July 4: "Deep Breath"
The opening scenes show us an energetic Doctor, however, as he bursts out of the TARDIS, confused as he confronts the Paternoster Gang and the giant dinosaur he's inadvertently brought to 19th-century London. And because it's a new Doctor, it means we get a brand-new title sequence and a new arrangement of the theme tune to accompany it. The titles are really gorgeous (and inspired by a title sequence by fan Billy Hanshaw!), all clockwork gears and a swirling clockface as the TARDIS travels through time -- and we get Capaldi's eyes in the sequence, so it's nice that they've kept (part of) the Doctor's face in there. The theme is much stranger, being more ethereal than we're perhaps used to, but it quickly grows on you -- and it's nice to see them willing to expand their horizons.
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| Stuart Manning's retro-inspired promotional poster for "Deep Breath" (from Exclusive Doctor Who Deep Breath poster revealed) |
This is a post-regeneration story, of course, so we get a Doctor who's not completely settled yet. This is a marked contrast from Matt Smith's debut, where he basically hit the ground running; here, Capaldi is portrayed as addled for much of this, confused about basic human conveniences ("So you've got a whole room for not being awake in," he comments, upon being told what a bedroom is. "But what's the point? You're just missing the room"). In fact, Steven Moffat seems to be pushing this new Doctor to be more strange, more unpredictable; because he has the Doctor surrounded by familiar characters, it gives him the license to make the Doctor less audience-accessible. It's a good decision, and the conversation with the tramp (hooray, Brian Miller's back!) is really quite wonderfully stream-of-consciousness. (Although I'm not sure we needed to point out, even obliquely, that Capaldi has been in the show before -- is it really too much to accept that there just happens to be another person in the universe (two if you include John Frobisher) that looks like the twelfth Doctor?) And what's clear -- particularly in the restaurant scene -- is that Capaldi and Jenna Coleman have great chemistry, playing off each other really nicely. Their interplay and timing is perfect, and you get the sense that Clara is starting to warm to this Doctor, even though he's being insulting toward her ("Hang on. 'Egomaniac, needy, game-player?' ... That was me?" she says indignantly, after realizing what the Doctor said about the ad in the paper that neither of them placed). Of course, that goes away when the Doctor seemingly abandons her in the Half-Face Man's ship, but it's still nice while it lasts.
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| The Doctor shows the Half-Face Man what he's become. ("Deep Breath") ©BBC |
So maybe that's why Moffat felt compelled to provide the final scene, where Clara rejects the new Doctor ("I'm sorry. I'm, I'm so, so sorry. But I don't think I know who you are any more," she tells him), only for the eleventh Doctor to call her from Trenzalore, to ask for her help with his future self. (Thus making this the fastest return to the show for a previous Doctor.) It's a sweet scene, although it does feel a bit odd; maybe if you haven't fully accepted the new Doctor yet, it's a nice reassurance that it's the same man, but for the rest of us it's a tad redundant; we don't need the old Doctor explicitly telling us that it's gonna be OK. Still, that's not Matt Smith's fault, and he does a nice job with it -- and it is a nice surprise to see him again.
"Deep Breath" is still a bit difficult to get a handle on; the Paternoster Gang are as solid as ever (although is Strax getting dumber?) and Jenna Coleman shines as the somewhat lost Clara, but Capaldi's Doctor remains a bit of a mystery, even by the end; we're not quite sure who he really is, what he'll be like, and so there's a missing sense of satisfaction as the credits roll. And unfortunately there's not enough there to really hang on to, and the main threat of the Half-Face Man and his minions isn't quite developed enough to make up the difference. But that's OK; it's still early days, and we'll come to know who the twelfth Doctor is over the following eleven weeks and beyond -- and there's little doubt that Capaldi will be fantastic in the role, based on what he does with the material he's given here. It's just a shame that "Deep Breath" is a little too insubstantial a story to really grab hold of -- not bad by any means, but not as good as it could have been.
July 5: "Into the Dalek"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Into the Dalek" (from Doctor Who: Exclusive Into the Dalek poster revealed) |
But I think there's been a focus on those darker moments and not on the lighter ones sprinkled throughout. Yes, there are things like the Doctor's brusque reaction to Blue's brother's death, and the question of "Am I a good man?" that's going to sort of be an undercurrent for this series -- and, rather infamously, his line describing Clara: "[She's] my carer. She cares so I don't have to." And there's the slightly odd prejudice that this Doctor has against soldiers, which (while he hasn't been their biggest fans up to this point) hasn't really been the case up to this point. (Then again, he did just spend something like 800+ years fighting to defend Christmas from various soldiers, so maybe that's what caused him to sour on them. Or they could just be setting up another series-long theme that's going to rear its head with Danny Pink, and they're just not terribly clever about it this time around.) But there are also defter moments, elements that sparkle, like his initial interaction with Journey Blue's uncle Morgan ("Oh, it's a roller coaster with you, isn't it?"), or his compliments to Clara ("Do I really not pay you?"), or his promise to Gretchen Alison Carlisle ("I will do something amazing, I promise"). It is darker than before, yes, but it's not a total darkness. (That said, I think I see what they're going for with the Doctor's comments on Clara's appearance -- that he genuinely doesn't understand humanity's quirks and doesn't realize that he's being insulting -- but hoo boy, we're perilously close to just straight-up sexism here, which is worrying in a show that's generally been reasonably good (albeit not perfect) about avoiding such things.)
