Doctor Who: Series 14 (Season 40)

The Thirteenth Doctor has regenerated into the Fourteenth, but the new Doctor is shocked to find himself wearing the same face as a prior incarnation. Returning to Earth, he is immediately reunited with former companion Donna Noble, and plunged into a sequence of events hinting at the arrival of a terrible old enemy. That threat resolved, the Fifteenth Doctor arrives to take over the mantle, and solve the mystery of Ruby Sunday.

It's fair to sat that the Chris Chibnall years of Doctor Who, spanning Series 11 - 13 of the "new" era, were divisive at best. His first season was weak, with variable writing and some dreadful episodes. Things improved, until his final run of episodes (the Flux mini-series and the splendid specials Eve of the Daleks and Power of the Doctor) was respectably solid, dragged down only by the awful Legend of the Sea Devils. But plunging ratings and dwindling audience appreciation saw the BBC decide to regroup and go in a new direction.

And that new direction was, er, an old one. Showrunner Russell T. Davies, who had brought the show back from the abyss in 2005, returned. He brought back David Tennant, the most popular of the new Doctors, with him, and also reintroduced Catherine Tate as Donna. The Doctor-Donna pairing helped make Series 4 arguably the strongest of Davies' original run.

This back-to-basics approach was hugely popular with the BBC but also appealed to Disney, coming on board as international distributor for the first time. It also helped celebrate the show's 60th anniversary in 2023 without having to resort to a "multi-Doctor special," something Davies was not keen on, despite the success it had last time out. Disney also seems to have been keen to try to get the show back to a clean slate to appeal to new viewers.

These three specials are...okay? They're certainly not the resounding back-to-form smash hit successes I think anyone was hoping for, but they're a long way from disastrous. The Star Beast - somewhat randomly - adapts a 1980 comic book story where the Doctor has to help the cute-and-helpless Meep, who turns out to be more than he seems. The result is a fun knockabout adventure, though it has to be said the forced comedic beats are torturous at best (and makes one recall that the first Davies era could have some of the cringiest humour you'd ever seen in your life, but you can overlook it for spectacular episodes like Human Nature or Blink).

Wild Blue Yonder is the trilogy's most "standard" adventure, with the Doctor and Donna arriving on an abandoned spacecraft and encountering some really odd creatures. This is an episode that, at its best, is eerie and discomforting in the way the best Doctor Who can be, and early on feels like a classic in the making. Unfortunately. the episode is let down by the idea not really being strong enough to fill 54 minutes, and some of the effects are downright woeful considering that the Disney influx of cast reportedly doubled the show's budget (the show looking cheaper visually than during the Chibnall era, despite having more resources, becomes a recurring problem). As a result the episode feels like a lot of unfulfilled potential.

The Giggle sees the return of old-school villain the Celestial Toymaker, now played with charismatic relish by Neil Patrick Harris, as he takes on the Doctor with the fate of reality at stake. The Doctor has to join forces with UNIT to take down this most cunning of opponents. This is easily the strongest of the three specials, thanks to Harris's superb performance and Davies giving him some terrific dialogue, with a deadly battle of wits between the Toymaker and the Doctor. Unfortunately, a promising and disturbing episode peters out at the end, with Davies feeling a little too clever in himself in coming up with the idea of "bigeneration," allowing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Doctors (the latter played Ncuti Gatwa) to coexist and team up to take down the Toymaker. The end of the episode is well-intentioned with some nice lines on mental health and a brand new start for Fifteen, but it's also a bit vague and confusing. It feels like the need to introduce the Fifteenth Doctor through an unnecessary gimmick dilutes the episode of its power. Still, Gatwa makes an immediate, positive impression as the Fifteenth Doctor.

The Church on Ruby Road is the 2023 Christmas special, and the first Doctor Who Christmas special since 2017. The special introduces new companion Ruby Sunday, played with winning charisma by Millie Gibson. The storyline resolves around time-travelling musical goblins, which feels a bit random (though turns out to be part of a wider storyline about fantasy invading the scientifically plausible universe), but Gatwa and Gibson sell the hell out of it, resulting in a mostly watchable slice of nonsense. Davies also opens a mystery box about Ruby's origins, which (at this stage) intriguing and a bit eerie. However, there is a feeling here that we've done the whole "companion as a puzzle for the Doctor to solve" thing before with Clara, and that was done better. Still, an okay start to this Doctor - companion pairing.

That doesn't last long though. Space Babies is the first episode of Series 14 proper and is terrible. The Doctor and Ruby arrive on a spaceship and are chased around a bit by a terrifying monster. This is promising. They then find the spaceship is crewed by talking babies, which is...not so much. Cue lots of of horrible lip-synching and some over-enthusiastic voice acting, but it can't really overcome the weak script, poor dialogue and the laughable explanation for the monster. This is not a promising opening to proceedings.

The Devil's Chord fortunately sees an immediate improvement, with the Doctor having to face down the mysterious Maestro, an entity which can weaponise music. This intersects with a visit to 1963 where the Doctor and Ruby want to meet the Beatles and run afoul of Maestro. The ending of the episode is a little weak (despite the excuse for a fun musical number), but the deliciously evil performance of Jinkx Monsoon as Maestro strengthens the episode.

