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

I was so excited for this episode the first time round because KEELEY HAWES Y’ALL. Ahem. Anyway, who knew that an episode penned by Stephen Thompson (he who also wrote orientalist Sherlock episode and the abysmal The Curse of the Black Spot) could be such rollicking fun and still smart at the same time? This episode is what happens when Oceans Eleven meets Doctor Who and the story could have worked as part of the Series 7 run, when each week caricatured a new genre. Time Heist sees The Doctor and Clara positioned alongside two other strangers to rob the most secure bank in the galaxy. Only problem is, neither of them can remember why they agreed to rob the bank or who the mysterious Architect is who directs them on their mission.

Companions who never are?

Luckily, beyond the opening credits, this stand alone episode really kicks off as we meet Psy (zomg Ollie from Broadchurch) and Saibra (The Doctor and Clara’s partners in crime) as well as see the impenetrable bank, with a set and costumes reminiscent of The Hunger Games (yay for high production values!) Both Psy and Saibra are interesting would be companions, adding to the long list found in Series 8 as a whole. Psy can delete memories and did so in prison to protect his loved ones. Saibra can shape change. Both die in blazes of glory with Saibra telling The Doctor, ‘You’re a good man. I left it rather late to meet one of those.’ Psy goes out the tragic hero.

But this is a Moffat overseen episode, which means people don’t stay dead and everybody lives if The Doctor comes to call. Though some may have found this a bit of a cop-out, I enjoyed the scene in the TARDIS at the end as Clara, The Doctor, Saibra and Psy enjoyed some TARDIS take-out. One of the (many) things I like better about Moffat’s run, is that we see The TARDIS as both a home and a friend.

The Clara/Danny/Doctor relationship

The second time watching, the episode opener with Clara and Danny tackling their second date moved me much more than it initially did, even if Danny’s acting is still slightly off and The Doctor’s continued criticism of Clara’s appearance continues to irk. More interesting than The Doctor’s insistence on insulting Clara’s appearance, was Psy’s conversation with Clara where he says that The Doctor calls himself The Doctor because he goes in for professional detachment with Clara transparent about travelling with him for so long because she has learnt to keep making excuses.

Revealing Twelve

This episode is predominantly fun filler with a tough edge, but we do learn more about Twelve. We learn that this Doctor sees him being in charge as ‘his special power’ and that his idea of a plan is to say what the heck and hope ‘that a thing happens’ (How very Eleven of you, Twelve). Finally, he reminds Karabraxos and the audience that he has been around a long time and is still wearing in a new face as he says of his regeneration, ‘I was hoping for minimalism, but I think I came out with magician.’

The Villainess

Keeley’s entrance as Ms Delphox didn’t disappoint, even if she did continue the trend of female villains on Doctor Who being tall, angular and wearers of bright red lippie. Ms Delphox is an interesting character: a creepily seductive villainess, who nonetheless becomes sympathetic towards the end of the episode when you realize that she is only doing her job. Though The Teller’s detection of another man’s guilt is horrifying as his brain is turned to soup, we can see both sides to the story. Ms Delphox is cruel to people with criminal intent, but she is protecting the bank’s reputation and security rating at the same time. The message is clear. If you obey the rules at the bank, there will be no moral or physical consequence. Alas for The Doctor and his companions…

Keeley had a challenging part: having to play both the clone, Ms Delphox, as well as the real puppeteer behind the bank, Karabraxos, a bitter, rich woman who doesn’t care about people unless they get her more tangible things to add to her wealthy collection. We see this in her private room, a den of antiquity and collector’s items complete with classical music playing in the background. Keeley is a revelation, playing both parts with ease and still bringing a dash of humor to the role.

Karabraxos doesn’t understand The Doctor and his companions at all. ‘What is this display, as amusing as you are?’ she says in response to The Doctor weaponless. At last he realizes his own clever deception for the woman who called The TARDIS was Karabraxos herself, old and infirm and choked up on regrets. He tells her humorously, ‘I thought we were getting on,’ as he gives the young and surprised Karabraxos his number, followed by ‘You’ll be old and full of regret for the things you can’t change.’ Helping an awful woman undo regrets and rescue an ancient species – is this not the summation and the essence of The Doctor? I like to think so.

Time Heist: 9/10 inky stars

Welcome back to another round of Maureen trying to swallow Mark Gatiss scripts on Doctor Who. I’ve said in multiple places that he isn’t my favorite writer for the show and truly, I am terrified of him taking over after Moffat. Robots of Sherwood was thankfully less awful then dreck like The Idiot’s Lantern and less boring then Cold War, but it still suffers from the mismatched tone and the slightness that has plagued every one of his Who scripts except The Unquiet Dead. I’m not saying that it’s not OK to have a bit of light hearted fun every now and again, but it isn’t what I prefer and particularly not in a potential show runner. In hindsight, Robots of Sherwood was one of the most comedic episodes of Series 8. Unfortunately, it is also remarkably average.

