Review - Flatline

Clara takes a turn at being The Doctor, investigating some extra-dimensional creatures in Flatline.

Season 8, Episode 9 - Flatline

In the cold open we see a terrified man trying to report to the police some knowledge of who is behind some unspoken plot. He claims whomever "did it" is everywhere, before promptly vanishing. As the person on the other end of the phone line keeps trying to talk to him, we see he appears to have been sucked into the wall and stretched out of all proportion.

We join the TARDIS crew just after another jaunt through time and space, as Clara is set to be dropped off in London in time to meet a still unsuspecting Danny Pink. Unfortunately due to some external force, the TARDIS gets stuck in Bristol. Quite apart from that, it begins to shrink as the unknown force begins leeching dimensional energy from it.

BBC budget cuts take a disturbing turn.

Naturally The Doctor gets stuck inside, leaving Clara to investigate what's going on. This leads her to a community service maintenance team who are painting over graffiti. Local graffiti artist Rigsy fills Clara in on a recent spate of disappearances, including that of his aunt. All of the vanished people have been painted on the walls of a pedestrian underpass by an unknown artist.

Clara has fun teasing The Doctor by pretending to be him, but pretty soon things take a serious turn when a Police Officer vanishes from the next room by being sucked into the floor. All that is left when Clara and Rigsy arrive is a tree-like pattern on the wall. The Doctor quickly identifies it as a human nervous system, and the creatures attack again.

Clara and Rigsy manage to escape as Clara takes a call from Danny. A call that sounded highly suspect from his end. Not sure if I'm being a bit sensitive to In-Who-Endos here, but that seemed crafted to sound sexual. Danny was pretty cool about it though, almost as if he already suspects Clara is still hanging out with The Doctor.

Eventually we end up back at the underpass where the mural of the victims comes to life and menaces the community service work crew, sending them fleeing into the rail tunnels. Working through Clara, The Doctor tries to communicate with the entities, believing (or maybe hoping) that they aren't malicious, but jut misguided. It was nice to see him take this angle, as it shows he is still compassionate and understanding, even if he is curmudgeonly.

Obviously he is wrong, because the creatures continue to attack, and eventually take on Three-Dimensional human forms. That's where this episode loses it a bit. In their Two-Dimensional form, they are much scarier and far more threatening than when they take on human form and become yet another lot of shambling zombies. If it wasn't for the fact that their victims had already managed to get trapped down a network of tunnels with one exit, they would be easily escapable, despite their ability to remove the third dimension from things.

"Advance slowly and act menacing."

They do continue to leech power from the TARDIS though, which eventually takes The Doctor out of the equation altogether. This leaves Clara to come up with a plan to help get The Doctor back all on her own. Naturally this involves using the special skills of Rigsy to help turn the monsters' power against them. The Doctor is then able to banish what he suddenly decides to call the Boneless to their own dimension, warning them not to return.

After everything wraps up, we are subjected to yet another clumsily added season arc teaser with Missy. At least this one was appended rather than breaking the action to cram it in.

The pacing of this episode is good, managing to hit all of the major stages I outlined in Go, go, go, Geronimo! without feeling rushed. Keeping The Doctor trapped in the TARDIS was an interesting way to do a Doctor-Light episode. Shrinking the exterior of the TARDIS also allowed us this little moment:

Creepy and kooky. Mysterious and spooky.

I liked the evolution we see in Clara here. With The Doctor absent, Clara became him in many ways. All Companions are changed during their time with The Doctor, but to see one start to so closely resemble The Doctor without somehow absorbing part of him like Donna did, is a fun experience. Is Clara becoming more selfish, arrogant and cocky because of her time with The Doctor, or was she always like that, and being around someone who is the same way has simply allowed those traits to flourish?

Anyway, overall this was a fun episode only slightly hampered by what I see as a lessening of the monster when they became 3D.

8/10

Can we fix it?

Not really much needs doing here, so I'll concentrate on trying to fix the shambling zombie version of the 3D Boneless without a total re-write of the final act. I think the best way to achieve this is maybe just alter the way they behave, which will not only make it seem a bit more realistic, but also provide a gradual ramp-up of their threat level.

So when the Boneless are 2D, they move around freely as indistinct blobs slithering over surfaces and flattening out objects. Their first attempt to take human form is when the mural comes to life. Here we see fairly smooth movement along the 2D plane. As they become 3D though, they need to act more like babies learning to walk, stumbling and moving clumsily, rather than shambling like zombies. They dip into 3D and jerk about trying to work out how to get around in this new dimension before falling back to what they know and sliding along surfaces again.

In the early stages, this will allow the group to escape them by, for example, swinging across a gap on a chain or even just jumping over, much like Clara and Rigsy escaped on the convenient suspended chair. This forces the Boneless to take a long way around, because being unable to move through the third dimension, even a tiny crack is a huge obstacle.

This trick could ultimately be what forces them to move fully into the third dimension. The group think they're safe on the other side of a gap, when one of the Boneless pulls itself out of the floor or wall and unsteadily steps across. The Boneless' proficiency in the third dimension increases as the chase continues, and they spend less time stumbling back into 2D, and move more smoothly. They eventually start exhibiting the ability to project their dimensional power, rather than needing to touch or crawl over something to flatten it. This shows them rapidly learning how this new dimension works, and stops them from being just another shambling monster.

Everything else in this episode is okay, although I probably would have made sure it didn't sound like Clara was having some bedroom fun when Danny called her during the attack scene.

Review - Hell Bent

After forcing his way out of his Confession Dial, The Doctor takes on Gallifrey, Hell Bent on saving Clara.

Season 9, Episode 12 - Hell Bent

We start this episode with The Doctor entering the diner from The Impossible Astronaut. There he meets a waitress who looks like Clara, and begins telling her a story.

The story follows directly on from the events of Heaven Sent, with The Doctor finding his way back to the barn of his childhood first seen in Day of the Doctor and revisited again in Listen. Here he is treated as a returning hero, a fact that only makes the Timelord High Council even more nervous. After refusing several personal visits of increasing importance, he eventually receives Rassilon himself. 

