Thoughts on: Heaven Sent

Warning: spoilers.

I normally review two-parters together, but I’m making a judgment call here and reviewing the two episodes of the finale separately, as they’re clearly separate scenarios and a lot more distinct than in a conventional two-parter, and it seems like it would be difficult and probably inappropriate to review them together. This one, in particular, feels like it could easily stand on its own. The formats this series are totally messed up anyway so I’ve got some discretion here.

There are times, after I’ve watched a Doctor Who episode — or indeed any film or television — that I just know, instinctively, that I’ve just witnessed something truly sublime. I’ve learnt to recognise the feeling now: it’s a strange feeling of disorientation, like you’ve been wrenched back to reality from another world. Your absorption in the world of the screenplay was so intense, so complete, that you forgot that the real world carried on around you. It leaves you reeling, thinking of little else for hours, if not days. That’s how I felt after watching Heaven Sent, and that’s how I knew, immediately, without even having to think about it, that I had just witnessed something really special. Thinking about it, though, I’ve no hesitation still in putting it up there with the very best of New Who—indeed, the best of Doctor Who, full stop. It was astonishing; sensational; phenomenal. I think that if there were any doubts about Moffat’s ability as a writer before now, they should have been conclusively exploded by this script, which I regard as nothing short of a masterpiece. It’s just pure art.

Steven Moffat has always been an unconventional, experimental writer, and he’s at his best when he’s pushing the boundaries of what Doctor Who can do. Under Russell T Davies he was responsible for that era’s most experimental, and memorable, scripts, most notably Blink and Silence in the Library (my all-time favourite). As showrunner there’s been, ironically, less opportunity for him to fully indulge in his creative impulses, but here Moffat returns to his roots. And isn’t it fantastic? It’s meaty, high-concept stuff that could easily have been a trainwreck, but, carried by the considerable combined talents of Peter Capaldi, director Rachel Talalay, composer Murray Gold, and Moffat himself, it’s some of the most enthralling and genuinely well-produced television around at the moment. In Heaven Sent, Doctor Who punches above its weight to rival any of the high-budget, award-winning prestige drama of our time.

The Doctor, alone, trapped, stalked relentlessly by a frightening creature. No baddie to beat, no one to save, just his own survival to think about, and finding a way out. Just reading the idea, the premise, makes you sit up, intrigued, no? As I said, there was broad scope for danger—at 55 minutes, this might have been a abject snoozefest like the last time Doctor Who subjected us to extended alone-time with the Doctor in The Deadly Assassin. However, it’s irresistibly thick with tension and suspense, rather because of, not in spite of, the more leisured and introspective approach. The mystery keeps the story beating along delectably, helped by the terrifying presence of the Veil, which, I found, at least, a seriously freaky, nightmarish creature. Aesthetically, it reminded me of the Dementors from Harry Potter, which basically have been my worst phobia since the age of eight. Additionally, an effective little addition to the dialogue was the way the Doctor kept talking to Clara, perhaps as a way of coping with his pain and his loss. I don’t know, but I found it physically painful, in the gut region, whenever he addressed Clara.

It’s a profoundly personal piece for the Doctor, not only because it’s set in the Doctor’s own personal hell, inhabited by his own nightmares and adorned with reminders of his loss, but, also, through the monologues spoken by the Doctor which punctuate this piece, his ruminations on life, death and loss, we’re given an intimate glimpse into the Doctor’s soul, the tortured soul of a man who’s known far too much of each. It’s screenwriting poetry, and Capaldi does justice to the material, delivering a stirring, brooding performance both physically and verbally. The production rises to the challenge of realising convincingly such an introspective and artistic piece, particularly with respect to the setting, which exudes the perfect atmosphere of spooky claustrophobia, weird otherworldliness and profound intimacy. To be honest, it’s difficult to articulate the specifics, but everything about this episode just feels finely, meticulously, lovingly crafted, like the most exquisite work of prose — I’ve found that the best episodes always convey this impression.

But we have to talk about that twist. The Doctor as bird, punching his way through a great wall of impossibly dense material for two billion years, dying and recreating himself endlessly. That was mind-blowing, and so, so exquisitely executed. The way it was done was fantastically clever; it was truly a rollercoaster of emotions, bringing us down to despondency and despair when, after the revelation that the Doctor’s been at it for 7,000 years, it seemed as though he would be stuck in that horror shop for eternity, going through the same motions in an endless cycle and never escaping — until the Azbantium wall was shown to be being imperceptibly chipped away by the Doctor’s relentless efforts, and it all turned into something invigorating and triumphal as the Doctor furiously punches progressively deeper into the wall, suffering an untold number of births and deaths over two billion years in the process. Capaldi played that so well, conveying so powerfully the Doctor’s fury, bravery and fierce resolve (in other words, hell bent).  The perfect finishing touch to that sublime sequence was the Doctor’s telling of The Shepherd Boy over two billion years:  “And when the entire mountain is chiselled away, the first second of eternity will have passed.” Really, properly spine-chilling, that. Oh, and the best thing? That it was Clara who pushed the Doctor on, who kept lifting him up and pushing him on, over all that time. “I let Clara Oswald get inside my head. Trust me. She doesn’t leave.”

Some final thoughts. It almost doesn’t need saying that Peter Capaldi was absolutely magisterial, and to a good extent this episode rides on the personal coat-tails of Peter Capaldi. If there is any justice in this world, Capaldi will win enough acting awards to melt down and make into a pure gold Mercedes, or something. Also deserving of praise is Murray Gold, who surpassed himself here with a majestic score in an episode where music was inevitably going to be especially prominent. Rachel Talalay has also, once again, delivered some of the best directing work this show has seen. This really is an exceptional piece of work from all involved, and I can honestly only make one criticism of any consequence, which is that the episode could have done a better job at explaining why the Doctor was forcing himself to punch through the Azbantium wall, why he couldn’t just yield up his confession to free himself… especially when it appeared that, after finally freeing himself, he promptly told his frustrated captors the very secret he had just spent two billion years trying to avoid telling them. Maybe I missed something, but it didn’t make sense to me.

That said, this is a tiny criticism with respect to an episode that is 99% perfect. This has been one of my most pleasurable, gratifying and exhilarating experiences watching Doctor Who. I’ve no hesitation in pronouncing it an all-time great. I only hope I’ve done the episode justice in this review.

Rating: 10/10.

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Quote of the week:

“I’ve finally run out of corridor. There’s a life summed up.”

First thoughts: The Zygon Invasion

10 minutes into invasion and chill and he gives you this look

Warning: spoilers.

• This series is continuing its run of stellar form with what looks to be yet another modern classic. Seriously, there hasn’t been anything approaching a bung episode so far this series. The only two episodes that have fallen flat for me are Before the Flood and The Woman Who Lived, and that’s really only because they haven’t lived up to the unreasonably lofty standards set by the rest of this series’ episodes. In any other series they’d be among the series’ highlights. Both were made up for by their first “halves” anyway, and the second by Maisie, who turns anything she touches into gold dust.
• But this episode, though. It was splendidly written, by one of Doctor Who’s most promising new writers, Peter Harness. I found it intelligent, involving and suspenseful and I’m excited af for the second half.
• What I really love about this script is that it isn’t a generic invasion story. It isn’t “aliens are invading Earth (read: London) for the umpteenth time, OMG”, a trope that Doctor Who has done to death even only in the modern series. No, we’ve moved on from predictable Dalek, Cyberman, Sontaran, Sycorax and Slitheen assaults upon the planet and we’re given something genuinely imaginative and relevant in this follow-up to the events of The Day of the Doctor. There’s real-world analogies to Islamic State and religious radicalisation among immigrant communities living in Western countries, and that’s what made this narrative so unique and gripping.