Still, a character study of the new Doctor isn't the sole purpose of "Into the Dalek" (although it certainly forms a key part). The main part of the story (the Doctor and company being miniaturized and put inside a Dalek to find out why it's become moral) is fairly interesting and taut, and the trip through the Dalek, while being rather daft, is handled with enough serious intent to paper over any major feelings of silliness. There's a certain extent in which this is simply a sort of quest storyline -- first to find out what caused the Dalek to acquire a sense of morality, and then to try and get it to feel that way again, once the Doctor has repaired it. And we get some exciting set pieces, such as our heroes fighting the Dalek's antibodies as they make their way through or sliding through the feeding tube.
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| The Doctor confronts Rusty. ("Into the Dalek") ©BBC |
It's a bit of a melancholy note to end on, which is probably why we get a bit more of the initial stages of the relationship between Clara and fellow schoolteacher (and former soldier) Danny Pink, which does help a bit. But overall "Into the Dalek", despite the premise, does a good, if not spectacular, job as they explore the character of the Doctor and what it means to be a "good" Dalek. It's not brilliant, but it is solid.
July 6: "Robot of Sherwood"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Robot of Sherwood" (from Doctor Who: Robot of Sherwood exclusive poster revealed) |
They're clearly having great fun "doing" Robin Hood; the battle between the Doctor and Robin on the footbridge is good fun (and the spoon bit is pleasingly absurd), and the archery contest between Robin and the Sheriff (with the Doctor thrown in for good measure) is pretty entertaining as well -- and I like Capaldi's Pertwee-esque "Hai!" as he knocks a sword out of Robin's hand. Tom Riley makes for a good Robin Hood, and while the laughter does feel a bit theatrical at times, there's at least a story purpose behind it: "Why are you so sad?" Clara asks. "...Because the Doctor's right, you laugh too much." And Riley handles the other aspects with ease, clearly comfortable in the role. Meanwhile Ben Miller provides a good foil as the Sheriff of Nottingham (even if he distractingly looks like the Anthony Ainley Master), with the right amount of charm matched with villainy to make him suitably hissable.
The problems arise in the characterization of the Doctor. It's nice that he doesn't believe that Robin Hood could possibly be real, and his disbelief does lead to some entertaining moments (the examination of the Merry Men, for instance). But the problem is that the script and the direction don't go far enough to make us wonder if this is indeed a trick; despite occasional hints (the weather's wrong, the Sheriff's knights are robots, and the stuff in the spaceship that is the closest this story comes to making you question Robin's veracity -- and look, a shot of Patrick Troughton as television's first Robin Hood256), they never actually push the angle that this is fictional, and so we find ourselves siding with Robin and Clara against the Doctor. He's surprisingly close-minded, and it takes him an awfully long time to come around. (That said, it's a lot easier to imagine Peter Capaldi as unpersuaded than Matt Smith or David Tennant -- proof that Capaldi has already made his mark in the role.)
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| Robin, the Doctor, and Clara in the Sheriff's dungeon. ("Robot of Sherwood") ©BBC |
The actual plot, about circuits and repairing a ship, feels a bit derivative, as we saw something similar in "The Fires of Pompeii" (y'know, the one Capaldi was in before he was the Doctor), but the end duel between Robin and the Sheriff is suitably exciting, and it allows Robin to show that he's learned something from the Doctor. (There was going to be a scene during this battle where the Sheriff was beheaded, revealing he was a robot, but this was edited out of the final broadcast in the wake of ISIL's beheading of journalist Steven Sotloff earlier that week. The series 8 boxset doesn't include it either (apparently BBC Worldwide were still wary about its inclusion), but it was in the early version leaked prior to broadcast and thus isn't terribly difficult to find online. Frankly, it's not really that exciting a scene and the only thing the episode loses from its omission is an explanation for the episode's title.) It's thus nice to see that the Doctor and Robin have both developed respect for each other. (All the stuff with the gold arrow at the end is painfully stupid, though.)
I dunno, a lot of people seemed to really like this, and it does make a nice contrast from the previous couple episodes, but "Robot of Sherwood" (which really is a silly title, even with the proper context) never quite clicks for me. I wish there had been something more to weight it down, either to really sink one's teeth into or to make it genuinely funny (instead of just mildly amusing), because as is it's an incredibly lightweight piece of fluff. That's not the worst thing in the world, of course, but it does mean there's not ultimately much here to engage with; this ends up being about as consequential as a summer breeze.
