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kerravonsenNote about episode numbering: the ABC calls this episode 10. Others call this episode 11. The BBC website calls it "Season 7 Part 2 Episode 5".
(sigh)
Hmmmm. Very tense, this one. A "trapped with a monster" episode; this one different because it's the TARDIS they're trapped inside of.
Trapped inside with a monster... and there are moments in the episode where Clara feels that the monster is the Doctor.
The resolution in the end was easy, possibly too easy, not to mention paradoxical. How could Clara have been burned by the remote the first time when the Doctor hadn't already tossed it back before? Or is it that there was more than one version of the day or something? We had echoes of the future that didn't happen, while some did.
A lot of things-not-being-as-they-seem in this episode:
* Monsters who are not monsters.
* An android who was not an android.
* Secrets that are, and secrets that aren't.
"Good guys don't keep zombie-creatures in their space ships!"
(Well, they do if they're imprisoned. That was what I thought, at first - that the monsters were escaped imprisoned monsters.)
Again we have directors who apply the "less is more" principle with the monsters. Good.
Mind you, when we find out what the monsters actually were... they were rather lively for walking-corpses-which-were-echoes-of-the-future, don't you think?
"Secrets are for safety." Where have I heard that phrase before? Not in a Doctor Who context, but somewhere else. Hmmm.
Those steel rods stabbing at random through the corridor didn't make sense. Well, apart from the point of forcing the revelation about the not-android brother.
There were three reasons given for why brother #3 thought he was an android. Which was the real reason?
(a) they made him think he was an android as a joke because they were bored.
(b) brother #2 wanted to be captain, so he needed #3 out of the running.
(c) there was an accident and brother #3 lost his sight and memory, so they thought it easier on him to make him think he was an android.
Brother #2 was really cold. Then again, if he hadn't been so greedy, there wouldn't have been an episode...
The Doctor has a name which he doesn't go by. Well, we knew that already. But he's very twitchy about it, and we don't know why.
How coincidental that Clara should just happen to look at "The History of the Time War", and just happen to open it at random and see the Doctor's name with sufficient context to know that it was his name, hmmm? I wonder who wrote that book? The Doctor? The TARDIS?
I expect one of the first things the Doctor will do is take that book and lock it up, and scold the TARDIS for putting it in a place of prominence. I expect she had her reasons.
I loved that "The Encyclopedia of Gallifrey" was liquid in bottles. I wonder how one is meant to "read" it?
So the Doctor is finally convinced that Clara is just an ordinary woman. Which is what everyone has been telling the Doctor since "The Bells of St. John". I did like the scene where he got that revelation; the emotional ups and downs of it, where he frightens Clara with his badgering, and then hugs her.
There has got to be something timey-wimey going on here; this Clara is ordinary, neither a trick nor a trap. But perhaps the other Claras were. It isn't actually this Clara that the Doctor should have investigated... it was the other two.
Two theories:
a) Something is going to happen, something as a result of her travelling with the Doctor, which will end up creating echoes of her in the past and the future.
b) Someone has manipulated the Doctor into taking this Clara on board the TARDIS by creating an irresistible mystery. Though that doesn't really make sense, because, unlike River Song, this Clara is really just a normal woman, not a tool of some Mysterious Enemy.
It's interesting that the Doctor is overly concerned, at the end, that Clara feels safe.
"Afraid? Afraid of what?"
"Afraid... of the future."
Personally I think the Doctor almost said "Afraid of me." But of course he couldn't, because she didn't remember what had happened. But does the Doctor remember? Actually, I think he does. He's behaving as if he does. Which doesn't make sense. Time Lord thing?
Her hair was wet and she had a towel over her shoulder. Had she just had a shower, or had she been swimming in the swimming pool? Hooray for the swimming pool, BTW. Hooray for all the architectural TARDIS interior fun!
When one steps back and thinks about it, there are a number of holes in the plot, but I was feeling generous and didn't let it bother me too much.
