U.N.I.T. Becomes Interchangeable With S.H.I.E.L.D. In "The Poison Sky!"

The Good: Plot moves along well, Adequate performances
The Bad: Light on character development, Fairly predictable
The Basics: "The Poison Sky" resolves the action of "The Sontaran Stratagem" adequately, but not exceptionally.


In television and movies, sequels and second parts often have a difficult time living up to the potential alluded to in the first part. Even so, some make a decent showing of it and "The Poison Sky" fares better than most second parts. "The Poison Sky" picks up immediately after "The Sontaran Stratagem" (reviewed here!). As a result, it is impossible to discuss "The Poison Sky" without revealing some of where "The Sontaran Stratagem" left the major characters and plotlines.

For "The Poison Sky," U.N.I.T. reveals a potential previously only alluded to in Doctor Who (at least the new episodes of Doctor Who; I've no idea how the organization is represented in "classic" Doctor Who). They have a helicarrier, much like S.H.I.E.L.D. from Marvel Comics or The Avengers (reviewed here!). "The Poison Sky" opens at an appropriately bleak moment for the protagonists: the ATMOS devices are poisoning the Earth, Martha has been replaced by a replicant, Luke Rattigan had betrayed the planet to Sontarans, and Wilfred was trapped in his car, choking to death. "The Poison Sky," predictably, resolves everything set up in "The Sontaran Stratagem" and moves the relationships The Doctor has with Donna Noble and Martha Jones forward.

Sylvia Noble manages to rescue Wilfred and she objects to Donna going off with The Doctor, but Donna leaves anyway. The Doctor uses the opportunity to give Donna a key to the TARDIS and as the world chokes on fumes created by the ATMOS devices in 400,000,000 of the world's cars, Donna is secreted away to the TARDIS. Unfortunately, The Doctor tips his hand to the Martha Jones Replicant, who has the Sontarans teleport the TARDIS up to the Sontaran mothership. U.N.I.T.'s commander, Colonel Mace, orders Earth's nuclear arsenal to train on on the Sontaran ship as The Doctor tries to signal Donna Noble. The Martha Jones Replicant prevents the nuclear arsenal from launching.

As the Sontarans attack the ATMOS factory, the Doctor realizes they are interested in something inside the factory and are working to protect it. As Rattigan wigs out on his would-be disciples, he flees back to the Sontaran ship where he discovers the aliens have used him. Mace marshals U.N.I.T.'s forces to attack the Sontaran positions in the factory while Donna Noble escapes the TARDIS to get the teleporter back online. When The Doctor rescues Martha, they discover what the Sontarans are actually after on Earth and the Doctor and his two Companions work together to stop them.

"The Poison Sky" firmly establishes The Doctor's loathing of guns in a way that prior episodes have not and the episode is one of the prime reasons "In The Forest Of The Night" (reviewed here!) does not work several seasons later (honestly, if Earth-saving entities would make the world a forest to save humanity from solar flares, why wouldn't they save them from the Sontarans?!"

The science of "The Poison Sky" is a bit wonky. Carbon monoxide, one of the gasses being released by the ATMOS devices around the world, is highly flammable in an oxygen atmosphere . . . but the oxygen would be consumed to combust the CO. The Doctor's solution to the ATMOS poisoning of Earth's atmosphere would have wiped out all life on Earth!

Beyond that, "The Poison Sky"is well-presented, but not very high on character development. Wilfred Mott continues to worry about Donna Noble and The Doctor is as clever as usual, but only Donna really develops in the episode. Donna's trip into the Sontaran ship has her moving from being, essentially, an investigator to an action hero. In "The Poison Sky," she dispatches a Sontaran warrior that that's a big step for her!

The performances in "The Poison Sky" are good, but none of them particularly challenge any of the actors.

Ultimately, "The Poison Sky" resolves the story started in "The Sontaran Stratagem" in a very straightforward way. It's an average episode with little to excite viewers and little to complain about.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of David Tennant as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Biddy Hodson, please check out my reviews of:
Hellboy
The Mists Of Avalon
Bedazzled

5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Alien Invasion With Environmental Systems: "The Sontaran Stratagem!"

The Good: Good character definitions, Decent plotting, Good acting
The Bad: Light on character development
The Basics: An average set-up episode for an alien invasion storyline, "The Sontaran Stratagem" does what it sets out to do without much flair.