July 7: "Listen"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Listen" (from Doctor Who: Exclusive Listen poster revealed) |
This episode continues the trend of making the twelfth Doctor into a unique character; it's difficult to imagine any of the other Doctors beginning an adventure because they want to test a speculative theory, but here Capaldi makes it seem like the most natural thing in the world, as he wonders why there are no creatures capable of perfect hiding, and then realizes that if there were, how would we know about them? It's the Doctor's own curiosity that directly leads to the events of the story, in a way that makes sense for this Doctor.
Interspersed with this is Clara's first date with Danny Pink, which seems to be something of a total disaster on both sides -- although, to their credit, both of them seem willing to forge ahead rather than giving up altogether. It's nice, from a story point of view, that this actual first date is less of a meet cute than their interactions in "Into the Dalek" were, as it allows us to actually start to care more about them as characters, instead of being coerced into liking them. This is where Clara really starts to bloom as a character, now that all that Impossible Girl stuff is over, and Jenna Coleman is clearly relishing the opportunity to do something a bit different in the show.
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| Clara, Rupert, and the Doctor look at Rupert's now-empty bed. ("Listen") ©BBC |
Ah yes, that ending. It's really nice to see that they're just as willing as ever to take risks and not to have any sacred cows (although even then, Moffat is careful not to explicitly say that this is the young Doctor -- that's just Clara's assumption). Taking us back to the very early days and suggesting that Clara might be partially responsible for the Doctor's future attitudes (with both the comment that she heard the Doctor say earlier in the episode ("Fear is a superpower"), as well as from "The Day of the Doctor" ("Fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly") and all the way back to An Unearthly Child ("Fear makes companions of us all")) is a bold move that pays off. It ties together the past and the future in subtle ways, and it makes the Doctor even more relatable than he's ever been before.
It's difficult to describe just how astonishingly good "Listen" is. It's a gorgeously written story, designed to do nothing more than make us afraid, and at this it's a smashing success. The scope of the story is both wide (four different time zones, a suggestion that Orson Pink and Clara might be related, and that ending) and narrow (again, there are only really five characters in this), and it's frankly a masterclass in how to write suspense. There are some people who were dissatisfied with this story, which you can sort of understand (as under one interpretation "Listen" is nothing more than a shaggy dog story), but frankly the finished product is so good that even if you believe there wasn't really anything there you don't feel cheated, because the journey has been so compelling. "Listen" is not just one of the best episodes of series 8, but of the entirety of Doctor Who.
July 8: "Time Heist"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Time Heist" (from Doctor Who: Exclusive Time Heist poster revealed) |
The opening of this story, before they get involved in the heist, is the best version yet of the Doctor's comments about Clara's appearance. They're not potentially mean-spirited but instead are simply looking at things from a different angle. "Why is your face all coloured in?" the Doctor asks, mystified; and, "Are you taller?" "Heels," Clara replies. "What, do you have to reach a high shelf?" the Doctor wonders. These sorts of jokes do a much better job of getting the Doctor's cluelessness about such things across than cracks about her weight; more like this, please.
The heist stuff is entertaining as well; as I mentioned, the four of them -- the Doctor, Clara, augmented hacker Psi, and shapeshifting Saibra -- are trying to work out what the plan is on the fly. All they know is that the Bank is one of the most heavily secured locations in the universe, and that they all agreed to participate before they got their minds wiped by the worms from "The Snowmen". And so because they don't know what's going on, they're as much in the dark as we are, which maintains a lot of the suspense for the audience. And it is exciting, watching them bluff and evade their way past each stage to the next, while security seems to resolutely stay one step behind.
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| The Teller and Ms. Delphox establish a plan of criminal intent in a customer while the Doctor's party looks on. ("Time Heist") ©BBC |
So we have a lot of fun as we watch the four of them maneuver their way through the bank, but it's the scene in the private vault that's the best, as the Doctor works out what exactly is going on, tells Director Karabraxos to call him sometime, and then has the Teller look through his brain to find out for certain what's really happening -- which includes one of the best Capaldi lines yet ("What do you think of the new look?" he asks the Teller, indicating his outfit. "I was hoping for minimalism but I think I came out with magician") -- to confirm that this isn't a bank heist but rather a rescue mission, to rescue the only other living member of the Teller's species.
It's an entertaining ride from start to finish, with a satisfying happy ending and no sense at any point that you've been cheated out of anything, or that they've had to cheat in any way. (The biggest "cheat" is how the most secure bank in the universe has all those big "do not enter" ventilation shafts around, and that might be more a design issue than a scripting one.) "Time Heist" is a fun, strong story -- writer Steve Thompson has finally come out trumps with one of his Doctor Who scripts.
