Posts tagged: Doctor Who Reviews

Doctor Who S09E12 “Hell Bent” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays
Writer: Steven Moffat
Director: Rachel Talalay

Essential Plot Points:

• The Doctor topples the Time Lord President, Rassilon, and High Council of Gallifrey using the silent approach.
• But he’s still keeping shtum about the Hybrid, and convinces the General he needs information from Clara to help defeat it.
• So the Time Lords extract Clara from time just before her death; she is now a kind of time-zombie caught between the final two heartbeats of her life. She will be kept “alive” for just a few minutes…
• …Excapt the Doctor’s been fibbing. He really just wanted Clara resurrected and as soon as she is he scrapers off with her in a stolen TARDIS.
• Well, not quite right away. There’s a lot of nattering in the Matrix first. Apparently when he was a young Time Brat, the Doctor was told about the Hybrid by a Matrix Wraith, and that’s what made him scared enough to run from Gallifrey.
• Oh, and the Doctor also acquires a Time Lord device for wiping memories (painlessly) along the way. Realising he has gone too far in his quest to save Clara, he aims to protect her by wiping her memory of all knowledge of him and her adventures with him.
• For some reason he goes to the end of time to do this where he meets Me, and they play a game of, “Who can come up with the stupidest theory for what the Hybrid is?”
• When Clara learns what the Doctor plans she knobbles the mind wipe device. Knowing that it will malfunction but not what it will do now, they both use the device, and a lot (but not all) of the Doctor’s memories of Clara are wiped. Clara’s memories remain intact.
• Clara drops the Doctor off on Earth, gives him back his own TARDIS then flies off in the stolen TARDIS (stuck in the form of an American diner) with Me.
• The Doctor gets his mojo back.

Review:

For around 20 minutes “Hell Bent” is everything you could want from a series finale. After that… it isn’t. Which is both a good and a bad thing.

It’s typical of a series that  has been so ready to experiment with the show’s format that it doesn’t revert to tried and trusted crowdpleasing bells and whistles for its climax. Instead it goes for an intensely personal – and intensely talky – resolution. Bold, certainly. Ballsy, you bet. Wise? Hmmm…

The key line in the episode contains just two words: “Clara who?” Or maybe that should be written, “Clara Who.” The whole subplot of the last couple of seasons has been how Clara had been becoming more of a Doctor than the Doctor, and now here she is, galavanting around the universe in a stolen TARDIS (with a sidekick), possibly immortal. Meanwhile, she’s also brought the Doctor back from the brink; the final scene, as he puts on his “Doctor-y” velvet jacket, clicks his fingers to close the TARDIS doors and discards the sonic glasses for an trad sonic screwdriver, seems to promise the end of naval-gazing “mid-life crisis Doctor” and a return to a more recognisably heroic Doctor. (We kinda hope he keeps the guitar, though.)

All of which is a lovely conceit, and there are some wonderfully uplifting moments towards the end of the episode (rare for a companion’s departure in New Who). There are also some great emotional speeches from Clara, especially the one when she points out she’d rather die with her memories intact than live in ignorance, that give the last section real resonance. (It would have had mote resonant, though, if it had been made clear that the Doctor had elected to wipe his own memories, rather than fudging the issue by just teasing the idea; the Doctor at that point needed to look like hero, with no grey areas.)

But all that would have been just as moving and emotional and memorable if it had been the last few minutes of an action-packed finale. Instead, Moffat concentrates on this subplot with pretensions for near two-thirds of the episode. So after a simply blistering and visually spectacular extended sequence with the Doctor conquering Gallifrey without uttering a word, the episode seems to lose impetus and direction. There are lots of little lovely moments, certainly, and no end of great one liners, but you keep wondering, “Where the hell is all this going?” You can follow what’s going on but often it’s difficult to grasp why.

For example, the Doctor seems to have conquered Gallifrey and seems to be de facto president now (the General follows his orders as regards banishing Rassilon), yet he scurries from his own people like an escaped prisoner. Why the need to find a secret route to the TARDISes via the Matrix if you give the orders? Even if the only TARDIS parking lot in Gallifrey is beneath the Matrix (which seems unlikely) surely as president he could demand to have a TARDIS brought to a more convenient location before extracting Clara? Maybe this all made sense in Moffat’s head but it’s difficult fathom out the exact status of things on Gallifrey following the Doctor’s coup.

So the Matrix scenes come across as so much filler (not helped by some really uninspired production design – see below), mainly inserted to provide an excuse for the Doctor to reveal his tale about his encounter with a Matrix Wraith. Oh, and to dust off (or more accurately, dust on) some old monster costumes in an attempt to make the scenes more exciting. There are a couple of creepily effective shots of the Weeping Angels, but largely this section of the episode feels either like padding or a set-up for a future storyline.

Then the Doctor decides to go to the end of time, because that always sounds impressive. But why? Did he have to make the “adjustment” to Clara at the end of time to stop some major calamity to the time line? Did he know Me would be there? It’s never very clear. You just have to accept it.

But it’d be nice to know what the temporal calamity would be. And why the Doctor is so blasé about ignoring it. And whether it’s something we should be concerned about in future series or if it has somehow all been resolved and we shouldn’t worry out little heads about it?

Then there’s the whole Hybrid question. Is the Doctor the Hybrid? He certainly conquered Gallifrey and then stood in its ruins… but he has to go to the end of time to stand in its ruins, so that seems a bit of cheat, reading the prophecy in purely literal terms. Don’t you just hate prophecies that cane be scuppered by semantic pedants?

The Doctor himself – in the final moments before his memory is wiped – claims that, yes, he is the Hybrid, but it doesn’t feel like a total clincher; we needed to see a flashback to a Wraith going, “You are the Hybrid!” to ram it home. As it is, Me and the Doctor’s theory-swapping session simply muddies the waters. Moffat previously backed himself into a corner with the whole “Doctor’s name” mystery – something which he was never going to be able to reveal. With the Hybrid, though, there’s no need to be vague; after a season of keeping viewers guessing, a definitive answer about the Hybrid would have been appreciated.

So what we’re left is an episode that starts brilliantly, ends cheekily enough to send you away with a warm glow, but largely frustrates or irritates in-between. It’s an episode that relies heavily on the assumption that most of the audience is as interested in the Doctor/Clara relationship as Moffat it; some may be, but we bet a lot of viewers wouldn’t have minded a few more answers and a few more spaceships.

The Good:

• The first 15 minutes with the Doctor conquering Gallifrey without saying a word.
• The Gallifreyan warships.
• The framing device in the diner that totally wrongfoots you about who’s forgotten who (and is also really sweet at times).
• The little jiggle during the CG zoom into the Gallifreyan Capital when the virtual “camera” passes through the glass bubble.
• Donald Sumpter is brilliant as Rassilon. Let’s hope he doesn’t regenerate before we meet the character again.
• Clara’s speech to the Doctor about how she’d prefer to die with her memories intact rather than live in ignorance is bang on the nail: “These have been the best year’s of my life, and they are mine. Tomorrow is poised to no one, Doctor, but I insist upon my past. I am entitled to that.” Perhaps the Doctor should revisit Donna and give her the choice too.
• The old-style TARDIS interior is wonderfully nostalgic.
• The idea of Clara and Me dashing about the universe in a stolen TARDIS stuck in the shape of a diner is wonderfully silly and an unexpected end to Clara’s run on the show (though it means both are available for further guests appearances).
• A few more great lines:
• “What’s his plan?” “I think he’s finishing his soup.”
• “Words are his weapons.” “When did they stop being ours?”
• “The Doctor does not blame Gallifrey for the horrors of the Time War.” “I should hope not.” “He just blames you.”
• “What colour is it?” “I don’t know.” “Prophecies – they never tell you anything useful, do they?”
• “Did I miss something?” “Well, we’re several billions years to the future and the universe is pretty much over, so yeah, quite a lot.”
• “You’re on Gallifrey. Death is Time Lord for man-flu.”

