So what was Vigil about? A navy crewmember is murdered aboard HMAS Vigil and because the sub is still in Scottish waters, it becomes a police investigation. DCI Silva (Suranne Jones) is flown out onto the sub and must face off a murderer, PTSD from a nasty watery incident from her past and possible WW3 while her lover, a fellow police officer (Rose Leslie), must investigate another connected murder on land.

The submarine story is rooted in reality via the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons program, a program that is highly contentious in Scotland where the subs are kept offshore in Scottish waters. I follow a couple of Scottish independence blogs here and there out of interest and from what I can gather Trident is part of the argument for independence – why should Scotland host weapons they didn’t ask for and don’t want? Certainly, the two major pro-independence parties, the SNP and the Greens, are anti-Trident. Here then, is an interesting premise for a show. I was hoping for an even-handed, Honourable Woman style look at the case for and against Trident in the guise of a murder mystery conspiracy thriller …

Alas, what I got was something much more boring and unbelievable and well … predictable. Incidentally, it’s the same reason I never liked Bodyguard, which threw away it’s unique, thought-provoking themes halfway through by dispatching Keeley Hawe’s home secretary in favour of a dull Jihadist evil villain plot with bonus Islamaphobia. I don’t watch political thrillers just to be entertained (though certainly, plenty of people watch TV this way and that’s fine). I watch because I want to think, to be educated, to be challenged. That was a bit hard with Vigil when the main story ended up centering on the villainy of the Russians (boo, hiss) and ultimately, a fairly conservative claim that Trident is necessary to protect the UK and its way of life. A claim, I might add, that was never adequately substantiated by evidence within the show itself.

I don’t tend to go in for nationalism, especially when no valid reason for it is really given in the story (the Russian thing felt like a way to specifically not engage with the issues with Trident in favour of positioning the trusty subs against cartoon evil villains in the Russians in a kind of false dichotomy), so this didn’t impress me much. Not to mention, I didn’t buy the way the writer talked about environmentalists and the anti-nuclear peace camp (apparently, the camp agrees with me because they refused to let the BBC film them for the show), nor did I like how the ostensibly SNP MP was depicted. This was a show with an agenda, and it wasn’t one I liked.

Having said that, I can usually handle conservative themes I don’t agree with in a drama and still like it (even if it may not become a fave). I watched all ten series of Spooks and Series 7 also has an ‘it iz alwayz ze Russians’ theme with the trusty spies versus the nation-state enemy and I loved it. Similarly, I’m a shameless Bond fanatic and don’t mind Marvel in moderation. I even gave Dark Knight Rises a decent film score even with its uncomfortable conservative agenda. If the story works thematically, or in terms of character and plot I won’t mind too much. Alas, Vigil’s plot got wilder and wilder by the week, with coincidences and bad decisions galore. Not to mention, a completely implausible escape out of a missile tube at the start of episode six.

In addition, Vigil felt like a show that didn’t know what story it wanted to tell. At first, it sold itself as a political conspiracy thriller (which is how I got sucked in because that’s my jam), then it turned into a kind of Agatha Christie on a submarine concept, then it morphed midway through into a modern day Cold War nation state thriller and then it turned into a blend of horror film with character driven romance. I don’t have a problem as such with any of these genres, but it all got too muddled, especially by the finale.

Finally, the baddies were so obviously telegraphed there wasn’t much suspense for me in the end. I spent all of the finale waiting for an interesting plot twist that never came. Indeed, a whole section of the internet guessed the murderous culprits by about episode two because of the obvious foreshadowing. And then there were the characters. I quite liked Rose Leslie. In fact, she was easily the best part of the show alongside the opening credits, but Suranne Jones (who to be fair, I don’t usually mind) felt fairly oppressive. Her character was constantly stressed, aggressive, put upon and depressed, which while I understand was the script, got a bit wearing particularly on top of the claustrophobia of the submarine setting itself.

In the end I was frustrated, incredulous and more than a little bored by the whole thing, though at least the same sex couple didn’t get fridged and ended up happy. That was something. Still, there’s talk of a Series 2. Dear God, no.

Well. What a time I had watching you, Luther. It took me most of Series 1 to lose my constant frustration with the plot. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU GUESSED RUTH WILSON’S ALICE MORGAN IS A PSYCHOPATH BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T YAWN? I screamed at my telly in the pilot. HOW CAN ALICE GO AROUND LONDON THREATENING PEOPLE WITH HAIRPINS GIVEN LONDON’S OBSESSION WITH CCTV? I shouted a few episodes later. WHY DOES EVERYONE THINK LUTHER IS SO GREAT WHEN HE’S A VIOLENT ABUSER OF HIS EX-WIFE, DROPPED A SUSPECT TO HIS ALMOST DEATH AND LARKS AROUND LIKE HE’S KING OF THE JUNGLE INSTEAD OF DOING HIS ACTUAL JOB? I screamed again and again. I couldn’t figure out if Idris Elba’s Luther was a hero or an anti-hero and the only scenes I cared about were the ones where Wilson’s Alice turned up to cause mayhem and try and seduce Luther to her psychotic way of thinking. Plus the soundtrack is pretty good in an edgy alternative way.

Then something magical happened. I watched the Series 1 finale. It was completely mad, so outrageous any hope of realism was shredded and involved Luther’s ex wife’s new boyfriend, Luther and the psychopath, Alice, standing over a dead body. It shouldn’t have worked, yet as Alice killed Luther’s wife’s murderer in front of him and his colleagues (convinced it was Luther who’d killed his wife because reasons) closed in for an arrest, I grinned like a loon. Nina Simone’s Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood played and I finally understood. Neil Cross was writing heightened fan fic and I was okay with this. Also, ohhhhhh Luther *was* meant to be ambiguous the whole time with Alice his mirror image potential for darkness. Suddenly, I was IN with no turning back.

And then I started on Series 2 and the ‘Luther accused of murder’ subplot was dealt with off screen and Alice hastily written out of the show as Ruth Wilson sought fame, fortune (and later found sexism, alas) in The Affair. I was very upset. The fan fic heightened madness of the last two episodes of Series 1 was abandoned for a gritty dark London with evil serial killers in every corner (which wasn’t bad per se, but also wasn’t really what I’d been watching the show for). There was also something about a surrogate daughter, Jenny, and some mobsters, which I actually quite enjoyed and was sad when Jenny never turned up again post the Series 2 finale. There was also a great twin serial killer plot that used roll of the dice luck games to horrific effect and is enough to make one afraid of petrol stations at night for life. Still, I was pretty annoyed by the lack of Alice and the sudden dropping of the ambiguous ‘Luther has a dark side that he barely controls’ narrative in favour of Luther as the hero in a killer filled London hellscape thing they went for instead.

And then there was Series 3. The art direction was prettier. The horror was more horrific. My stomach lurched through the first two parter as a guy hid under a woman’s bed to off her in the worst way imaginable, then continued his spree by hiding in someone’s apartment, luring the husband into the attic and smashing hubbie’s dead head through the ceiling just to make sure the wife’s last moments weren’t remotely pleasant before he offed her too. The violence against women and the horror stereotypes were enough to make people protest. The ludicrous of Luther getting the two women who did escape one killer’s clutches to send a picture of them giving the finger to the captured killer was enough to make you wonder just how this got commissioned by the BBC. But then maybe that’s part of the fun. The BBC made this derivative, insane, unsubtle cop show? How unexpectedly delightful and ironic.

