Well, that's more like it. The third episode of the ninth series sees The Doctor returning to what he's best at: gallivanting around the galaxy and investigating the weird and wonderful corners of the universe, walking the razor's edge. This episode delivers what I want from an episode of Doctor Who by including interesting locations (the underwater base), multi-dimensional characters who I can sympathize with (the crew), a diverse cast of actors who are unalike, bad guys that are both repulsive and intriguing at the same time, and a plot that complicated enough that I'll likely miss something if I go into the kitchen to make a sandwich. And not one utterance of the word "dude."
Seeing this episode succeed (for me) makes the flaws of the two previous episodes more apparent to me. I don't like when Doctor Who (or anything else, for that matter) deliberately attempts to be big and epic. "Epic" is not something that can be easily manufactured via a spectacle or with bombastic music, a la Michael Bay. "Epic" is only achieved when an audience has endured extreme highs and extreme lows with a character or a story and things long in play are finally payed off and resolved once and for all. The first two episodes of the season attempted to manufacture an epic by being fast and loud and by visiting places we've been before in attempt to create a grander scope than is actually on screen, and those first two episodes suffered for that, in spite of the good story idea that was at the center of the spectacle. This episode, on the other hand, manages to engage me by sticking to the basics of storytelling and allowing the characters to play out the drama. Doctor Who succeeds when it puts faith in its actors and its scripts instead of the special effects.
I really like the ghosts we see in this episode and their hollow eye cavities, providing a really striking and instantly classic image. The idea of The Doctor facing off against ghosts, or the undead, or horrific beings that aren't immediately explainable has certainly been done before (and often), not just with David Tennant in stories like Silence in the Library, but going all the way back to producer Philip Hinchcliffe's era featuring Tom Baker, and probably even as far as John Pertwee's tenure as the Third Doctor. OF COURSE it's all been done before, but this is why I'm tuning in. Doctor Who, for me, is at its best when it's exploring some mystery that isn't easily solved and packs the running time with good performances, moments of character development for our heroes, and enough gruesomeness to keep the audience on the edge of their seat. This one delivered on all of those. By the way, I love the inclusion of a hearing-impaired crew member in this episode. It fits into the story, but I also like to see shows that take an optimistic, inclusive look at the future of humanity. I want to believe things are going to get better and we'll eventually all work side by side, regardless of any personal disabilities or challenges, and that discrimination will one day be a thing of the past.
I continue to enjoy Peter Capaldi's Doctor, and found his sympathy flashcards to be hilarious. My complaints about the previous two episodes and the broad comedy seem irrelevant in the face of such clever, character-driven bits of humor. I think Capaldi is absolutely fantastic, and I warmed to him the moment I saw him in action. After David Tennant's boyish charm and Matt Smith's emo coif, it's nice to have an older man back at the controls of the Tardis, with all the wisdom, experience, and the occasional misguided brashnesh that a veteran actor brings to the role. Though we can never truly have total character revelation for The Doctor (at least, I hope we never do), we get little bits and pieces each and every week that inform who this man is. As a long time fan, I appreciate the sense of history that Capaldi brings to the role.
Also, it appears that all, or nearly all, of the episodes for this season are going to be two-parters, which I'm really excited about. It's just one more nod back to classic Doctor Who serials, which routinely ran for four half-hour episodes. Two hour-long episodes just about matches up perfectly with the amount of time given to stories for several decades of Doctor Who, and it just feels right. After years getting the show back on its feet and back into the hearts of an international public with stories that were Earth-bound and led by an increasingly-youthful lead character, Doctor Who finally seems to be getting back to the status quo that it maintained for for 26 years, with a mysterious, mercurial man running down corridors with death in his wake. Since Capaldi has been in the role, I feel like the show can go anywhere and do anything. It feels like the same Doctor Who I discovered in the '90s, when no one else knew what I was talking about. All of time and space is once again open for exploration, and at the center of it is a madman in a box. Like so many of those classic stories, this episode has a stellar cliffhanger, and I can't wait to see how this story concludes next week.
4.5/5
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