Scary CostumeChild Halloween CostumesChild CostumeParty CostumesChildren CostumesCostumes CosplayCosplaysHalloween PartyHalloween IdeasForwardMy son wanted to be the Empty Child for Halloween. I am so proud!The LEGO Dimensions Doctor Who level pack plays out like a television episode, and like any television episode it starts with opening credits—what might be the best Doctor Who opening credits sequence ever. Well, technically it begins with a prologue involving a large fleet of Dalek ships descending on the Earth and one of the Doctor’s greatest villains surrounded by plunger-armed robots acting like a bunch of frat boys, but then come those credits. Thus begins another episode of Doctor Who, because that’s what the LEGO Dimensions Doctor Who level pack is. It might not have all that complicated a plot—the Doctor must travel back and forth through time to destroy a series of shield generators before confronting the aforementioned big bad guy in another place entirely. It might not have a Clara, but K-9 will do in a pinch.
Plus, unlike any other Doctor Who episode, this one comes with toys. We’ve got the Doctor, of course. This is our first chance at a Peter Capaldi figure until the LEGO Ideas set is released on December 1. Obviously a pre-sunglasses version of the 12th. There’s the TARDIS, which is in all caps for a reason. It’s a lovely little build, complete with bits inside that can be used to rebuild it into either a Laser-Pulse TARDIS or an Energy-Burst TARDIS. And then we have K-9. He’s adorable, and the Doctor can ride him in all three of his forms, regular, Ruff Power and Laser Cutter. But most of all we get one of the lengthiest, most satisfying LEGO Dimensions levels yet. Okay, everyone who doesn’t want things ruined turned away? Good.First off, here are a few special moments from the hour-and-change episode. We’ve got some explosions, a little time travel, a mention of—among other things—good old Weng Chiang, and the Doctor riding K-9 about and firing lasers.
So the big bad guy is of course Davros, looking much haler and hardier than we last saw him in the show. He’s invaded Earth as a means to lure the Doctor into his trap, which ends just as well as it normally does. The Doctor and fleets of Daleks do not mix. The final conclusion takes place on Skaro, again looking much different than we last saw it, but not without a slight detour that should confuse and thrill fans of the series. Yes, it’s Trenzalore, the place where the TARDIS exploded and the Doctor...perhaps also exploded. I’m not clear on events. All I know is the game manages to pack both the Weeping Angels and The Silence into one place, and it’s wonderful. Once the credits roll on the Doctor’s big LEGO adventure there’s still an entire free-roaming Doctor Who world to explore. The Doctor’s first task is to stitch together chunks of six different worlds—modern London, Victorian London, Skaro, Mars, Telos and Trenzalore. It’s pretty much a Doctor Who playground.
Not only does the Doctor meet several of his contemporary allies and enemies here—including Missy, voiced gleefully by Michelle Gomez—we also get a hefty dose of old school nostalgia. It’s in the Adventure Level (as it’s called) that the Doctor gains the ability to regenerate into any of his previous forms, including John Hurt’s War Doctor.Pardon the temporal suicide. There are sights to see, adventure to undergo, Cybermats to slay and series music to unlock from the latest theme (sans electric guitar) way on back to 1963. Long story short, it’s the best. The Doctor Who LEGO Dimensions level pack is available now for $29.99 wherever video games are sold. It requires the $99.99 LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack to play. The $14.99 Cyberman Fun Pack arrives in January. or find him on Twitter @bunnyspatial.T V DoctorDoctor LovinFangirl DoctorGeeky DoctorThe Doctor'S DaughterDoctors DaughterDaughtersDoctor Who ConnectionsFandom AccountForwardSame scar (The Empty Child and The Doctor's Daughter) What does this mean!!!
I want to watch Doctor Who.” The LEGO video games have always been a bit of a gateway in our household. I’ve always found them to be an excellent way for Younger Son to get interested in properties that have played a big role in our geeky lives: from Marvel to DC, and from Harry Potter to The Lord of the Rings. We play our way through them, pure mother and son bonding time, and then emerge to immerse ourselves in the source worlds from whence they came. So when, flush with Christmas money, he chose to purchase LEGO Dimensions, I wasn’t surprised. I did, perhaps, cackle madly. I knew what was coming. We played through the Wizard of Oz board, then the Simpsons. A LEGO Ninjago level, and then … The moment he laid eyes on the tiny LEGO-figure representation of the 12th Doctor, it was inevitable. “That’s the TARDIS, right?” (The child has attended a local fandom convention with us the past few years. He knows a TARDIS when he sees one; we’ve just never gotten around to watching.)
