This new series of Doctor Who has taken
some very brave steps, taking the show in a very new direction. The casting of
an older Doctor could have failed but fortunately has been perceived by the
general public and Doctor Who fans alike as a complete success due to the
electric performances of Peter Capaldi. Another riskier move was the fact that
this was the first story not to feature any physical monsters or villains.
Instead of the physical demons, The Doctor comes into conflict with his own
psychological demons.
This series has been very character driven
but instead of retreading the character driven routes taken by RTD throughout
his tenure, Moffat is exploring the lives of our major characters. Clara has
been given a boyfriend and now a life outside the TARDIS but more importantly
The Doctor is getting more character development than ever before. The Twelfth
Doctor presently is trying to discover his identity and as I have said before
those 800 (ish) years of Trenzalore have changed The Doctor, he has had time to
reminisce over the previous 1200 years of his life and has began to
question who he really is (a good man, a hero). We have explored all this so
far and now he is beginning to confront his fears - the fears of him as a
child. The parallels between The Doctor and the story continue.
There are some properly scary scenes in
this story. The scene where The Doctor, Clara and Rupert are trying not to look
around to see the thing under the blanket as it walks up behind them and then
takes the sheet off to reveal a glimpse of an out of focus face is one of the
only times I have actually been scared since Moffat took over from RTD (the
other time was The Rebel Flesh). I hope we have some more of these scenes in
the future.
Danny and Clara's relationship is further explored in this story with her confronting his past, his present and discovering more about his future. The lines in their date are very awkward but that is what they are intended to be. I am looking forward to see more of Danny later on in the season, possibly we saw too much of them in this story, moving away from the real plot but it did not detract from my viewing experience. I would prefer however we saw their relationship develop more like we saw it in Into the Dalek, a bit at the beginning before the story and a bit at the end.
I cannot discuss this story without
commenting on one of the most important scenes in the last fifty years of
Doctor Who - the scene on Gallifrey. I have said that we are exploring The Doctor
more than ever in the last couple of years. Now we have gone further back than
ever before and we have discovered The Doctor as a child for the first time.
Some people complain about the fact that we are exploring too much but I love
the fact that this scene teased us with very little information but just gave
us an insight into The Doctor's fears whilst showing us where he grew up. I
love the fact that the barn in The Day of the Doctor is the same barn where he
grew up in, The War Doctor though he would end his life and the time war, where
his life began. One final point is that in Sound of the Drums when it is
referenced that The Master went mad when he faced the untendered schism and The
Doctor just ran from it, was the barn in this story where he ran to and the
fears we saw in this story, caused by such an experience. It is nice to see
more of these references to The Doctor's childhood making us wonder what he was
up to for two hundred years on Gallifrey that would force him to run away.
There was a lot of variety in this story
as well as we went from barren futuristic planets at the end of the universe to
haunted children homes. The design of this story is very good as usually, the
sets look amazing and the CGI is brilliant as we have become accustomed to in
this modern age. Furthermore the performances in this were very strong
throughout.
In summary this story showed us that The
Doctor is truly afraid of some things (the hand coming under the bed etc) and
is able to turn the normal (children under sheets, atmospheric pressure) into
monsters. There seems to be a lot of foreshadowing in the series which I can
only speculate what it is for. In Listen we have another reference to Clara's
life span ('from the moment you were born to the moment you die') like what
happened in Deep Breath. I can only speculate but we know that characters after
death get to the Promised Land (Missy was absent this week but that one line
made me believe that the story arc is still here), so what if Clara dies later
in the season and is sent to the Promised Land, (this is only speculation at
the moment).
8/10