The Bad:

• The Matrix set is incredibly unimpressive. Also, it never feels like the Time Lord guards will be in any real danger if they do stray into it; we never get to see the Matrix Wraiths do anything really nasty so they don’t feel like a threat. It feels like something was lost in translation between the Matrix in Moffat’s imagination and what we got on screen.
• Too many things happen without any real understanding why they’re happening.
• Twelve has been a truculent, grumpy, stroppy, morally dubious Doctor since his very first episode, so the whole theme of Clara wanting the Doctor to be more Doctory again loses some of its impact; unless what she really means is, “I wish you could be more like Eleven again”. Again, it feels like there’s a whole subplot that’s stronger and more clearly delineated in Moffat’s head than what appears on screen. Similarly, we’ve seen the Doctor ignore far great laws of time than we see him transgress here.
• No definitive answer to the Hybrid question.
• Too many nod, nod, wink, wink references to the Doctor’s past.
• The malfunctioning Time Lord mind wipe gizmo is a suspiciously convenient plot device (unless it’s revealed in the future that the Doctor surreptitiously fixed it to make sure he zapped himself).
• While there have been some great extended dialogue scenes this series, the finale could have done with the bit more action and a little less talk.

And The Random:

• The Matrix Wraiths look like Time Lords but glide about like Daleks – was this supposed to be a red herring as regards the Hybrid?
• So who is the old lady who comes into the barn? And are the “boys” she refers to the Doctor and the Master?
• Ohila also refers to the Doctor as, “Boy!” which earns a double-take from Clara.
• Ohila hints she may be immortal. Intriguing. Are either of these women connected to the mysterious woman from “The End Of Time?” Probably not, but hey, let’s throw it out there.
• The Doctor not only drinks soup for the second episode in a row, he also drops his soup spoon for dramatic effect for the second episode in a row. Hence forth, OMG! moments for the Twelfth Doctor will be known as SSDs – “Soup Spoon Droppers”.
• A big thing is made about how the Doctor spent 4.5 billion years in the confession dial, but as copies of himself were teleported in repeatedly – surely the final copy can only remember experiencing a weeks, maybe months, at most in there?
• “You like a cliffhanger, don’t you?” This series… Yeah!
• Rassilon’s gauntlet was last seen along with Rassilon himself (then played by Timothy Dalton) in “The End Of Time, Part 2” (2010), David Tennant’s final episode. Rassilon first appeared in “The Five Doctors” (1983) but was first mentioned in “The Deadly Assassin” (1976) as the engineer and legend who made time travel possible. He clearly had a good agent as his name went on to become a mini-marketing franchise on Gallifrey: over the years we’ve seen or heard about the Rod of Rassilon; the Sash of Rassilon; the Ring of Rassilon; the Coronet of Rassilon; the Crown of Rassilon; the Harp of Rassilon; the Black Scrolls of Rassilon; the Seal of Rassilon; the Tomb of Rassilon; the Record of Rassilon; and Rassilon’s gauntlet. And they’re just the ones from the TV show, not from the books, games and comics of the extended Whoniverse (where you’ll find such things as The Loom Of Rassilon’s Mouse).

• “Why did you banish him?” Ohila aks the Doctor. Is he being cruel? Cowardly? Doing it for his own protection? Our guess is he’s setting up future storylines.
• “Exterminate me.” Or should that be, “Exterminate Me”? Things really have become complicated since Ashildr decided to call herself that.
• “Hope is a terrible thing on the scaffold,” says Ohila. But in “The Woman Who Lived” the Doctor admired Sam Swift’s display of optimism in the face of execution, so yah boo sucks Ohila.
• “Four knocks.” The Tenth Doctor feared the prophecy of the four knocks in “The End Of Time”.
• Me looks very Black/White Guardian-y as she waits for the end of the universe, doesn’t she? (The Black Guardian and the White Guardian were cosmically opposed beings featured in the original show’ 16th and 20th series.) Well, no, she doesn’t have a beard or a bird stuck to her head, but there’s something about the chair and the attitude and the fact that she’s playing chess (black and white pieces… geddit?). Oh, but hang on…?
• …Who the hell was she expecting to play chess against?
• Donald Sumpter (Rassilon) has become a bit of a cult TV legend recently with memorable appearances in Game Of Thrones, Being Human and Jekyll & Hyde to his name. But he has previous Doctor Who form too; he was Enrico Casali in “The Wheel In Space” (1968) and Commander Ridgeway in “The Sea Devils” (1972). He was also Erasmus Darkening in The Sarah Jane Adventures episode “The Eternity Trap”.
• The pre-regen General was played by Ken Bones, who appeared in the same role in “The Day Of The Doctor” (2013). He’s also had prominent roles in Atlantis and Da Vinci’s Demons.
• The Doctor strums “Clara’s Theme” written by Murray Gold and first heard in “The Snowmen” (2012).

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other Doctor Who series 9 reviews

Doctor Who S09E11 “Heaven Sent” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays
Writer: Steven Moffat
Director: Rachel Talalay

Essential Plot Points:

• The Doctor is teleported to a castle in the middle of the sea that’s designed to get a confession out of him as regards the nature of the Hybrid, a creature that prophecy says will conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins.
• He is chased by a figure from his nightmares – the Veil – which stops its pursuit when the Doctor reveals something he has never revealed before, at which point the castle resets.
• The Doctor is eventually lead to a wall – made of a super-hard material and metres thick – that will disappear when he reveals the truth about the hybrid.
• He refuses to do so. Instead he dies repeatedly at the hands of the Veil, but each time the teleportation device – which resets with the castle – teleports in a new copy of the Doctor. He leaves himself clues so that he knows what to do: punch a hole in the wall over billions of years.
• Nine billion years later he punches his way through to Gallifrey, and he’s pissed.

Review:

One thing you can’t accuse this series of Doctor Who of is complacency. Steven Moffat often displays a near pathological need to find new ways to tell new kinds of stories within the framework of the show; not just in his own stories but in those he commissions from others.

Okay, so this year’s best-received stories may have been the trad Who ones (an alien invasion of Earth and a base under siege) but Moffat more than any other showrunner the series has had seems acutely aware of a whacking great irony inherent in the series: one of the main reasons cited for the its long-running success is its “unlimited, infinitely variable” format, yet for over half a century it has, in fact, rarely broken format. It likes sticking to a small pool of story blueprints. Sure, there have been isolated experiments throughout the show’s history, but those instances are surprisingly few considering there have now been over 800 episodes.

Ever since he’s taken over as head writer Moffat has been playing with the format. Series nine of New Who has seen that tinkering turn into something more significant. Sometimes all this breaking new ground has worked; sometimes it hasn’t. And some people will wonder why he’s trying to fix something that isn’t broken.

Episodes like “Heaven Sent” are the reason why.

This was simply magnificent. An acting tour de force for Peter Capaldi, inside an ingenious Rubik’s Cube of a plot, directed with immense power and pace, featuring strikingly unusual images and an epic climax that leaves you emotionally exhausted. It’s one of those episodes you end up feeling more like you’ve lived through rather than just watched. From its slow-burn start with its random clues about the true nature of this elaborate torture chamber to the epic three-minute montage that’s edited with a rhythm that borders on visual poetry this is one hell of an episode. The fact that it features just one actor for 90% of the time, in one location, just make its impact even more formidable.

At times it’s almost surreal and wilfully incoherent; it may take a second viewing to realise that apparently random moments in fact all link together. But an atmosphere of disorientation and paranoia, plus those bizarre moments when the Doctor mentally returns to the TARDIS for imaginary conversations with Clara all help make “Heaven Sent” one of the most wonderfully weird pieces of British telefantasy since the final episode of The Prisoner*. And it may cause just as much controversy because some people are bound to hate it for being so “out there”. And for leaving so many details vague.

(Actually, there was a one-off drama in 1981 called Artemis 81 starring Sting as an angel which was weirder but it was pretentious pish and only about seven people watched it on the planet remember it so it doesn’t count)

Seen the Radio Times Doctor Who Christmas Special cover yet? Click here

The episode’s not perfect, for sure. The fact that the Doctor blurts out how he’s scared of dying so soon in the episode, when he’s facing a situation that looks considerably less scary than many he’s been in doesn’t ring at all true. If the Veil is a product of his nightmares, maybe the scene would have benefitted from a bit of foreshadowing earlier in the season. It seems odd that Moffat, the master of sprinkling clues to upcoming events didn’t prepare viewers for the Veil in some way.

There are other minor irritants (see the “Bad” section below) but they pale into insignificance against the bigger picture, like the plot holes in Blade Runner. “Heaven Sent” isn’t great because it’s bold, experimental and different. “Sleep No More” was bold, experimental and different, but still a massive misfire. No, “Heaven Sent” takes those qualities and weaves them into a story along with passion, emotion and a damed fine mystery. It’s a gamble that pays off.