Fans of Doctor Who who liked Martha Jones as a Companion for David Tennant's version of The Doctor had every reason to feel cheated by the direction the show went. After two solid seasons with Rose Tyler as The Doctor's Companion, Martha Jones had her chance and after her season (reviewed here!), she abandoned The Doctor and he reluctantly came back to Earth and took Donna Noble as a Companion for his travels in the TARDIS. The non-romantic travels between The Doctor and Donna Noble were interesting and good, but it did not take long for Martha Jones to resurface. "The Sontaran Stratagem" was her first episode back!

"The Sontaran Stratagem" introduces the newer Doctor Who audience to the militaristic aliens The Sontarans and the episode has a classic Doctor Who feel to it. That mood comes from the inclusion of UNIT and Martha Jones as an active soldier/doctor in the organization. In many ways, "The Sontaran Stratagem" is a basic invasion storyline for Doctor Who.

Opening at the Rattigan Academy on Earth, the cultlike young people there kick a reporter out. The smarmy leader of the students, Luke Rattigan, threatens reporter Jo Nakashima, who claims that the ATMOS is dangerous. When Nakashima attempts to contact UNIT, her car drives her into the river, killing her. In the TARDIS, Donna Noble is practicing flying the time machine when Martha Jones calls and requests the Doctor return to Earth. Martha takes command of a UNIT team for Operation Blue Sky, which is rounding up illegal aliens at the ATMOS factory. Jones figured out fifty-two deaths worldwide the day before happened simultaneously in cars with ATMOS systems installed.

The Doctor is understandably concerned, especially if an alien influence was to marshal the force of 800 million cars. When two UNIT soldiers investigate the basement level of the ATMOS factory, they uncover an entity that is in an embryonic state before they encounter a Sontaran soldier. While investigating the ATMOS system leaves The Doctor and UNIT puzzled, Donna smartly observes that none of the workers at ATMOS have taken a sick day! When Martha begins investigating the workers, she is captured by the Sontarans. While The Doctor squares off against Luke Rattigan, Martha is replaced by a Sontaran replicant!

"The Sontaran Stratagem" has somewhat minimal character development, which makes some sense given that it is the set-up episode of a two parter. The episode takes just enough time to re-establish Martha Jones before pushing ahead with the ATMOS/Sontaran storyline. Jones is immediately recharacterized as no longer in love with The Doctor. While there is a charming exchange between Donna and Martha, Martha and The Doctor redefine their relationship in a compelling way when Jones stands up to The Doctor. Martha joined UNIT, we learn, because while The Doctor gets to go on his next adventure, some people stay behind and have to deal with the consequences of his actions.

The redefined character of Martha Jones works surprisingly well and she interacts with Donna in an interesting way. Donna proves herself smart and clever enough to intrigue Martha and Martha feels compelled to warn Donna that she needs to look out for her family if she is going to continue traveling with The Doctor. That gives Donna the perfect excuse to go off an reunite with her family, most importantly her grandfather Wilfred.

Luke Rattigan is instantly reminiscent of Adam Mitchell from "Dalek" (reviewed here!) and, more relevantly, "The Long Game" (reviewed here!) and The Doctor treats Rattigan much the way he (in his earlier incarnation) treated Mitchell. It helps lend the comparison that The Doctor uses the same joke in this episode that he did in "Dalek." Rattigan is smart, but arrogant and his weakness in that regard seems to entirely overwhelm the intelligence he possesses. The result is that Rattigan seems just as generic as the Sontaran soldiers.

The performances in "The Sontaran Stratagem" are good, but only Freema Agyeman is given anything significant to do that requires her to show more range than she did in prior episodes. After effortlessly stepping back into the role of Martha Jones, Agyeman has to play the Jones Replicant and adding menace to her range is delightfully chilling.

In the end, "The Sontaran Stratagem" does what it sets out to do: it creates a small mystery needed to bring The Doctor back to Earth and put Martha Jones and her replicant in play, while leaving enough story for the second part to feel full in its own right. The mystery of the ATMOS system is presented compellingly enough in "The Sontaran Stratagem" and it leaves viewers eager to find out the "why" that this episode leaves lingering!

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the final season of David Tennant as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other television episodes involving invasions, please check out my reviews of:
"A Call To Arms" - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
"And The Sky Full Of Stars" - Babylon 5
"Aliens Of London" - Doctor Who

6/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Moment Guts Steven Moffat's Most Enduring Work In "The Husbands Of River Song."

