Review of The Caretaker
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.
Although I’m confident that in retrospect, I’ll be able to look back at The Caretaker and point out pieces that were key to the series arc, as far as I’m concerned, we could’ve just skipped it entirely.
Superficially, there were certainly some similarities between The Caretaker and School Reunion, the Series Two episode that saw the return of Sarah Jane Smith and K-9. But while the latter had bittersweet tones of reminiscence and reconciliation, the former sank rapidly into the realm of romcom. While I enjoy a good romcom as much as the next hopeless romantic, that’s not why I watch Doctor Who.
It’s become more and more the norm, since the post-Hiatus era began back in 2005, for occasional stories to center on the Companions’ domestic life. More recently (read: since Moffat took over as showrunner), the Companions don’t even travel with the Doctor full time like they always used to do. That is not necessarily a bad thing per se, but it most definitely yields a different experience for both Companion and viewer.
Think about it this way: the Companion is comparable to a student going off to university for the first time. Does she live in a residence hall or off campus, e.g., with her parents? Dorm life gives one a vastly different college experience than commuting to school every day does. So, then, does living in the TARDIS as one jumps from adventure to adventure instead of being picked up every now and again to go gadding about the universe between grocery shopping and parents’ night.
Is trying to balance a “normal” life with the craziness of traveling with the Doctor (“you’re one of my hobbies”) a bad thing? Absolutely not—for some. Suffice to say, though, that it’s certainly not the choice I would make were it up to me.
So back we come to The Caretaker, wherein Clara’s Earthbound life comes crashing together with her extracurricular activities. Here’s where we really see Moffat’s conviction that the Companion is meant to be the main character (something with which I vehemently disagree); it’s like the Doctor is a guest star in his own show. Instead, all the focus is on Clara juggling her two lives, trying vainly to keep them separate until there is no longer any way to do so.
What it really felt like, though (and thanks to whoever it was whose tweet about this got me thinking along these lines), was an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures. It’s all about the plucky gang who knows what’s really going on at the school saving the day from the rather rubbish monster that’s totally the background to the interpersonal drama at the center of the episode, all while keeping the rest of the school in the dark. We even had the overly nosy, rule-breaker kid walk into things, and get the opportunity to decide whether or not to believe the hype (a la Kelsey Hooper in the SJA pilot “Invasion of the Bane“).
So what the hell was Moffat up to here (I can hardly even think of poor Gareth Roberts as a writer on this episode, it felt so heavy with Moffat’s touch)? I see several things. First, there’s the obvious need to combine the two sides of Clara’s life, or at least to introduce them to each other. Danny makes some astute observations about the Doctor, both in terms of his relationship to Clara and in his approach to the universe at large.
When he finally sees into Clara’s life with the Doctor, he pegs the Doctor as Clara’s dad (“Your space dad!”). Looking back over the episode from this perspective, the Doctor’s reactions to Danny all make perfect sense in this context (and are much more comfortable for me than the idea that he’s still pining for Clara himself). A father figure who never sees any suitor as being “good enough” for his girl could certainly be the kind of grumpy ass to her boyfriend that the Doctor has been.
But Danny also instantly recognized him as an officer. Though the Doctor may object, we’ve seen it before. If the Doctor makes his friends into weapons, he’s doing what needs to be done, often in a violent, even military way. He hates what he needs to do (and has done), but does it anyway. I can’t say Danny’s wrong.
Another way I saw Moffat’s influence here was the elements furthering the season arc. We got more heavy-handed soldier hate (again, easily read as self-loathing) from the Doctor, we got Missy and her realm (though the charred, disembodied hand kind of put the kibosh on my “everybody’s just been put through a transmat” hypothesis), and we even got more of Courtney “Disruptive Influence” Woods. I don’t know what Courtney has to do with anything, but she’s definitely putting her mark on this series (Deep Breath: shows Clara you can’t start with your final sanction; Listen: Clara & Danny discuss/laugh about dealing with her on their first date). It will be interesting to see how she fits in.
Finally, I believe Moffat is setting up Clara’s departure. Whether or not the rumors that Jenna will leave the show at the end of this series prove true, the penultimate scene (when Danny gives Clara his ultimatum) is clearly sowing the seeds for the end of her relationship with either Danny or the Doctor. One way or the other, I can’t see Clara being satisfied with the status quo for long.
