Hello and welcome to my weekly review of the newest Doctor Who episode. This my 10th of the series, and there are only 2 left. This, the 9th series, has flown by, and while I should do an overview post at the end, I'll just say that for the most part, I've found this series to be a very strong one.
It has also been, for me, a very grimdark series, and this is coming from someone who loves the Hinchcliffe and later Cartmel eras. People die and don't come back. The episodes are dark, both in actual content and in lighting. The doctor has been placed in a lot of untenable situations and places, including the location of his greatest defeats, and he has lost, thus disproving the lie that the Doctor always wins.
And while Live + 5 shows the ratings haven't been impacted (let's face it, very little is appointment TV anymore), and while I didn't mind the tone (with some exceptions), I think at times this series has been much like a Blizzard reaction to things...as in 'They didn't care for the structure or tone of Series 8...RADICAL CHANGE!
So, let's talk about it, now that I have a night to brood.
Julie stayed spoiler free this week, whilst her mum did not. So she was silent through a lot of the episode, while it was all new for me. I'll just lay that out as preface.
We start out with Clara and the Doctor running back into the TARDIS from some brilliant light. Clara of course is laughing like a nutter, while the Doctor is more reserved. This has been a theme all year...Clara becoming more Doctor like, with the actual Doctor trying to rein her in and tell her that he has a duty of care toward her, something she rejects fully. She's proud of what she has become, and you know what they say.
With a phone ring, they're back on earth, and they meet up with their old friend Riggsy, from last series' Flatline. He has a tattoo on his neck...a tattoo that is slowly counting down minute by minute. With 24 hours of his life retconned away, they have less than 10 hours to find out what the countdown means...and the Doctor is pretty sure that it's Riggsy's death. Not only that, but it's inevitable. Clara convinces him to try and do something, and in fact, brings up the idea of a trap street as the place to look. They fly over the city of London, with Clara at one point hanging out of the TARDIS and laughing like it's an every day occurrence...something that scares both Riggsy and the Doctor.
With the three splitting up, they find said trap street, and enter...but not before Riggsy has a flashback to standing over top a dead woman and him crying out for the Doctor. They enter, and are soon accosted by three people. Riggsy seems to be able to see through their disguises from time to time, and understands at a base level that nothing is as it seems.
Enter Ashildr. Or Me. Who is apparently Mayor of this street, a refugee camp she's assembled to house those who just want to live in peace and away from harm...like Blowfish, Cybermen, Judoon, Weevils, you know. Nothing dangerous or anything the Doctor has dealt with before. After the Doctor argues with her, she places Clara under her absolute protection, and then lays out her rules...and they are basic and absolute. If she feels someone has broken a rule, she places a chronolock on them (and where she got this from, I've no idea) and once it finishes counting down, a quantum spirit chases down the 'criminal and kills them. The crew is witness to this when a man is begging to have his removed after being accused of stealing medical rations for his wife, and Ashildr refuses.
The scream is terrifying...as is the fact that it came from a Cyberman.
This ups the tension, and the Doctor and crew are given about 25 minutes to convince the residents that Riggsy is innocent, or he dies. Cold, cruel, clinical, and if anything she has become more emotionless and more absolute as time has gone on. There is no shred of humanity or true decency in her anymore, and if power corrupts and you have an eternity for it to slide in, it corrupts absolutely.
While the doctor tries to convince the residents of Riggsy's innocence, Clara has another idea. After talking to a resident, she finds that the tattoo ca be passed from one person to another, if both do so willingly. After arguing with him that this is a clever idea, especially as she is under Ashildr's absolute protection, they do so, and continue to search the streets.
This is when they find the victim's son, a Janus, someone who can see backward and forward in time. They speak with him, and discover he cannot see what is going on because it has to do with Ashildr and the doctor, and that somehow causes it to be blocked. This gives the Doctor a clue, and they rush back to Ashildr's residence, where he finds out that the supposedly murdered woman is actually alive and in stasis. He tries to get her out, using a TARDIS key in a lock under a stasis console, only to find his arm caught by some sort of bracelet.