Even negotiations

The Doctor is in no mood to parley though, and he immediately orders Rassilon off "his planet." Rassilon responds by ordering his soldiers to fire on The Doctor. The do, but every one of them elects to miss. This is shortly followed by a mass desertion. Rassilon makes to finish the job with his gauntlet, but is stopped by The General. Cut to a shuttle leaving the planet. 

The Timelords still want to know about the Hybrid though, and The Doctor convinces them they need to speak to Clara about it. Using some Timelord jiggery-pokery, they extract Clara from her final moments in order to find out what she knows, her body time looped in its final heartbeat. 

Of course it's all a ruse so that The Doctor can save Clara. They run. The Doctor is manic, and you can see he doesn't fully believe what he's attempting will work. But being The Doctor, he tries it anyway. Eventually stealing another TARDIS, he pushes to the end of the universe, trying to break Clara out of the time loop. When they arrive, he finds Ashieldr waiting. She's managed to out live the universe. 

She doesn't look a day over a billion

We get treated to some banter about the nature of the Hybrid, with theories flung back and forth. Whilst Ashieldr's theory is supposed to be the one we believe, there is still enough wiggle room to bring something else into play. Perhaps for Christmas. We know River will make an appearance, and she's pretty much a Human/Timelord hybrid. It'd be fun if my bit about Missy came to pass though. Half Timelord, half Cyberman fits the prophesy too.

The Doctor also reveals he plans to use a neuro blocker to erase Clara's memories of him, in much the same way hid did with Donna Noble. After finding this out, Clara forbids it, saying her past is hers, and he has no right to rob her of it. With Clara having supposedly sabotaged the neuro blocker, they both decide to use it, with one of them sure to forget the other.

For a change it is The Doctor who is left abandoned, waking up in the Nevada desert. Eventually it is revealed that the Diner itself is the TARDIS they just stole from Gallifrey, and Clara and Ashieldr set off to return Clara to Gallifrey so that she can die as destined. Of course, Clara notes that because she is not aging at all, they can go "the long way round".

The Doctor returns to his TARDIS, where he receives one final message from Clara, along with his new Sonic Screwdriver. Thank the Gods, we have seen the last of those bloody sunglasses.

Victory!

All up this was a solid episode that tied everything together without trying too hard. My major issue was that nothing much actually seemed to happen. Much of the episode consisted of The Doctor telling Clara stuff. Or more accurately, The Doctor telling Clara about telling Clara stuff. It was a shame Timothy Dalton couldn't reprise the role of Rassilon. It took me a bit to realise he actually was Rassilon, and not some other Lord President. And now we've had an actual on-screen gender-swapping regeneration. I hope this keeps people satisfied for a while and they stop demanding it of The Doctor.

The whole bit in the Cloisters with random Daleks, Cybermen, and freaking Weeping Angels was a bit ripe. Had the whiff of Too many monsters, that did, especially as they'd just introduced a fairly interesting new Monster in the Sliders, which got rather overshadowed by these cameos. The Matrix is an interesting thing though, an it is clear that this was the technology Missy was using to create the Nethersphere in the Season 8 finale, and that would tie in nicely with my little idea for the Rani too.

Having Clara effectively still "at large" did, as I predicted, somewhat diminish her departure in Face the Raven. That said, how could you not get caught up in thinking about what her and Ashieldr could get up to in a TARDIS?

Not exactly perfection, but not a weak way to go out either.

8/10

Can we fix it?

Not a huge amount to do here, but first up, I'd dump all the additional monsters from the Cloisters. They added nothing but a few poor jump scares. The Sliders themselves are creepy enough, and could provide enough tension as the pair traversed the Cloisters.

I'm really not sure what to do about the big background dumps The Doctor has in this episode though. They are undoubtedly important, but just hearing The Doctor tell Clara stuff isn't exactly story telling at its best.

Review - Face The Raven

An old psudo-companion returns with some deadly new ink, and Clara's devil-may-care attitude finally catches up with her as she has to Face The Raven.

Season 9, episode 10 - Face The Raven

We jump into this episode at the end of an adventure, with Clara clearly having saved The Doctor in some kind of risky manner. The Doctor appears reluctantly impressed. This little moment is shattered as the TARDIS phone rings. Clara answers to hear Rigsy, last seen in Flatline, who claims to have woken up with a strange tattoo. A tattoo which is counting down.

The Doctor and Clara arrive to check things out, learning that not only does Rigsy have a baby, but he has lost the last 24 hours. His phone has been wiped, but it's screen has been cracked. The Doctor tries his best to be nice about it, but Rigsy is going to die. 

But at least he'll look fly doing it.

Despite initially seeming defeated, The Doctor does love a challenge, and the group set off to find a hidden street harbouring aliens. This naturally involves Clara leaning out of the TARDIS as it flies over London, scanning things with the Sonic Sunglasses. Before this turns into another case of Deus Ex Screwdriver, the team then have to wander around the target area counting and looking for areas where their concentration wavers. This is said to indicate the entrance to Diagon Alley. I mean the "trap street". 

After a bit of this wandering, Rigsy has a flashback to dropping his phone after seeing a body on the ground. This flashback has somehow broken the misdirection system that was disguising the entrance, and he is able to guide Clara and The Doctor in as well. 

Once inside, they discover the area is a refugee camp for asylum seeking aliens. The mayor of the camp is none other than Ashieldr, who has once again forgotten her name. It turns out she is responsible for marking Rigsy for death using a Chronolock which guides a Quantum Shade to the victim. When asked why, she reveals he killed one of the aliens sheltering in the street. 

After witnessing another alien killed by the Shade, which looks like the titular raven, Clara learns that the Chronolock can be passed on if willingly accepted by another. She convinces Rigsy to give the Chronolock to her in a bid to buy more time. Meanwhile, The Doctor discovers Rigsy had asked to call him when he was caught. Knowing Ashieldr must have ignored this plea, The Doctor becomes suspicious that she was using Rigsy to deliberately lure him there. Clara then realises that the only denizen of the street who isn't treating Rigsy as guilty is the child of the murdered Janus.

