I was quite startled and saddened by the enormous backlash against Jodie's first season, as I thought it was the deepest breath of fresh air the series had had in years. In particular, everything was new. There was no recycling of tired old monsters that had been used a zillion times in the past, almost no gratuitous backward referencing, and plenty of new enemies and guest characters. Yeeeesssss, that's exactly what I felt. Really enjoyed that first series; shame it all went wrong after that. (Disagree about the companions, though - I love the show most with a full TARDIS crew!) And then, they brought bloody TENNANT back! I'm so glad I'm not the only person who had that reaction...

I don't think the show has gotten worse or better since it's revival. every series has a couple of really naff episodes, a couple of absolute awesome episodes and a then all the rest with are generally positive. Just a pity spoilers spoiled the final with Master and First doc returning. would have been so good had we not known in advance. The Eaters of Light was the flop of the series for me this time, wasn't too keen on the monk trilogy either but it was ok. And we might get a really good Christmas special this time, i find they're usually a bit rubbish. bring back 7

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived started off with a "Vikings vs. Robots" story, with The Doctor helping a small band of warriors defend their village Magnificent Seven-style. The latter was set centuries later and involved a Highwayman called "The Knightmare" (hmm....sounds familiar), I hope Tim Child got his cheque in the post! When you've stolen another bloke's face as the Twelfth Doctor has, stealing another cult TV show's wordplay isn't much of a stretch. Is this not the very image of a plagiarist caught in the act, guilt written all over 'his' face?Doctor Who Knightmare.jpgI trust that Hugo Myatt will be making his feelings known to Peter Davison at H-Con this weekend. [image: Doctor Who Knightmare.jpg]

I actually quite liked this series... to a point. The main problem I had with this series was the patchy writing. A good few of the episodes were written for a generic Doctor á la 8 through to 11 - someone sprightly, energetic or physically at his peak. 12 is none of those things - he's a brooding, grizzled "survivor" Doctor with a grumpy demeanour, but a heart in the middle of all of it (which we didn't get to see much of). The episodes actually written with Capaldi's Doctor in mind were much better, whereas other ones, such as Into the Dalek and Time Heist, would have suited Smith or Tennant. Listen, by contract, was a perfect episode for Capaldi. I didn't like Dark Water - imagine a child whose parent has just died and been cremated watching that! - but Death in Heaven picked it up a little for me, and the absence-of-Gallifrey rage was the moment that I thought, "ah, there you are, Doctor." All in all, an OK ending to a series, although... I want to get Clara back, somehow; even though both she and the Doctor have lied to each other, they're doing so (for the first time, I notice) in order not to hurt each other's feelings, or betray their own personal disappointment. Clara came into her own this series - although stifled by Danny Pink, who I found really annoying by the end - I'd like to see her as an independent companion again. I know she'll be back by Christmas, so it'll be interesting to see in what capacity. All in all, a bit of a muddled series, held up (just) by good performances in terms of the acting, but marred by a mixed bag of writing. My favourite episodes, in fact, were Robot of Sherwood and In The Forest of the Night - the more light-hearted ones - as, frankly, they were more fun. It is, after all, a children's show, and a darker Doctor doesn't have to mean the absence of jokes at all!

If Atlantis had the potential to get better - and talk of an Argonauts-based third series does sound intriguing - then it's a shame it was axed the way it was. When all's said and done, people who had more to give were put out of work (work which, in some cases, they utterly adored). But that's television. Like Knightmare teams, not all can survive and not all is fair. There are some interesting views shared in this Guardian article. Personally, Atlantis lost me after Series 1 and I won't miss it. I took to calling it Craplantis, in fact. If they had taken more time over the preproduction, instead of rushing to fill the vacuum left by Merlin, they might have created something with more lasting appeal, especially to those in the audience who are particularly attuned to the richness of the original source material. Can film and programme makers take liberties with Greek mythology? Yes, but not too many. And there has to be adequate compensation: in characterisation, in humour, in special effects and/or in action. For me, there wasn't. I recommend a similar Fantasy/Mythology series called Olympus (Wednesday's 10pm on Spike). It's like a cross between "Game of Thrones" and the "300" movies, it's worth checking out! If you've been keeping an eye on Knightmare.com, you'll know that I wrote an article about Olympus a month ago.