July 9: "The Caretaker"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "The Caretaker" (from Doctor Who: Exclusive The Caretaker poster revealed) |
In theory this should work. There's something inherently right about the idea of the Doctor as a school caretaker, something that should lend itself to lots of entertaining situations about the Doctor failing to grasp why he has to keep cleaning bathrooms or mopping floors or replacing light bulbs, all the while trying very hard to blend in and failing miserably. But somewhere along the way this went astray. The Doctor does blend in; sure, he's a little odd at times, but he's able to clean and fix things as he goes about his plan to save the planet. He can clean a window, even if the significance of the graffiti scribbled on it eludes him. He looks completely at home screwing around with a junction box while talking to Danny and Adrian. He even knows where the paper towels are.
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| Danny confronts the Doctor. ("The Caretaker") ©BBC |
It's these conversations that ultimately unbalance the whole thing; Danny Pink is far too proud a person to just brush this stuff off, and the Doctor's far too prejudiced to see past the "soldier" aspect of Danny. (At least, one hopes that that's the prejudice involved. As Graham Kibble-White pointed out in Doctor Who Magazine, there's a streak of clueless racism at work in this story -- the three troublemaker students we see are all black, and Danny must be a PE teacher rather than a maths one (and can't be the object of Clara's affections) -- hopefully because he's a soldier and not because he's black. Oh, and there's the Doctor's mistaken belief that Adrian is Clara's boyfriend: the intention of the episode is because he vaguely resembles the eleventh Doctor, not because he's white, but once you see these things in a different light it's hard to unsee them. I do think that this is a completely unintentional subtext, but the fact that that no one on the production team noticed this is slightly worrying.) These are weighty topics that "The Caretaker" doesn't have easy answers to (partially because they're holding some of them back for the series 8 finale), but because of that they sink everything else, and the ultimate impression is that "The Caretaker" is uncertain of what it wants to actually be -- something rather surprising for this phase of the show. This isn't the comedy story with some darker elements thrown in; it's an examination of darker topics that occasionally adds a joke or two. As an exploration of the fractious relationship between Danny and the Doctor, and what it means to be worthy of the Doctor's trust, this is fairly engaging, but by most other standards "The Caretaker" falls short of the mark.
July 10: "Kill the Moon"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Kill the Moon" (from Doctor Who: Exclusive Kill the Moon poster revealed) |
Because the basic storyline is actually pretty good; something we thought was a lifeless celestial body is actually an egg that's finally starting to hatch, and it's potentially going to cause all sorts of havoc -- so, a decision has to be made: let the moon hatch or kill the thing inside? There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and in fact it's a nice bold idea, making a moon a space egg. There's also a lot of tense direction early on; the first half of this episode is properly scary, with lots of shadows and strange spider creatures lurking in the dark, ready to pounce and kill hapless astronauts and lunar miners, and the couple times they do are genuinely frightening. Director Paul Wilmshurst does a good job of providing us with a tense atmosphere to inhabit, and the decision to film the lunar surface stuff on Lanzarote259 (which was Wilmshurst's idea) is a really good one -- these scenes really do look like a barren lunar surface. And then we match this with the performances on display: Hermione Norris is face-punchingly frustrating as Lundvik, but that's exactly what she's designed to be, and Norris always makes it seem like her fatalistic approach is a part of her character. Tony Osoba (ooh, another old Who veteran) and Phil Nice don't get much to do, but they're just as good with the little they get, playing people not really meant to be astronauts but making the best of a bad situation. And Ellis George does a surprisingly good job as Courtney Woods, frequently acting like a teenager but not to the point where we just want to lock her in a cupboard and walk away (as opposed to, say, last series' Angie Maitland). And Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman are frankly astonishing in that final scene together -- Clara looks incredibly hurt and betrayed and angry at the Doctor for being patronizing, while the Doctor genuinely doesn't understand what the problem was. This gives us a taste of what it would actually be like to travel in time, to deal with these big decisions, and neither actor shirks from giving it their all. On the basis of the performances alone, "Kill the Moon" succeeds.
The problem is the science (and we're using this term very loosely) that writer Peter Harness uses to move his plot along. So the mass of the moon has increased, somehow -- this is so they can get away with everyone walking normally across Lanzarote without having to rig up a bunch of Kirby wires and harnesses, and it gives Capaldi the opportunity to take a gravity reading with a yo-yo, just like Tom Baker in The Ark in Space. Fine. But then we're later told that the mass of the moon is unstable, which is why Courtney starts to float while people in the next room remain rooted to the floor(!). This is while they're under attack from single-celled organisms that nevertheless look like spiders -- complete with joints, teeth, and the ability to spin spiderwebs -- which seems like a bit of a stretch for prokaryotes.
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| The creature inside the Moon flies away. ("Kill the Moon") ©BBC |
(And if we're nitpicking... Hermione Norris, playing Lundvik, was 47 when they filmed this. "Kill the Moon" is explicitly set in 2049, which suggests that Lundvik was 12 years old in 2014, when Courtney is from. So why does Lundvik reminisce about her granny using Tumblr, as if it were some ancient thing instead of something around while she was the right age to be using it herself? Oh, and we're told the mining team that went missing were Mexicans. So one of the set dressers has put a smegging poncho over one of the chairs.)