Boom sees the return of former showrunner Steven Moffat with what he does best, a conceptual episode. The concept is that the Doctor steps on a landmine and can't get off without killing himself, resulting in Ruby having to try to save the day solo. It's not Moffat's strongest work, but it's a solid enough piece about the commercialisation of warfare, with weightier themes than Davies' last few scripts.

By this point the new era of Doctor Who feels like it's off to an underwhelming start and needs a shot in the arm, and fortunately it immediately gets it in the form of 73 Yards. One of Davies' strongest-ever scripts, the episode see the Doctor vanish after stepping into a fairy circle, leaving Ruby alone, haunted by a woman who appears exactly 73 yards away from her. Whenever anyone speaks to the woman, they immediately flee in terror and disown Ruby, including her mother and members of UNIT. Unable to enter the TARDIS, Ruby goes on to live the entire rest of her life. As a high-concept piece, this is a rival to Midnight and Turn Left, falling short only because we never get a convincing reason why people scream and run away from the mystery woman, which feels like a rather large plot hole. Still, an eerie and strange episode with a great guest performance by Aneurin Barnard, and a totally dominant performance by Millie Gibson who was dropped in the deep end here (this was her first-filmed episode) and smashed it.

Dot & Bubble is another concept episode, this time the concept being that we're pretty much locked into the POV of guest character Lindy Pepper-Bean (a tremendous performance by Callie Cooke), a member of a species who spend their whole life locked in a literal social media bubble (a VR bubble that surrounds their heads with people messaging them, only rarely turning the bubble off). The metaphor is not the subtlest (though delivered a bit more cleverly than normal) but the setup makes for great tension as the Doctor and Ruby can only communicate with Lindy through IM and have to convince her of a looming alien threat and how to get to safety. The episode's concept is great, and it has an absolutely vicious sting in the tail that really caps the whole thing off, with Gatwa giving his best performance to date. The only reason the episode drops a note is that this is the second episode in a row which barely features the Doctor (an unfortunate side-effect of Gatwa's Sex Education Season 4 filming schedule overrunning), which feels a bit rough given we're still getting to know him.

Rogue is a Doctor Who-by-the-numbers story, a period piece set in 1813 with the Doctor and Ruby attending a period ball that's upset by shapeshifting aliens. There's a nice spin as a time-travelling bounty hunter (played with charismatic gusto by Jonathan Goff) shows up and thinks the Doctor is one of the aliens, leading to some tension as they try to prove their good intentions to one another whilst Ruby investigates the real aliens. The episode relies a little too heavily on the novelty of the Doctor and Rogue's flirtatious relationship (which is not as much of a novelty as Davies seems to think it is since, y'know, Captain Jack exists) rather than focusing on the primary conflict, but the pacing is good. The rest of the guest cast is outstanding as well, with Indira Varma giving a typically great performance and Camilla Aiko providing a winning turn.

The Legend of Ruby Sunday sets up the season finale with some genuinely chilling moments, as the Doctor tries to uncover the identity of Ruby's mother with cutting-edge UNIT technology. The tension and mystery builds with relish until we get to an epic cliffhanger ending, the effectiveness of which is only let down by the majority of viewers having zero idea whom the surprise bad guy actually is.

Empire of Death takes the promise of Legend and pretty much flushes it away. Legend built up a sense of genuine dread through good pacing and some eerie setpieces. Empire is just bland, rushed, confusing, illogical and defeats the returning villain with extreme rapidity. Everyone does their best with a confused script, but the episode just feels like a huge letdown.

Series 14 and its attendant specials (***½) are okay, two outstanding near-classics let down by a generally more juvenile tone than the era immediately before, and the sheer awfulness of Space Babies and Empire of Death. This isn't Russell T. Davies strutting back onto the stage to save the day with the greatest hits, its more like to play his new, late-career album which is okay, bordering on solid, but sound a bit like a 60-year-old guy trying to get down with the kids a bit too hard. The best episodes in this batch are when everyone forgets they're trying to save Doctor Who, chills out and just writes good episodes. When anyone (especially Davies) overthinks it, things start falling apart. Still, a long way from being the worst season of Doctor Who in its history, or since its reboot, and the optimism is there that maybe we can get back to the franchise at its best.

• 14X1: The Star Beast (***½)
• 14X2: Wild Blue Yonder (***½)
• 14X3: The Giggle (****)
• 14X4: The Church on Ruby Road (***½)
• 14.1: Space Babies (*½)
• 14.2: The Devil's Chord (***½)
• 14.3: Boom (****)
• 14.4: 73 Yards (****½)
• 14.5: Dot & Bubble (****½)
• 14.6: Rogue (***½)
• 14.7: The Legend of Ruby Sunday (****)
• 14.8: Empire of Death (**)

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The Devils by Joe Abercrombie

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Chapel of the Holy Expediency to receive a mission directly from the ten-year-old Pope. He is to join a group of "devils," evil-doers repenting for their sins in (unwilling) service to the Papacy. Their goal is to guide the young heir to the throne of Troy to her throne, despite four cousins all keen to ensure she never gets there. Carrying out this quest are an immortal warrior, an invisible elf, an overly-proud necromancer, a jack of all trades, a vampire, and a werewolf. This quest may see them learn the meaning of friendship and found family (but probably not), and realise that the real friends are the zombie warriors we resurrected along the way.

