Doctor Who – "The God Complex" Review

In this week’s episode of Doctor Who, a lot of weird things happen and a curveball is thrown, only two episodes away from the season finale.

Let’s discuss this, with spoilers, after the cut.

I think that, before even getting into any of the specifics, it’s probably safe to say that this was probably the single most unexpected episode of this series of Doctor Who. Directed by the same man who directed last week’s episode and written by the writer of “Vampires of Venice” (one of my least favorite episodes of the entire new series), this episode could’ve easily been a massive hit or miss of an episode.

All said and done, it probably falls somewhere in the middle.

Given writer Toby Whithouse’s episode of Torchwood (“Greeks Bearing Gifts”), it should really come as no surprise that the episode lightly draws from Greek mythology with it’s maze-like complex and minotaur. This episode finds the Doctor and friends (and new friends) in a weird Shining-esque hotel full of rooms that are full of fears. There are individual rooms for everyone that encapsulate that person’s single greatest fear, and the sheer terror created by these rooms cause the individual to praise a weird alien minotaur who is roaming the halls, looking to kill everyone. As the Doctor soon discovers, the creature is being kept in a prison in which it is fed with other people’s faith, and he is forced to sacrifice Amy Pond’s faith in him to starve the beast, killing it and setting them free.

This is perhaps one of the darker episodes of the season, but it actually in so many ways shows some of the series greatest strengths in one convenient hour-long episode. This can be broken down in three easy to digest pieces:

The New Friends: Besides the Doctor’s main companions, each episode of the show usually introduces a new “companion” for the purposes of the episode. The strength of any given episode is then relayed in it’s inherent ability to make you care about those characters. There are times when it is beyond successful (the Van Gogh episode) and there are times when you couldn’t care less (the kid in the Dollhouse episode from this half-season). In the case of “The God Complex”, all of the new characters are fairly intriguing, but Rita (played by Amara Karan) was an instant winner. Her performance in this episode was wonderful, as if she was being groomed for future companionship, and to see that cut short had an emotional impact on the viewer, even though we’d only known her for 30-40 or so minutes. (Even David Walliams, whom I normally loathe for that awful Little Britain nonsense, is quite charming.)
That Horrible Raggedy Man: The Doctor is a very selfish character, and sometimes it’s hard to lose sight of that. Everything that happens on the show is essentially happening because he’s a bored man, hopping about the universe to entertain himself at the expense of others. We’ve heard choice phrases constantly about how the Doctor uses and abuses his relationships, but this episode sees the Doctor admitting and owning up to all of his faults. The scene in which the Doctor confesses to Amy what a horrible thing he is is quite possibly one of the best scenes ever written for Matt Smith, and while there is still a hint of “it’ll all be ok in the end”, it is the humility and the capability for failure that keeps the show grounded, to a certain extent. (And the Doctor calling Amy “Amy Williams” is perhaps the most heartbreaking bit of it all.)
The Empire Strikes Back: My favorite kind of ending — and maybe this is an odd thing to have as a favorite? — is the kind of ending where the heroes don’t win. It’s nice to see your favorite characters triumph, to see good beat evil, but it’s also always refreshing when things don’t play out so well. This was very much a band breaking up kind of episode, with Amy’s inherent loss of faith in the Doctor, the Doctor breaking off his relationship with her and Rory, and the final shot of the episode leaving us with a solitary Doctor, alone in his box. It’s melancholy, but it’s refreshingly human, and for a character who is anything but it’s nice — and again, it feels weird to say this! — to see him fail.

Continued below

Since Moffat’s run of the show began, one of the recurring themes appeared to be the breaking down of the Doctor, which will in turn lead to his eventual “death” (whatever that may entail and/or mean for the future of the show). It’s interesting to see the show, that used to be about glorifying the character when Davies helmed it, take such a darker-ish turn, but it lines up with Moffat’s work in the past. It’s not neccesarily that Moffat doesn’t like the Doctor, but it certainly is a way to keep things a bit more fresh on the show, and it helps to give writers like Whithouse more to play with.

However, as good as this episode was and as fun as it is to think back on it, it wasn’t altogether great. While last week’s episode had fairly steady direction, Nick Hurran plays up a madman’s game in this week’s episode, with much more static cuts, odd visual callbacks and a general chaotic style that is both purposefully disorienting but also a tad bit over the top at times. It’s not inherently bad, but it is a curiosity. On top of that, given the inherent Greek mythology informing the episode, it’s a bit disappointing to see Whithouse not play that up a bit more and go full-“Theseus and Ariadne” on the episode, given the possibilites for Rory and Amy in those given roles.

There are great highs and mild lows, but the episode ends up somewhere in the middle. Of this current half season, “The God Complex” is certainly better than Gatiss’ episode but not necessarily better than “The Girl Who Waited” (not including Moffat’s episode into the mix). It probably comes up to personal preference, though; for my money, this season has really been about establishing the relationship between Amy and Rory alongside of the Doctor in a way that turns previous assumptions about the Doctor/companion relationship all topsy-turvy. The show became more about them than the Doctor, and that dichotomy shift was very fun to watch. If you like seeing the Doctor beaten down, though, then this episode is probably better for you.

Either way, with next week bringing James Corden back into the game with an episode entitled “Closing Time” written by Gareth Roberts (who also wrote Corden’s “The Lodger” from series 5), here’s to this season going out assumedly on quite a high note.