Doctor Who: The Specials (2008-2010). Five More With Feeling.

[@tomwhale7334]

There's a chocolate egg right at the start of Planet of the Dead, no? The Doctor offers one to Christina.

[@StamFine]

He didn't offer me one, the cheap git.

[@lc3566]

Yes, there is!

[@LisaBeta-42]

David Tennant kept his half for being put to use in Staged during lockdown😁

[@HOTD108_]

The episode never explicitly says that the egg was chocolate. For all we know it was some solidified alien sludge that merely looks like chocolate. You can't prove otherwise.

[@dogdrovenorth]

"Being the Time Lord Victorious means you don't have to hold the door open for people" 😄

[@colinp2238]

I love your dalek singing bits.

[@lbricks7631]

Always a highlight of my week when Stam Fine uploads another Doctor Who segment. Wow, thats sad.

[@asciimation]

I watched these but barely remember them. The episode with the bus and Christina always reminded me of Vash from that episode of The Next Generation when Picard went on holiday.

[@LoneGh0ste]

I’ve always regarded Waters of Mars as an all time classic. The formula is very common but the water enemy was creative and frightening. The idea that one drop could infect the whole of Earth’s oceans was always scary to me. All the crew members came off as believable people even though many of them only have a few lines. I enjoy seeing the doctor break down and have an ego trip just to be humbled by a normal human realizing how dangerous he is. I struggle to really think of anything I’d complain about in the episode, maybe the little news article close ups being a bit tacky but that’s a nitpick. I’m pretty mixed on the rest of the specials but Waters of Mars was always the diamond in the rough imo.

[@peterbradburn9115]

Really liked David Morrissey in the Next Doctor, but Lindsey Duncan in the Waters of. Mars is just superb. As you say, when the Doctor has lost the ability to recognise his own failings, she subverts his megalomania by taking the hard way out

[@mitchellporteous9079]

The joke about giving the gardener chronic PTSD caught me off guard and was genuinely hilarious, keep up the good work!

[@GrubStLodger]

David Morrissey would have made a good classic Doctor.

[@paulharries9558]

And on Christopher Eccleston's 60th birthday too.

[@HOTD108_]

And for the 60th anniversary of Christopher Eccleston Big Finish are producing three dramatically light specials that end with the Ninth Doctor splitting off yet another version of Tennant.

[@AM-uo2kf]

It’s been 14 years now and I still don’t feel better about that I don’t want to go line. And of all these specials Waters of Mars easily takes the cake. Both for the Doctor Hubris and secondly because the flood were really unsettling with how they infected people and the constant water pouring from their mouths.

[@HOTD108_]

Well the 60th anniversary specials undid it by having David Tennant's Doctor not regenerate at all, and undermining all character drama in one bloody slash. Does that make you feel better?

[@hazmat7949]

​@HOTD108_ replying to multiple comment crying about it 😂

[@robvegas9354]

Great Video as always Stam Fine!!! Waters of mars was the last show i ever taped on my trusty old VHS. good times.

[@williamusrex6417]

A Stam Fine Doctor Who review to go into my collection! Playlist of them all played an infinitum. Thanks Stan.

[@comradebatman2992]

So happy to see this review up. You do fantastic work. Keep it up!❤

[@mahatmarandy5977]

I didn’t feel at the time of these specials worked, and I don’t think they work now. There’s just a sense, “why bother?“ About them. The only part that really struck me as terribly interesting was sort of an outgrowth of the Donna season. When Donna first meet the doctor fighting the giant spider queen lady, he is clearly manic out of his mind and nuts, and he would have died if Donna hadn’t snapped him to his senses. As we saw in ‘turn left.’ And there were a number of other weirdly manic bits in that season. And the first Martha episode has him a bit manic, too. So what I took from this was that the doctor actually needs a companion. It’s not just that he is lonely or bored, or needs someone to exposit to. Instead he needs someone to reign him back in and tether him down. Because left to his own devices, he can be extremely destructive. And self-destructive. At the time I felt like the purpose of the specials was to show us, the doctor, becoming progressively unhinged, and were it not for Wilf, see the doctor permanently, sliding into insanity and becoming an actual bad guy. So in my head, I felt like that was what they were getting at, and Wilf saved the day. But if that’s the case, I do not think they told the story very well because I seem to be the only person that took that from it. More likely I am wrong, and it was all just a bunch of stuff that happened.

