

(447 words, estimated 1:47 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Knock Knock. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, David Suchet, Mariah Gale, Mandeep Dhillon, Colin Ryan, Ben Presley, Alice Hewkin, Bart Sauvek, Sam Benjamin.

Knock Knock. Who’s always there? The tenth series of Doctor Who since its gallant return has been one of tea time horror, it might be going out a couple of hours later than the classic series under the stewardship of Tom Baker but all the hallmarks are there to encourage further the even most unconvinced television viewer that the B.B.C programme has moved Heaven and Earth to reflect both the times we find ourselves in and to generate where possible the image of a time when the Doctor had more than a few ghost stories and haunted houses in which to delve around in.

Doctor Who: Knock Knock. Television Review. full post

(545 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

Doctor Who: Thin Ice. Television Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Pearl Mackie, Matt Lucas, Nicholas Burns, Asiatu Koroma, Peter Singh, Simon Ludders, Tomi May, Austin Taylor, Ellie Shenker, Kishaina Thiruselvan, Badger Skelton.

There is always something reassuringly honest about Doctor Who when it finds itself within the past, a story that explains, even in the smallest detail or nugget of information, how history has been seen across the ages, how the unfolding of time is not that different after all from what we believe, or even how wildly inaccurate our modern day of thinking is and how biased it can be when we only use modern devices instead of books to check our facts.

Doctor Who: Thin Ice. Television Review. full post

(520 words, estimated 2:05 mins reading time)