Clara's kid-wrangling comes into play again as she determines the Janus child isn't a male, but is in fact a female, and therefore has the power to see into past and future. Despite this she is unable to determine all of Ashieldr's motivation, because it involves The Doctor, who's own timeline is convoluted, to say the least. 

All this leads the team back to the murdered Janus' body, which is being kept in stasis. The Doctor realises she is alive, but the machine can only be switched off using his TARDIS key. With time running out, The Doctor does what is needed. The Janus is released, but not only does the machine take his key, it also locks a teleport bracelet on The Doctor's wrist. Ashieldr explains that in true Lando Calrissian fashion, she has brokered a deal to keep the street safe in exchange for The Doctor. Taking the key was simply a way of keeping him wherever he is to be sent. 

Ashieldr moves to remove the Chronolock from Rigsy, but is horrified to learn he has given it to Clara. On her recklessness, Clara failed to realise that transfer was one way, and removed any right of revocation Ashieldr had.

Not sure if dying, or curing the Warden's wife.

The episode them runs through an extended farewell ending in Clara's inevitable death. Ashieldr is genuinely remorseful that things turned out this way, but The Doctor is pissed, and throws out a pretty heavy threat before being teleported away to who knows where. 

In a nice little postscript, we see Rigsy finishing up a mural to Clara on the abandoned TARDIS.

This was quite a tidy little mystery episode. The investigation period was maybe a little rushed, but that's because they had two mysteries to solve. A lot of time was taken up with Clara's farewell, so both finding the street and clearing Rigsy needed to be quick processes. Of course the whole point is they are operating to a literal deadline, so although it was a little bit go, go, go, Geronimo, it didn't feel out of place. 

Clara managed to again hit that pet peeve of mine by dropping another reference to an ongoing lesbian relationship with Jane Austin. When will the In-Who-Endos stop? While we're on pet peeves, the denizens of the street were mostly generic aliens, but some were a bit out of place. I mean, how was there a Cyberman living there peacefully? That makes no sense, and has the whiff of Needlessly recurring monsters about it.

Ultimately, this is a solid companion farewell episode, with all the usual tearful goodbyes. If it somehow remains Clara's farewell and for the rest of the season she only appears in flashbacks or as a Zygon double or even more of her time-stream duplicates, that would be a great way of surprising us. We kind of expect companions to go in finales, and although Amy and Rory technically went mid-season, it was a split season, so it equates to the same thing, so doing something different would be great. 

That said, I have no doubt that Clara will somehow survive or be brought back. Either way, having this farewell only to have her appear in subsequent episodes in any capacity significantly lessens the impact of her farewell. 

But, putting aside the potential impact of future episodes, this one is quite enjoyable. 

8/10

Can we fix it?

Not too much wrong here. The pacing could do with a bit of a tweak though. The bit of investigation where they were trying to solve the actual mystery and clear Rigsy seemed a good length, but finding the street itself did feel a bit rushed, and Clara's farewell seemed overly drawn out. I'm not sure if it would ultimately be the right thing, but trimming her farewell scene in order to make the finding of the street itself less hectic would be an interesting experiment at least.

Extending this period a bit runs the risk of going through a bit of a boring patch, but as long as we spice it up with some tense or funny moments, it should tick along nicely. I'd like to see a bit of Monster Vision from the Quantum Shade here. If it kinda stalked the victim waiting for the time to run out, it'd be creepier than just chilling in it's cage. We could also get full shots of it in the background etc, and it could go relatively unnoticed.

Some comedy could break it up too. For example, Rigsy could get increasingly frustrated, loses count due to his frustration, and then run into a wall thinking he's found the entrance. Hilarity ensues.

The other side of this is a reduced farewell from Clara, which could be seen as a bit of a rip off for her character. That said, Amy and Rory didn't get farewells. Their sudden absence is part of what gave their departure so much impact. Of course, as I'm like 99% sure Clara will return somehow, I don't think we'd be robbing her of anything to trim that scene a smidge.

Also, nix the Jane Austin gag. It was barely funny the first time, so dragging it out is just poor.

Review - Sleep No More

Giant blobs of eye-crusties terrorise an orbital base in the very interestingly shot Sleep No More.

Season 9, Episode 9 - Sleep No More

The episode opens with Professor Rassmussen telling us not to watch the following video, which he has pieced together from CCTV footage and the helmet cams of the soldiers. I'm not sure why they elected to eschew the standard opening credits in favour of the matrix-style green code with the words "Doctor Who" highlighted. The episode only ran 45 minutes, so it certainly wasn't a time issue. I really did miss them though. Anyway...

Rassmussen introduces the rescue team that have been sent to investigate why the base has fallen silent. They hit the usual tropes; the leader, the hot-head, the clown and the muscle. The team explore the seemingly deserted base, eventually running across The Doctor and Clara. Before long the group is attacked by monsters composed entirely of sand. 

The team gets separated from one of their members and takes shelter in a room filled with Morpheus sleep pods. After Clara is dragged into one of the pods and needs to be freed by The Doctor, The team tells them all about the pods and how they replace the need for sleep. 

464 the clone discovers another occupied pod, inside of which is Rassmussen. After he explains how Morpheus works, The Doctor guesses that the Sandmen are made up of the "sleep dust" that builds up in the corners of your eyes when you sleep. I'll just keep suspending my disbelief because that's not really making a lot of sense just yet.  

Meanwhile, Deep-Ando, the team-member who got separated from the rest, is running from Sandmen. Suddenly he has some trouble with a door computer which claims to have been reprogrammed so that users have to sing Mr Sandman to operate it. Unfortunately for Deep-Ando, the song seems to attract the Sandmen.

The Doctor got sick of this quicker than I did

After the base's gravity shields go down, the Sandmen attack again killing Rassmussen. The Doctor fixes the shields and takes shelter in a freezer along with Nagata and Clara while Chopra and 474 make a break for the ship. After becoming trapped between Sandmen and a wall of fire, 474 walls them both through the fire, burning himself severely. As Chopra bolts for the ship, 474 makes a classic sacrificial charge to buy him time. Not that it matters, because Chopra is killed as soon as he gets back to the ship.