I just wonder how long she—and we—will have to put up with it.
Too goofy
Hate to say it but I’m kind of losing faith in this season.
The entire “hype” for the season was built on this “the Doctor will be so dark and the series will be much darker and omg wow guys” and I just haven’t seen it yet. Deep Breath was kind of dark, so was Into the Dalek. Everything else? Not really. I’m kind of annoyed at the Doctor being this…goofy. I’ve heard the “Clara looks bad, we’re the same age” blabla enough now. I could deal with it if it turns out to be a plot point (something wrong with the Doctor’s eyes or something) but if not it’s just getting on my nerves at this point. I’m currently watching Classic Who as well (4th Doctor Masque of Mandragora) and he switches effortlessly from goofy to serious. This isn’t a complaint to Capaldi but the Doctor is just constantly acting so goofy and silly that when he was talking about how dangerous the Skyvox Blitzer was I just…wasn’t feeling it. I also feel like this story and Listen had a somewhat abrupt ending to the story. Listen never really got resolved and this was obviously much more a story about Danny and the Doctor but I think I would’ve liked there to be a bit more meat to the Blitzer. Also, the Doctor has a spaceship. How about actually letting him go to other planets ey? So far, we’ve had Earth, a spaceship, Earth, Earth + spaceship, spaceship and Earth. I don’t know if the budget is historically low. Or it could just be the contrast of watching Classic Who at the same time where a lot of things happened outdoors or at least pretended to look outdoors.
And wow. The preview looks like everything I want. Except that Moffat feels a need to push another annoying child on us because why not right? Remember Nightmare in Silver? Instant classic am I right?
Also I will never forgive this episode for not having a reference to Ian. I can understand no cameo given that the actor is about 89 or something but a name plaque. A picture. ANYTHING!
I don’t think Clara will just leave, as that would just make her Amy2. With the name of the final episode being what it is, I think she’s gonna get killed off. Which would be a shame as I like her a lot, but on the other hand I also think it would be fitting for “the most important person in the galaxy”.
School Governors
To be fair to the Grand Moff (not a phrase I use too often), Day of the Doctor did have a mention of IIRC Mr I Chesterton as Head of the School Governors on the board outside Coal Hill School.
Solid points
I’ve quite enjoyed the season up until this episode, but I totally see your point about it not necessarily being as dark as advertised. I’m kind of already over Danny; I’d much rather see daring adventures than domestic squabbles on Who. At the very least, sideline said squabbles instead of making them center stage…
Definitely a missed opportunity to include Ian (as Wholahoop pointed out he was name-checked in the scenery several episodes ago, but we didn’t even get that much here—in an episode set in Ian’s own school!).
Meddling Kids
Tonewise for me it was Scooby Doo meets Sarah Jane Adventures. This immediately means I am going to mark it down.
PLUSSES:
I did like the ‘stag rutting” scene between Danny and the Doctor in the TARDIS.
“Tick tock tick tock”. If any adult had spoken to me like that when I was a child I would have been traumatised!
MINUSES
Conversely I am not sure why Danny has difficulty in understanding different types of love, unless this will be revealed to be related to his upbringing?
Skovox Blitzer, probably capable of destroying a planet as that was the only target it was capable of hitting. (Although to be fair the villain was always going to take a back stage role in a story like this)
I thought the shot of the dead PCSO’s hand was one of the most gratuitous and unnecessary scenes I have seen in the programme in a long time. Was Eric Saward guesting as Script Editor?
A nice character piece but not the style for Doctor Who that I would like to see too often.
SJA style
As I wrote above, it totally smacked of The Sarah Jane Adventures to me, so I agree with you there.
The enemy was rubbish, the relationship angst was rubbish, and the tie-in to the series arc was rubbish. Brilliantly acted by all the leads, but very much not my cup of tea.
Brain damage
Did the Doctor REALLY not expect Clara to recognize him because he changed his clothes? Or was he pulling her leg? I honestly can’t tell.
