Who Review in Rambling sane thoughts of the terminally me

So, regular readers will know I have a bit of a love/ hate relationship with this season of Doctor Who. I’ve now watched each of the episodes at least twice and with my expectations lowered I can enjoy most of them for what they are but overall I’ve been disappointed with several elements of the current incarnation.

So, did this episode save the day? Sadly, no.

The episode itself is actually one of the best of the series so far. Let’s get into the plot and go from there.

Basically, at the end of the previous episode Clara had decided not to leave the Doctor and to keep adventuring with him but lied to her boyfriend Danny about it. She’s also told the Doctor that Danny is fine with them travelling together.

Now, I’m not sure what is driving Clara’s motivation in this lie. Danny knew she was travelling with the Doctor and basically said it’s her decision. So it’s not that. She told him that she didn’t want to travel with the Doctor any more and he was fine with that. So it’s not that. There’s no logical reason for her to just not say “I changed my mind because time travel is awesome, even if your tour guide can be a bit of a dick some times”.

For whatever reason, though, she’s continuing to fib. Anyhow, her and the Doctor land and something is immediately wrong with the TARDIS. The outside is getting smaller. The Doctor sends Clara to investigate whilst he does science-ey stuff. Clara investigates and stumbles on the plot via a community service offender called Rigsy. Basically, people have gone missing and this coincides with graffiti images of them appearing on a tunnel wall.

When Clara returns she finds that TARDIS is now small enough to fit in her handbag and the Doctor is trapped inside. He passes his psychic paper and the Sonic Screwdriver through the miniaturised door and gives her an earpiece so they can communicate. “Doctor Clara” returns to Rigsy to find out more and they go off to search one of the missing peoples houses. During this time Clara introduces Rigsy to the fact she’s got a Doctor on communicator and he can see and hear what she does via the cunning method of actually showing him the tiny TARDIS with the Doctor waving out of it.

They go to search another house and find a police officer investigating and this is where the episode gets awesome as we are introduced to the enemy. A two dimension species capable who are trying to break into three dimensional space are dissecting people to understand them. In one of the most truly disturbing scenes I’ve seen in Doctor Who, we see the police officer snap out of 3 dimensions.

Seriously, the CG effects in this episode for the bad guys is so cool.

Clara sees a weird image on a wall which the Doctor identifies as a circulatory system and he works out what the baddies are up to but chooses to give them the benefit of the doubt, saying that they may not know enough about three dimension to know they’re hurting us. It’s also revealed that this break down of dimensional energy is what’s affecting the TARDIS.

The bad guys go after Clara, trying to turn them 2D and at this point Danny calls. For some reasons Clara decides to answer the phone and lies to him about the fact she’s still hanging out with the Doctor whilst trying to escape. Sigh.

Escape they do and return to the other cleaners at the tunnel. The Doctor works out that the people painted on the tunnel wall are disguises for the baddies and at this precise moment they attack, killing one of the cleaners. More running ensues and the survivors end up in a train yard.

The Doctor is still trying to prove that the 2 dimensional life forms may not be evil and has Clara try to communicate with them by mathematics. This doesn’t work and they lose another “red shirt”. They attempt to flee through a train tunnel but discover that the door handle has gone 2D. As the Doctor provides a techie-type thing to unflatten the door, the 2 dimensional beings finally figure out how to project into the third dimension, becoming (genuinely creepy) versions of their victims.

During the escape Clara drops the TARDIS and it lands on a train track. As a train is about to run over it, the Doctor enables “Siege Mode” to protect the TARDIS. The ship survives but there’s no longer sufficient energy to power life support.

Side note: The TARDIS in siege mode looks fantastic. It’s this weird cube thingy with Galifreyan on the outside. A lot of people have said it looks like the Pandora but I think it looks more like the communication cubes.

There’s some more extraneous stuff with Clara stopping a train which Rigsy then nicks and tries to ram the aliens which’ll kill him but then Clara calls him an idiot and uses a hair band to make the train ram the aliens but, to be honest, this sections feels very filler.

