#11 (8.11 - 8.12): Death in Heaven.

The Doctor fails to recognize an old friend...

2 episodes: Dark Water, Death in Heaven. Approx. 107 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Rachel Talalay. Produced by: Peter Bennett.


THE PLOT

Clara calls Danny, determined to come clean about her continued travels with the Doctor. She begins by telling him that she loves him. She never gets any further. While they are talking, he steps off a curb onto a street and is killed. Alive one second, dead the next.

Clara announces that she not only deserves better, she's "owed." She calls the Doctor and hops into his TARDIS, pretending nothing is wrong. She wanders around the console room while chatting, picking out every one of his spare TARDIS keys, and then knocks him unconscious. When he wakes, she threatens him with the destruction of every key unless he agrees to go back and save Danny.

The Doctor goes one better, with an idea to save him that will not violate the laws of time. He will take use the traces of Clara's subconscious still within the console to follow Danny's trail - materializing the TARDIS in the Afterlife.

Whatever they expect, they end up finding something very different. They materialize in a corridor of "The 3W Facility," in which the bodies of the dead are suspended in water that reveals only their organic tissue - Their skeletons. Dr. Chang (Andrew Leung), a scientist at 3W, reveals that the skeletons are actually in a metal casing, which cannot be seen through the water - News which makes the Doctor wary.

With good reason. By coming to 3W, he has sprung a trap set by "Missy" (Michelle Gomez), an old enemy in a new form. The dead have been converted to Cybermen - And Missy plans to set them loose on Earth, gloating that the human race's greatest weakness is that "the dead outnumber the living!"


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: "Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?" The Doctor brushes aside Clara's attempted betrayal as if was nothing - In fact, he seems far less affected by it than he was by her chewing him out! Though pulling Danny out of the Underworld is the actual goal here, he still warns Clara to "be skeptical and critical... even if it breaks your heart." The end sees him fully ready to kill in cold blood, a decision that's taken from him by an unexpected intervention.

Clara: If you have ever let this creature live, everything that happened today is on you. All of it, on you!" Clara's determination to force the Doctor to save Danny is convincing enough to be almost frightening, and her horror when she believes anger has pushed her into destroying the last TARDIS key is wonderfully played. You can read the line, "What have I done?" flying silently and desperately across her face. Also good is her pain as she listens to Danny's voice on the phone and forces herself to question him, her despair growing as he can't give answers. Part Two loses track of Clara for too much of its running time, but her anger at what's been done to Danny fuels much of the climax.

Danny: Is dead. And, I'm sad to say, I'm rather glad. I noted in my review of The Caretaker that Danny too often was coming across as Rory 2.0... and he's been nothing more than that ever since. Anderson has done a creditable job with the thin material he's been given, and it's nice that Moffat does remember to tie up Danny's "very bad day." But that, and a last jibe about the Doctor keeping his hands clean by having Clara be the one to end matters, aren't enough to make me sorry about losing him. The character had potential and the actor was good - But the series lost interest in him about half a season ago. In the end, Danny Pink represents a rare failure in a mostly excellent season.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: Jemma Redgrave returns, and is as welcome a presence as she was in her appearances last season. I particularly enjoyed her exchanges with the Doctor about Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. When the Doctor criticizes her strongarm tactics by invoking her father, she tells him flatly that they both know full well that he would have done the same. A rare quiet moment sees them looking at the Brigadier's portrait, her musing that he always wanted the Doctor to salute him and him replying that all he ever truly had to do was ask.

"Missy": Michelle Gomez's season villain, glimpsed in multiple episodes, finally gets her big moment, complete with a big cliffhanger reveal as to her true identity. The reveal works, as does Gomez's performance. As with most of the series' major players, she shows strong chemistry with Capaldi, and their interplay is a highlight of the story. A good feature is that neither Capaldi nor Gomez play their confrontations as enemies. These are two friends who took very different paths and have very different values, but who do at heart miss and even like each other. Since a return of this villain has already been confirmed, I hope more is done with this specific character beat.

Cybermen: Basically just plot devices. This isn't a Cyber-story, they're just the mechanism through which Missy intends to achieve her goal. The conversion of the dead into Cybermen is less effective than seeing living humans turned into these creatures, because there's no horror of watching an individual be transformed - particularly when two of the individuals in question are allowed to retain their identities and core values. I would actually have preferred it if these were simply a generic robot army (since that's basically what the Cybermen are reduced to here) - but then we wouldn't be able to end Part One with a visual nod to The Invasion, as the Cybermen march once again outside St. Paul's Cathedral.


