Doctor Who: Last Christmas

Alien, The Thing and Inception. Being self-aware of where you’re getting your ideas is ok, but I’m not sure about this one.

So, I liked this episode…kind of…I liked the claustrophobic sets, I liked Nick Frost’s Santa and I liked he self-aware references to all the films that were making a more than significant contribution to the story. The problem is that if you’ve seen one of those films, the big twist of the episode isn’t really a twist. In fact, if you’ve seen “Amy’s Choice” then the third act twist won’t be a surprise at all.

But that aside, this is pretty fun to watch, Santa is a pretty good addition and watching Nick Frost run through the logistics of Christmas Eve is quite fun.

Capaldi is on top form as always. He seems to be toning down his Scottish accent and using a Tom Baker voice for some parts, which is an interesting choice.

Coleman is on similar form, though she doesn’t seem to be able to do a old-person voice.

The rest of the cast are all fine, but seem to fade into the background a little bit, one of them being a red-shirt.

But the purpose of the episode becomes more evident as it goes on. This is about resetting things to the way they were before the events of “Death in Heaven”. That’s slightly disappointing, since Moffat crafts a pretty good and suitably emotional way to write Clara out in this very episode. In fact you get the impression that he was among those who didn’t know whether Coleman would sign on for another series.

But anyway, everything’s back to normal aboard the TARDIS and back in place for series 9.

Doctor Who: Death in Heaven

If zombies were robots!

So we come to the finale; Clara’s in trouble, the Master’s a woman and Cybermen are all over the world, having been made from all the dead bodies.

This episode is very emotional, while still managing to be quite fun. Although we do have the answer to the question: is there a point behind all the repetition in this series?

The answer is no, there is not. We’ve got all the way to the finale and we’re still getting the same get-out-of-jail-free card. Danny can retain his humanity and memories because he loves Clara so much. Which is in no way the same as Rory being able to retain his humanity, when he was turned into a plastic thingy, because he loved Amy so much.

But enough complaining; there’s plenty of good to be looked at. Both Jenna Coleman and Michelle Gomez are on top form (as is Capaldi, but goes without saying at this point). Both these women manage to steal most of the show, with Clara’s attempt to stay alive by pretending to be the Doctor and Missy’s…Missy. As Capaldi is the middle ground between the classic Doctors and modern ones, Missy is a mixture of John Simm’s Master the Master of old. Old fashioned attire, with a penchant for divulging evil plans to anybody listening, with just the right amount of on-show insanity. Gomez puts to rest the question of whether well established characters can still work with their genders changed. A high point for me was when she killed Osgood. Now I quite liked Osgood (especially as she was an in-universe Whovian), but killing her off really solidified Missy as a proper villain. She’s not just going to kill the guards and a redshirt; she’s going to kill well established and liked character.

That said, I can’t pretend I’m not a little bit disappointed in her end goal. She wanted to orchestrate a situation where the Doctor would have conquer the Universe. Her motivation for this can be found (I think) in a line of dialogue from the Simms Master, who described the Doctor as “sanctimonious.” This is essentially the Master picking up that line and running with; trying to prove that the he/she and Doctor really aren’t that different. That’s a pretty clichéd thing got a villain to do, but you barely even notice since it’s so much fun watching Gomez’s dark parody of Mary Poppins.

Now I know that this never could have worked (unless Capaldi was going to be a one-series Doctor) but I would have liked to see Missy’s plan work. I would have liked this to be the birth of the Valyard. It would link up nicely with the classic era. Why was the classic Master so helpful with the Valyard; because it was future version of himself that made the Valyard. Practically that wouldn’t work, but hey, it would have been a very ballsy move by Moffat.

Disappointed not to see what Missy’s TARDIS looked like before she was vaporized (although let’s all just agree that she teleported away at the last minute and not be surprised when she comes back).

The Doctor as President of Earth is an interesting angle, but it seems to be there just to give him nothing to do while Missy and Clara carrying the weight of the show.

Now the Doctor as the person who has to pull the trigger and kill Missy in cold blood. That’s something worth watching. He was willing to do it; not because she was a threat, but to spare Clara getting blood on her hands.

Danny’s ending speech is cheesy, but the timing of this episode is not a coincidence and I think, the idea that a normal soldier could succeed where a member of the most powerful species in the universe couldn’t is a pretty good tribute.

The episode ends on a new dynamic between Clara and the Doctor. When they first met, most of what the Eleventh Doctor said to her was a series of lies designed to keep her around. With the Twelfth Doctor most of what Clara tells him (with regards to her personal life) is a series of lies designed to keep him around. The end of this episode shows that we’ve come to a point where neither tells the other the truth. Clara can’t tell the Doctor that Danny’s well and truly dead and the Doctor can’t tell Clara that Missy was lying about Gallifray.

And there’s a teaser involving Santa Claus….no not getting into that.

Got some holes in the story but a good villain, worth watching.

Doctor Who: Dark Water - spoiler warning

So we know who Missy is now….and she’s exactly who everyone thought she was.