I'm not sure what the point was of the little attraction thing Gatiss threw in between these two. It doesn't serve the story beyond a bit of cheap humour. Both of them die without either resolving the attraction or growing from it. And beyond all that, it doesn't really make sense to genetically engineer a soldier to be strong, stupid and retain sexual urges. That's pretty much a recipe for disaster. The majority of other fictional military forces that have been engineered to be perfect soldiers, from the Imperial Space Marines of Warhammer 40,000 to the Unsullied from Game of Thrones, are generally asexual. I would slot this in as an In-Who-Endo.

While all this is going on, The Doctor works out that a bunch of video transmissions are floating about which are seemingly from the soldier's helmet cams. Nagata points out that they aren't wearing helmet cams, and The Doctor confirms there's something dodgy happening by finding a live feed from Clara. The Morpheus machines have somehow reprogrammed people and turned them into the Sandmen.

As they return to the rescue team's ship, they find Rassmussen there, unharmed. He reveals he is helping the Sandmen escape the base and spread to Triton where they will be able to feed on the local populace. Rassmussen attempts to lock them in with a Sandman, but they escape, and Nagata does the sensible thing and shoots him, much to the disappointment of Cara and The Doctor. 

As the three of them pile into the TARDIS and escape, The Doctor shuts off the gravity shields, sending the base plummeting towards Neptune, presumable destroying the Sandmen.  However, in a little epilogue we see Rassmussen is not dead, and is finishing off his little video. It turns out the Sandman infection doesn't require physical contact, only an electrical signal. This signal has been woven throughout the video, ensuring all who watch it are now infected. He ends the video by crumbling to dust in a delightfully creepy way.

A season highlight

This was a nice little twist ending and it kind of leaves things open for the Sandmen to reappear at some point. Clearly The Doctor will work out how to remove the infection from Clara and Nagata, but while he's not around, infection could well spread quickly. It's also implied that the Sandmen are still evolving, so any subsequent appearances could see them more human-like. 

This was a solid episode with a fairly interesting if improbable monster. The episode was structured perfectly, going neatly through introduction, investigation, escalation and resolution. Pacing was spot on, which can be tough in a standalone episode, with a solid escalation of threat level and peaks and troughs in tension. I also enjoyed that the solution wasn't really anything The Doctor did. All he was able to do was contain the threat. Or at least he thought he did.

9/10

Can we fix it?

The only thing I'd do here is remove the completely out of place "Chopra pretty," from 474. It added nothing and just seemed forced in. 

Other than that, top notch. 

Review - The Zygon Inversion

The events of The Zygon Invasion come to a head in this story's quite brilliant conclusion, The Zygon Inversion.

Season 9, Episode 8 - The Zygon Inversion

After last week's missile-laden cliff-hanger, we pick up this week with Clara trapped in her own mind watching helplessly through the Zygon mind link as her duplicate, Bonnie, tries to shoot The Doctor's plane down. Of course, Clara is made of stronger stuff, and is able to hijack Bonnie's body through sheer force of will. Not only does this allow her to foil the initial missile attack, giving The Doctor and Osgood time to escape, but eventually she also manages to blind-text The Doctor.

As The Doctor and Osgood determine that Clara is still alive, Bonnie begins fostering conflict between the humans and the Zygons. To this end, she forces a Zygon to revert to his natural state in front of humans and uploads video of the event to the web. She then sets about trying to secure the Osgood Box which as we learned last episode, is the ultimate sanction should the Zygon treaty fail. Having learned from The Doctor that Clara knows where the box is kept, Bonnie uses their mental link to interrogate her. Despite Clara's best efforts at double-talking around the questions, Bonnie learns the box is in the Black Archive.

Bonnie threatens to kill Clara, but is warned that she will soon find out why it's called the Osgood Box, and will then want to talk to her again. Clara's pod is packed up and Bonnie trots off to the archive, but not before telling her freshly returned US counterpart, now disguised as Kate, to deal with The Doctor.

The Doctor and Osgood have meanwhile found the place Bonnie filmed her video. Here they discover the Zygon she reverted who is now terrified he has destroyed all hope of a peaceful life for Zygons on Earth. In a scene that reinforces the opening of the previous episode, we see a good and peaceful Zygon just wanting to live his life in his new home. Unable to live with what he may have done, the poor bloke elects to kill himself.

Kate catches up with The Doctor and Osgood, taking them to the Zygon base. When they get there they realise that Clara's pod has been removed. Kate's UNIT guards transform and advance menacingly only to be cut down by Kate, who turns out not to be a Zygon. She reveals she escaped by the excessively complicated method of blowing the attacking alien away with the gun she was shown to have on her earlier. Crazy, I know. At least she apologised to The Doctor for killing them.

It's not Sonic, but it gets the job done.

The real meat of this episode comes in the final act as Bonnie enters the Black Archive and finds not one, but two Osgood Boxes, each with two activation buttons. Turns out this is The Doctor's plan all along. The buttons of one box will either revert all Zygons on Earth to their natural forms, or make their human forms permanent. The other box will either release a Zygon-specific nerve gas, or detonate a nuclear warhead large enough to destroy England.

As both Bonnie and Kate struggle to decide which buttons to push, The Doctor tries to convince them not to push either. Capaldi delivers a fantastically impassioned speech, which could have been made directly to the heads of most terrorist organisations worldwide (and a few governments too) with barely a changed word. 

Of course it all works out in the end, and as a bonus twist, The Doctor reveals this isn't the first time this sort of thing has happened. Bonnie, now reformed of her radical ways, takes the place of the missing Osgood and the pair get on with the business of keeping Earth safe.

All whilst rocking some epic cosplay.

This one was pretty much a near perfect episode. I seem to recall one small In-Who-Endo at one point, but it obviously wasn't bad enough for me to remember what it was (EDIT: Oh that's right, it was the winking thing. Fairly harmless I suppose). The pacing was perfect, the resolution was wonderful, and it really gave Capaldi time to shine with a solid monologue to sink his teeth into. 