THOUGHTS

After two years of only single-part episodes, seeing a two-parter with a proper cliffhanger is extremely welcome. Steven Moffat has already confirmed more two-parters for Series Nine, so it seems that the experiment of making all stories one episode has finally been declared over. The cliffhanger is a good one, too: Cybermen in London, Clara in imminent danger, and the reveal of Missy's identity... Very hard not to push on straight to Part Two from there!

As is often the case, Part One is the stronger episode. It is tightly-paced, with new twists and revelations coming throughout. There are several effective moments, from Danny's death to Clara's betrayal to her phone conversation with Danny to the revelation of the Cybermen and Missy... Really, the whole hour is an extended string of terrific scenes, all of them focused and unified.

Part Two loses a lot of that focus. Once Kate and UNIT are introduced, the narrative all but loses track of Clara until the last twenty minutes. The UNIT scenes also do very little to advance the story. If Missy simply took the Doctor prisoner and escorted him to the graveyard, the plot would make every bit as much sense and be a lot more focused. All that would be lost would be some fan-pleasing cameos, an unexpected character death, and an action scene - none of which are actually important to the plot.

Lest this start sounding negative, I should say that I enjoyed the whole thing. The first episode is terrific. The second episode loses focus, but remains fun even if most of the middle isn't actually necessary to the story. Most of the character scenes work, the "big" scenes are as effective as they're meant to be, and the two hour running time passes quickly.


PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE

The two scenes bookending the story are among the best writing Steven Moffat has ever done. Danny's death is stunningly well-done. There are no emotional histrionics, no swelling music or slow motion. We're just watching two characters having a phone conversation, followed by silence - Silence which lasts just long enough for us to know something's wrong before a kind woman's awkward voice tells Clara there's been an accident. It hits because it's the way such a moment plays out in reality. One moment someone is alive, one moment they're dead, and on a phone call you never even know how much was heard before that final second.

The epilogue is equally good, a perfect bow tied around all the deceptions and lies between the Doctor and Clara all season long. The Doctor is so convinced that he's found a way to return Danny to Clara that he lies to her about his own state so that he can nobly get out of her way. Clara is so convinced the Doctor is ready to move on with his life, she lies that Danny is back so that she can nobly get out of his way. These are two badly-damaged people who desperately need each other... But they can't stop lying long enough to recognize that they are both in equal amounts of emotional turmoil.

What comes between these bookends is slightly overbusy and unfocused, true... But those two scenes are flatly excellent, and the rest is never less than entertaining. The two-parter as a whole does not rank among the season's highlights in my opinion... But it does have several excellent moments, and even with its faults it remains a more than respectable close to the best Doctor Who season since Series Five.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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Next Story: Last Christmas (not yet reviewed)


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#10 (8.10): In the Forest of the Night.

A forest shoots up overnight - All over the world!

1 episode. Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Directed by: Sheree Folkson. Produced by: Paul Frift.


THE PLOT

Danny and Clara have taken a class of special needs students on an overnight field trip to a museum. When they wake, the curator has difficulty opening the door for them. Danny pushes - and finds that on the other side of the door, London has been completely overgrown. A forest has sprung up overnight!

The Doctor has materialized in Trafalgar Square, which is so overgrown as to be unrecognizable. Maebh (Abigail Eames), one of Clara's students, finds him. Not long after, Clara and Danny find him also, but he has no idea where this forest has come from. Then they all learn that a solar flare is about to hit the earth. It's the end of the world - and there's nothing the Doctor can do...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: His first thought on seeing the forest is that it's just a new freak of nature for humanity to endure."When the Ice Age was here, you lot managed to cook mammoth. Now there's a forest, you'll just have to eat nuts... Farewell to the Ice Age, welcome to the tree age!" He connects Clara's fear of the forest to old fairy tales, revealing his theory that the forest itself is what humanity fears. When it's revealed that a globally devastating solar flare is soon to hit the planet, he becomes desperate to save Clara. When she protests that he can't save the human race, he earnestly replies, "I can save you!"

Clara: Maebh's psychic powers (don't ask) pick up that Clara was thinking about the Doctor even before seeing the forest. Danny is less than pleased about that, and about Clara's absolute faith that the Doctor will "sort everything out... That's what he does!" Danny's determination to get the students back to their parents above all else impresses her - but doesn't stop her from taking a ride in the TARDIS to witness a rare event at the episode's conclusion. In one of the few good moments in this episode, Clara declines the Doctor's offer to save her even if the human race is doomed, telling him (not without some pain at saying it to him) that while she wants to live, she doesn't want to be the last of her kind - doesn't want to be him.

