If on your journey should you encounter God, God will be cut.
I stand by my belief that an episode being "co-written" by Steven Moffat is just a sign that Moffat wanted to insert some of the season-long plot arc's narrative into the script and give himself credit for it. There was absolutely nothing Moffat-esque about this episode. The episode wasn't particularly creepy, there was nothing darkly fantastic about it, and nothing mundane was trying to kill people. There wasn't even really anything that rung of the writing style of Jamie Mathieson, who gave us last season's "Mummy on the Orient Express" and "Flatline," two episodes so good that it led both myself and my podcast co-host Shelly to start calling for him to become the next in line to Moffat's throne when he's ready to leave the show, even though Mathieson had only given us two episodes so far. Really, there was nothing about this episode that was exciting and super fun, but it felt like it was a huge build up for something. I have no doubt anymore that "The Hybrid" is this season's plot arc. Now it's a question of where is it going, what does "The Hybrid" refer to, and, the clue I forgot to speculate on last week: Who the hell is the minister of War?
THAT NAME IS SO METAL, MAN!
The episode, by and large, was setting up something, and I predicted that it was probably going to be the first part of a two-parter. Moffat has told us that he's going to make it hard to tell whether something's a two-parter or not this season and, even though "The Girl Who Died" wasn't officially listed as a two-parter, I noticed that the episode following it was going to be called "The Woman Who Lived," and I assumed the titles were implying that they were connected. Because now the Doctor has created something that has gone a step too far. A young girl who can never die and, from the looks of what's coming up, will never even be able to age, suggesting that the chip the Doctor put in her head will interpret any sign of aging as damage and correct it, keeping her a child forever.
Trust me, Ashildr, it sucks!
Also, I was really excited when I heard that Moffat was putting into place Davies idea about why there are multiple Peter Capaldi's in the Doctor Who universe, and that Mathieson would be writing the first episode about it. I even rewatched "Fires of Pompeii" that morning to get me prepared for "The Girl Who Died." However, what came up could not have been the infamous plan that Davies thought up, and that Moffat asked him about when Davies called to compliment him about choosing Capaldi for the 12th Doctor. Davies was thinking of writing this idea into the show at a time when there was no plan to make Capaldi the Doctor yet. Davies's plan was supposed to be to explain why Caecilius and John Frobisher had the same face. So either something's changed about the plan, or there's more to come about the connections between Pete, Pete, and Pete.
There have been reports out in the press questioning about whether Maisie Williams's character is going to be coming back after "The Woman Who Lived." I feel like the idea of a girl who can never die is such an interesting idea that I can't see this just being an idea for a two-parter. I feel like this has to come around to the larger season arc.
But how? The dialogue hinted at there being some connection to The Hybrid, but a lot of dialogue in Doctor Who that hints at being connected to the larger plot arc turns out to be a complete red herring. Remember the ending to "Vampires of Venice" where the Doctor pointed out that there was some strange silence in Venice? Remember how that had absolutely nothing to do with what The Silence were (even though we flashed back to this moment anyway when The Silence were first identified by name)? It could be a pretty simple mislead. But The Hybrid is coming up a lot this season, which leaves me wondering, are the Daleks created in "The Witch's Familiar" The Hybrid, or is Ashildr? Or were both mentions misleads and The Hybrid is something completely different? If you think about it, a lot of things in the Doctor Who universe could be called hybrids. Both Daleks and Cybermen are, by definition, hybrid creatures. Donna Noble is a hybrid. If you take the most hated line from the 1996 Doctor Who movie to be true, the Doctor himself is a hybrid. So it could be anything.
It could even be...
I'm half attractive, half horrifying
I still stand by the fact that I think there's something more that's going to happen to explain the events of "Listen," so I do think it's possible that Danny is coming back some how.
Also, Davros was a little vague about this prophesy of The Hybrid. What's supposed to be so terrible about it? Why is the Doctor running from it? What makes it so terrifying?
I made this blog primarily to make predictions about the show based on clues, and I totally forgot to pick up on the huge, huge, huge clue that was dropped last week, when O'Donnell, who like Osgood seems to be a real life Doctor fan (and who, liked Osgood, is dead because of it), mentioned a whole bunch of stuff that happened to the Doctor between 1980 and 2119 and she brought up one phrase that the Doctor did not recognize yet: "The Minister of War." Sure, it could be a throw away line that has no bearing on anything, but I really feel like Whithouse was just shouting "Clue!" at us pretty loudly at that moment. It's possible that it's not a clue for this season's finale, as we all know that, in the Moffat era, big twists can be set up many seasons in advance ("Silence Will Fall," "The Woman in the Shop"), but I have a feeling that Missy is the Minister of War, possibly the title she's assumed by staying behind on Skaro to join forces with the Daleks.
Moffat hasn't left us this vague of a mystery in a while, but it's an interesting one to start speculating on. I'm really curious to see where this is going. Missy has a plan, I'm sure of it, the Hybrid is a dubious evil lurking in the background, and Ashieldr is now a poor, cursed girl who can never die or even age. So what's the connection? How does this all lead us to a season finale two-parter called "Heaven Sent" and "Hell Bent," the former of which is supposed to have no other actors but Peter Capaldi in it for the whole thing?! I'm so curious about what Moffat is building here. But I'm ready for the ride, because so far, it's been fun. While this wasn't my favorite episode, I get the feeling it's building so, so, so much more, and I'm really intrigued to see where we go from here.
Next week, I look forward to Torchwood writer Catherine Tregenna becoming the first woman to write an episode of Doctor Who since "The Sontaran Stratagem"/"The Poison Sky." Really, that writing staff has been far too much of a sausage party for several seasons now, and this season we have not one, but two different female writers for the first time in far too long. Catherine Tregenna is the only writer to have been nominated for a Hugo award for working on Torchwood, so hopefully we're going to get something really special next week. I really look forward to it!
I've taken a lot of time to explain bootstrap paradoxes on this blog. Mostly it's because I love the phrase bootstrap paradox. It's my username on a couple websites, most notably, one of the larger Doctor Who message boards on the Internet, Gallifrey Base:
I hope a lot of people tried to register with this name on Saturday!
So I was very happy to see the phrase show up in the beginning of "Before the Flood." It's hardly the first bootstrap paradox we've seen in the show. The Moffat era is riddled with them. The Doctor getting himself out of the Pandorica is a bootstrap paradox. The Doctor finding Craig's apartment in "The Lodger" was entirely thanks to a bootstrap paradox. "Blink" is literally a bootstrap paradox from beginning to end. So I'm glad someone finally gave an explanation of what it is so I don't have to explain it over again to every person I try to talk to about Doctor Who.
Part one of this story was a lot more exciting than part two, because part one was about building a very intricate mystery, and part two was about bringing that all back down to Earth and explaining everything. But "Before the Flood," much like "Under the Lake," benefited from some really great work from multiple different departments. Doctor Who doesn't particularly scare me much (with the delightful exception of The Silence) and almost nothing scares me in broad daylight, but this particular shot takes the cake for the only thing I've ever seen in any media that was still fucking terrifying despite being shot in broad daylight (or, well, cloudlight as the case may be):
MAKE IT GO AWAY!
