The Silents

Madam Kovarian

Winifred Gillyflower | Mr. Sweet

In series 7 episode 12 we're introduced to the "crimson horror" and the people responsible for it: Mr. Sweet and Winifred Gillyflower.

The Doctor and Clara end up in Yorkshire 1893 where they hear about a recruitment of people to live in a place called Sweetville.

Advertised as a safe haven for those who wish to survive a coming apocalypse, Mrs. Gillyflower, a somewhat innocent looking elderly woman, is only interested in the fittest, brightest and most beautiful applicants.

Winifred Gillyflower

The people Mrs. Gillyflower chooses are preserved from the "apocalypse"  in giant bell shaped jars.

The bell jars

The Doctor ends up in the "reject pile". The rejects are dipped into a huge pool of the crimson stuff, which ends up being leech venom. We find out that Mrs. Gillyflower's "Silent partner" Mr. Sweet is a tiny red leech from the prehistoric era. Mr. Sweet has attached to Mrs. Gillyflower's chest, and in return for sustenance, he provides he with the venom she plans to use on the human race.

Mr. Sweet

The Doctor after being dipped in the Crimson Horror

Madam Vastra, Strax and Jenny all come to the aid of Clara and the Doctor, and together they were able to thwart Mrs. Gillyflower and Mr.Sweet. Mr.Sweet has a pretty gruesome demise at the hands of Mrs.Gillyflower's blind daughter, Ada. 

Madam Vastra

Strax

Jenny

Ada

Clara in her 1893 outfit

Grand Marshal Skaldak | Ice Warriors

So this week we also have a species from the classic Doctor Who, the Ice Warriors. According to my research they first appeared with the third doctor, Jon Pertwee. Matt Smith was the first Doctor of "NuWho" to encounter them. And the only Doctor to encounter Grand Marshall Skaldak.

The Ice Warriors are natives of planet Mars. They have a strong instinct for war, much like the Sontarans.  They are reptilian creatures that are seven feet tall, with a very strong sense of honor. They also really do not like lying, but will do so when they must.

The Ice Warriors live for about 300 years and are used to extreme cold. Their armor was made to help protect them from the bitter cold on mars as well as protect during war. Their armor has a sonic weapon built into its arm  and it is capable of moving independently by remote control.

Skaldak in his armor

Grand Marshal Skaldak isn't just an Ice Warrior, he is the greatest Ice Warrior hero of all time. When the Doctor and Clara Oswald come across him he had just been woken up from a 5,000 year sleep, and being held captive on a Russian sub marine. 

Their run-in with Skaldak isn't the most pleasant, seeing as he declares war on all of humanity, but in the end they come to a very honorable conclusion.

Skaldak with his helmet off

Check out the trailer below to see more Skaldak!

The Great Intelligence

Some of the Classic Doctor Who fans might argue with me on this one. Technically, The Great Intelligence has a past with the Doctor. The first episode where the Great Intelligence appeared was in 1967 with the second Doctor, so in my defense, Matt Smith is the only Doctor to encounter The G.I in "Nu Who".

Doctor Who's Christmas special, "The Snowmen" aired December 25th 2012. It is the second time we encounter Clara Oswald (my favorite companion).

This episode takes place right after the very dramatic exit of the William companions. The Doctor goes to London in 1892, basically to morn his friends. He claims that he isn't going to help people anymore, until Clara gets his attention again.

We are also blessed with the presence of Jenny, Madam Vastra and Strax in this episode. Clara ends up talking with Vastra because the Doctor is avoiding her.

When Clara sees the Doctor again, the fun begins. Snowmen, very creepy snowmen, start to appear outside of the house Clara works at. Also, there is an ice sculpture of an old house maid chasing them around the house.

The Snowmen

The Doctor learns soon after that this is the work of the Great Intelligence, who possessed a child at a very young age, and had been using him to do his bidding for years.

When he encounters the embodiment of The Great Intelligence, he finds a giant snow globe, that talks, no more information on this due to spoilers. The Doctor is able to defeat the G.I and the episode ends.

The Talking Snow Globe

Now this is not the last time we see The Great Intelligence. It appears again in the episode "The Bells of Saint John," season 7, episode 6.

The episode starts with a monk in Cumbria in 1207, telling the Doctor that "the bells of Saint John are ringing". What the monk meant was that the phone on the T.A.R.D.I.S was ringing.

When the Doctor answers the phone, it's Clara. And she is trying to connect to WiFi. She foolishly connects to a very odd looking WiFi, and lets The Great Intelligence in.

WiFi Clara Connects To

Of course, the Doctor flies to Clara and saves her, just in the nick of time. She was being downloaded by what they call a "spoon head".

The Doctor Defeats The Spoonhead

The Doctor and Clara

Clara uses her newly inherited hacking skills and they are able to track down where all of the trouble is coming from.

