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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Before the Flood" (from Doctor Who: exclusive Under the Lake and Before the Flood posters revealed) |
It's also worth noting how quickly "Before the Flood" dispenses with the base-under-siege narrative established in the first half of this story. Even the parts that still take place in the base don't have the same vibe to them; this is no longer a story about being attacked by ghosts, but about what the Doctor can do in the past to avoid having everyone else be killed. It's about planning and forethought rather than desperation and improvising.
This means that we get a peek back into what the village was like before the dam burst, back in 1980 -- and the Doctor's brought along two of the base crew, O'Donnell and Bennett. "So, [this is] pre-Harold Saxon," O'Donnell says. "Pre-the Minister of War, pre-the moon exploding and a big bat coming out." "The Minister of War?" the Doctor asks. "No, never mind, I expect I'll find out soon enough." So there's a bit of a tease for the future that to date hasn't been followed up on. O'Donnell is quite likeable, all gung ho about the Doctor and travelling in the TARDIS -- so of course she's slated to die.
But before that there's the encounter with Prentis the Tivolian undertaker (with the incredibly cheeky gag on his business card, "May the remorse be with you"), as we learn that the source of the ghosts is the "body" he's transporting, the Fisher King, who once ruled over the Tivoli. (You may remember a Tivoli as the cowardly alien from "The God Complex".) It seems the Fisher King isn't as dead as Prentis was led to believe, as he starts killing people in order to use them as transmitters to tell others where he is. This is why Prentis is killed, and why O'Donnell follows soon after. This gives Whithouse an opportunity to once again have a character accuse the Doctor of being uncaring or less-than-good: "That list your ghost was saying, that's the order in which people are going to die, isn't it?" Bennett says. "I mean, I've only just figured that out. But you knew that all along, didn't you?" "I thought perhaps, because her ghost wasn't there in the future, like Prentis's was, I thought maybe, maybe it wouldn't happen," the Doctor replies. "Maybe she stood a chance." "Yeah, but you didn't try very hard to stop her, though, did you?" says Bennett, unmollified. "It was almost like you wanted to test your theory. So who's next?" "Clara," says the Doctor. "Yeah. Yeah. Except now you're going to do something about it, aren't you?" It seems Whithouse just can't resist the urge to question the Doctor's character and the nature of what he does, even in a story like this where it doesn't quite fit in.
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| The Fisher King goes to investigate his ship. ("Before the Flood") ©BBC |
But, being straightforward isn't the worst of sins by any means, and what we do get is well done. There's hardly a foot put wrong (about the only real complaint I have is the aggressive color grading, which is particularly noticeable in the 1980 scenes, trying to make everything grey and dreary -- but it's still not as egregious here as it was in "Death in Heaven" and its graveyard scenes, and this seems to be the current style anyway, so they're just following the trend), and there are enough clever moments in this story to be worthwhile. The air that these two episodes give off is one of confidence; the production team is so comfortable with what they're doing that even a matter-of-fact resolution like this is done with energy and style, and they're confident enough in their audience to provide an opening like in "Before the Flood", with a deliberate paradox to leave them thinking at the end. "Under the Lake" / "Before the Flood" isn't a knockout story, but it is very good at what it sets out to do.