[@kaitlyn__L]

These specials were so weird. I liked Waters on Mars at the time but media in general has become a lot more careful about suicide now so it's wild to see featured so prominently in the plot. Also those 2009 webpage news articles are funny in retrospect, with how dated they've become so quickly. But maybe the 2060s have a 2000s nostalgia moment. I had completely forgotten about the bus one. Although once you brought it up I remembered the mildly psychic lady who won £100 on the lottery every week. The End of Time is such a mess, though. That was the first time I remember thinking "is that it?", even though Dalton's Rassilon is great. Thankfully that was in retrospect a good primer for the way every subsequent Moffat season gets more and more "Moffaty" in all the same ways as Sherlock did. Looking forward to seeing your takes on those whenever that happens. That said, I liked Capaldi's final season. I haven't seen any stuff since though, mostly because it got pulled from Netflix.

[@LisaBeta-42]

A lot of episodes have a suicidal approach in saving the world or getting into the "right" timeline: Father's Day / Turn Left / Amy's Choice / The Angel's Take Manhatten & a LOT of the Big Finish stories where even the Doctor himself has to die, just to keep away his earlier self from that fatal timeline he ended up in. Quite a dangerous spiel: suicide to SAVE the whole world? (Ok - done! Aghhh...) A lot of the season boxes have a 16 years rating in Continental Europe!

[@FraserJWhieldon]

Cover Life on Mars next

[@raybearoz]

Great work as always... there was some great performances in these... (But come on... when we getting season 25????)

[@StamFine]

*cough* Season 25 blu ray *cough*

[@raybearoz]

@@StamFine NNNOOOO!!! Don't make us wait 5 years!!!!

[@K.F-R]

Every bloody time. This time, it was the "Stam Finderlings." This is the only channel with a 100% track record of eliciting at least one fully audible titter. 😊 100%. So, from now on, I'm making an effort.

[@williammitchell5201]

I get so stoked every time I see a new video from you!

[@americansupervillain4595]

Hearing Daleks sing makes me glad they have chosen extermination of all life in the universe instead of a record deal.

[@martinsear5470]

Should I Stay did me mate🤣, top work as always👍

[@bigbadbaron8416]

Waters of Mars and End of Time are all 10/10

[@darmtb]

Great work on this and love the music choices…😂😂

[@TheKeyringofRassilon-xz6wp]

Brilliant! Even though I was clearly passed over during the "------- of Rassilon" section.

[@organicketchup5171]

Gemma Chan 😍

[@akshaytrayner1960]

Great review it's a hit and miss waters of mars is fantastic

[@markeastwood74]

There's a lot of rose (not that one) tinting when it comes to this period of Doctor Who. On a re-watch, they weren't all as good as you remember. But, there was something happening at the time and it made them more than the sum of their parts. And I absolutely did not tear up at Wilf. Not a bit. Not even just seeing a brief clip. 😢

[@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTV]

Our first Mars base, was glass domes that heat and cool constantly and let the radiation hit the plants, but that's ok, because the crater will reflect extra radiation in towards that base.... :) And the astronauts somehow all died? A most perplexing mystery...

[@dougsfilmtv9810]

Good review of the specials! I will admit I think the specials are good and I will say I am not a fan of the Waters of Mars because the ending and I think the suicide was just too much. I do like The End of Time, and it was an epic sendoff to the 10th Doctor.

[@TheyCallMeNewb]

Very funny that someone else must already have had the car license plate "RASSILON", so the guy himself had to settle for lookalike numbers in place of letters!

[@nickmustay]

Always thought the skeletor master was a cool tribute to the deadly assassin

[@jessica23claire]

The Writer's Tale is a great book to read in conjunction with a re-watch of the first 4 seasons. RTD's writing process is very relatable, I too type garbled ideas to friends in the middle of the night.

[@Gengh13]

Waters of Mars was an excellent special.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

I just rewatched these specials recently (first time for my 11yo) and they are definitely all...OK The Waters Of Mars character stuff is pretty good but the Doctor's drift to meglomania and subsequent redemention is so fast I almost had whiplash! Would have benefited from being spread across a few episodes.

[@williammoore9794]

All the histrionics at the end of Waters of Mars could have been avoided if the Doctor had just taken the crew of the Martian base to any other time and place in his time and space machine. However, it's still the best of this bunch.

[@ZoomerUnion]

Wouldn't that cause a time paradox?

[@williammoore9794]

@@ZoomerUnion If he had taken them to New York in the 1950s (for example) they could have lived out their lives in the same way as Amy and Rory later did. The base would still have blown up and everyone on Earth would have assumed the crew were killed in that explosion. No need for Adelaide to kill herself or for all that Time Lord Victorious nonsense (which is essentially ditched soon afterwards).

[@ZoomerUnion]

@@williammoore9794 fairly sure their deaths are meant to be a fixed point. As in, their actual deaths, not just public perception thereof

[@williammoore9794]

@@ZoomerUnion Does the Universe know if you are dead, or only if you appear to be dead? The Wedding of River Song would suggest the latter. But Flux says Time is an entity, so perhaps the former? One for the philosophers I think 😉😅

[@ZoomerUnion]

@williammoore9794 If we're going on a technicality, I believe the Doctor was always inside the Tesselecta in the original timeline, and perhaps the fixed point was River shooting and destroying the Tesselecta rather than killing the Doctor

[@Mazz3D]

Great vid as always, thanks.

