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Divine Execution

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Review of Heaven Sent
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Heaven Sent is what, back in the day, my Star Trek: The Next Generation-watching friends and I would’ve called a Mind F*** Episode. You watch the whole thing thinking you understand the basic problem the crew (or, in this case, the Doctor) is facing until the very end, when one new piece of information changes how you look at everything else.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

It’s a tricky stunt to pull off, especially given the nearly completely solo acting required of Capaldi. In the entire piece, there were only three other characters; only one of those ever spoke, and that was a single line to which the Doctor made no verbal response. In the hands of a lesser actor, it could have been disastrous.

Instead, it was suspenseful and engaging. That first time through, as is often the case with a Moffat script, you can see there are big hints being dropped, but you can’t necessarily put together the puzzle (at least I couldn’t—YMMV). Once you know the scoop, though, every little detail takes on new meaning, both just when thinking back on it and upon repeated viewing.

However, I found I enjoyed this episode more than almost any Moffat-penned script since he took over as showrunner. Usually Moffat’s episodes start to unravel upon closer inspection. That’s not the case for me this time. Only one thing bothers me, and it’s something I can fan-theory away if I try. In my book, that makes this episode a huge win in the Moffat-as-writer category.

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Facing the Consequences

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Review of Face the Raven
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I am so glad Moffat finally got some women to write for Doctor Who. Both of those new writers this series have added strong episodes to the canon (however one defines that), and Face the Raven in particular uses character as its driving force to great effect.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

I just wish I’d been able to experience the episode without expectations of where it was heading.

Over the last couple of years I’ve had bad luck with last-minute spoilers, and not just in Who. For example, in the first season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the mid-series cliffhanger revealed [um, couple-year-old spoiler] that one of the team members was secretly working for Hydra. A couple hours before I had the chance to see it myself (late, yes, but still… ~sigh~), I saw a tweet about it: “I still can’t believe [So-and-so] is Hydra!” So much for that bit of dramatic tension. I spent the whole episode noticing the clues the other characters overlooked rather than overlooking them myself.

Similarly, the day before Face the Raven aired, a friend posted something on social media about how sad she was that this was going to be Jenna’s last episode. Well. Foreknowledge like that certainly changes the way one views a story. I can only imagine now how other fans would have experienced it, because I didn’t have the luxury of surprise.

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Perchance a Dream

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Review of Sleep No More
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Mark Gatiss scripts are always hit or miss for me. I have really enjoyed a couple of them, especially The Unquiet Dead, but others have fallen flat for me. This entire season has been really strong (in my opinion), though, so knowing Gatiss was the writer on this episode, I went in feeling cautiously optimistic.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

I came out the other end of the story rather confused—not by the plot itself so much as by how I felt about it all. After my second viewing, though, I think I finally figured out where I stand: with opposing opinions depending on how I look at it. As a writer, I found the episode to be a fascinating experiment using a worthy storytelling conceit; as a fan, I didn’t particularly like it.

Much of the online reaction I’ve seen centers on the “found footage” style. Some folks are touting it as a bold, new direction, while others feel it was a mistake of epic proportions. As usual, the truth probably lies somewhere between the extremes. Given the nature of the story, the found footage format (say that twelve times fast) strikes me as a perfect fit. It adds to the creepiness and makes the camera POVs part of the narrative itself. However, I found it incredibly off-putting. I’ve simply never been a fan of that style of film, and found it difficult to look past.

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Continuity à la Carte

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Review of The Zygon Inversion
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

This is the episode that made me look back and admit I hadn’t been entirely fair to Moffat.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

Regular readers will know that I’ve long since tired of Moffat’s regular tricks and quirks. It was easy for me, therefore, to jump to conclusions about previous stories that I now know to have been incomplete. In particular, I was really angry after Death in Heaven when Osgood died. It felt like an attack on the fandom for whom she was a cipher.

Now, though, it’s obvious that Moffat had a larger character (and plot) arc in mind for Petronella Osgood (I kind of wish we still didn’t have a given name for her…). He has even tied up the glaringly loose end of the Zygon peace agreement with humanity, left dangling for nearly two years since The Day of the Doctor. Many of us noted how that particular plot line had been abandoned unceremoniously at the end of the anniversary special; some felt the Zygons had been underutilized as a result. It’s nice to see those threads being tied back into the ongoing narrative.

