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

I can’t help but wonder if the Doctor isn’t doing some universe-hopping with Clara on board. After all, it would explain both her comment that her current home “looks different” when she comes back to it and some of the nonsensical parts of their adventure this week.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2013 BBC

Despite the fact that bad science often irks me when I see in in Who, something about the way Mrs. Gillyflower’s rocket was the epitome of steampunk allowed me to put a perception filter on the whole thing and take it in stride. (Even if I can’t buy that this “prize-winning chemist and mechanical engineer” could devise both a viable preservation process and a functional rocket with only the help of a millions-years-old leech.) I know others were bothered by the flurry of anachronisms (and I also don’t believe that Vastra, Jenny, and Strax can work unmolested in Victorian London, but that’s another issue), but somehow – while other episodes this season have really put me off – I was mostly able to roll with this one.

I can’t honestly say I was over-the-top thrilled, though. After all, I’ve never really been a fan of the “penny dreadfuls” (or Hammer Horror films, to which I understand there were a great number of references). So the genre wasn’t my thing. That means the bodies that had succumbed to the Crimson Horror grated on me, the all-around nasty old lady put me off, and Mr. Sweet was simply 100% icky.

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

So close. So close! It was almost another top-notch episode – filled with nods to the pre- and post-Hiatus eras both – but it tripped at the finish line.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2013 BBC

I will admit that those last two minutes didn’t bother me quite as much the second time through, but I was also pausing the recording at regular intervals to make notes. That tends to break up the action in a way that prevents one from getting pulled into it.

What did work for me was practically everything else in the episode. It was wonderfully atmospheric, providing the perfect ambience for a ghost story. I absolutely loved the way that the shots in the main part of the house were all done to give a strong impression of sepia tone photography, down to the brown costumes.

With the exception of the cringe-worthy entrance of the Doctor and (especially) Clara, the seriously spooky tone is well maintained throughout, with the occasional light comic relief to allow a break in the tension. Most of that is courtesy of Clara, or of her relationships with the Doctor or the TARDIS, as when the Doctor tells her that her “pants are so on fire.”

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

Hallelujah – finally, an episode I actually liked!

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2013 BBC

Though the pre-credits sequence didn’t grab me quite as much as it did the poor sailor, it was not a bad way to start (and narratively necessary). Where the story really got rolling, though, was immediately after the credits as the ship was heading down. It had an extremely Das Boot feel, and was incredibly tense as a result. And I thought they largely managed to maintain that tension throughout.

I’m not sure how much of my love for this episode comes from the fact that I could utterly relate to the Doctor’s declaration: “hair, shoulder pads, nukes – it’s the ’80s. Everything’s bigger.” It certainly didn’t hurt that I remember the political climate of 1983 so clearly. The episode definitely gave me that rock-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach feeling that “mutually-assured destruction” always did. It was something we lived with daily; the threat of nuclear war hung over the heads of even middle school kids like me. So suffice to say I thought they nailed the feel of the era.

Review of The Bells of Saint John
Warning: This review contains episode-specific spoilers and wild speculation about future episodes.

I really want to give Clara’s “no, this time we mean it!” introduction story an enthusiastic thumbs-up, but I can’t quite.

Source – bbc.co.uk – © 2013 BBC

Like most Moffat-penned scripts, it zips along at such a fast pace that it’s easy to get caught up in the moment and come out saying, “Wow! That was great!” But Bells (and what the hell sort of irrelevant title was that, anyway, based on an utterly toss-off portion of the story from 1207?) also suffers from the common problems that plague Moffat’s stories.

To begin, we’ve got the usual casual misogyny, like when the young monk asks if the Doctor is speaking with an evil spirit and when he’s told “it’s a woman,” he crosses himself. This one I’m willing to let slide because, OK, it’s 1207 and the dude’s a monk who’s probably not supposed to have any contact with women. But it’s still in rather poor taste.

More irritating to my mind is the way the Doctor insists that Clara repeat The Question to him three times. I never used to think of the Doctor as a pure narcissist – a bit overly proud of his intellect, perhaps, but not full of himself – but that’s how that scene presented him. The Doctor seems to be exhibiting an ever-increasing number of troubling character traits these days (and I’m not just talking about some “fall into darkness” he might be experiencing), and I find myself watching with more trepidation all the time.