And it leaves us with yet another cracking cliffhanger. It’s been a great season for cliffhangers, hasn’t it? Wonder if there’ll be one leading into the Christmas episode next week?

The Good:

• A strong central concept, with a hugely satisfying twist/revelation/denouement.
• Stunningly well directed. It look fabulous in every shot but, more importantly, it makes an episode set in one location with practically only one character for 90% of the time feel pacy and epic. There are also some amazing transition shots (such as the rotating dissolve from the Doctor in the TARDIS to the Doctor under the sea) and a brilliantly effective use of that old chestnut the dolly zoom (made famous in Vertigo and Jaws) where the subject of the shot (in this case the Doctor) appears to move forward in the frame while his surroundings sink further into the background. It’s often used for mere shock value but here it highlights a wonderful moment of realisation.
• Peter Capaldi: a magnificent, masterpiece performance.
• The final montage – over three minutes long – is incredibly powerful.
• “I’ve finally run out of corridor. There’s a life summed up.”
• The moment the Doctor flicks the fly frozen in time.
• The effects for the Castle resetting itself.
• The effect of the Doctor plunging into the sea (often “falling” effects on TV that utilise CG are woefully poor but this one is near flawless).
• The Sherlock moment – the Doctor explaining how he survived the plunge with the aid of TV editing techniques.
• “The first rule of being interrogated is that you are the only irreplaceable person in the torture chamber. The room is yours. So work it.”
• The TARDIS moments when the TARDIS “wakes up” – the lights flickering back to life give a wonderfully impressionistic vibe.
• “What do you think, Clara? Someone trying to give me a hint? What would you do?” “Same as you.” “Yes, yes, of course you would. Which, let’s be honest, is what killed you.”
• “Just between ourselves, you got the prophecy wrong. The hybrid is not half Dalek. Nothing is half Dalek. The Daleks would never allow that. The hybrid, destined to conquer Gallifrey, and stand in its ruins, is me.”
• Some amazing music from Murray Gold; it moves from a Hans Zimmer/Dark Knight style white noise to a melancholic refrain reminiscent of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh. There’s even a bit of a classic series Paddy Kingsland influence when the Doctor’s studying Clara’s portrait. During the climactic montage the music simply soars.
• Personally, I think that’s a hell of a bird.”

The Bad:

• Telepathic communication with a door? Really? Is there something in the writers’ guide for series nine that says, “Each episode must have at least one idea guaranteed to make viewers snort with derision”? It’s not even necessary in this episode, just gratuitous silliness.
• The Doctor being scared, so soon in the episode, in a situation that seems a lot less scary than a zillion scarier situations he’s faced in the past falls utterly flat.
• The digging scene goes on just a little too long. It’s the one point at which the episode sags noticeably.
• Why doesn’t the super-diamond wall reset along with the rest of the castle?
• It’s a shame Moffat inserts that handy line, “Too ill to regenerate” (which doesn’t make much sense anyway). It would have been fun to see him change bodies a few times on his climb back up the tower. This needn’t tie the show in to having to regenerate him into those actors in the future; different circumstances can generate different results.

And The Random:

• This is the first episode of New Who to feature only one actor’s name in the opening credits – Peter Capaldi.
• The flowers in the room that contains Clara’s portrait are lilies. Often associated with funerals, lilies symbolise that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death.
• As episodes that don’t feature the Doctor very much have traditionally been called “Doctor-lite” should we call “Heaven Sent” a “Doctor-heavy” episode?
• The Doctor reckons the Daleks would never allow anything that was half-Dalek. He seems to be forgetting the human-Dalek in “Daleks In Manhattan”/“Evolution Of The Daleks”.
• So the Doctor’s the hybrid, eh? Does that mean the new series is finally acknowledging all that half-human gubbins from the 1996 Paul McGann TV movie?
• The Doctor said that he was going to get home “the long way around” to the Curator at the end of “The Day Of The Doctor”.

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other Doctor Who series 9 reviews

Doctor Who S09E10 “Face The Raven” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays
Writer: Sarah Dollard
Director: Justin Molotnikov

Essential Plot Points:

• Rigsy contacts the Doctor and Clara when he discovers that he has a mysterious tattoo on his neck that he can’t remember getting and which is counting down to zero. He also can’t remember what happened to him for great swathes of the day before.
• They discover a hidden street in London and a message on Risgy’s phone that called him there the previous day.
• The street turns out to be a refugee camp for aliens, including many of the Doctor’s old enemies, run my Mayor Me, aka, Ashildr.
• Rigsy is accused of having killed one of the aliens.
• The “tattoo” is a life sentence; when it reaches zero he’ll be killed by a force that’s manifesting itself as a raven, thanks to the street’s psychic worms who live in the lamps (they also make all the aliens appear human).
• Clara learns that the tattoo can be transferred from one person to another as long as the person receiving it is willing. As Ashildr gave the Doctor assurances that she would let no harm come to Clara, Clara accepts the tattoo from Rigsy, assuming the Mayor can save her.
•  The Mayor can’t save her. Clara faces the raven.
• And it’s all been a trap set by Ashildr (under instruction from some mysterious “they”) to bring the Doctor here, clamp a teleportation device to his arm and send him (Time) Lord knows where.

Review:

Bye bye Clara. That was a fine way to bow out of the series. Though, to be honest, we don’t believe for a moment we’ve seen the last of Clara. Why? Because the episode was full of odd little moments that suggest there’s something bigger at play here:

• Why does the Doctor initially hesitate to swing into action when first clear Rigsy’s going to die?
• Why is the fact that Clara also appears to find another hidden street completely ignored?
• Why does the Doctor ask for Ashildr to guarantee him that Clara will be safe? It’s not an unreasonable request but it’s not a safeguard the Doctor would normally demand.
• The Doctor’s acknowledgment that Clara taking unnecessary risks is an “ongoing problem” seems especially pointed.

We could reading far too much into this, but there’s was a weird dream-like (even dream logic) quality to the whole episode that, yes, on one level suited the tone of this dark fantasy, but on another gives the impression that there’s a deeper story going on between the cracks. Has the audience been subjected to “misdirection circuit”?

But ignoring what’s not there, and concentrating on what is, “Face The Raven” is a hugely entertaining episode with a cruel twist at the end. In essence it’s just another one of those “enemy sets stupidly overelaborate trap for hero” stories that sci-fi loves so much (even Doctor Who has done it before in “Castrovalva” and “The Witch’s Familiar”) but it’s a really elegant example of the genre.

There’s some intriguing urban fantasy to kick things off, with the search for the hidden streets and the mystery of the counting-down tattoo. The street-searching montage with the Doctor’s voiceover works especially well. It’s perfect Doctor Who material; the bizarre in a recognisably mundane setting.

Then it all goes a bit Harry Potter. Not only do our heroes find themselves in Diagon Alley but they also apparently meet Fenrir Greyback…

This section is popping with wonderful visuals: psychic worms in the street lamps: monster cameos; two-faced aliens; and a death-dealing Raven. It’s rich, it’s sumptuous and it’s quintessentially New Who… so it doesn’t make an awful lot of sense either. But the whodunnit theme keeps proceedings rattling along and there are some lovely character moments, so you don’t stop to worry about the socio-political set-up of the place, or why, when the big reveal happens, Ashildr didn’t just slap the teleportation device on the Doctor when he was trapped on the cobbles on first entering the hidden street.

The final act features another one of those lengthy dialogue that have become the ninth series’ signature moments. This time it’s the between the Doctor and Clara, and it’s so much more than just a simple goodbye. It’s Clara saying, “I chanced my luck. I lost. I’m fine with this. Please don’t let my last memory of you be all revengey and hellfire.”

Okay, Clara’s a little too stoic and heroic; some lip trembling to make her less perfect would have been nice. But it remains a powerful, compelling scene. It’s just a shame the actual death falls a little flat with the Doctor hanging about in a doorway looking slightly embarrassed by the whole thing. This feels more like a result of lacklustre direction than the writing or acting.

And finally, another amazing cliffhanger in a series full of them.

A little light on actual substance, “Face The Raven” is less than the sum of its parts, but still adds up to something special.