Ashildr then enters, apologising, but saying this was all part of her plan...deliver the doctor and take his confession disc, and no one needed to get hurt. She then offers to remove the tattoo from Riggsy...only to find out Clara has is. The Doctor is incensed and Ashildr is upset, as that act somehow broke her contract with the spirit. Thus the rest o the statement Clara declined to mention...once the tattoo is applied, the spirit will take a soul, no matter what. With said contract broken, Clara is without recourse.
This sends the doctor into apoplectic rage, and he demands Ashildr remove it or he will bring the entire place down, bringing in UNIT and the Zygons and anyone else and destroying the street, the residents, and anything to do with it. Clara calms him down somehow, and then asks him to not seek revenge...be a doctor, not a warrior. With that, she walks into the street, with the Doctor following behind. Music rises, and we are spared Clara's screams, which was a wise choice.
And for the first time in 33 years, a companion dies on screen.
The Doctor returns inside the house and speaks very quietly and very calmly to Ashildr, warning Me that Clara's message was more directed to Me than to him, as to fear his potential retribution. Me then activates the teleportation band, sending the Doctor off to an unknown location..
Somehow Riggsy is allowed to remember the events in the trap street, as the end scene is of him painting the TARDIS as a flowery memorial to Clara.
End episode.
As you know, I have made no secrets of the fact that Clara has bee my least favourite Companion of the 2005-date series. It's not an indictment of the actress...and if she had been what was originally intended (the Victorian Clara, before Moffat got all clever clogs and crap), I'm not sure I'd be saying that. Her arcs were vacuous at best, and her character not well fleshed out. Having said that, she faced her fate with untold amounts of strength and grace, and if nothing else, I admire her for that. I'm not sure this is the last we'll see of her, but...this was a huge risk, and now we get a two part finale with no companion. I'll post my theory below as to what is happening next so you can laugh at me when I am wrong.
The Doctor covered a vast amount of emotional ground, and I admit that I wish he had called down the forces of hell for Clara. We saw the fullness of a Time Lord's rage, and it is a frightening thing indeed. If Human Nature/The Family of blood was full rage tempered with mercy, this is full rage with no filters. He will need that rage wherever he is now.
Riggsy I think served as a point of remembrance...Flatline was the episode Clara pretended to be the Doctor, with him as erstwhile companion. Thus we come full circle. From an emotional point I understand Clara taking the tattoo...Riggsy is now married (or at least in a stable domestic situation) with a child, and Clara couldn't bear for him to not come home to them. He was a plot device mostly, and I'm sorry for that. I wish he had been more.
Ashildr...My emotions on her have run a course, and that course continues downward with every episode. From the storytelling innocent to the highway woman to the autocratic emotionless autocrat of a street full of refugees, her course has led her into direct conflict with the Doctor. I'm still not sure what the hybrid thing means, but she is one, and though she is not in the next two episodes from what I know, I know this is being advertised as the first part of the series ending story, in much the same way Turn Left led into the Dalek 2 parter that ended series 4 and Donna Noble's tenure. I hope for Ashildr she never runs into the Doctor again.
Next week's episode is the Doctor only, save for some monster called the Veil. So we'll get a lot of monologue. Capaldi is capable of carrying that...we'll see how the audience takes it.
Now, the Julie theory.
Skaro degradations - the dead Daleks in the sewer
The Nightmare Child - Ashildr
The Would be King - The Fisher King
The Horde of Travesties - The Mire
Meanwhiles and Never-Were's - The Sandmen, perhaps. The Ghosts from the Under the Lake two parter. Those hiding in the trap street.
Gallifrey is returning. Every episode has pointed toward it in subtle ways. We just need to fit the hybrids into it somehow.
Did I like it?
This is still a hard question to answer. I think it was light story-wise, but heavy on atmosphere and tone. I think it advanced us to where we need to be. I also think in a grimdark series, it may have pushed a little further than I'd expect. I've no idea how younger viewers took it. I'm looking forward to finding where this goes, obviously...I'm just note sure I'll be happy when we get there.
Roll on week 11.
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