Clara Hacking

Off to Find The Great Intelligence

We find out that The Great Intelligence is once again using a human to do it's bidding. And it is once again defeated.

Sorry about all the quick details and information on these episodes. There is quite a lot to The Great Intelligence, and nobody wants to read a novel. I hope you all enjoyed this post, if you have anything you would like to add please feel free to comment below, I would love to hear from you. Also, don't forget to vote this week!

The Shakri

In Season 7 Episode 4, The Power of Three, The Doctor, Amy, Rory and Brian Williams (Rory's dad) begin the year and the slow invasion.

Amy and Rory wake up to find cubes, everywhere. Brian cam over to help figure out what the cubes were. They were solid black, and they did nothing. They were just cubes. The Doctor shows up as well. Little did the Doctor know, it was going to be a while before they found out what was going on.

The Cube

After a year, the cubes began "waking up" they all did something different, controlled emotion, played music and even shot at people. 

The cubes eventually shot out an electric pulse, stopping the hearts f many humans near by, and that is when things start to get interesting. The Doctor finds one of seven portals to a space ship.  The space ship belongs to the Shakri, who the Doctor believed were just a myth to keep the children of Gallifrey in their their place. He is soon greeted by a hologram of a weird looking black-cloaked humanoid. 

The apparition warns that the Shakri plan to release a second wave of cubes and cause further deaths, to stop the human race from colonizing space. 

The Apparition

The Doctor takes care of things, like usual and the world goes back to normal. I have included one of my favorite scenes and a trailer below. 

Kahler-Tek

Season 7 episode 3, A Town Called Mercy, is quite possibly my favorite episode of Matt's.

The humor, drama and thrills in this episode make it one of the best.

The Doctor, Amy and Rory were a little off from Mexico, and landed in Mercy, Nevada. A place that looks like it came directly from an old western movie, except "the locals are hostile to strangers, and a border of stone and wood surrounds the town. As the Doctor soon finds out, a gunslingers behind this, and not just an ordinary one."


The Gunslinger is from a species called Kahler, but his name is Kahler-Tek. The Kahler were a technologically gifted race who suffered from a terrible war that wiped out 50% of the planet. A group of scientists, including Kahler-Jex, had the job of restoring peace. They experimented on volunteers and turned them into cyborg killers.

Kahler-Jex

 Kahler-Tek is half man, half machine and he seeks revenge on the scientists who turned him into a cyborg. Kahler-Jex is the last one of the scientists, and he just happens to be in Mercy.

Jex really does regret what he had to do to those poor men during the war. He stays in Mercy, Nevada as a way to atone for his sins.

Kahler-Tek is a disturbing looking man with a laser for an arm, a tattoo on his face, scars everywhere and he even has a Cybernetic eye with built in censors.

Kahler-Tek

Kahler-Tek forces everyone in Mercy to stay behind the barrier, anyone who crosses is killed, and demands that they hand over Kahler-Jex or he will kill them all anyway.

The episode takes a series of dramatic turns, Amy fires a weapon, the Doctor holds a gun to someone's head and there was even a sacrifice. I'm going to include one of my favorite scenes as well as the trailer, below.

Amy takes things into her own hands

The Minotaur

In season 6, episode 11 the T.A.R.D.I.S gets taken off course, and lands in what looks to be a hotel.

They find lots of portraits hanging on the wall, with extremely odd captions underneath them. Such as  "that gorilla."

Rory reads the captions found under the pictures

Amy, Rory and the Doctor meet a peculiar group of people who seem to be terrified of something.

They are threatened with a chair leg

The three are told that there is a "room" for everyone, and found out that once you see your room, you repeatedly say "praise him" until you are killed by a monster.

The monster ends up being a Minotaur, a terrifying horned creature that stalks the halls of the hotel looking for its next victim.

While walking around the hotel they find out what sort of things are in the rooms...

This creepy clown was in one of the rooms

 The Doctor believes that the Minotaur is feeding off of the fear of those trapped in the hotel. But he was wrong, the Minotaur was feeding off of their faith. The Minotaur literally drained the life from it's victims.

When the Doctor traps the Minotaur he tries to interrogate him but fails when the Minotaur acts likes a normal bull and smashes his way out of the trap. 

The minotaur has several horns on his head, both in the front and the back, he has powerful arms and fists. He wears ragged, primitive-style clothing to fit with his age, which just so happens to be thousands of years old. 

The Minotaur

The story behind the Minotaur is actually pretty sad, he was imprisoned for thousands of years and wanted nothing but his own death.

That's all I'll say about the Minotaur because you know, #spoilers.  Keep looking though! I have some pretty cool pictures and a trailer, as always! Love you Whovians !