Within another day or two, we beat the game’s initial board and we had acquired the Doctor Who expansion pack. He wanted to start watching decades worth of episodes, now. Our timing, however, was lousy. I soon found out that we had less than two weeks–14 days packed with other family activities and school and work–before the show vanished from Netflix. A plan was in order. It was hampered by the fact that I, myself, was only a neophyte Whovian. I’d seen a few episodes with the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. I had a good grasp of the show’s mythology thanks to friends, the internet, and conventions. I had very little time to cobble together a plan, with assistance from internet friends and websites and leaps of faith. It would have to do. Now, understand that this is a plan for a fairly fearless 7-year-old who doesn’t mind things that are creepy or scary, one who thrives on pondering moral questions and comparative motivations for characters good, bad, and morally gray.
(Those are his favorite, actually.) One of his main goals was seeing the four newest Doctors and the trio of Whovian monsters that appear in the game: Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels. We tried to hit all those notes. We weren’t able to delve into the classic Doctors, but that will come next. This just had to hook him. Thanks to multiple recommendations, we started at the very beginning of the 2005 restart, with the Ninth Doctor. From the moment the Doctor grabbed Rose’s hand and said, “Run!” I was pretty sure it had him. He giggled over the scene with the hand (and the garbage tote). He thought the Autons were cool. (And now scrutinizes store mannequins with a eye for their Auton suitability.) He worried that Rose wouldn’t go with the Doctor. (As if there was any question.) He immediately wanted to watch another one. This is not one I’d probably recommend for a younger child, but it worked for mine. He chose it because of the title. (He always has a love-hate relationship with the Daleks, who are, after all, excellent antagonists.)
The things I’d be cautious about with another kid, such as some of the Doctor’s morally gray areas and the fate with the Dalek, worked with mine. We discussed the matter at length that night. We still do, on occasion. THREE: “The Empty Child” and “The Doctor Dances.” Just this once, everyone lives. There were many, many questions about World War II and the Blitz after these episodes. They were creepy and ultimately uplifting and introduced Captain Jack, one of Younger Son’s favorites. These are still his favorite episodes. FOUR: “Bad Wolf” and “The Parting of the Ways.” It became increasingly apparent that we were going to have to pay a proper farewell to the Ninth Doctor, so I felt we had to see how his regeneration to Ten came about. Even after only a handful of episodes, he really, really didn’t want to see Nine go–enough that he kept putting this viewing off. It’s an experience every Doctor Who fan must have. He was not at all sure about this new Doctor.
In that, he mirrored Rose in a way that I found fairly genuine. By the end of the episode, however, he had announced that Ten was his favorite Doctor. So far, he’s stuck by that. He was thrilled to see K-9, and he loved the monsters of the week. (And the school setting.) SEVEN: “Rise of the Cybermen” and “The Age of Steel.” Much like Dalek, these were purely because he wanted to see Cybermen. The child has seen enough classic Star Trek to understand (and be fascinated by) the notion of alternate timelines. His much-anticipated “Blink” was coming up, and I wanted him to have a better introduction to Martha Jones than the miniscule time he’d see her in that episode. Plus, there are rhinos in space! He had been waiting for this since the moment he saw the Weeping Angels in LEGO shape. (They’re even creepy in plastic form.) I made sure the viewing was not on a school night; we popped a huge bowl of popcorn and settled in to watch. Afterward he turned to me and said: “I thought it was supposed to be really scary.”
I guess I need to up my game. This is also where I realized we’d spent far too much time on Nine and Ten–and we only had two days left, with not a lot of time to watch television. This was, in part, because I was most familiar with them and in part because he was reluctant to leave Nine behind. (You never forget your first Doctor.) So the next two Doctors had the slightest of introductions. We’ll fill them in later. I was pretty sure at this point that that was definitely going to happen. TEN: “Victory of the Daleks.” Not, perhaps, the best episode, based on friends’ reactions. Still, he picked it because of the title, he was able to meet Eleven, and he was fascinated by the return to the World War II setting. (I need to look for a kid-friendly book on Winston Churchill.) Unexpectedly, he developed a sincere fondness for the character of Professor Bracewell, which led to more interesting conversations on humanity and what it means. ELEVEN: “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship.”