Tag Archives: chris chibnall

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Let’s check out the fifth episode in Series 11 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series called ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’ by Chris Chibnall. In the episode, Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, Bradley Walsh as Graham, Tosin Cole as Ryan and Mandip Gill as Yaz are brought aboard the medical ship called the Tsuranga where they recover from their injuries after being in close proximity to a sonic mine that detonated on an alien junkyard planet. They soon end up dealing with a dangerous alien creature called the Pting – which could be ‘Doctor Who’s equivalent of Stitch from Disney‘s ‘Lilo and Stitch’). The Pting becomes a threat to the Tsuranga ship and those transported aboard it. The episode’s guest cast includes Brett Goldstein as Astos, Lois Chimimba (who worked with Jodie Whittaker in ‘Trust Me’ in 2017) as Mabli, Suzanne Packer as Eve Cicero, Ben Bailey-Smith as Durkas Cicero, and Jack Shalloo (who later did the 2018 Christmas Special of ‘Call the Midwife’) as Yoss. Upon transmission via BBC TV, this episode was met with mixed reception from critics. Do I adhere to those views? 😐 ‘The Tsuranga Conundrum’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘Arachnids in the UK’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

It’s the first day in December 2023 today and we’re on the fourth episode in Series 11 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. It’s time to check out ‘Arachnids in the UK’ by Chris Chibnall, starring Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, Bradley Walsh as Graham, Tosin Cole as Ryan and Mandip Gill as Yaz. In the episode, the Doctor takes her three friends back to Sheffield, where they discover a serious problem occurring in the city, which in the form of giant spiders. Is one of the spiders Shelob from ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’? 😀 There are special guest stars like Chris Noth as Jack Robertson, Tanya Fear as Dr. Jade McIntyre and Sharon D. Clarke as the ghost of Grace O’Brien, Graham’s wife. We’re also introduced to Yaz’s family, including Shobna Gulati as Najia, Yaz’s mum; Ravin J. Ganatra as Hakim, Yaz’s dad; and Bhavnisha Parmar as Sonya, Yaz’s sister. Upon transmission in October 2018, ‘Arachnids in the UK’ received generally positive reviews from critics. Do I consider this a very good ‘Doctor Who’ episode in Series 11? ‘Arachnids in the UK’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘Rosa’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Today’s instalment in the ‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon has us delve into more of our human history. It’s the third episode in Series 11 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series called ‘Rosa’ by Malorie Blackman (who also wrote the Puffin e-short story ‘The Ripple Effect’) and Chris Chibnall. ‘Rosa’ has Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, Bradley Walsh as Graham, Tosin Cole as Ryan and Mandip Gill as Yaz visiting Montgomery, Alabama in 1955, where they meet Vinette Robinson as Rosa Parks. Rosa Parks becomes a significant person in the American civil rights movement during the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. Vinette Robinson has been in ‘Doctor Who’ before, as she was in the new TV series episode ’42’. She’s also been in the ‘Sherlock’ TV series and later in ‘Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker’. There’s also Trevor White (who I’ve heard recently in the ‘Demon Quest’ audio story ‘Starfall’) as James Blake, and there’s Joshua Bowman as Krasko, a time-travelling criminal who wants to stop Rosa Parks’ influence in the American civil rights movement. ‘Rosa’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘The Ghost Monument’

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Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Here we are on the second episode in Series 11 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series, starring Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, Bradley Walsh as Graham O’Brien, Tosin Cole as Ryan Sinclair and Mandip Gill as Yasmin ‘Yaz’ Khan. It’s time for ‘The Ghost Monument’ by Chris Chibnall. In the episode, the Doctor and her friends are accidentally transported to a distant solar system, where they become part of an interplanetary alien rally that crash-lands at their final stop on the hostile planet of Desolation. The Doctor and her friends hope to reach the finish line – the titular ‘ghost monument’, which happens to be the TARDIS – to get back to Earth. There are special guest stars like Susan Lynch as Angstrom, Shaun Dooley (who I would later see in episodes of Series 6 of ‘Grantchester’) as Epzo and Art Malik (who I’ve seen in the final episode of ‘Sherlock’, 2023’s ‘The Little Mermaid’ and ‘True Lies’) as Ilin. There’s also Ian Gelder (who was in the five-part ‘Torchwood’ story (Series 3) called ‘Children of Earth’) as the voice of the Remnants. ‘The Ghost Monument’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’

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Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