Danny: Is a sturdy presence, projecting reliability and stability. Works mainly as a contrast to the Doctor. Still, I can't help but continue to notice what's been glaringly clear the entire second half of the season: That while Danny is likable, and actor Samuel Anderson does well with what he's given, Anderson and Coleman have no chemistry at all. In an episode that sees them on-screen together quite a lot, it's all the more glaring. Capaldi and Coleman find energy even in weak material, while Coleman and Anderson have no energy at all.


DON'T HARM THE TREES - AND PLEASE PUT DOWN THOSE PILLS!

"Please don't chop, spray or harm the trees. They're here to help. Be less scared. Be more trusting." Because trees, y'know, they're like, nature, man. You should hug one and be one with them. And let the trees speak to you. Like the voices in your head, man. Those voices, they're good. And medication to treat them - That's, like, bad, man. Because schizophrenia is, like, nature too. It will expand your consciousness, dude. And, like, trees are good, and stuff...

What a bunch of mind-numbing, stupid, moronic, would-be hippy horsecrap! Forget "the moon is an egg." This is the most patronizing, cheap, pathetic thing we've seen this season. Or last season. Or, really, since Cartoon Winston Churchill sent his army of X-Wing Spitfires against the Dalek Death Star!

If it was just the heavy-handed environmental message, I'd roll my eyes, sigh impatiently, and give this a "3" for a few good character bits in the midst of the trite nonsense. But then the Doctor - the trusted authority figure for the viewing audience - grouses about giving medication for mental illness as if that's the stupidest thing in the world. Yes, the Doctor is morally disgusted that medication is given to a young girl who hears voices no one else hears and bats at things in the air that no one else sees. Charming.

I'll acknowledge that this almost certainly unintentional. Not so much a message ("Don't take your anti-psychotic meds, kids!") as an accidental side-effect of some very bad writing. Still, not only is that worst possible reading a viable one - It isn't much of a leap to get there. And that is something I find more irresponsible and wrong-headed than the wielding of a pair of scissors could ever be.


OTHER THOUGHTS

OK - Stepping back from the trite silliness of the environmental sledgehammer and the unintended mental illness anti-message, I will admit that there are some nice moments. The visual imagery of the forest is effective, particularly when the Doctor and Clara reference the forests of fairy tales. The wolves' eyes visible in the brush behind Maebh - That's a terrific little directorial flourish. The call-backs to Kill the Moon and Mummy on the Orient Express in the Doctor and Clara's "farewell" are obvious, but still passably effective. The performances of the three leads are good, and the now-effortless chemistry of Capaldi and Coleman helps to make up for the largely inert drama.

Still, that wouldn't be enough to save this episode from a very bad score, even if the script didn't already scrape down a very wrong nerve for me. It's not quite as painfully bad as Victory of the Daleks - but neither is it an enormous amount better.

Trees may be, like, good, man... But unfortunately, this episode isn't.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

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#9 (8.9): Flatline.

The TARDIS is a little smaller
on the outside than usual...

1 episode. Approx. 45 minutes. Written by: Jamie Mathiesen. Directed by: Douglas MacKinnon. Produced by: Nikki Wilson.


THE PLOT

An energy drain causes the TARDIS to materialize in Bristol instead of London - and to materialize significantly smaller than its usual size, to the point the Doctor and Clara have to struggle to successfully get out. The Doctor asks Clara to investigate the area, to see what might be causing this, while he goes back inside to try to stop the drain.

Clara encounters a community service crew cleaning up graffiti around a council estate. One of the men, Rigsy (Joivan Wade), tells her that several people have disappeared without a trace. He adds that, because this is a poverty-stricken area, the police have barely investigated. Clara returns to inform the Doctor - only to discover that the TARDIS has shrunk further, to practically the size of a toy model, with the Doctor now unable to get out.

He is able to pass her the sonic screwdriver and an earpiece, allowing him to use her as his eyes and ears. As Clara investigates the site of the most recent disappearance, using the Doctor's psychic paper to pass as "MI-5," a more frightening discovery is made: The disappearances are the work of two-dimensional creatures, who are able to transform people and objects into two dimensions simply by touch. But is this a prelude to an invasion; or, as the Doctore hopes, is it an attempt at communication gone horribly, tragically wrong?