The next awesome thing to happen is when they work out the resolution. This was very cool. They paint up a poster to look like a 2D door. The aliens try to turn it 3D but instead they’re powering the dimensional energy through the poster and straight into the TARDIS cube behind it. The extra dimensional energy restores power and the Doctor is saved and able to escape. We get a fantastic scene with Capaldi berating the aliens, who he names “The Boneless” and he sends them back to their dimension with a warning that this world is “protected”. The remaining people are saved and returns to the surface.

I kind of wished the episode had ended there but nooooo, we’ve got a great episode. Time to annoy the fuck out of Adam.

Having done all this cool stuff, the Doctor proceeds to insult Rigsy, calling him a “pudding brain” and insult himself with the ridiculous line “you were an exceptional Doctor. Good had nothing to do with it”.

The ends with Missy looking at Clara on an iPad, telling herself she had chosen well.

So. Good things about the episode. Nearly everything. As a stand alone episode this works really well. The bad guys are genuinely scary, the CG for them when they flatten things looks cool. There’s something very Vashta-Nerada about them.

Clara is actually likeable in this episode, too. When she’s pretending to be the Doctor she’s actually a lot more like Oswin from “Asylum of the Daleks” and this makes her a lot edgier. She indulges in some pretty cool banter with other characters, takes charge, gets everyone out safely. I really wanted her to say “Geronimo” at one point, just as a nice harken back to her travels with the 11th Doctor.

The Doctor is also more likeable for most of the episode (which actually leads to my main bugbear which we’ll discuss shortly) as he genuinely seems to want to help Clara, fearing for her and delivering quite a touching speech when he thinks he’s going to die. The speech when the TARDIS is returned to full power is amazing. Let me just grab it so we can appreciate it.

“I tried to talk.  I want you to remember that.  I tried to reach out, I tried to understand you, but I think that you understand us perfectly.  And I think that you just don’t care.  And I don’t know whether you are here to invade, infiltrate or just replace us.  I don’t suppose it really matters now.  You are monsters!  That is the role you seem determined to play, so it seems that I must play mine – The man that stops the monsters.
I’m sending you back to your own dimension.  Who knows?  Some of you may even survive the trip, and if you do, remember this – you are not welcome here.  This plane is protected.  I am the Doctor and I name you The Boneless!”

Such a great speech! Finally, the Doctor living up to being the hero he is. Using his intellect, showing his bravery. Which is why it’s such a slap in the face when he starts being a dick again a scene later.

Seriously! Stop it, Moffat! I am all in favour of a gritty Doctor and one who makes the hard choices and can live with that but just insulting Rigby because he’s human and calling him a pudding brain. That’s just petty.

This is my main problem with this series. In all the others, the Doctor learns and develops. In this it feels like he’s being deliberately held back. Every time he does learn something it’s undone at the end of the episode or by the start of the next.

Remember that episode where they break into the bank. At the end of the episode he’s laughing, joking and eating noodles on the TARDIS with the people who helped him. Where’s that Doctor now? What about the Doctor who nearly killed himself stopping the Egyptian Goddess? The Doctor who left Marian to find Robin Hood?

Why must he be constantly forced back to type. It feels false and it undermines the feel good moments of the episode because every time you know he’s just going to be a dick again.

I’ve been annoyed at this series too often and as amazing as this episode was it’s not tackled the reasons I’m annoyed. So yeah. If this had been the second or third episode of the series, I’d be singing and dancing right now. As it is, I’m glumly resigned to the fact this will not be the amazing end to a series I would hope for.

Except…

Except….

What if this is all planned. What if Moffat is setting up our dislike for these elements of the Doctors character because it’s not the Doctors fault. What if there’s a dark element trying to get out?

The Time Lords sent that regeneration energy to the Doctor. What if something hitched a lift back into our universe along side and is sitting in the Doctors psyche?

At the end of the episode Missy is looking at Clara as though she’s right next to her. What if she is. What if she can see through the Doctors eyes? What if she is inside the Doctor and is corrupting him?

Ok. So, if that happens the I take it all back Mr. Moffat. That would be a clever way of reintroducing the Master and setting up our hatred for him as being the (wo)man who corrupted the Doctor.

But, let’s be fair. That’s not what you’re doing.

Ramblerambleramble.