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| The Doctor prepares for a perilous journey - to the core of his own timeship! |
1 episode. Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Steve Thompson. Directed by: Mat King. Produced by: Marcus Wilson.
THE PLOT:
Concerned about the lack of trust between Clara and the TARDIS, the Doctor decides to let his new companion pilot the ship for a bit. To make it easier for her, he turns off the shields... at the exact moment that the salvage ship run by Gregor Van Baalen (Ashley Walters) detects them. Reading the TARDIS as an object rich in salvage, Gregor activates an illegal magnetic beam - which, with the TARDIS shields off, massively disrupts the interior of the timeship.
The Doctor is thrown clear, waking in the salvage ship. Clara is still trapped inside. As she tries to catch her bearings, the Doctor bluffs Gregor, his brutish brother Bram (Mark Oliver), and android Tricky (Jahvel Hall) into going into the TARDIS to rescue her. But once inside, all Gregor can see is the salvage of a lifetime - While Clara discovers that she is not alone in the ship, as burned zombie-like creatures pursue her through the maze of rooms and corridors!
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: "The Doctor lies." Well, he certainly does a lot of that in this episode. He lies to the salvage crew in order to get them to help search for Clara. He lies to them again when he sets a fake self-destruct to motivate them in that search. He lies to Clara about the nature of the burned creatures stalking the corridors. "Secrets protect us," he insists to Clara, "Secrets make us safe!" But the more dishonest he is, the more Clara reacts to him with fear. He can't quite make himself trust that she is only what she says she is - And whether he remembers the events of this episode or not (which is left vague), I doubt he'll have properly learned that lesson.
Clara: Clearly remembers Emma's warning not to trust the Doctor. After being pursued by the creatures, practically her first words to the Doctor are: "Good guys do not have zombie creatures!" She may like him, and she may enjoy their adventures, but she's not entirely convinced that he's "a good guy."
THOUGHTS:
I was genuinely looking forward to this one. Regular readers of my reviews know that I'm a sucker for stories that have a certain "unreality" to them, a hint of being surreal or at least a bit removed from reality. This story has a lot of that, and I largely enjoyed that aspect of it.
The labyrinth of TARDIS corridors rearrange themselves to impede the characters' progress. Games with time, as the creatures stalking the characters are revealed to be... well, I won't spoil that for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I certainly enjoyed watching that plot point slide into place at just the right moment for the two creatures who were fused together. And the suspended explosion, with the debris floating in mid-air as the Doctor and Clara walk through it... All wonderfully realized, all of it the exact sort of thing I love in this sort of show.
Then there's the moment of pure fan service. As Bram tears open the TARDIS console, we hear overlapping voices from the show's past: Susan, revealing the TARDIS' name; Ian, expressing disbelief at the suggestion of a police box being able to travel through time and space; the Third and Fourth Doctors, discussing dimensional transcendentalism; the Ninth Doctor, gloating over how "the assembled hordes of Genghis Khan couldn't get through those doors, and believe me they've tried." I rewound and rewatched that scene multiple times, just to try to pick out as many of the voice-overs as possible.
But... that's all this episode has: a bunch of moments. You could argue the same is true of The Bells of Saint John, which was structured as a series of set pieces. But each set piece in that episode genuinely advanced the story. Here, the scenes just seem to exist, a collection of "cool stuff" designed to keep you from looking too closely at the plot.
The plot ends up being the real problem. Most of what we see ends up having little to do with the thin story that exists. Had it been truly built around a theme of mistrust, it might have worked. The Doctor doesn't trust Clara and refuses to believe that she's just a normal girl; Clara doesn't fully trust the Doctor, being charmed by him but also a little afraid. But these issues only get a few minutes of screentime, while the wariness between Clara and the TARDIS is barely mentioned.
The guest characters are the most forgettable of the season. Yes, even moreso than the Soviet submarine crew in Cold War. There's nothing really wrong with the actors, who do a reasonable enough job with what they're given. What they're given, however, are thin sketches: the greedy one, the dumb one, the android who's more than he seems. None of them move beyond those basic descriptions until it's time for the greedy one to completely, implausibly reform in the space of about two minutes.
To add insult to injury, it all ends with a reset button, putting this firmly in Star Trek: Voyager territory. The plot never really happens, and the characters never really learn anything. And though enough of the individual pieces worked that I didn't mind watching it, this episode ended up being very far from "good."
Overall Rating: 4/10.
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