The Devils is the latest novel from Joe Abercrombie, the undisputed king of dysentrypunk. Through many novels he has written stories soaked in blood (not always the best printing process for easy reading, but still), told with verve, humour, and sometimes worrying psychoses. This latest book is a semi-standalone, capable of being read by itself but also setting up a loose trilogy of episodic adventures for the Holy Expediencers.

The storyline is pretty straightforward, with street orphan-turned-professional-thief Alex finding out she's the long-lost Princess of Troy, a fairly unlikely prospect but one proven by the traditional means of a holy birthmark and a long-lost sigil. The Papal Shambolics have to guide her to her destiny, which involves (as this is an Abercrombie novel) a veritable morass of slaughter, bad jokes and bodily fluids spraying in all directions. Along the way we get to know the rest of the group, their hopes, their desires, and their propensity to solve problems with sharp bits of metal. It's a solid cast of characters, likeable but (heavily) flawed, seeking redemption or something adjacent to it, drawn with reasonable colour and depth.

The Devils feels like Unfettered Abercrombie. His First Law books, particularly the recent(ish) Age of Madness Trilogy, mix the dark humour and knockabout antics with weightier stories of societal development and an extended meta-arc which, though it can be summed up as, "what if Gandalf was a total arsehole?", has a lot of depth. The Devils feels like Joe had decided he needed a break from those weightier elements and he could just have a knockabout good time. This is a veritable "beer and pretzels" book where themes and intricate worldbuilding are side-courses, not the main appeal.

This has the simultaneous effect of making The Devils possibly Abercrombie's most outright enjoyable work, with action and comedy to spare, but also maybe his slightest, and most disposable. First Law fans may bemoan a lengthy gap until we return to that world (if we ever do) and the mouth-watering Glokta vs Bayaz struggle his last book set up, and others may ponder if Joe could have been better-served by exploring fresher fields altogether (presumably less filled with recruits corpses). But that's the perennial problem: do you want your favourite artist to deliver you what they're best at, no surprises, or reach for the worrying button called "space jazz concept album?"

The Devils (****) is straight-up Abercrombie, no chaser. It's fun, funny and uncomplicated, and is on the shelves worldwide right now.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

Mel Brooks returns for SPACEBALLS 2

In startling news, the 98-year-old Mel Brooks has confirmed he is returning to the big screen to reprise the character of Yogurt in Spaceballs 2, the sequel to his hit 1987 comedy spoof.

Released in 1987, the original Spaceballs was a homage to/satire of the 1980s visual effects sci-fi movie, riffing hard off the original Star Wars but also nodding at Alien, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Mel Brooks co-wrote, directed and starred, appearing as both the wise Yogurt and the evil-ish President Skroob. The film also starred John Candy, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, Joan Rivers, George Wyner, Dick Van Patten, and was a career-making movie for Bill Pullman. The film is now widely-regarded as a fun homage to the sci-fi genre, with a slightly sharp commentary on the commodification of art ("Spaceballs the flamethrower!").

Brooks has been asked about making a sequel almost constantly since 1987. He did spend some time joking about never making a direct sequel, so the sequel would be called Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2, though, as ever with Brooks, it was unclear if he was joking, serious or semi-serious. At other times, including in the original movie, he suggested the sequel would be called Spaceballs 2: The Search for More Money.

Spaceballs 2 (subtitle unknown) will be directed by Josh Greenbaum, from a script by Benji Samit, Dan Hernandez and Josh Gad. Gad will also star in the movie and co-produce alongside Brooks. Bill Pullman and Rick Moranis will return as Lone Starr and Dark Helmet, whilst Keke Palmer will join the cast in an unnamed role. The project has been described as a "non-prequel non-reboot sequel part two, but with reboot elements franchise expansion film." MGM-Amazon expect to release the films in cinemas (and presumably then Amazon Prime Video) in 2027.

May the Schwartz be with you. Always.

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS to end with shorter fifth season

Paramount have confirmed that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds will conclude with a fifth season, which will consist of six instead of the normal ten episodes. The good news is that this is still some way off: Strange New Worlds' third season is only debuting on 17 July, with the fourth season in production.

Strange New Worlds only exists because of a fan campaign, after the characters were well-received in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery (2019). Delayed by the COVID pandemic, the show debuted in 2022 and attracted very positive reviews for its focus on standalone episodes and a lighter tone than Discovery, which had a much more critically mixed reception, as well as its casting and its focus on an ensemble. Season 2 (2023) was also well-received.

Season 3 is debuting over two years after the second season, but Paramount+ are keen to the get the next two seasons out as fast as possible, hoping to release Season 4 in 2026 and Season 5 in 2027.

The move comes after the ending of Discovery, Picard and both animated shows, Lower Decks and Prodigy. This will only leave one Star Trek series, the forthcoming Starfleet Academy, in production.

