"Stay back! I'm armed... with a screwdriver."

So Clara's first proper adventure in time and space. Um... it was kind of boring, to be honest.

The beginning was sort of interesting. The Doctor takes a peek at Clara's past to see if there's anything unusual. So you get her parents meeting and the true meaning behind the leaf in her 101 Places to See book. Um, not to be super nerdy or anything, but did the leaf change tree species? Last week, it looked like a maple leaf and this week it looked more like a poplar leaf or something. Or maybe I wasn't paying attention... But anyway, we see why the book and the leaf mean so much to Clara and her inspiration to travel. Her mom never got to, so here's her chance to make up for that.

But as Clara's first proper adventure? A sentient sun (planet?) they defeat by singing it to sleep? Okay, they didn't sing it to sleep. It devoured too many memories and potential or something, but it was rather anti-climatic. The Doctor yelled at it, Clara fed it the leaf, and then it went away. I know, it can't be all epic space battles, but the Doctor and the Companion can do more than just stand there. I was expecting more.

And seriously, in a ship bigger on the inside, the Doctor doesn't have anything material possessions that he could barter with? Poor Clara had to give up her mother's ring and the leaf! At least she got the ring back. And it's not like she was hanging on to both in an unhealthy way. If she had given either because the memories they contained were holding her back, then I would understand. Doesn't Amy's glasses that the Doctor wears now hold some sentimental value?

So is Clara not going to join the Doctor full time? He drops her back at home and presumably flies off again. I get that she wouldn't want to leave the Maitlands really suddenly, but this is a time machine. They could travel for months and only be gone a day. Or maybe she will join the Doctor proper in a later episode? It would change the paradigm a bit. Clara only joins when she's good and ready.

Random: Good to see an alien world actually populated by aliens. So often you just have people in minor make-up. Everyone's still humanoid, with two arms, two legs, and a head, but what are you going to do? It's a TV budget, not an epic movie budget. Clara has a way with kids, which I guess stems from her being a babysitter/governess/nanny type person. The Doctor seems to need Amy's glasses to read or are these just new brainy specs? When I saw the trailer from last week, I got an old school vibe for some reason. I think it's in the sets. They were very basic this week. Yes, there's some CGI trickery going on, but the design was very simple, like they used to be back in the day. I like to think it was a kind of homage and not a cut to the budget. ;-)

So, looks like the Ice Warriors are back next week. I was totally unspoiled on their new appearance until my Entertainment Weekly arrived; damn you EW! But truthfully, they don't look that different. Less fur around their necks and wrists and they have slimmed down a bit, but at a glance you can totally recognize them. From the trailer, it seems like they can actually run around; no more lumbering around for them. I guess if you re-design them too much they wouldn't be Ice Warriors anymore.

Edit: And I wasn't going to mention this because I thought it was too geeky and I also thought maybe I was going insane, but then I was looking at pictures and now I know I was right: the leaf in Clara's book is different! It change from a maple leaf in "The Bells of Saint John" to, I don't know, a poplar leaf or something in this episode. It's more rounded and it doesn't have the five points. Would they think people wouldn't notice? Because we know our maple leaves here in Canada (most of the time). So either this is a different leaf and Clara has another leaf in the book or someone in the props department screwed up. Sigh, there go our chances of Clara wanting to visit Canada...


Yeah, there's not much I have to say about this episode. Anniversary year, people! Come on, you need to dazzle us.

In a crazy alternative reality, Ten could have travelled with Amy

Just saw this on io9.com: If David Tennant had stayed on Doctor Who, he would have traveled with Amy Pond. The original link from Bleeding Cool has a nice Photoshopped image of Ten and Amy.

I'm intrigued now and kind of picturing all of Eleven's stories from his first season with Ten instead. I doubt it would have changed much, arc wise, but the group dynamic might have been different. You would get Ten's reaction to meeting River again and maybe we would actually get reference to fact that he watched her die.

Fanfic please! :-) Or could people just make more Photoshopped images of Ten and Amy and Rory, too?