• And the terror analogy was really well deployed. The images of a hostage video, with two menacing Zygons leering at the camera beside a captive Osgood, and of a staged execution of Zygon “traitors”, and the black rebel Zygon war flag, were all very evocative and, honestly, more unnerving in this age of terror and paranoia than any of the monsters-of-the-week we’ve seen in recent times. This is hiding-behind-the-sofa for adults.
• The political allusions were discussed with sensitivity and maturity. Topics including immigration and assimilation and the current crisis in the Middle East were commented upon, but, mercifully, the episode didn’t beat the audience over the head with the views of the writers. It acknowledged that these are incredibly sensitive and complex topics which have no simple answers. It gave us the Doctor’s views but also presented the opposing outlooks of Kate Stewart and Colonel Walsh with sympathy.
• The Zygons themselves are as menacing as they’ve ever been. The directors rightly appreciated that the Zygons are most effectively scary when bathed in shadow (literally and figuratively), hence the liberal use of shots like the one above. The Zygons’ shape-shifting abilities were exploited to disquieting and shocking effect, as well, most notably in that delightfully suspenseful scene in front of the church, and in the revelation of Zygon-Clara.

• Perhaps the one thing I didn’t like about the Zygons is the facial designs. The Zygons’ faces seem to be stuck in a permanent snarl, teeth bared and all. When those two “good” Zygons who represented the Zygon High Command, disguised as little twin girls, transformed into their Zygon forms, I wasn’t sure at first if they had been the ones speaking and making threats to the camera, because their Zygon faces were twisted into the most horrible snarls. The Zygons in the modern series have been pretty much totally faithful to their original designs in the classic series, but they may have benefited from also retaining the less, er… “snarly” faces of the classic Zygons, which look more real and less comic book.
• “Doctor Funkenstein”. Love it.
• I think Jenna Coleman’s having a bit too much fun playing her evil Zygon double. She’s a class act, this one, though.
• I’m astounded that Peter Harness managed to get the two The Thick of It leads back together and resisted the temptation to script a proper shouting match between them. Maybe next week.
• Honestly, I’m immoderately excited about the second half of this story, and I’m confident that, if it follows up on this week’s episode as well as it promises to, this two-parter will be remembered as an instant classic and a modern masterpiece. It’s already looking like the best story of this series (so far), and is easily some of the best Who we’ve seen in years.

Thoughts on: The Woman Who Lived

Warning: spoilers.

This, together with The Girl Who Died, is not a two-parter. It’s tempting to see them as a two-parter, given the twinned titles and the common story revolving around Ashildr/Me, but one of the prerequisites for a two-part story should at least be that the episodes were both penned by the same writer, which is not the case here. Nevertheless, it’s inadvisable to watch either of the two episodes as standalone stories: you really can’t have one without the other. I say that because, watched together, these two episodes form a riveting character story and a compelling discussion of the themes of human life and immortality, but, individually, they’re not really anything special — particularly this one. True enough, I had high hopes for this episode as the follow-up to The Girl Who Died, and find myself slightly let down by the result. To be sure, it’s a good episode, and includes a handful of utterly sublime moments, but it had very conspicuous problems that made for a somewhat unsatisfying follow-up to last week’s episode.

The headline of this episode was the transformation of Ashildr, the vivacious, spirited young Viking girl we met in The Girl Who Died, into “Me”. Ashildr is a shadow of her former self, almost unrecognisable as the endearing, sweet young girl she used to be. Eight hundred years have transformed that girl into the selfish, distant and unsettlingly cold woman who calls herself “Me”. She’s physically the same, but she exudes ages: jaded, world-weary and drained by the centuries of all compassion and feeling. It’s frankly unnerving to watch her; the relentless passage of time has turned her into something inhuman, and it’s an enormous credit to Maisie Williams that she was able to transition from playing flushing, exuberant youth to extreme age so convincingly. The sequences conveying Ashildr’s heartbreak over losing her loved ones, and, movingly, her inability to remember how it felt, were truly riveting and emotionally profound. “I keep that entry to remind me not to have any more,” is winding. There’s a poignant subtext about the Doctor’s own proneness to emotional reclusion after losing loved ones: Ashildr’s behaviour recalls how the Doctor acted after losing Donna and the Ponds.

At least in this respect, then, The Woman Who Lived was a fantastic character piece. The two-handed dialogue between the Doctor and Ashildr make up the episode’s best sequences, and make for truly captivating viewing. It’s just that that’s not enough to make a great episode. The first fifteen minutes were superlative, but the episode begins to ramble with the housebreak scene, which is redeemed only for its humour (which nevertheless felt slightly out of place in such a dark and sombre script). The altercation with Sam Swift the Quick, as funny as it was, reinforced the impression that this episode was floundering around aimlessly in search of a plot. Indeed, the absence of anything conforming to the description of a substantive plot made much of this episode feel tedious and undercooked. The thing with Leandro and the magical amulet doesn’t count: that all came off as an afterthought, as beautifully designed as Leandro was. To an extent, this episode felt like the filler episode, even though it wasn’t. And, frankly, I’ve seen plenty better filler than this.

Truly, the episode is worth watching only for the scenes between the Doctor and Ashildr that focus on Ashildr’s character, and they really are very good. The scene in Ashildr’s home following the run-in with Sam Swift was wonderfully written, and gave Maisie the chance to display the impressive range she has as an actress. Ashildr’s pleading, through anger and tears and confusion, for the Doctor to take her with him, and her demanding to know why not when he refused, was truly something to witness. Maisie really can be a presence to be contended with, as she’s shown in these two episodes. Equally, Ashildr’s redemption, her shocked realisation that she really does care and that she can feel again, as Leandro and his bros launch an armed assault upon a throng of dirty peasants, was somewhat corny writing, but, nonetheless, in Maisie’s sure hands, effective and gloriously piercing. This resolution, with Sam’s jubilation upon finding himself alive, and the Doctor’s soliloquy to Ashildr in the pub, was a really heartening and uplifting ode to the value and wonder of human life. This contemplative parting message was so effectively conveyed, it almost made me forget that much of what preceded it was aimless “gadding about” (in the script’s own words). Almost.

