Review – Doctor Who: 'The Bells of Saint John'
Starring: Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman.
Writer: Steven Moffat.
Director: Colm McCarthy.
The Eleventh Doctor has had quite a series of adventures since the beginning of Doctor Who’s seventh series. He has seen the full strength of the Dalek Empire restored and then seen them forget everything about him, he’s dealt with dinosaurs on a spaceship, he’s been to the Old West, he’s stopped an invasion of Earth. He has lost his two closest friends, the Ponds, to Weeping Angels in New York. He’s stumbled across the mystery of Clara Oswin Oswald, the girl who seems to appear wherever he goes at this rate. This is a mystery that needs solving.
With Doctor Who having been off our screens since the excellent Christmas special The Snowmen, it’s good to say that the wait is finally over. Eight new episodes are now kicking off, all to lead us up to the show’s historic 50th anniversary, and the first of these episodes has just finished.
So then. The Bells of Saint John.
WARNING: There may be slight spoilers.
First things first, this is obviously a very significant episode, as this is the one that fully introduces us to the ever-mysterious Clara Oswald, the newest companion of the Doctor, as portrayed by Jenna-Louise Coleman. Of course, we’ve already met two rather different incarnations of Clara, the computer genius version of her who we first saw in Asylum of the Daleks (to an…unfortunate end) and the Victorian nanny version of her who turned up in The Snowmen (to an…unfortunate end). With Clara, the “impossible girl”, being one of the driving plot threads behind this series, it’s time to meet her third incarnation.
This version of Clara is quite an average modern girl, with no computer skills whatsoever, working as a governess in a similar fashion to her Victorian counterpart, but with a very adventurous spirit nonetheless. She has a book of ‘101 Places to Go’, and the feistiness of her prior appearances shows through very well. It’s an interesting matter that someone like her is simply looking after a house.
All is not well in London, however, as is par for the course. The episode opens with an ominous video that almost seems to be directed at the viewer, warning them that something is in the Wi-Fi, causing people to seemingly drop dead apropos of nothing in the middle of their everyday lives. There is a shadowy and ruthless organisation behind the scenes, working for some mysterious higher power. Meanwhile, the Doctor is nowhere to be seen, having retreated to a monastery in 1207 on the hunt for clues to Clara’s identity. A chance phone-call to the TARDIS puts the Doctor and Clara in contact, and the Doctor’s excitement instantly explodes. But Clara is in danger…
All in all, an engaging start to what proves to be a very engaging episode. Interestingly enough for a show where some variation on “It’s always London that gets invaded” is a common joke, it’s been quite some time since we had a proper episode focused in London, and The Bells of Saint John pulls it off beautifully. Some of London’s landmarks are used incredibly well, and the episode is bright and picturesque as a result. In the run-up to this episode, writer Steven Moffat promised it would be something of an “urban-thriller”-type adventure, and it very much is that, with typically-intense “mash the keyboard as fast as possible” hacking scenes, a crashing plane, menacingly efficient antagonists, and even a high-speed motorbike chase (for those who haven’t seen the episode yet, there’s a particular scene involving said motorbike which is awesome to the point of audacity. It’s incredible).
Coleman is witty and fast-talking, more than a match for the Doctor, bringing a confident, self-assured feel to the show that makes the viewer certain that Clara is ready for the adventures that will come.
She’s clever, quick, and funny (and more than a little bit sexy). Meanwhile, Smith is as entertaining to watch as ever, and is particularly funny in this episode, whether it be his inadvertent invention of the quadricycle or his complete nonchalance at acting as an IT consultant while talking over a phone that doesn’t even work. As is the norm for the Eleventh Doctor, he balances this out with a helping dose of heroics and awesomeness (the moment where Eleven first saves Clara from the villains, responding by messaging them with “UNDER MY PROTECTION” made me cheer a little inside). He continues to make the Doctor his own as ever, and he plays excellently against Coleman, as in his last two outings with her.
The villains are an amusing bunch in this one. 
Our main antagonist, Miss Kizlet, is a consummately-professional villain worthy of a Bond film (as befitting the urban-thriller stylings of the episode), casually talking about offing her underlings and adjusting their very emotions for her own amusement. The remainder of the villains that we actually see are, of course, her henchmen, and are as humorously-inept as one would expect. That said, all is not quite as it seems with this villainous organisation, and there is somebody else pulling the strings…
All things told, The Bells of Saint John is a light series opener. It’s not very serious, it’s largely silly and light-hearted, and it’s extremely fun to watch, with excellent cinematography and pacing (in particular, the sequence where the TARDIS transitions into the plane and back to London is fantastically well done), great music as ever from Murray Gold (the newest rendition of the venerable Doctor Who theme, in particular, is very cool), great lines being tossed around left right and centre, and the dangling of a few more plot points and mysteries that are yet to be resolved. 
It looks great throughout, with the city used well, the effects on the Spoonhead enemies being creepy and well-done, and the new TARDIS interior proving as gorgeous as ever. It’s a rather low-key episode, there’s no grandiose threat to all of existence, but it lets us get to see Clara and the Doctor meet under surprisingly non-lethal circumstances for once, quite a treat.
It gets two thumbs up from me, and all I can say is roll on next Saturday for “The Rings of Akhaten”.
BUT we’re not done yet so read on, to see some of Ryans ideas as to what may be coming next…
Proper Rating: A solid 8.5/10.