That’s when I got to the Series 3 finale (basically the Series 1 finale but even wilder and sillier). One of my friend’s claimed that 99% of the show’s suspense came from the audience asking themselves ‘where’s Alice?’ I admit this was me, and that I squealed with delight when she improbably showed up to tailspin, then gas, a cop car containing a yet again unjustly accused Luther (did I mention subtlety isn’t this show’s strong point?) Oh, and she did this in a gas mask. I didn’t care that Wilson scenery chewed her way through the episode, hat pin in hand, or that Luther’s choice between loving the psychopath or his current girlfriend was got at through a contrived sequence of events. I cared that the bad Alice Morgan was back, saving Luther’s ass with an insane plan that somehow worked. And the best part? When Luther’s girlfriend is finally rescued from the serial killer of the week and tells Luther to go after Alice, he does, bad limp from a gunshot and all, to join Alice on a Thames bridge. I don’t care how improbable that plot was, or how much they made Ruth Wilson look like she was in a shampoo ad as her hair wind machined its way to freedom on that bridge, I care about how happy she and Luther were together, two very black individuals carved from the same cloth, as Never Gonna Give You Up played over the end credits and the psychopath and the cop danced off into the sunset.

Perhaps Luther should have ended there. Series 4 was only two episodes long, and airing years later sans Ruth Wilson (girl, stop being so talented and therefore popular, coz Luther kind of derailed when you weren’t around). Rose Leslie turned up as Luther’s new partner and might have gone somewhere interesting, but the plot didn’t have enough time to talk about her, Alice’s off screen death and Luther’s return to the force, a serial killer of the week story and a secondary story about an underground criminal kingpin. It sucked hard. Even hardcore Luther fans don’t like to speak of it. Moving on …

Luckily, Series 5 got kind of back on track (though it never hit the halcyon days of Alice and Luther traipsing off that London bridge into the sunset again) with a delicious Doctor Death and his wife story that stretched over the whole season and made everyone afraid of nighttime bus trips, people in masks and having surgery under sedation (This story was so scary I legitimately had nightmares and had to finish the show in the middle of the day in broad daylight). They also brought Alice back with a deliciously Master style hand wave non-explanation, the criminal kingpin and a new uncharacteristically chirpy (for this show) and competent cop partner for Luther in Wunmi Mosaku (I laughed so hard when Luther’s boss said they had to be careful because Halliday was getting fast-tracked by bureaucracy for promotion and she then proceeded to spend the whole series as the only copper doing any actual police work. Yeah, Luther, how very dare she get promoted for doing her job instead of faffing around with a psychopath).

The story was weirdly grim and dark, and the art direction lost the blues and greens and reds of Series 3 (which I was sad about because I liked that cinematography muchly), but I quite enjoyed getting some backstory on Alice and Luther, their similarities and differences and why Alice faked her own death, even if the pacing was often all over the place. Halliday’s death was extremely shocking even by Luther standards and Alice’s motivations for killing her were fascinating. I also did like that the show ended the way it began, with a suspect taking a long drop and Luther arrested for the umpteenth time as Nina Simone’s Please Don’t Be Misunderstood roared back into life for a finale reprise.

Is Luther really just misunderstood or is he a dangerous guy who gets people killed as they stay too close to his orbit? Is he as bad as Alice, or perhaps even worse? Is Alice really dead this time? How will Luther get out of this mess in time for the film we know is coming? I don’t know, but I actually do want to find out. Yes, this show is often colossally stupid with mere occasional flashes of brilliance, yes, Luther is a grade a douche bag who probably deserves Madsen’s long drop, and yes, things only really get exciting when Alice turns up with another improbable plan to get Luther out of strife, but that’s the charm of this comic book heightened looney tunes confection of a show. Please come back, show. I miss you already.

Ashildr 

Ashildr joins the show as an ordinary Viking girl: plucky, outspoken, foolish and stubburn. Again, the Moffat theme of power in story also re-surfaced, with Ashildr using her puppets to save her Viking town from alien annihilation.

Ashildr: I’ve always been different. All my life I’ve known that. The girls all thought I was a boy. The boys all said I was just a girl. My head is always full of stories. I know I’m strange. Everyone knows I’m strange. But here I’m loved. You tell me to run, to save my life. I tell you that leaving this place would be death itself.

But Ashildr is more than a repeat of the Amelia Pond prototype. The girl who died became the woman who lived forever and forgot how to feel (just as The Doctor does without a human companion to remind him why emotions matter). Maisie Williams is a brilliant young actress and I enjoyed seeing her have to stretch herself by playing a character who has seen thousands of years pass filled with pain, death and sadness, even if the audience only got the benefit of seven days passing between episodes. Though Maisie didn’t always manage to convince, I think this was mainly down to the script jumping so far ahead and telling us about Ashildr’s immortal life rather than showing it to us across multiple episodes (which wouldn’t have worked as Doctor Who anyway). This was an ambitious two-parter and Ashildr’s gradual loss of humanity could have merited an entire spin-off all on its own.

Where Clara performs The Doctor role, Ashildr is a mirror to The Doctor. They both live untold years and leave too many people behind. Ashildr has lived long enough to know that The Doctor runs away from responsibility (“You left me.” “You seemed fine”) and has casualties he can’t escape the memory of no matter how hard he tries to forget (“How many people have you lost? How many Clara’s?”) Ashildr knows that The Doctor doesn’t like endings, that he leaves people like open pages in books (I wish River could have met Ashildr. Maybe she has?) And The Doctor knows why he can’t travel with Ashildr, despite their similarities in experience.

The Doctor: People like us, we go on too long, we forget what matters… the last thing we need is each other.

It is humanity, those like Sam Swift who faced the hangman’s noose with bad puns and a ready smile, who remind people like Ashildr and The Doctor to care.

The Doctor: People like us, we go on too long. We forget what matters. The last thing we need is each other. We need the mayflies. You see the mayflies, they know more than we do. They know how beautiful and precious life is because it’s fleeting.

Both The Doctor and Ashildr need to be reminded how to feel, how to let the heart bleed, and it is humanity in its messiness which does this. Finally, Ashildr after thinking she doesn’t care, falls off the wagon and wants earth saved, but that doesn’t mean Ashildr is suddenly pro-Doctor. I quite liked this end of episode impasse:

Me: Someone has to look out for the people you abandon. Who better than me? I’ll be the patron saint of the Doctor’s leftovers. While you’re busy protecting this world, I’ll get busy protecting it from you.
The Doctor: So are we enemies now?
Me: Of course not. Enemies are never a problem. It’s your friends you have to watch out for. And, my friend, I’ll be watching out for you.

(This line reminded me of Ros Myers in Spooks actually, and to be honest, Ashildr has pale shadows of Ros.

Ros: Lovers leave, friends annoy and family mess with your head, colleagues are OK.

Damn I miss Ros on my TV. She was fucking bad ass.)