Look, bad science isn't exactly a new thing for Doctor Who, but that doesn't automatically make it bad Doctor Who -- The Evil of the Daleks wants you to believe that you can build a time machine with 144 mirrors and some static electricity, and that's hardly a much maligned story. No, the problem is that here the pseudo-scientific gobbledegook is just being used to get from point A to point B, and meanwhile "Kill the Moon" is taking itself so seriously. It's a shame; the actors and the direction are doing a great job of making this suitably thrilling. But if it wants us to take the rest of it so seriously then it can't keep flinging silly nonsense at us and expecting us to swallow it. That's not clever, it's lazy. Have a big idea about the moon being an egg by all means -- that's a great bold idea -- but if you're going to do so, be prepared to follow through and make it believable. Don't just make things up based on half-remembered secondary school science classes and expect that that's good enough. Because it's not, and it's frankly insulting to think that it would be. This ruins "Kill the Moon" more than any dodgy acting or unconvincing set would have done.
(And I'm sure it's completely unintentional, but once you get the thought in your head that this is just an excuse to explain why the Moon doesn't quite look right in The Moonbase, it's really, really hard to shake that idea...)
July 11: "Mummy on the Orient Express"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Mummy on the Orient Express" (from Doctor Who: Exclusive Mummy on the Orient Express poster revealed) |
But then that's one of the great things about Jamie Mathieson's debut Who script -- it takes two separate ideas and puts them together in a way that feels completely natural. There's not really any good reason for a mummy to be stalking people on a space Orient Express, but the two styles merge so well that you never mind. It means that we get a lush setting and a properly scary monster. And make no mistake, the mummy, aka the Foretold, is scary. Visually it's really good, inexorably stalking its victims, shuffling its feet, with old bandages hanging from its emaciated frame, and the conceit that once you see it, that's it, there's nothing you can do, is nicely scary as well. Adding into the mix the fact that only the victim can see it, and so therefore there's nothing anyone can do to help you, is also a good move.
And what's really wonderful about this environment is that the Doctor fits right in. Capaldi seems incredibly at ease moving through the train cars, talking with people (the gag where he opens a cigarette case and offers Professor Moorhouse a jelly baby is lovely) and trying to figure out what's going on. He also gets along really well with Chief Engineer Perkins, who acts as the Doctor's surrogate companion and has a nice line in dry wit. "Passenger manifest, plan of the train and a list of stops for the past six months," he says, presenting the Doctor with a number of documents. "Quick work, Perkins," the Doctor replies. "Maybe too quick." "Yes, sir. I'm obviously the mummy," Perkins says mildly. "Or perhaps I was already looking into this."
But the best moments are when the facade drops and the "computer", Gus, reveals that it's lured a number of experts on board the train to examine the Foretold, so that it can weaponize the technology. The lab scenes show the Doctor being callous and heartless, but because he needs to be in order to stop the Foretold from killing more people. "Tell us what you can see," he tells Moorhouse. "Even the smallest detail might help save the next one." "The next one?" Moorhouse replies. "You mean you can't save me?" "Well, that is implied, isn't it? Yes, this is probably the end for you. But make it count," the Doctor urges Moorhouse. "Details, please." We get a couple deaths like this, with the Doctor being as clinical as possible in order to save more lives, while the Foretold gets to be suitably terrifying as it advances on its victims. (Oh, and the ticking clock in the corner every time the Foretold appears is a nice touch.)
If there's a downside to this episode, it's that Clara ends up being sidelined for most of it -- but that means she gets to spend more time wrestling with her conflicted feelings about the Doctor, which at least confronts that particular story thread. Yes, she was mad at him (and that anger briefly resurfaces here, when she learns that the Doctor was invited aboard (rather than just arriving in the right place by chance) -- "You knew. You knew this was no relaxing break. You knew this was dangerous. ... You see, this. This is why I'm leaving you. This. Because you lied. You lied to me, again. And now you've made me lie. You've made me your accomplice"), but she's finding it increasingly difficult to actually give up travelling with the Doctor -- to the point where she's willing to lie to Danny about it. So it seems we're not done with Clara just yet.
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| The Doctor is stalked by the Foretold. ("Mummy on the Orient Express") ©BBC |
It's a properly scary monster placed against a gorgeous backdrop, and it gives us our best version of the twelfth Doctor yet. Not only that, but Mathieson's script is a great balance of serious intent matched with a light touch. All this and a whole score of great actors besides. "Mummy on the Orient Express" is a solid, highly entertaining episode; more like this, please.
July 12: "Flatline"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Flatline" (from Exclusive Doctor Who Flatline poster revealed) |
There are, in fact, two things that are working in this episode's favor. The first is the nature of the Boneless, as the threat is slowly unveiled bit by bit in a logical way, leading to them stalking our heroes through sitting rooms and atmospheric tunnels. The second is the way the Doctor is trapped inside the TARDIS (yep, this is the Doctor-lite episode), which means that Clara has to step up and "be" the Doctor for this episode.