Trailer for ALIEN: EARTH released

FX has released the trailer for Alien: Earth, the first TV series based on the Aliens franchise.

The series is set in the year 2120 and opens on Neverland Research Island on Earth (this is two years before the Nostromo visits the planet LV-426 in the original movie Alien), where human-synthetic interfaces are being developed. A spacecraft has returned to Earth with five apex alien lifeforms on board, each capable of tremendous violence and destruction, crashing into Prodigy City. One of the creatures, predictably, is our favourite xenomorph, but the natures of the other three are unclear. To deal with the crisis, the Company sends in a team of synthetics to investigate further.

Alien: Earth is written and showrun by Noah Hawley, the much-feted creative force behind the TV series Fargo and Legion. It stars Sydney Chandler, Timothy Olyphant, Alex Lawther, Samuel Blenkin, Essie Davis, Adrian Edmondson and Max Rinehart, amongst many others. Ridley Scott is producing.

The series debuts on FX and Disney+ on 12 August 2025, and will run for eight episodes.

Owlcat developing EXPANSE video roleplaying game inspired by MASS EFFECT

Owlcat Games are developing an action roleplaying game set in the world of the Expanse novels and TV series. Osiris Reborn is in development now and marks the developer's first non-top-down RPG project.

The game focuses on a Pinkwater Security mercenary trapped on Eros Station during a deadly lockdown. Presumably they escape during the chaos and gain control of their own ship, which they use to travel the Solar system in search of answers and money. The game will feature some crossovers with the TV show, with some of the actors reprising their roles. The game will feature multiple familiar locations from the extant IP, including Ceres, Ganymede and Mars.

Owlcat, currently based in Cyprus, with teams operating around the world, is best-known for their massive, in-depth adaptations of existing IP. They have released two huge RPGs based on the Pathfinder tabletop roleplaying game, Kingmaker (2018) and Wrath of the Righteous (2021), and the Warhammer 40,000 RPG Rogue Trader (2023). They are currently developing a new 40K RPG, Dark Heresy. Osiris Reborn is being worked on by a new team independently of those projects.

The Expanse: Osiris Reborn is a marked shift for the company, as it will be a combat-heavy, over-the-shoulder action RPG focusing on a customisable captain character. Romances will be in the game. This is clearly heavily inspired by Mass Effect, in the same way their earlier games were heavily inspired by Baldur's Gate and its sequels. This is also the second video game project based on The Expanse, after The Expanse: A Telltale Series (2023).

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Decades ago, the Fracture tore the world apart. Every year since, a godlike entity known as "The Paintress" has risen from her slumber to paint a new number on the side of the colossal Monolith. Every human of that age immediately dies, vanishing in a cloud of petals. Every year, an Expedition leaves the city of Lumière, vowing to be the one to defeat the Paintress and stop the slaughter. Every year, they fail. This year, Expedition 33 plans to break the cycle.

One of the most joyous experiences in life is when something comes out of nowhere to blindside you with just how damn good it is. No years of building expectations, no months of hype and trailers that leaves you tired before the thing even arrives, just something great showing up and getting into it immediately.

That "thing" for 2025 is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. A French-made, Japanese-influenced roleplaying game with a premise China Miéville would have killed to have thought of. The product of ex-Ubisoft developers whose creativity had been caged and nearly killed off by years in the Extruded Product Mines, but here allowed to explode forth without restraint, the game makes an immediate, often stunning impression.

In the tradition of the best JRPGs, the start of the game sets out the premise and establishes an initial group of playable characters, with a single "focal" POV character (here Gustave, voiced by Daredevil star Charlie Cox). As the game continues, additional characters join the party. Each character has different abilities and combat skills, which can be developed by levelling them up. As a JRPG-influenced game, Clair Obscur's mechanics are almost wholly focused around combat. You will spend more time fighting than doing anything else, there are no dialogue choices, and the game is built around its central quest and main storyline. Whilst there are side-quests, optional areas and optional bosses to fight, the main appeal here is the main story.

Thankfully, the story is very good. The setting is basically the New Weird meets the Belle Époque, the French period of optimism that extended from the Franco-Prussian War to World War I. It's no coincidence that one of the striking images of Clair Obscur is a melted Eiffel Tower, its top weirdly canted. The story sees the people of Lumière threatened with total extinction and mounting increasingly desperate missions to save themselves, only to fail every time. Obviously, the hope is that the Expedition you happen to be part of succeeds.

The game is predominantly played in third-person, as you guide the party through successive areas. These areas are linear, but most contain branching paths leading to extra resources, money or optional battles (which will also yield resources and money, with the added bonus of experience). Your party usually has an objective in each area, with well-acted cut scenes explaining major story beats and filling in new plot revelations.

After completing the first area, you'll find yourself on a very beautiful, very Final Fantasy-esque world map, offering different locations you can go to. The next story-critical location will be clearly marked, but you can also visit optional areas for stiffer challenges, find merchants to trade with or find enemies wandering the wilderness to challenge (these periodically respawn). Initially you are very limited where you can travel, but you'll quickly make a key ally who can carry you around for faster traversal, and can eventually gain the ability to swim so you can move onto other landmasses. Borrowing a cue from the likes of Half-Life 2, which puts the Citadel in the skybox of almost every area so you can always see your destination, Clair Obscur puts the Monolith and its ominously glowing number "33" in the background of almost every level and on the world map, letting you know how far you have to travel.