Wow, the Fisher King was one of the most terrifying Doctor Who creatures I've ever seen. This is not cheap prosthetics, this is a very well thought out and detailed construction of someone's worst fucking nightmare.
The Doctor's electric guitar is, thankfully, becoming a recurring part of the 12th Doctor's persona, with clips from next week's episode, "The Girl Who Died," showing brief flashes of it as well. The 2nd Doctor was known for playing a recorder sometimes when he was trying to think, while the 12th seems to absently strum at an electric guitar with his special sonic sunglasses for much the same reason. Regardless of how much cooler the guitar and sunglasses may seem to us than the recorder, its all ancient artifacts to the Doctor. Yet, somehow it seems so appropriate that the man who is tied for the oldest actor to ever play the role would adopt such a "cool" look to him. And why not, if it's Peter Capaldi. He's a total punk rocker. He was in that band in a punk band when he was younger with Craig Ferguson.
What's even more freaky is that the guy on the right is Geoff Peterson.
Peter Capaldi can pull it off because we know that that's who he is. Have you ever known someone who had been a big punk rocker in their teens once they got older? Because I know quite a few of them, and they all remind me of Peter Capaldi. I'm glad he's building a persona for this particular Doctor, and I'm glad that it seems to reflect quite a bit of Capaldi's real personality.
Last week I was left confused as to why the ghosts had no interest whatsoever in Lunn. This week, when Clara figured out it was because he was the only one who hadn't seen the writing yet, I literally had to smack myself in the head for never having figured that out. I guess you are a smart one, Clara. I felt an equal smack to my head at the reveal that the Doctor's ghost was a hologram, after we had already established that the Drum can create holograms. Wow, I feel like a doofus now. I had already figured out that the Doctor was in the stasis chamber, but admittedly only because I had seen someone else guess it on Facebook and said "Oh, yeah, of course, that's who's in there." It was an interesting take on the concept of fixed points in time. It's not the first time that the Doctor has found a way to change the future by simply tweaking and modifying events he knows are going to happen but creating a scenario in which he doesn't have to die. He essentially found the same loophole out of his death at Lake Silencio. History said that the Doctor had to be there on that beach, and that someone looking like the Doctor had been killed, but that was it. As long as he found a way to keep all of that true, nothing negative happens if he still walks away from it. I liked that trick in "The Wedding of River Song" (regardless of what anybody else thought about it), so I liked it again now.
I keep trying to figure out if there's any larger plotline that this episode is setting up for farther down the road. Frankly, there isn't a very clear indication that there is an overarching plot. I'm presuming that Missy staying behind on Skaro in "The Witch's Familiar" was probably part of a set-up for the season finale. I'm also guessing that the prophesy of the hybrid from that same episode is part of a set-up as well. But other than that, I've seen nothing else in this season that is very clearly constructing a mystery or a plot arc that is leading us towards something specific. I haven't seen this from Moffat since his largely disappointing series 7, which I found to be his weakest season-long plot arc if for no other reason than very little was done to advance the larger plot arc as the season moved along. Yet, this series, so far, has me mesmerized. So I'm hoping that we're moving towards something a little larger, a little arc-ier. Is that a thing? No, it's probably not.
And the next episode will likely grant my wish. As I write this, it has technically already finished airing in the UK (sorry, I'm late again), but I'd heard reports before that "The Girl Who Died" would finally explain to us the big mystery of why Peter Capaldi's face appears three different times in the Doctor Who universe. I've just rewatched "The Fires of Pompeii" because I understand that "The Girl Who Died" is going to call back to it somehow. How, I do not yet know, but I'm thrilled to see what it is! An idea thought up by Russell T. Davies, executed by Moffat, with the assistance of my first choice to follow Moffat when he finally does leave, Jamie Mathieson. All with Maisie Williams as a guest star. I can't wait to see where we're going with this.
Every time I try to think about why I love "Under the Lake," words and specifics fail me. I can't really give a good reason why it's special, why it's anything more than a middling, filler episode. There's not a huge, glaring reason to point to why this episode is significantly better than some of the other "Who cares?" boring episodes like "Curse of the Black Spot," or "Rings of Aka-Something or Other"--or, to pull from the same writer as this episode, an episode like "Vampires of Venice." And yet, every time I go back to rewatch "Under the Lake," I fall in love all over again. I don't know what it was I loved about this episode. Perhaps it's that the show's brilliant music producer, Murray Gold, has outdone himself yet again with this episode. Perhaps first-time Doctor Who director Daniel O'Hara is just the best director the show has ever seen and we've just never seen him before. Perhaps it's the stellar performances all around, including the most dignified characterization and portrayal of a deaf person I have ever seen seen in media (admittedly, I've never seen Children of a Lesser God). Perhaps it's that Toby Whithouse is a pretty amazing writer, albeit with a few duds here and there. Or maybe it's a combination of all of those things that results in an episode that fires on all cylinders.
It was so exciting that, at the point of the episode where the Doctor looks at the ghosts and says "What are you?" I caught myself literally saying the same thing as the Doctor at the exact same time. He owes me a coke.
I only accept Mexican Coke, Doctor. Fuck corn syrup.
Toby Whithouse has been rumored more than once to be the successor to Steven Moffat for when he's ready to leave the show. Moffat has not really given any indication that he's quitting anytime soon, but Whithouse has been thought of as a natural successor. As I've been mostly saying I just want #anyonebutgatiss, I'd be happy to see Whithouse take over. If we think back on his few episodes he's written, there are some pretty good ones. He brought us the fun romp of "School Reunion" where he triumphantly brought back the most popular companion(s) of the classic series. "The God Complex" is one of the smartest episodes of its or any other season. The worst episodes he's written, "Vampires in Venice" and "A Town Called Mercy" are really only guilty of being dull, never of being silly or stupid. Perhaps "Vampires in Venice" was always as riveting as "Under the Lake" in Whithouse's head, and the director and cast could never fully pull off his vision. Whithouse is, of course, also responsible for the show "Being Human," which I still need to go back and finish, but which I do highly recommend (what I've seen of it, anyway) and I've even heard positive comments about the American adaptation of it. So, overall, I wouldn't hate it if he took over for Moffat eventually. Him or Jamie Mathieson. Or Neil Gaiman, but that's a pipe dream and we all know it. Whithouse is already building his own trademarks, though, as this episode actually sees the return of a species he created for one of his previous episodes. Remember the Tivolian from "The God Complex"? The most invaded race in the galaxy? The one who surrenders so easily that their planet's anthem is called "Glory to <Insert Name Here>"?
It's like having an entire planet full of Adrics!