The Good :

• Lovely dark fairytale feel.
• Lots of fun monster cameos.
• The idea of a street full of “illegal” aliens – we see what you did there.
• The whodunnit structure works well.
• Great exit for Clara (even if we’re not convinced this is the last we’ll see of her).
• Brilliant final line: “You’ll find it’s a very small universe when I’m angry with you.”
• The FX for the TARDIS’s recon flight over London are far, far better than any similar scenes we’ve seen before (and it’s just a great fun scene besides).
• The Diagon Alley sets are impressive.
• The final dialogue between Clara and the Doctor – especially, “Don’t be a warrior, promise me, be a Doctor” – is exquisite.
• The show’s first-ever post-credits scene is absolutely lovely.

The Bad:

• “You think a Cyberman fears a merciful death?” No, we think Cybermen don’t fear anything. They’re emotionless. (Well, as long as they’re not a converted old colleague of the Doctor’s…)
• The whole conceit of “Alien Refugee Street” doesn’t bear up to much close examination so let’s not closely examine it and just accept it exists.
• The young Janus never looks like a boy. The first time you see it you think, “Oh, a girl with two faces! Cool” It’s a bit of a surprise when the script informs us we were supposed to think it was a boy.
• The direction is slightly bland and rarely does the sets any favours. It’s functional, just not very stylish or impactful. It means Murray Gold’s music has to go into hyperdrive to try to make Clara’s “death” a bit more emotional.
• Was there a scene missing (or did we miss a really throwaway line) that explains how the Doctor made the leap from “mysterious tattoo” to “trap streets”?

And The Random:

• The drug Retcon was originally introduced in the first episode of Torchwood, “Everything Changes”.
• The Doctor’s prompt cards from “Under The Lake” make a reappearance. This time we see one that says, “I could be wrong. Let’s try it your way.”
• Trap streets also play a major part in China Mieville’s novel Kraken, while his short story “Reports of Certain Events in London” – which concerns sentient roads that mysteriously appear and disappear – also has some similarities to the early parts of “Face The Raven”.
• Clara says of Jane Austen, “She is the worst. I love her. Take that how you like.” This follows her comment in “The Magician’s Apprentice”: “Jane Austen: amazing writer, brilliant comic observer, and – strictly among ourselves – a phenomenal kisser.” Those two need to get a room!
• Did you notice the TARDIS style hexagons in the room where the final showdown takes place? We assume this is not a coincidence.

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other Doctor Who series 9 reviews

Doctor Who S09E09 “Sleep No More” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays
Writer: Mark Gatiss
Director: Justin Molotnikov

Essential Plot Points:

• A mad scientist on a space station – who’s actually been possessed by his own sleepy dust – makes an episode of Doctor Who that contains a secret code that will make your sleepy dust sentient too.
• Not that the Doctor actually realises a lot of this…

Review:

Remember how Clara was did dream checks in last week’s episode? For some reason she doesn’t bother with them this week, despite a) at one point being kidnapped by a machine that forces her into a supernap, and  b) being caught up events that would surely have anyone thinking, “I really shouldn’t eat cheese before going to bed.”

“Sleep No More” is a delightfully odd episode. Not add as in surreal which is what “an odd episode” usually means. This is odd because it breaks format in so many ways; something the fact that there’s no title sequence immediately clues you in on. Sadly, the episode doesn’t entirely work but you have to admire its audacity. Plus it sends you off with one of the cheekiest, most unusual and chilling final scenes ever on the show; a scene that pulls the rug out from under your feet and (almost) acts as the ultimate get-out clause for anything that hasn’t made sense for the previous 45 minutes. And there’s a lot that hasn’t, as even the Doctor points out.

Having said that, it can’t wipe the moment from your mind when you went, “Hang on, the monsters are WHAT?!?”

Sleepy dust monsters.

Yes the Doctor really did say that.

In an episode that wants to be part Alien, part Ringu, part Blair Witch, sentient sleepy dust monsters are an ill fit indeed. What next? Killer nasal hair? Nasty knob cheese? There may have been Who stories in which sentient sleepy dust may have seamlessly fitted in, but here it feels like Fozzie Bear telling Chewbacca, “I am your father!” in The Force Awakens. It’s the wrong horse for this course.

It’s a shame that – for the sake of saving that brilliant final image for a final twist – we weren’t allowed to see the transformation process earlier in the story, as that striking body horror image would have gone a long way towards selling the idea. Sadly this doesn’t happen, so you have a weird disconnect for much of the episode where you simply cannot picture how sleepy dust takes you over without smirking.

Hell, even after that image, you’re still thinking, “Yeah, creepy. But sentient sleepy dust? Come on…!”

And yet Clara never does a dream check. Go figure.

As for the found footage format, the episode has some fun with it – especially thatending, which thoroughly justifies it use (indeed, necessitates it – there’s no story without it). It’s also fun in a season that’s had a fair share of fourth-wall-breaking moments to see characters looking straight at camera and yet not being all meta and post-modern. Capaldi and Shearsmith both appear to be immensely enjoying playing around with the format.

In the end, though, it’s a really distracting technique. Not just because it makes the action scenes incoherent but because part of the problem with any found footage film or show is that you notice all the moments when the director “cheats” – or at least bends the rules. Of course, “Sleep No More” has its cake and eats it, because the Doctor reveals that whole “eyes in the sky” shtick – sleepy dust as omnipresent CCTV – which basically means anything goes. However, until that point – when you don’t know – it’s impossible not to be thrown out of the story by apparently impossible (or suspiciously convenient and well-edited) footage. After that point you just think, “Couldn’t they have picked better shots?” Especially during scene when patient zero wakes up. After all Rasmussen wants people to watch – so give them a decent monster reveal to thrill them, yeah?

The way the audience knows more than the Doctor for a change, right up until and beyond the end, is a clever inversion of the norm. Although you need to be paying close attention to realise all his questions are addressed in the episode itself. Otherwise casual viewers may assume the ending was a cliffhanger and will be confused by a Next Week trailer that doesn’t look at all like a part two…

As a tense, pacy runaround with a shock ending worthy of those lurid horror film Mark Gatiss loves so much, “Sleep No More” is an enjoyable romp with some wonderfully darkly comic moments. There’s some iffy acting from the guest stars and Shearsmith really only ever acts in one mode, but there’s been far worse in Who history. Plus, none of the guests characters has particularly meaty roles to chew on (they were straight out of the box marked “Stereotypes upgraded with one gimmick”). And maybe the freaky meta concept twist would have worked better in an episode that feature monsters straight out of Grimms’ Fairytales. There‘s a definite sense, though, that the plot is a little swamped by the various storytelling conceits.

One thing’s for certain – you won’t want to listen to “Mr Sandman” again any time soon.

The Good:

• That final scene – a creepy concept; a totally original way to end an episode; brilliant effects; and it suddenly makes sense of most of what hasn’t been making sense throughout the episode. That alone made the episode worthwhile.
• The Sandman’s arm turning to sand when it’d cut off by the door.
• The “Terms & Conditions apply” gag.
• “What would you prefer then? The dustmen?”
• The Empire Strikes Back-style shots of the pod floating eerily to its destination
• “Oh, I’m not dead. You probably guessed that by now.”
• An episode that certainly keeps you guessing.
• Great-looking monsters with nightmarish maws.
• Some great horror special FX.

The Bad:

• The “found footage” conceit occasionally gets in the way of the storytelling; it make the action sequences especially difficult to follow, particularly when there’s a lot of exposition being yelled around too.
• On the other hand, there are some moments when it all looks a little too slickly shot and edited, like an ordinary episode with a bit of shakycam and more intense staring (and let’s be honest, actors are the only people who ever hold each other’s gaze for that long).
• The sleepy dust monsters idea is so ludicrous you half expect the Doctor to turn round and go,“Sorry – just kidding! You didn’t actually believe that rubbish, did you?”

And The Random:

• No incidental music; no writer/director/starring credits until the end; no title sequence. Well, not a traditional title sequence anyway…
• Right, who wants to do a wordsearch? Click on the image for the answers. (See, there is a title sequence of sorts.)