Combat is mostly turn-based, with you and the enemies exchanging blows. A key feature of the game is that you can completely negate enemy damage by either dodging or parrying blows, by hitting the appropriate command at the right time. Dodging means you suffer no damage, whilst parrying means you build up action points (allowing access to higher-tier abilities on your next go) and you may also trigger counter-attacks, dealing devastating damage. Dodging is easier but gives you less advantages, whilst parrying is more useful but the timing has to be more precise, and failure will result in taking damage. Enemy animation and sound cues have to be learned to fully master parrying. I know some people dislike the intrusion of real-time, even Soulslike*, mechanics into a turn-based game. I found it refreshing and interesting, but occasionally frustrating.

I do have to say that playing on keyboard and mouse (with a second screen) seemed to confuse the game on a semi-frequent basis so that parries and dodge inputs would be missed (you can see your characters reacting onscreen to commands, even if the timing is wrong), and if I ever replay I'd probably use a controller, which is annoying for playing a game on PC, which has a rich history of running turn-based games perfectly fine. Oh well.

During combat you can execute basic attacks, use character-specific skills (you can unlock new skills using experience points) and benefit from abilities gained from pictos and lumina, which are this game's equivalent to, say, Final Fantasy VII's materia. Pictos are magical skills that can be assigned to characters. Each character can wield 3 at once. Once you have used a picto in four battles, it becomes "learned" as lumina. All party members can then "learn" the lumina (unlike a picto, which can only be assigned to one character at a time), using a pool of lumina points. There are no limits to the number of lumina that characters can learn, apart from their pool of points (the number of points available rapidly escalates as the game continues). As an example, there's a powerful picto called "Cheater," which allows your characters to take two turns in rapid succession. You equip the picto on your party-member Maelle. After Maelle takes part in four battles, "Cheater" is added to your list of luminas, and now your other party-members can all learn "Cheater" as well, so the whole party can now go twice in rapid succession.

The real power of pictos and luminas is how they can stack effects in ways that build to ridiculous levels. If you gave Maelle skills that allow her to double damage, then double damage again if under 10% health, do two attacks in a row, and give her a weapon that puts her in high-damage mode at the start of every turn, she turns into an absolutely ludicrous death machine (to maximise insanity, you can make sure you pair her with Sciel, who's skills allow her to give another party-member maximum action points and make them go immediately). The synergies in the system allow you to build very capable and powerful characters. Learning the ins and outs of this system is part of the experience, though if you are too good at it, you can break the system and one-shot most things in the game (and, by now, there's also tons of online guides and YouTube videos on how to do that).

Fortunately, the critical path is somewhat forgiving and doesn't demand that kind of attention to detail, instead allowing you to more fumble through and experiment. If you want to take on some of the optional superbosses, though, you definitely want to make this system work for you at maximum efficiency.

As well as exploring, combat and undertaking story missions, you can rest at camp, in the best RPG tradition. At camp you can upgrade your weapons and skills, re-equip and talk to other party members, gaining new insights into their backgrounds and stories. Later in the game you can start to build relationship levels with characters; maxing out these levels unlocks new combat abilities and can lead to exclusive, late-game quests. Romances are possible, though low-key.

Graphically, the game is impressive though maybe not the most cutting-edge. The game's visual triumph is more in its art design and constant imagination, throwing environments like cities torn in half by the Fracture and deposited on opposite sides of the continent, an area which appears to be underwater (complete with fish) but you can breathe normally, a battlefield with a truly stupendous amount of bodies left lying around and a vast arena you have to descend through whilst the massive boss monster dances tauntingly at you as you fight through their minions. At other parts of the game you can travel inside paintings to fight a powerful monster, descend into the pits of the Abyss to confront a betrayed soul (and the toughest fight this side of Ruby Weapon), or explore a mansion that can be accessed from all over the maps, and slowly unlocking all its rooms becomes a key sub-objective as the game unfolds.

On the audio side of things, Clair Obscur might be one of the most ear-pleasing games ever made. The voice acting is outrageously good (from the likes of Charlie Cox, Andy Serkis, Ben Starr and multiple Baldur's Gate III veterans, including Jennifer English) but the soundtrack from Lorien Testard and Alice Duport-Percier (among many other musicians) is absolute class-A. Calling it the "best video game soundtrack of all time" might be a bit premature, but it certainly sails immediately into the Top Ten. Whether it's the operatic and sweeping "Alicia," the singalong "Lumière" or synth-bass-funky boss music "Rain from the Ground," the soundtrack (all eight hours of it) never stops impressing.

The game's story is well-thought-out and impressively weird and off-kilter. The backstory revelations of why the world is the way it is and what relation it has to our world (Lumière appears to be a warped version of the real Paris) are given out sparingly over the course of the game's runtime, with a powerful emotional impact accompanying the story's development. If possible, try to avoid spoilers and go in cold with this one, it's well worth it.

