Trapped in a drilling station deep underwater, the Doctor and Clara go on another adventure. But as the night comes in, so come out the ghosts. So how does it stand? Warning: spoilers.
1. Stock “Alien” Crew
By “alien” I don’t mean just stock dudes in green suit. I mean the archetypes of Sci-Fi horror movies that have space station crews to picked off like fleshy After Eight mints, most famously from the movie “Alien”. The majority of the guests in this episode did nothing for me because I’ve seen them so many times. There’s the fan of the Doctor. There’s the company man who is so selfish to the point of stupidity. There’s the gruff black captain who dies first and I’m not even going to bother to hide that as a spoiler because, again, it felt so stock to the point I called it the moment he showed up in the show.
2. Okay, the Card Gag Was Funny
So, Twelve is a jerk. Like, we know this. It is to the point that he and Clara have prepared a set of cards with responses to whenever he inadvertently says something incredibly insensitive. And I will not lie: I laughed my butt off at that. Yeah, I know, mean of me, but come on! That’s like Sixth Doctor level of jerkiness!
Also, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment when we see some of the cards: a callback to when the Tenth Doctor dropped off Donna in Aberdeen instead of Croydon which itself was a call back to Sarah Jane Smith.
3. Why Victorian?
Okay, this episode brought something up that I’ve wanted to talk about in regards to Doctor Who for a while: What is its deal with the Victorian Era? Seriously, when they’re not actually visiting the time period it seems like a good chunk of future humans on colonies or alien cultures emulate that era. Take the first ghost in this episode: he’s dressed like some dude that came off the set of A Christmas Carol meets Night of the Living Dead. What did he die of, Consumption? Did he get beaten to death by some street gang like Cockney Slags or something? And this episode takes place in the 22nd century! It’s like the Russell Davies era; all of time and space and a good chunk of the episodes took place in present-day London or Cardiff. This is the future! Future it up, damnit!
4. Ear Worms!
Okay, so the explanation for what is happening is a bit convoluted. Of course they’re not really ghosts. Instead, people who look at this engraving inside a derelict spacecraft have their synapses rewritten so they remember coordinates, like a song that you can’t get out of your head, so that when they die, their “ghosts” actually serve as a transmission signal and the more “ghosts”, the stronger the signal is sent out. Oh okay! So now I know the next time I’ve got Flogging Molly’s “Seven Deadly Sins” stuck in my head, stay away from underwater mining stations…
…Doctor Who is weird…
5. Another To Be Continued?
So, is this how this seasons going to be structured? Multi-episode stories like the Classic Era? I’m honestly quite fine with that. Sure, I have to wait another week to see if this story shoots itself in the foot, but I think this structure can lend itself to give some real depth in character and story. And despite nearly all of the above, I did think this was a decent episode and the season so far is on a slight uptick. I just hope they use this new model to its proper potential.