Anyway, small Ashildr questions remain, who told her that The Doctor comes for a battle and runs from the fall-out? Missy or someone else altogether? Will she meet Captain Jack? Will she return to the show as friend or foe?

The Doctor

Aside from The Doctor being reflected in Ashildr, there were a lot of Doctor character moments this two-parter. The first might seem a minor thing, but I enjoyed the little touch. All of The Doctor’s hate violence on principle (except for when it is them using it). Twelve goes a step further by selectively ignoring it. People try to use violence to get him to do something and he simply doesn’t respond. At the start of The Woman Who Lived, he’s more interested in his own theories than he is in the heist. His brain simply doesn’t process words accompanied by violence in this episode.

In more meatier meta, I liked the reminder that The Doctor doesn’t interfere with people or planets unless there are children crying (say what you like about The Beast Below, that was a lovely Amy/Eleven moment). Twelve tells Clara he can’t interfere, can’t make ripples.

The Doctor: I applaud your courage but I deplore your stupidity. And I will mourn your deaths. Which will be terrifying, painful and… without honor.
Ashildr: Stay. You could help us, I know you could.
The Doctor: I told you to run. That’s all the help you’ll need. That’s all the help you’re getting.

And later…

The Doctor: Suppose I saved it—by some miracle. No TARDIS, no sonic. Just one village defeats the Mire. What then? Word gets around. Earth becomes a target of strategic value and the Mire come back. And god knows what else. Ripples into tidal waves until everybody dies.

But then in a nice throwback to Stormageddon, Twelve can understand baby talk and knows that the baby is deathly afraid. He can’t help himself, he has to stay behind and help the Viking village.

Clara: What’s it saying?
The Doctor: She. She’s afraid. Babies sense danger, they have to.
Clara: Tell me.
The Doctor: “Mother, I hear thunder. Mother, I hear shouting. You’re my world but I hear other worlds now. Beyond the unfolding of your smile, is there other kindness? I’m afraid. Will they be kind? The sky is crying now, the fire in the water.” Fire in the water…
Clara: You just decided to stay. The baby stopped crying.

The Doctor refuses to interfere at first because he knows he will make mistakes, cause discrepancies which will cause further misery and land back at his door. The irony is that when The Doctor chooses to ‘save’ Ashildr by granting her immortality, he creates a tidal wave which he cannot control and he runs away, rather than facing his actions (a theme that has surfaced again and again in Moffat Who).

Immortality

By granting Ashildr immortality, The Doctor does more than create a tidal ripple, he also creates a woman in his own image without initially thinking things through. There are some great scenes and lines in The Woman Who Lived which remind us why no man lives forever/why dead men rise up never/why even the weariest river/winds somewhere close to sea. Ashildr’s diaries parallel River’s in the library, but are made sadder by the deaths Ashildr has witnessed and the tears she has shed (the ghost lover got me). The saddest part of all was the plague when Ashildr lost her babies and vowed she would have no more (I cannot suffer the heartache).

The consequence of The Doctor’s interference is immortality, but the cause begins with him. If he had not interfered in people or planets Ashildr would have died peacefully, and not had the pain of living forever. The problem with The Doctor has always been that he doesn’t think.

Me: Do you ever think or care what happens after you’ve flown away? I live in the world you leave behind. Because you abandoned me to it.
The Doctor: Why should I be responsible for you?
Me: You made me immortal.
The Doctor: I saved your life. I didn’t know that your heart would rust because I kept it beating. I didn’t think that your conscience would need renewing, that the well of human kindness would run dry. I just wanted to save a terrified young woman’s life.
Me: You didn’t save my life, Doctor. You trapped me inside it.

Amy and Rory showed us the way it was impossible to adjust to ordinary life after running with The Doctor, River showed us that The Doctor doesn’t do endings, even when he loves someone deeply and Ashildr shows us that The Doctor doesn’t put much thought until it is too late into the people he touches and leaves behind. He is focused on the future. The next horizon and sight to see. The next adventure. Because the past is too painful.

The Doctor: Oh, I like a nice view as much as anyone.
Ashildr: But?
The Doctor: Can’t wait for the next one.
Ashildr: I pity you.
The Doctor: I will mourn for you. I know which one I prefer.

By the end of this rich two-parter, so do we.

The Girl Who Died/The Woman Who Lived: 8/10 inky stars

Anyway, Doctor Who. My favourite review of this episode was actually from livejournal meta queen, Elisi. ‘Well. There wasn’t any mirroring’ was essentially her response to both parts. And probably mine too. I am so used to Moffat Who mirroring characters against each other and requiring viewers to dig deep into metaphor and theme to get the full mileage out of an episode. Not so this Whitehouse two-parter, which saw the return of old fashioned hide-behind-the-sofa Who and the locked-in-a-confined-space-getting-bumped-off-one-by-one trope. Similar in many ways to The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, this was proper scary Who.

Clara Who?

Regular readers of this blog know that I am not a big Clara fan, largely because though Jenna Coleman is a good actress, the show doesn’t know what to do with her. Not only has she gone all through The Doctor’s timeline, she’s also taken on the role of Doctor in various Series 8 episodes. Much like the Series 9 two-parter where Clara did little but get locked inside a Dalek by the deranged Missy, Clara has little purpose in this story. I don’t think the show can get much more mileage out of the character.

This two parter brought up the theme of death in relation to both The Doctor and Clara, and I think it is fairly safe to say that there is about to be death for Clara on the horizon, either metaphorical (ala Donna) or physical (ala Jamie).

The Doctor: Listen to me. We all have to face death eventually, be it ours or someone else’s.
Clara: I’m not ready yet. I don’t want to think about that, not yet.
The Doctor: I can’t change what’s already happened. There are rules.
Clara: So break them. And anyway, you owe me. You’ve made yourself essential to me, you’ve given me something else to… to be.  And you can’t do that and then die. It’s not fair.
The Doctor: Clara…
Clara: No. Doctor, I don’t care about your rules or your bloody survivor’s guilt. If you love me in any way, you’ll come back.

Surely this is telegraphing a mile off that Clara is on the out? I liked the little throw back to Dark Water here by the way, with Clara saying chillingly in that episode that she was owed.

We saw in this two parter, too, that Clara is learning some of Twelve’s detached coldness in the face of strategy and split second decisions, especially in the second part of the episode.

Lunn: She said to ask you whether traveling with the Doctor has changed you, and why you always have to put other people’s lives at risk.
Clara: He taught me to do what has to be done.

Did The Doctor teach you that, or did Missy? (Thinks back to the title, The Witch’s Familiar and Missy’s Death in Heaven, ‘I chose her’ and shudder).

Twelve

Not much new to say on Twelve here, other than to say it is clear that in Series 9 Capaldi is much more comfortable in the role and nails the range of emotions his character has to display. There was this nifty little tid bit on Time Lords though:

Fisher King: Time Lords. Cowardly, vain curators who suddenly remembered they had teeth and became the most war-like race in the galaxy. But you—you! You are curious. You’ve seen the words too and can hear them tick inside you. But you are still locked in your history. Still slavishly protecting time. Willing to die rather than change a word of the future.

