Doctor Who Season 11 [** Spoilers **]

Whoops; so whether by accident or on purpose - given who was the target of the episode! - if American Amazon users tried to watch Kerblam!, they instead got the next episode (The Witchfinders) days early. The bug is apparently already fixed, but I'm going to go ahead and guess it'll appear on the darker corners of the internet soon enough...

Witchfinders was a really fantastic episode, up until the last 10 minutes. Once again it was a historical episode that had enough strengths in its setting and the characters within, without needing the inevitable alien threat. Season 12 should embrace the 'full historical', especially if they're visiting overtly problematic times.

It was also the first episode that felt like it addressed the reality of the Doctor now being a woman, her authority (and physic paper) collapsing against the most powerful male presence in the area. And as King James, Alan Cumming was dementedly brilliant, chewing the scenery with just the right amount of gusto.

Those last 10 minutes though. Oof. This was the first episode of this season where I felt the monsters were a bit phoned-in, and lacking any inspiration; defaulting to a 'rule the world' was overkill, & the FX of the lead monster kinda looked a bit goofy. RTD era goofy almost.

I think it was both here: the monsters were the real monsters - but so too were the humans The witch-finding material - again like the Rosa Parks episode - did a good job showing the grim reality of those witchhunts within a teatime slot. It was dark stuff already, and like I said the Doctor's gender and super-science was only going to put her in trouble with the rampant paranoia and sexism of the time.

Have wondered sometimes if Dr. Who scripts start with the monster idea, and works backwards; or indeed if the writers room has a rolling list of 'the mundane turned evil' concepts (like killer mud, statues, WiFi etc.), and gets wedged into broader scripts for the purposes of box ticking.

That was such a strange episode; I think I love it, but on the surface there were so many strange, competing elements. A surreal, mature tale of desperation of loss & mourning, mixed in with more boilerplate macabre elements of Who; the material set within the Anti-Zone at odds with the brutally simple and emotional stuff in both versions of the houses. And then there was that denouement, itself tying in with the broader themes - albeit featuring a frog.

The technobabble was a definite narrative sore point: I'd have preferred the Doc to just work out the broad motivations of this solitract(sp) creature on her own, instead of the long info-dump we got by way of an explanation. Though a creature from before time NOT being evil made a nice change of pace.

Oh and the script definitely let the Dad get away with pretty malevolent, manipulative behaviour against his own daughter. Other than that though, another really strong episode.

As luck(!) would have it, I chose to watch the episode on the anniversary of my own mother's passing, with my Dad not that long gone too: wasn't expecting such a sad story, all the material around Graham & Hanne's father hitting me like a freight train; so understandably enough, that part of the story resonated with me more than flesh eating moths.

Also, we finally got the 'grandad' pay off! And credit where it was due, it felt more earned than I feared it might. I thought Bradley Walsh's acting was stronger in other episodes tbh, but Ryan finally saying it felt right.

For all intents and purposes this has felt like a reboot; as RayCun says they had to play this series very carefully, given the obvious tightrope that Whittaker's doctor had to walk in winning over the sceptics and cautious alike.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little sceptical myself over Whittaker: clearly this was uncharted territory in terms of what constituted the 'template' of the Doctor, and wasn't 100% convinced she could carry this. But IMO she nailed it - after Capaldi's grumpy-grandad routine, ANY new Doctor was going to grate.

It was quite noteworthy that it wasn't until episode 8 they chose to make the Doctor's gender an issue within the plot (when King James refused to acknowledge her authority by dint of her being a woman). Felt like a deliberate decision to just let the character bed in a little before reminding the audience that this Doctor had a potential narrative crutch.

Yeah as finales go that was a bit underwhelming really; I was happy enough the season didn't contain any clear arcs until now, though had just assumed the final two episodes would form some broad two-part capper, events suitably ramped up to a climax. I didn't buy into Graham's sudden urge for vengeance either; and while I've enjoyed Bradley Walsh's performance otherwise, his matter-of-fact pronouncements of murderous intent didn't land.

Suppose technically not the last episode of the season given the New Years one is only a couple of weeks away, so hopefully that'll be something a bit more intriguing. The decision to have no returning villains was brave & initially thought it a smart decision - but the season definitely needed something, or someone to focus the stories a little sharper.

Still, in the spirit of the season getting back to basics and echoing past stylings of the Classic Era, it was heartening to watch an episode set within a quarry Very old-school!

I also think the FX have been better this season than other years: still a lot of tarted-up 'bottle' episodes, but the CGI and use of effects have been smart and good-for-TV, coupled with the epic location shooting that added to the scale and sweep (such as with The Ghost Monument, or the story set in India).