Be warned. The following review is going to have spoilers. Proceed only if you’ve already seen series eight episode one of Doctor Who. Allow this cat in a TARDIS to be your final warning.
Ladies and gentlewhovians, the new Doctor is here! The last time we saw any incarnation of him this side of reruns was 2013’s Christmas special which, to be honest, left me a little cold. Yes, yes, I’m a bad person for making that joke and no I’m not sorry about it. But really, it was lack luster. I’d have gladly watched ANY other Doctor special than the halfhearted goodbye to the man who was the introductory Doctor for a giant part of the new Whovian population.
But I digress. I’m not here to bring up old wounds Steven Moffat has inflicted upon me. I’m here to talk about the twelfth incarnation of the Doctor… or the thirteenth depending on how you treat the War Doctor. Let us begin.
The beginning was off-putting. I understand that the familiar characters of Madame Vastra and Jenny Flit were tossed at us from the get go to help ease the blow of what was a rocky transition, but something was off. I’m not sure if it was a stylistic choice on Moffat’s part, if it was my new TV, or if my old man eyes (I’m 31 now, officially old) just take in light differently, but the entire show looked different. It was darker. Reports and press releases have been mentioning the darker direction this Doctor will take ever since Capaldi was announced, but I didn’t realize it’d be literal too.
The change in opening sequence was upsetting. I know that each Doctor has slight changes to the theme and sequence, but this one was so different that I was taken aback. It sat right on the border of goofy and cheesy but couldn’t commit to one side.
Capaldi wasn’t in much of this episode as the plot revolved more around Clara coming to terms with the Doctor’s regeneration. A thought had occurred to me was I watched Clara dealing with her new reality. Why was she as shocked as she was? Didn’t the Doctor ever take time to explain regeneration to her? Some shock and transition time is warranted, but I think she went a little far. I know she was supposed to represent us, the audience, but I wasn’t a fan of it plot wise.
Clara was off her game, the Doctor was absent most of the episode, and we only saw the TARDIS and the sonic screwdriver a couple of times. The only familiar aspects were Vastra, Flint, and Strax the Sontaran butler. When we did see the Doctor he was trying to figure out who he was which Capaldi pulled off very well.
I feel like I’ve been very negative thus far so let me bring up something I liked a lot. Strax is always great comic relief and even though his jokes are all of the same vein, they were used sparingly and at the appropriate times to lighten the mood without getting old. I laughed out loud and scared my cat half to death when he threw the paper up at Clara and hit her in the face. Well executed slapstick is always funny.
I liked how Moffat explained Capaldi playing the Doctor after appearing as Caecilius in series four episode two The Fires of Pompeii. He didn’t really tell us as much as he gave us enough to work out our own answers. The Doctor said something along the lines of “I’ve seen this face before,” and “I don’t know where the faces come from.” True, it’s not a lot, but it’s easy to speculate. Karen Gillan was in the episode too but she had so much makeup on that her appearance as Amy Pond didn’t need explanation.
The halfway mark was when the show really picked up steam and was the same time things got really creepy. At first I thought it was a brand new villain, some flesh collecting robot. It wasn’t until I watched After Who with Chris Hardwick that I realized they were the same clockwork driod from my favorite Doctor Who episode The Girl in the Fireplace. Couple that with Capaldi’s references to Amy Pond and Tom Baker and this episode had a plethora of references to Doctors of the past.
There are two parts which I want to highlight as the best scenes in the episode. The first was after the Doctor left Clara behind with the clockwork droids and she had to hold her breath to try and escape. It was one of the most intense scenes in recent Who history. The second and arguably best scene in the episode was the phone call from the Eleventh Doctor. It was as surprising as it was heart breaking. This was the goodbye that Smith deserved and it was just what the fans needed. The plea from Eleven to Clara to stick by Twelve wasn’t just aimed at her. It was aimed at us. A reminder from the Doctor that the transition is never easy and even though he may look and act different, he’s still the Doctor.
Overall it was a good episode. It wasn’t fantastic but it wasn’t bad. I wish we got to see a new sonic screwdriver and I wish we got a better opening sequence, but I can’t complain too much. Capaldi is a very promising Doctor and the next episode will be his first encounter with the Daleks. The Daleks are the Doctors greatest foe and there’s no better way for a new incarnation to figure out who he is by going toe to toe with a foe he has never fully beaten .
Allow me to speculate ever so quickly about the ending. Who was that woman? According to the panel on After Who, some of the current theories are that she’s a TARDIS. Not the Doctor TARDIS, but another one that just so happened to survive Gallifrey. Another thought is that she’s a female Master, but she referred to the Doctor as “my boyfriend” so I doubt that the latter is true. I think that she’s somehow related to the Papal Mainframe or The Silence. If you recall the end of The Time of the Doctor, Eleven talks about saving Gallifrey and Twelve (his eyes at least) are seen at the climax of the special. I think the Gallifrey story arc is going to come to fruition in Twelves time.
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed my madman-esque Doctor Who rambling. I plan on doing one per episode so please stay tuned!