But seriously, I liked the meta start and end cap to Before The Flood, with The Doctor coming over musical with his electric guitar (and apparently that was actually Capaldi playing over the weekly theme tune) in a repeat of his Medieval band strum in The Magician’s Apprentice. In other news, I also quite enjoyed The Doctor’s social cue cards given to him by Clara (even if this does mean that half the internet is probably now diagnosing The Doctor with an ASD).

Diversity on Who

Diversity in anything is so rare that it is always super exciting when it happens in the mainstream (it shouldn’t be in the 21st century, but here we are) and especially in popular culture. I really enjoyed deaf female leader, Cass, and I thought she was a good actress. I liked that one of her colleagues signed and spoke at the same time, acting as translator and communicator. For some young people especially, it is a reminder that just because you have a disability, it doesn’t mean you are invisible, that you should be invisible, or that you can’t achieve things.

Tell her that you’re always gonna love her

This was an ending of pairings. Lunn and Cass declare their love for each other at episode’s end, Bennett and O’Donnell are out of time and never really admit their love, though deep down they knew it before O’Donnell faced death. It was a little bit too neat, but I did grin when Cass kissed Lunn.

The Fisher King?

For once I agree with Mary Ann Johanson, (I haven’t since circa Series 6 when her hatred of Moffat Who reached such a degree of insanity I gave up on reading her Who write-ups) who asked why The Fisher King was the name given to the alien behind the events of this two parter. A good question. The Fisher King is a reference to Arthurian legend. From Wikipedia:

In Arthurian legend the Fisher King, or the Wounded King, is the last in a long line charged with keeping the Holy Grail. Versions of his story vary widely, but he is always wounded in the legs or groin and incapable of moving on his own. In the Fisher King legends, he becomes impotent and unable to perform his task himself, and he also becomes unable to father or support a next generation to carry on after his death. His kingdom suffers as he does, his impotence affecting the fertility of the land and reducing it to a barren wasteland. All he is able to do is fish in the river near his castle, Corbenic, and wait for someone who might be able to heal him. Healing involves the expectation of the use of magic. Knights travel from many lands to heal the Fisher King, but only the chosen can accomplish the feat.

I am not clear on how The Fisher King’s motive of summoning an armada relates to this legend, and though of course, Whithouse could have just wanted to shout out to legend with a tribute name, it was distracting for me, so used to looking for Moffat Who mirrors.

Ultimately, this two-parter proved to have a great set-up with a less interesting follow-up. It is also one of the more straightforward Who episodes we’ve had in recent years, and that’s fine, but I prefer my stories with layers of meta which take at least three re-watches to dissect. Oh well. I can’t win all of the time.

Under the Lake/Before The Flood: 6/10 inky stars

To be honest, I’m actually not all that clear on what this episode was about. The first half follows Clara and Danny doing the obligatory zoo sleepover with their students, but with a twist. A giant forest comes to London and the children and teachers wander around aimlessly. Meanwhile, one student, Maeve, gets separated from the others and finds The Doctor (aside: strangely though the giant forest takes over London, there are surprisingly few people about for students to bump into). Then there’s something about people destroying trees and something about earth getting destroyed and something about the trees loving earth and saving it and pretty gold dust stuff and the power of the mentally ill to find lost things and… yeah… I don’t know… as I said… a big mess.

Companions who never were?

Child actors generally don’t bode well for companions of the week (see Nightmare in Silver and Courtney) but Maebh was quite good even if her storyline was rubbish. Her plaintive ‘everyone knew everything but me’ felt quite honest and I liked the way she thought differently to not just her teachers and fellow class mates, but also The Doctor. The most interesting scene for me in the whole episode was the one where Maebh told The Doctor that the trees were communicating silently and he didn’t believe her because he couldn’t hear them speak. I can’t find the exact quote online, but she basically pointed out to him that people communicate non-verbally all of the time and it was a pretty neat put down.

Clara and Danny

Urgh, these two are just no Amy/Rory no matter how hard this show tries to sell them to me as such. I genuinely don’t give a damn about Danny until Dark Water (which is pretty ironic as you’ll see in my write-up next week) and imo Clara is too good for him for the most part. The decision to have Danny constantly question Clara’s choice to travel with The Doctor, essentially forcing her to lie to him about still travelling in the TARDIS drives me insane every episode.

Danny: You said you haven’t seen him in months

Clara: Something like that

Clara, the fact you have to keep lying should be telling you something!

Danny brings out the worst in The Doctor too. When Maebh first meets The Doctor and tells her story he pettishly replies with, ‘Mr Pink was looking after you… that explains why you’re lost.’

Finally, Danny gets extra irritating this episode when he tells Clara why the TARDIS isn’t for him.

Danny: I don’t want to see more things. I want to see the things in front of me.

Yes, I get that Danny was a soldier and saw and did awful things. The problem is, we’ve been told about it, not shown it and I simply don’t buy his comments. Who wouldn’t want to travel the TARDIS? Really? (Ok, so I know Rory didn’t want to, but he loved Amy so much he did it anyway and found hidden reserves inside himself he didn’t even know existed. I love Rory. Danny just stagnates)

The Doctor

Harsh Doctor is back in full force this week. Take when Maebh first turns up. His response to her unexpected appearance on his TARDIS doorstep is, ‘You need an appointment to see The Doctor.’ Callous, much? Though this Doctor does seem to have travel differentiating between adults and children and tends to lump all humans in terms of functionality in the same basket.

Capaldi is also given the opportunity this week to dig into his softer side in time for the finale and the Christmas special. He tells Clara he can use his TARDIS to save Clara from the destruction of earth.

Clara: I don’t want to be the last of my kind.

The Doctor: This is my world too.

The conviction and quiet delivery of the lines is quite beautiful. I think Capaldi is also very good when he says that the human super power is forgetting, sounding sad, thoughtful and relieved all at once.

Mental illness, fairy stories and un-earnt denouements

In general, the main problem for me with this episode is the lack of real conflict. However, where everything really started to go pear-shaped was when the script writer thought it would be a good idea to imply that mental illness equated to some kind of magical ability that could inexplicably bring back lost things. Wow, way to perpetrate stereotypes much! The fairy story tone didn’t actually give the writer a get out of jail free card as some episodes got in series 5 because tonally it didn’t match the rest of Capaldi’s run. I simply felt cheated when Annabelle turned up in a bush by Maebh’s house. Furthermore, Maebh’s imagination (depicted through her coloured drawings) felt too Fear Her for my liking and the reveal that she’d created the tree plague felt pretty random. When The Doctor says that the forest is mankind’s nightmare (hello Into The Woods), it’s actually Maebh’s nightmare (or deep desire), but none of these reveals really gel or feel earned. Look, maybe I’m just sensitive, but this whole concept felt like a hot mess.

Missy

Missy turning up, even if for a minute, is always welcome. This episode I just felt confused. Why was Missy surprised that the trees saved earth? Or was she actually implying that she was surprised at The Doctor’s choice to remain on an earth about to be destroyed? Why? Does anyone know what this scene was about? Please help.

On the plus side, next week is Missy in crystal clear abundance and one of the best episode’s of the season.