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Knows the second he and Clara find the TARDIS much smaller than it should be that he has encountered something strange and new - Which is something he finds joy in. When he realizes the nature of the aliens, his first impulse is to try communicating, in case they don't realize that they're hurting humanity. It's only when that fails that he reverts to his usual role of "man who stops the monsters." By making the Doctor virtually powerless for the bulk of the story, it also brings home how forceful a presence Peter Capaldi can be when he comes back at the end to take full charge.

Clara: Thrust into the Doctor role for much of the story, trying to keep people alive. "Welcome to my world," the Doctor tells her acidly, as she uses a combination of bluffs, guesses, and a force of personality she doesn't fully feel to claim the leadership role of the group. Also like the Doctor, she has to push the group to keep moving and focusing on their own survival once some of her charges start dying.

Danny: Clara is lying to him, and her lying is even more obvious than it was before Danny met the Doctor. The Doctor knows about the lies; and Danny isn't an idiot, so he probably has a pretty good idea by the story's end - Which makes a confrontation pretty much inevitable.


THOUGHTS

This is Jamie Mathiesen's second Who script, coming right on the heels of his first. It's a very different episode than Mummy on the Orient Express: A little slower, a little moodier. The monster is unique and creepy, and the conceit of the Doctor stuck inside the miniaturized TARDIS creates some very funny moments.

All of which is to say: Jamie Mathiesen definitely needs to stay.

The first half is like the Series Two stinker Fear Her done right. There's a council estate setting, people who have disappeared with barely any investigation at all, and the Doctor and Clara (well, mainly just Clara) befriending a local in order to get more information. But with on-target guest performances and sharp dialogue, it has energy even before Clara and Rigsy find themselves running from the 2D monsters, whom the Doctor dubs "The Boneless."

The second half turns into a horror story, with Clara and the members of Rigsy's community service group fleeing for their lives - and mostly, not managing to move fast enough. As they flee into the train tunnels, the setting becomes claustrophobic and drenched in shadows. Then the Boneless evolves into "3-D," and the chase begins to resemble a scene from a zombie movie. It's atmospheric and effective. A good slice of horror Who.

It's also very funny. When the miniaturized TARDIS is stuck on train tracks with a train approaching, he sticks his full-sized hand out of the tiny box to escape ala "Thing" from The Addams Family. A little later on, Clara inverts Doctor Who's overused "heroic sacrifice" trope. Rigsy is all set to ride a train into the Boneless, so that he can buy time for the others while circumventing the "Dead Man's Switch." Until Clara points out that all that's needed is for her to wrap her headband around the controls. For the remainder of the episode, she needles him about trying to sacrifice his life for a headband.

The final Doctor/Clara scene is another terrific exchange, as the Doctor simultaneously congratulates and condemns her for being so good at being the Doctor... which entailed lying, giving false hope, and not looking back when people in her charge began to die. As he observes:

"You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara... Goodness had nothing to do with it."


Overall Rating: 8/10.

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Next Story: In the Forest of the Night


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#8 (8.8): Mummy on the Orient Express.

66 seconds: The countdown begins...

1 episode. Approx. 48 minutes. Written by: Jamie Mathiesen. Directed by: Paul Wilmshurst. Produced by: Peter Bennett.


THE PLOT

Having had a chance to calm down after the events on the moon, Clara has agreed to allow the Doctor to take her on one last trip. The Doctor chooses the Orient Express - not the classic train connecting Europe and the Middle East, but rather an exact replica - in space in the distant future, but decked out to look like the 1920's, complete with passengers in period costumes.

Their interactions are awkward. Clara doesn't quite know how to say goodbye (or if she really wants to), while the Doctor doesn't quite know how to ask her to stay. Fortunately, their impasse is broken by some good old-fashioned mayhem. The Foretold (Jamie Hill) is a mummy, a creature of legend that can only be seen by the victim it is about to claim. Once you see the Foretold, you have exactly 66 seconds to live.

The Foretold is on this train, picking off passengers and crew one by one. And the more the Doctor investigates, the more certain he becomes that this is all according to some unknown figure's design...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: We've seen all season how this Doctor avoids emotional reactions - turning away from Gretchen's self-sacrifice; being bewildered by a kiss of gratitude from a woman he saved; being first confused, then near-desperate to appease, in the face of Clara's rage. We see that again in the early scenes of this episode. He can't quite grasp what Clara's sad smile means, complaining that it's like two emotions at once - He just can't decode it. Later, when he decides there truly is a mystery to solve, he stands uneasily at her door, not certain whether to wake her up to join him or leave her to sleep.