And welcome to the Jodie Whittaker/Thirteenth Doctor era of ‘Doctor Who’! 🙂 It’s Chris Chibnall’s turn to be showrunner of ‘Doctor Who’ from 2018 to 2022. He brings in his era of the show by having the main character be played by a woman. This era has divided fan opinion, but is this an era I regard highly compared to others? Let’s start off by checking out the first episode of Series 11 of the new TV series called ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ by Chris Chibnall. Following on from the end of ‘Twice Upon a Time’, Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor crash-lands to Earth and meets up with Bradley Walsh as Graham O’Brien, Tosin Cole as Ryan Sinclair and Mandip Gill as Yasmin ‘Yaz’ Khan. The episode also features Sharon D. Clarke as Grace, Graham’s wife and Ryan’s gran; Samuel Oatley as the alien Stenza warrior called Tzim-Sha (or as the Doctor calls him ‘Tim Shaw’); and there’s Johnny Dixon as Karl. This ‘Doctor Who’ episode received a rating of 10.96 million viewers as well as positive reviews from critics. Does it still hold up well after all these years? ‘The Woman Who Fell to Earth’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

Quick TV Reviews – ‘Talking Doctor Who’ & ‘Doctor Who at 60: A Musical Celebration’

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Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

On the 1st of November 2023, before I went away for my weekend to attend the ‘Scarborough Comic Con’, I saw two items to celebrate 60 years of ‘Doctor Who’. These were originally shown on BBC Four, and I caught up with them on BBC iPlayer. I found these very nice celebrations to check out. 🙂 Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘The Power of Three’

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Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

Let’s check out the fourth ‘Doctor Who’ episode in Series 7 of the new TV series, starring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. This is ‘The Power of Three’, which is the second of two episodes by Chris Chibnall for Series 7 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. The episode features another appearance of Mark Williams as Brian Williams, Rory’s dad, who previously appeared in ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’. There’s the debut of Jemma Redgrave as Kate Stewart, who is the daughter of Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and is now the new leader of U.N.I.T. And there’s special guest star Steven Berkoff (who voiced King Herod in ‘It’s a Boy’) as the alien Shakri of Time Lord legend. This ‘Doctor Who’ episode features the slow invasion of the cubes on planet Earth. Can Amy and Rory balance out their normal lives when travelling with the Doctor whilst also having to contend with the slow invasion of the cubes? ‘The Power of Three’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’

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Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

It’s time for us to check out ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’, the first of two episodes by Chris Chibnall in Series 7 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. This episode is literally about a spaceship with dinosaurs on board which our heroes discover. There’s Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. Our TARDIS trio is joined by Riann Steele as Queen Nefertiti of Egypt and Rupert Graves (who has played DI Lestrade in ‘Sherlock’) as Edwardian game hunter John Riddell. There’s also the introduction of Mark Williams (who played Maxwell Edison in the Big Finish audio story ‘The Eternal Summer’ with Peter Davison and Sarah Sutton) as Brian Williams, Rory’s dad. And there’s David Bradley (who would later play William Hartnell in ‘An Adventure In Space and Time’ and the First Doctor in ‘Twice Upon A Time’, ‘The Power of the Doctor’ and the Big Finish audios of ‘Doctor Who’) as the villainous Solomon. ‘Dinosaurs on a Spaceship’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘Asylum of the Daleks’

Hello everyone! 🙂

Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

And welcome to Series 7 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. Here we are on Series 7 – Part 1, starring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. This is what I would like to label as the Pond Season in Series 7 of the new ‘Doctor Who’ TV series. Series 7 – Part 1 depicts the five final adventures of the Eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory as a TARDIS trio. Will they be a satisfying final set of adventures featuring Eleven, Amy and Rory? We begin the season with ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ by Steven Moffat. This adventure features a variety of Daleks from both the classic TV series and the new TV series versions of ‘Doctor Who’. There’s also the introduction of Jenna-Louise Coleman as Oswin Oswald, whom the Doctor communicates via various intercoms throughout the adventure. Is ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ a satisfying Dalek adventure for me? Did I find it better than ‘Victory of the Daleks’ from Series 5? 😀 ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading

‘Doctor Who’ 60th Anniversary Marathon – ‘The Hungry Earth’/’Cold Blood’

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Welcome to ‘Bradley’s Basement’ blog and I’m Tim Bradley!

I’ve found out that the two-part ‘Doctor Who’ story we’re revisiting today – ‘The Hungry Earth’/’Cold Blood’ by Chris Chibnall – takes place in the year 2020. Keep in mind that the two-part story was shown on BBC TV in May 2010. I’d like to assume that the story takes place in early 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic ever happened. Or it could be that the story takes place in an alternative universe where Covid-19 never happened. 😀 Anyway, let’s check out this two-part story starring Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams, as they visit South Wales in 2020 and we have the return of the Silurians with a redesigned look compared to the classic TV series versions of them. The main Silurians featured in this story include Neve McIntosh as Alaya and Restac, Richard Hope as Malohkeh and Stephen Moore as Eldane. ‘The Hungry Earrth’/’Cold Blood’ can be checked out on DVD, Blu-ray and BBC iPlayer. Continue reading