• “I’m the Doctor, I do the naming… It’s like the Silurians all over again.” The Doctor’s still seems annoyed that the Silurians – whom he didn’t name (presumably some other quickly-sacked UNIT scientist did) – didn’t originate from the Silurian era. (Actually, it’s been made entirely clear what era they did come from; the Doctor has said that they would be more accurately referred to as Eocenes, though that would have meant they wouldn’t have co-existed with the dinosaurs. They’ve also at times been given the scientific classification Homo Reptilia which is equally utter bobbins  as “homo” would mean they’re of the human genus which they quite clearly are not. Why does nobody ever just ask a Silurian what they’d like to be called?)
• The Sandmen are hybrids, but the Doctor, surprisingly, never uses the phrase. However, there are a number of very pointed references to the season’s other great theme: storytelling.

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our other Doctor Who series 9 reviews

Doctor Who S09E07 “The Zygon Invasion” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays
Writer: Peter Harness
Director: Daniel Nettheim

Essential Plot Points:

• Two million Zygons are living on Earth, disguised as human, living in an uneasy peace brokered by the Doctor(s) in “Day Of The Doctor” (2013).
• Unfortunately a few of the Zygons are not happy with this existence and are radicalising elements of the Zygon community with the aim of starting a war.
• Osgood alerts the Doctor that the Nightmare Scenario is happening. She also reveals the existence of the Osgood box, which is pretty damned important and a way of preventing the war, apparently. How? Tune in next week…
• The Zygons kidnap Osgood. The Doctor flies halfway round the world in his presidential plane to rescue her.
• Kate Stewart, following a cryptic tip-off, flies to New Mexico to confront another Zygon faction.
• However, both of these are essentially wild goose chases, ruses by the Zygons to get the Doctor and Kate out of the country while the Zygons take over London… and replace Clara with an evil Clara called Bonnie.
• As the Doctor’s plane flies back to Britain, Bonnie fires a rocket launcher at it.

Review:

“Daddy, daddy – what was Doctor Who like in the olden days, when TVs were clockwork and newsreaders sounded like the Queen?”

“It was like this, my child. It was like this…”

Of course, that’s a vast oversimplification as seen through sonic rose-tinted glasses. The classic series lasted 26 seasons and went through a variety of tones. You could just as easily claim that “Under The Lake” is classic Who because it feels straight out of the Troughton era; or that “The Girl Who Died” is classic Who because it would fit right in with the early Sylvester McCoy stories.

On the other hand, whatever your personal feelings about favourite eras or Doctors, it’s difficult to argue that the original series was at its most popular with the viewing hoi polloi during the Pertwee and early Tom Baker years; when the show fely slightly more adult and serious and realistic and grounded. Slightly more SF and slightly less sci-fi. Sure, you can point to many isolated stories in other eras (“The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, “The Caves Of Androzani”) when the show achieved the same vibe, but it was during those Pertwee/early Baker years that the show maintained a roughly similar tone. And to many people – certain hardcore, old-school fans and older casual viewers alike – that was the golden period.

And “The Zygon Invasion” – right from its oh-so trad title – felt like the closest New Who has come to that era in a long time. It was set on Earth, in the present day (give or take). It was an invasion story. It had UNIT in it. It took a current issue in the news and dramatised it in a science fiction setting. It was dark. It was gritty. The Doctor gave deeply moral speeches. It’s so like a third Doctor story it’s almost criminal there wasn’t a portrait of Pertwee on the wall in the UNIT HQ instead Hartnell. It was a crowdpleaser, unashamedly and gloriously so. It’s the kind of Doctor Who some would like to see every week, while the rest of can can savour like a fine wine knowing that the key to the new series success is its endless variety.

It’s certainly brave, kicking off with clips from one of the most popular stories of recent years. “Oh yeah, that one with Tennant and Smith and John Hurt… blimey, forgotten how great that was. How can this live up to that?” Amazingly, it does.

The clever “Story So Far…” montage is more than a mere memory jogger. It also effortlessly sets up the Osgoods a major part of the episode: the living (well, one of them living) embodiment of the peace. It’s a wonderful use of the character and Ingrid Oliver is better than ever throughout the episode. There’s real depth to Osgood here. And no she shouldn’t be the new companion; she should be a recurring character we revisit often in the years to come.

The episode that follows is pacy, tense and mesmerising throughout. Slickly directed, globetrotting and full of eerie imagery it’s a visual feast. The parallels between the Zygons and religious radicalism are far from subtle but it’s an issue the show has every right to tackle, and it does so with admirable guts. The Zygons are by far the most interesting “monsters” this season, looking great and having a decent backstory and reason for what they’re doing.

It’s not perfect. There are plenty of quibbles to fill the “Bad” section below. But it feels fresh, and confident, and brave, and full of frenetic energy. The two-parters so far have used the extra storytelling time to allow for longer, character-based dialogue scenes, many of which have been highlights of the episodes. “The Zygon Invasion” simply uses the extra time for more plot, plot, plot. And it works. There is a genuinely epic feel; by the end you don’t feel like you’ve watched the episode so much as lived through it. It’s the perfect change of pace and tone for this point in the season.

So, that was one of the best episodes of Doctor Who in ages. Probably your main worry, then, after watching it is that the second episode won’t match up? Although there’s an embargo on revealing any details, we don’t think the BBC will mind us letting you know… there’s nothing to worry about. Episode two will not let you down.

The Good:

• Has Doctor Who ever been more tense? This was fantastic, edgy stuff.
• The Zygons are great and unlike some monster we could mention from this season, they actually have a bit of depth, back story and motivation.
• The political message may not be Orwellian in its elegance and delivery but it’s still an issue worth tackling, and it’s a real thrill to have a Doctor Who story that feels relevant and topical. The arguments may be made in broad simplistic strokes but that doesn’t lessen the impact of what the story’s trying to say.
• Jenna Coleman looks like she’s having a whale of a time as evil Bonnie (was that name chosen on purpose?),
• The direction is spot on; at times you forget you’re watching Doctor Who and it’s more like watching Homeland or some urban thriller.
• There’s some impressive production design for the Zygon’s underground lair.
• The teasing game about the nature of the remaining Osgood is fun.
• Great line: “You left us with an impossible situation, Doctor,”
  “Yes, I know. It’s called peace.”
• Great Line: “I like poncing about in a big plane.”
• Great line: “You are president of the world. We want the world.”
• Another fantastic cliffhanger.

The Bad:

• If the bad Zygons want to create fear and paranoia to provoke a war why do they only send their video messages to UNIT and the army? Why not just normalise in the middle of Piccadilly Circus and kill a few tourists? They seem curiously tentative alien terrorists.
• Rebecca Front is terribly miscast as Colonel Walsh; she’s a great character actress in certain roles but entirely unconvincing as a hardbitten army chief. It’s like expecting Michael Ironside to play a ballet dancer.
• The scene with the soldiers being confronted by Zygons who have taken the form of their loved ones tries so, so hard to be poignant, and there’s some great acting doing on from the old dear, begging not to be killed. But somehow it still doesn’t quite convince; it feels like a scene engineered for TV that would never quite pan out that way in real life.
• The “Truth Or Consequences” shtick is a wee bit contrived.
• Not so much bad as just uncomfortable: seeing Capaldi as the epitome of a stranger-you-shouldn’t-talk to hanging around a playground, chasing small girls just feels a little… wrong.

The Random:

• Is that a tumbleweed, or something more sinister? Great little visual gag there.
• Kate Stewart seems to have a problem recalling whether the previous Zygon invasion was in the ’70s or the ’80s. No wonder she’s confused. In the third Doctor and fourth Doctor eras (broadcast in the ’70s) it was assumed by the production teams that the “contemporary” UNIT stories were set a few years into the future. But in the 1983 story “Mawdryn Undead”, there are sections set in 1977 in which the Brigadier has just retired; that would mean that the UNIT stories would have to be set in the same years in which they were broadcast. So the Zygon invasion in “Terror Of The Zygons” (1975) was either in 1975 or the early ’80s depending on how you look at it. (Interestingly, in “Terror Of The Zygons” the Brigadier addresses an unseen Prime Minister on the phone as “Madam” so that dates the story at some time from 1979-1990.)
• Did you notice that there was a portrait of the first Doctor in the UNIT HQ?

