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.

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.