Look! It’s Tuesday and my TARDIS Talk is done! I’m making great leaps and bounds. One day I may even be a respectable and well liked blogger! I can dream, can’t I? So Saturday was the long awaited conclusion of last weeks episode called Under the Lake and… well… I’ll save the rest for the Talk. Let me give my regular warning. My TARDIS Talks have SPOILERS so be warned. Allow this picture of my cat Charlie with a clip on bow tie to be your your final warning to turn back if you haven’t seen the episode four yet.
I’m going to be brutally honest. I don’t think this story needed to be told in two parts. The previous episode was great but this one was lacking. Before the Flood had some really good parts to it, but I feel like both episodes could have been condensed into one great story. This episode started out a lot like the beginning for Listen (Series 8, Episode 4). If you remember way back when, that’s the episode where it starts out with him meditating on top of the TARDIS and then he goes inside and rants about why people talk out loud when they’re alone. The Doctor is supposed to be talking to himself so he isn’t quite breaking the fourth wall… but more on that later. It’s the same with this one but they were a little heavy handed with the “talking to us” part of things. For Before the Flood the monologue is used to explain a causal loop aka the bootstrap paradox. He explains it and how it doesn’t make sense but then the climax of the episode only happens because of it, basically saying “screw your paradox, I’m the Doctor.”
Okay, where’s the love for Donna? In the first post opening credit scene, O’Donnell is talking to the Doctor about how Bennett is probably busy throwing up. The Doctor comments on how it’s not uncommon but O’Donnell says that she doubts Rose, Martha, or Amy had that problem. Why not mention Donna? Okay, I know. I’m making a big deal out of nothing so I’ll move on. I’m glad that we were told exactly how O’Donnell knows so much about the Doctor and that it makes total sense. Her fangirl moment was great but also made me miss Osgood.
It isn’t too much longer before we met the Tivolian, Albar Prentis who made me remember how much Gibbis got on my nerves. I liked the history refresher, that they’re the most conquered planet in the universe. It did get a little creepy though when Prentis hinted that there were items in the ship that the Doctor could oppress him with. I can see it now… 50 Shades of Prentis.
The scene shifts back to the base where Clara gets a call and the Doctor realizes his fate. He then goes into this huge speech about how he can’t try and change what’s already happened because of blah blah blah. Because the Doctor has NEVER tampered with time. Never ever. On a side note I don’t think I fully grasp the why behind the Doctor’s regenerations. I thought it was when he was dying he just regenerated instead. If that was the case then why were they both so scared of him dying? Sure, the Capaldi Doctor would be gone but the Doctor would live on. So where exactly am I wrong? Seeing the ghost Doctor should have been a dead giveaway (ha!) that the ghost is somehow tied into how they make it out this sticky situation… but I digress.
What follows was a semi-predictable yet somehow still tense scene of the past group hiding from the Fisher King, who kind of looks like a zombie General Grievous. I predicted that O’Donnell was going to die and, for once, my prediction came true. Too bad I didn’t mention this in the last TARDIS Talk so I could have some proof but oh well. Bennett is obviously upset and demands that the Doctor change something and but the Doctor refuses saying he can’t mess with time, which got another laugh out of me. Bennett mentions how if Clara’s life was at risk he’d do all he could, including changing time, which we saw come to fruition in the end. But of course that’s part of the paradox. Did the Doctor change time? Because he got the idea on how to save the day from himself, but who gave him the idea in the first place?
The next few scenes felt like it was more killing time. I think these could have either been cut or condensed to help make this needlessly two part episode, a one parter. The Doctor and Bennett watch themselves talk to Prentis. The Doctor tells Bennett that they can’t change anything. Clara suggests that Lunn goes out to get the stolen phone because he didn’t have the writing imprinted in him. He does so and get’s surrounded by ghosts. They weren’t bad scenes. Not at all. But I just feel like Before the Flood was artificially drawn out. The Doctor’s conversation with the Fisher King was good though, but it also could have been cut down a bit.
The Fisher King suffers from the same typical bad guy problems. He would rather pontificate to the hero than take action. Of course, if the bad guys in Doctor Who took action first instead of giving speeches, we’d have more Doctor regenerations. The scene with the dam breaking and taking out the Fisher King was a very nice visual and it was also the last little hint that the Doctor was really the one in stasis in the pod.
Let’s skip ahead to the end because the rest was just a Scooby-Doo-esue rundown of how they figured out who the killer was. It’s a trope that I simultaneously am thankful for, because it explains what I may have missed, and also hate. I’d just like a little variety on how it’s done. But now I’m just being picky. So everyone is fixed and Bennett, suddenly more mature from his experience, tells Lunn to tell Cass that he loves her. At least that part ended nicely. It was actually sweet and made me go “awww.”
Back on the TARDIS the Doctor finishes his rundown with Clara and behold it’s a paradox but here’s what bugs the most about this episode. The Doctor breaks the fourth wall. The opening monologue could be written off to him just talking to the TARDIS and we could have been seeing things from various cameras or monitors or whatever. This part was a deliberate nod to us, the viewer, and that kind of took me out of the episode and left me cold. It’s not the first time the show has broken the fourth wall, but it doesn’t happen enough for it to be a thing. It’s odd. It stands out. It feels fake.
All in all this episode wasn’t bad, I just didn’t think it was fully needed. Sure, if they crammed it into one episode it may have come across as rushed and I’d be bitching about how they should have made it two episodes. I think Before the Flood needed just one more smaller conflict or some other little touch to make it feel like a full episode. At least this one wasn’t as bad as Matt Smith’s last Christmas episode or the series 8 premier. Doctor Who has always had it’s ups and downs. This one was more a down. Hopefully the next episode will be a better one. Well folks. I’ll see you…