• When Kate is flicking through the crime reports in New Mexico, two of the people who have been arrested have given their addresses as “Made-Up Crescent” and “Fictional Close”.
• Kate tells False Clara: “One of our staff who was a naval surgeon, worked at Porton Down… developed Z67.” She’s clearly referring to fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan (played by Ian Marter) whose appearances included “Terror Of The Zygons” (1975). Years later, in “Mawdryn Undead” (1983), the Brigadier tells the Doctor Harry Sullivan is now, “Seconded to NATO. Last heard of doing something very hush-hush at Porton Down.”
• Also, why does Kate pronounce Z67 in the American way, as “Zee 67”?
• Question marks as part of the Doctor’s costume were a gimmick introduced and eventually flogged to death by the original series’ final producer, John Nathan Turner. In Tom Baker’s final season, plus throughout the whole of the Peter Davison and Colin Baker eras, the Doctor had question marks on his shirt collars. Then in the seventh Doctor’s era they spread like chicken pox all over his tank top and even onto his umbrella, which had a question mark handle.

• Picky, we know, but who or what exactly is buried in Osgood’s grave? There wasn’t much left of her after Missy killed her.
• Hmm… yet another very arch mention of the word “hybrid”.

Review by Dave Golder

• Read our Doctor Who series 9 reviews

Doctor Who S09E06 “The Woman Who Lived” REVIEW

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays

Writers: Catherine Tregenna
Director: Ed Bazalgette

Essential Plot Points:

• The Doctor “accidentally” bumps into Ashildr – the Viking girl he made immortal – in 1651. She is currently a highwayman.
• She’s forgotten her original name and now calls herself Me.
• She begs the Doctor to let her leave with him. He says no.
• He reads her journals. She’s had a very full but rough life. It’s made her ruthless and uncaring. She’s torn out the pages that contain memories she wants to forget bit keeps the pages about her babies dying to remind her never to have children again.
• She’s made some bargain with a leonine alien to get off the planet which involves some rum old plot involving jewels and portals and killing someone for their death energy. She kills a highwayman condemned to hang because he won’t stop telling really bad jokes (or that’s how how it seems, anyway…)
• But Lenny the Lion is a two-timing tomcat. The jewel opens a portal through which his mates start laser-beaming the Earth. Me has a change of heart and uses the spare immortality tablet the Doctor gave her last week to resurrect the dead highwayman and close the portal.
• Ashildr tells the Doctor that she will devote her life to looking out for the people he abandons.
• The other highwayman carries on telling bad jokes.

Review:

Blimey this is a tricky one to put a star rating to. There’s so much to love here, especially some truly moving moments as the Doctor learns how immortal life has sculpted Ashildr into Lady Me; flashbacks capture the joy of the highs and the harrowing depths of the lows she’s had to live through. On the other hand, there are some clunky comedy misfires too, with scenes of leaden comedy that outstay their welcome until they threaten to set up camp on your lawn.

It was, perhaps, a mistake to make the two Ashildr episodes so similar in tone; both being broad comedies with darker moments. It’s a balancing act that “The Girl Who Died” achieved better, maybe because the comedy was sharper, maybe because the dark wasn’t quite so dark, meaning it was easier the merge the two. Because make no mistake, there are moments in “The Woman Who Lived” that beat anything in “The Girl Who Died”; it’s simply scuppered by the fact that there are moments that are much worse too.

After an amusingly silly teaser, the episode starts off very impressively. As with “The Witch’s Familiar”, the show is confident enough to deliver an extended sequence that’s little more than a dialogue between the Doctor and one other character. And it’s great. Admittedly the flashbacks help keep things pacy, but essentially this is just two characters trying to suss each other out, and thanks to some bravura acting from Williams and Capaldi, it’s mesmerising.

Then the plot takes over and it all goes a bit River Song. The search for the jewel seems like a pointlessly long detour with way too much Scooby and Shaggy-style tiptoeing. Leandro and Me’s plan to get off world is underwhelming at best and Leandro treachery is obvious a mile off. It’s all so skimpy, the 45 minutes have to be padded out with some stand-up from a condemned highwayman whose main crimes are against humour.

Okay, so the story isn’t about the alien plot; it’s about the Doctor/Ashildr relationship. But when the alien plot so flimsy, and Ashildr is a part of it, her character is lessened by association. The plot’s shallow; it makes her look shallow. Similarly, her sudden redemption comes across as trite, especially when even Williams appears at a loss how to deliver lines like, “What have I done to these people?” with any conviction.

You can’t help wishing that the creeping-around-shadowy-halls guff and the deathly gallows humour has been cut back massively to allow more time for a cleverer plot, and more time to make Leandro an interesting villain. Because if he had been more charming, clever and impressive, we may have sympathised more with Ashildr for siding with him.

Thankfully the episode ends on a high note. The action climax looks great (with one weird exception, see below). Better than that, though, are the two epilogue scenes. There’s a genuine air of something significant going on as Ashildr promises – or maybe threatens? – to become “the patron saint of the Doctor’s leftovers.” Bemused the Doctor admits, “I think I’m very glad I saved you.” To which Ashildr cryptically responds, “Oh I think everyone will be.” It’s a wonderful scene full of promise and foreboding.

Finally, Clara puts in a appearance for a lovely little coda and an ominous, “I know you  know she’s leaving soon…” from the Doctor to the audience. He doesn’t quite break the fourth wall this time – it’s more of a gentle tap on the fourth wall like he’s looking for secret panels – but the meaning is clear. Moffat’s setting something up.

If it involves Ashildr, then fine. She’s great. Let’s just hope she doesn’t bring any comedy highwaymen with her.

The Good:

• Maisie Williams is great in a very difficult role; she’s at her best when Lady Me shows chinks in her emotional armour and reverts to be the scared little girl Ashildr again.
• The flashbacks are all fun, until the one where Ashildr’s children die which is one of the bleakest moments in Doctor Who for a long while.
• The edgy relationship between the Doctor and Me/Ashildr is great to watch, and the way they part is full of intriguing hints of something major to come.
• Amazingly for Doctor Who, some of the best dialogue in the episode isn’t the funny stuff. Especially, “Why are there pages missing?” “When things get really bad I tear the memories out.” “What could be worse than losing your children?”
  “I keep that entry to remind me not to have any more.”
• On the other hand, Clayton’s world-weary, “Oh dear, always the quiet ones,” is a gem.
• Capaldi is great again.
• Although we’ve moaned a lot about the overload of comedy in this episode (we don’t mind broad comedy in the show – check out last week’s review for proof – it’s just spectacularly misjudged here) the comedy fight between Midnight and Swift was very entertaining.

The Bad:

• The gallows humour was a grave mistake. It felt like it was never going to end.
• The “comedy” escape from the manor after the theft of the jewel felt like clodhopping filler as well.
• In fact, after the balancing act was maintained so well last week, the varying tone was jarring at many points here.
• The whole “escape from planet Earth” plot was skimpy as hell.
• Leandro was severely underwritten.

• And what the hell was this shot all about? It didn’t make the Doctor look heroic, just a bit silly; with the low angle and the slow motion it simply came across as “trying too hard”.

And The Random:

• Jack Swift didn’t seem to have a particularly big nose to us.
• The Doctor mentions that the Terileptils started the Great Fire London, which they did in the Peter Davison Doctor Who story “The Visitation” (1982).
• For the second episode in a row there’s a sound like somebody’s farted that turns out to be something else entirely. Last week it was a Viking horn being blown (no sniggering please) which even the BBC subtitles translated as “Breaking Wind”; this week it’s a guy snoring.

• Is it any coincidence that Me talks about people being smoke when she and the Doctor are hiding in a chimney?
• Blimey, the servants in the Fanshawe’s house are a blind and deaf lot, aren’t they?

• It’s great that the Doctor gives Captain Jack a namecheck (and is surprised that he has got round to Ashildr yet) but anybody else want the Doctor to ask, “You haven’t bumped into a Roman Centurian guarding a big box, have you?” #theboywhowaited
• Also, with Ashildr calling herself “Me” we would have expected as least one “Doh, a deer, a female deer…” gag from the Doctor.
• Did you spot that the lights on the carriage in the teaser were made to look similar to Leandro’s eyes?