Some final thoughts. The episode’s ending was very open-ended. We’re left unsure whether this was a “good” ending or not, with Ashildr’s cryptic last words, and the more-than-a-little creepy image of Ashildr in Clara’s selfie, looking like something from those “When you see it you’ll s**t bricks” photos. Sarah Dollard has already confirmed, after all, that Maisie will be appearing again in her episode, Face the Raven, so it’s pretty clear that Ashildr’s story is not over, as far as the Doctor is concerned. Secondly, it’s nice to be in the Stuart period. Apart from being one of my favourite periods of history, everything just looks so sumptuous, and, really, it’s just nice to have a historical piece that isn’t in the Victorian era for once. And, gosh, doesn’t Maisie look just gorgeous dolled up as an aristocratic Stuart lady? I loved Rufus Hound’s comic relief as Sam Swift, even if his scenes were some of the episode’s poorer. Finally—cor, they’re really laying on the foreshadowing of Clara’s death heavily now, aren’t they? It couldn’t be more blindingly obvious what’s going to happen… or at least what they want us to think is going to happen. To be honest, that they’ve dropped the hints so heavily actually makes me begin to doubt that Clara’s really going to die. It would be very like Moffat. No doubt she’s going to succumb to some horrible fate in the end, but what, if not death?

Rating: 6/10.

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Quote of the week:

“I saved your life. I didn’t know that your heart would rust because I kept it beating. I didn’t think your conscience would need renewing, that the well of human kindness would run dry. I just wanted to save a terrified young woman’s life.”

Thoughts on: The Girl Who Died

Warning: spoilers.

[Note: I know there was a “To be continued” sign, but I’m treating these two episodes as separate stories, not a two-parter, albeit with a linked narrative, mainly because they’re obviously distinct situations, rather than a single story told over two episodes; they were also written by different writers.]

I must confess that I was a bit nervous about this one. That’s a new feeling for me—I can’t remember, as much as this, wanting an episode to be good but feeling so sceptical about what the finished product would look like. It boasted a promising lineup of personnel: first and foremost the stellar Maisie Williams, who would doubtless bring her natural acting talents into her role, not to mention some of that Game of Thrones stardust. There was also the dreamy writing partnership of Jamie Mathieson (of Mummy on the Orient Express and Flatline fame) and Steven Moffat, the former being the most exciting Doctor Who writer since Moffat himself. But it was the content of the episode that made me apprehensive. Vikings — with horns. And what looked like the most pantomime aliens since the farting Slitheen in Series 1. “Please, oh, please don’t let Maisie’s episode be as rubbish as it looks,” I prayed. “Please, God forbid, don’t tell me Jamie Mathieson has been lumped with the filler episode. Anything but that.”

I shouldn’t have worried. This episode was great. Especially so given that it could have easily been a fairly mediocre episode. I should have trusted that Jamie Mathieson could take even a nondescript story idea as, admittedly, this one was, and make a riveting and absorbing episode out of it. Granted, this was Mathieson’s least impressive script yet, but that is emphatically a compliment: it was a great episode, and the man has a flawless run of stories so far, much like Steven Moffat did before he took over as showrunner (*nudge* *nudge*). If anything, this script is an exemplar of Mathieson’s versatility: he’s shown in his two scripts for Series 8 that he can do the serious storytelling and the hard science fiction, both staples of this show, but in this episode he’s shown he’s just as adept at a traditional romp, Doctor Who’s reliable mainstay. Mathieson’s take on the romp is distinctive, though, in such a way that raises it above the likes of Tooth and Claw and *shudder* The Crimson Horror. It has all the comedy and camp silliness of a conventional Doctor Who romp, but it’s also an involving and well-composed narrative, punctuated by a handful of—genuinely well-written—poignant and intelligent little moments.

Mathieson made the shrewd decision not to make the Mire the focus of this story, who were a singularly uninteresting villain, apart from the gruesome detail that they harvest warriors for their testosterone—appreciated only for their self-consciously pantomime quality. Instead, we get a fun and engaging story about the Doctor training a ragtag band of ill-equipped and, as it turns out, particularly hopeless Nordics for battle against one of the mightiest warrior races in the galaxy. It’s Dad’s Army in the 10th Century, and it makes for delightfully funny viewing. Mathieson milks the situation for as much quality humour as he can: the Doctor’s (unconvincing) impersonation of Odin; the Doctor promptly being upstaged by an enormous, comical apparition of Odin’s face in the sky, complete with beard and eyepatch (the most camp thing Doctor Who has ever done? Quite possibly); the Doctor giving the Viking villagers amusing derisory nicknames (ZZ Top was my personal favourite). It was all great fun.

But, as I said, it was an intelligent and involving script as much as it was an entertaining one. Moments like the Doctor’s translation of the baby’s (surprisingly poetic) wailing, the Doctor’s brooding over his effect on Clara, and Clara’s inevitable end, and, of course, Maisie’s poignant scene with Capaldi, gives this episode proper emotional heft. At the top of the list is that scene, where the Doctor finally understands why he “chose” his face. He goes from brooding, surely feeling the weight of his impossibly advanced years as keenly as ever, over the loss of yet another person close to him, resentful that he couldn’t do anything about it (or, rather, wasn’t allowed to), to deciding that he would save Ashildr, whatever the cost, astonishingly quickly. The spur was remembering where he got his face from, and what it meant. And we’re treated to a wonderful, hair-raising flashback to the Tenth Doctor in The Fires of Pompeii. “I’m the Doctor, and I save people!”

It was a fist-pumping “Doctor” moment, as good as any, but at the same time there was an ominous “Time Lord Victorious” vibe about it—the other side of the coin to the Doctor’s defiance of the laws of time. The Tenth Doctor defied the laws of time in Pompeii in a small, imperceptible way, remembering which was what spurred the Doctor to save Ashildr, but Ten also went on to become the Time Lord Victorious. The Doctor belatedly realised this when he expressed doubts over what he did to Ashildr, whether he’d done too much. It’s set up what looks to be an intriguing arc surrounding Maisie’s character to be carried over into the next episode, perhaps even further. That final scene, the pan around Ashildr with the universe respiring around her, her expression passing from joy to something quite chilling, what looked like bitterness, even hatred, was visually glorious as well as ominous and foreboding. And, yet again, this is the third instance in as many stories of the idea of defying the laws of time to save someone. I’m becoming more and more confident about my hunch that the finale will involve the Doctor going back in time to change history in order to avert Clara’s death, perhaps leading to another horrifying “Time Lord Victorious” moment.

Some final thoughts. Maisie tho. She really is a phenomenal young actress. She has buckets of screen presence, and her scene with Capaldi in her tent was mesmerising. Even if I weren’t a Game of Thrones fan, I’m sure I’d be proud to have her as an honoured member of the Whoniverse. Her character was obviously conceived as much like Arya, but Maisie was good enough an actress to clearly distinguish the two characters. Ashildr is definitely a very different character from Arya, which is not so much down to the writing as much as Maisie’s own acting instincts. There are many parts that Maisie could have simply played as Arya, but chose to do very differently, and she’s to be commended for that. Peter Capaldi, too, has to be praised. Sublime performance, as ever. I haven’t found the space so far this series to make this point, but Capaldi’s portrayal of his Doctor has markedly improved this series. I think Capaldi might have been allowed more freedom to forge his own interpretation of the character this series (reflected, not least, in the outfits). Series 9 Twelve is definitely more reminiscent of Tom Baker’s good-humoured bohemian vagabond (except with much better acting) than the tetchy, crotchety old man that Twelve was in Series 8. That’s a good thing, in my book, and Capaldi is quickly shooting up my “favourite Doctors” list.

Rating: 9/10.

