Who-ular ’14

What I liked about Robot of Sherwood was that it harked back to the Hartnell days of the Doctor popping back to see various historical figures (Marco Polo etc). Not that Nu Who hasn’t gone there before, but this seemed a more explicit nod to Old Who, as did so much of Capaldi’s performance throughout this series. I still wouldn’t rate it a 6, but it was okay.

I’m on the fence about the series as a whole. Apart from the Moon egg and the world forest, I liked the storylines in general. Favourite episode was probably Flatline; I loved the shrunken TARDIS, and the 2-D concept was handled well. I agree that the finale was poor, after the promising start of Dark Water; it felt as if it needed an extra episode to make it work, but that’s so often the case with Nu Who.

Peter Capaldi has taken some getting used to, but he’s an excellent actor and is winning me over. Clara as a character was much improved this series, and her dynamic with Capaldi feels much more satisfying than it had been with Smith (even though I loved his Doctor).

I still feel that the best Nu Who series overall has been 5, though my individual favourite episodes are dotted across all of the series. This was decent, though. Part of the trouble may be that the combination of the 50th special and “An Adventure in Space and Time” last year were a Who high-point, which it’s been hard for series 8 to match.

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