Yeah, in case you didn't catch it because he was speaking so fast, the Doctor did identify the first ghost in this episode as another Tivolian, and points out how odd it is for them to become violent like that, because they're known for surrendering so easily. The Tivolian is named "Prentis," something we only know so far from press releases and credits, because he didn't speak a single time in this episode, but he's clearly meant to be a much larger character in the next episode. Creating your own recurring species? That sounds like someone is setting up the Doctor Who universe for some plans he has down the road when he becomes showrunner. However, where Steven Moffat did that in the Davies era with some of his creepier monsters like the Weeping Angles, Whithouse's creation of the Tivolians seems less terrifying, and more Terry Pratchett-esque in nature. (The girl I'm dating has me reading the Night Watch books. I'm hooked.) I keep trying to think up some way that this episode is going to link into larger plot arcs in the greater series, and I keep coming up with nothing. I get the feeling this two parter is probably going to be self-contained, but then again, you never know. Remember how much "The Rebel Flesh"/"The Almost People" felt like a self contained episode until about 30 seconds before the ending? I keep wanting the coordinates that the ghosts are shouting out to be the coordinates to Gallifrey, but try as I might, I can't quite get that scenario to make sense in my head, and I don't think we're going there in the next episode.
In the next episode, the Doctor blindly follows the coordinates like an idiot following a GPS.
Also, I have to take a moment to acknowledge the brilliance of the Doctor's cards. Not just a great one-off joke, but also something that really taps into who the Doctor is right now as a character. Plus, one of them, if you freeze frame the episode, is a joke about the Fourth Doctor dropping Sarah Jane Smith off in the wrong town, something that Toby Whithouse also referenced when he brought Sarah Jane back in "School Reunion." I also have to give Whithouse some real credit for his diversity of characters. In "The God Complex," I was very impressed not only that he included a Muslim woman as a character, but that in an episode about religion, Islam was the only major, real-life religion actually referenced. Whithouse gave a lot of dignity to a religious and ethnic minority that is often maligned in media, and I thought it was very refreshing. He does that again, this time for the hearing impaired, as Cass is not only a strong and capable deaf woman, but one that the Doctor refers to as the smartest person in the room. She's a powerful leader, and a loyal one to her people, too. I think Whithouse should be applauded for that characterization. I'm really curious to see what these ghosts are. They aren't just going to be ghosts. As the Doctor already figured out, these are not a naturally occurring phenomenon. Someone has created this situation, and trapped these souls somehow to be used as communication tools. The Doctor is tremendously curious right now, and his curiosity is infectious. But, in the end, they're not going to be significantly different than other types of "ghosts" we've seen in Doctor Who, from the digitally saved consciousnesses in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead" or even in "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven," to the psychic impressions left behind in Amy's house in "The Pandorica Opens," to the woman trapped in time in "Hide." The Doctor is thrilled about finally having found real "ghosts, but ultimately, these souls are somehow trapped in something that's specifically linked to this ship, and that's going to turn out to be very technological, not otherworldly. In Doctor Who, the explanations are almost always scientific and never otherworldly (with the ambiguous exception of "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit"), although, as we were reminded back in "The Shakespeare Code," there's a thin line between science and fantasy in the Doctor Who universe. A theme that Whithouse is playing with here, and one that I don't think is seized on enough, is the idea of the Doctor as an adrenaline junkie. Clara's catching it, too, and it's starting to scare the Doctor, as witnessed by his little speech in the TARDIS. But clearly, there's a sense that the Doctor is too invested in his own thrill seeking right now, and the ghost of his future self that appears at the very end of the episode suggests a Doctor that inevitably lets his addiction to adventure take him down a dark and dangerous path. In a way, he lost his last set of companions, and I don't think he's going to take it very well if he and Clara are separated, not by choice, but by force. The Doctor might be learning by the end of part two that he needs to slow down a little. But while he may have to, the pace of this two-part episode doesn't have to slow down at all, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. When I first heard the "I want to kiss it to death" line in the trailer, it really bugged me, but I like it in context. So in honor, here's a little X!:
Maybe if I stand in the most effeminate position possible, they won't see me...
I guess I have some apologies to make. I've got some catching up to do, which is partially due to some slight ambivalence about this blog, but also partially due to being somewhat busy with a new relationship starting up. And I've been trying to get her caught up on Doctor Who as well so we can watch it together but, ironically, she kept falling asleep during "Last Christmas." I spend the whole of my weekends with her, so I won't really be able to watch the new episodes on the day they come out until she's caught up, which she will be soon. Until then, I'm going to play a little catch-up. So sorry that this blog is about a week late. I'll work on that. For now, on with the show:
The Daleks have always been a moral quandary for the Doctor. The Doctor is the ultimate pacifist, at least in his philosophy if not always in his actions. His goal is always to prevent as many deaths as possible, including the deaths of his enemies. The Daleks have shown up to throw a wrench in this philosophy more than once, because if your enemy serves absolutely no purpose in the Universe other than destruction, should your pacifism extend to them? He's been fighting the Daleks for almost 2,000 years now, and he has still failed to come up with a definitive answer to this moral dilemma. Each regeneration seems to attack the problem again and each regeneration comes up with a slightly different answer. That can be expected, as there isn't an easy solution to the quandary that the Doctor faces. But when the option comes up in the shape of the opportunity to murder a young boy who hasn't done anything yet, the Doctor finds the question even more troubling than usual.
Could you kill baby Hitler!? Look at him! He's adorable!
My new go-to question whenever I have the honor of meeting one of the actors that has played the Doctor is to ask them what they think is consistent across all the very, very different incarnations. I didn't think of this question until after meeting Colin Baker, so I never got to ask him, and when I asked Peter Davidson and Sylvester McCoy the question McCoy copped out and avoided the question with a "Well, that's the writers' job." (You do Shakespeare, McCoy, I know you give more thought than that to your characters!) However, Davidson gave a very interesting and insightful answer about the Doctor's recklessness. If you ask me, the two traits that are consistent to all of the Doctors are curiosity and compassion. That second one is big, even with regenerations like 6, 9, and now 12 who are notorious for how rude and pompous they can be to other people. Their compassion may not be the first thing you notice about them, and they may not be the kind of person to stick around and put a blanket around you after they've saved you, but it's still very important to them to rescue all living creatures and ensure their survival. Even when the Doctor's not particularly nice, he's still full of love and compassion, even for someone as terrible as Davros.
I've said before that I think the 12th Doctor is embarking on the redemptive arc that the writers originally planned for the 6th Doctor, the one that was never carried out due to Colin Baker's era nearly getting the show cancelled. The low ratings, combined with the fact that the average fans were starting to agree with the conservative fanatics who thought Doctor Who was too dark and violent, led the production team to quickly cancel their plans and scramble to find solutions to save the show. Their first solution was the bizarrely nonsensical "Trial of a Timelord" story arc, which only made things worse. The abrupt firing of Colin Baker and hiring of Sylvester McCoy bought the show a few years of mercy from the BBC, but not much, and the show only lasted a few more years. In the meantime, the long redemptive arc that was planned for the 6th Doctor never got carried out. At the same time, though, I wonder if Jonathan Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward had the talent to carry off such a delicate arc. Steven Moffat, on the other hand, does, and "The Witch's Familiar" is the episode that really makes it clear that we've set off on that path. The Doctor is really trying to figure himself out, what his morals are now, if he is a good man, and if he's stronger than the darkness in his heart. Never is that put to the test quite as much as it is in this 2-parter, and thankfully, the Doctor passes with flying colors.