The one thing that didn't happen which I hoped would, was some kind of justification for changing the Zygon rules last episode. With a big room full of people in pods, it seems like there is no solid explanation about when they do or do not need to keep the humans alive. I really feel like this change was made so that we could be faked out about characters being dead when they weren't. Previously we would know they were still alive somewhere if there was a Zygon version of them.

Despite that, I'm ranking this one the best of the season, and definitely the best from Capaldi's run.

10/10

Can we fix it?

Nope. Nothing to fix here.

Review - The Zygon Invasion

The Doctor revisits the events of the 50th Anniversary Special as he and Clara team up with UNIT to deal with The Zygon Invasion.

Season 9, Episode 7 - The Zygon Invasion

We begin this episode with a little recap of The Day of the Doctor, confirming there were two Osgoods and showing us that The Doctor had a contingency should the Zygon colonisation ever go bad. It's apparently called the Osgood box. Then we catch up with Osgood desperately fleeing a Zygon and attempting to contact The Doctor. She is caught, but not before getting a message off. The Doctor receives the message in the TARDIS while he is yet again randomly jamming on his guitar. I'm going to go ahead and call that as his version of an annoying catchphrase.

This must be the only thing he does in his down time.

The Doctor goes out to find the Zygon High Command and find out what is going on. I tried to ignore the creepy undertones of an old man hanging out in a playground watching the kids before doggedly pursuing two young girls through the play equipment. Happily for The Doctor, so did every other adult human in sight. I suspect that scene would have ended very differently in real life. Before The Doctor can get any information from the Zygon girls, they are kidnapped by some other Zygons.

Meanwhile, Clara finds her neighbour's kid sitting in the stairs of her building. He says he can't find his parents. When Clara goes into his house to investigate, she is confronted by some creepy people who assure her everything is fine before forcing the struggling child into another room. All of this doesn't appear to phase Clara though, as next thing she is seen exiting the flat and tying her hair back. This struck me as a very deliberate act, and whilst my first thought was that it was a "things are about to get real," move, I now suspect it will become an identifying trait later in the story.

After finally calling The Doctor back, Clara meets him and Kate Stewart at UNIT HQ. There they are filled in with all the details of the Zygon situation. A splinter group of younger Zygons is discontent with remaining in hiding, and is demanding the truth of their nature is revealed. The whole thing plays out as a nice allegory of the whole Islamic State situation we have going on now, where disillusioned young people are being radicalised to the cause. The Doctor even warns that bombing the factional Zygons will only help to radicalise the rest of them.

After visiting the site of the Zygon High Command and some completely unnecessary In-Who-Endos around the way The Doctor operates the Zygon computer, this episode takes on a nice international feel. The Zygon threat is present across the world, with main plot points occurring in the UK (naturally) as well as the US and a fictional Middle Eastern country called Turmezistan. The group divide their efforts amongst these countries, with Kate going to the bizarrely named town of Truth or Consequences in New Mexico, The Doctor leading the UNIT strike team in Turmezistan, and Clara staying behind in England.

These multiple fronts allow each character to shine nicely. It was particularly fun to see Kate out in the field. She certainly seemed capable as a field agent, as befits the daughter of the great Brigadier. She meets a beleaguered town Sheriff in the now deserted Truth or Consequences who reveals some info on the Zygon uprising there. 

Not just a bureaucrat.

Meanwhile, The Doctor manages to stop UNIT from bombing the Zygon compound in Turmezistan, but during a ground operation the Zygons manage to fool the UNIT frontal assault team and wipe out the lot. The Doctor finds the captured Osgood at the last minute, and manages to capture a Zygon prisoner to boot.

Everything is looking good until we figure out that Clara is a Zygon, and the British contingent have captured and replaced a large portion of the population. Not only that, but the sheriff that Kate has met in the US is also revealed to be a Zygon double, and attacks. Zygon Clara speaks to The Doctor on the phone and reveals Clara and Kate are supposedly dead. Then she shoots a missile at his plane and we get a face full of "to be continued."

"Say hello to my little cliff-hanger!"

This was a top notch episode, only mildly tarnished by a tasteless joke near the start. Despite my early fears that moving to glasses form seemed to have yet again upped the power lever, they have avoided hitting the Deus Ex Screwdriver thing and only used them for opening locks.

The same can't be said for the Zygons though. They've only appeared once before since the reboot, but somehow they're already suffering from power-creep. Osgood even mentioned their previous restrictions as "the old rules." I've said before, if an established monster needs changing to stay scary or whatever, maybe reconsider using it.

In this case it could just be that this was changed to keep things mysterious around which Osgood still exists, or make it more believable that Kate and Clara could be dead. If so, there are better ways of going about it. More likely it was an excuse to make another Hybrid reference. I kind of respect that they are trying to keep the nature of the Hybrid obscure, but this is starting to look clumsy. 

Anyway, this was enjoyable, and I really am loving the large crop of double-parters we have this season. It really gives the story room to breathe and helps avoid the issue of Go, go, go, Geronimo! I look forward to the next part.

9/10

Can we fix it?

First and foremost, drop the sex jokes in the Zygon HQ. They were just too much of a jump at that point considering things are quite serious until then. If we absolutely need something light-hearted there, cut the joke in half. 

"Should we give you some privacy?"
"This is a bio-organic interface. This is how it works."

That's it. The follow-up joke about him enjoying it is unnecessary and dragged it out too far. The word "titillating" was chosen for The Doctor's response even though "stimulating" is almost as suggestive with the bonus of being more appropriate. The fact they went with the slightly more obscure term speaks volumes here.

I was going to offer a solution to what I see as an unnecessary change to the Zygon canon by tweaking the "new rules" scene with Osgood. On reflection though, I'd rather wait until part 2 to see where they are taking it before going down that path. 

It could all turn out to be a fake-out and Osgood is another Zygon decoy made from the surviving Osgood who is the human Osgood who is being kept somewhere like Clara is, and she spun all that to The Doctor to lead him astray. 

Anything is possible.

Review - The Girl Who Died

The Doctor and Clara set out to save a village of historically inaccurate Vikings in the first instalment of yet another Season 9 two-parter, The Girl Who Died.