As bad he is with emotion, that's how good he is with intellectual puzzles. Once all the scientists and experts on the train realize that The Foretold is very real and coming for them one by one, he is constantly in motion, using each 66-second opportunity to gather as much data as possible, then using the gaps in between to process it. When he finally defeats the monster, it's a breathtaking scene, superbly scripted and acted as the Doctor uses every precious second to gather the last shreds of data before acting.

Clara: I'm not in any way advocating for a return to the Doctor/Companion "almost-romance" of the previous season... But I will say that as much as I enjoyed Jenna Coleman in Series Seven, she has much stronger chemistry opposite Peter Capaldi than she did opposite Matt Smith. When she's taking his arm, half-listening half-sadly as he rattles on about dead planets, she feels more like she belongs there than she ever did with the Eleventh Doctor... And in the ending scene, when she looks at him and finally sees the hero again rather than the flawed man, the hunger in her face for more adventures is tangible.

Danny: Is on board with Clara taking one final trip with the Doctor, and tells her that "dumping him sounds a little 'Scorched Earth.' You still basically get on." She's evidently not convinced by his expressed willingness for her to travel with him, though, as she lies to both Danny and Doctor at the end; she doesn't tell Danny she's continuing to travel, and she lies to the Doctor that Danny is fine with it. This is a lie that will certainly come back to haunt her - Though I'm guessing not until the season's end.


THOUGHTS

That was terrific. The Doctor/Clara awkwardness does just enough to follow up on the emotional turmoil of Kill the Moon, while making sure to play up the fondness the two characters have for each other enough to make it believable that Clara changes her mind. Meanwhile, around the character material, we get a fast-paced episode that mixes Agatha Christie pastische, horror, and an element that's not only uniquely Doctor Who, but uniquely Peter Capaldi's Doctor Who. Enormous fun.

This was the first Doctor Who script by Being Human's Jamie Mathieson. On the strength of this installment, I hope it is the first of many. He captures the Doctor particularly well, characterizing him as brusque without being deliberately hurtful. There's a hint of compassion in his brutal honesty as he tells two different victims that he won't be able to save them, but needs them to tell him as much about the Foretold as possible so that he can "save the next one." Which he finally does achieve, in a dazzlingly well-executed climax. Equal credit is due to Paul Wimhurst, whose direction maximizes the energy throughout.

All that really keeps this from full marks is an ending that feels just a touch rushed, with the Doctor somehow getting everyone into his TARDIS despite us being told that his ship is inaccessible, and all of this happening offscreen to be filled in with dialogue after the fact. A couple dangling threads are also left, though I suspect that may be done deliberately to be followed up either in the season finale or the next season.

Those minor issues aside, I thought this was a fantastic bit of pure entertainment.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Story: Kill the Moon
Next Story: Flatline 


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#7 (8.7): Kill the Moon.

A mystery on the moon...

1 episode. Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Peter Harness. Directed by: Paul Wilmshurst. Produced by: Peter Bennett.


THE PLOT

Clara advises the Doctor that he hurt the feelings of troubled student Courtney Woods (Ellis George) when he told her that she wasn't special after she threw up inside his TARDIS. All Clara wants is for the Doctor to apologize... But he overcompensates wildly by instead taking Courtney and Clara on a trip to the moon.

They materialize inside a space shuttle in the year 2049. The shuttle is an antique, salvaged by astronauts Ludvik (Herimone Norris) and Duke (Tony Osoba), in response to a lunar emergency. A Mexican survey station stopped transmitting several years earlier - And then the moon began "putting on weight," resulting in natural disasters on Earth.

The time travelers join the astronauts in exploring the site. The team there is dead, their corpses hanging in cocoons. It isn't long before their killers appear: gigantic spider-like creatures the Doctor identifies as germs. That's when the Doctor starts to realize that if these are germs, then they must be part of an even larger biological system. Something immense is alive at the center of the moon, and the only hope for the Earth may be to kill it... A choice which could itself prove devastating.

As Clara, Courtney, and Ludvik argue the best course of action, the Doctor does the most shocking thing he's ever done: He announces that he can play no part in this decision. He hops into the TARDIS and dematerializes, leaving the frightened humans to make their own choice, for good or ill!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: When Clara suggests they simply leave, as they know the moon will be saved because of visits farther in the future than this one, the Doctor replies that he can't just assume that. This moment is the opposite of a "fixed point." It's a moment that he describes as "fuzzy" and "gray." He doesn't know what ends up happening to the moon, because "it hasn't been decided yet." He does know that the decision made at this moment will be a major turning point for humanity - And for that reason, he decides that it's humanity's choice to make.

