Okay, here’s the 11th TARDIS Talk. And look, I got it up before the next episode aired! How responsible of me. The episode from this week is written by Toby Whithouse who penned such classics as A Town Called Mercy and The God Complex. Moffat gets a lot of crap from people about his writing and occasional memory lapse when he messes with continuity and I admit, I can be one of those critics. So how was the first episode with him out of the writer’s chair? Well folks, I hope you watched it already because remember, my TARDIS Talks have SPOILERS aplenty so let this Catt Smith Doctor to be your final warning.
This week’s episode is called…
I’m sorry, that last picture wasn’t necessary, was it? I just got carried away using Photoscape. Eventually my Google-fu isn’t going to turn up any new pictures of Doctor Who animals so I was thinking of having the title be the new buffer. But I digress. This week was a good one. It was a return to the old familiar adventures of The Doctor and Clara. In fact Clara even mentions how she wants another adventure in the first post-credit scene. This was just the episode we needed after the one two punch of heavy hitting episodes… or was it? That ending. Jesus. But we’ll talk about that later.
Like I said in the last Talk, The Doctor and the companions do enjoy a mild level of plot armor… okay… I may not of worded it exactly like that, but that’s what I meant. They don’t get full plot armor and the fate of every companion save Martha should be evidence to back that claim up. But anyway, while the Doctor and Clara are usually safe, the supporting cast is as at risk as a character from The Walking Dead having a cameo on Game of Thrones. Just in case we forgot that, Moran died at the two minute ten second mark followed by Pritchard later in the show. I don’t think these deaths were written to draw sympathy, but to get us thinking about who’s next. We’d obviously think… not the Doctor… until the end.
Anywho, back to the show. When The Doctor and Clara finally meet up with the group we see the good old psychic paper again, but this time it doesn’t have to invent anything. This episode takes place on Earth in 2119. These are military people who’d know what U.N.I.T is and even know who the Doctor is. So the paper shows them the truth which gains the Doctor their trust. Though it doesn’t take him long to offend them and my God did I love those cards. It was not only funny, but served to show that Clara is as close to Capaldi’s Doctor as she was Smith’s Doctor. But did you get to see what was written on all of them? They’re gold.
“I completely understand why it was difficult not to be captured.”
“It was my fault, I should have known you didn’t live in Aberdeen.” Which is a reference to the the Fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, dropping Sarah Jane Smith off in Aberdeen thinking it was where she lived.
“I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t care.”
“No-one is going to get eaten/vapourised/exterminated/upgraded/possessed/mortally wounded/turned into jelly We’ll all get out of this unharmed.”
and finally, the one he used. “I’m very sorry for your loss. I’ll do all I can to solve the death of your friend/family member/pet.”
So in the scene after this, the ghosts start to mess with the day/night systems and then the TARDIS starts to freak out. The Doctor says the ghosts upset the TARDIS because they’re unnatural. In response, the Doctor puts the handbrake on. But I wonder how it actually worked. Remember, Idris from The Doctor’s Wife. She was the host for the TARDIS’s matrix. She said that the reason the TARDIS makes it’s famous sound when it lands is because he leaves the break on. So apparently the TARDIS CAN move with it on. The scene in the TARDIS also shows how Twelfth cares for and wants to protect Clara just like Eleventh did but doesn’t really know how to go about saying it. It was almost painful listening to him express his concern because what may have been natural for Smith’s Doctor isn’t for Capaldi’s.
And now Pritchard dies. Who didn’t see that coming? I still felt sorry for the guy. He may have been an asshole and greedy, but he wasn’t a bad guy per say… well… ignoring the fact that he’s the reason they hadn’t left yet. When the scene goes back to Clara and Bennett prepping to go into the faraday cage and they see Pritchard standing with his back to them, that’s when I realized something. When the ghosts are moving they get all hazy but when they’re standing still and all you see is their back, there’s no real way to tell if they’re dead or not.
Okay, time for a quick aside. Doesn’t the mole ghost kind of look like Gibbis from The God Complex, also written by Toby Whithouse? Here’s a crappy side by side I made.
I don’t this this dead alien is actually Gibbis. But I do think it’s a Tivolian. AAAANNNNDDD thanks to both Google and the TARDIS Data Core wiki, I just realized I’m not the first person to make this connection. But I still feel pretty damn smart. The question I pose is, will this somehow be tied to Gibbis since both episodes were written by the same guy and they’re also the only two episodes to have Tivolians in them?
Good Lord, I’m almost at 1000 words and I’m only halfway through the episode. Let’s power through this. We quickly learn that the ghosts have sent out an SOS via Morse code in an attempt to get more people down under the lake. After a tense and not totally predictable Scooby Doo-esque chase scene, the Doctor dawns his new Sonic Sunglasses and I’m already tired of them. They’re gimmicky. If you saw the video of Moffatt talking about the Sonic Screwdriver he says it was never written anywhere that it had to be a screwdriver. But it’s always been a screwdriver. “But Bill, he doesn’t have it anymore,” you may say. Well I’ll let the eighth Doctor answer that. “It’s a Time Lord tool. Time doesn’t work the same way for Time Lord tools.” So it can turn up anytime. I bet you the TARDIS would know how to find it.
I’m serious now. Let’s wrap this up. Thanks to Cass’s lip reading, we learn what the ghosts have been saying the whole time. They’re giving cryptic coordinates and trying to instruct the Tivolians on how to find the ship. The crew sends out an unmanned sub piloted by Bennett and found a life support pod. The Doctor’s line to Cass “When I step outside you’re the smartest person in the room” was fantastic. Capaldi’s Doctor is the lovable asshole who doesn’t really realize he’s being one.
So the team gets split up and the Doctor, Bennett, and O’Donnell go into the past to try and fix everything while Clara, Cass, and Lunn are stuck waiting for them and then this happens:
And here I thought we were done with cliffhangers. Damn it Whithouse! It feels weird not cursing Moffat but I guess he’s in the clear this time. Anywho, I can’t wait for episode four and I promise it will come quicker than this one and I’ll try to make it shorter too. There was something about this episode that just got me going. I’d like to make sure to thank the TARDIS Data Core wiki for being there to help me with my facts. I knew I recognized the first ghost and it was thanks to them I was able to remember Gibbis’s name. Well folks, that was my TARDIS Talk. I’ll see you next week for episode 4: Before the Flood.