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Quote of the week:

“I’ve got too much to think about without everybody having their own names.”

Thoughts on: Under the Lake / Before the Flood

Two-parters are a funny thing. Regular readers will probably be familiar with my standard paean to the two-part format for Doctor Who stories: the format gives the story time and space to breathe; if employed well, it allows for a more fleshed-out and involving narrative; it allows for the kind of quality plot and character development that a single 45-minute episode story simply doesn’t accommodate. I don’t think two-parters are inherently better than the single-episode format—there are a handful of standout episodes that have utilised the 45-minute time-frame perfectly—but I certainly think that the two-part format facilitates better script-writing on the part of writers not limited to setting up, developing and concluding a story (a Doctor Who story, no less) in the space of 45 minutes. No surprises then that almost all my favourite stories are two-parters. I suppose it’s much like when an assessment gives you a word limit of 1,000 and you spend three hours chopping up and amputating large chunks of your perfectly-crafted essay, leaving an uncomfortably succinct rump as your submission.

The point of a two-part story is that it’s a story in two parts. Put like that, it’s patronisingly obvious. But I feel as though it’s easy to lose sight of that point when there’s a week’s wait in the middle. My praise for Under the Lake was qualified when I jotted down my “first thoughts” last week. I thought it didn’t quite measure up to many of the other very similar stories it was consciously aping. Likewise, I felt a bit underwhelmed by this week’s episode. I felt that it was something of a feeble follow-up to wait a whole week for. But that was just it. It felt feeble because I waited a whole week to see it. Between last week’s episode and this week’s, anticipation, speculation and excitement had been swirling around my head, festering and putting me in the kind of state of mind I might possess going into a new James Bond movie or Harry Potter book, rather than Act 2 of a play, which is essentially what the second episode of a two-part Doctor Who story is. On their own, Under the Lake and Before the Flood are neither the stuff of screenwriting excellence (for Doctor Who, at least), but, watched together, they’re something quite special. A two-parter is a play of two acts, which are supposed to be watched together. That’s what I’ve taken from this experience, and that’s what I think ought to be kept in mind when forming impressions of two-part stories.

So in general I think this story is highly successful. Given the ideas it plays with, it’s hard to see how it couldn’t be. The ghosts are undoubtedly the highlight of this story: freaky, macabre, spine-tingling apparitions realised astoundingly well, just like the Mummy from Mummy on the Orient Express last year, another paranormal creature featured in Doctor Who. Everything about them is perfect, and, although I don’t have any under-twelves conveniently at hand to confirm this, I’m sure the show succeeded yet again spectacularly in its unrelenting mission to send as many children as possible to bed trembling. The blackened, hollowed-out eyes, the silently-whispering mouths, the eerie, zombie-like movement; it was all perfect. In addition, I thought the concept of going back in time to investigate the genesis of the ghosts was just a brilliant sci-fi spin on a ghost story. This is Doctor Who seizing the ghost genre and doing something profoundly different and distinctive with it. It’s all carried out to distinction, making for a highly atmospheric, irresistibly suspenseful and creepy screenplay.

Toby Whithouse displays his usual skill for crafting diverse and believable characters in this script. For such a large cast, it’s genuinely impressive that none of the characters were wasted, but Whithouse has managed to pull it off. Actually, a qualifier to that—the only character I thought was poorly written was Pritchard, the greedy corporate rep, who felt a bit like a lazily-assembled constellation of certain prejudiced ideas about business people typically harboured by persons of a particular political persuasion. Other than that, the supporting characters were all well-written and memorable (testament to which is that I can actually remember all their names). In particular, the deaf Cass was easily one the best aspects of this story. I’ll hear no talk of tokenism—Cass was a brilliant character who wasn’t wasted by any means, and easily the strongest of the supporting characters. Her relationship with her interpreter, Lund, was just lovely. And I loved the scene where Cass was being stalked by Moran’s ghost, oblivious to the ringing of the axe scraping across the metal floor; brilliant suspense.

We haven’t seen any conspicuous indication of a series arc yet as such (somewhat to my disappointment), but I think we’re seeing some very subtle foreshadowing of what’s to come later in Series 9, especially surrounding the circumstances of Clara’s coming departure. It’s clear the Doctor has been worrying himself over Clara’s alarming new-found thirst for adventure and danger, her troublingly reckless pursuit of an adrenaline hit. This builds on her character development in Series 8, but it seems to have become more acute since then, as though Danny Pink’s death has seen her throw care and caution to the wind, such to cause the Doctor to begin worrying about her. There’s a heavy suggestion that we’re going to see tragedy strike. The Doctor’s going to lose another one, it seems. It was much the same in Series 7a, where Amy’s tragic end was quite un-subtly foreshadowed. At the same time, I think we’re starting to see a pattern in respect of the “changing history to save a loved one” motif—that’s the second time that idea has cropped up in two stories; added to that the fact that the title of the final episode of the series is the very suggestive “Hell Bent”, one wonders whether the finale will involve the Doctor attempting to recover a dead Clara by changing time. Something to speculate about, anyway.

Some final thoughts. The Fisher King was a brilliant creature, a towering, terrifying skeletal figure, but somewhat underused, I think. It would have been great to see some of his purportedly terrible power, but at least he went out like a boss. The pretitles sequence to Before the Flood, in which the Doctor breaks the fourth wall and pontificates on the bootstrap paradox, was wonderful, but I thought it might’ve worked better if it weren’t put right at the beginning of the episode—perhaps it might’ve worked better closer to the end, if not at the very end, as a kind of contemplative endnote. I just adored Prentis, who couldn’t have constituted a more incongruous contrast to the menacing, nightmarish figure of his ghost. He was just hilarious. By the way, is it just me or did Doctor Who just indulge in a bit of very smutty innuendo in Prentis’s tantalising offer to the Doctor to peruse “a selection of items you can oppress me with”? It wouldn’t be the first time, actually.

Rating: 8/10.

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Quote of the week:

“Someone get me a selection of flags.”

Cue Clara giving the Doctor a look that says “I can’t believe you actually just said that.”

First thoughts: Under the Lake

Warning: spoilers ahead.

• I really enjoyed this. It was a refreshing change of pace from the sweeping, epic scale of the opening two-parter; a more low-key and intimate story, but, at the same time, still genuinely thrilling and gripping Doctor Who.
• That said, compared with the very non-traditional storytelling of the opening two-parter, this episode is very traditional Doctor Who. The base-under-siege is a familiar staple of the show, and this episode couldn’t help call to the mind of any Doctor Who fan similar base-under-siege stories in the new series like 42, The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit and The Waters of Mars. It feels a lot like each of those stories, and comparisons are inevitably going to be made. Don’t get me wrong, Under the Lake is a fantastic exemplar of the base-under-siege format, but, when looked at beside those stories, it falls just a bit flat.
• But, I hasten to remind myself, we’ve only seen the first part of a two-part story. A great deal hinges on how well the second half turns out. The trailer makes it look amazing: scaling out from an anomalous incident in an underwater base to something of far greater moment. So I can’t really form a judgment about this one until I’ve seen the whole picture. As it stands, the second episode could either entrench this two-parter as an instant classic, or, if it fails to satisfactorily expand the plot and the narrative, leave it an enjoyable but unremarkable story that will be forgotten by this time in the next series, which is basically my opinion of the strikingly similar 42. But, just from the trailer, I’m confident that Whithouse will follow through with an absolute corker. I absolutely love the conceit of going back in time to discover how ghosts came to be, and I’m a great deal more excited for Before the Flood than I was for this episode.