So what happened for those who need memories refreshed? Clara asks The Doctor to take her to see Robin Hood. After much snipery and ridicule, he obeys without much believing anything will come of it (nice set up for what happens in Dark Water, Moffat and Gatiss). The two find themselves in scenes lifted straight out of BBC Robin Hood (Still bitter about what you did on that one BBC) with bonus asides to Prince of Thieves etc, including having to save themselves from the evil Sheriff. It turns out he’s in cahoots with some metal robots who are after gold to power their ship to The Promised Land. Chaos ensues.

I liked that this episode started by furthering The Doctor’s personality yet again, with the re-occurring series motif of The Doctor scrawling equations across a TARDIS blackboard. This Doctor sees himself as a bit of an intellectual: the erratic and grumpy and half crazed Einsteinian Professor. This Doctor stops bad things happening because he’s ‘just passing the time’ after all. He’s also cruel, as he was last episode in Into the Dalek. This time he callously tells one of Robin’s men, ‘if you were real, you’d be dead in six months.’ The Doctor doesn’t believe in Robin and his gang’s existence and so he believes he has a free rein to do and say whatever he wants without consequence. Clara doesn’t agree:

The Doctor: When did you start believing in impossible heroes?
Clara: When did you stop believing in impossible things?

Clearly, this Doctor needs a dose of Alice in Wonderland, who believed in as many as six impossible things before breakfast! Eleven would have done so, but then, this Doctor is a reaction to the studied lightness of Eleven.

The episode also cleverly juxtaposes two legends side by side: that of The Doctor and that of Robin Hood. The two play constant games of one-up-man-ship – from Robin and his sword vs The Doctor and his spoon over a river, to the extended jibing in prison (Robin calls The Doctor ‘a dessicated man crow’ for example), to the exchange as The Doctor finds the alien ship – but the end result is the same. It doesn’t matter that both The Doctor and Robin are flawed heroes: the first sometimes callous and cold and unkind, the second full of false swagger and hubris, as long as we believe in them hard enough they transcend truth and become… legend.

Robin: History is forgotten. Stories make us fly… If we keep pretending to be [heroes] perhaps others will be in our name… may those stories never end.

As so often happens in modern Doctor Who, the quote is also a meta reference to the fans. In believing in The Doctor’s story long enough and hard enough, we have sustained it and kept the dream alive. At the same time, we are reminded of why The Doctor’s story matters… because he was moved by the plight of the oppressed and of the weak, so stole a TARDIS, just as Robin found the plight of the oppressed and the weak too much to bear so stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

Robin was told by Marian to stand up and be counted, but he was afraid. In Series 8, it is Clara who tells The Doctor to stand up and be counted, but deep down, underneath the crotchety mask, he is afraid (next week’s Listen attests to this). The Doctor is flawed and so the show turns to Clara to become a hero in The Doctor’s name, as Gretchen did last week, bringing us to a second ongoing Moffat series theme – The Doctor as enabler with companions as ordinary people made heroes through The Doctor’s friendship and extraordinary circumstance. It seems that Clara Who is truly underway. Luckily, Jenna Coleman is an excellent actress. Her scenes with The Sheriff (an odd knock-off of Richard Armitage’s Guy of Gisbourne in that black leather) are especially good as she tricks The Sheriff into revealing his story:

Sheriff: Tell me your story
Clara: But I do not have one… I was lying

She also speaks for the entire audience when she pronounces, ‘does your plan involve the words sonic and screwdriver?’ to The Doctor. To many times it does, we all say.This time it’s all down to Clara and all in a smoking hot costume and hair style too. (Aside: I enjoyed the return of name monikers with Prince of Thieves and Last of the Time Lords. It’s not Moffat Who without them. Thanks Clara.)

Where the episode becomes truly unstuck is in the final twenty minutes with the alien threat of the week taking on a bigger role within the story. Their reason for invasion isn’t particularly complex, and nor is the way Clara, The Doctor and Robin get rid of them. The ending cops out with a half hearted theme about working together and an improbably shot golden arrow, but at least the alien story does serve to get Missy’s Promised Land name checked for the week. Some of the acting was sub par (The Sheriff and the captured woman especially) even if I did get to play spot that actor with Master Quail (He played Sir Hector in Hallmark’s Merlin which is in my top 5 film list of all time) and the tone changed from thoughtful and melancholy under a veneer of frivolity to silly deux ex machina before returning briefly to more thoughtful again as The Doctor and Robin discuss the difference between history and legend. Aside from giving Clara further chance to shine and establishing Tweleve, nothing much to see here.