Season 9, Episode 5 - The Girl Who Died

We open with The Doctor and Clara mid adventure TARDIS materialising in some kind of wooded grove, with The Doctor and Clara milling about outside. Soon they are surprised and captured by a band of Vikings. You can tell they are Vikings because of their ridiculous horned helmets. Making up for this little historical faux pas, however, is a glorious scene wherein The Doctor tries to threaten a Viking warrior with his Sonic Sunglasses, only to have them removed from his face and snapped in half.

Yesssssssssss!

I honestly couldn't have been happier with how that played out. I've been saying for a while now that these things needed smashing, and here it was happening before my very eyes. Wonderful.

After what we learn is a two-day longboat ride, The Doctor and Clara are brought in chains to the Viking village. The Doctor does his best to trick the Vikings into letting them go by pretending to be Odin, only to be slightly upstaged by what appears to be the real thing. The face of Odin appears in the sky looking for all the world like God in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and sets about taking the most powerful warriors to Valhalla.

Clara harnesses her oft-used kid charming skills to get young Viking girl Ashildr to use the apparently still functional remaining half of the Sonic Sunglasses to remove her chains. Unfortunately the resulting display of high technology marks them as powerful enough to warrant being transported along with the warriors.

Clara and Ashieldr barely escape as the warriors are harvested for their adrenalin and testosterone, which the fake Odin drinks as he explains his evil plan. Clara again does her Doctor impression, attempting to talk their way out of the situation and force the aliens into retreat. It all seems to be going well until Ashieldr eggs Odin on and declares war on him. He vows to return the next day with ten of his best Mire warriors and raze the town.

Upon their return, The Doctor tries to convince the Vikings to run, but for some reason they claim they can't do that. I think this was all about honour and dying well or something, but it all seemed a bit weak to me. The Doctor makes to leave, but Clara encourages him to stay and help the villagers train for the battle.

Pictured: Training

After a brief comedy training montage, The Doctor figures out a plan to take Odin and his warriors out without simultaneously making Earth a target for the rest of the Mire. Using materials from around the village, along with parts from Clara's space suit and the a recent catch of electric eels, The Doctor steals one of the warrior's helmets and reprograms it to allow Ashieldr to project an altered reality into the video feeds of the remaining Mire warriors. Seeing a giant dragon attack is enough force a retreat, leaving Odin standing alone.

The Doctor explains the dragon was merely an altered video feed, and they now have video of Odin's men running in fear from a bundle of garbage, and unless he wants the humiliation of that video appearing on space YouTube, he will leave and never return. The joy of victory is short lived as we learn Ashieldr has died providing the illusion of the dragon. The Doctor is upset and stalks off, but soon has a revelation that encourages him to find a way to save the girl.

By hijacking a piece of Mire tech, The Doctor jump-starts Ashieldr's body into repairing itself. He also leaves her with another chip to give to whomever she chooses. We find out this is because The Doctor suspects his actions have made her functionally immortal. The episode ends with a quite beautiful shot of Ashielder smiling as time wheels past, but as it goes on, she clearly becomes bitter and disillusioned.

I'm expecting a list of names here.

The overall pacing of the episode was good, and although we are left with a "To be continued," this really feels like a standalone episode. The "next time" footage doesn't really seem connected enough for me to consider it a single story, but as as The Doctor himself said, "Time will tell."

I honestly don't have any real issues with this one. It was great to see The Doctor doing some real work to achieve a solution here. The absence of TARDIS and Sonic always makes for a more entertaining episode. Speaking of which, smashing the sunglasses was a joy to behold. I'm hoping they stay smashed.

Maisie Williams was great, and I'd love for her to become a recurring character in some way. We've seen a fairly clumsy connection to the prophesy of the Hybrid that Davros mentioned in the season opener, but could she also be the Minister of War mentioned in Before The Flood? Either way, she's a good contender for the season arc.

This was not quite what I'd call a perfect episode, but it was damn close.

9/10

Can we fix it?

Not a lot to fix here. Some costume changes to the Viking warriors to make them a bit more historically accurate and therefore allow more easy suspension of disbelief would be nice. I also feel like I want to suggest cutting back on some of the comic relief during the training montage, but ultimately I think that helps break the story up a bit.

I'm not sure how the next episode will connect with this one, but it feels complete enough to me for them to not have the "to be continued" at the end. Ashieldr can still turn up in a subsequent episode without it being the same story. Depending on how the rest of the season pans out, they could even be spaced out a little rather than back to back. I'll reserve final judgement on that for later though.

Review - Before The Flood

We travel back to 1980 to figure out what happened Before The Flood to create the homicidal ghosts from Under The Lake in what turns out to be a rather bland conclusion to this two-parter.

Season 9, Episode 4 - Before The Flood

After a cold open in which The Doctor explains the bootstrap paradox (he tells us to Google it), we pick up where last episode left off, with The Doctor, O'Donnell and Bennett appearing in the soon to be submerged town in 1980. The town has been done up to look like a part of the soviet republic, which, The Doctor explains, is because it's a training facility for the army at the height of the Cold War.

They soon discover the alien craft they had salvaged in the future, and The Doctor quickly identifies it as a kind of space hearse. Our top hatted Tivolian turns out to be the undertaker charged with burying a creature called The Fisher King in the traditional manner of taking him to a remote backwater (i.e. Earth). After a couple of truly cringeworthy S&M In-Who-Endos, the team figure out Prentis the undertaker knows nothing about the killer message, and The Doctor returns to the TARDIS to call Clara.

"I like being enslaved. Get it?"

After learning about the new ghost that's appeared outside the Drum, The Doctor admits that his fate is already sealed, but sets about trying to solve the problem before his time runs out. He tries to talk to his ghost, but it just accesses a control panel and lets the other ghosts out of the Faraday Cage. In the face of this, The Doctor instructs Clara and the others to hide in the cage but leave her phone outside so that the cage doesn't cut off contact.  

While The Doctor it trying to puzzle everything out, we discover The Fisher King has risen from the slab and has carved the message in the side of the hearse. He then kills Prentis, thereby starting the chain of events already witnessed in Under The Lake.