The game also has very laudable, focused pacing. A story-first playthrough will take you around 30 hours, but an exhaustive exploration of all optional areas, bosses and battles will double that to about 55-60 hours, a very laudable amount of content for what is not a full-price release.

So, outstanding worldbuilding, writing, characterisation, music, combat and graphics? Is the game flawless? Not quite. As mentioned earlier, the game is really not too happy with mouse and keyboard controls (especially if you have a second screen), and after 60 hours mashing the "E" button to parry with such force I literally injured my finger, I wish now I'd played on a more forgiving controller. Something PC players might want to bear in mind. The game also had some technical issues, ironically introduced by a patch; on launch the game was technically flawless but after the patch started crashing occasionally, at random. This wasn't frequent (four times total in 60 hours) but enough to mildly irritate. The game's UI could be sharper, rotating through different menu screens - some accessible anywhere, some only at camping flags - to sort out weapons, lumina, pictos and skills could be cumbersome. The lack of a minimap in larger areas is mildly irritating if you're trying to track where you've been and not been. The story's progression becomes a bit more divisive as it goes along.

Relatively minor problems, which can't detract from the overwhelmingly impressive artistry that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (****½) exudes from every pore. This is a fun video game, an astonishing musical jam, a great story and an atmospheric, at times eerie work of art. Highly recommended, the game is available now on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and via Xbox Game Pass.

* Mechanics derived from the Dark Souls trilogy and other games by the same team, such as Sekiro and Elden Ring, which heavily favour parrying, dodging and countering attacks based on audio/visual cues.

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.

MASS EFFECT TV series gains showrunner, moving forwards at Amazon

Amazon have hired Doug Jung (Mindhunter, Big Love, Banshee, Star Trek Beyond, The Cloverfield Paradox) to produce and showrun their Mass Effect TV project.

The original Mass Effect trilogy (2007, 2010, 2012) sees late 22nd Century humanity discovering alien life and reluctantly joining the Citadel Council, which represents dozens of alien species at a colossal, ancient space station of ancient origin. Commander Shepard, the first human soldier to be nominated as a Spectre, a Council agent with wide-ranging powers, uncovers evidence of a powerful alien threat to the entire galaxy, known as the Reapers. The Council are sceptical, forcing Shepard to undertake a series of dangerous missions to expose the true nature and scale of the threat. The fourth game, Mass Effect: Andromeda (2017), explores what happens when a series of great ark ships from our galaxy arrive in Andromeda some six hundred years later. The games are noted for the quality of their writing, characterisation and especially impressive worldbuilding.

Amazon picked up the Mass Effect rights in 2021, but there's been little word of the project since then, with some assuming it had withered on the vine. Today's news is not quite a formal greenlight, but it sounds like they are moving to that point. Jung will be the lead writer and showrunner, joining Dan Casey who has already been developing the project. Michael Gamble will produce for Electronic Arts, with Ari Arad and Emmy Yu of Arad Productions.

At this stage there is no sign of any of the original Mass Effect creative team from BioWare being involved. Most have long since left BioWare and are scattered working on different projects for different gaming studios. Fans will also be hoping for the involvement of the original cast's iconic voice cast, including Mark Meer, Jennifer Hale, Seth Green and Brandon Keener, though likely in different roles given their ages.

Fans may also recall that Henry Cavill is a huge Mass Effect fan and had previously teased an apparent willingness to appear in a project.

A Mass Effect TV show is likely still 2-3 years away from reaching the screen. Meanwhile, BioWare is developing a fifth Mass Effect video game, with no word on a potential release date.

Doctor Who: Series 13 (Season 39) - Flux

A mysterious force known as the Flux is extending across space and time, threatening vast areas of the universe with total annihilation. The Doctor, still reeling from revelations on Gallifrey, is called in to help stop the threat before it is too late.

The twelfth series of the revitalised Doctor Who was a mixed bag, with several very solid episodes alternating with some outright terrible ones, and the season finale being an attempt to restore the mystery to the Doctor's origins, but coming across as a dull overload of exposition instead. With half of the fanbase apparently fuming over this, showrunner Chris Chibnall chose to come out punching with both a third series under his watch and a series of specials designed to see out his (and Jodie Whittaker's) era.

For only the third time in the show's history, after Season 16 in 1978 (The Key to Time) and Season 23 in 1986 (The Trial of a Time Lord), it was decided to have the whole season telling one story, given the overall title Flux. The Doctor would have to face multiple ongoing threats linked together by an over-arcing story. This would be complicated by the loss of companions Graham and Ryan from the season before, so a new companion (comedian John Bishop as Dan) would need to come in, alongside a sizeable recurring cast of characters extending across the whole season.

Chibnall's task was eased - if that is the right word - by the global COVID pandemic, which reduced the number of episodes to just six, making pacing and structure a lot easier than the normal ten. However, a Christmas special and two additional specials airing the year after would extend the season to something approaching a more normal length.