What Comes Next?
But we’re not done yet. This is a big year for Doctor Who, of course, with everything leading up to the 50th anniversary special this November. With that in mind, why don’t we have a look at what to expect in the run-up and indeed, the Anniversary Special itself?
ANOTHER WARNING: This time there will definitely be spoilers.
From the Rest of Series 7…:
The upcoming episodes of Series 7 all look very intriguing and exciting, and it’ll no doubt be excellent to see the Doctor and Clara take on their next adventures. There’s going to be a massive alien planet in The Rings of Akhaten, our first New Series encounter with the Ice Warriors in Cold War, a spooky ghost story in Hide, a salvage crew attempting to scrap the TARDIS in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, a return of the ever-loved trio of Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax alongside Diana Rigg in the 19th century in The Crimson Horror, a re-imagined version of the Cybermen written by the fantastic Neil Gaiman in Nightmare in Silver, and our mysterious finale, which is so mysterious that it doesn’t even have a title yet, but is known to feature a second return of the trio, along with the ever-entertaining River Song.
As well as all of that, it seems that we have our recurring villain of the series: None other than the Great Intelligence. 
After his showing in The Snowmen and now his return in The Bells of Saint John, not to mention that his actor, Richard E. Grant, is already confirmed to appear in the finale, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Intelligence is the key villain behind this series. Personally, I’d be quite overjoyed if that was the case. The Great Intelligence is one of my favourite villains of Doctor Who, whether in his appearances during the Second Doctor’s run or his appearances in the new series, and seeing all of the little nods that Moffat has put in to his past in the show is a treat.
Aside from the above, we can perhaps begin to start piecing together what we can expect from the remainder. There will certainly be lead-ups to the Anniversary Special, although they will likely be very subtle. The Clara mystery is no doubt going to play a constant part in each episode, and the resolution of that will be extremely interesting. Most intriguing, however, is the reveal by Steven Moffat that the Doctor’s “greatest secret will be revealed”. There is any number of things that this could be, knowing the Doctor, but key among them to the fans is, no doubt, the Doctor’s name. I’ve seen all sorts of takes on what could happen in the scenario that this proves true, and I’m going to put forward my take on that particular subject:
Put down your pitchforks and torches, they’re not going to reveal the Doctor’s name. Not in a million years. However, if the name proves key to things, I imagine we may find out why, exactly, it’s so important that his name stay secret.
Aside from this, one key thread that has not yet been wound up is the cryptic ending to Series 6, the “fields of Trenzalore and the fall of the Eleventh”. 
This, too, is something Moffat has said will be addressed, showing us “the battle of the Doctor’s future that lead to the attempts on his life in the past”. This is something that I am hugely excited to see, as this seems to indicate that we will see the circumstances that lead to the formation of the Silence. Will the Doctor be pushed to his oh-so-extreme limits? It seems rather like it.
…And Beyond:
And then we come to it. The big one. The 50th Anniversary Special, which begins filming this month. We have been tantalised with rumours and hints and all sorts of hearsay, and only now are details starting to filter through.
The general buzz among many fans has tended to be that the Anniversary will be one of those most-loved occasions, a multi-Doctor episode. In fairness, this sort of thing has precedent. The show’s 10th anniversary was marked by The Three Doctors, featuring William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee on-screen together. The 20th was marked by The Five Doctors, featuring Troughton and Pertwee along with Peter Davison (the First Doctor was played here by Richard Hurndall following Hartnell’s death, whilst Tom Baker was represented only by clips from an unaired episode). 
The Two Doctors, featuring Colin Baker and Troughton, didn’t have any particular anniversary to mark, but was a great episode all the same. The 30th anniversary was marked by the admittedly-not-excellent episode Dimensions in Time, which, while generally being regarded as non-canon, is still a multi-Doctor episode. Series 4 of the New Series featured the mini-episode Time Crash, briefly featuring a meeting between David Tennant and Davison.
With everything above taken into account, doing a multi-Doctor episode seemed like the obvious thing to do. It would be a wonderful way of celebrating 50 years of the show, by showing past Doctors on-screen again and seeing them play off each other. However, interview after interview with the actors who have played the role, as well as the actors who have played companions, turned up nothing, only general refrains of “I’ve heard nothing”. It seemed as if the show was going down a different route.
…Then, however, the news broke just before The Bells of Saint John came on, that the Tenth Doctor and first companion Rose, aka David Tennant and Billie Piper, would be returning for the 50th anniversary special. The announcement also confirmed that John Hurt would have a role in the special. And thus the floodgates opened.
After that confirmation, now all sorts of things can happen. What will the adventure be? Who could the main villain be? After all, there are several other events going on to celebrate the 50th anniversary. Mark Gatiss’ docudrama, “An Adventure in Space and Time”, will premier, featuring already-announced casting of David Bradley as the First Doctor/William Hartnell and Reece Shearsmith as the Second Doctor/Patrick Troughton.
Meanwhile, Big Finish are producing their huge-scale audio drama “The Light At The End”, featuring Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, and Paul McGann, all playing their respective incarnations of the Doctor alongside their companions. Big things are clearly in the works, and with the Anniversary Special itself being broadcast in 3D and receiving a cinema release, it could be the biggest of them all. Could The Eleven Doctors be possible? Maybe, maybe not. But I don’t doubt that, no matter what they do, it will be worthy of the occasion.
