Doctor Who Review: The Doctor's Going to Some Dark Places

[LongAndShort]

I think they did the whole "new doctor and companion is understandably freaking out" thing a LOT better with 'The Christmas Invasion' with David Tennant at the beginning of season 2. It introduced a new doctor and new personality without all the audience hand-holding. And the "no second chances" bit after the defeated alien charges him or bringing down Harriet Jones with a few simple words were just fantastic.

I am liking Peter Capaldi, he can bring a whole lot of menace when he wants.

 

[Jamash]

...and is puzzled by the appearance of his own face in the mirror because he's sure he's seen it before. Of course, he has: Capaldi also played bad guy Caecilius in the 2008 episode Fires of Pompeii (which also featured a pre-Amy Pond appearance of Karen Gillen), but how this ties into the plot is of yet unclear.

Another significant piece of that puzzle is that Peter Capaldi played John Frobisher in Torchwood Children of Earth, a tragic character who was forced to make many difficult and terrible decisions and paid the ultimate price by making one final, terrible decision in order to save the ones he loved from an even more terrible, unspeakable fate.

I think there's some kind of link between the Doctor helping Caecilius and his family cheat fate and him taking on the same face, especially since it's also the face of John Frobisher, someone who could have perhaps avoided his terrible fate if the Doctor had been present on Earth during the 456 Incident (or had bothered to use his time machine to go back and help deal with it when he became aware of it... he must have become aware that the planet which he appointed himself as Protector of was destroyed by extra-dimensional aliens and that 1/6 of the children of the humans he cares so much about were almost sacrificed like cattle).

It's almost like that face is a reminder and penance for the Doctor arbitrarily picking and choosing when to save someone from their fate, such as the case Peter Capaldi's Caecilius and family, and when to just leave the entire planet to face a threat like the 456 and cause good people to suffer, such in the case of Peter Capaldi's John Frobisher and family.

I have a feeling the Doctor wondering about his face will be a reoccurring theme in this series, until a chance encounter with Captain Jack who points out that the Doctor is wearing John Frobisher's face causes the Doctor to looking into John Frobisher and his fate, then really look hard at his own actions and question his role in meddling with fate and destiny as he investigates the histories, stories and reincarnations of the men who have worn that face before.

For example, if John Frobisher was a descendant of Caecilius, and if the Doctor had decided to leave Caecilius to his fate (which would have ended his bloodline in Pompeii), the 456 Incident could have played out very differently with someone else taking upon the role and responsibilities of John Frobisher (who didn't exist in that universe)... did the Doctor's previous meddling with fate make things better or worse?

 

[LongAndShort]

I am liking Peter Capaldi, he can bring a whole lot of menace when he wants.

thing is...is that maybe the only thing he's really good at...it's certainly what worked as tucker and richelieu...but most Scots can do fairly decent "menace" ;P

sry i'm just kinda worried tbh...

[small]i'll shut up now...[/small]

I get your concerns (Scots are very good at being menacing), but I think he'll do alright. I remember him playing easily one of the best characters in 'Torchwood: Children of Earth', a powerless bureaucrat caught up in events much larger than himself because of seniority and circumstance with a very tragic end.

 

[octafish]

I'd like to point out the callback to dear old Trout, this time from Clara. "You've redecorated, I don't like it." I think that is why I liked Smith so much, he was basically modern Trout.

 

[small]

The only thing that saved the episode for me was everyone's favourite inter species lesbian consulting detective couple and their homicidal, gender perception challenged butler.

For me it was trying to hard to be a sitcom of all things

Yeah. There were a lot of jokes in what was an otherwise darker show.
There are two big things I'm hoping from Capaldi's current season run:

1) Going forward: No more forced romance crap from the companions. None.
Either towards the Doctor, or each other.
I'm just sick of it. The Ponds' story wavered between tragic and overbearingly nauseating. I literally started singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead" at the end of The Angels Take Manhattan, and I'm pretty sure that was NOT the intended response for the conclusion of their arc.

2) Fewer sitcom moments.
Levity is great. Madame smexxy-Lizard and Capt Whacky Sontaran are great in small doses. And I get that this was a post-regeneration-crazy episode so I won't hold it completely accountable this time as that just comes with the territory.

But if this becomes the normal tone, I don't think I'm going to keep watching. Which is a shame, because Capaldi looks like he has the chops to be a much better Doctor than his previous New Who candidates. (and I liked Smith's Doctor a lot)

1. i seem to be one of the rare people who actually loved amy and rory and was sad to see them go but happy to see they ended up happy together. I definitely think they are cutting out the romance side now with the comments in the latest episode.

2. in small doses? id be happy if they got their own spin off
But i do agree if its the normal tone i doubt i will keep watching

I used to watch the show from the tail end of the second doctor so im well and truly used to cheese including betsy the supersonic old fashioned car, so i can watch it for fun but its like they were trying too hard to be funny

 

[Jeroenr]

One thing I can't get over regarding this episode... That Garden at the end, is that the same Garden they used in The Girl Who Waited? You know, the episode Amy is trapped for 36 years in a weird time-travelling hospital.