Robots of Sherwood: 5/10 inky stars

I know that this ranking is very low compared to how I ranked episodes in Series 7. In hindsight, I would probably re-rank the second half of Series 7 as this episode is infinitely more entertaining than Cold War or Nightmare in Silver for example. Unfortunately, it is still distinctly average, and as I am ranking out of 10, I feel that 5 is the right score for exactly average

Into The Dalek tells the story of soldiers who ask The Doctor to go inside a Dalek to find out what is making it malfunction and become ‘a good Dalek.’ (Aside: Was the Dalek called Rusty as an in-joke reference to RTD’s fandom nickname? Inquiring minds want to know.) We are also treated to a bonus companion who never was, Journey Blue, and the deepening of Clara’s relationship with Danny and with The Doctor. Now that Twelve has been established, the second episode also serves to deepen his characterization as a grumpy old man reminiscent of One. The Doctor is rude to Journey Blue, even in the face of her brother’s death (And his sister isn’t [dead]. You’re welcome), is callous when people die inside the Dalek, and (in one of the few bum notes of series 8 and this particular episode) tells Clara that she looks old and ugly. It is a change from the young magic man Eleven. However, there is continuity too. Namely, that The Doctor always cares about being a good man, and always feels conflicted about soldiers and warring.

It’s interesting that this episode contains so many important themes which resurface in a big way in the finale. Though the episodes are nothing alike, I was reminded of The Beast Below. The Beast Below established Series 5’s fairy story vibe, the importance of dreams and belief to Amy and her relationship with The Doctor and Eleven’s true character – he doesn’t interfere in people or planets unless there’s children crying. Similarly, Into the Dalek establishes the soldier theme, including The Doctor as soldier, and the importance of trying to be something rather than worrying about if you are or are not that thing all of which is addressed in Death in Heaven. As a fun aside, the scene where Clara and The Doctor slide down the Dalek’s feeding tube and land in digested bodies has a lot in common with The Beast Below when Amy and The Doctor fall into the beast’s stomach.

Anyway, for every good Dalek-centric episode (Dalek, Asylum of the Daleks, Day of the Doctor etc) there are rubbish ones (Victory of the Daleks, Evolution of the Daleks/Daleks in Manhatten etc). Though Into the Dalek is by no means perfect, it is at least an interesting Dalek episode. The main reason for this is its exploration of the soldier theme which is to become so important in the finale. Danny Pink is introduced as a Maths teacher with a background in soldiery (Is it coincidence that both Journey Blue and Danny Pink are soldiers with color last names?). We see Danny teach PE military style and then teach Maths to questions of, ‘Have you ever killed anyone who wasn’t a soldier?’ (this comes back to bite Danny in Dark Water). Danny is a different kind of soldier. Clara says as a joke in response to his assertions of morality, ‘Ah, you shoot people and then cry about it later.’ There is a moral dimension to being Danny’s kind of soldier, and presumably Journey Blue’s too (though The Doctor doesn’t learn this until Death in Heaven). He mistakenly says ‘crying is for civilians… we cry so you don’t have to,’ except we know that this isn’t true, because Danny the soldier man does cry, even if only on the inside, and we see it happen as he is questioned in his classroom.

This Doctor is a contradiction and an enigma. He doesn’t like soldiers, to the point of telling Journey Blue, ‘I think you’re probably nice. Underneath it all I think you’re kind. You’re definitely brave. I just wish you hadn’t been a soldier,’ but at the same time he needs confirmation from a flummoxed Clara that he is indeed a good man, and not, as the Dalek tells him, a good Dalek, a good hater, a good soldier, a believer of beauty in hate. Moffat reminds us again why The Doctor needs humans. The Doctor needs his humans to remind him why he isn’t like a Dalek.

Clara: I’m his carer.
The Doctor: Yeah, she cares so I don’t have to.

The Doctor says he does one better and saves souls as well as lives, but he is only able to do this because of human companions like Clara. It is for this reason that I agree with Moffat and think that the companion story is so vital to Doctor Who. Clara reminds The Doctor that the point isn’t that there was a Dalek and it malfunctioned so appeared good. The point was that for a single moment in time, The Doctor believed that there was a good Dalek. Or to put it another way, it doesn’t matter if you are or are not a good person, what matters is that you believe in becoming a good person. There is so much awesome in Clara being a teacher. Not only does she teach an English classroom in the show, she is the audience’s teacher too:

Clara: I don’t know.
The Doctor: I’m sorry?
Clara: You asked me if you were a good man and the answer is, I don’t know. But I think you try to be and I think that’s probably the point.
The Doctor: I think you’re probably an amazing teacher.
Clara: I think I’d better be.

This episode shows us that The Doctor has changed. He is old and grumpy and acerbic and irritable and touchy on the subject of soldiers, but he is still trying to be a good man. Ultimately, he is still a mad man with a box gallivanting around space and time trying to do his best. Gretchen reminds us of this, even as her sacrifice also reminds us of why The Doctor comes back for humans every single time:

Gretchen: Is he mad or is he right?
Clara: Hand on my heart – most days he’s both.
Gretchen: Gretchen Alison Carlisle. Do something good and name it after me.
The Doctor: I will do something amazing. I promise.
Gretchen: Damn well better.

Into The Dalek is a surprisingly complex and interesting Who adventure which firmly sets up themes for the rest of series 8.

Into The Dalek: 8/10 inky stars