The Good: Actor chemistry, Humor, Plot progression
The Bad: Details, Guts the character of River Song
The Basics: Steven Mofatt doesn't know how to keep his own creations cool in "The Husbands Of River Song."


There are some people who become so big in their industry that no one has the heart to call truth to their power. Studios bank on these big named directors/executive producers on the idea that the successes they had have created a fan base that is so indiscriminate as to make any future works they have successful. Take, for example, J.J. Abrams. Abrams has become so big that the sycophants who surround him would not point out that the physics of Kirk kicking the engine component in Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!) make no real-world sense or that Poe Dameron's jacket remaining in the TIE Fighter in The Force Awakens (reviewed here!) is a ridiculous conceit (or the lack of lighting of the star destroyer or the fact that R2-D2 wakes up when there is no factor that he is exposed to that has changed - i.e. he has met BB-8 before and Luke Skywalker's lightsaber is proximate). Abrams either becomes overwhelmed at his level that he misses understanding that which he is creating or he hopes that fans will just think it is "cool" and not notice the glaring problems in his work. Steven Moffat has become the same way with Doctor Who and nowhere is that more evident than in "The Husbands Of River Song."

"The Husbands Of River Song" is the latest Christmas episode of Doctor Who and while it is a fun episode, it is incredibly unsatisfying for anyone who has fallen in love with the character of River Song. The irony here is that writer (and now executive producer) Steven Moffat created River Song, so he established and developed the conceits of the character. In "The Husbands Of River Song," Moffat manages to utterly destroy the potential that existed for fans in the character of River Song. And I'm dealing with that up front because I generally enjoyed "The Husbands Of River Song." Alas, though, the one detail - which Moffat included! - gutted much of the episode for me.

Steven Moffat introduced River Song in "Silence In The Library" and in that episode's immediate follow-up, he concluded the journey of River Song. River Song had a diary and that diary has a prominent place in "The Husbands Of River Song." "The Husbands Of River Song" is explicitly a follow-up on "The Angels Take Manhattan" and works hard to set up "Silence In The Library." In "The Husbands Of River Song," River Song meets Peter Capaldi's Doctor for the first time and is of the firm mindset that The Doctor only has twelve faces. The reason these two interacting facts completely gut much of the power of River Song is this: virtually all of River Song's adventures have occurred and they happened with Matt Smith's incarnation of The Doctor. To make explicit: if River Song interacted with future Doctors, she would not have believed that The Doctor only had twelve faces. If River has future adventures with Peter Capaldi's Doctor - which is a possibility - they happen in chronological order (River Song's journal is written chronologically for her life). In other words, the vast bulk of River Song's adventures where she is plucked out of time and space to interact with the Doctor, which filled most of her journal, had to happen with Matt Smith's Doctor. For those of us who were excited by the potential of seeing the many adventures of The Doctor and River Song, it is somewhat frustrating to know most of them already happened and we were not privy to them.

Beyond that, "The Husbands Of River Song" is a fun adventure episode that infuses a lot of humor into a season mired by terrible and oppressive conceits.

Opening at the human clony of Mendorax Dellora on Christmas Day in 5343, Nardole finds the TARDIS and brings The Doctor to a crashed flying saucer to try to save the life of one of its passengers. Nardole mistakes The Doctor for a surgeon and he brings The Doctor to the flying saucer. There The Doctor meets River Song, who does not recognize him, and needs a surgeon to save the life of her husband. The Doctor is alarmed to learn that River Song is married to King Hydroflax, not some incarnation of himself. King Hydroflax is a cyborg and he has a diamond embedded in his head, which is slowly killing him. River Song wants to steal the diamond and to do that, she and The Doctor run off with King Hydroflax's head!

Pursued by King Hydroflax's body, The Doctor and River Song attempt to use the TARDIS to escape. With The Doctor as River's Companion, River takes the TARDIS and the head to a space vessel in the Andromeda Galaxy filled with some of the universes's worst villains to sell the diamond!

"The Husbands Of River Song" has some moments that are powerful and fun. When River Song delivers her monologue on The Doctor, it is impressive and Alex Kingston delivers the lines perfectly. Her soliloqy is beautiful and one of the best River Song moments. Sadly, it is in an episode filled with terrible conceits that make no sense. "The Husbands Of River Song" utilizes a ridiculous conceit about the TARDIS - that it cannot take off when part of a body is both inside and outside the vessel - that has already been demonstrably disproven; to accept this conceit, the TARDIS could not have left Earth after "The Christmas Invasion" (reviewed here!) because The Doctor's hand was both inside and outside the vessel! None of this is Kingston's problem. River Song is given great lines and is funny in "The Husbands Of River Song."