Clara: When the Doctor withdraws, Clara is left to carry the weight of the choice before her. She debates with Ludvik over the consequences of there being no moon (somehow, the astronaut doesn't correct the ludicrous assertion that the only consequence would be "no tides"), then tries to appeal to democratic principles by transmitting to Earth and asking for a vote. Finally, however, the decision comes down to her, and is made in a split second - with her having no idea whether what she's just done is wrong or right until the Doctor returns to tell them all what happens as a result.


THE DOCTOR WITHDRAWS

"There are moments in every civilization's history in which the whole path of that civilization is decided - The whole future path. Whatever future humanity might have depends upon the choice that is made right here and right now. Now, you've got the tools to kill it. You made them. You brought them up here all on your own, with your own ingenuity. You don't need a Time Lord. Kill it. Or let it live. I can't make this decision for you."
-The Doctor, leaving humanity to its own devices

The best and, I suspect, most talked-about scene in this episode is the final Doctor/Clara scene. Alone in the TARDIS, she tears into him for leaving them to make that decision alone. She demands to know exactly what he knew, angry and hurt at what she sees as a betrayal by a man she trusted completely. Jenna Coleman is so good in this scene that it's actually painful to watch how much she is hurting, and at the same time how much it hurts the Doctor to have so bungled the human part of his decision as to leave her in this state.

It's a searing moment. All the moreso because there is plenty of room to debate (Clara's hurt feelings aside) whether the Doctor leaving this choice to humanity was the right choice or the wrong one.

However, I would like to posit one possibility regarding his withdrawal. He says, when Clara confronts him, that he did it because he trusted her to make the right decision. What if it goes further than that? What if he withdraws because, in a situation in which he cannot see the right decision, he actually trusts her more than he trusts himself?

We have seen multiple times that this Doctor has no problem making cold, pragmatic choices. In this very episode, he takes advantage of one man's death as the moment in which the others can escape. "I'm so, so sorry" has been replaced by, "He was dead already; I was saving us!"

Clara screams her anguish that she almost made the wrong choice - But what if he believes he would have made the wrong choice? That would put a very different spin on his actions - And while I'm not saying that's the intent here, I do think it's a reasonable bit of speculation.


WEIRD SCIENCE (OR JUST PLAIN BAD)

My biggest problem with this episode - one that keeps me from rating it as highly as I otherwise might - is the bald-faced jettisoning of known facts about the moon. "The moon is an egg" flies in the face of multiple moon landings (which weren't just to take "giant leaps" and play golf, after all) and decades of analysis of samples brought back, not to mention centuries of astronomical observation. I'm not asking a Doctor Who episode to deliver an exhaustive science lecture. But in a series initially conceived as part educational, is it horribly wrong to at least not want it to deliberate contradict known facts?

All that I personally would require to paper over this is a quick exchange in which Ludvik, or Clara, or even Courtney protests some of the things we know about the moon - Such as its composition being rock and not eggshell, or the existence of varied minerals - and for the Doctor to give some handwaved explanation to address the disconnect. We don't even get that. Just "the moon is an egg," and an assumption that we're willing to unplug our brains and go along with it.

In an episode that's very smart about character interactions, that really grates on me. Not even a 20-second exchange to cover the bad science - Just the assumption that the viewing audience won't care or won't notice, something which feels far more "cheap... pathetic... (and) patronizing" than anything in the Doctor's treatment of Clara.


FINAL THOUGHTS

However, I am giving the episode a positive review despite that. The bad science annoys me (a lot). But it doesn't obliterate how effectively the episode built suspense, or how very real the emotional fireworks play at the end.

The first part of the episode, as the characters investigate the moon and then try to survive the killer germs, is terrific. The suspense starts almost instantly, with the exploration of the dead landing site and the discovery of the corpses creating wonderful atmosphere. The spider-germs are well-realized and genuinely creepy, and the moment in which the Doctor finds an innumerable mass of them lurking beneath a crack in the surface is sublimely nightmarish.

Once the bad science is shunted to the side, the sequence in which humanity "votes" on the life or death of the Moon Creature is beautifully portrayed. Clara asks them to vote by either leaving their lights on (to vote to let it live) or turning their lights off (to vote to kill it). Little by little, we see the lights on the Earth's surface switch off, leaving an Earth as dark and forbidding as the moon Clara inhabits. Then she makes her choice, we get the aftermath, and then the episode's biggest fireworks explode as Clara excoriates the Doctor for his behavior.