The Doctor used to be well versed in the customs of a variety of human civilizations and alien civilatiions as well. But now he doesn’t seem to understand humans at all. I’m starting to think he suffered some sort of brain damage during his last regeneration.
“Human blind”
I’ve been listening to the Verity! podcast lately, and one thing that they’ve pointed out is that this Doctor appears to be “human blind” (akin to color blindness)—he just really, honestly can’t tell the difference.
As I was re-watching the first two episodes of the series with a friend this week, though, I noticed something else that got me thinking strange thoughts. There are a couple times when the Doctor tells Clara things like “you’re not a young woman anymore” and “we look the same age” (blatantly untrue, from our POV). But what if (a) Clara is somehow Missy, and (b) the Doctor (or some part of him) is seeing Missy instead?
I know that’s pretty out there, but it popped into my head, and I wanted to share it. 🙂
Missy
It had occurred to me that Missy might be one of the Claras that splintered off when she went back through the Doctor’s timeline.
Not unreasonable
Possible, certainly. I’ve seen/heard it suggested more than once that her name is a play on “Miss C.”
On Aging and Being Able to Discern Other People’s Ages
Feel free to jump to the last couple of paragraphs if you’re pressed for time.
I might be inserting too much overthinking and a psychology degree here into what was likely intended as a writer trying to give sneaky clues about upcoming episodes. i.e. It’s probably Clara as Missy/Miss-C in an upcoming season finale, because the writers ARE putting clues in regarding names and titles.
That being said, one aspect of perceptual psychology I wanted to mention is that IMO, it’s far easier to guess another person’s age if you’re close to their age or if you spend your day around people of that age. ex. When I was a teacher for grades 7-12, I noticed that I was getting better at figuring out what age an unfamiliar teenager was IF they were in the 7-12 grade level. When I left teaching, I lost that ability. Teens began to blur together in terms of their actual ages.
When I was a lifeguard and around large numbers of children from ages 2-12, I naturally got better at being able to guess which ones were what age, and THIS ability faded after I left lifeguarding. Now that I’m in a workplace where there are no children, I mentally tend to lump everyone under 18 into the same category.
I’ve noticed over the past 20 years that my now-97 Grandma often will describe people with terms that make sense relative to her age but is nonsensical relative to the ages of anyone under 80. “Sven on the corner had eight sisters. He passed away when he was a young man with a family.” (Later I discovered that Sven died only last year when he was in his late 70s. YOUNG man? Well, if you’re in your mid-90s, I suppose late 70s could be considered young, yeah.)
Likewise, I’ve noticed that Grandma will refer to elderly people as elderly only if they live in assisted living homes, but she doesn’t refer to people who are older than she is as elderly if they still live in their own homes like she still does. Likewise, it gets confusing to me when she’ll refer to a person in their 60s as an adult raising with kids when to me the average 60-year old has grandkids.
I mention all this because in this season, the Doctor has made various quips where it became clear that he was oddly clueless about estimating people’s ages. ex. He couldn’t tell the difference between a girl being 35 years old or 15 years old. Also, during this season so far, the writers seem to often make a point to play up the age of the newest regeneration, so they’re likely leading up to something deliberate eventually IMO.
Maybe the Doctor, due to his new form looking older than his previous three forms, subconsciously thinks of himself as far older than he was a year ago. What would happen if someone hundreds of years old no longer identifies himself as appearing as a young or middle-aged adult? This would skew his perceptions. Namely, moreso than with 9, 10, or 11, this newest Doctor would reasonably be so far out on the scale of aging that to him, anybody under the age of 130 might indeed look like a teenager to him.
After all, to teenagers, 40 IS old. To grade schoolers, 20 seems like a lifetime away. To a 4th grader, a 5th grader is practically a grown-up with a diploma. Yet, to a middle-aged adult, the difference between a 4th grader and a 5th grader is moot.
Maybe to the current Doctor with several hundred years under his belt, a human in her mid-30s DOES look identical to a human in her mid-teens.
Perspective
There’s probably a certain amount of what you outline here going on, but to me it was more basic: he’s “human blind” (to borrow a term from one of the Verity! podcasters). Something about the new set of regenerations did a sort of factory reset on his brain, and he has to relearn a whole lot about human and human interactions.
That’s my take on it, anyway.