‘Doctor Who’: ‘The Girl Who Waited’ review
One of the countless great things about Doctor Who is the way an episode can change in a heartbeat, ending up a million miles away from where it started.
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One of the countless great things about Doctor Who is the way an episode can change in a heartbeat, ending up a million miles away from where it started.
‘This is a good idea with bad possibilities,’ one of the principal characters in BBC Three’s new pre-apocalyptic drama The Fades announces at the beginning of this opening episode, and it’s a fair summing up.
Like a chronic drunk stumbling through the streets after kicking-out time, Miracle Day has tripped over its own feet and staggered under its own weight so many times that its final collapse into a heap seemed inevitable.
If the opening instalment of this likeable adaptation of Denise Mina’s novel overdid the ‘80s retro and the Raintown-esque Glaswegian backdrops, the concluding part matches the wistful nostalgia with dark good humour and a seedy, side-street splendour.
The finale finally flashes across our screens, with flailing bodies, fiery stand-offs and fury from the deep. Miracle Day goes out in a remarkable style that only Torchwood could possibly deliver.
Tom MacRae, writer of the thoroughly enjoyable ‘Rise of the Cybermen’/‘Age of Steel’ two-parter from 2006, returns to Doctor Who with a tale of very different robots and parallel worlds.
Written by that practised purveyor of petrifaction, Mark Gatiss, ‘Night Terrors’ sees the Doctor, Amy and Rory summoned across the stars by an eight year old boy named George (Jamie Oram), who is terrified of… well, just about everything.
Appropriate Adult is very far from being light and formulaic, and makes for discomfiting viewing – as it should.
‘So… why the hell…? Bollocks. Start again,’ Gwen stutters at the beginning of ‘End of the Road’, and oh, how we wish that we could.
Thankfully, unlike the re-opener, this week’s Doctor Who can be safely and fully discussed without fear of inadvertently revealing a spoiler or twelve.