Steven Helmer Publications

Synopsis: Lindy Pepper-Bean ( Callie Cooke ) lives in Finetime, a community populated by wealthy young adults who spend their entire day living and interacting with each other in a social media bubble generated by a floating robot "Dot." When her social group is infiltrated by two strangers calling themselves the Doctor ( Ncuti Gatwa ) and Ruby Sunday ( Millie Gibson ), she believes they are just spam. However, when they finally convince her to lower her bubble, she learns she and the other Finetime residents are being hunted and eaten by alien creatures. Review: With the new season of Doctor Who coming out in just a couple months, I am trying to get my wife and myself caught up and watched Dot and Bubble last night. It ended up being an interesting choice. The whole social commentary on social media taking over young people's lives wasn't exactly subtle but the believable extreme the episode took it to certainly was entertaining and, at times, even humorous. My wi...

Synopsis: The Doctor ( David Tennant ) decides to travel via tourist shuttle to see a sapphire waterfall on a planet that is bathed by a highly toxic radiation. The planet is believed to be uninhabited. But, the shuttle is soon invaded by a life form that is capable of inhabiting other bodies, leading to confusion and panic. Review: This episode was on TV when I got up this morning and I wound up watching it. I've seen this episode one more than one occasion and, each time, I become more and more impressed with it. I'm a big fan of horror movies, especially psychological thrillers, and this episode is as good as any of the films I've seen in that genre. At first, it is hard to tell if the creature is evil or just misunderstood. But, as it purposely tries to create confusion and manipulate the passengers on board the shuttle, it becomes very easy not to like it very much. The thing that really impresses me about this episode is the non-stop intensity. The Doctor ca...

I heard about this a couple days ago and wanted to take some time to let it sink in. While this isn't much of a surprise, as I mentioned before , the Doctor Who season finale seemed to be setting this up, I still am admittedly undecided about this change. On one hand, the series has been getting a little stale lately and maybe a drastic change like this will breathe some new life into it. But, I guess it will ultimately come down to whether or not her version of the Doctor is entertaining. As for Whittaker herself, I realized I really don't know a whole lot about her. I'm only familiar with her from the series Broadchurch (which stars a former Doctor, David Tennant ) and haven't personally seen any of her other roles. So, for now, I'm going to take a wait-and-see approach before deciding. One thing I am a little curious about is whether or not the decision to make the Doctor female is the reason Peter Capaldi's regeneration doesn't happen until t...