Is there anything you’re working on at the minute you’d like to tell us a little bit about? Please e-mail me for more information. Hard Sun. It would probably be fairly long on scares, with perhaps a more acute sense of the wonders of space. Tueur d'État. Arguably, Chris Chibnall’s era of Doctor Who is much more engaged with faith and spirituality than the show ever has been before – how do you think it compares to The Rings of Akhaten in that sense? Of the five episodes of the first half of the seventh season, two come on again and again (Asylum of the Daleks and, in spite of considerable flaws in its plot logic, The Angels Take Manhattan).

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In your book, you’ve written a lot about The Rings of Akhaten’s relationship with ideas of faith and spirituality. I think some of it is a continuation of trends from the Moffat era. In Hide, there are suggestions that Clara is a temporally complex being. (Including one connection to the second series of Luther I was surprised no-one had made before). Davies was at times very influenced by New Atheism, and there’s a real softening of that through Moffat and then Chibnall. You can find the first part of our interview – in which we discussed the Steven Moffat era, the exclusive material from The Rings of Akhaten director Farren Blackburn that appears in William’s book, and more – here. Intriguing! I imagine Neil Cross’s Doctor Who would have some of the neo-Kneale edge there is in some of Gatiss’ work. Whistle and I'll Come to You. There’s a lovely young psychic (Emma Grayling, played by Jessica Raine). Of the classic series, the Sylvester McCoy years are probably my favourite. Neil Cross has to come up with an explanation of why the house is haunted, and what the Doctor and Clara have to do with it. With the build up that Neil Cross and Jamie Payne put forward, the Doctor’s explanation comes almost as a disappointment — but not completely. Director Jamie Payne, who I believe makes his debut on the series, ably spooks out the audience with some great camerawork.

What does a properly post-Akhaten episode look like? There’s this big haunted house. What do you think the Neil Cross era of Doctor Who might’ve looked like? Of the guest writers of the first two-and-a-half seasons of Matt Smith’s era of the program, most are good, but only Neil Gaiman really stands out. Keep your fingers crossed that this will continue for the coming weeks. Telly Today: from a chihuahua called Bean to a potentially cancerous polyp, Star names revealed for second series of CBBC’s Celebrity Supply Teacher, Ellie Flynn looks into Coercive control for BBC Three, Coronation Street recasts Summer Spellman, Loose Women viewer reveals show saved her life, This week in River City Poppy’s having a bad day and Kelly is still being tormented in Pobol y Cwm.

But this is pure speculation, really. You can change your mind and change your consent choices at any time by deleting your cookies from your browser. Click agree to consent to the use of this technology. David Tennant parle de l’épisode anniversaire de Doctor Who et Neil Cross confirme son retour pour la saison 8 de la série.. Alex Moreland is a freelance writer and television critic; you can follow him on Twitter here, or check out his website here. I think the big one is astronomy; all his shows draw on images of outer space to one degree or another. © Copyright 2020. I feel very lucky to be releasing the book now, because there’s a really interesting conversation developing about these topics. There’s a whole bunch of stuff I want to do. Elizabeth Sandifer is a touchstone for my writing; I’ve really been enjoying Dalek Eruditorum, and I look forward to her Sylvester McCoy book. Cross told Stuff: “I am going back. The more disturbing reason could be because the series producers have gotten a little complacent and are settling for ‘good enough’ and not achieving those ‘out-of-the-park home runs.’. He and Moffat have clearly worked together closely, as he does as much to further Clara’s mystery as Moffat himself. What’s going on? It Takes You Away is an astonishing piece of Doctor Who, and my favourite of the Whittaker years so far. His characters are always talking about stars, galaxies, and black holes, and the smallness of humanity in the face of that. Way back when I was even more geeky than I am now (and, believe you and me, that’s saying a lot), I religiously rated Doctor Who stories according to a movie critic’s four-star rating system. Clara Oswald is a fictional character created by Steven Moffat and portrayed by Jenna Coleman in the long-running British science fiction television series It’s an energetic story well told, and it pushes the season arc forward nicely.

I also really like Knives Out, Little Women, and I finally caught up with Snowpiercer, which is just extraordinary. Both episodes featured Matt Smith as the Doctor and Jenna Louise Coleman as Clara.

It’s the latest in the Black Archive series published by Obverse Books; each book takes an in-depth look at a different episode of Doctor Who. One of my favourite things about The Rings of Akhaten is that it starts off big, with this whole planet of weird aliens, and then goes small; most of the runtime is spent with just Clara, Merry, and the Doctor.