The Fisher King chases The Doctor and his group, and manages to kill O'Donnell. Bennett chastises The Doctor for not saving her, pointing out the coldness that has become characteristic of Twelve. They try to return to the future, but the TARDIS simply loops back half an hour. The Doctor has to physically restrain Bennett from interfering in past events and altering the future.

Meanwhile, in the future (does that make sense?) the newly arrived ghost of O'Donnell steals Clara's phone, forcing her to figure out how to safely leave the Faraday Cage. She realises that Lunn was spared by the ghosts once before, and that is most likely because he hadn't seen the message in the ship. Class isn't happy about it, but he leaves to retrieve the phone. When he fails to return, Clara agrees to go with Cass to find him, despite the danger. 

What danger?

The Doctor confronts The Fisher King, getting a bit of banter back and forth, before tricking it into thinking he'd erased its message. It rushes outside to check, only for The Doctor's ploy to be revealed when the overloading power core taken from the ship detonates, bringing the dam wall down and flooding the town. Presumably the Fisher King is killed in the flood.

As the ghosts close in on the survivors back in the future, the stasis pod opens, revealing it was The Doctor inside the whole time (which I had guessed would be the case last episode). The Doctor uses his ghost, which is actually a hologram, to trick the ghosts back into the Faraday Cage, and things wrap up nicely after that. The Doctor is even able to use his fantasmagorical new Sonic Sunglasses to erase the memory of the message from the minds of the survivors, in a delightful bit of Deus Ex Screwdriver. Or should that be Deus Ex Sunglasses?

Ultimately this is a rather disappointing end to what started off as a solid story. The pacing was really off, and it feels like a lot of nothing happens. Then just as the big bad shows up, he is completely wasted. Also, why is he called The Fisher King? There was absolutely no attempt at explaining that. Ordinarily I'm all for things being unexplained, but this was such a bizarre reference to leave hanging there that it just annoyed me.

We also see what could be the first obvious reference to a season arc, with mention made of "the Minister of War" as something The Doctor had yet to experience. I'd like to hope there will be other subtle references to the finale in previous episodes, but that they were so subtle I didn't pick up on them yet.

So, yeah. A disappointingly flat ending here. Definitely not a favourite.

6/10

Can we fix it?

I think the biggest fix that needs to be made here is just utilising the Fisher King himself more. A couple of off screen kills and a scene of dialogue with The Doctor just wasn't enough. The conversation between the two was great. I very much liked the King referring to the Timelords as "cowardly, vain curators who suddenly remembered they had teeth and became the most war-like race in the galaxy." But so much more could have been done with a physically menacing warrior alien.

I'd have liked to see more chases and close calls as he hunted the heroes down. Perhaps some of the banter we have in the one-on-one between The Doctor and the King could be thrown in here as he's trying to hunt them down.

By culling some of the slower scenes and beefing the tension of this bit up, the solution would have been all the more rewarding. It could also have been good to have Bennett be the one to set the charge by the dam wall, making him far less of a passenger in the final act, and perhaps giving him some sense of revenge for the lost O'Donnell.

Also, I would use a different name for The Fisher King. Unless the season arc turns out to have something to do with Arthurian Legend, it is totally out of place.

Review - Mummy on the Orient Express

The Doctor and Clara go for their "last hoora" with a relaxing train ride that turns out to be less relaxing than planned in Mummy on the Orient Express.

Season 8, Episode 8 - Mummy on the Orient Express

The cold open shows us everything we need to know for the premise of this episode. A woman is killed by a monster only she can see, and this is happening on a train, which for some reason is in space. The on screen timer is a neat little device and clues us in to the time limit before The Doctor has it explained later on.

After the tense ending to Kill the Moon, Clara has resolved to end her adventuring with one more little jaunt to space. The whole dynamic is that of a couple who know the relationship is dying but are desperately trying to end on good terms. Uncomfortable and slightly melancholy.

The episode plays out at a good pace with hints and clues nicely woven into the dialogue, rather than ham-fistedly slapped in just as they're needed. Moments of character development between The Doctor and Clara are well balanced with the more tense investigation and action during attacks by the Foretold. As the attacks increase in frequency, the tension rises and things come to a head nicely.

The Foretold itself was creepy, even if it was yet another "advance slowly and act menacing" type of monster. At least the 66.6 seconds rule kind of justified that and removed the whole, "why don't you just run away" thing.

"I'm much more spry than I look."

The Doctor maintains the detached alien nature we have seen throughout this season, which is a stress point in his relationship with Clara. He of course gets a chance to kind of explain himself at the end, but whilst he is still the same Doctor in that he wants to solve problems and save people, he seems to now have the ability to switch off. I can't really see Ten or Eleven methodically pumping a doomed person for information with out at least saying, "I'm so, so sorry."

I was disappointed to see yet another thing that can supposedly stop the Sonic Screwdriver. What is it this time? Some kind of "interference field," apparently. This is the main symptom of Deus Ex Screwdriver, and I'm not sure why they couldn't have stuck with one of the established weaknesses instead of making a new one. Hell, they could have said the shoe had cause some kind of issue that meant it would take time to open the lock. Time The Doctor didn't have, because he kinda got arrested.

Ultimately the solution comes about reasonably well, if a bit coincidentally. The fact that Perkins has something to do with it was nice, even if the rest of the scientists in the room seem nothing but window dressing. The Doctor shouldn't always be the only person to have any fun.

Frank Skinner as Perkins is a definite highlight in this episode, and helps to elevate it from merely satisfactory to very enjoyable. Any time The Doctor is challenged by someone is great fun. The offer of Companion status was actually quite exciting, as I could see Perkins' dry wit fitting into the TARDIS crew nicely. I hope to see him return at some point.

"Ooooh, yeah, I see your problem, Guv. Won't be cheap. Can't get the parts, you see."

The decision to not reveal the identity of whomever was pulling the strings here was definitely the right one. Knowing wouldn't have offered any additional value to the episode, and it leaves a thread hanging which could be tied into something else later on. I was also glad to see no season arc reference here, even though one could easily have been slotted in as it has in previous episodes this season.