[@AndrewLuke]

Thank You!

[@johnpotts8308]

The specials highlight a problem with a lot of TV: they're too long. I'm sure creators love having more time to fit in every idea they have, but there is something to be said for good editing. Tennant's tour of previous companions was pure self indulgence and should have been (at most) a montage rather than dragging the whole thing out another ten minutes.

[@huwturbervill8476]

Enjoyable as ever, and generally agree with the assessment. Great clips with acerbic comms. The Dalek bits are still irritating, though

[@itz_cam-ok1hq]

5:50 the doctor is eating one just before the titles start and even says “I’m the doctor happy Easter” to Christina

[@tomwhale7334]

Waters of Mars premiered in November, not October!

[@StamFine]

well, darn it all to heck.

[@nekolalia3389]

Welp, if anyone else says it was a Halloween special, we’ll have a pretty good idea where they got it from.

[@Hawkeye26]

Wild to think The Next Doctor could be praised more highly than Planet of the Dead...to each their own.

[@tegansommers3767]

Nice one, son.

[@DanBrizuela]

Love your combination of insightful information and comedic wit. These specials are all fun and give each something unique. I for one love Michelle Ryan in this. Now on to my favorite era of the show with my favorite doctor and ran by my favorite showrunner. Question: how come you didn’t do the first six seasons of classic first?

[@StamFine]

There were too many stories with missing episodes and no animated version when the channel launched. The situation is better now, apart from season three.

[@DanBrizuela]

@@StamFine still gonna try 3 or wait a while?

[@StamFine]

we'll have to wait and see since that's too far off to worry about just now

[@DanBrizuela]

@@StamFine at least season 2 is the easiest

[@akshaytrayner1960]

Great review

[@Vtarngpb]

No Amy Pond. 2/7

[@mahatmarandy5977]

“The cinematographer put his mid life crisis to good use.”

[@moreorlesto]

Awesome, but you forgot about the animated episode Dreamland (which once again reunites Tennant with his wife Georgia Moffett as companion Cassie Rice) 🤷🏾‍♂ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamland_(Doctor_Who)

[@preachercaine]

I cannot explain why but I could not stand Alex Kingston. The River Song bollocks just put me off

[@torchwood00]

Doctor Sliders

[@sebastiansochanski]

👌

[@RogerSartet007]

Hey Stam, couldn't find an email so I'm just writing it here. Maybe you'll read this, maybe not: a few suggestions. 1. Given you're Australian, why not have a look at the lowest budget sci fi ever: Star Maidens, starring....Blake from Blake's Seven! Played on Dutch TV in the late seventies, re-baptised 'Women's planet Medusa'. 2. 'Round the same time, same Dutch channel: (Eddie) Shoestring, starring Trevor Eve 3. The boy with two heads, aka Chico, the rainmaker: Prematurely canceled, because some children (rather their parents, imho) found it too creepy. Best regards from down under, Gert, aka Roger

[@StamFine]

Star Maidens is a possibility at some point.

[@Shoutatclouds]

I liked your cheesecake

[@bfragged]

Who’s just posted?

[@konsumterra1]

will you do sarah jane adventures?

[@StamFine]

anything's possible, but there are no immediate plans for SJA.

[@pdcleary66]

Have you done the 1966/67 green hornet show ?

[@StamFine]

no. it's never been released officially on something like DVD.

[@lardyguts2]

hey dont diss the gobots,

[@TheToonMonkey]

There was half an Easter egg.....

[@bigratkiller1]

I'm over Dr Who now. I've got the stuff I want to see on DVD and VHS.

[@brotherkellymatthewbarnes8882]

😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆😆

[@dezzajay9440]

There is a chocolate egg in planet of the dead

[@TK21700]

There was at least 1ish Easter egg in planet of the dead 🤔

[@elberno4243]

3 mistakes... Post-Stolen Earth regeneration, makes this the 11th DOCTOR. The 11th Doctor has only FOUR stories, The End of Time is ONE STORY. The Bionic Woman, was still in production when the Easter special aired.

[@friendlyotaku9525]

No, he is the 10th Doctor. While the stolen earth regeneration does use up a regeneration he is still the same Doctor.

[@ZoomerUnion]

Don't forget the Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith!

[@williamusrex6417]

Note to Stam Fine - the singing daleks are never, note even once, ever, amusing

[@andylikesstuffchannel]

Some of these specials are bog standard. Tennants Doctor and RTDs Era massively overrated