Missy is having a big ball of fun in this episode, and we finally get to see how she managed to survive the end of "Death in Heaven." Considering her quick return, I can only assume that Steven Moffat has been planning this for quite a long time. The only real complaint that anybody (anybody with taste, anyway) had about Missy in "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven" is that there wasn't nearly enough of her, especially considering that we got a chance to get to know John Simm's Saxon Master over a 3-part episode. Granted, he only showed up at the very end of the first part of that episode, but it still means we got much more of him, as the reveal that Missy was the Master didn't even come until the end of the first part of her two-part introduction. Finally, "The Magician's Apprentice"/"The Witch's Familiar" gives us some time to get to know Missy.
Doesn't she just look so inviting? Don't you want to get to know her better?
As delightfully warped as Michelle Gomez's performance of Missy is, she also proves herself to be incredibly intelligent. She has a very different moral compass from the Doctor, but that's about the only difference between them, as Missy demonstrates that she has as much intelligence and ingenuity as the Doctor. Clara, in this episode, serves more as a companion to Missy than the Doctor, hence the title of the episode, making it the first time since the 1996 movie that the Master has truly had his own companion. Missy's explanations of the Dalek homeworld and how it functions sound quite like the Doctor's explanations, but with the added danger of being willing to murder anyone without a moment's hesitation.
Michelle Gomez brings out a very interesting aspect of the Master that we've never really seen before. We've known since back in the 3rd Doctor serial, "The Sea Devils," that the Doctor and the Master had been friends once at school, and we've seen glimmers of that friendship before. There's been a begrudging respect between them, and a few temporary truces so that the two former friends can put their heads together to defeat a common foe, but Missy is the first version of the Master to make it absolutely clear how much the Doctor means to her, and is adamant that her multiple attempts to murder him over the years do not change how she feels about him. Perhaps it's that her last regeneration (presumably) met his end trying to protect the Doctor (a long lost 3rd Doctor era plotline that Davies finally brought to fulfillment), but Missy genuinely cares about the Doctor. In "The Magician's Apprentice" she expresses her friendship with the Doctor and explains why it isn't a contradiction to two people as ancient as herself and the Doctor, but it's only in "The Witch's Familiar" that she puts her money where her mouth is and mounts a rescue mission to save the Doctor. In a way, she almost becomes a second companion in this episode, which is extremely refreshing.
Now, some people may have had a moment of hesitation that the Doctor is surprised at Clara's ability to get the Dalek tank to say the word "mercy." Most notably because of this famous scene, which was also written by Steven Moffat:
This made me do a double take as well, because clearly, River gets the Dalek to say the word "mercy" a long time ago. However, it occurred to me, the Doctor wasn't present for this scene, as he was busy wiring his vortex manipulator into the Pandorica. (That might be the nerdiest sentence I've ever written.) River is a brilliant woman, who knows a lot about the Universe, and certainly more than the average companion, but in many ways she is still a companion. It makes sense that she wouldn't know as much about Daleks as the Doctor does, and that she would not notice that it was strange for a Dalek to know this word. There's a good chance that she never got around to telling the Doctor about the time she made a Dalek beg for mercy, as whether or not he approves of this will largely depend on what mood he's in. Even if she did tell him, it seems likely that he wouldn't have believed her.
The bigger discrepancy is this, which is also Steven Moffat's writing:
We don't actually see a shot of the Dalek from the outside saying the name "Oswin Oswald," but we do get it saying "I am not a Dalek" and a few other things which it seems, from Missy's demonstration, would be impossible. Similarly, "Into the Dalek" features a Dalek saying a lot of things that "The Witch's Familiar" implies would be impossible for a Dalek casing to be able to interpret. It's worth noting that Moffat is also credited as a co-writer on "Into the Dalek," although I do believe that's largely because Moffat gave himself partial credit for every episode in Series 8 where he threw in a little bit of story for the overall plot arc.
So yes, Moffat has created a bit of a plot hole here. There are ways to rationalize this away. We could say that this is a trait particular to the newly revived Daleks from after "Victory of the Daleks," but more likely than not it's just because Moffat decided that it was convenient to the plot, so fuck all those scripts he wrote in the past. Personally, I think Moffat and Davies together have patched up almost every major plot hole leftover from the classic series, including the bizarre prophecy that the Valeyard would appear between the Doctor's "12th and final incarnations," and because of that I think Moffat can be forgiven for leaving a few very small holes of his own.
I got the distinct feeling that this episode was setting up the season-long plot arc for Series 9. It would be very unlike Moffat to leave the series without a larger, overarching plot, and the stuff about the prophecy of the "Hybrid" sounded far too foreboding and interesting to leave it where it stands right now, especially considering that Missy continued to reference the prophecy after the Doctor had already defeated Davros. At first, I thought the prophecy sounded too mystical for as scientific a race as the Time Lords, much like their "Visionary" from "The End of Time," but I decided that a time travelling race could have many non-magical or mystical ways to predict the future and see a "prophecy." The fact that Missy said that she had just come up with a very clever idea once she was cornered by the Daleks seemed like it was also pretty clearly Moffat setting up a larger plot arc, with a return for a Dalek attack led by Missy later this season. Remember, the Master has teamed up with the Daleks before, and last time the plotline was cut short due to the untimely death of the actor, Roger Delgado, so we never really got to see what comes of a Master/Dalek team-up. Perhaps this is another lost plotline that Moffat intends to finally bring to fruition.
I've decided to do a little thing that's fun for me. This series, I'm naming every Overanalysis after a punk song I like (that I think is appropriate) then putting the song at the end. So, enjoy!
I was done, guys! I was done writing this stupid blog. I'm not entirely sure that anybody is reading, that anybody cares, or that there's any point to writing this stupid thing. But then Steven Moffat wrote this little present for me, gift-wrapped it, and just dropped it in my lap and dared me to understand it. What he seems to have given to me, and to all of us, is the long awaited spiritual sequel to the 1975 Tom Baker serial, "Genesis of the Daleks," where a gentle retcon of the Dalek backstory introduced us to Davros, the creator of the Daleks. Frankly, I'm shocked that Moffat thinks that fans who have never seen the classic series have enough understanding of who and what Davros is to be able to follow this story just from what they learned about Davros from "The Stolen Earth"/"Journey's End." But like the handmines (such a creepy idea!) that rose up from the ground to trap young Davros, Moffat's most epic script to date grabs us and refuses to let go, and I felt compelled to give another overanalysis this time around. Perhaps the Horror of Fan Blog will live on this season.
We're going to go over the plot of "Genesis of the Daleks," which is actually a good, if overly long, classic series serial, so if you want to see it and never have, you'll want to stop reading. But I'm going into it, because it's an important part of what we're talking about here, and I know that some people who read this blog have not watched all of the classic series and may be a little lost.
Genesis!