• These ghosts are seriously freaky. They’re astoundingly well-realised. If I were ten years younger (maybe eight, at a push), I’m sure I’d have gone to bed with the covers pulled resolutely over my head. Those blackened, hollowed-out eyes are the stuff of prepubescent nightmares, and the silently whispering mouths are the perfect final bone-chilling touch.
• That cliffhanger was a belter. The Doctor, desiccated old Scot that he is, is maybe the freakiest of all the ghosts. Great buildup, too; my thoughts when Clara’s eyes were widening in shock when she saw who the new ghost was went something like: “Nope. Nope. Nope. NOPE. NOPE! Not him! Surely not! Oh, God, it’s him. He’s dead. Again.”
• Cass was a great addition to the cast. The inclusion of a deaf character who communicates by signing always carried the risk of being a novelty, a hollow and embarrassing overture to the “minority representation” crowd, but Cass was unarguably one of the best things about this episode. She was easily the strongest of the fairly large cast of supporting characters (testament to which is that she’s the only one of the supporting characters whose name I can remember), and she proved vital in translating the ghosts’ silent mantra.
• The show’s doing that ominous foreshadowing of the companion’s death thing again. Remember the not-so-subtle hinting that Amy was going to die all throughout Series 7a? I don’t know how to interpret the Doctor’s increasing concern over Clara’s worrisome thrill-seeking and recklessness other than as foreshadowing her forthcoming demise.

• And just when I was starting to really like Clara again. Compared to Series 8, Clara so far hasn’t been given all that much to say or do (which is probably for the best; Series 8 was far too Clara-heavy at the expense of Capaldi), but, from what we have seen and heard from her, I think they’ve finally got the writing of her character right. She’s a genuinely likable character again. It’s as though they’ve finally struck the right balance, the sweet spot in between the charming but generic character devoid of distinctive personality that was Clara in Series 7, and the annoying, self-consumed drama queen that she was (at times) in Series 8.
• Maybe the one main thing I would criticise about this episode is that too much reliance was placed on verbal exposition. Too many scenes of people standing in a room and talking. These sequences are tedious, puncture the atmosphere, and lose the viewers’ attention. When there’s as much of it as there was in this episode, it seems like disproportionately more of the episode was taken up by these sequences in one’s impression of the episode than in reality, which, I’m sure, when you’re a writer, is not what you want viewers to take away from your stories.
• I really appreciated the humour of this episode. A selection of my favourite bits: Clara going for a high-five after she and the Doctor walked in on an overturned room, and the Doctor giving her a strange look that said “what a freak”; the Doctor assuming he can speak sign and becoming flustered when he realises he can’t; the faces Clara makes every time the Doctor says something inappropriate; the Doctor being reduced to carrying flashcards to remind him of how to conduct himself in a socially acceptable manner; “It was my fault, I should have known you didn’t live in Aberdeen.”

Thoughts on: The Magician’s Apprentice / The Witch’s Familiar

Warning: spoilers ahead.

Oh, Moffat. Miffie. Stevie-babes. Why do we let you out? You’ve just gone and created the ultimate fan-pleasing story. Did you hear that strange high-pitched wailing noise as you were watching this? That was the sound of fans everywhere squeeing for dear life in perfect unison. We knew this would happen one day. Ever since we saw William Hartnell’s mug five times over the course of Series 5. Steven Moffat is an über-fan, and this is a script only an über-fan could have written. And it’s magnificent. As a series opener, it’s perfection; exactly the way to start a new, hotly-anticipated series of Doctor Who (and a late one, no less) — not with a pathetic whimper, as we were too often offered in Russell T Davies’ era (*cough* New Earth *cough* Partners in Crime *cough*), but with a resounding, earth-shaking roar, the roar of an electric guitar being rocked by—who else?—the Doctor.

We’re hit with a pretty huge bombshell within minutes of the episode’s opening as the Doctor discovers a little boy trapped on a battlefield amidst a field of hand mines, who, we learn shortly, is a young Davros. The Doctor helpfully conveys how thunderstruck we feel in his own stunned expression. It’s a staggering way to begin this opening two-parter; the breath has been wrenched from our lungs before the thing has even got started. It couldn’t portend more effectively that this series opener is going to be big. And this is really well conveyed by the following sequences. A shadowy, hissing figure who refers to himself in the plural searches the universe for the Doctor. Missy, who makes an absolutely brilliant entrance, freezes the skies of Earth just to get Clara’s attention because she can’t find the Doctor either. “Where is the Doctor?” the episode asks. What could possibly make the Doctor hide himself away like this? And why has the Doctor made a Time Lord will and testament?

It all very effectively conveys the impression of there being a greater narrative at work here, lending the episode a sense of scale and moment that makes it feel more like an epic series finale than an opener. The impression is, if anything, reinforced by the, frankly awesome, scenes of the Doctor throwing himself an outrageous party in medieval England. The Doctor’s entrance was jaw-droppingly amazing (the message: “Doctor Who is BACK, baby!”), but the sight of the Doctor acting so preposterously out-of-character makes acute the feeling that something is very wrong. Indeed, the whole thing feels very different from what we’re used to in Doctor Who, even for a two-parter. The weight of a large-scale narrative lends, at least to the first part, a flow and form that almost makes it feel like long-form serialised drama, like Game of Thrones. The very heavy invocation of the show’s continuity and history, the sense of strong connection to past events, and progression of an ongoing story, only reinforces that impression. Those who’ve commented that this story, The Magician’s Apprentice in particular, doesn’t feel like a Doctor Who story are right — it’s composed very differently from what we’re used to. Some don’t like that, but I really do. I think it’s at least good that the show is experimenting and trying to break out of the standard, tried-and-tested formulas it’s employed since 2005, and doing something different.

As an indication of the sweeping scale of this story, it churns through so many compelling and brilliant ideas, one after another, many of which could easily be the seeds of potentially fantastic stories of their own. The disappearance of the Doctor, for example. The story had great fun while it was playing with that particularly gripping idea. The hand mines — a wonderfully scary, well-conceived new monster. The relationship between the Doctor and the Master, “A friendship older than your civilisation, and infinitely more complex.” The question the Doctor posed to himself, “Who made Davros?” The apparent extermination of Clara and Missy at the mid-point cliffhanger, and the terrifying lengths to which the Doctor would go, either to bring them back, or to exact revenge. I could go on. This all sounds very messy, but the writing is tight. The script indulges itself momentarily in the various ideas it brims with, but doesn’t get sidetracked. It all forms a very coherent and engaging whole, as a story, apparently, about the Doctor and Davros’s final meeting.

