T.V. Review: Doctor Who: Season Seven

I had on of those weekends.  I discovered Doctor Who season seven available on Netflix, and had to watch the whole thing right now--sixteen episodes. 
This is great stuff as the Doctor (Matt Smith) battles against the Daleks, and many other old and new enemies.  We are introduced to Oswin Oswald (Jenna Coleman) in "Asylum of the Daleks" who later becomes Doctor Who's side kick in another form.  Rory (Arthur Darville) and Amy (Karen Gillan) are also with the Doctor as they try to turn of the force field so the Daleks can destroy the planet which holds all the deranged Daleks who they fear are gong to escape.  It is with the help of Oswald that the are able to do this, but she dies in the effort.  (She had previously been turned into a Dalek, but had an imaginary life as a continued woman making a souffle.
The Doctor then saves Dinosaurs the the next episode, and fails to slave a man who committed war crimes, but does save his victim, a man told warrior through cybernetics.  This has a western theme, and our half man half robot becomes the sheriff. 
"The Power of Three" is a very interesting episode.  This episode takes place over a year.  Strange black boxes show up, and people put them everywhere.  In the end however, the all activate together; and emit an electrical pulse which kills people by stopping their hearts.  The Doctor discovers the Shakri are behind this.  They have condemned humans to extinction.  He is able to manipulate the boxes so the zap everybody back to life. 
"The Angels Take Manhattan" is the end of the road for the Ponds.  Rory gets zapped back in time, and Amy decides to join him.
We have a precreation of Clara in "The Snowmen."  In this episode we are introduced to the major nemesis for the season, the "Great Intelligence"; in this case snow with intelligence, which is wanting to take over the earth by adding snow and human DNA.  The Doctor is able to intervene,  but Clara dies in the efforts.  However the Doctor realizes this Clara, and the Oswald who previously passed away are the same person. 
The next episode the Doctor find a present day Clara.  She is a nanny, but is attacked by the Wifi.  The Doctor is able to thwart their effort, and get Clara's soul back.  The "Great Intelligence" was using peoples' souls to become stronger. 
Clara decides to join the Doctor, and the go to someplace exciting, "The Rings of Akhaten" where we see a girl, singing her way to be sacrificed by a great monster.  Singing seems to be an important part of this season.  The music is beautiful, but leads to the young girl, princess, being taken by the entity to be sacrificed to the old god, a parasite feeding off people's memories.  Clara and the Doctor team up to defeat the monster, with the help of still more singing.  
The Doctor prevents the Cold War from becoming hot be convincing a long forgotten "Ice warrior" from Mars that a researcher found in the Arctic ice, not to fire nuclear missiles.  He is rescued by the last remains of his own people. 
In "Hide" the Doctor is able to rescue a woman caught between two universes, and also help the monster who is just searching for love. 
The TARDIS is captured for salvage on "Journey to the Center of the TARDIS."  The TARDIS was damaged, and in fact exploded when captured--but this hasn't manifested as the TARDIS froze the explosion.  However then comes the attempt to find Clara who is lost in the TARDIS, confront monsters of yourself, and go back and get a do over.
In the "Crimson Terror" The Doctor needs rescuing, as he has become a rejected victim of the red plague.  Some characters Salurian, her wife, and Strax a Sontaran, help with the rescue,  They have been helping fight the "Great Intelligence."  Our evil witch, under the influence of a parasite plans to release the red plague; however the Doctor and his team intervene.
"Nightmare in Silver" the Doctor and Clara face the Cybermen.  However it is Porridge, the lowest of all it seems, who saves the day.
The season concludes with three episodes, "The Name of the Doctor," "The Day of the Doctor" and "The Time of the Doctor".  In the first we discover why Clara keeps showing up at different spots in the life of the Doctor.  In the "Day of the Doctor" we get to see three different doctors including David Tennant, and many others, although perhaps just in poster form. as he goes back reviews the decision he made to destroy his own people and the Daleks.  The result is not the same.  And finally, someone across the different Universes is asking for the Doctors name, which is a key word, and if given will lead to great war.  The Doctor lives through his live, hundreds of years, defending the people of a town called Christmas.  The Doctor eventually dies, but in that death comes new birth, which rebirth sets many things right.
Doctor Who always entertains. 

TV Review: *****Doctor Who Season Five

Doctor Who keeps getting better and better.  This is another wild ride. This season introduces Matt Smith as the Doctor who loves his bow tie, and Karen Gillam as Amy Pond.  It starts with the Doctor, newly incarnated, coming to help a girl with a crack in her wall.  The crack follows just about every episode this season.  The Doctor says he will be right back, but actually comes back a dozen years later and Amy is now a woman.
My favorite episode included Vincent van Gogh.  I admire his work, and we get to see smatterings of it in the museum, and in Vincent's flat.  Vincent can see a monster others, including the Doctor, cannot see.  The monster has been killing innocents.  It looks like a big chicken.  In the end it is defeated.  In an effort to change Van Gogh's imminent suicide, they show him his legacy.  However it does not prevent his suicide. 
The weeping angels are back in a two part episode.  Only this time there are hundreds of them, and they are out to get them.  However the angels are scared of the crack through which if anything passes they are forgotten and never existed.
Rory, played by Arthur Darvill, Amy's fiance, joins her on the Tardis.  They face off against vampires, an evil dream keeper and they have to choose between two dream sets and pick the real one so as to not die. There is a less serious one where The Doctor takes on as a human and rents a room.  He plays soccer and eats biscuits and tries to be human to fool the entity upstairs, where there really is not an upstairs, but through the powers of a space vehicle one was been created in everyone's mind. 
The show then turns serious as the Tardis blows up, and it is actually this event seeping through time and universes, which has caused the crack. The Doctor has to close the crack, leaving himself on the other side, and can only be brought back if someone remembers him.  This happens at Rory's and Amy's wedding when remembers something blue.

TV Review: *****Doctor Who Season Six

Dr Who Season 6 is now available through Netflix DVD.  The other seasons are on instant Netflix.  This is a terrific ride.  The season starts with Doctor Who's Death, then goes back and explains things on the road to this event.  There are some incredible turns in the general plot, for example we see the Doctor's marriage to River Song, discover who are her parents, and are introduced to the "Silence."  The Silence are evil creatures who you don't remember when you are not looking at them.  They are like a great conspiracy, manipulating things without anyone knowing about them.  They are still around at the end, and it is the Silence who have decided the Doctor must die.

This series has a greater use of poetry which is highly effective.  It also has a way of bringing back old characters.  In this case the characters are often old nemesis who now owe the Doctor.  This is especially true with the kidnapping of Amy and Rorie's baby girl.  She was conceived in the TARDIS which causes her to have time lord characteristics.

This is a show you have to see.  I watched Doctor Who as a youth, staying up late to watch it on PBS.  The plots and stories were fun then, but the special effects were always lacking.  That is no longer a problem, and the stories have just gotten more intriguing.  I LIKE DOCTOR WHO.