In "Genesis," the Time Lords intercept the Doctor and his companions and give him a mission: To go back in time to the creation of the Daleks to either keep them from ever being created, or to change their development so that they never become such destructive, brutal killers. The Doctor goes back to the end of the war that created the Daleks, the war between the Kaleds and the Thals on the planet Skaro. Davros, the head of the Kaleds' science division, has promised his army a great and powerful new weapon: The Daleks. What they really are are genetic experiments that Davros has created out of the mutated remains of Kaled DNA left behind after the war turned nuclear. He considered them to be the ultimate life form, which I always thought was strange considering that they were made partially by accident, and are incapable of surviving outside of a large metal shell. But he created them to be the ultimate, genetically superior life-form and designed them to believe that it was imperative for them to kill all other lesser life forms, including Davros's fellow Kaleds. He didn't care about winning the war for the Kaleds, he only cared about creating his Daleks, and beginning his great war against all other life in the Universe. Unfortunately for Davros, when he designed the Daleks to want to destroy all other life in the Universe due to its inferiority, he forgot to teach them to treat him as the exception to that rule, and his Daleks turned on him and killed him, for the first time. In fact, almost every Davros episode ends with his death, only for the following episode to show him resurrected with a hastily slapped together explanation. Anyway, at the end of "Genesis of the Daleks," the Doctor finds himself unable to halt the Daleks' creation, and explains it to his companions with the following speech:
"If someone who knew the future pointed out a child to you and told you that that child would grow up totally evil, to be a ruthless dictator who would destroy millions of lives, could you then kill that child?"
Let's kill Davros!
If Davros and Moffat were both being a little too subtle about the links between this episode and "Genesis," they both played back that clip from that episode, and even went so far as to make sure that it was the one and only clip that was played alone and was focused on. The plot of "The Magician's Apprentice"was literally laid out in another episode 30 years earlier.
Absolutely no explanation is given for why Davros is still alive, when we last saw him die at the end of "Journey's End." This is probably for the best because, when I'm in the middle of a great episode like "The Magician's Apprentice," the last thing I want to think about is a masturbatory shit show like "Journey's End." There may still be some cursory explanation given in "The Witch's Familiar," but I got the impression that Moffat is past caring at this point. Considering how flimsy the explanations always are on this show when a character is brought back from the dead, why not just gloss over it entirely? Frankly, Moffat has been glossing over a lot of the details about the Daleks. After giving Gatiss the task of bringing the Daleks back on a more permanent basis than they had been in the Davies era, the Daleks re-established themselves as a power in the Universe quite quickly, and the fact that they had ever been gone from the Universe was pretty much forgotten. In "Asylum of the Daleks," some of the Daleks in The Asylum were survivors of classic series episodes, which is impossible considering that the new Dalek paradigm is made up of a completely new set of Daleks made from The Progenitor. The Seventh Doctor tricked the Daleks into destroying their own planet, Skaro, back in "Remembrance of the Daleks" in 1988, but yet it seems surprisingly in tact in the 1996 movie, in "Asylum of the Daleks," and now in "The Magician's Apprentice," and nobody seems to care to explain it. Viewers can plug in their own explanations, whatever they may decide those to be. This is postmodern Who. We have no time left for explanations.
Besides, in a Universe where Rory, Clara, and Jack can all die over and over again, who cares anyway?
Missy's return, however, is a little bit more immediately on our minds, her death only having happened about two episodes, and Moffat made sure to acknowledge her surprise return from the dead, even if that acknowledgement quite deliberately refused an explanation, and an explanation was not immediately forthcoming. I think her explanation isn't going to get glossed over at all, and that there will be a real reason why she's come back. Moffat has a pretty big long game that he's been thinking about for a while now, and I think that Missy is more than just a passenger on this adventure. Moffat has a great grasp on the Doctor/Master relationship, and Missy's description of it being infinitely complex was pretty perfect.
Oh, and by the way, Moffat has made a lot of very every day things scary over the years: stone statues, dust in the shadows, WiFi, etc. I have to say, though, 80's one-hit-wonders were not something I thought he was ever going to try to make terrifying. Oh boy has he, though:
To be fair, though, this video was pretty creepy to begin with.
But Missy is playing a game here that we're not in on, and I wouldn't be surprised if she has a lot more to do with this than we originally thought. The last few moments of this episode felt strangely dreamlike, with a strange sense of impermanence to everything. Maybe it's just because both Clara and Missy were killed off, and we all know that that Moffat won't let that stand by the end of "The Witch's Familiar," so something about their death felt unreal. The fact that Missy practically invites her own death, as well, makes me feel like something strange is up, as that's largely out of character for her. The larger point that Davros is trying to make here isn't that far from the point that Missy was trying to make to the Doctor at the end of "Death in Heaven." I wonder if perhaps everything we're seeing here is an extension of the lesson that Missy has been trying to teach the Doctor, and that a lot of this is an illusion, or possibly just a situation she set up. Maybe Missy got her hands on some dream crabs. In all of these scenarios, though, I remain cautiously optimistic because, like I said at Christmas, I think Moffat knows he can't use the dream crabs and things like that to Dallas too much of the show (yes, "Dallas" is now a verb) without a pretty big fan revolt.
By the way, if anyone is wondering where I came up with the title for this blog post, it's from an album that I've been listening to lately with quite obsessive fervor, American Spring by Anti-Flag. The particular song, "Song for Your Enemy," keeps playing in my head when I think of this episode, and somehow, they remind me of each other. You can hear it for yourself:
In the season to come, we have the promise of an explanation for the Doctor's face that Davies thought up and never implemented before leaving the show, we have the return of Jamie Matheson (co-writing an episode with Steven Moffat!), a guest appearance from Game of Thrones star Maisie Williams, and an episode to feature the Doctor alone without another character appearing in the entire episode, as well as the triumphant return of River Song for the Christmas special! Moffat promised that these episodes will bleed together in such a way that it will be hard to tell when something is or is not a 2-parter, which is exactly the way I want to see this show run. The "no 2-parters" rule from series 7 has mercifully been thrown out the window. I never thought that rule was really Moffat's idea, and it feels like he's finally returned to what he knows he excels at. At the end of Season 7, I wondered if Moffat had lost his touch, but I no longer feel that way and I have a feeling that this season is going to be as epic as its opening. So Geronimo!
On Christmas night, I have to admit to falling in love. No, not with a real woman (I'm visiting family, there wasn't much chance of me meeting someone here) but with the most awesome side character in Doctor Who's recent memory. Played by Faye Marsay, Shona McCullough proved to be the most memorable character of the Christmas special, beating out the appearance of the son of a former Doctor, and possibly even outshining Santa Claus himself. Early reviews told us to expect great things from this Fresh Meat actress, early articles speculated that she might be the next companion before reports and the plot of the episode confirmed that Clara was coming back for season 9, and Dan Butler over at What Culture already put together a list of 10 reasons why Shona should be a companion. While the episode ended up with Clara rejoining the Doctor, while Shona simply awoke to her horror movie/Christmas movie marathon in her messy apartment (which somehow made me love her even more), that doesn't eliminate the possibility of Shona coming back someday. Need I remind you:
DOCTOR: Well, you could always
DONNA: What?
DOCTOR: Come with me
DONNA: No.
DOCTOR: Okay.
DONNA: I can't.
DOCTOR: No, that's fine.
DONNA: No, but really. Everything we did today. Do you live your life like that?