Davros has called the Doctor to his side on the eve of his death, for reasons that don’t become clear until the second episode. Steven Moffat has said that part of the inspiration for this story was his desire to write a prolonged “face-off” between the Doctor and Davros, lamenting that all the scenes between the two over the show’s history have been electric, but that all were far too brief and cursory. Accordingly, the Doctor and Davros duly receive a proper chance to talk, for once, and Davros is served better than he’s ever been. It’s not just that the character is profoundly chilling and macabre, even at the point of death (my highest praise to Julian Bleach), the character of Davros is taken to entirely new territory. It’s captivating watching Davros weeping over the news of the salvation of Gallifrey, doubting his own life and morality, coming very close, like a dying penitent to a priest, to asking the Doctor for absolution, even sharing a joke with the Doctor. In short, Davros totally convinced as an ancient creature near death. Sensitive, emotionally intelligent and bewitching, as it was, it was some of the best writing Steven Moffat has ever produced for the show. And both Julian Bleach and Peter Capaldi gave utterly magisterial, mesmerising performances.

And then it was revealed to be all a trick. All a ruse, exploiting the Doctor’s compassion to deceive him into employing his regeneration energy into reviving Davros and “renewing” the Daleks on Skaro (whatever that entails). I hate to say it, but I was a bit annoyed when this happened. I so, so wanted Davros’s apparent catharsis to be genuine, even if Davros ultimately lived. It would have made us see the character in a radically different light, a creature we once thought to be irredeemably evil, perhaps at least capable of redemption after all. And maybe it was time that something radically different was done with the character of Davros? If Davros were ultimately to repent for his own creations, it would open up exciting narrative possibilities for the future. That was ultimately what I was hoping for when I saw the “next-time” trailer in which the footage of Davros apparently offering the Doctor the opportunity to commit genocide against the Daleks was deceptively shown. I thought The Witch’s Familiar would involve Davros finally seeing the Daleks for the evil creations they are, and allying with the Doctor to destroy them. That would have been so much more bold and exciting than what we got, i.e. just Davros, the psychopathic evil scientist, up to his old tricks again. Nothing new to see here.

But I have to be fair. What we did get was still superb and amazing. Maybe I’m disappointed that the story squandered an exciting opportunity to do something truly audacious and interesting. Maybe I regret, in the spirit of the Tenth Doctor, that this story could have been so much more. But, considering the story on its own merits, for what it was rather than for what it could have been, it’s still the best thing Steven Moffat has written since the Series 5 finale in 2010. It’s still, to my mind, an instant classic, and one of the best Dalek stories ever; certainly the best Davros story ever. And considering the story in context, as a series opener, raises it even higher. It’s just the perfect story to usher in a new series of Doctor Who: grand, bold, extravagant, visually stunning, with an irresistibly seductive swagger. It makes you excited about Doctor Who again, and excited to see what the rest of the new series brings. Like The Eleventh Hour, this story is ideal for what it’s trying to do. The Eleventh Hour involved a fairly insubstantial plot, but, for an episode introducing a whole new era of Doctor Who, it was perfection. Likewise, this episode is just the perfect way to kick off a new year of Doctor Who, and I can forgive it its shortcomings to that end.

Some final thoughts. As good as this story was as a whole, I think my favourite thing about it was Missy (and Clara). I have to admit that I was somewhat ambivalent towards Missy in Series 8, but, after watching this story, I think I’m in love (figuratively speaking). Missy absolutely steals the show; it’s obvious Michelle Gomez is having delightful fun playing the bonkers, unhinged, comical she-Master, and it genuinely shows. There are so many brilliant scenes. Missy’s entrance alone was a total hoot, and the budding (and more than a little abusive) relationship between Missy and Clara was just a joy to watch. Gomez completely nails every line, from “No, I’ve not turned good!” to “Get in” (which was just pure comic genius). At the same time, Missy retains all the unsettling psychopathy and unpredictability of the character, as when she vaporises two soldiers in the plaza in response to a casual remark from Clara about her turning “good”, and when she attempts to trick the Doctor into killing Clara. She’s great fun, Missy, but she’s definitely not to be trusted. In any case, she’s firmly established herself as my favourite Master, surpassing John Simm by bounds. She can’t return soon enough.

Finally, I love this story as a Dalek story, as much as a Davros story. There were chilling sequences that made the Daleks a genuinely scary villain again. The cliffhanger scene, where the Daleks’ primal urge to kill was, if possible, palpably visible, was as suspenseful and frightening as anything in a Dalek story. Portraying the Daleks as predators, driven by an overpowering animalistic urge to hunt and kill, really injected, I think, the fear factor back into the Daleks. As well as this, the portrayal of the Daleks as channelling emotion through their guns was a fascinating, and chilling, insight into the way the Daleks work. It’s fascinating, albeit horrifying, to realise that emotion, any emotion, even love, is ammunition for the Daleks’ gun, is converted into lethal energy harnessed to kill. It’s a gruesome, horrific thought that, as much as it repulses me, actually also makes me feel for the Daleks as well.

Overall, an exceptional start to Series 9, and an undoubted classic to boot.

Rating: 9/10.

Thoughts on: Last Christmas

Last Christmas makes a distinct departure from Christmas specials in previous years. The annual seasonal romp in Christmases past has been either fluffy, frivolous “Who-lite” (The Runaway Bride, A Christmas Carol, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe) or a regeneration story with Christmas elements tacked on (The Christmas Invasion, The End of Time, The Time of the Doctor). This is neither, notwithstanding the presence of Santa Claus, Christmas elves and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This is a proper, scary, traditional Doctor Who thriller. It’s a base-under-siege with terrifying monsters and an absorbing psychological twist. It’s very much standard fare Doctor Who, and especially standard fare Moffat Who. It could easily have been an episode in the ordinary series, and a well-received one at that. Although I love the fluffy, overtly Christmassy specials, this makes for a bracing, thrilling change-up, and, although I think A Christmas Carol remains the best Christmas special yet, I enjoyed this one so much it became my instant favourite.

The biggest distinction between this special and previous (non-regeneration) specials is the presence of a threat that feels tangible rather than throwaway. It certainly feels like a lot of care went into the construction of this story, and particularly into the psychological conceit at its heart: the “dream state” induced by the horrific Dream Crabs. I love a good psychological thriller of the likes of Blink, Midnight and Listen, which is why I was sat bolt upright, totally absorbed by this episode. The Dream Crabs are a genuinely frightening and repeatable new monster, and they definitely incite a real sense of claustrophobia and terror, and make for a convincing threat. I thought they were ingeniously conceived, as good as any of Moffat’s creature creations. The only doubt I have about them is that, if they’re used again in the future, they might give writers licence to deploy the dreaded “and they woke up and it was all a dream” get-out card to undo events. Nonetheless, I loved the Inception-ness of it all; this episode actually did something really effective with the idea of dreams-within-dreams that Inception didn’t do: you never actually knew at any point (except when it was made explicit in Clara’s dream) whether the characters were dreaming or not. I, at least, found that really gripping.