Speaking of call-backs to previous episodes, Clara’s in-pod experiences during the pre-credits sequence was extremely reminiscent of both Last Christmas (with Clara’s search for dream tells) and Asylum of the Daleks (in that Clara was physically trapped inside an enclosed space, but had made a different space in which to exist in her mind). Long-term continuity was well considered here (more on that later).

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A Zygon Conclusion

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Review of The Zygon Invasion
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

This is one of those stories in which misdirection is the order of the day, and which on subsequent viewings doesn’t necessarily become clearer. At least, not without the second half of the story, which is yet to come.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

In other words, this is your fair warning that I have some oddball theories this week, so prepare to be inundated with my evidence. (Next week you can mock me mercilessly when I turn out to be completely wrong, but for now I’m going to pretend I’ve come up with the most brilliant fan theory of the series to date.)

Before I get into my speculative musings, though, let’s start with the more relatable mystery of which Osgood is which. Before the credits even roll, we see the surviving Osgood (who now wears question marks, whether on her lapels like the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Doctors each did, or on her replica of the Seventh Doctor’s vest) scrambling to escape capture. Hiding under the sheriff’s desk, she makes use of her inhaler. “Ah-ha!” we all crowed. “That’s the human Osgood! Zygon Osgood was the one Missy vaporized!”

Even the Doctor backed up our assumption, trying to help this Osgood come to grips with her identity. “Zygons need to keep the human original alive to refresh the body print. If you were a Zygon, you’d have changed back within days of your sister’s death.” But we’ve already seen these Zygons do something others have never done before: they can use mental images to take on a human form. (I’m kind of getting tired of Moffat’s finger in every goddamn pie, rearranging things to suit his own agenda. Yes, change is part of the show, and they have to keep things fresh. Still don’t like it.)

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It’s a Big Plot Point’s Life

Review of The Woman Who Lived
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Nominally, The Woman Who Lived was the second half of a two-parter that began with The Girl Who Died. In practice, it’s a brand new story featuring the return of a previously seen character, like Craig in Closing Time, the Meddling Monk in The Daleks’ Master Plan, or the Master in anything after Terror of the Autons.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

There was even a completely different writer for this episode than the previous one; last week’s episode was co-written by Jamie Mathieson and Steven Moffat, while this was written by Catherine Tregenna (halle-effin-lujah, finally a woman!). It’s hardly surprising, then, that it had a completely different character and feel than its predecessor.

That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. For me, though, the trappings of the mid-seventeenth century, the highwayman known as the Knightmare, and the fine lady in cahoots with Leandro of Delta Leonis (whom I was very disappointed to learn wasn’t actually a Tharil after all) were of little interest. They were merely the setting in which the real story took place.

Said real story, as I see it, is twofold. First, there is the fact of don’t-call-me-Ashildr’s effective immortality, stuck on “the slow path,” as Reinette put it in The Girl in the Fireplace. This exploration of what it would mean to live for centuries, outliving everyone you got to know along the way—and not being able to fly off in a blue box after—is the human side of the equation, though a modified one. We are not meant to live so long, certainly not alone. The way Ashildr’s perspective has changed, and her attitude toward the lives of others with it, is testament to the psychological effects of that isolation.

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Not Dead Yet

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Review of The Girl Who Died
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

One of the advantages of avoiding as much information about upcoming episodes as possible is going in without any particular expectations. All I had this week was the trailer, the title, and knowledge of the big name guest star (which was neutral information, since I don’t watch Game of Thrones). I had no pre-conceived notions about The Girl Who Died, and figured we’d be getting an okay-but-not-fabulous story. I was, thus, not disappointed.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

Conversely, I wasn’t pleasantly surprised. It was, to my mind, merely average. Given how much I (a) love Capaldi and (b) disliked certain episodes in the last series, though, fair-to-middlin’ is still perfectly acceptable. As long as Capaldi’s on screen, it can’t be all bad.