DOCTOR: Not all the time.
DONNA: I think you do. And I couldn't.
Donna first showed up in a Christmas special, like Shona, and later returned to become a full time companion, despite turning down the position the first time it was offered to her. Also, lest we forget:
Jenna-Louise Coleman's gap between her first appearance as one of the Claras and her second was probably a lot more intentional than the reappearance of Donna as a full time companion a year later, but it shows that Doctor Who is perfectly okay with leaving a character behind only to pick them up again later.
My crush on Shona was because of so many things. First, she danced into our hearts in a wonderfully, quirky, ridiculous dance that Faye Marsay, on her own Twitter account, referred to as "The Shona Shuffle." However, as a Google search for that phrase turns up a drag queen named "Shona Shuffles," some people are calling it "The Shona Shake" or simply "The Shona."
Then, despite not being an actual scientist, as the Doctor figured out early, she proved herself to be inquisitive enough to be one. Her interrogation of Santa was rational and unrelenting, continuing to question everything around her, but not fully discounting the possibility of Santa being real.
And that she woke up in the midst of a filthy apartment with a good day of proper media binging ahead of her made her just my kind of girl! I'd gladly cuddle up for a quiet Christmas with Shona and watch some horror movies. Screw Dave. Dave doesn't deserve to be forgiven. Do you remember what Dave did to you Shona? C'mon. Give Trevor a call.
That got weird for a second, there.
But my point is, there's no good reason to go searching for a new companion at the end of season 9, which looks likely to be Clara's exiting point. The next companion is already here, waiting for the Doctor to come whisk her away. She has little difficulty dealing with the 12th Doctor's particular brand of crass rudeness, she is smart, quirky, funny, and clearly someone who is a lot of fun.
When it's time for Clara to go, I think it's time for Shona to step on board the TARDIS.
Last Christmas, I gave you my heart The very next day, you gave me crabs...
Have you ever asked yourself the question "Hey, what if Inception was a Christmas movie?" No, because you're a normal person. Steven Moffat, not being a normal person, answered that question for us that nobody was asking. A dream within a dream within a crab, all with Santa Claus thrown in. Moffat did keep his promise when he told us this was the weirdest episode he had ever written, but I wasn't quite ready for just how bizarre it was going to be. He promised us a story that combined "The Thing" or "Alien" (depending on which interview with Moffat that you read) with "Miracle on 34th Street," and he delivered on that. Moffat clearly loves Alien, as evidenced by his brilliant references to it in the Coupling episode "9 1/2 Minutes," his choice of casting John Hurt as the War Doctor, and his both subtle and overt references to it in "Last Christmas." That's really a better way to describe "Last Christmas": Alien meets Inception with Santa Claus thrown in for good measure.
But he also promised us a few things that were outright lies, something I keep forgetting to expect from him, even though I made it a rule right at the top of my blog. He told us that the Doctor and Santa were old friends, or rather old enemies. Seeing as how Santa was actually a figment of everyone's collective imaginations, that particular Moffat statement was designated a lie. Capaldi gave us a nice lie in an interview, too, promising Santa would remain "in tact" at the end of the episode and wouldn't be anything "sci-fi." True, there's a hint at the end of the episode that Santa might still be real, but that's not the same as keeping him "in tact" and, overall, the explanation of him was particularly "sci-fi."
The Dream Crabs are continuing with a popular Moffat theme of a creature whose power is linked to your own perception of them, like the Weeping Angels and the Silence. The continuation of this theme is so strong that I'm left almost tempted to say that he's gone too far with it, but the Dream Crabs are such a creepy variation on this theme that I'm willing to forgive it. A creature who can only attack you when you are thinking of them? Try not to think about pink elephants. That's possibly the most terrifying idea yet, as at least the Silence and the Angels have a comparatively easy way to keep them at bay: simply keep an eye on them. Trying not to think of something is nearly impossible.
The real solution to the Dream Crab problem!
By about halfway through the episode, I was left wondering why Santa was even there. What purpose was he serving other than Steven Moffat's assertion that he wanted to see Santa and the Doctor standing side by side on screen together. While Moffat proved to be lying about the Doctor and Santa knowing each other from way back, they did have an interaction like they did. Santa and the Doctor had an instant chemistry, one that left me wanting to see more of it. Nick Frost was a perfect Santa, and his appearance in the opening credits was well deserved. He was very much a star of this episode. Santa, the dream that tries to save you. What better dream could you have?
I was wondering how Samuel Anderson (Danny Pink) had been signed on to do the Christmas special so many months back, and then his character died off in "Death in Heaven." Now we know. That's the fun of killing off a character when the actor playing them is actually still alive: you get to do fun things like bringing them back in a tempting dream sequence. But I still don't think Danny is done yet. Moffat recently gave an interview in which he explained how "Listen" could have made sense even if Danny Pink never comes back, but everything about his explanation just screamed "I don't mean to say that any of this is true." He didn't even give us a lie, he gave us an explanation that we could tell even he didn't believe. Somehow, he's coming back. How? I don't know. It's going to be hard. Rory's return from the dead seemed easier; his death always seemed tenuous. Whether it was because he died saving the world, or because it was part of the end of a season, somehow Danny's death felt more permanent. But something has to give to make "Listen" make sense. And because of "Listen," it won't feel cheap, because we know it's been setup all along.
If you expect me to stop making this joke, you're going to get very...irritated.
A lot of the press around this episode left us wondering if Clara was going to be leaving after this special or not. Rumors came out a while back that Jenna-Louise Coleman (I refuse to call her by her shortened name) was done after this season, then rumors came out contradicting the original rumors (which amounts to the same as there having never been rumors in the first place, which makes the whole thing bullshit), and then it was announced just today that Jenna-Louise Coleman is back for the whole of season 9, to the consternation of many. While I'm interested to meet someone new at this point, because I think we know a lot about Clara already, I also fail to see how anyone else is going to be able to put up with the Doctor's shit at this point. He's at his most difficult point in a long time--probably the most stubborn and obnoxious he's been since his 6th incarnation--and, while he's on a redemptive arc, he's far from being redeemed enough to really be able to get anyone else to come on board the TARDIS without scaring them away. If Coleman leaves at the end of Season 9, Clara will tie with Amy for longest running companion of the new series, which I'm fine with. If she breaks the record, I might not be as happy. But the arc of the Doctor and Clara's relationship played out very nicely in this episode, as that was, in the end, the whole point of the episode: Clara and the Doctor realizing how desperately they'd miss each other if they parted ways right now.
You can't just give a girl crabs and then leave her...
Also, Faye Marsay's character Shona, who Moffat promised us would be very interesting, was somewhat speculated to be the new companion. While she obviously isn't (unless Moffat's pulling a Donna Noble), she did prove to be possibly the most entertaining part of the episode, particularly with her amazing dance to Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody," (which, as my co-host at Mile High Who Podcast has pointed out online, manages to appear in every BBC Christmas special). While playing a more subdued role, I'd be remiss in not pointing out the appearance of Michael Troughton as the one victim of the Dream Crabs, Albert Smithe, as Michael Troughton is the son of the Second Doctor himself, Patrick Troughton. Also, as one of the elves, we had Dan Starkey, usually seen in different prosthetics as Strax.