I think the real highlight of this episode, though, was Nick Frost as Santa Claus. What a masterstroke of casting that was. Nick Frost’s interpretation of Santa was a hilarious cross between a mob boss and Jack Whitehall. I know I said this about Robot of Sherwood, but I take it back: this is the Doctor Who story that made me laugh more than any other. Every time Frost opened his mouth I couldn’t help guffawing. Same goes with the elves. From the moment Santa appears on Clara’s roof, he exudes comedic energy (“How did you recognise me?”). There are so many quotable lines in this episode, particularly those from Shona’s interrogation of Santa, where Santa comes across as though he’s intentionally trolling the increasingly bewildered girl: “Obviously, I’ve got a second sledge”, “It’s a scientific impossibility. That is why I feed mine magic carrots.” Also: “It’s bigger on the inside.” Classic. The comedy of Nick Frost’s Santa and his elves appropriately lighten the mood enormously of what could otherwise been an episode too dark and heavy for a Christmas evening. I also loved the rivalry between the Doctor and Santa. Peter Capaldi and Nick Frost, two great comedy actors, were a terrific joy to watch together.

Inevitably, the episode made time for the emotional fallout from the end of the finale. The critical moment was when the Doctor and Clara both admitted they lied to each other for the other’s good, prompting them both to wistful rumination. Moreover, Clara’s dream, inhabited by a romanticised Danny, had a distinct melancholy about it, even before the Doctor showed up and ruined the party. In any case, Clara and Danny were given the touching farewell they deserved; it felt like the fitting end to that onscreen relationship, that chapter to Clara’s life. The teasing of Clara’s exit at the end was a real emotional merry-go-round. It was a profoundly beautiful scene, and, if the Doctor and Clara’s relationship had ended there (as was originally planned, before Jenna changed her mind), it would have been perfect. But the euphoric reunion of the Doctor and Clara as they run off into the Tardis again was so exhilarating that I think I prefer the real ending. Before watching this episode, I was hoping Clara would leave, but this final scene changed my mind: the sheer excitement and ecstasy of those final moments made me excited to see them both together in Series 9, presumably at ease with each other and in a much stronger, more understanding partnership than before. Roll on the new series.

Rating: 9/10.

Thoughts on: Dark Water / Death in Heaven

It might have provoked a barrage of complaints to the BBC, but this is exactly what I was hoping for from the Capaldi era. The brave new era of the show, with our abrasive, complex new Doctor at the helm, was pitched as being darker, more adult. It was leaving behind the cuddly, child-friendly Doctor and the simplistic storylines and voyaging into deeper, darker waters (ho-ho!) In this finale, the show has never been more dark or confronting. You really couldn’t find a more controversial topic than life after death. You really couldn’t find a theme upon which the show had to tiptoe more carefully. And it came close, perilously close, to crossing the line. “Don’t cremate me!” has to be one of the most confronting moments in the show’s history. The portrayal of the afterlife in general, at least before it was revealed what it was all about, was as provocative as anything the show has done before. Even the conscription of the dead into a Cyberman army posed a very uncomfortable thought. I loved it. As provocative and disturbing as it all was, it was utterly captivating plotting for exactly that reason. This is what the show can do when it dares to be bold and challenging.

So the finale plays with compelling ideas. The set-up is exceptional. This was all about the Doctor and Clara going looking for Clara’s dead boyfriend. We’re treated to arguably the best scene in the entire series when Clara (apparently) tricks the Doctor into taking them to a volcano so she could blackmail him into going back and saving Danny. Absolutely stupefying viewing, both actors nailed their parts, especially Jenna, who mesmerises the viewer with her acting as though through some kind of hypnotic power. The raw, powerful emotion of that scene was sold perfectly. It was so powerful the viewer is left dazed and disoriented for a while after the facade suddenly drops. We’re barely ready for when the next blow hits when the Doctor pronounces that he cares too much for Clara for her betrayal to make a difference. Oh, the feels. Oh, Doctor! Clara, puffy-eyed, blubbering mess that she was, looked exactly how I’m sure we all felt at that moment. This, surely, was the moment any lingering uncertainties and insecurities about our new Doctor vanished. Good man? No. He’s a great man.

And so they go looking for Danny. The Tardis takes them to 3W, where the dead sit gruesomely in water tombs. We learn the apparently horrific true nature of death, enthralled all the while. Bleak scenes of Danny in the “Nethersphere”, a uniquely depressing vision of the afterlife, keep captive our unwavering attention. It’s at this point the revelation of the Cybermen is sprung upon us. I say “sprung” — anyone who had been even vaguely following Doctor Who week to week in 2014 would have known the Cybermen were the baddies of this finale. But those sequences are duly chilling nonetheless. Those rotting skeletons rising in their water tombs, the water draining away to reveal the shiny steely armour and those blank, empty, staring eye-sockets. The menace of the Cybermen, for once, feels real, and the Cybermen’s emergence from their watery tombs evoke those iconic scenes from the villains’ classic story, The Tomb of the Cybermen. The Cybermen’s dramatic appearance was beaten only by the revelation of Missy as the Master at the very end of the episode. “I couldn’t very well keep calling myself the Master, now, could I?” Where was your jaw? Don’t lie — it was on the floor, where it damned well belonged. The episode threw us uber-fans at first by Missy’s describing herself as the Time Lady the Doctor “left behind”, sending us all into frenzied speculation. I’m sure the names “Susan” and “Romana”, maybe even “Jenny” or “River”, came to more than a few of us.

That was Dark Water, which I regard as very nearly a masterpiece. I’m afraid I didn’t find Death in Heaven nearly as impressive. I know I’m not the only one who thought the second half of this finale was something of a letdown after an exemplary first half. Dark Water ended on a torturous cliffhanger and set up what I expected to be an equally well-composed and sublimely-written second half. I think its biggest mistake was in trying too hard to escalate the adrenaline and action. Dark Water was totally devoid of action (it didn’t bother me), while Death in Heaven seemed to flounder around quite a bit, delivering up a disorienting battery of action sequences, but almost abandoning the plot, or, rather, disgorging all the plot in the last ten minutes of the episode in a disconcerting crescendo. I was surprised when I realised Death in Heaven was a full 60 minutes’ length. It felt far too rushed and fast-paced to be an hour-long episode. It takes particular effort to make 60 minutes of Doctor Who feel like another 45-minute story that gives the impression that it’s screaming for more time.

Additionally, after the fantastic work Dark Water did in establishing the menace and the chilling threat of the Cybermen, Death in Heaven failed with distinction to deliver on the promises of being the story that makes the Cybermen scary again. Far from it. Well, I concede that the idea of “zombie” Cybermen with the uploaded minds of the dead was inspired, and carried plenty of potential. Additionally, the Cybermen possessed real fear factor in the action sequences: when they attacked the airship, when they emerged zombie-like from graves and mortuaries. The Cybermen really are at their scariest when they evoke the feel of zombies, rather than robots, something the early Cybermen stories succeeded in doing, and which Dark Water capitalised on.

For the most part, though, the Cybermen in Death in Heaven failed to exploit the genuinely interesting idea of Cybermen with the downloaded consciousnesses of the dead, and reverted to all the worst depictions of the villain. Once again the Cybermen were portrayed as little more than killer robots. No, actually, it was worse than that. They weren’t even robots, they were just unthinking automatons that obeyed a bracelet. They even did an ironic aeroplane safety demonstration at the command of Missy. The letters “ffs” appear more than once in the notes I took for this review in relation to that sequence as I was watching it. Moreover, once again the apparently irreversible Cyber-programming was inexplicably overcome by the power of love. “Love is a promise”, as beautiful a sentiment as that is, is not an explanation—it’s a cop-out.

