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| 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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