Season 8, Episode 5 - Time Heist
Wow! This episode was just spot on for me. It really highlights the way Doctor Who can remain solidly rooted in science fiction, whilst at the same time playing off other genres and tropes. This episode uses the classic heist movie formula in the tradition of Ocean's 11, Sneakers or the Australian classic Malcolm.
Things start off quickly, with The Doctor and Clara (and us of course) thrown in the deep end along with a pair of specialists. The memory wipe is a great way of bypassing the discovery phase and getting straight into the action. Sadly I think it went some way to telegraphing the identity of The Architect for me. Not that it really mattered all that much.
On that note, I understand they were setting up The Doctor figuring out who The Architect is, but it just seemed out of place to hear him come out with "I hate him," with no real motivation behind it. The Architect hadn't done anything specific to harm The Doctor or anyone else. They all heard themselves willingly submit to the memory wipe. It was just out of place.
The entire caper was very enjoyable, playing out with perfect pacing, and despite the quick start, didn't suffer from Go, go, go, Geronimo!, most likely because it didn't waste time with the set-up. The only element to the plan that seemed a bit strange was the "exit strategy". I'm unclear how Psi and Saibra managed to return to the planet and insinuate themselves into the guard staff when the place was in lockdown. The thing is, the quality of the rest of the episode allowed me to suspend disbelief at that point.
They teleported directly into the guards' locker room
The Teller was a nicely creepy monster, very alien and clearly threatening. The whole "soup" thing was really cool, and looked creepy enough. I'm not sure detecting random guilt is particularly foolproof when the punishment is encephalous liquification. There's no real room for appeal after that. The flaw in that method was already highlighted nicely in the Red Dwarf episode Justice. That said, it's their bank, and they can police it as harshly as they want, I suppose.
The prison orange jumpsuit and restraints really clinch the look
The budding Clara / Danny relationship took up very little of the episode, but disappointingly, despite all his apparent confusion at Clara's primping at the start, The Doctor ends the episode with the very jealous sounding line of, "beat that for a date." We are confusing the situation again here. If the sentiment is "Why would you go on a date when you can do this?" then I get it, but this phrasing makes it sound like, "I'm better than him, so you should love me."
All up, this was my favourite episode of the season so far. Solid, entertaining, and oh so cool-looking. I think we have our first perfect score for the new Doctor.
10/10
Can we fix it?
Not much to fix here. Maybe a slight tweak to the way The Doctor gets on to his "hating" The Architect. If we heard more of the reasoning The Doctor comes out with at the end spouted earlier on, his hatred may have seemed more natural.
Other than that, I'd just tweak his wording of the whole Date line to, "Robbing a whole bank! That beats any date," or something along those lines.
Those are just me being picky though. It really is a top episode.
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