Neil Gaiman's cyberman story was horrid. Also just irritates me the Moff and re-written the history of the Doctor. For 50 years fans assumed he stole the Tardis and grew old... nope, he was told which one and was already an old man (in appearance) Moff also suffers from writers block almost every episode, too many time-loops and re-set buttons popping up all the time, and all his female character and written exactly the same, and they all have to be 'extra special' Thing is the Moff was never a fan of the show, which is part the problem. I also think it's wrong for him to have complete creative control over the 50th. Matt Smith has been one of the favourites, it's just a pity he had to deal with one of the shows worse show runners.

A few scattered thoughts: DOAS was clearly written with small boys in mind - dinosaurs, space travel, lots of action, silliness, explosions, pantomime villain... but I loved it. Made me laugh. And Mitchell and Webb... fantastic touch. The Doctor didn't give a real reason as to why he didn't just go back and collect Amy and Rory from the past. He threw out some line and then moved on. He's got a time machine, but it seems as if the writers just create endless "fixed event in time" scenarios when they want to stop something happening. They're not dead! Well, they are now, but they lived to an old age in the past. Everyone's saying they're dead, but they're not! This sort of thing shouldn't matter to a man who can travel through space and time... surely if he travels to the far future, everyone he knows is dead? He never comments on that, does he? Jenna Louise Coleman - very good. Oswyn - very good. Will she play the same character in the Christmas special? I doubt it, as she's really a Dalek. Who knows? Freema Agyeman and Karen Gillan both played incidental characters before becoming companions, so I don't see why not. I knew all along what would happen to Amy and Rory. From the moment I knew Weeping Angels were in the episode, I knew exactly what was going to be their fate. It was completely obvious. That's not to say that it wasn't pulled off well though, it was... and when Rory said he was going to jump off the tower, I immediately thought, "oh, shit". What happened to the Technicolour Daleks? I know a lot of people didn't like them, but if you're going to change the entire Dalek race, at least stay with what you've got; reintroducing older Dalek models is one thing, but using CGI to create A HUGE CHAMBER PACKED WITH ORIGINAL-STYLE DALEKS (with about two red ones in the back row) is a retcon without a retcon. All in all, I loved the first half of the series; I think it's great stuff. I've picked on a few things here which are details stupidly small enough for someone like me to notice. But it was a much better series than 6 was. And I'm looking forward to the rest.

This is more like it. After the hit-and-miss "Let's Kill Hitler", "Night Terrors" was much better in comparison. Mark Gatiss is one of my favourite DW writers, who's penned some classic adventures. There's no confusing twists/arc's, just excellent one-off storys reminiscent of Classic-Who. The fact that all of his episodes to date have been earthbound, show's that he's a fan of the Pertwee era. He once again proved that to make great Who, you just need an excellent story & a superb cast to do it justice. The Peg Dolls were a mixture of the Vashta Nerada (Series 4), the Gas Mask kid (Series 1) and The Flood (Waters of Mars). Their appearance was equally similar to the Clockwork Robots from "The Girl in the Fireplace" (Series 2). They may have not been original, but that didn't stop them from being scary. There was also solid performances all round, particularly Jamie Oram as George. Matt Smith was at his usual crazy best, like the Seventh Doctor he just keeps on evolving with each passing series.

It's taken me a week to mull this episode over, I liked it but it had it's problems. There was Action, Comedy, Drama, Hollywood-style CGI, intricate plots, regenerations (plenty of), timey-wimey stuff and Terminator 2 rip offs. In short, there was too much going on and it would have worked better as a two-parter. They could have spent half hour establishing the Mels character more and then ended part 1 with the River reveal. Instead we had it in the first 15 minutes, if you had missed "A Good Man goes to War" then you would have been totally confused. Which is what you get when you make a DW series too arc-heavy. Adolf Hitler should really have been left out altogether, apart from some funny scenes he didn't do anything for the story. Also the lack of he and Zimmerman having thick german accents was a bit annoying too. It wasn't all bad though, "Let's Kill Hitler" had some of the best special effects in DW history. The X-Men & T-2 inspired robot transformation scenes were visually stunning. The greatest peformances came from Matt and Alex Kingston, her portrayal of River as a super confident assasin was superb. Matt Smith gave his 100% as usual. The scene where the TARDIS showed him images of his previous companions, was one for the NuWho fans only. Pity they didn't show any of the Classic companions. Overall it was an enjoyable fast-paced adventure, but there was so much happening that it felt bloated. Series 6 Part 1 opened with the excellent "The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon", sadly LKH didn't live up to that. Bring back the good old-fashioned storytelling of Classic Who, with no series arcs please.

Nicest, oddly enough, was Jeremy Paxman. He's a really shy guy in real life and I suspect his TV persona is a front!