• Read our Doctor Who series 9 reviews

Doctor Who S09E05 “The Girl Who Died” review

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays

Writers: Jamie Mathieson, Steven Moffat
Director: Ed Bazalgette

Essential Plot Points:

• The Doctor and Clara are captured by Vikings and taken back to their village.
• Some armoured monsters called the Mire, who are under the orders of some bloke claiming to be Odin, invade the village.
• The Mire teleport all the village’s best warriors, plus Clare and a Viking girl called Ashildr, up to their ship.
• There, Odin – actually a Mire in holographic disguise – kills all the warriors and feasts on “warrior juice” aka testosterone (mixed with crème de menthe by the looks of it).
• Odin saves Clara and Ashildr because they were in possession of alien tech – the Doctor’s sonic shades (well half of them…)
• The Mire are happy to leave now they have what they want, but then Ashildr declares war on them. Oops!
• So now the Doctor has to train the remaining villagers – farmers not warriors – to repel the Mire.
• The villagers succeed thanks to one of the Doctor’s patented ruses but Ashildr dies.
• So the Doctor uses Mire technology to resurrect her, making her immortal in the process.
• In hindsight, the Doctor wonders if this was a good idea.

Review:

Whatever other pros and cons this experimental “series of two parters” might have, you can’t deny it’s giving us some cracking cliffhangers. Not that the ending of “The Girl Who Died” is a traditional cliffhanger. Moffat said that this series would also shake up the concept of the two-parter, and this is the first major example of what he meant by that. The story in “The Girl Who Died” is to a large degree self-contained, with a beginning, middle and end (even in that order, which isn’t always a given in a script with Moffat’s name on it). But there are dangling threads, ready to be woven into something new next week…

It would be churlish to say the success of the episode is all down to the ending. It isn’t. There’s loads to enjoy here. But it’s the ending that will linger longest in your memory. Both in concept and execution it is extraordinary; something new and different for the show, which is no mean feat after nearly 52 years. And while guest star Maisie Williams hasn’t had a chance to make much of an impact yet (wait till next week, when she’s magnificent) she is stunningly good in that final FX shot, a kaleidoscope of emotion surging across her face as she goes through wonder to acceptance to something more ominous. Meanwhile the world won’t stop spinning around her and eternity beckons with a hollow promise. Simply beautiful.

Leading up to this we’ve had an episode that’s been all kinds of fun. At first it looked like it might be this series’ “Robot Of Sherwood” – all frothy fun and zero drama – but throughout there were delightful little tonal changes; shifts into darker, more introspective moments that gave it more depth. While most of the Vikings are played for laughs the scenes between Ashildr and her father had a genuine warmth while the moments when the Doctor translated the baby’s fear had a real emotional resonance. The Doctor explained his “duty of care” to Clara more convincingly and with more clarity than ever before. Then, of course, there was the hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment when the Doctor recalled his doppelgänger, Caecilius, from “The Fires of Pompeii” (though you have to wonder how many casual viewers were left baffled by that fan-pleasing bit of continuity… but who cares, to be honest – it was great! And anyway, they probably liked seeing Tennant again). Capaldi is simply magnificent at various key points.

On the other hand, when it is being silly, it’s being wonderfully silly. There are some great one liners throughout (“The universe is full of testosterone. Trust me, it’s unbearable!” “Fly like a bird, run like a nose…”) and the naming ceremony, training sequences and “Let’s get to work” montage are all wonderfully irreverent and daft. And then there was the Benny Hill moment.

The balance isn’t quite perfect. While the armoured Mire are great monsters, their boss, faux-Odin, is disappointingly bland and tiresomely shouty. The phrase “deadliest race in the galaxy” is enough to make you yawn involuntarily. The final battle is a bit of a mess (and you have to suspend disbelief a bit as regards the eels).

Mostly, though, it’s a visual feast. The final shot may be the crowdpleaser but an earlier shot – from an extreme low angle looking up past the Doctor to angry orange clouds as he explains that that’s not thunder it’s, “the weapon forges of the Mire, making sure we hear them” – is a subtle masterpiece in understated power. Director Ed Bazalgette bathes some scenes in colour, and leaves others cold and harsh, creating a deep, rich, classy vibe for the episode. He also entices great performances from the support cast; whereas other directors would have all the vikings acting it up like they’re in Monty Python And The Very Naughty Vikings, here some of them are played admirably straight.

In many ways this episode is a mere curtain raiser; a set-up for the Ashildr we’ll meet next week. However, it more than justifies it existence as a great piece of New Who in and of itself.

The Good:

• The transition shot from Clara in space to Clara in the TARDIS works beautifully, throwing you off kilter for a moment.
• You have to love the way the Viking simply picks the sonic sunglasses off the Doctor’s face and breaks them.
• Great line: “People talk about premonition as if it’s something strange. It’s not. It’s just remembering in the wrong direction.”
• The Doctor’s tomfoolery with his yoyo: “It’s supposed to do that.”
• The Mire in their armour are great; really chunky and impressive. What they’re like unhelmeted is difficult to tell as all the shots are so quick. They look okay, though, from what we do see.
• Great echange: “What are you going to do? Raise crops at them?” “If necessary.” “I think he was being sarcastic.”
• “Do babies die with honour?” The Doctor’s ability to “talk baby” has always come across a bit silly in the past, but here it adds some real pathos, drama and darkness. Capaldi’s sensitive delivery in these scenes helps immensely. The little moment when Clara refers to the baby as “it”, and the Doctor corrects her, saying, “She”, is a wonderful little character beat, while Clara pointing out, “You just decided to stay… the baby stopped crying,” is lovely.
• The Doctor’s Viking naming ceremony is hilarious. Especially Heidi.
• SMUT ALERT (funny though): “You’re the blacksmith? You’ve got a baby too? He’s been at it hammer and tongs.”
• Have we mentioned that final shot?

The Bad:

• “You’re always talking about what you can and can’t do but you never tell me the rules.” Well, yeah, a fair enough comment but it’s always dangerous when shows bring attention to their own inherent flaws – it makes you wonder why it’s not been an issue before. And, ultimately, the Doctor saving Ashildr seems much less of a crime against time than some of the temporal meddling he’s indulged in previously.
• Odin looks a bit naff. Okay he’s only supposed to be an alien doing an impression of what the local populace think Odin might look like, but something more Game Of Thrones and less Horrible Histories would have been prefereable.
• The forced jollity of the “party” is a little too forced.
• Sometimes we really wish the spaceships in Doctor Who didn’t always whizz off into the distance in such a cartoony way. The ships look great but they often fly like they have no weight.

And The Random:

• The second Doctor consulted a 500 Year Diary in his debut story “The Power Of The Daleks” and later in “The Tomb Of The Cybermen”.  It reappeared in the Fourth Doctor story “The Sontaran Experiment”. The Seventh Doctor was seen keeping a 900 Year Diary in the US TV movie Doctor Who (1996).
• Yes the Doctor does say “Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow” but you don’t really want us to go into a history of that phrase, do you?
• Clara indicates that she has used a sword in battle but we don’t think we’ve seen this on screen… not even in “Robot Of Sherwood.” But we’re quite happy to stand corrected.
• Erm, electric eels aren’t native to Europe. They’re from South America. Though there is some evidence that Vikings made it to South America (Erik the Red definitely made it  North America before Columbus) so maybe they brought back souvenirs.
• Ongoing themes: “It’s okay to make ripples but not tidal waves.” “You are a tidal wave.” There is a lot of water imagery – both literally and in the dialogue (“Fire in the water”, “The sky is crying”) throughout the episode. After two weeks “Under The Lake” and “Before The Flood” you have to wonder if this is just a coincidence or if the whole season is going to keep returning to this “tidal wave” idea.
• More ongoing themes: the Doctor says that he turned Ashildr into a hybrid, then looks surprised at himself for suggesting the idea. Is he remembering what Davros said in “The Witch’s Familiar”? “There was a prophecy, Doctor, on your own world… It spoke of a hybrid creature. Two great warrior races forced together to create a warrior greater than either. Is that what you ran from, Doctor? Your part in the coming of the hybrid?”
• Even more ongoing themes: Here we have a storyteller bringing about a resolution to the “war” and the Doctor threatening the Mire with the idea of letting the universe know the “story” of how they ran from a puppet. In “Before The Flood” Doctor tells the Fisher King, “This is where your story ends!” And in “The Witches Familiar” Missy says to Clara, “I’m going to tell you a story of the Doctor.”
• After two days, Clara must whiff a bit inside that space suit. How is she taking a pee?
• This week’s director Ed Bazalgette, is an interesting guy. He was lead guitarist in ’80s rock group the Vapors famous for the innuendo-laden hit “Turning Japanese”. He’s also the great-great-grandson of Joseph Bazalgette, the man who designed London’s Victorian sewer system and saved the city from almost literally drowning in its own excrement. When Ed Bazalgette changed career to become a filmmaker he directed an episode of the brilliant drama/documentary series The Seven Wonders Of The Industrial World (2003) called “The Sewer King” which was all about his famous forebear. He is also third cousin to Peter Bazalgette, the influential TV producer responsible for Big Brother and Deal Or No Deal.
• The Viking village was filmed at Cosmeston Medieval Village in Wales.
• The Doctor has previously used his ability to speak baby in “Closing Time” (2011) and “A Good Man Goes To War” (2011).
• The clips are from “Fires of Pompeii” (2008) and “Deep Breath” (2014).
• Anybody else slightly shocked to realise how much Capaldi’s hair has grown?
• When the Doctor shouts, “To hell with you!” who is the Doctor shouting at? Just some random deity he doesn’t even believe in? Or is this building up to something?

