Series 8, Episode 1 - Deep Breath
Much like previous regeneration episodes of the New Who, we spend most of the time seeing the doctor getting his head around who he is now. He spends much of the first half of the episode being confused and forgetful. At the same time Clara spends the first half of the episode not knowing how to handle The Doctor's change to an older form.
We touch again on the theme of Companion abandonment, both physical and emotional, as Clara comes to terms with The Doctor's wholesale change and later when he runs off, gets a taste of that "what now" feeling we've seen companions deal with before.
It's made clear fairly early on that there will be no hanky-panky with this Doctor, leading to the final scene in which he makes it emphatically clear that he is not Clara's boyfriend. Early on, Vastra lays it down wonderfully, putting Clara, and by proxy certain segments of the audience, in their place.
For all her protestations, much of Clara's issue with The Doctor's regeneration does seem to relate to physical looks, so that whole scene is quite gratifying in many ways. On the other hand, Clara's implication that she's into older blokes could be a worrying indication that we've not seen the end of Hunka Hunka Burning Doc.
But how could he possibly have adventures in space and time when he's so... grey?
Bringing the Clockwork Men back was an odd choice and I'm not sure how I feel about it. I always thought more could have been done with them, but this felt a bit ham-fisted. Why did they need to be from a sister ship? In The Girl In The Fireplace it was established that it was the destruction of the mission computer that caused the maintenance droids to start cannibalising the crew. Are we to believe this happened twice? I'd have rather seen this as the same group of droids that had all come through a time window and become trapped. I'd hesitate to file this under Needlessly Recurring Monsters as this was only their second outing, but they were clumsily brought back, which is a characteristic of that particular problem.
Sure, I could have harvested a whole face, but where's the fun in that?
Don't look at me. I'm irrelevant.
This episode went to great lengths to show the parallels between The Doctor with his multiple regenerations and the Clockwork Man with the constant replacing of its own parts. The broom analogy was a good one, which coincidentally I had seen used only recently as I read Terry Pratchett's I Shall Wear Midnight. I'm not sure if the silver tray scene was taking this too far or not. I think I liked it though. I do worry that this "who am I" business will become a sub-plot that takes up too much of this season.
There are a few choice In-Who-Endos between Vastra and Jenny, but nothing excessively crude. I even chuckled at a few points. Sadly, by involving Clara in these, Vastra and Jenny's relationship is somehow marginalised. The cool thing about Vastra and Jenny's relationship was not that is was a cross-species same-sex one, but that it was seemingly strongly monogamous. By showing that Vastra is into other girls too, really ruins what was a lovely duo.
There are a few choice In-Who-Endos between Vastra and Jenny, but nothing excessively crude. I even chuckled at a few points. Sadly, by involving Clara in these, Vastra and Jenny's relationship is somehow marginalised. The cool thing about Vastra and Jenny's relationship was not that is was a cross-species same-sex one, but that it was seemingly strongly monogamous. By showing that Vastra is into other girls too, really ruins what was a lovely duo.
Please ignore my wife and get nekkid.
And finally The Doctor thinks to ask the question he should have done in The Bells of Saint John. Who gave Clara his number? This really is all the tease for the season arc that we need. Unfortunately that's not spoon-feeding us enough, so they elected to have an entire epilogue scene introducing Missy, the Gatekeeper of the Nethersphere. In a far more tragic turn of events, she refers to The Doctor as her boyfriend. Goddamnit!
A couple of other minor concerns, I noticed The Doctor said "that's not the question" a couple of times. I'm not sure if that's just a one-off for this episode, or if it will become his Annoying Catchphrase. If it does, it's not as bad as it could be, although I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it used a few more times. There was also a touch of Deus Ex Screwdriver with the revelation the sonic is voice activated now.
And I just need to take a second to comment on the new opening credits. Do. Not. Like. There's a hint of something interesting there, but all the cogs and clocks is just a bit too clichéd for me. There's nothing wrong with the good old time vortex with flying names. It's a classic for a reason.
As nice as it was to see Capaldi take on the mantle of The Doctor (and I think he did it well), this episode was just too riddled with issues to score particularly highly from me.
6/10
Can we fix it?
First up, some easy fixes. We dial back the innuendos from Vastra and Jenny a bit, and remove any hint that Vastra is hot for Clara. There's enough comedy in this episode without it. Also, completely remove the final scene with Missy. It was unnecessary and the episode was already significantly over time.
I've already alluded to some of the changes I'd make to the whole Clockwork Men thing. Replace the reference to them being from a sister ship of the SS Madame De Pompadour. It didn't help The Doctor to learn this, and was only there to explain their reappearance to the audience. I'd make them from the same ship, but they got caught outside a time window (or even halfway through) when The Doctor shut things down. This would mean they were hanging around, not for thousands of years, but only a century or so. Enough time to wear out and begin the process of replacing their own systems with human parts, but still retain some clockwork.
Their origin could be revealed during The Doctor's dialogue with the Control Node, removing the need for the naming of any ships. If it was scripted well enough, things could be relatively obscure, whilst at the same time making the audience aware of the link to the previous episode.
"We were seeking replacement parts to repair damage to our ship. Our time windows were destroyed, but our ship still awaits us. We determined to wait."
It makes little sense for the clockwork robots to harvest human parts to make anything when they are trapped in a resource-rich environment. It worked when they were trapped in space, but on Earth in any timeframe they would have access to raw materials they could fashion parts out of. By highlighting that they are attempting to remain hidden until such a time as they can return to their ship, they sort of justify this behaviour again.
This would also mean the Control Node would have to have a whole face. If he absolutely needed to have half a face to show his mechanical nature, he should have a reason for that such as damage to the skin, as well as try to conceal it. To this end, I'd have his first on-screen victim be shown to claw at his face tearing some of the skin off. After that he would be seen wearing a Phantom of the Opera style half mask, which would harken back to the original appearance in Season 2.
With some further explanation from the Control Node about how over time they found their systems began failing. They originally manufactured mechanical replacements but started using human parts in order to blend in. Stories had begun to circulate amongst the lower classes about murderous and ghoulish nobles who would steal your flesh and couldn't be killed. At this point they fled France, but it didn't stop the revolutionaries cutting the heads off of a lot of nobles. But the human bits have a short lifespan, and need more regular replacement., leading to the harvest restaurant.
Everything else could play out the same way, even the flying escape pod and the cheesy impalement on Big Ben.
Honestly though, these guys better not show up again. They are supposed to be unique enough to make The Doctor geek out over them. Let's keep them that way.
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