It was ok…but that’s kind of a bad thing…
So after what I thought was a good but underwhelming series finale we had this. It was alright - but there was something missing. Throughout everything he writes, Steven Moffat has always gone against the grain, constantly attacking common conventions in whatever genre he’s penning for, but always in a bantering, playful way.
But this episode has little of that - it’s got the doctor somehow getting dressed into a space suit while falling through the atmosphere yeah, but that’s about all.
Great amounts of this episode were spent with me waiting for Doctor Who to show up. Not the Doctor himself but the feeling of Doctor Who (anybody who’s listened to the podcast for “Forest of the Dead” will know who I stole that turn of phrase from).
This episode, while being a good story could have been in any show - and considering that it came from the same man who made “A Christmas Carole” (a self-aware take on the classic tale, which somehow managed to have moving love story and a brilliantly silly premise co-exist) it just seems disappointing that this take on the Narnia formula gets so tied up in the very Avatarish feel that gets thrown around.
Even at that, it’s too much about the family at the centre of the story - last year worked because it was all about saving a large amount of people by resolving the issues of the characters. In essence there was always a goal - this episode was just about the Doctor doing something nice for someone who’s been nice to him. All very well, but if I don’t happen to be able to empathize with those characters then there’s no real threat for the audience to get involved with.
That’s the problem with for me; I didn’t really find Madge Arwell particularly interesting. Its nothing to do with the way Claire Skinner plays, it’s just that there’s nothing new about the character.
Bill Bailey provides the comic relief for this episode and it’s without doubt the best bit. But it does fall a bit flat and the bit with the subordinate crying along with Madge really didn’t agree with me and fell a bit flat.
The whole episode in general seems a bit underdeveloped and everything seems far too simplistic and shallow. There’s only so much that can be done with trees after all. Oh and if they grew everything themselves where did they get that metal crown?
The twist of the forest wanting a “mother” ship is a much desired and lonely piece of Moffat writing.
This was an alright episode, but not something I’d expect from Steven Moffat.