Emotionally riveting, stunningly well-made. If I could fully get past the failure to even address the real science readily available about the moon, I would be very generous here. I can't quite turn off my brain enough to skip over that, but I still would rate this as an above-average episode:


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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#6 (8.6): The Caretaker.

Danny (Samuel Anderson) discovers Clara's
"Doctor life" - and doesn't like it.

1 episode. Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Gareth Roberts and Steven Moffat. Directed by: Paul Murphy. Produced by: Nikki Wilson.


THE PLOT

The caretaker at Coal Hill School is suffering a case of flu, leaving the school with a vacancy for a temporary caretaker. Clara is shocked when the head teacher introduces the new staff member: The Doctor. He explains that he's gone undercover to find a deadly robot known as a Skovox Blitzer (Jimmy Vee). He carefully plants devices around the school to generate a time vortex. On the weekend, when the school is empty, he intends to lure the robot into his trap and send it forward into the distant future, where it will be unable to harm anyone.

But "subtle" isn't something the Doctor's terribly good at. Clara's boyfriend, ex-soldier Danny Pink, can tell that he's up to something. Even as the Doctor puts his plan into action, Danny investigates the devices - and in so doing, badly disrupts the plan. The Skovox Blitzer is still displaced, but only by a few days instead of a billion years. When it returns, it will be more dangerous than ever. And even worse for Clara - The Doctor and Danny have now met, and they absolutely hate each other!


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: His blatant prejudice against soldiers rears its head again. The instant he learns Danny used to be a soldier, he refuses to believe that he could be a Maths teacher; he insists on referring to him as a "P. E. teacher" (or just "P. E.") from that moment on. He is genuinely hurt that Clara has chosen as her boyfriend a man he so thoroughly disapproves of. But at the end, he does grant the grudging respect of a father toward his daughter's suitor: He doesn't have to like Danny, so long as Danny can manage to be good enough to be worthy of Clara.

Clara: Has been reminded too often of the Doctor's low opinion of soldiers, and so pushes herself to the breaking point to try to keep (as Amy and Rory once put it) "Doctor life" and "real life" separate. When the Doctor tells Amy that he likes her boyfriend (wrongly believing that the English teacher who dresses like his 11th persona is the man in question), she's practically dancing on air. This only makes her distress all the greater when the Doctor and Danny experience Hate at First Sight. Her claim to love Danny comes far too quickly, given that we've only seen brief snatches of their developing relationship. We haven't seen enough for it to ring true the way Amy's love for Rory did. That line probably should have been removed and saved for a later episode.

Danny: Samuel Anderson does a capable job with the comedy scenes, but it's the episode's big dramatic scene that sees him really shine. When the Doctor's disdain for soldiers is revealed, Danny turns the tables on him, all-too-accurately identifying him as "an officer" and snapping out "Yes, sirs" and salutes at the Time Lord, whose fury is probably because he at least in part recognizes the truth in Danny's assessment. It's the best scene of the episode by far, and really the only moment of this installment in which Danny is allowed to be more than just Rory 2.0. By contrast, Danny's warning that Clara should be frightened of the situations the Doctor puts her in is a little too close to Rory's anger at the Doctor putting Amy in jeopardy in Vampires of Venice - and because the Clara/Danny relationship isn't as well-defined as the Amy/Rory one was, this version is far less effective. More steel from Danny, and fewer reruns of old Rory scenes, would go a long way toward making this character really work.


THOUGHTS

I didn't hold out high hopes for The Caretaker. Writer Gareth Roberts had success with his Doctor Who-meets-relationship sitcom episode, The Lodger, which turned out to be one of Series Five's most unexpectedly delightful episodes. Series Six's Closing Time recycled those elements with severely diminished returns, however, and the prospect of another comedy/relationship episode co-written by Roberts didn't exactly fill me with anticipation.

The Caretaker is, at least, an improvement over Closing Time. The comedy moments are mostly funny, and the comedy comes naturally out of the characters. The performances of the three leads are very good, and when the tone swerves sharply from comedy to drama in the Doctor/Danny confrontation, it not only fits with the characters and the episode as a whole, it's all the more effective for its contrast with the otherwise light tone.

However, as good as the character material is, the Slovox Blitzer is... well, honestly kind of crap. The monster lacks any sense of menace, no matter how deadly the Doctor insists it is. It sort of lumbers around on wheels, looking like the hideous love child of a Cyberman and a Dalek with the mobility of Davros thrown in for good measure. And since the villain looks laughable and is largely played as ineffectual, the scenes centered around it lack tension. For contrast, look at The Lodger, which balanced its comedy against a villain who was genuinely sinister. I also found the scenes between the Doctor and precocious "troublemaker" Courtney (Ellis George), to be as artifical as they were irritating.