The episode is book-ended by Clara's attempt to resolve her relationships with The Doctor and Danny. Instead of a grown up resolution though, we see a continuation of the "other man" theme which was the main driver of The Caretaker. Much of the final scene could easily be taken out of context and applied to a romantic or sexual situation. This is a great shame, because it seemed a bit of work had gone into sending Clara down the path of breaking up with The Doctor, only to have her ignore that and go on with the deception that caused all the trouble in the first place. Add to that the conversation between Clara and Maisie, where there is uncertainty around the nature of the whole relationship, and we are treading the dark path of Hunka hunka burning Doc again.

Despite all the confused relationship stuff, this is a tight story that plays out well with a believable threat and likeable characters. It's not perfect, but it's a good, solid effort.

8/10

Can we fix it?

Ordinarily I would say we could lose a good chunk of the Doctor / Clara relationship stuff, but honestly, the episode doesn't suffer for it. Instead I'd try to refocus some of it to clarify this isn't a girl trying to work out which man she loves, but is instead about a girl choosing between two lifestyles. She loves one man so much that she is now facing the inevitable putting away of childish things. The love of Danny Pink has given her something to lose should her dangerous lifestyle finally catch up with her. 

This stuff is all there, but it keeps getting clouded with ambiguous romantic implications. I say, get rid of the ambiguity, just as they finally did with Amy Pond when they showed her talking to Baby Melody about Rory. If Maisie must ask if there is a romantic relationship there, Clara should shut it down immediately. 

"No, I have a boyfriend. He's great. I love him. The Doctor is just a friend. Someone to get in trouble with."
"And what does your boyfriend think about that?"
"He doesn't like trouble. He's had enough of that in his life already."
"But you do like it, don't you?"
"Well... I mean, it's not like I need it."

A little exchange like this would make it clear that Clara loves Danny and sees The Doctor as a kind of Partner in Crime type of friend. It would also tie in with the talk of addiction at the end, making the closing scene less like someone plotting continued infidelity and more like a junkie justifying their next binge.

Review - Under The Lake

The Doctor and Clara go ghost hunting Under The Lake in this rather enjoyable first instalment of yet another two-part story.

Season 9, Episode 3, Under The Lake

Deep under a Sottish lake, a research facility has salvaged an alien craft. Scrawled inside is a mysterious message which glints menacingly in the eyes of all who look at it. Soon after, the mission commander is incinerated when one of the crew is startled by a dapper looking ghost and accidentally fires the ship's engines. No need to grieve though, as he's back pretty soon, only with fewer eyes.

I see dead people. But they can't see me.

The Doctor and Clara arrive, and the first thing we learn is that the TARDIS is not happy being there. Despite this, or maybe because of it, they choose to investigate, and it doesn't take them long to run across a pair of ghosts, who are intimidating, but non-violent. The ghosts lead them to the ship, but turn nasty after The Doctor and Clara have seen inside. They eventually run into the crew sheltering in a lead-shielded Faraday cage, and learn the ghosts only come out during the facility's artificial night cycle.

The Doctor spends some time trying to puzzle out what these entities are and how they work, but soon things start escalating and we lose another crew member to the ghosts. Of course, as is traditional, the first victim has been established to be utterly loathsome, so we don't really feel bad about it. 

We are treated to a little explanation about how the ghosts are using the facility to try to kill the remaining people, but the why of it is the pertinent question. There is only one thing for it; catch the ghosts. After a thrilling game of cat and mouse to lure the ghosts into the Faraday cage, our resident deaf character Cass is able to read their lips to decipher what they are saying. Sadly the way she is able to do this is through The Doctor's freaking Sonic Sunglasses.

Why?

I had hoped those things were a once-off. When The Doctor got rid of his sonic in the previous story, I wanted to believe they were going to run without one for a while, thereby eliminating the issue of Deus Ex Screwdriver. Sadly, with the inclusion of these damnable sunglasses, it seems the Sonic will be able to do more things now.

Anyway, The Doctor figures out what the ghosts are up to and what their message means, allowing the crew to salvage a stasis pod that was missing from the alien craft. The Doctor decides to travel to the past to discover what happened to cause this and maybe what is inside the pod, but before he can get everyone to the TARDIS, the ghosts manage to overload the facility's nuclear reactor, causing the automatic safety systems to flood the base in an attempt to cool the reactor.

Despite their best efforts, the crew are split up. With The Doctor unable to pilot the TARDIS to the other side of the flooded hallway due to the presence of the ghosts, Clara and friends settle in to wait for his return. The episode comes to a bit of a killer cliffhanger when another ghost emerges from the murky depths of the lake, resolving into the figure of...

How's that regeneration going for you then?

The pacing of this episode was pretty good, which is no doubt due significantly to the fact that it's a two-parter. It was about as far from Go, go, go, Geronimo! as you can get, if anything feeling a little too slow in parts. It was great to give The Doctor some time to puzzle things out, and as an added bonus, allow the other minor characters to be more than just cannon fodder, or substitute audience members to explain things to. The inclusion of Cass was a nice touch, but it kind of did telegraph that she would end up reading the ghost's lips. Still, great to see minor characters adding their skills to solve the mystery. The ghosts themselves are mildly creepy, and their attempts at physical violence are threatening, but the scarier bit is them using the base itself against their victims. I am genuinely curious as to what's going on here, although I have some theories. Again, my score may want revising after part two, but on the face of it, this one is pretty good.

Apart from those freaking glasses.

8/10

Can we fix it?

Not a lot actually needs doing here. Originally I was going to complain about how the base floods itself to cool the reactor, and how little sense this made, but on second thought, Vector Petroleum has already been established as a fairly heartless company (it is an oil company, after all). So with that in mind, I think it's easy to imagine them killing the crew in favour of losing the facility.

The only change then becomes those bloody sunglasses. We clearly need a video link so that Cass can read the ghosts lips, but there is any number of bits of tech that would conceivably be in this facility to establish a video link. The scuba suits could all have GoPros on them, for example. Bing, bam, boom. No need for sunglasses.