The first one is fascinating. There've occasionally been stories dealing with the idea of two dimensional beings (although not really on televised Doctor Who), but "Flatline" takes the idea very seriously and provides us with a clever rendition of the idea. The key thing about the Boneless is that they're totally unfathomable; we know that they're methodically working their way through people by pulling them into their two dimensional world, for some purpose that might be scientific, or might be malevolent, but that's about all we know. Like the Foretold in the previous story, the Boneless don't speak with us, so we can only infer their motives, and that makes them more scary. Do they really not know that they're killing people when they pull them into two dimensions, or do they not care -- or are even actively murdering people? That's creepy enough, and it's aided by a lot of good artwork on walls, CG effects, and some fantastic forced perspective tricks (the one where George appears to be standing near a wall, and then the camera pans to show that he's been flattened against all the surfaces is the best one) -- watching the Boneless stumble forward in their borrowed forms is creepy and visually impressive.
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| The Boneless approach. ("Flatline") ©BBC |
The Doctor, despite this being a Doctor-lite episode, gets quite a bit to do, as he looks through Clara's eyes to help figure out what's happening. There are also some fun gags with the TARDIS -- the shots of him looking through the doors (which are now tiny for him) don't always work (there's just something slightly off about the look of the thing), but moments like passing her a sledgehammer or walking his way off the train tracks like Thing from The Addams Family are cute. He may not be personally on the scene, but the Doctor is just as much a part of events as Clara is.
"Flatline" gives us a solid script with an imaginative concept, matched with excellent direction from Douglas Mackinnon and great special effects, which all combine with good performances to provide a tense, highly watchable episode. I asked for more like "Mummy on the Orient Express", and Mathieson definitely delivered -- "Flatline" is an outstanding episode, content to work within its limitations but pushing them as far as it can, to great success.
(All that said, the most worrying moment in "Flatline" wasn't in the episode itself, but in a commercial that aired during the BBC America broadcast for a company called Fathead, which makes high quality life-size posters of people that you can put on your wall -- usually athletes, but they can be of anyone. Watching a child attempting to hug the Fathead of his soldier father was, in the light of this episode, incredibly disturbing.)
July 13: "In the Forest of the Night"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "In the Forest of the Night" (from Doctor Who: exclusive In the Forest of the Night poster revealed) |
It's a pity it's all somewhat dull, though.
I'm not actually sure what the problem is, to be honest. Is it a matter of the direction not getting across the magical realism feeling that the script is going for? Is it a more basic problem of scripting, of something being missing that should have been there to make this click? Or is it some combination of these things and more? Because this seems like the sort of story idea that should suit Doctor Who to a T -- a forest springing up overnight is a fantastic concept, and the visuals of traffic lights overgrown with greenery and Nelson's Column surrounded by trees and vines are very striking. Really, the only issue there is the lack of basically anyone else around -- for being in the center of London, there aren't many people wandering around the new forest, are there? But then that makes the students of Coal Hill's "Gifted and Talented" group more special, because they're the ones who get to explore this strange new wilderness.
To the credit of both Cottrell-Boyce and casting director Andy Pryor, the children we see here aren't thoroughly irritating or wet, but instead are both real people and rather charming (the best one is Samson, who rebukes Danny Pink's "let's all pitch in" sensibilities by getting the "team" to move as a unit by replying at one point with, "We will [do this], if you stop calling us a team"). Ruby is shown to be smart but literal-minded, while Maebh has a special affinity with the trees (so long as she's not drugged into ignoring them, in a somewhat pointed commentary on overmedicating children). In fact, the issue here is that there's frankly not enough of this; we should get a better sense of who these children are, that they are in fact real people instead of troublemakers and problem children lumped together under a euphemism, but that only happens with a couple of them, and it would have been better if they'd extended the favor to more of them.
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| Danny and the Doctor talk to Maebh while the others look on. ("In the Forest of the Night") ©BBC |
I dunno, there's not really anything wrong with what we got from "In the Forest of the Night", but there's not enough there to really keep things going. Visually this is quite nice, and the storyline is sweet (even if a bit silly -- but as we're already dealing with a fairy tale-esque story the tree stuff isn't as egregious as "Kill the Moon" was), and there are some great character moments (such as the Doctor refuting Clara's urging of him to leave Earth when they think it's doomed by a solar flare by using her words from "Kill the Moon" -- "This is my world too. I walk your earth, I breathe your air" -- which is a nice way of bringing things back around). It's just a pity there's no clear threat to really keep things moving, and so the final effort is a bit dull.
Oh, and the happy ending of Maebh's runaway sister returning at the very end is so hideously twee as to be gag-inducing.