Looks like the same set any way, but it being the same garden seems unlikely.
If it was, there would be some kindness droids walking about.
Story wise it wouldn't make sense either, not that making sense is a requirement for them.

 

[Revolutionary]

Well seeing as we're all spouting our opinions on the episode...
I thought it was typical Mofftard nonsensical bullshit. I couldn't even get through the whole thing, I had to leave because the stupid was braining my hurt. I stopped watching DW ~S5. I thought I might give it a bash again with this new doctor. Still far too tumblr for my tastes, if you'll excuse my usage of tumblr as an adjective.


TLDR;

Spoiler: My Reaction

 

[Thyunda]

I'm seeing a whole lot of people saying how great Vastra and Jenny are, but honestly I just don't get it. They're not great in small doses. They're not great at all. Moffat has this seriously obnoxious tendency to include 'action girls' when nobody has any idea how to write an action scene. Strax is at least funny, those two are just irritating. Every five minutes, it's "Did we mention we're married?", which of course seems purely informed aside from the kiss toward the end. I get it. They're married. And she's a detective, right? THEN DETECTIVATE!

Vastra and Jenny are stupid fucking characters who serve no purpose whatsoever and everytime I see them I know the episode is going downhill. Two katana-armed rogues and a war-cultured alien with a laser gun vs some slow-ass clockwork robots, and they lost?! This show is not about action scenes or fights and it SHOWS.

Strax I like though. Strax makes me laugh and that forgives his pointlessness as a character. But that brings me over to another character I hate.

Fucking Clara. Fucking useless Impossible Character. Hi, I'm Clara and I'm the Doctor's closest friend! Remember all those adventures we had together? That time we stopped a joint Cyberman/Dalek invasion? Or when I absorbed the Time Vortex? Or when I led a revolution against the Master?
Oh yeah. They weren't Clara. What was Clara's big adventure? Because I watched every single episode when they premiered and I apparently missed Clara's big emotional scenes and the hundreds of adventures she went with the Doctor on.

And the phonecall from Matt Smith was thoroughly pointless. I liked Matt Smith. Really, I've liked all of the New-Who Doctors. Did you know the character regenerates? It's not a new thing, so why did Moffat feel the need to make such a big fucking deal out of it? If we get one more 'pity-me' storyline about the Doctor, I'm going to track Moffat down and I swear to God I'll rearrange all of his furniture. He'll be so confused he'll never write again.

I preferred Russell T Davies. Not because he was overly talented, but because he wrote a universe for the Doctor to inhabit and presented interesting moral dilemmas and difficult situations for him to handle, whereas Moffat writes a universe centred around the Doctor and presents dull social situations for him to cry over. Remember how the Doctor did all these nice things for people he barely knew because he'd done some awful things in his past and this was his way of moving away from who he was? Remember how that was subtly implied? Oh, yeah. Sorry. Moffat wrote an episode about it. And then another. And then he introduced us to the Doctor's incarnation at the time. Who moped over it. And then they retconned the entire thing. Moffat is going back along the Doctor's history and whitewashing it and turning the morally grey character into a freakin role model for ten year olds.

I don't like that. This episode, fortunately, hints at the Doctor's darker side...but came dangerously close to 'exploring' it again. The ending was entirely unnecessary, too. If you're going to do a big dramatic reveal that threads all the episodes together, do it a bit later. I don't care who this woman is and I don't care where this garden is. I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the next episode, because honestly I know I'm going to hate the reveal when it comes.

 

[gorfias]

i appreciate this a new darker Doctor too...but...oh gawd i might get hell for this...i think Smith may well have been

a better actor than Capaldi...

Seems they are apples and oranges (though I've enjoyed Capaldi in the past, he hasn't done anything to make me notice

him as a talented actor).

Smith was very good and different, but one critic put it effectively this way: he started kissing people even if they

didn't want to be kissed and was in danger of going from lovable nut to creep! But he was in some of the best episodes since 2005.

also he points at people with his forehead when he's speaking seriously or surreptitiously and acting "tells" like

that bug the hell out me

I've never heard that phrase before, an "acting `tells'" ! Now I'll never be able to forget it and its going to bug the hell out of me too

i thought the episode was just OK...there WAS too much playing around with The Paternoster Gang...and by all accounts

that's because Moffat wants to spin them out into a childrens TV series but so far the BBC...for whatever reason...is

not biting....so they were being highlighted for that as well as grounding the episode by surrounding a new Doctor

with familiar faces in his first outing.

other than that it was mostly what i was expecting...including "historical" callbacks and the tossing out of potential

arcs for the 2 series that Capaldi has signed on for thus far.

overall i'd give a 6 or 7 out of 10.

I'd give it a 7 as well, which, given how terrific this show is, that is high praise.