Mind you, if you compare it to another "trapped-in-the-TARDIS" episode, "The Doctor's Wife", it only gets a C+. Darn.
(sigh)
Hmmmm. Very tense, this one. A "trapped with a monster" episode; this one different because it's the TARDIS they're trapped inside of.
Trapped inside with a monster... and there are moments in the episode where Clara feels that the monster is the Doctor.
The resolution in the end was easy, possibly too easy, not to mention paradoxical. How could Clara have been burned by the remote the first time when the Doctor hadn't already tossed it back before? Or is it that there was more than one version of the day or something? We had echoes of the future that didn't happen, while some did.
A lot of things-not-being-as-they-seem in this episode:
* Monsters who are not monsters.
* An android who was not an android.
* Secrets that are, and secrets that aren't.
"Good guys don't keep zombie-creatures in their space ships!"
(Well, they do if they're imprisoned. That was what I thought, at first - that the monsters were escaped imprisoned monsters.)
Again we have directors who apply the "less is more" principle with the monsters. Good.
Mind you, when we find out what the monsters actually were... they were rather lively for walking-corpses-which-were-echoes-of-the-future, don't you think?
"Secrets are for safety." Where have I heard that phrase before? Not in a Doctor Who context, but somewhere else. Hmmm.
Those steel rods stabbing at random through the corridor didn't make sense. Well, apart from the point of forcing the revelation about the not-android brother.
There were three reasons given for why brother #3 thought he was an android. Which was the real reason?
(a) they made him think he was an android as a joke because they were bored.
(b) brother #2 wanted to be captain, so he needed #3 out of the running.
(c) there was an accident and brother #3 lost his sight and memory, so they thought it easier on him to make him think he was an android.
Brother #2 was really cold. Then again, if he hadn't been so greedy, there wouldn't have been an episode...
The Doctor has a name which he doesn't go by. Well, we knew that already. But he's very twitchy about it, and we don't know why.
How coincidental that Clara should just happen to look at "The History of the Time War", and just happen to open it at random and see the Doctor's name with sufficient context to know that it was his name, hmmm? I wonder who wrote that book? The Doctor? The TARDIS?
I expect one of the first things the Doctor will do is take that book and lock it up, and scold the TARDIS for putting it in a place of prominence. I expect she had her reasons.
I loved that "The Encyclopedia of Gallifrey" was liquid in bottles. I wonder how one is meant to "read" it?
So the Doctor is finally convinced that Clara is just an ordinary woman. Which is what everyone has been telling the Doctor since "The Bells of St. John". I did like the scene where he got that revelation; the emotional ups and downs of it, where he frightens Clara with his badgering, and then hugs her.
There has got to be something timey-wimey going on here; this Clara is ordinary, neither a trick nor a trap. But perhaps the other Claras were. It isn't actually this Clara that the Doctor should have investigated... it was the other two.
Two theories:
a) Something is going to happen, something as a result of her travelling with the Doctor, which will end up creating echoes of her in the past and the future.
b) Someone has manipulated the Doctor into taking this Clara on board the TARDIS by creating an irresistible mystery. Though that doesn't really make sense, because, unlike River Song, this Clara is really just a normal woman, not a tool of some Mysterious Enemy.
It's interesting that the Doctor is overly concerned, at the end, that Clara feels safe.
"Afraid? Afraid of what?"
"Afraid... of the future."
Personally I think the Doctor almost said "Afraid of me." But of course he couldn't, because she didn't remember what had happened. But does the Doctor remember? Actually, I think he does. He's behaving as if he does. Which doesn't make sense. Time Lord thing?
Her hair was wet and she had a towel over her shoulder. Had she just had a shower, or had she been swimming in the swimming pool? Hooray for the swimming pool, BTW. Hooray for all the architectural TARDIS interior fun!
When one steps back and thinks about it, there are a number of holes in the plot, but I was feeling generous and didn't let it bother me too much.
Mind you, if you compare it to another "trapped-in-the-TARDIS" episode, "The Doctor's Wife", it only gets a C+. Darn.
