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

Long since having tired of Moffat’s “the Companion is the main character” mantra, I was doubly irritated that Clara got to “be the Doctor” in Flatline. But when I started deconstructing the episode a little, I decided there was enough going on beneath the action that my irritation soon turned to fascination.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Flatline has turned into a very think-y episode for me. So much of the character development is intertwined. Right off the bat, we get clues to resolve the question at the end of last week’s episode about whether Clara’s change of heart about traveling in the TARDIS really did have Danny’s support (spoiler: nope).

The Doctor learns the truth of the matter by the end, and we can see threads of lies and identity woven all through this story. Clara lies to the Doctor. Clara lies to Danny. Clara “becomes” the Doctor. Clara lies to the people she’s with to emulate the Doctor. Clara gets “welcome[d] to [the Doctor’s] world” when she takes responsibility for solving the problem and trying to keep the bystanders alive.

The Doctor watches Clara play his role. The Doctor hears what he sounds like from the outside. The Doctor recognizes that what Clara did to save the day—the same things he would have done had he been able—had nothing to do with goodness.

Is the Doctor a good man?

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

Here’s where my academic background betrays me.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

I have (generally speaking) enjoyed Series Eight so much that I really wanted to like this one, too. But even before the problematic personal interactions surface late in the episode, I had checked out. The plethora of egregious scientific errors pulled me so far out of the narrative I may as well have been orbiting Earth right along with that egg the moon.

Doctor Who has always played fast and loose with the science in its stories, but science fiction (or even “science fantasy,” if you feel that description more accurately fits Who) storytelling doesn’t work if the writing isn’t self-consistent. You can say, for instance, that the sonic screwdriver can unlock anything except a deadlock seal, and your audience will go with it—as long as you don’t later use the sonic to unlock a deadlock seal. Similarly, if you’re going to set your story on Earth (and its moon), and have the plot hinge on something as well understood as gravity, you’d better not fuck with the basic laws of physics as we all know they work on Earth.

I could roll with it at first. So the moon’s got Earth-normal gravity now; somehow it’s gained mass. Fine. The Doctor even provides a few science-fictiony explanations that are narratively plausible: “gravity bombs, axis alignment systems, planet shellers…” But when you turn around and say it’s because the moon’s really an egg, and the fetus’s growth has added 1.3 billion tons to the moon’s mass—thus completely throwing out conservation of mass, one of the most basic laws of physics—I’m done.

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

In retrospect, it seems inevitable that Doctor Who would eventually spoof a caper film. It’s too bad they spoiled one of the major twists right in the title.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

For the most part, it worked pretty well. The conceit that the whole team had to go in without any conscious knowledge of the plan (read: convenient amnesia) made for a nice twist on the “this is how it’s going to go down” reveal as the heist unfolded. I even thought it made sense the first time around (though knowing how it all turned out brought up several questions on subsequent viewing).

And far be it from co-writer Moffat (one has to wonder how much of the script had to be manipulated to fit the series arc in order for him to get that billing) to leave well enough alone. Almost from the get-go, we get anvil-on-the-head reminders of loose plot threads when the TARDIS’s phone rings. After all, few people (including Clara) have that number. “And some woman in a shop. We still don’t know who that was.” Oh really? Gosh, I’d completely forgotten that! [End sarcasm.]

At face value, though, it’s another nice romp with no stakes (a common Moffat theme: no one actually dies). I liked the co-conspirators, and was nominally invested in them—enough so that I was initially pissed that Saibra, a young black woman, was almost immediately replaced with the image of and old white dude. Once I realized that was a temporary disguise and not a permanent cast change, I could forgive it, though it did ruin an otherwise awesome “walking into the bank to rob it” cast photo.

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

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a Doctor Who episode with such strong metatextual themes. From the moment the Doctor tells Clara that “old-fashioned heroes only exist in old-fashioned storybooks” and she asks, “What about you?” the ideas of story and reality overlap in ever thicker layers.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2014 BBC

Nor is the episode afraid to call back to the pre-Hiatus era—and skillfully enough not to make new fans wonder WTF is going on, I’d wager. Twelve certainly channeled his inner Three, first with reference to a miniscope and then with a carefully timed “Hai!” to chop Robin’s sword from his hand at the archery tournament.

Even without any of that context, though, Robot of Sherwood serves as an important milestone in the Twelfth Doctor’s tenure: his first “romp.”

Writer Mark Gatiss is on top form here. It’s certainly my favorite from him since his inaugural outing in The Unquiet Dead. The fact that Clara an active role in sorting out what the Sheriff’s plan is, having proved herself the ringleader through the simple act of keeping her yap shut, is refreshing (though I’m not sure that making the Doctor into a petulant twit set on one-upmanship is a great trade-off). Clara and Twelve are settling into a more comfortable relationship, and she’s back to happily giving him what-for when he needs it (“Can you explain without using the word ‘sonic screwdriver’?”).