Deep Breath

This episode has a storyline where our newly regenerated Doctor (Peter Capaldi) arrives in Victorian England having brought with him a giant dinosaur. The TARDIS was in fact stuck in the dinosaur's throat! The Doctor and Clara then meet up with the Doctor's friends the 'Paternoster Gang'. Clara and the Doctor both struggle with his new and as yet unresolved transformation. Meanwhile, there is a spate of 'spontaneous combustions' which the Doctor and his friends seek to investigate. There is also a half faced man lurking around.

Capaldi is impressive in his full debut with excellent acting and personality on show. Moffatt's writing of many of the scenes based around introducing Capaldi's characterisation is extremely well executed. Judged purely for the introduction of the new Doctor this episode is incredibly good. It has a strong script for Capaldi which he exploits fully. It is funny, references the show's history and has intelligent and thoughtful dialogue based around the Doctor struggling with regeneration and starting to establish his personality.

The story itself if you take out the new Doctor introduction part of the plot is quite fun and entertaining at times but has issues which spoil it for me:

Firstly the giant dinosaur was an issue for me. Why did Moffatt have to make it a GIANT dinosaur?! It is about 8 or 10 times the size of known Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils if you measure it against the Houses of Parliament! It is thereby discarding all we know in science about dinosaurs purely to add spectacle. It would have worked MUCH better with a regular sized dinosaur biting rather than swallowing the TARDIS. That would have been clearly far more credible scientifically as well as in terms of being less visible to so much of the public. As it is we are meant to believe a minor police detective is allowed to handle what would have been the most crazy and important event witnessed at the time with news not spreading all that much considering a giant dinosaur is marauding down the Thames in plain sight for miles. It is rather dumb I think.

Secondly, why would the half faced man not have a finished face or at least a mask as some means of making his appearance not stand out so obviously? They have had the time and resources to build all sorts of things and finish many other faces and yet he does not finish his own face and roams around London without anyone noticing his obvious missing human features. I think it would have been more credible and more exciting if he approached people when he was masked by a scarf or something and then removed the scarf to reveal he is mechanised.

Thirdly, why does Clara react so badly to the Doctor's change to an older man?! Of all companions she has even less excuse for this having met all the other incarnations before, including the 1st Doctor and the War Doctor, and coped perfectly well. Even if she had 'forgotten' these encounters with other versions of the Doctor it would still make her a remarkably shallow character to react so badly. It would have been much better if she accepted his new appearance but found his new abrasive personality hard to accept and started to get more uncomfortable before getting used to him maybe a few episodes later.

In addition, I find the idea these mechanical men have been on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs and are still no further forward as well as never being noticed another silly thing thrown into the mix. Plus some of the humour in the episode is a bit overly silly for my taste.

I had been greatly looking forward to a rumoured return to a more thoughtful, slow burning drama in this series and was hoping for great things from lifelong Who fan Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. I think they met those expectations with the filming style in this episode and I was very, very happy with Capaldi who showed potential to be creating one of the better characterisations of the Doctor. I just wish Moffatt could have curbed his tendency to throw every zany idea in without enough care.

My Rating: 6.5/10.

My Series 8 Episode Ranking: 7th out of 12.

It's far too early to draw any conclusions as to how Peter Capaldi and the writers will define the Twelfth Doctor -- but that isn't going to stop me or any fan of the series.

First, the episode is pretty much of a corker. With a new, weird opening sequence, we start out with a story involving a dinosaur, the Paternoster Gang and cyborgs in the Victorian Era. Most of the fun lies in figuring out who the new Doctor is.

Of course, all the Doctors are variations on the basic character laid down half a century ago by William Hartnell. Even so, there is enormous room for variation and the better episodes have taken advantage of the actors' strengths. Capaldi's predecessor, Matt Smith, was brilliant at playing an alien so bizarre that he did not understand how weird he seemed to humans. The comedy would frequently overwhelm the stories. Capaldi is equally adept at comedy, but he is not playing the clown that Matt Smith does. When he babbles, you can hear the confusion that he feels. If show-runner Steven Moffat and Capaldi mean to go on in this way, then we have not just a regenerated Doctor to look forward to; we have a regenerated show.