• Watch the Next Week trailer for “The Woman Who Lived”

• Read our Doctor Who series 9 reviews

Doctor Who S09E04 “Before The Flood” review

Airing in the UK on BBC One, Saturdays

Writer: Toby Whithouse
Director: Daniel O’Hara

Essential Plot Points:

• The Doctor, O’Donnell and Bennet travel to an abandoned army training base in 1980, built to look a Russian village at the height of the Cold War.
• They find the spaceship which is, in fact, a hearse, carrying the body of a deposed conqueror called the Fisher King to his burial.
• But the Fisher King isn’t actually dead, and he sets about his task of creating transmitters from people he kills; he plans to sleep in a cryogenic chamber while the “ghosts” carry on killing until there are enough undead transmitters to call an armada to Earth.
• Inspired by the “ghost” Doctor in the future – which reveals that Clare will be killed next if he doesn’t do something – the Doctor defeats the Fisher King by blowing up he dam, then climbing into the cryogenic chamber, knowing it will be discovered in 150 years time.
• He also creates the very same holographic “ghost” Doctor which inspired him to do all this.
• But as the Doctor points out to Clara, if the “ghost” Doctor itself gave him the idea to create the “ghost” Doctor, where did the idea originate from in the first place?

Review:

Flood warning: following a severe breach in the fourth wall viewers must be prepared for a deluge of timey-wimey paradoxes.

“Before The Flood” is far from the first time Doctor Who has created a “bootstraps paradox” (or a closed loop, as its also known); “The Pandorica Opens” and “The Big Bang” happily skipped through a minefield of the blimmin’ things, hoping nobody noticed. That’s usually the case with closed loops because sci-fi snobs tend to frown on them like they’re a heinous crime against the genre. Accepted wisdom seems to be: if you want to use them, don’t draw attention to them. It’s a philosophy that’s served the Terminator franchise quite happily for decades.

But, hey, playing the rules is dull. And you can always trust new Who episode to rattle SF purists’ cages. So with one of the cheekiest, but most amusing, teaser sequences ever the Doctor gives the audience a primer in Elementary Bootstraps Theory, then straps on his trust guitar for a “bring it on” riff on Beethoven’s Fifth. Should a drama like Doctor Who go quite so meta? It’s risky. It’s similar to the opening of “Listen” but that was more like the viewer overhearing an internal monologue. This is far more on-the-nose. The sight of the Doctor staring right at you through the camera – addressing you directly – is, admittedly, a little off-putting at first (and not just because of the eyebrows) and the scene is bound to have it objectors. On the other hand Capaldi pulls off the monologue with a Tom Baker-esque panache and conviction that totally wins you over, and it immediately gives the episode a quirky, original quality the previous one was seriously lacking. It’s a bold experiment, but it works.

Plus, is adds an edge to the rest of the episode, as you try to work out how the paradox is going to manifest itself. It becomes – on a metalevel – a puzzle for the audience; not a whodunnit? so much as a how-will-who-do-it?

Which is a bonus, as it adds an extra layer of frisson to an episode which, without it, would be fairly pedestrian. Like last week, it’s a decent enough slice of action adventure with some effective moments, good one-liners and decent ideas but there’s also an awful lot of flabby plotting. On the underwater base there’s little more for the characters to do than wander around corridors trying to avoid ghosts while in the past the Doctor seems to say, “Back to the TARDIS!” at the end of every scene. There’s a lot of exposition, some of it good, some of it mere technobabble.

The biggest disappointment is the Fisher King. Not visually, though. He looks magnificent and sounds even better. But what does he actually do? He stomps and rants and leaves his brain on the slab with his bandages. Okay, he kills O’Donnell and Prentis but even that’s off screen. We’re not given a reason to fear him; we’re just expected to fear him because he’s big, noisy and models his jaw on a Predator. His invasion plan seems bizarrely obtuse as well. And why was he pretending to be dead? It feels like a whole chunk of the script was junked at some point. Admittedly you don’t always need to know all “whys?” – Doctor Who often lets you fill in gaps yourself – but we know so little about the Fisher King just a few “whys” would have gone a long way.

Thankfully Capaldi is on fine form, giving a performance that papers over many cracks (“Don’t kiss me… morning breath!”). Once again Sophie Stone (Cass) provides a gutsy performance; she even pulls off the cheesy moment when Lunn translates that he loves her (it’s quite sweet, actually). The creepy corridor scenes benefit from more close-ups than last week. And parallel climactic action, flitting back and forth between the underwater base and the Doctor’s face-off with the Fisher King, is pulse-poundingly good. Some fantastic effects when the dam blows help too.

Then the Doctor signs off with another wink to camera a crash of chords. At which point you have to wonder, “Has he been toying with us?” Surely Time Lords – being, like… Time Lords, you know? – must have spent some considerable time studying the bootstraps paradox. The Doctor probably knows exactly where concepts created in a closed loop come from: Steven Moffat’s head.

The Good:

• The “bootstrap paradox” provides an interesting framing device for the episode and is amusingly explained.
• The teaser is cheeky, but a lot of fun.
• The rocked-up theme tune is brilliant.
• The Fisher King looks and sounds great… (but there’s a big “but” in the Bad section below).
• O’Donnell’s reaction to travelling in the TARDIS is really sweet.
• There are some very tense and creepy corridor scenes (they’re all so much more effective than similar moments in last week’s episode, which is odd when you think that it’s the same director and all the corridor scenes were presumably shot in a big block, out of order).
• The special FX for the dam being blown up are truly spectacular.
• The little scene in which Clara curses herself for trying to get Cass’s attention by hissing her name is a fun character beat.
• “Have you two met me?”
• “This regeneration, it’s a bit of a clerical error anyway.”

The Bad:

• The Fisher King doesn’t really do anything except stomp and roar. We don’t even see him kill O’Donnell. And he’s a bit thick, leaving explosives laying around.
• And how come he wasn’t dead? Presumably he was playing possum but some kind of explanation would have been appreciated.
• The eventual explanation for why the ghost only came out at night is, disappointingly, nothing more than senseless technobabble.
• Paul Kaye is another guest star in this two-parter who feels woefully underused.
• What’s with the comedy music before Prentis’s death? He’s just discovered a body has gone missing; it’s not exactly an Are You Being Served? moment.

And The Random:

• Did you spot the Star Wars gag on Prentis’s business card? “May the remorse be with you.”
• The Doctor’s amp, according to the label on it, comes from Magpie Electronics (“The Idiot’s Lantern”, 2006).
• The term “bootstraps paradox” originates from a brilliant Robert Heinlein short story about time travel called, “By His Bootstraps” (1941). Google it.
• O’Donnell is like a less geeky Osgood: she mentions three of the Doctor’s former companions (“I somehow doubt that Rose or Martha or Amy lost their breakfast on their first trip”) then makes reference to Harold Saxon (the Master’s alter ego as the UK Prime Minister in series three, 2007) and “the moon exploding and the big bat coming out…” (“Kill The Moon”, 2014). She also mentions a “Minister for War” which, since everything else she mentions is Doctor-centric and the Doctor doesn’t appear to know who she means, must be somebody he will meet in his future.
• The eleventh Doctor, thanks to his 900 years defence of Trenzalore, presumably remains the longest time the Doctor has spent in one incarnation, but the twelfth Doctor is catching up fast; he spends 150 years in a cryogenic chamber here.

• Read our previous Doctor Who reviews