July 14: "Dark Water"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Dark Water" (from Doctor Who: exclusive Dark Water poster revealed) |
It starts with the most horrifically mundane death ever: Danny Pink talking to Clara on the phone and struck and killed by a car as he's crossing the road. It's a surprisingly boring death for this show -- but that's the point. He didn't die sacrificing himself, or fighting for his beliefs, or even to show that the villain really means it; he died in a traffic accident. What it does, however, is spur Clara into desperate action; her best friend has a time machine, after all, and so all she can think of is getting Danny back, by changing the past, which leads to one of the most dramatic moments of series 8: Clara threatening the Doctor to either bring Danny back or be locked out of the TARDIS forever. It's a powerful moment, watching Clara toss in spare key after spare key in order to make the Doctor help her, and even when you know it's a trick it's still just as impressive. But what's best is that even after all that, after seeing how far Clara was willing to go, the Doctor is still willing to help. "You're going to help me?" she asks. "Well, why wouldn't I help you?" the Doctor replies. "Because of what I just did," Clara says. "I just—" "You betrayed me," the Doctor replies somewhat harshly. "Betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything that I've ever stood for. You let me down!" "Then why are you helping me?" Clara wonders. "Why?" the Doctor asks, genuinely confused. "Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?" And just like that, we know -- we for certain know -- what kind of man this Doctor is. He may be brusque and tactless and totally alien, but he still cares deeply. He's still, emphatically, a good man.
A big moment, but it leads to some suspenseful scenes, as the Doctor and Clara travel to what might be the afterlife and what seems to be a mausoleum. This is where we're finally getting a payoff for all those Missy scenes scattered throughout the previous episodes, of people being brought to the Nethersphere after they die. And since Danny's just died, he's currently in the Nethersphere, trying to work out what happened, which is why the TARDIS has arrived at 3W in the first place. These scenes apparently were cause for concern for some viewers, as it depicts a world where the dead are still conscious and feeling things that happen to their bodies, but it's hard to know what exactly is going on. The sales pitch by Dr. Chang is very smooth, but the Doctor doesn't believe a word of it and it's not hard to see his point of view -- other than Danny's presence, we don't have any genuine evidence that things are as 3W says they are. There are things to make us wonder though; the off-screen screaming could be staged, but the boy who Danny accidentally killed when he was a soldier -- the thing that clearly made him give up the soldier life -- seems too real to be a fake. Although it could be a clever manipulation to make Danny give up his emotions so that he can become a Cyberman.
The Cybermen reveal is a good move, by the way; despite knowing that they were going to be in this episode (from both all the publicity photos from when the Cybermen were marching outside St. Paul's (again) and the "Next Time" trailer at the end of "In the Forest of the Night"), it took me an awfully long time to realize that the bodies inside the "dark water" tanks that only revealed organic matter were full of Cybermen, and that the 3W logo was in fact a Cyberman eye, with the teardrop motif and everything. Perhaps sharper viewers than me were wishing they'd just get on with it, but it was a pleasant feeling as the pieces finally all fell into place, right when presumably the production team wanted them to. It also sets the stage for the next episode, with Missy in control of Cybermen, populated by minds snatched up by a piece of Gallifreyan tech -- the Matrix data-slice261 -- and all ready to do her bidding.
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| Missy reveals her identity. ("Dark Water") ©BBC |
DOCTOR: Who are you?If "Death in Heaven" is as good as this episode has been, we're in for a smashing series 8 finale.
MISSY: Oh, you know who I am. I'm Missy.
DOCTOR: Who's Missy?
MISSY: Please, try to keep up. Short for "Mistress". Well, I couldn't very well keep calling myself the Master, now could I?
July 15: "Death in Heaven"
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| Stuart Manning's poster for "Death in Heaven" (from Exclusive Doctor Who Death in Heaven poster revealed) |
If "Dark Water" was the tense, brooding first half, then "Death in Heaven" is the action-packed second, with lots of thrilling moments -- Cybermen rising from graves! Flying around the planet! Tearing apart an airplane! -- packed into an hour-long episode. But for all that, it's still the smaller character scenes that ultimately provide the best moments here. And to the credit of writer Steven Moffat and director Rachel Talalay, it's clear that that's the point; the Cyberman army, for all its new tricks, takes a backseat to the machinations of the new Master.
Michelle Gomez continues to have an absolute riot of a time as the new Master, providing us with a character who is absolutely insane and knows it and doesn't care. She delights in telling people that they're going to die (her interactions with Osgood being a prime example of her insanity) and she seems completely self-assured, as she knows that her Cyber-pollen plan has already taken effect and there's nothing anyone can do about it. ("Throw away your weapons, Man Scout, it's all over," the Doctor tells Colonel Ahmed. "How can you win a war against an enemy that can weaponise the dead?") There's something incredibly appealing about Gomez's homicidal quirkiness, but it's made very clear that she's a killer, and what's more, that she's killing people for fun. This combination means she's a very dangerous opponent.