In The Forest of the Night: 2/10 inky stars

Alien of the week presence

This is one of the few Series 8 episodes which deals with a proper alien invasion. The episode opens in creepy classic Who style with a man sucked into a house wall. It is also very Eleventh Hour with the cracks in the wall. I liked the clever touch of the people on The Estate disappearing and re-appearing as wall mural art. I also liked that the episode entertained the notion of friendly or naïve aliens for all of five seconds with The Doctor saying, “Maybe the aliens don’t know we need to live in 3D… innocent aliens a first?” Later he amends his wishful thinking. “I tried to reach out… to understand you… but you don’t want to understand, you don’t care.”

The Doctor

The Doctor takes a back seat this episode, though he has a few good moments, from his Addam’s Family spoof moment as his hand made like Thing to get The TARDIS off the rail line, (“I’m on a train line and there’s a train coming, of course”) to his mean comments about the episode’s companion who never was, ‘pudding face’ Brigsy.

I also enjoyed his comment to Clara early on as she muses about the shrunk TARDIS:

The Doctor: Could you not just let me enjoy this moment of not knowing something? It happens so rarely.

Twelve fights back with a vengeance at episode’s end when he tells the aliens that “this planet is protected” (Hello Matt Smith reference) and he introduces himself as “the man who stops the monsters.” His sombre statement that, “a lot of people died and maybe the wrong people survived,” (like Ashes to Ashes guest star douche bag) is poignant and sad and reminds the audience that this is a much darker Doctor.

Danny and Clara

It doesn’t matter how many times I re-watch Series 8, I don’t care about Danny until Dark Water, especially in the middle of the series when he acts like he owns Clara. Why is Danny so insecure that he can’t have Clara leave her personal things on the TARDIS? Why does Clara feel that she has to lie to Danny about having adventures with The Doctor? (though the contrast between Clara’s phone conversation and the events unfolding around her was quite entertaining). I just find Danny/Clara a little uncomfortable, especially when compared to Rory/Amy.

Clara Who?

This episode is perhaps most important for its exploration of Clara Who? This series has been all about companions becoming The Doctor and the human cost that entails. With The Doctor out of action in Flatline, it falls to Clara to ‘act’ the role which makes for interesting viewing.

“I’m The Doctor. Doctor Oswald. You can call me Clara… I think I call myself The Doctor because it makes me sound important.”

Not only does Clara perform The Doctor role, she also questions it and his relationship to companions. I liked the implication that companions were either people in the wrong place at the right time or the right place at the wrong time and how that linked to Clara’s lies to Danny.

The Doctor: Excellent lying, Doctor Oswald… lying is a vital survival skill and a terrible habit.

Clara: Does it count as lying if it’s for someone’s own good?

The Doctor: What’s next, Doctor Clara?

Clara: Lie to them… give them hope.

Lying is depicted as a key part of The Doctor’s role to people, as is wild, last minute ideas. When Clara uses a hair band to keep the train gear on it was both as mad and as clever and as simple as the best laid Doctor plans.

This episode, too, Clara is truly alone in her decision-making.

Clara: Doctor, what would you do now? No, what would I do now?

Clara has never been my favourite companion, but in series 8 her level of agency has increased threefold and her place of power in the story could become very interesting.

Missy

Who doesn’t love Missy? Who? I actually got shivers down my spine at the denouement to this episode when this exchange happened:

Clara: Just say it. Why can’t you just say it? Why can’t you just say I did good?
The Doctor: Talk to soldier-boy.
Clara: It’s not him. Come on, why can’t you say it? I was the Doctor and I was good.
The Doctor: You were an exceptional Doctor, Clara…
Clara: Thank you!
The Doctor:  ..goodness had nothing to do with it.

That exchange of dialogue followed by Missy’s, “Clara, my Clara, I’ve chosen you well” is chilling and horrifying. The Twelfth Doctor is darker and more cynical. He reminds us that there is a dangerous side to The Doctor, the one that is good at making split second decisions to save the majority, even as he buries his guilt over the fallen minority. This is much more Le Carre territory than fairy story, even if Eleven did have similar ‘darker’ moments, they never felt this brutal. As a continuation of Rory’s comment about fearing what The Doctor does to people, how he changes them, this is a very interesting place to go. More next series thanks!

Flatline: 9/10 inky stars

Next week: In the Forest of the Night

The Return of Good Old Fashioned Who Horror…

The episode kicks off with a clock starting a countdown on screen from 66 to 0 before death at the hands of an invisible mummy and the tension doesn’t let up. For a fun episode, there is a lot of dark death, flickering lights and even an empty sarcophagus. Creepy stuff.

Clara’s ‘not’ exit

Last episode, Clara had all but committed to leaving the TARDIS behind forever until push came to shove on the phone with Danny and she opted for one final adventure… as The Doctor says, the Orient Express is, ‘a good one to end on.’ We have the theme of Clara’s innate anger with The Doctor continued. The Doctor is confused by her smile being a sad one and she responds with, ‘I hated you for weeks… hatred is too strong an emotion to waste on someone you don’t like.’ Though I’d warmed to Clara by this series, I wasn’t a fan of this direction – it made Clara seem a bit too bitter and unkind – but she soon bounces back by next week’s Flatline. I also wasn’t a fan of The Doctor’s comment that Clara couldn’t dump him because he wasn’t her boyfriend. Enough with these kinds of comments already show!

Companions Who Never Were

Is that Mary from Sherlock? Either way, who didn’t love Maisie opening a door lock with her stiletto? Perkins was also a wonderful character (What are you a Doctor of? A question The Doctor isn’t asked often enough as the episode points out) and I enjoyed his quiet Doctor rejection, ‘riding the TARDIS could change a man.’ As usual this series, characters inner lives reflect moral dilemmas of The Doctor and his companion. Maisie’s feelings about her mother are a case in point with her feelings mirroring Clara’s feelings about The Doctor.

Maisie: Do you ever wish bad things on people? I just felt really guilty, picturing her dead for years, just picturing it, not really meaning it, and now I feel like I did it.

Clara: People, difficult people, make people feel complicated things.

It is Maisie’s story which helps Clara to understand her relationship with The Doctor. Later, after Clara claims she isn’t friends with The Doctor any more, Maisie responds with, ‘life would be so much easier if you liked the people you were meant to like, but then I guess there’d be no fairy tales.’

By the end of the episode, Clara understands.

Learning About 12

Now that we’re mid way through the series, loads is happening with 12: the man who doesn’t like soldiers yet acts like one, the man who can’t find his way back to Clara, the man who likes to solve puzzles coldly and dispassionately even when human death is involved, yet still does so with a strange innate humanity. I love that The Doctor introduced himself as a ‘nosy parker’ and offered a professor jelly babies. I loved it when he told the train manager, ‘if people did their job descriptions you wouldn’t be drinking into your cup’ and his follow-up of ‘why am I even bothering?’ (to lecture you) before he goes away to start solving The Foretold problem. I also quite like this colder Doctor. He gathers the scientists and professors together and uses the deaths to ‘study our own demise’ to discover that The Foretold picks off those it considers weak through disability, PTSD and illness first. I was reminded of Into the Dalek when The Doctor tells one man, ‘you are probably next… good for us, you’re going to die.’ This colder Doctor is offset by a kinder ending where he offers himself to the mummy with a reference to Moffat’s two parter in Series 1, ‘I will be your victim this evening. Are you my mummy?’ I like that Twelve is a quieter hero than previous incarnations and Capaldi does quiet pain well. I was deeply moved when he admitted to Clara, ‘I didn’t know if I could save her… sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you have to choose.’