As far as I can tell, though, the main point of this episode was to introduce Ashildr, the eponymous character. Unless there’s actually something subtle going on, rather than the anvil-to-the-head clues dropped here, we’ve just seen the seeds of a major piece of the series arc.

Back when Davros was crowing over the supposed success of his latest mad scheme, he justified it by claiming he was fulfilling a Gallifreyan prophecy. “It spoke of a hybrid creature,” he cackled. “Two great warrior races forced together to create a warrior greater than either.” Now we’re meant to see how that prophecy really gets fulfilled. Take the Mire, “one of the deadliest warrior races in the entire galaxy,” add their technology to a Viking, and voilà! Hybrid ahoy! The Doctor even says so, just in case we’re not clever enough to get it ourselves.

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Flood of Expectations

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Review of Before the Flood
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I don’t think I like it when the Doctor breaks the fourth wall.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

Perhaps that’s what got me off on the wrong foot such that I didn’t enjoy this episode as much as I’d hoped. It was better for me the second time through (as is often the case when I don’t immediately take to an episode), but after the strength of my positive reaction to the first half of the story, I guess I was just underwhelmed.

The fact that the tone of the second half of the story was—save for the scene when Moran was after Cass (brilliantly executed, by the way)—was completely different from that of the first certainly didn’t help in terms of expectations. Even knowing going in, though, that it would not—could not—be another Base Under Siege episode, I just couldn’t get a grip on this one at first.

By my second viewing, I approached it with a sense of reservation. With this dampened enthusiasm, I was able to see Before the Flood more favorably. Although the question of how the Doctor will cheat death and save Clara is clearly the main focus of the storyline, I found the “B story” centered on O’Donnell and Bennett more engaging. (Maybe once I knew the “trick” it wasn’t as fun watching the illusionist’s act?)

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Base Under Water

Review of Under the Lake
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Sometimes there’s a really good reason that something becomes a trope. Take, for example, Doctor Who‘s well-known “base under siege” story archetype (seen most commonly in the Troughton era). While its frequent use tends to make certain elements easy for the audience to predict (unless actively subverted), the inherent tension of a situation in which a pre-determined, non-expandable set of individuals have to defend themselves against an unknown, mysterious, or seemingly unbeatable enemy can make for a gripping narrative.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

Such is the case with Under the Lake. Writer Toby Whithouse (whose previous Who credits include School Reunion and three other episodes) uses the tried-and-true setup to great effect, keeping the crew both separated from outside help and in valid fear for their lives.

Upon first watch, I was so taken with the story, in fact, that I couldn’t think of anything I didn’t like about it. Further thought and a second viewing highlighted a few, but none were enough to dampen my general delight. I can’t even express how refreshing it is to feel so unreservedly pleased with an episode.

The first of the relatively small down sides happened even before the opening credits rolled. While the Drum’s crew was relatively diverse (two white women, three men of color, and one white man (who isn’t technically even part of the crew)), it was still the black guy who was first to die. As a white woman myself, it took me a while to realize that sad truth, and I can’t decide how much it ought to bother me.

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Something Familiar

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Review of The Witch’s Familiar
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

Well, it wasn’t godawful.


Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2015 BBC

In fact, it may well be the best second half of a Moffat two-parter I’ve yet seen (though the bar isn’t set very high, in my opinion). That’s not to say it was anywhere near flawless, but I did find plenty to enjoy.

The episode begins by resolving the we-didn’t-believe-it-anyway deaths of Missy and Clara and giving an actual explanation for the method of their escape (and Missy’s in Death in Heaven). It struck me as odd that Missy would need Clara to suss out why the Doctor always survives. Does Missy already know the answer or not? If she does, why walk Clara through it just to ask the follow-up question (“What happens if the Doctor assumes he’s going to die?”)? The only reason to do so is to bring the audience along (which is not good storytelling).

If Missy doesn’t know why the Doctor survives, then she was dead wrong when she told Clara “you’re the dog” in the relationship. Despite knowing him for millennia, Missy still needs a human who’s only traveled with him recently, on and off for a couple of years, to figure out the Doctor for her? Neither of those interpretations makes much sense, and the scene thus left me vaguely dissatisfied.

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