September 8: "The Haunting of Villa Diodati"

Promotional photo for "The Haunting of Villa Diodati" (from BBC One -
Doctor Who, The Haunting of Villa Diodati gallery) ©BBC

Oh hey, another pre-titles sequence!

"The Haunting of Villa Diodati" is cowritten by new Doctor Who writer Maxine Alderton, known mostly for her work on the soap Emmerdale. This story takes us to Switzerland 1816, on the night when Mary Shelley first came up with the idea for Frankenstein²⁹³ -- except it seems things aren't going quite as history claimed, even before the arrival of Team TARDIS...

I have to say, the first couple times I watched this I don't think I gave it the credit it deserves; part of the issue is that for a while it's four or five people (famous people!) standing around talking, and while they're saying interesting things and being generally enjoyable company, it can take a bit to really get into -- at which point the appearance of the Lone Cyberman throws everything off-kilter. Suddenly we've shifted from a story concerning just this episode to the larger story arc first hinted at in "Fugitive of the Judoon", which thus lends an air of "OK, then what happens?", especially when this story thread ends on something of a cliffhanger.

But that does a disservice to what we get here. Because the four main guests are all delightful indeed, and their interactions with the TARDIS crew are really wonderful, from the silly little gossip fest during the quadrille, to the more serious conversation between Yaz and Claire Clairmont, to Polidori (himself no literary slouch, by the way, having written the first modern vampire story with The Vampyre, also as a result of the nights of ghost stories at Villa Diodati) challenging Ryan to a duel. Byron also is a delight, trying his charms on the Doctor (and largely failing). "I'm fully aware of what you want," Byron says. "Please, reveal all," the Doctor replies. "My third canto," he says smugly. "Of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, my work in progress." "Nah, it goes on a bit, that one," the Doctor says dismissively. "No offence. Nice mention of Ada, though. Big fan of hers," she adds, in a callback to meeting Ada Lovelace (née Byron) in Spyfall. "You know of my daughter?" Byron asks, understandably confused, given that she'd be about six months old at this point. "Will do," the Doctor says. "Gorgeous brain."

And then we get the puzzle with the house, where everyone seems to be travelling in circles, unable to escape the rooms they're in. Not only does it provide an effective, creepy visual, but it also provides a bit of an SF twist to an "evil house" narrative, with the reveal that it's ultimately a perception filter. Because one of the things this episode does really well is provide a lot of the trappings of a ghost story (apparitions, poltergeists, moving skeletons, etc.) but shift them to that SF context instead of pure horror/fantasy; in other words, it places them inside a Doctor Who context and lets the lead character distort events beyond their traditional shapes. And once you realize that's what's happening, the arrival of the Lone Cyberman makes much more sense: it's also a distortion of a number of these tropes (the stranger stalking people, the revived, possibly murderous corpse (y'know, the thing Mary Shelley (kind of) introduced in Frankenstein)) into a Doctor Who shape. It also gives the Doctor something to dread, instead of just be fascinated by: "Humans like all of you changed into empty, soulless shells," she says. "No feeling, no control, no way back. I will not lose anyone else to that," she vows, in a clear reference to Bill Potts. It's a clever move.

Full props on the design of the Lone Cyberman, by the way; I like the way they've taken the most recent redesign (the "Nightmare in Silver" et al. one), grafted a Mondasian-style arm onto it, and then just generally roughed it up. It looks great, and it gives Patrick O'Kane, inside the suit, something to really work with; they've left the left half of his face exposed, which means he can emote inside the costume, and he takes full advantage of letting his pain, hatred, and rage show on his face. It also gives the other actors something to react to, which is also welcome -- Lili Miller's conversation with him (as Mary Shelley) just wouldn't have the same impact if we couldn't see the sadness briefly chase across his face. It also makes the realization that Mary is getting her inspiration for Frankenstein's monster from Ashad the Lone Cyberman -- not just the idea of a person built from several others but also the emotional pain associated with the Creature -- much more effective.

The Doctor gives up the Cyberium to the Lone Cyberman. ("The
Haunting of Villa Diodati") ©BBC

But because we're specifically picking up on the warning Captain Jack left in "Fugitive of the Judoon", the presence of the Lone Cyberman does distort the narrative: now we're accelerating toward the end of series 12, rather than focusing on this particular episode. In some ways that's not a bad thing -- Ashad is a great character and I'm happy to see more of him -- but in other ways it makes this episode feel a bit unresolved, as the focus moves off the Villa Diodati guests to things about the Cyberium and Cyber Wars in the far future (presumably Captain Jack is one of the people who arranged to send the Cyberium back in time). And that's something of a shame, because the story here deserves a lot of credit. Alderton and Chibnall do a great job with these characters and with the story as a whole, providing clever uses of SF concepts within a ghost story, and it's only because it ends on the cliffhanger of the Lone Cyberman's victory and disappearance that it feels a trifle unfinished. Although the story has the sense to end not on that but on Claire deciding to no longer pine after Byron, followed by Byron reading a poem ("Darkness") to a small audience -- indicating that, for them at least, a resolution has indeed been reached. This is a good one; I just wish I'd recognized it a little more easily.

(And what's up with the maid and kid that Graham sees? Is that foreshadowing for something down the line or just a weird "maybe ghosts are real" thing?)







²⁹³ Thus complicating the efforts of anyone who wants to make the Big Finish audios canon, given that not only was the eighth Doctor also present that night (in the audio The Company of Friends), but Mary went on to become a travelling companion of the Doctor. A possible fig leaf: history records that it actually took Mary a number of nights before she came up with the idea, so perhaps we're simply dealing with different nights here.