Clara’s Addiction

This episode continues the trend of Clara finding The Doctor’s life in the TARDIS a hard addiction to shake. She convinces Maisie to follow her to her potential death and later says, ‘is it like an addiction?’ Her final exchange with The Doctor is the stuff which makes Doctor Who such an alluring concept:

Clara: Have you ever been sure?

The Doctor: No

Clara: Then let’s go.

Unresolved Threads

Correct me in the comments if I’m wrong, but this episode has Gus painted as the villain trying to lure The Doctor to the exploding Orient Express at the intervention of another hidden entity. Who made Gus malfunction? Missy or some other hidden hand? Perhaps Series 9 will reveal more.

Mummy on the Orient Express: 10/10 inky stars

What’s a 50 in 50 list?

A list of things I want to do or achieve by the time I hit the youthful age of 50! I have tried to divide mine by type of thing. Let’s just say I’ll be busy for awhile!

Maureen’s List:

Writing:

1. Finish a full length novel manuscript
2. Do a script-writing course at NIDA
3. Submit a script to the BBC Writers Room
4. Get a drama commissioned by the ABC or BBC
5. Write a Doctor Who audio for Big Finish
6. Write an episode of TV Doctor Who
7. Publish novels through a mainstream publisher
8. Do a Writers Residency overseas
9. Do a Writers Residency in Australia
10. Collaborate on a writing project with another author
11. Sell 10 000 books
12. Record my overseas cousins life stories and make it into novels

Careers:

13. Run my own kick-ass NGO
14. Work for Community Catalyst UK
15. Work inside Westminster
16. Make my own inclusive tour company all about pop culture themes
17. Create my own cafe and secondhand bookstore micro business

Cons/Festivals:

18. Go to the Agatha Christie Festival in the UK
19. Go to the UK CrimeFest
20. Go to World Fantasy Con at least once
21. Go to San Diego Comic Con

Travel:

22. Go to Broadway and see a musical
23. Design and do own self-tour of Cornwall/Wales around ‘the historical’ Merlin and King Arthur
24. See the Aurora Borealis ie Northern Lights
25. Make like Kiera Knightley on a cruise in the Carribean ie a pirate’s life for me!
26. Go to Cambodia/Laos/Vietnam
27. Walk Macchu Pichu
28. See The Sphinx and the Pyramids and do a Nile cruise
29. See Paris and the French countryside
30. Ride the Orient Express and read Murder on the Orient Express as I do it
31. Go to PEI and do the whole Anne of Green Gables thing
32. Bike ride across Europe

In My Community:
33. Learn to sing
34. Be in an amateur play
35. Take German lessons at Community College
36. Learn to dance ‘the Tango Maureen’

Celebrities:

37. Meet Helena Bonham Carter and tell her that she’s awesome
38. “I’ll be there, I’ll be seen/having tea with the Queen/I’ll forget everything/That I’ve ever, ever been” but only the once
39. Meet The Eleventh Doctor
40. Have a conversation with Phillip Pullman
41. Work on a project with Neil Gaiman or Amanda Palmer OR BOTH
42. Have an actor read my poetry onto audio beautifully

Miscellaneous:

43. Fall passionately in love
44. Have a library in my house with the words ‘The World is Quiet Here’ on the door frame
45. Have a classic Disney DVD library
46. Have a TV drama library
47. Dye my hair a crazy colour/s
48. Take part in a mass historical re-enactment
49. Join the circus
50. Re-live ‘If Life Were a Musical’ with a flash mob!

The Doctor, Clara and Courtney are taken by the TARDIS to the moon of the future. They find dead astronauts, giant spiders with neon stripes and an alien about to hatch… When I first heard about this episode, I was pretty excited, for the same reason I was excited about Time Heist, namely, yay for that Brit drama actress turning up who I like a lot (one day I will write a TV blog post on why Hermione Norris is the sort of quietly feminist actress everyone should take note of, particularly in Wire in the Blood and Spooks. I actually laughed at The Doctor when he goaded Lundvik because it was Hermione he was speaking to). Unfortunately, the premise, as many will have read about by now, became an unfortunate abortion metaphor (whether intended or otherwise it was kind of hard to read the main theme of the episode as anything else), the return of Courtney irritated and the budget simply didn’t allow for the kind of frightening ecodisaster meets arachnids (Shelob and Aragog style) the story was trying to sell us.

Clara as Teacher

The episode opens with Clara talking to two audiences: the population of earth in the episode and the viewing public outside of the episode. Her speech also marks a return to experimenting with an episode story unfolding for the audience in real time as Clara says, ‘an innocent life vs. all humankind. We have 45 minutes to decide.’ This sort of moral dilemma isn’t new to Doctor Who, but it is normally an interesting premise. Unfortunately, Kill The Moon cops out in the final 15 minutes with the either/or choice never debated philosophically, though Lundvik (Queen H) does her best to bring a dose of reality to proceedings which is hastily ignored by both Clara and The Doctor. Clara’s more nuanced role this series is excellent, but she isn’t used to great effect in this episode, her final choice turning out fine steering her dangerously close to Mary Sue territory.

The Doctor and Courtney

Courtney was still inconsistent this episode. However, she has improved since her last few appearances. I even cracked a smile when Clara claimed that she’d used psychic paper to purchase alchopops. I also laughed at The Doctor’s TARDIS rule for companions and part time travelers (no sickness and no hanky-panky) with the second rule especially amusing in light of how long Amy and Rory Pond traveled in the TARDIS as full time companions. Courtney’s quick thinking in killing a giant spider with germ killer spray was also pretty hard core in an old fashioned companion style action similar to Ace. I also thought that there was real possibility in this (and maybe later?) episodes to contrast Courtney’s reaction to The Doctor against Clara’s, especially given Danny’s comments last week. It would have been potentially interesting to explore Courtney’s disintegration at the introduction of the horrors of travelling with The Doctor, particularly given she is a child, as a counterpoint against Clara feeling fine when she should be feeling terrified or horrified.

On the negative end of things, I mentally told Courtney to grow up when Courtney complained that The Doctor didn’t call her special. When I first re-watched this episode, I thought that the point of The Doctor making Clara, Lundvik and Courtney (the astronaut, the teacher and the child) decide earth and the moon’s fate was to make Courtney special (there is actually a poem about this called ‘The Most Important Rap’ and it ended on the stanza ‘I am a child and the future I see and there would be no future if it wasn’t for me). Then I realised that The Doctor hadn’t known there was anything wrong with the moon till he got there and nor did he know what the outcome of the decision would be, not really. He could have been wrong about the alien young not destroying its moon nest and then where would Courtney have been? Courtney also flip flopped between fear, instagramming and wanting to make ‘pro life’ decisions. I get that she’s a teenager, but I just found the character kind of irritating overall.

Great Doctor Moments

I loved the return of The Doctor and his yoyo, the reinforcement of his belief that it is the little human moments which decide the big moments and his Geronimo style leap into a crater of amniotic fluid armed only with germ killer.