The very cute throwback to "Time of the Doctor" was appreciated, when the Doctor and Clara pulled a Christmas cracker, with the Doctor helping Clara pull it in exactly the way that she helped him pull it when he was old and feeble in last year's special. It reminded us that Jenna-Louise Coleman is now the only actress to play a major role as a companion in more than one Christmas special, having now been central to three of them. But, overall, the ending left me with more questions than answers. So, the Dream Crab somehow attacked the Doctor right after he said goodbye to Clara at the end of "Death in Heaven"? Presumably, we don't know how much time passed between the moment the credits began to roll at the end of "Death in Heaven," and when they were cut short for Santa's arrival. It would appear that more time passed than we thought. So why did the Doctor seem to wake up right outside the volcano from "Dark Water"? Maybe that's not what it was (the volcano from that episode was a dream, after all) but that's what it looked like to me, and it seemed a strange and confusing call-back. I was really surprised because the episode kept seeming to be offering a nice, neat solution to clean up all the messy bits about "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven," including the deaths of two very beloved characters. All it had to do was say that the Dream Crabs attacked them before the events of "Dark Water." Instead, it chose not to offer us that out, and seemingly comes down in the end on the side of only this episode being a dream. Furthermore, to get Danny and Osgood back in this way, we'd have to lose Michelle Gomez's brilliant performance as the first female Master.
Still, the Dream Crabs now leave Moffat with the option to just Dallas large chunks of the show, and yes I just used Dallas as a verb. Naturally, I'm referring to the infamous time when the series Dallas deleted one entire season of their show, revealing the entire thing to be one of the characters' dreams. While it certainly doesn't feel like Moffat's going to reveal that "Dark Water"/"Death in Heaven" was one big dream--as the appropriate moment to do that was really before the end of "Last Christmas"--the Dream Crabs now exist in the Doctor Who Universe. They're out there, always capable of popping up and erasing large chunks of timeline without further warning. It's the one and only way that someone could pull the it-was-all-a-dream ripcord and not be accused of a cheap deus ex machina, because the possibility for it was setup in this episode. I simply hope that Moffat choses to use it wisely, if at all. The Whoniverse now, officially, has crabs. (Sorry, that joke is just too much fun.)
Seriously, the things I can find on a Google image search are way too much fun.
The ending credits promised us that the Doctor and Clara will return in "The Magician's Apprentice," a title that had actually been announced before this episode aired. The second it was announced, I had to check Wikipedia to see if that was the name of one of the Narnia novels. Turns out it isn't, and that what I was thinking of was The Magician's Nephew, although there is a fantasy novel called The Magician's Apprentice. Still, I think the similarity between the name of this episode and this obscure fantasy novel are probably coincidence, while the vague similarity between it and the title of the Narnia novel is probably more likely intentional, given Moffat's affinity for Narnia that was displayed in The Doctor, The Widow, and The Wardrobe. But we'll see, whenever the 9th gets going.
I don't know what to say about putting this out so late. Other than to say, I did promise to, at least, get each blog out before the next episode airs, which means I've still technically got 36 days left to keep that promise. But the truth is, as you've noticed, I've had trouble getting these blogs out on time. Maybe I'm a little busy these days. Maybe it's because I'm a bit depressed lately. And, at least part of it is that, on some level, I've felt a little of what everyone else has felt about this season: The episodes are great, and I can't find a lot of faults with it, but something did seem a little off. It's probably the switch to such a more serious Doctor that makes the tone of the show a little less whimsical, and maybe I miss that. But that's not a fault with the show. But, maybe, it's why I had trouble getting these blogs out all season. I promise to get the Christmas one out quick. I mean, it's not like I'll have much to do.
So now, on with the show:
I'm a Rocket Man! Burning up his fuse up here alone!
Not too long ago, a friend of mine posted an article from The Onion AV Club called Fake deaths, cheap resurrections, and dealing with real grief. The author of the article very recently lost his fiancee to a freak blood clot traveling to her chest. The author goes on to talk about how Hollywood's treatment of death, since that incident, has bothered him. He criticized movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Trek: Into Darkness for their treatment of deaths. He complains about death being used too often as a cheap motivator and, as a self described "death elitist," he feels this is insincere and insensitive. While I feel sorry for his loss, and know where he's coming from--and I really do know where he's coming from--he's wrong. I lost my mother when I was 23 to lung cancer. It was the most traumatic experience of my life. And I felt the way he felt for a while, but only about the really gratuitous movies, like Saw, that truly showed a disrespect for death. But when death is used as a motivator for noble deeds, and fuels a powerful clash between good and evil, I do not fault it at all. Death is the most powerful motivator in the human experience, and so colors so many parts of our lives, that I can understand the prominence of it in fiction. So to those who call "Dark Water" and "Death in Heaven" disrespectful to the dead, I say, as one of your fellow "death elitists," I understand your pain, but you're being a little oversensitive. This is a beautiful story, and it wouldn't be half as good if it wasn't so heartbreaking.
The Master is my favorite villain in Doctor Who. I was so excited to see the Master's return, and I was quite okay with her new appearance. While I've said before on this blog that I'm okay with the idea of a female Doctor, I've often wondered if, when it happens, it will still make it feel like the same person. Well, if there was any question, "Death in Heaven" answered it: a female regeneration can absolutely feel like the same character as the previous, male regeneration. Michelle Gomez plays a brilliant Master, with all the manic glee of John Simm's master, combined with the more condescending loftiness of the original Master, Roger Delgado. The only complaint I have about her performance is that I didn't get to see enough of it. John Simm's, after first being introduced in his own surprise reveal, got two full length episodes to show off his brilliant performance of the Master (even if the plot of those episodes was...flawed). I wish Michelle Gomez could have gotten as much time, because her performance was so wonderfully unhinged, I wanted to get to know her better.
My girlfriend pointed out, when I first showed her the series and we got to "Last of the Time Lords," the obvious Christ metaphors of the Doctor in that episode. The Doctor and the Master have a very obvious Jesus/Satan relationship, and this episode only further confirmed that. If the scene in the graveyard where Missy offers the Doctor her army isn't The Temptation of Christ, then my Catholic high school should take back my diploma. While it's not like that scene has never been done metaphorically in fiction before, this was one of the most compelling versions of it I've ever seen.
Although I don't remember this passage in the Bible.
I also liked that Moffat didn't feel the need to give us any explanation of why the Master has changed genders. The Doctor Who Unbound audio series, which tells Doctor Who stories that are non-canon and which take place in an alternate Universe, claims the only way that Time Lords can change gender is when they commit suicide. Some fans suggested that the Master technically committed suicide at the end of "The End of Time," and predicted that that would be the explanation. I said I hated that explanation, and I hoped Moffat wouldn't do that. I suggested maybe he had picked up a potion from the Sisterhood of Karn, who said in "Night of the Doctor" that they had perfected a potion that could cause a Time Lord to switch genders. But, I said, I would settle for a simple explanation of "It's rare, but it happens." Moffat didn't even give us that. The implication here is that Time Lords can always change gender, we just haven't seen it happen. Judging by the Doctor's 13 male incarnations (not to mention the Master's 6 male incarnations), I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point, we're told that cross-gender regeneration is rarer than same-gender regeneration, but it seems like nothing special is required to cause a cross-gender regeneration. So, to all those out there who are asking why the Master regenerated into a woman and the Doctor never has, think of it as being the Time Lord equivalent of having twins: it's not that common, but it's not that uncommon either. Really, I think that explains it all.