Despite the bumps, I enjoyed this more than I expected to. It would rate a point higher if not for the very poor Monster of the Week, but it is entertaining and does what it sets out to do. Still, I hope the next time Gareth Roberts writes an episode, he's asked to do something other than "relationship sitcom."


Overall Rating: 6/10.

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#5 (8.5): Time Heist.

Clara finds a clue in the vaults of
the most secure bank in the galaxy.

1 episode. Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Stephen Thompson and Steven Moffat. Directed by: Douglas MacKinnon. Produced by: Peter Bennett.


THE PLOT

The Doctor and Clara find themselves in a darkened room opposite two stangers: Psi (Jonathan Bailey), a hacker who has upgraded himself with machine parts; and Saibra (Pippa Bennett-Warner), a mutant whose form changes to mimic anyone she touches. They hear recordings of their own voices, telling them that they have consented to a memory wipe. Then a screen activates and a mysterious figure calling himself "The Architect" informs them that they are to rob the Bank of Karabraxos, the most secure bank in the galaxy!

Before they even have a chance to think, guards prepare to storm their hideout. The Doctor takes charge, setting a trap for their pursuers while getting everyone out safely. He tells the others that they must go through with the robbery - The recordings indicate that they already agreed to it, and finishing the job is the only way they will ever find out why.

This will be no easy crime to get away with. The bank's head of security, Mrs. Delphox (Keeley Hawes), is aware that a plot exists. She is waiting for them with the highest and deadliest security, including a beast known as "The Teller" (Ross Mullan) which can sniff out a person's hidden guilt and which feeds on mental energy - leaving the subject's brain nothing more than soup...


CHARACTERS

The Doctor: Takes charge of the situation immediately. Psi protests briefly, wondering who voted the Doctor as leader (apparently "mostly it's the eyebrows"), but goes along; the Doctor just naturally projects a certain authority borne of experience. We also see, not for the first time this season, just how much this new Doctor relies on Clara. The teaser sees him desperately trying to convince her to travel with him on another adventure, even as she's preparing for a date with Danny... And at the end, it seems clear that he's put himself in deliberate competition with Clara's boyfriend. Not necessarily an expression of interest in Clara, so much as a clear tendency of this Doctor to compete with every perceived rival (as seen in Robot of Sherwood and Listen).

Clara: Jenna Coleman has come into her own in a big way this season. I love the look of sheer horror on her face when she's caught in the Teller's mental grip. Coleman and the lighting sell the moment perfectly - and the Doctor's desperate cry of "Clara!" when he realizes just who has become the creature's target reveals what's been clear enough throughout the season - That for all the swiped and barbs he aims her way, he is more emotionally reliant on her in his new form than ever before.

Danny: Only glimpsed for a moment, but the episode quickly establishes that he and Clara are in the second month of their relationship - Getting serious, in other words. The Doctor's final words of the episode indicate that it's only a matter of time (judging from the "Next Time" trailer, not very much of it) until the full Doctor/Clara/Danny triangle will come together.


THOUGHTS

After four very strong episodes, Series Eight finally stumbles with this anemic would-be caper. Time Heist is visually stylish and offers up good performances, but it's devoid of anything resembling substance. That's not necessarily crippling for a caper, a genre which tends to get by on style, pace, and cleverness. Unfortunately, while the visual style is there, the pace sags noticeably at several points, and it's neither funny enough nor clever enough to make up for it.

Guest star Keeley Hawes is wasted as an uninteresting one-note baddie, leaving me confused as to exactly why they bothered to hire an actress of her caliber. Jonathan Bailey and Pippa Bennett-Warner fare better as the Doctor and Clara's teammates, because they get a lot more to do and are allowed to emerge as sympathetic figures as a result. But after a good early scene showing exactly how dangerous the Teller is, the rest of the episode more or less runs in place until the end... And a late twist sees any tension that might have built up evaporate in an instant.

Oh, and did anyone watching fail to guess the identity of "The Architect" before the 15-minute mark?

If you want a really good Doctor Who bank robbery story, pick up the Big Finish audio, The Selachian Gambit. It offers a better script, a faster pace, and vastly more entertainment value. Time Heist is pretty to look at and is perfectly watchable... But by this season's thus-far very strong standards, it stands out as a very empty bit of midseason filler.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

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