A Confused Moral Debate

For the first half hour, this episode isn’t half bad and feels like a classic alien of the week Who story. Unfortunately, once the moral debate set up by Clara at the start of the episode begins in earnest, the story and its themes becomes unstuck. Lundvik believes that humanity should blow up aliens (in the context of this episode, I don’t blame her) whilst The Doctor, Clara and Courtney are pacifist. When The Doctor’s reaction is “something living, something growing…. the moon is hatching,” surely Clara’s reaction of “huh” is most people’s. The plot is already bonkers at this point, but then the story gets awkward with its unfortunate abortion metaphor – kill the creature inside the moon or let the alien hatch, crack the moon open like an egg and have the moon fall to earth and destroy life on earth as we know it?

The Doctor: There’s only one of its kind, utterly beautiful…
Lundvik: How do we kill it?

I can’t have been the only person who thought that Lundvik had the absolute right idea. In the absence of real evidence that the hatching alien wouldn’t destroy the moon and thus earth who wouldn’t destroy the alien? Really now? Lundvik only said it like it is when she said, “some things are just bad… it’s not a chicken, it’s an exo-parasite.” (As an aside, I quite liked the return of snarky, almost Ros Myers like, Hermione when she said things like “I can tell [you are ground control] from your hair cut” and when she calls The Doctor a “prat” with devastating cool.) She cuttingly tells it to Clara and Courtney like is is for a second time when she says bitterly that she is about to witness:

The day life on earth stopped because you couldn’t make an unfair decision… we can’t risk it all just to be nice.

In true democratic fashion, the three women (Note: women making core decisions and a female President) take the vote to earth. Lights off means kill the alien, lights on means take the risk. Unsurprisingly, earth doesn’t want to take the risk. Clara aborts the kill button at the eleventh hour (idiot!). Conveniently, this turns out to be the right decision because the alien hatches without destroying its ‘shell’ aka the moon, but it clearly happens as a convenient plot point, not because there is any real evidence that Clara made a logical or particularly moral decision. I especially hated that Lundvik lost her usual Hermione Norris spine and thanked Clara for stopping her from destroying the alien. When The Doctor claims that he guessed what would happen because young don’t destroy their nests I wanted to punch my TV in. This is so blatantly false from what we know of the animal kingdom that it pulled me completely out of the story. Though the sentiment of humanity changing its own history by letting an alien fly free is a nice one (humanity sees a creature and wants to see it, not destroy it) is a nice one, it doesn’t really feel earnt without the nuanced moral debate to hold up the episode premise.

The Doctor and Clara Show Down

Now this was one of the strongest aspects of the episode. Too bad later episodes never followed through. Clara loses her temper with The Doctor for patronizing humanity and making her make a hard choice which could have been wrong. It almost feels like another Clara companion exit, especially when she tells The Doctor, ‘You go a long way away.” There is a beautiful scene at the end of the episode where Danny speaks to an angry Clara about finishing running with The Doctor. He says of her rage, “you’re never finished with anyone when you’re angry’ which frankly, feels truthful. I hope that they somehow revisit this idea in series 9.

Kill The Moon: 3/10 inky stars

The next two weeks are utterly excellent from newcomer, Jamie Mathieson. I. am. excited.

Oh, and there will be spoilers for all ten series.

1. They lost the show creators and never quite found the experienced drama writing talent to replace them

The original series of Spooks (1-4) were penned by David Wollstoncroft and Howard Brenton (both experienced drama writers and playwrights and both interested in the grey area between Le Carre moral ambiguities and pacey contemporary stories) and saw ex MI5 and CIA operatives offer script advice early on (leading to bizarre yet powerful moments such as blow-drying a cat and having a girlfriend who doesn’t know your real identity). This meant that early Spooks, despite it’s episodic nature, had strong themes and character development for most of s1-4. Physical explosions were always off set by internal explosions in character’s heads and tough moral decisions which broke the proverbial camel’s back or made monsters of men and women. It’s no secret that the majority of fans see 2.5 and 4.10 as two of the best scripts ever penned on Spooks.

Once the duo left, the show hit rocky territory, either styling itself on 24 and American drama to the detriment of character, upping the patriotism factor and downplaying the internal and upping external danger or trying to implement overarching plot arcs with varying degrees of success and believability. Too often the show felt like bad spy and conservative government propaganda rather than the tough yet intellectual bent of early series which focussed on the moral war found within individuals when they tried to spy for Queen and country. This problem is most obvious in Series 9 and 10, when two inexperienced writers took over the show, willfully ignoring canon, the need for character development and generally making some dubious assumptions about why many fans watched the show (but more on this later).

2. They Lost Sight of Spooks Main Theme: The Human Cost to Being a Spy…

In my opinion, the strongest character arc on Spooks was Tom Quinn’s, whose internal character explosion was both heartbreaking and believable. Brenton and Wollstonecraft used shock factor deaths sparingly with Zoe being burnt after doing her duty as a honey trap and getting squeezed by an uncaring bureaucracy, Tessa being fired due to questionable decision making, Sam leaving the service devastated by Danny’s death and Ruth sacrificing herself to leave Harry top dog in 5.5. Once they lost Ruth however, it felt like the show lost its moral way, with first Zoe than Ruth representing humanity and the bleeding hearts club. From Series 5 on, the show often emphasized physical dangers to spy work over personal and moral dangers to the detriment of the show. Because we never got to see what the characters felt about the tough choices they often made, they could seem like automatons or people as bad as the terrorists they faced. Though the show would occasionally remember its original theme (like in the majority of the excellent Series 7 or parts of Series 8), the majority of the time it was assumed the audience would identify with characters because we were told again and again that our spies were heroes despite the questionable and sometimes downright horrendous decisions made. Once they lost moral compass, we were expected to identify with characters like Harry Pearce even when they did bad things.

3. They Became Victims of their own ‘Shock Factor’ Trademark

In 1.2, Lisa Faulkner faced death by deep fat fryer in a scene which is still shocking to re-watch today despite over a decade passing. Consequently, the audience knew pretty early on that Spooks was a show where nobody was safe and back then, because characters had been given strong back stories, we cared deeply when it happened and were genuinely shocked. Both Danny’s and Colin’s deaths were brutal and upsetting. As the series continued on, the shock factor became Spooks own worst enemy. It seemed like whenever the writers didn’t know what to do with a character or how to get rid of one, they’d kill them. The problem with this method was that it soon became boring and predictable, cutting off character arcs in medias res instead of allowing for genuine character arcs. It also made it increasingly difficult to care about new characters when they were entered and offed from the Grid with little character development or initial depth (see next point).

4. They Followed a Set Character Formula and Forgot How to Characterize

Zoe became…

Jo became…

Beth with less and less character development each time…

The initial series was devised as an ensemble piece, held together by Tom Quinn, played by Matthew McFayden. This meant that all of the original team had character arcs and when they were eventually replaced, the new ones were given arcs too. Unfortunately, once Brenton and Wollstonecroft left, new cast members were treated like monikers for the old ones, given little character to work with (Eg Danny became Zaf became Ben became Tariq with less and less personal history given to each character with each new transition). It became more and more noticeable, culminating in the bland and blank slate team of Erin, Calum, Tariq amd Dimitri in Series 10. It is especially noticeable when you watch early series to series 5 and notice that some characters have more characterization in half an episode than a similar moniker character has in an entire series in the later series (eg Compare Zoe’s six series 1 episodes to Beth’s 8 Series 9 ones).