"Every time the Doctor gets pally with someone, I have this overwhelming urge to notify their next of kin" - Rory Williams, in "The God Complex." And with that quote, we say goodbye to Osgood. I understand Moffat's explanation that Missy needed to kill someone we care about to remind us that she's still a stone cold psychopath and truly evil, but I also understand those who called it a Whedonesque gratuitous death. It was sad, but I think we're going to see her again. Remember that in "Day of the Doctor," Kate has met Clara, but Clara hasn't met Kate yet. I think we're going to pop in and see Kate and Osgood again, but earlier in their timeline.
Speaking of Kate, she is quickly becoming one of my favorite recurring characters. You see, Kate Stewart was first introduced in Downtime, a straight-to-video movie that was put out in 1995 when Doctor Who was off the air, and, to satiate the fans, and a company called Reeltime Pictures bought the rights to certain characters from Doctor Who but not the Doctor itself to create some spin-off movies. In Downtime, Kate is a very down on her luck single mother, estranged from her father, and is living on a houseboat. When Kate was introduced into proper canon (most extended universe materials in Doctor Who can be assumed to be canon, according to the BBC, but fans often only trust the TV show as certifiably canonical) in "Power of Three," I assumed they were rebooting the character. This version of Kate seemed like she was too attached to her father and had herself too much together to be the same Kate from Downtime. I was glad to see this episode seemed to confirm that this was the Kate from Downtime, or at least suggested it: "Kate Stewart, divorcee, mother of two, keen gardener, outstanding bridge player, also chief scientific officer Unified Intelligence Task Force..." Kate's been an awesome character, and more than playing stand-in for her father, she's become a very important part of Doctor Who, as the show finally has someone to represent Earth's official response to global emergencies.
Not that we've seen that many global emergencies in the Moffat era. One of the things I've always liked about Moffat is that, unlike Davies, he doesn't feel like every finale has to be about someone attacking the Earth. Davies defaulted on a big invasion of or attack on modern day Earth in every single season finale, as well as every Christmas special. With so many attacks in such little time, the Davies era's running joke became that Earth is invaded so often, people are starting to get paranoid. And rightfully so. How are there still people on Earth who don't believe in aliens? Why wouldn't everyone clear out of London every Christmas? Why doesn't every planet just have nukes pointed at the sky at all times? Moffat has been really creative in trying to find other ways to create really interesting climaxes in his season finales and Christmas specials that take place on other planets, in other times, or that involve very personal battles for the Doctor, rather than big Earth-wide emergencies. In fact, this is the first time in the Moffat era where either a season finale or a Christmas special has featured a Davies-like attack on modern Earth. Moffat, unlike Davies, understands how to use something sparingly, so he's allowed to do things like that.
And the Brigadier returns as a Cyberman! I actually watched this episode, for the first time, with my co-bloggers from the now defunct (and God do I miss it) 900 Year Diary, Kevin and Melissa. We don't often agree about things about Doctor Who (which is part of why we were so good on a blog together), and somehow all three of us loved this finale. But when the Cyber-Brigadier showed up, my first thought was "I feel like that was disrespectful." Melissa turned to me and said "Why? No, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm honestly asking and I'm open to being convinced: why is that disrespectful?" I found myself unable to think of a real reason. Ultimately, it was a very strange, but very sweet tribute to the late, great Nicholas Courtney, who passed away 3 years ago. It's particularly Doctor Who-ish for the tribute to involve him saving the day, and saving his daughter. In death, the Brigadier is still a hero.
And the Doctor never salutes? Really?
I think he's okay with it.
The Doctor and Clara have one of the most dysfunctional relationships between any Doctor and companion in the show's history, second only to, possibly, the 6th Doctor and Peri.
If you read my blog regularly, you'll remember this particular dead horse.
So it makes sense that they lie to each other at the end of the episode. It's their attempt to be nice to each other, combined with the fact that both of them are severely damaged people. Lying comes easily to both of them. But, had I put this blog out on time, I wouldn't know for certain that Clara was coming back. Yes, she was already confirmed for the Christmas special, but from what I had read, so had Samuel Anderson (who plays Danny Pink), which seems hard to believe right now (or maybe not, I'll get to that later). I might have thought it a lie, except now we've seen a clip from the Christmas special that the BBC has released, which clearly shows Clara (and the Doctor's questionable choice of wearing a suit jacket with a hoodie).
But, as many have pointed out, Danny being dead, while a perfectly heartbreaking ending to the finale, leaves "Listen" completely unexplained. Orson Pink was not directly confirmed as one of Clara's descendants, but the implication had all the subtle innuendo of a dim-witted frat boy asking a sorority girl "Can I put my penis in you?" I don't think a lot was left to the imagination. And, had "Listen" and "Death in Heaven" aired in different seasons, I'd chalk it up to poor planning (like the truth field in "Time of the Doctor), but clearly Moffat knew where he was going with the show when he wrote "Listen." He has a plan for this, that's obvious. A lot of people have suggested that Clara is somehow already pregnant with Danny's baby (the family value brigade that complained about Vastra and Jenny kissing back in "Deep Breath" would have a field day with an unmarried companion becoming pregnant on a kids show). My co-host on the Mile High Who podcast, Somer, suggested that the Christmas special is going to involve Santa bringing Danny back to life somehow. I want the events of "Listen" to be resolved, but I do hope it's in a way that leaves that sad ending of Danny's death without cheaply bringing him back from the dead comic-book style.
And Santa's appearance was so much fun to see, especially played by, amazingly, Nick Frost. I wish Simon Pegg hadn't already appeared in Doctor Who, because he could have made a perfect elf next to his old friend and common co-star. And the scene we've seen from the Christmas special shows us that the Doctor is suspicious of Santa (Father Christmas to the Brits), thinking he's secretly the villain of the piece. Santa suggests that the Doctor is mistaken, and as much of this season has been about the Doctor actually being wrong, it's possible that Santa is telling the truth. The special seems to combine the reality of the North Pole (a place where a small handful of scientists occasionally set up a little shack to study things) with the fantasy version of it (Santa!). I'm looking forward to seeing where the special is going, despite most people's skepticism from the trailer and clip.
I'll probably post at least once or twice before Christmas. I'm looking forward to where the Christmas special is going. The Christmas specials, so far, have always featured one of the happy-go-lucky, life-is-wonderful type of Doctors (10 and 11) who can freely indulge in a child-like love of Christmas. This will be our first Christmas special with a more grumpy, crotchety type of Doctor. More Scrooge than Tiny Tim, I'll be interested to see how Moffat writes a Christmas special around a meaner Doctor. I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with!