Deep Breath stars the newly regenerated Doctor, Peter Capaldi. This episode will be important for the sole purpose of introducing us to him and evidently, there has been lots of change.

But did these changed work?

They worked remarkably.

Peter Capaldi not only brings new depths to the Doctor, but brings back Classic Doctor Who traits. He reminds me a lot of Tom Baker or sometimes Jon Pertwee. His rough attitude with his companions is quite new for those who haven't watched Classic Who, but fans from way back will love it. The New Doctor brings back the mysterious and serious Doctor which was proved to be shown in the episode. Attitudes and Traits aside, The New Doctor is fantastic and all the fan girls who still miss Tennant and Smith will love Capaldi in this episode. As for Clara, she has become more interesting beside Capaldi, as she misses Matt Smith's Doctor and has to cope with him from now on. But, NO. That episode fixes it with a heart warming ending which will touch the hearts of any Doctor Who fan new or old. Clara with Capaldi's Doctor is quite entertaining to watch Capaldi is like a Father Figure now to Clara just like the previous Doctors as they were to their previous companions. The Paternoster Gang were entertaining as well. The Villains for this episode were not the best, but for an episode centered on the new Doctor, I guess you could say, it was well done.

In the end, Capaldi is a serious, meaner and sometimes rude character. He will bring the Doctor in to new heights and will not be afraid to drop the bow tie and tie, the childishness and the looks. And did I mention how his Scottish accent was great in this episode?

With a Fantasitc Doctor, Entertaining moments with him and Clara, a heartwarming ending and an Overall great introduction to Peter Capaldi.

I'll be marking my calendar for the next episodes already.

Verdict: 8.9/10

Remember Matt Smith when he came in ? "The Eleventh Hour" !

The one liners, the funny eccentric Matt Smith, lovely Amy Pond, and of course, the showdown in the end of that episode. That showdown was excellent with the Doctor calling the alien back. Lines like "The doctor is in" , "Basically... run !" were delivered so well. The holographic images of all the doctors, through which Matt Smith walks out in the end !!!

Well, absolutely none of that cleverness was there in this episode. It was quite a simple one. Looks like Moffat ran out of ideas for a story and for showcasing a Doctor.

A simple story about a dinosaur who combusts and the Doctor searches for the serial killer. Clara was as good as always. No difference there.

One neat thing was the way they set up this Doctor's personality really well. they make it quite clear that he is not like Matt Smith and not a pseudo boyfriend to Clara.

Nevertheless, if you are as big a fan as I , you need to see it !

Update: I saw the second episode "Into the Dalek" and still not impressed.

Well that was an excellent and fun episode of Doctor Who. I tend to like the ones that are set in historic English settings and I find that trio of characters in London, the reptilian woman, the human woman and the potato like fellow, to be very entertaining.

I've been doing a bit of browsing the web for other perspectives on this Doctor Who and I see that some people like to criticise the script writing of Stephen Moffat. I have not seen every Doctor Who episode by a long way, however I have seen others written by Stephen Moffat and his script writing is excellent as it was in this Deep Breath episode. Stephen Moffat seems to be particularly good at story design. He also sets up rather fine situations. I don't wish to be specific because I prefer not to include any spoilers, however the conclusion to the main drama in this episode really was beautifully done, leaving a great ambiguity about the new Doctor Who, Peter Capaldi.

Peter Capaldi looked to me like a first class Doctor Who. I did like Matt Smith and Tenant but to me Peter Capaldi is the real deal. The first Doctor Who I remember is Pertwee and as a child I loved Tom Baker. However I lost interest in the series after Tom Baker left as I became an older teenager. It was a joy to watch Peter Capaldi in his new role. He is a bit mysterious and dark which I really like. He is so capable, he is able to do the comedy but maintain this slight darkness.

There was one thing which I didn't like about the episode which was the mechanism used to reconcile Clara with the new Doctor near the end. I haven't described it because I don't want to include spoilers. I think Clara should have decided to go with this new strange Doctor all on her own, I think there should have been a scene where she weighed it up, and on balance decided she would join him in his journeying through space and time.

All in all a great episode. Moffat is a great writer and Capaldi is looking like he will be a great Doctor.