So, what did I like about Death in Heaven? I’ve mentioned by gripes first because they really do rather ruin the episode, and compromise the integrity of the finale as a whole, for me. But, equally, there was plenty that impressed me. I described the graveyard scene at the end as a disconcerting disgorgement, and it really could have been better paced — the episode as a whole could have. But that didn’t necessarily make the content of that scene any less compelling. This is at least one aspect of the episode which has improved in my estimation upon rewatching, mostly because I understand better what was going on now (again, scripting issues). I really appreciate that scene as the culmination of the Doctor’s character arc over this series. I mentioned in my review of Flatline that the Doctor had already come a long way in his self-realisation since the beginning of the series, but it’s only upon being given absolute command of a Cyberman army that it became clear to him: he’s not a good man, but he tries to be, and helps where he can. And that’s what’s important. Here we see a Doctor finally assured of his own identity, no longer the self-doubting old man brooding upon his own morality.

Something else I enjoyed immensely about Death in Heaven, and about this finale as a whole, was Missy. Is Missy my favourite incarnation of the Master yet? She just might be. Michelle Gomez was utterly bewitching as the Master’s latest persona, a deranged, psychotic, delightfully mad Mary Poppins who channels dexterously all the menace and unsettling madness of her predecessors while at the same time forging her own unique, exciting interpretation of the character. Missy shockingly proved her ruthlessness when she murdered Osgood so cruelly, seemingly for pleasure. But she also brings a depth of character to the Master that, in all honesty, the character really needed, when it was revealed that Missy mobilised the Cybermen army in the hope of being validated by the Doctor, by showing the Doctor they were not really so different. The Doctor-Master relationship is a complex one, and it’s satisfying to see the character written with this firmly in mind, as opposed to a generic arch-enemy. If only as much care were given to the writing of the Cybermen in this story…

There’s a lot more I could write about, but I’ve covered the main points, and, I think, to go on would be to start rambling. So what’s my overall impression of this finale? It fares well, after everything. I think Dark Water was certainly close to perfect, and the faults in Death in Heaven are grievous, but they at least don’t ruin what, on the whole, is a fairly enjoyable and gripping finale. To be sure, the substantial disappointment of the second half was that it so manifestly failed to follow up on the exciting ideas and set-up of the first half, but the episode still holds up well enough, and there’s enough of real value in there, not to consign this finale as a whole to the pile of “could-have-beens”. It was a good story. It could have been better, much better, but, for what it was, ultimately it fared well. I would certainly watch it again for my own enjoyment, something which is a pretty important test of my impression of Doctor Who stories. So I’m going to be generous with this one, notwithstanding my gripes.

Rating: 8/10.

Thoughts on: In the Forest of the Night

A contributor in a Doctor Who fan forum I occasionally frequent, with whom I disagree about virtually everything, once made a penetrating observation about fan opinion, and, for once, I actually agreed with them. They (I know not their gender) postulated that unconventional stories like Love & Monsters that fall short of fans’ standards will provoke a far more intense backlash, merely for straying from standard tropes, than equally bad stories that nevertheless follow standard Doctor Who formulas, like The Idiot’s Lantern. Notwithstanding that Love & Monsters really was a terrible, positively retch-inducing episode, the memory of which I’ve done my utmost to repress, there’s more than a grain of truth in that observation. For fans of a show that premises itself on the literally boundless concept of “anywhere, any time, any thing”, we can be surprisingly conservative and sceptical towards the show straying from the accepted storytelling tropes it uses over and over again.

I feel that much of the fan hostility towards Frank Cottrell Boyce’s divisive script has much to do with that conservative attitude towards the kinds of storytelling the show should employ. What distinguished In the Forest of the Night from “normal” Doctor Who was that, as was revealed in this episode’s denouement, there was no actual threat. It was basically an episode following the Doctor, Clara and a gaggle of schoolkids around as they became bewildered over a freak, but entirely harmless, natural occurrence. The viewer was waiting for the moment when the Doctor would be struck by a brainwave and figure out how to save everyone from the… inconvenient trees. Expecting that, the viewer is disoriented when the brainwave finally does come, but it’s in the Doctor realising that, actually, there’s nothing to save anyone from — there was no need to worry at all in the first place.

This is different; for once, the story isn’t about the Doctor beating the monsters, or the Doctor and Clara getting themselves out of a dangerous situation. It was about everyone learning a heartwarming and joyous lesson: nature is our friend, not our enemy — trust it. The Doctor has no real role to play other than being the one who realises what it’s all about. This is certainly a departure from what we’re used to, but it’s also a return to the show’s origins. In the first Doctor Who serials, the Doctor was no more the hero of the piece than the (usually captured) companions were; the show was more about following the Doctor and his friends on their adventures than about the Doctor saving the day. It was only later that the Doctor became a pseudo-superhero who saved the world every week. Many of the earliest Doctor Who serials, like Marco Polo and The Edge of Destruction, would be considered very experimental in modern Who. This episode probably wasn’t the best exemplar of non-traditional storytelling, but perhaps the show would actually benefit from expanding beyond the present narrative confines that the script-writers impose on themselves?

So, in general, despite its very visible faults, I rather liked it. It’s inoffensive, charming, enchanting, cute and heartwarming. It was different. I mean, the idea of invincible trees springing up overnight and carpeting the Earth was a bit silly, I admit, but, gosh, wasn’t it intriguing? Wasn’t it just magical? Wasn’t it at least more interesting than the constant alien invasions of London we were subjected to in Russell T Davies’ era? I actually found the idea that the Doctor was helpless to combat the green, wooden scourge to be a fantastic narrative device. We don’t see it happen enough. I thought the characters really enhanced this story, too. The children were amusing, and brought a smile to face, especially the mouthy ginger girl, Ruby. This was actually one of the few times I’ve liked the child actors in Doctor Who. Danny is the most likable and sympathetic he’s been all series, in his grounded, down-to-earth, responsible attitude towards everything, contrasting effectively with Clara’s reckless wanderlust and thrill-seeking. And wasn’t the episode just visually stunning? If nothing else, this episode was surely one of the most aesthetically beautiful the show has ever produced.

There were a few things that annoyed me, but they’re not really significant enough to unduly diminish my enjoyment of the episode. For one, the episode felt slow. With not all that much to actually do, it indulges in a lot of filler material involving escaped zoo animals and other flotsam and jetsam. There was one scene in particular where Clara and the Doctor stood around having a conversation in which they just repeated things we already knew. I felt the urge at that moment to channel Monty Python in admonishing them both to get on with it! Secondly, the scene where the tree spirits (or whatever they were) were speaking through Maebh would have been so much more effective if I could actually hear what they were saying. All I heard was a resonant rumbling in a frequency too low for even my young ears to pick up. Finally, I hate to be a grouch, but I cringed over that final scene, where Maebh discovers her lost sister hiding in the bushes. I don’t usually hate on things like this, but this time I did; I found it unnecessary and emotionally dishonest. Nevertheless, as I said, these gripes don’t overtly diminish my enjoyment of the episode, which I found, for the most part, engaging viewing.

Rating: 7/10.