At the same time, a decision was made to invest more character arc and development time into certain kinds of characters: namely the white alpha male lead, the white female alpha lead (in her defense, Ros was awesome, but more on that next post) and to a lesser extent, Harry and later his will they/won’t they relationship with Ruth. The problem with this was that viewers were left with minimal emotional connection to characters and the show became less ensemble. It also meant that by the time of later Adam Carter and Lucas North we were treated to endless sex with poorly acted and developed girlfriends who had nothing to do with Spooks themes overall or were so abysmally awful (as in the case of Sarah Caulfield), they detracted from the story lines they featured in. It also meant that relationships between characters were largely abandoned to the detriment again of the original ensemble cast premise.

5. They Stopped Being the Grey Area Between Le Carre and Bond and Became 24Lite

Around the time of Series 5, a creative decision was made to make the episodes punchier and more action packed. Given what I’ve said already about use of character monikers and failure to develop characters in their own right at the same time as abandoning the original theme, you can guess why I thought this was a disastrous move. Once you take away developed characters to invest in and thematic cohesion, some viewers such as me were left clinging to old hand Spooks players such as Malcolm, Harry and Ruth to maintain interest. This made it all the more infuriating when certain creative decisions were made about such old hand characters.

6. They Wilfully Ignored Previous Canon and Resolving Story Arcs

Though to some extent, Spooks set up a very early precedent for ignoring canon and for resolving story arcs (hello Sam), it was easier to overlook because of strong themes and characters to care about. Once the show lost these things it became more and more infuriating when they ignored canon or established story arcs. From the inexplicable Juliet turned villain turn in Series 6, to the supposed traitor-hood of the Home Sec in Series 9 to the worst insult of all, the destruction of an until that point enormously interesting character in Lucas North, the cracks started to show more and more.

At the same time story arcs were abandoned at the drop of a hat. The Series 7 finale was never fully resolved, the consequences of Ruth’s return in 8.1 wasn’t picked up on until Series 9 causing some very inconsistent Ruth characterization in the transition from 8 to 9, Zaf is killed off screen after an entire series of dangling the carrot of his return and Harry escapes consequences again and again with little explanation of how he gets away with it. The worst case of canon disregard and story arc butchering came with…

7. …The Lucas North Debacle

Show me the man or woman who genuinely can explain the Lucas North story line so that it makes sense and I’ll show them the live dinosaur I keep in my closet. Take a look on any Spooks fan forum, IMDB page, review site, blog, tumblr post or online newspaper commentary spot, and you’ll instantly see the amount of anger this story line caused. It wasn’t just anger because some were hardcore Richard Armitage fans who wanted their favourite actor to go out the hero. It was a number of fans, myself included, hopping mad that they’d had two series worth of canon ignored and butchered to make a shock ending to Series 9 that had nothing to do with the cost of being a spy, rendered Lucas’ actions in previous series incomprehensible and simply served to ensure that the story arc about Harry, Russian prison and loyalty never had to be dealt with to maintain Harry as The Writer’s Hero TM.

Much has been said about this character hatchet job through the creation of the Lucas North alter ego John Bateman. Suffice it to say, the debacle burnt a lot of fan loyalty going into series 10 and wasted time which should have been spent on building up a new ensemble team (in particular Beth, Tariq and Dimitri). My favourite quote by far on the Lucas North mess came from The Guardian’s Vicky Frost whose hilarious viewing commentaries were sometimes superior to the show she viewed. Her response to wet blanket girlfriend Maya’s comment to notLucas! who inanely stated “Do you know how I knew it was true? Because for the first time you made sense” was comedic gold. “That’s bloody optimistic, Maya. Lucas makes less sense than ever before,” was a sentiment shared by many at the time and the Lucas debacle remains one of the worst plot decisions I’ve seen on any TV show ever.

8. They Assumed Harry Pearce was the Moral Compass and Beating Heart of the Show…

I’ve alluded to this one already. I used to quite like Harry, but by Series 8, I would have been quite happy to see him shot in the back of that boot by a faceless terrorist. The problem with Harry wasn’t that he was a flawed character (which is always interesting), but that he was a flawed character sold by the writers as the moral arbiter and hero of the show. We were banged on the head again and again with such sentiments and Harry was never given consequences for the poor choices or immoral decisions he made because he became a serious case of the ‘privileged white male hero who can do no wrong’ trope. Anyone who showed up Harry had to go. Any story line that undermined Harry as supposed paragon of goodness had to go (see Lucas North). It was both immensely frustrating and morally questionable for this viewer. Though many saw Harry as the beating heart of the show (and that’s fine), just as many did not…

9. … And in Doing so Lost the Show’s Real Moral Compass

When Keeley Hawes left the show in Series 3, Nicola Walker had to take on a greater role in episodes to fill the moral gap left by Zoe leaving. Full of heart, compassion, kindness and humanity from early on, many saw Ruth Evershed as the show’s moral compass alongside Harry. I know of many casual viewers who stopped watching once Ruth left because they felt that the show no longer had heart. Such was Ruth’s popularity amongst viewers, she returned to the Grid in Series 8 till the show’s end, resuming her on/off relationship with Harry at the same time as burning up inside with guilt over 8.1. With other characters given little to work with, the Ruth/Harry relationship was given greater prominence and by Series 10 was given increased weight. At the same time, Nicola was given more to work with in developing the Ruth character. When reviewers reviewed Series 10, many pointed out that Peter Firth and Nicola Walker carried the show, with some pointing out that Nicola deserved kudos for essentially stealing the show’s battered crown out from under other flashier characters noses, her performance a masterclass in quiet dowdiness, intelligence, social paralysis and heart.

Her death felt un-necessary, cheap and needlessly cruel after three series of largely unnecessary ‘ship teasing’ without developing other characters or credible story lines for viewers to invest in. Not only did her death in the final few minutes of Spooks feel mean spirited, it didn’t further the theme of the cost of being a spy (she died because of Harry’s personal history with the Gavrik’s rather than dying to protect Queen and country) and her death was penned in the laziest of ways. She was fridged to uphold Harry as the show’s moral compass and to deliver a final ‘shock’ to the audience and it still fills me with rage every time I remember the finale. In a recent interview, Peter Firth expressed his belief that the producers now regretted their decision to kill Ruth off. I doubt it, but I do know that they upset a lot of long term viewers in the way they chose to off her.

10. They Created a Finale Which Contained Many of the Above Excesses, but Ironically Tied up Little Thematically

As I stated earlier, I always saw the main theme of Spooks to be the human cost to being a spy: the moral, emotional and ethical costs. Instead, as another blog writer pointed out, the show tried to claim that Harry Pearce had always been the centre of the show. The final shot was intended to make us feel safe with Harry behind the desk protecting us despite it all. Given the continued poor judgement he made during Series 9 and 10 in particular, I was left cold and confused. I didn’t want a Harry protecting me: I didn’t want a broken shell of a man protecting me with a stiff upper lip and ice in the heart. I wanted a welcome dose of humanity that never came. Maybe the film will oblige?