Things get off to a barmy start in The Halloween Apocalypse as the dog-headed Karvanista, of the Lupari species, arrives on Earth and kidnaps Liverpool tradesman Dan Lewis (Bishop). The Doctor and Yaz rescue Dan but discover that the Lupari are coming to Earth not to conquer it but to protect it from a massive space/time distortion known as the Flux. The situation is complicated by an enigmatic creature known as Swarm escaping from a prison where he's been held for millennia, a mysterious woman known as Claire accosting the Doctor before running afoul of the Weeping Angels, and a space adventurer called Vinder who flees the Flux only to run into the Sontarans.

All of this makes for a very busy opener, but a very fun one, with shrinking houses and more plot twists and villains then you can shake a sonic screwdriver at. After the dour and depressing Timeless Children, this is a fun, almost bouncy episode that has no pretensions other than setting up a whole load of guns and firing them off to see what happens. The sheer business of the episode keeps Chibnall's eternal nemesis, stodgy pacing, at bay.

War of the Sontarans keeps things flowing by immediately pitting the Doctor and her companions against the Sontarans in two different time periods, with the Doctor teaming up with Mary Seacole to fight the Sontarans in the Crimean War whilst Dan confronts them in contemporary Liverpool. In a side-plot, Yaz meets up with Vinder and both run afoul of Swarm and his sister, Azure. This is another very solid episode, restoring a sense of real menace and threat to the Sontarans whom had previously been reduced to comic relief. There's also an outstanding turn by Sam Spruell and Rochenda Sandall as the Ravager siblings, Swarm and Azure, who have presence and outstanding prosthetics to become two of the most intimidating Doctor Who enemies we've seen for some time. Also a nod to Jacob Anderson (Game of Thrones) for a fun turn as effective semi-companion Vinder, and Sara Powell as Mary Seacole.

Chibnall can't quite keep the quality up, though, and Once, Upon Time disappoints slightly as we get extended, illusory flashbacks for the characters. Craig Parkinson delivers a splendid performance as the villainous Grand Serpent and Thaddea Graham is appealing as Bel, who is on a mission so urgent that armies of Daleks and Cybermen cannot stop her, but the episode lacks the dynamism of the first two. Still, solid.

Village of the Angels returns to form with a great, Pertwee-esque story of the Doctor, Yaz and Dan trapped in an English village with a bunch of Weeping Angels. Annabel Scholey and Kevin McNally give great performances as the time-displaced Claire and Professor Jericho, a Doctor Who character so traditional (well-meaning, slightly bumbling, awed by the Doctor's knowledge and determined to help) he might as well have beamed in from the set of The Daemons. Probably the season highlight, aided by a killer twist ending.

Survivors of the Flux unfortunately sees Chibnall having to do something he has always struggled with, starting to deliver a satisfying finale. The revelation of the Flux's origins is disappointing, and the scale of what we are told is happening (large parts of the universe being destroyed) clashes with what we see (a few Dalek, Cyberman, Lupari and Sontarans impacted, and maybe four or five planets). Barbara Flynn gives a solid performance as the originator of the Flux, but she vanishes from the story a bit too abruptly and before we get too many solid answers about what's going on. The episode is mostly saved by a subplot in which the Grand Serpent orchestrates a time-skipping plan to weaken UNIT, but runs afoul of Kate Stewart (the always-splendid Jemma Redgrave), but otherwise is a bit of a sloppy mess.

The Vanquishers resolves the Flux storyline semi-satisfyingly, with a complex, multi-front conflict which literally sees the Doctor split in three to lead different plans to defeat the Ravagers, the Sontarans and some Daleks and Cybermen for good measure. The finale is somewhat nonsensical - the Ravagers go out with an extreme whimper after five episodes of being genuinely threatening - but there's a certain "gleeful romp" feeling to events that's somewhat infectious.

Overall, the Flux experiment is successful. Losing four episodes from its length stopped it becoming interminable and annoying, but also resulted in some episodes feeling rushed and a bit overstuffed. The weight of events is undersold (a large chunk of the universe is destroyed and never comes up again, though this has happened before, in Logopolis), and the apparent annihilation of the Daleks is a bit undercut by the next episode confirming that loads of Daleks survived, but this is Chibnall's strongest continuous run of episodes.

This continues into the 2022 New Year's Special, Eve of the Daleks, in which the Doctor and her companions and two people are trapped in a storage facility by a repeating time loop and a Dalek. The only way to start the loop again is to embrace being exterminated. This is one of Chibnall's best single scripts, with an ingenious premise and excellent performances by guest stars Aisling Bea and Adjani Salmon. It's an episode that makes the most of a limited number of sets and actors and constantly finds ways to refresh the premise and become more compelling as it goes along, with one of the better uses of the Daleks since their return in 2005.

Unfortunately, Chibnall's strongest run on the show comes to a screeching halt with Legend of the Sea Devils. Both the Flux season and Eve of the Daleks were clearly compromised by COVID filming restrictions but found clever ways around them. Legend of the Sea Devils does not. The episode features a ton of painful greenscreen work and some very poorly-staged fight scenes and action beats. This may be the worst-directed episode of Doctor Who since its return in 2005, with basic beat-to-beat continuity being a total mess. The guest cast (Marlow Chan-Reeves, Crystal Yu, Craige Els, Arthur Lee and David K.S. Tse) give good performances, and the script has a ton of really great ideas, but awful direction, and some poor dialogue constantly sap any sense of momentum from the episode. It's very annoying because the idea of the Sea Devils returning and fighting Chinese pirates with the Doctor getting involved is an original and fun one.

