June 11: "Closing Time"

Maybe I'm wrong, but the general impression I've gotten from fandom is that "Closing Time" isn't a terribly well-loved story.  It didn't rate highly on Doctor Who Magazine's recent 50 Years Poll (165 out of 241, with an average score of 65.59% -- although three other stories from series 6 are even lower on the list), and much of the fan commentary I've seen online has been dismissive.  That's a shame, because I think "Closing Time" is a really sweet and funny piece.

Craig and the Doctor examine a Cybermat. ("Closing Time") ©BBC

I might be biased, since I thoroughly enjoyed last series' "The Lodger" and so I'm very welcoming of a sequel, but even so, "Closing Time" is fun and enjoyable.  Certainly the chemistry is still there between Matt Smith and James Corden -- in fact, it might even be stronger than last time -- and the addition of Alfie/Stormageddon, Craig and Sophie's baby that the Doctor can talk to, makes for some lovely moments as well.  "No, he's your dad," the Doctor tells Stormageddon, referring to Craig.  "You can't just call him 'Not Mum.' ... 'Also Not Mum', that's me.  And everybody else is... 'peasants'.  That's a bit unfortunate."  There are lines like this scattered throughout the piece, as the Doctor goes about trying to thwart a Cyberman invasion in Colchester from inside a department store.  This seriously leads to all sorts of fun, as Craig tries to help him out and finds that he can't really be as charming as the Doctor -- when he tries it almost gets him thrown out of the store.  "How do you do that?" Craig demands afterwards.  "It's a power, isn't it?  Some sort of weird alien hypnotic power.  I bet you excrete some sort of gas that makes people love you."  There's also the stuff with the Cybermat (a Cybermat!  How cool is that?  And looking a lot better since their last appearance in Revenge of the Cybermen), with its genuinely worrying teeth and its later efforts to attack the Doctor and Craig, having apparently been playing dormant and waiting for the right moment to strike.  All this matched with more moments, as in "The Lodger", of the Doctor temporarily taking on menial jobs and being surprisingly good at them -- here as a sales clerk for the toy department, beloved by all the staff (including Val, as played by Lynda Baron -- last seen on the show as Captain Wrack in Enlightenment).

But one of the best things about "Closing Time" is by virtue of its placement in this run of episodes.  First, it's not another "trapped in a structure and on the run" story, so that's welcome.  But more importantly...  Throughout this series we've been getting little digs at the Doctor, suggestions that he's not as good and morally upright as we like to think.  That he'll lie to people, or get them killed, or both, and that he's "drenched in the blood of the innocent" (as the previous episode implied).  Which I'm not saying isn't an interesting conversation to have (and Toby Whithouse in particular seems quite intrigued by this), but it does come as something of a relief to have Craig in this definitively say that the Doctor is amazing and wonderful and generally gets it right, and the Doctor shouldn't worry about it so much:

CRAIG: The Cybermat came after us?
DOCTOR: No, after me.
CRAIG: They sent it after us.
DOCTOR: After me.  Because of me, you and Alfie nearly died.  Do you still feel safe with me, Craig?
CRAIG: You can't help who your mates are.
DOCTOR: No.  I am a stupid, selfish man.  Always have been.  I should have made you go.  I should never have come here.
CRAIG: What would have happened if you hadn't come?  Who else knows about the Cybermen and teleports?
DOCTOR: I put people in danger.
CRAIG: Stop beating yourself up.  If it weren't for you, this whole planet would be an absolute ruin.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Closing Time)

"Closing Time" is a story that loves the Doctor, that shows that he is in fact a good and decent man.  And yes, the resolution is a bit rubbish (Craig stops the Cybermen with the power of love -- yeeaahhhhh...  Although, to be fair, it does make thematic sense in the context of the episode), but this isn't really about the Cybermen; it's about relationships and friendships and how sometimes your friends know you better than you know yourself.  Yes, that means it's not a "heavy" story, but it's definitely a charming one, with some genuinely funny moments.  (The last one, that Alfie's first word is "Doctor" (after Craig's been denying to Sophie that anything exciting happened while she was away), is particularly glorious.)

Of course, this does mean that the last few minutes (starting with the Doctor walking back to the TARDIS) feel somewhat divorced from the previous 41.  Now we're actively setting up the series 6 finale next week, as River Song (now a doctor herself) is recaptured by Madame Kovarian and the Silence and stuck inside an astronaut's suit.  So she was indeed the person inside the suit, albeit older than we may have been initially led to believe.  Still, it's a much more serious tone than what came before, so it does jar ever so slightly, even though Gareth Roberts spent time setting up the Doctor's impending death throughout the episode.  But maybe that's because the moment has finally arrived...