Well, Steven Moffatt promised us something epic and he was true to his word. I couldn't agree more. I know I'm not as good as giving in-depth reviews of the DW episodes, but when I watched this on iPlayer a couple of days ago I was well and truly impressed. The confusing plots of the first few series' episodes were completely forgotten as we were all treated to a delightful layered story where as soon as one exciting plotline had been solved, another one immediately took its place. And it has left me completely looking forward to the second half of the series when it reutrns in the autumn. I would actually go as far to say that this genuinely was the best episode of Doctor Who I've seen since Blink.

Yes! Thanks for sharing this, HStorm.

I generally refuse to review the Christmas 'specials' on a point of principle i.e. the principle that they're lazy attempts to cash in on the hype of the revival. But seeing you asked... I was afraid when I heard the title that this would be one of the cheapest, most cliched Xmas episode ideas in television, where someone bitter and miserly is turned into someone nice by someone who takes inspiration from the works of Charles Dickens. "Spare me!" I was thinking. "Every TV series in the western world has pulled that stunt!" (And yes, I do remember that I once wrote a KM fanfic that pulled the same stunt. I'm perfectly prepared to admit in hindsight that Lord Fear's Christmas Carol was rubbish, and for precisely that reason.) In the event, this wasn't too bad, because at least it avoided using the standard formula of three frauds dressing up as ghosts and visiting the miser through the night. It was a shame that it strayed towards it with the scene where Amy's hologram confronts the eldery Sardick, but it was nothing vomitously bad. In fact, the plot was full of ideas of its own, although I thought the idea of flying sea creatures interspersed with footage of an opera singer from Wales was one of the oldest jokes you could hope to avoid. And 'Kazran Sardick' as a play-on-words was a bit crude; "Kazran's-a-dick!" in case you missed it. I always enjoy the rebooted series' knack for subtle emotional guidance. Performances were good, except Katherine Jenkins. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting her pouting melodramatics were bad, but I hear that Letitia Dean dropped by during filming to suggest she rein it in a bit... In fact, I do very much like Jenkins, and she has some potential as an actress, but she clearly wasn't ready for this. She was only crowbarred in because she's a current pop-culture icon (who's happy to wear low-cut dresses of course), which in the long term is not a very wise selection criterion. Casting a big name in a guest role just for the sake of it can seriously date the story they appear in - see the hopeless miscasting of Beryl Reid in Earthshock in 1982. I fear that in a few years, A Christmas Carol will become most recognisable for a then-popular opera singer playing a role she wasn't ready for, and people will think, "Geeez, that is so 2010!" But even so, A Christmas Carol is about the best of the Christmas 'specials'. That's not saying a lot, and in truth, it rarely rises above mediocrity - the twist of having two incarnations of Sardick meeting each other was the high spot - but given that Dr Who at Christmas has given us such hideous, under-cooked trash as The Christmas Invasion and The Runaway Bride, I suppose I should just be grateful for mediocre. Certainly this and The Next Doctor were far stronger than previous Xmas efforts. As for the trailer, the series is starting to make a little too much of River Song for my liking. She's amusing, but is she really that much of a crowd-hook? On the other hand, an apparent Western looks like a nice change of scene for the series, and I've always thought that The Gunfighters was one of the most criminally-underrated stories of the Hartnell era, so it could also make a nice bit of nostalgia.

Well, it is good to get some interest at the very least. Tis a fine idea, and one I hope sees the light of day

For anyone who speaks French well enough to follow it, here are some people playing the board game of Le Chevalier du Labyrinthe: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsU-RtK-Tx8 There is a brief mention of Knightmare just after the 2 minute mark when they're explaining the show's origins, but I'm not sure if they make any comments about it!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Knightmare/9747116549 Is that Arthur Wells of KMVR fame who has liked the most recent post?

This is good advice. Also Chimes of Midnight and Natural History of Fear would be good choices.

X Factor's Storm Lee also reminds me a little of Pickle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cl_IA3oYqi8

I remember that show! It kinda freaked me out somehow, ha ha. Wasn't there a coat hanger called hangle or something? And this talking turnip that couldn't actually talk properly? I enjoyed it either way

Hi all long time no post been far too busy Challenge has had a revamp and now is available to more people with the fact there are only a couple of ITV regions to go through analogue switch off so maybe we might encourage challenge through facebook,posts lets flood them ha ha to consider rights to knightmare to get repeats i posted on the other day and well 1 person within hours said like oh well we can but try good old crystal maze is getting reruns again yippeee