And yet the twist is that she's gone to all this trouble of harvesting dying minds and creating a new race of Cybermen from the bodies of the dead (although one wonders how they get enough material to cover themselves in metal/plastic -- surely the Cyber-pollen can't be that good?) in order to give it to the Doctor as a gift. ("Happy birthday," she tells him. "Oh! You didn't know, did you? It's lucky one of us remembers these things.") She wants to show the Doctor that they're really not that different, the Doctor and the Master, that they're still at heart the same people who were childhood friends, and so by giving him an army she'll make him like her. It's a marvelously insidious scheme that demonstrates that despite the outward changes, this is still the Master. (Thus cementing Neil Gaiman's throwaway line in "The Doctor's Wife" suggesting that Time Lords can change sex -- although, predictably, there was an element of fandom who objected strongly to the change, though for no obviously compelling reason.)
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| Clara hugs the Cybernised Danny. ("Death in Heaven") ©BBC |
It's not exactly a triumphant ending, and the closing moments of the Doctor and Clara lying to each other (the Doctor about finding Gallifrey, Clara about having Danny back -- Danny chose to send back the child he'd killed as a soldier instead of himself) are quite downbeat. But what "Death in Heaven" makes clear is that the Doctor is not the Master. It tells us that love is an incredibly powerful force, and that it's the relationships we create that define us, for good or ill. Despite the superficial trappings, "Dark Water" / "Death in Heaven" is a thoughtful examination of these themes, and if the finished product lacks some of the impact of previous series finales, the difference is made up in those character moments.
Still, no wonder Santa shows up (in the middle of the end credits! Another cheeky move!) to tell the Doctor he and Clara can't leave things like that.
Series 8 has marked less a change of direction so much as a change of emphasis; in principle there's nothing really radically different about this year's run of stories from the previous year's, but what's changed is the focus on the characters. Series 7 was about big ideas, about the mystery of the Impossible Girl and the upcoming 50th anniversary story, while series 8 wants to examine our heroes. Who is this new Doctor? Who is Clara Oswald, now that she's not the girl who was "born to save the Doctor"? What is it like for these people to travel and see the things they've seen, and make the decisions they make? These are opportunities that both Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi seize eagerly. Coleman in particular flourishes, as Clara gains some nuances and becomes a more three-dimensional character, and you can tell that Coleman appreciates the chance to flesh out Clara's character. Peter Capaldi does just as well (even if the material he's given occasionally doesn't work -- and here I'm thinking of the odd insults he has to deliver to Clara in the early parts of this series), as he strives to give us a Doctor that's markedly different from the last two Doctors and succeeds in doing so without alienating viewers. This is an actor who loves the show, and that affection bleeds through every move, every line of dialogue, so that even when he's being brusque and unlikeable it's still clear that this Doctor is the same man as ever.
It's something of new ground for the show, to make the focus land so squarely on the Doctor and his companion, but it works; not only do we get more of an insight into these characters, but it also results in perhaps the most generally accessible run of episodes since series 4. You don't need to have been watching all the previous episodes to understand what's happening. And while series 8 has been a bit more uneven in quality than series 7 was, it rarely descends to levels of unwatchability, and there's always something entertaining or compelling going on. It does sometimes feel like you have to work a bit harder at this series, but there are plenty of rewards for those willing to do so. Even after 51 years, Doctor Who can find new things to say and do, and that's perhaps no clearer than in the whole of series 8.
Footnotes
256 Surprisingly, given it was 1953 and these went out live, a small section of the second episode (the studio material) still exists.
257 Steven Moffat tried to get around this after the fact by suggesting that the Doctor gave him the suit, but that doesn't work as the file footage of Orson leaving also shows the patch on his suit.
258 Ooh, it's a bunch of quick references in the images here, including a Terileptil, an Ice Warrior, Kahler Tek, a Slitheen, Captain John Hart from Torchwood, Androvax and the Trickster from The Sarah Jane Adventures, and, er, a Sensorite. (Given their behavior in The Sensorites, one wonders how a Sensorite became a hardened criminal.) Oh! And Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer, in the show's first direct reference to a character created for the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip.
259 Yep, the same place where they filmed Peter Davison's penultimate story Planet of Fire -- which is why the working title for "Kill the Moon" was, cheekily, "Return to Sarn".
260 The others are Ian Stuart Black (The Savages and The War Machines), Chris Boucher (The Face of Evil and The Robots of Death), David Fisher (The Stones of Blood and The Androids of Tara), Christopher H. Bidmead (Logopolis and Castrovalva -- although that spans a season break), Pip and Jane Baker (The Trial of a Time Lord Part Fourteen and Time and the Rani -- but that one's a bit of a technicality and spans a season break), Russell T Davies (various), and Steven Moffat (various).
261 This is a clever bit of writing, as we've known as far back as The Deadly Assassin that the Matrix can snatch dying minds and upload them to a large network (hence "Matrix"), which means that we're immediately on board with the idea of living minds being snatched up and stored -- although, intriguingly, Steven Moffat doesn't hold the viewers' hands here: either you recognize the reference and make the connection, or you simply move on. It's not explained at length, which is, I think, a wise move.