As many fans have hoped, Alex Kingston and Peter Capaldi have amazing on-screen chemistry in "The Husbands Of River Song." Capaldi plays The Doctor with the perfect mix of sullen and carefree. The Doctor is irked, but not vengeful in "The Husbands Of River Song," which is a nice transition for him from the last few episodes in this season of Doctor Who. Capaldi and Kingston have wonderful comic timing to make scenes like The Doctor and River Song improvising to survive encounter aboard the starliner.

"The Husbands Of River Song" climaxes sweetly, as well, reminding viewers why they wanted to see The Doctor and River Song together again. Can there be more adventures between The Doctor and River Song? Absolutely and it would be wonderful if she became the new Companion for The Doctor. But the idea that the vast majority of River Song's adventures with The Doctor are already done or would not be out of order (and still make any real sense) is disappointing.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Ninth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Matt Lucas, please check out my reviews of:
Paddington
Bridesmaids

Alice In Wonderland

5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Goofy Turns Creepy In “Flatline!”

The Good: Some good lines, Excellent general concept, Decent performances, Some good character moments for Clara
The Bad: Erratic special effects, Concept only works without thinking about it (little explanation in the work)
The Basics: An erratic season of Doctor Who continues with the fun, but conceptually flawed “Flatline.”


Yesterday was Bacon Day in my house. That’s not a euphemism for anything weird; the local grocery store discounted seventeen pounds of bacon to half price, so my wife and I bought it all up and I spent the entire day cooking bacon (my home remains saturated with the scent!). While I was cooking bacon for the day, my wife was trying to get in the mood for the new Doctor Who specials that were just added to Netflix (thank you, Netflix, for ruining my big holiday gift to my wife! Grumble!) by rewatching episodes from David Tennant’s tenure as the Doctor. She chose the “fourth” season, which featured The Doctor and Donna Noble . . . and frequent appearances by Billie Piper’s Rose Tyler on monitors shouting for The Doctor, unheard. So, before we watched the new episode of Doctor Who, “Flatline,” I found myself having an epiphany about what is wrong with the current season of the show:

I don’t care.

Seriously, I love Peter Capaldi as The Doctor and some of the stories this season have been interesting, but rewatching the fourth season, I realized that what is missing from the current season is something to tie the episodes together that is actually compelling. Rewatching the fourth season, I recall being hooked on the episodes, looking for Rose to pop up and wondering what she was so desperately trying to tell The Doctor. The current season does not have that. Fans might point to the occasional end-of-the-episode scenes that feature Missy, but where that plotline and “Paradise” are going is not clear or compelling. Is Doctor Who going to do something clever, like bring back “The Doctor’s Daughter” in an alternate regeneration? Is the Doctor Who universe actually going to end? Is The Doctor ever going to bother resuming his search for Gallifrey? Probably not, so the season is just meandering toward the point where the BBC publicity department has admitted that Clara’s Jenna Coleman will be departing the show. “Flatline,” like several of the other episodes of the current season, ends with a Missy scene that seems to add an element of menace to the background plot of the current season, but like so much of the rest of the current season, it falls a bit flat. The a-plot in “Flatline” is creepy and compelling enough; the serialized element makes it feel like the show is stretching for a purpose.

On its own, though, “Flatline” is actually fairly good, both as an episode of Doctor Who and television in general.

After a random man, who is calling for help on the telephone, ends up flattened and in the wall of his apartment, The Doctor and Clara arrive close to where they intended. The Doctor is delivering Clara back to moments after they just left, but instead of being near Clara’s home, the pair arrives in Bristol. The Doctor and Clara are alarmed to discover that the TARDIS’s spatial system is malfunctioning; the TARDIS appears to have shrunk! Exploring Bristol, Clara discovers a number of people have recently disappeared and murals around the area have popped up commemorating them. When the TARDIS “shrinks” again, with the Doctor inside, he passes his sonic screwdriver and psychic paper off to Clara and sets her on the task of figuring out what is affecting the TARDIS.