The Power of the Doctor sees the Thirteenth Doctor out in style with a truly epic storyline involving the Master at his gleeful, plate-spinning best (Sacha Dhawan gets some joyously great lines here), teaming up with both the Daleks and Cybermen in a crazy plan to force the Doctor to regenerate into a clone of the Master. UNIT gets involved, having brought in former companions Tegan (Janet Fielding) and Ace (Sophie Aldred) to help out. In fact, The Power of the Doctor becomes the most Classic Who-friendly episode of all time, with cameo appearances of all of the surviving classic Doctors (bar Tom Baker) thanks to visions, and multiple companions appearing as part of a self-help group for ex-companions. This risks self-indulgence, but by also keeping the focus on Thirteen and her relationships with Yaz and this diabolically satisfying version of the Master (whose turn as Rasputin is genuinely, gloriously unhinged), it also does what it needs to do in delivering a satisfying send-off for Jodie Whittaker's Doctor.

As the overall season goes, this is easily (****) Chibnall and Whittaker's best, with only Legend of the Sea Devils being really poor. There's a sense of fun here that was largely missing from their other two seasons and minimising the Timeless Child stuff but not completely ignoring it feels like the best solution. There's a lot of fanservice here, but it's usually done to enhance the current storylines rather than distract from them. There are some weaknesses - Yaz's characterisation remains rather thin, despite Mandip Gill being a very good actress, and bringing Vinder back to Power of the Doctor to not do much risks making the episode overstuffed - but these are minor compared to the issues in the prior two seasons.

The uptick in quality - and certainly what happens next - may actually make you ponder if it might have been better for Chibnall to have stayed on for another season or so. But I can't blame for the BBC rushing to get Russell T. Davies and David Tennant back on board.

• 13.1: The Halloween Apocalypse (****)
• 13.2: War of the Sontarans (****)
• 13.3: Once, Upon Time (***½)
• 13.4: Village of the Angels (****½)
• 13.5: Survivors of the Flux (***)
• 13.6: The Vanquishers (***½)
• 13X1: Eve of the Daleks (****½)
• 13X2: Legend of the Sea Devils (**)
• 13X3: The Power of the Doctor (****½)

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Joe Abercrombie's THE DEVILS optioned by James Cameron

James Cameron has optioned the screen rights to Joe Abercrombie's latest novel, The Devils. Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment plans to produce a movie adaptation with Cameron and Abercrombie co-writing the scrip. Cameron has not committed to direct, as he is busy with a tiny little project called Avatar for the foreseeable.

The Devils, published just last month to become his first #1 Sunday Times Bestseller (as well as hitting #5 on the New York Times Bestseller List), is the first in a new trilogy from Abercrombie, set in an alternate medieval history version of our world where the Child Pope conspires to put the long-lost Princess of Troy back on her throne with the help of a squad of malcontents, including a vampire, a necromancer, a werewolf, an elf, a cursed undead warrior and an expert thief. Obviously, complications ensue.

Joe has had his work optioned for film before, with Deadpool director Tim Miller and Dune / Silo star Rebecca Ferguson attached to an adaptation of his novel Best Served Cold two years ago. So far, that project has not moved forwards.

Cameron is hard at work on his Avatar sequence of films, with the third movie, Avatar: Fire and Ash, due for release on 19 December this year. Avatar 4 and 5 are in development, with around a third of Avatar 4 already in the can for a provisional 2029 release.

Blogging Roundup: 1 March to 1 June 2025

 

The Wertzone

News

• Doctor Who springs shocking season cliffhanger
• Wheel of Time TV series cancelled after three seasons
• JV Jones answering fan questions on Reddit tomorrow
• Yellowjackets renewed for Season 4
• Updated version of original STALKER trilogy to be released next week
• Grand Theft Auto VI delayed to May 2026, as was foretold in the ancient texts
• Philip Pullman's final Book of Dust novel, The Rose Field, will be released this October
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered announced and released
• Bethesda to announce The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered tomorrow
• Star Wars: Zero Company announced
• Mighty board game series Command & Colors licences Star Wars
• Iconic fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad's maps are looking for a new home
• No Life Forsaken, the new Malazan novel by Steven Erikson, gets release date
• First trailer for Murderbot released
• Doctor Who celebrates 20th anniversary of its revival
• Terry Brooks announces semi-retirement from writing
• JV Jones completes Endlords, the penultimate Sword of Shadows novel

Reviews

• Andor: Season 2
• Doctor Who: Series 12 (Season 38)
• The Rose in Darkness by Danie Ware
• The Last of Us Part II
• Atomfall
• Tactical Breach Wizards
• A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
• Avowed
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

Articles

• RIP Peter David
• RIP Jean Marsh

Atlas of Ice and Fire

• Iconic fantasy cartographer Karen Wynn Fonstad’s maps are looking for a new home

Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.