Earlier this week, I threw a theory out there that Missy was just a piece of misdirection designed to distract us from the real threat of the series. This would mean that the reveal would be pretty interesting, but largely insignificant in light of the real threat that we’d all failed to notice.

Well, mush the like the River Song reveal, Missy’s identity falls into that which was recognised by the first episode. I’m not saying that she’s not a good villain, but going for such an obvious one just seems lazy. Also what happened to the Time Lord’s ability to recognise one of their own instantly. The Tenth Doctor knew the Master (even with a new face) straight away, but the Twelfth doesn’t recognise him/her without any explanation.

So there we go; I’m not thrilled about that reveal.

As to the episode, it’s pretty good as a standalone (albeit half of a standalone). To see Clara as a psychiatric wreck, following Danny’s death is pretty good starting point. The Doctor’s trick with a dream state is pretty awesome, as Moffat finds time to call back to manipulative Dreamlord persona that hides under the surface of the Doctor.

The reveal of the Cybermen is very well executed and had last week’s trailer not spoiled their presence it would have been very surprising.

Another small thing that I really liked was the Malcolm Tucker reference thrown in by The Doctor’s psychic paper conveying all the swearwords that he’s not allowed to use on a family show. For nostalgia’s sake it’s also nice to see the Cybermen stalking around St Paul’s in a call back to classic era.

The other reveal we got, was the source of Danny’s PTSD. Turns out that while serving in Afghanistan, he accidentally killed a child. Pretty dark stuff, but it’s handled pretty well.

Overall, this episode does a very good job of setting up the finale, I just wish that the villain reveal could have been more surprising.

Who is Clara?

So the two-part finale of Doctor Who starts this Saturday and the question that everybody’s asking is “who is Missy?”

I’ve decided to ask a different question. If you recall Moffat’s writing style for extended series like Doctor Who, he relies heavily on misdirection (which incidentally can be abbreviated to “Missy”), so I’ve decided to look into the possibility that there’s still more to Clara.

Now this isn’t exactly a genius move by myself, given the content of the finale trailer, but it’s still worth some theorizing.

So, Moffat was pretty clear when he cast Capaldi that he’d be using the fact that Capaldi already appeared in-universe as a plot point. This manifested in the first episode, with the Twelfth Doctor very much aware that he’d seen his new face somewhere before. This was actually an idea that Russel T Davies had when he considered casting Capaldi instead of Tennant.

But what if the in-universe idea is just that; an idea. A handy reminder that a Time Lord can take the form of someone who already exists. In this respect, we can ask the question of whether Clara is even Clara or just a Time Lord or Lady who’s taken her form. There are a few hints towards this idea; for example, Clara seems to have a working knowledge of which leavers to pull when she wants to stop the Doctor from flying the TARDIS. Is this just observation on her part or is she a Time Lord with no memory. The Doctor mentioned trading away a watch that Clara seemed quite familiar with (chameleon arch?).

Capaldi’s face would be a hint towards this, as would the amnesia he suffered post-regeneration. He said himself in “Deep Breath” that it was as though his subconscious was trying to tell him something by adopting this form. The idea that his whole new body is a clue from himself that his companion isn’t who she appears to be.

She doesn’t need to be a Time Lord/Lady either. She could be the Great Intelligence. Clara might have died on Trenzalore, when she jumped into the Doctor’s Grave and The GI could have taken her form when the Doctor went to save her, as it was shown to be able to do with Doctor Simian.

Incidentally, Clara (despite Moffat’s wibbly-wobbly explanation) should not exist in her present form since the Doctor’s death was erased from time.

So the questions I’m asking are:

Is Missy really that important?

And

Are the things that don’t make sense about Clara not meant to make sense?

Doctor Who: In the Forest of the Night.

A swing, but a miss.

So here we are at the episode before the finale starts and as expected, it’s a bit disappointing. The one saving grace of an episode like this, is that it’s general tone indicates that the finale is going to be nice and dark. It’s a common thing, with family orientated programs, to insert a lighthearted and friendly episode before doing something likely to upset the censors in the next one.

The main problem with this episode is that it’s been tailored to the young children in the audience (much like the episode “Fear Her”), with child actors having to carry a lot of the episode’s comedy as well as drama. That’s a big ask for actors who are so young and it shows. I’m not going to call them bad actors, but their inexperience shows through in a big way. For the children in the audience, this is likely not a an issue, but for anyone older, the attempts at drama and comedy alike fall flat.

The resolving message at the end of the episode is also very confusing. It seems to be that we should just get on with things and trust nature, in the face of natural disasters. That’s not especially well thought through; by the logic of this sentiment, we should do nothing in the face of a giant flood or hurricane and just trust that the planet has a plan.

Incidentally, the fact that there was never actually a threat (just like in “Kill the Moon”) is again absolutely stupid. It reminds me the Mitchell and Webb sketch “Once there was a fire in a house and it burnt itself out and everything was fine”

In summary; a flat episode that has a confusing message and relies too heavily on inexperienced actors.