Series 9 (2015) Review

"The time has come", the fan said, "to talk of other things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, cabbages and kings!"

Series 9 has officially come to a close and it's time to look back on this year of Doctor Who and see where it went right and where it went wrong in my original "write without any control" style that I started out with on July 25th, 2013. 

If you remember, I had some huge issues with Series 8. The characters were unlikable, the stories were factory-produced and I felt despair to the point where I nearly gave up on the new series. 

But lo! and behold, Doctor Who came back as it always does. This season started off with magnificiently, completely reinventing the Twelfth Doctor as a carefree rock star with Missy more like a minor nuisance if anything. And though the Daleks remain as utterly useless as they have been since Victory Of The Daleks, Davros got some really nice character development, a surprise especially since the Moffat era doesn't really do that for villains. 

Since the more "emotional" story arc of the last season was done and dusted, we were free to move forward and oh boy, forward we went. The Doctor and Clara were back to being the pals they should've been all along(at least they weren't biting each others' heads off), Missy was no longer offering Cyberarmies to any passerby and the humor was lighthearted and hilariously self-referential. The whole scene in medieval England was electrifying. Heck, even Davros got a few oneliners later on. Davros! 

For the next few episodes, I had a lot of fun. The series was unabashedly reveling in breaking the fourth wall all the time, which helped make the Twelfth Doctor a lot more fun and off-the-wall. I also liked the addition of glowing roundels in the TARDIS console room, which solved the blandness problem I had with it earlier.

Unfortunately, we ran into Ashildr. Well, Me. I liked Ashildr. But Me is a whole other story.

The thing is, Me is not likable. They do explain how she's become jaded over time, but then they forget it in Face The Raven and Hell Bent, so I'm not really sure what her motivations are or what the point of the character even is anymore. She's just a really irritating immortal and... wait, why the heck is she immortal? Seriously, you're telling me that every other immortal in the universe has died, but someone who's kept alive by a MACHINE is not? 

Suuuure, yes, that Mire device suuure lasted for billions and billions of years to the end of everything. Right-o.

Fortunately, after Clara gets killed off in a really silly fashion by a bird, we enter... Heaven Sent. And if the conclusion to that wonderful, imaginative, most innovative and exquisite story had had any effort put into it, this season would've ranked so much higher.

But no. Instead, we got Hell Bent, a story that tries to do so much, yet seems so half-hearted in all of them. Eh, we have this Hybrid story that means really nothing and Clara's gonna die, but she's really not and it all means something, but really doesn't and I care, but I really don't...

So yeah, that was Series 9. It was a big step upwards after the colossal vortex of boredom that was Series 8 and had what could be my favourite episode of the new series in it, proving that Moffat's magic is still in there somewhere and can't be written off... however, the story arc is the lamest yet, it lacks proper depth and doesn't show enough respect for colossal things like Gallifrey and the Time Lords, instead shunning them for Clara, for the Doctor's sickening obsession of her. Yeah, riveting. Even if their whole melodrama is intentional, it's still melodrama and not nearly as interesting or important as what we could've had with the reunion of the Doctor and Gallifrey proper.

But wait... what about the Christmas special? Well, I thought it was nice. I'm glad it made sure we weren't going to see mopey Series 8 Twelve again and the send-off to River's character was spectacular. It was a fun episode and I am so hyped for Series 10 without all baggage.