With the help of the local graffiti artist, Rigsy, Clara begins investigating the disappearances. Seeing the flat of the last man to go missing and with the help of a police officer who is promptly killed, Clara and The Doctor deduce that murals being found on walls are the missing people in one form or another. The Doctor attempts to communicate with entities. Given that they are two-dimensional and from another universe, communicating becomes a chore, a task which proves futile as the entities begin to erupt into three-dimensions and terrorize Clara and the local community works workers in the subway.

“Flatline” is creepy and cool, with generally good special effects and some neat concepts. Unfortunately, it only truly works when one does not think about the episode or the entities in it. Rather smartly, “Flatline” makes a point of illustrating how the two-dimensional beings would perceive us (beings in three-dimensions). The Doctor and Clara see a mural of footprints and tire tracks and that makes perfect sense; those representations are exactly how beings on a flat surface would perceive our universe without any depth. But the moment that the show starts to build a real “creep out” factor, all sensibility goes out the window. The murals of people in the subway walls are a cool concept, but cannot work for two-dimensional beings. Unless the entities from the two-dimensional universe were on the walls and their victims ran into the walls, they would not have the concept or ability to “camouflage” themselves on the wall. To put it another way; if you were on the floor looking up and flattening people through their feet, how would you have any conception of how to project their backs onto a flat wall?!

In a similar fashion, “Flatline” does not even imply the abilities that the entities from the two-dimensional universe suddenly possess. The invaders in “Flatline” are, the Doctor theorizes, studying us. They are two-dimensional and suddenly conceive of a third dimension. They are suddenly able to manifest themselves as three-dimensional beings. This is a clever ability, rendered well as a neat special effect, but it makes no rational sense. The closest analogy here would be the impossibility of moving differently on the moon; I can understand that gravitational forces on the moon affect my body differently requiring me to move differently on the moon in order to get my body where I intend to go. Just because I understand that would not suddenly enable me to, for example, teleport around the moon using only my mind (or any set of muscles I now possess). If the two-dimensional beings could suddenly conceive of three dimensions, they would still have to evolve or develop a technology that would allow them to transform into three dimensions.

Why, then, do I actually find myself enjoying and recommending “Flatline?” The first is that, despite the problems, “Flatline” tells a good story where the monsters are monsters. Like the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Schisms” (reviewed here!) where extradimensional beings are experimenting on the crew of the Enterprise, the search for knowledge does not mean that the adversaries do not understand what they are doing. Not all scientists are ethical ones and the two-dimensional beings are aware of their destructive nature and are simplistic enough to revel in it.

At the other end of the spectrum, “Flatline” succeeds because Clara steps up in The Doctor’s absence. There is an unlikable quality to Clara, the way she continues to lie to Danny Pink (The Doctor might not like soldiers, but Danny Pink is actually presented in a pretty likable way) about her travels with The Doctor, at the outset of the episode. Clara has to think fast and lead in a way that The Doctor usually does, with minimal help from The Doctor. The arc for Clara is compelling and well-executed.

In fact, more than the Missy scene in “Flatline,” the Clara arc in the episode saves the episode and alludes to the potential that remains for the season. “Flatline” is a conceptual sequel to “Into The Dalek” (reviewed here!). “Into The Dalek” had a miniaturization ray (referenced frequently in this episode) and a Dalek who referred to The Doctor as a “good Dalek;” “Flatline” features dimensional changes and Clara evolving into a “good Doctor” (largely by abandoning her likable qualities). That parallel quality saves “Flatline” from being a generic and unsatisfying “creature of the week” episode.

Jenna Coleman steps up as Clara in “Flatline” and she becomes a credible leader. In the absence of The Doctor’s constant aid, Clara steps up and Coleman makes the transition believable. Coleman is able to emote at key moments, creating the perception that the wheels are turning in Clara’s head and that sells the evolution of the character who is deceptively more experienced than the actress appears.

Ultimately, “Flatline” is good for the effects and character aspects, even if the creatures writer Jamie Mathieson creates for the episode fall apart under any scrutiny.

For other works with Christopher Fairbank, please check out my reviews of:
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Jack The Giant Slayer
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The Fifth Element
Alien 3
Batman

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Eighth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

6.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and season reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page where the episodes are organized from best to worst!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Painfully Predictable, “Time Heist” Is The First Doctor Who Flop For Peter Capaldi!

The Good: Moments of direction, Sense of values.
The Bad: Very predictable plot, No real character development
The Basics: With “Time Heist,” Steven Moffat creates a predictable bank job story that maintains Doctor Who ethics and values.


There is an unfortunate thing that occurs when a writer whose body of work largely consists of works that hinge upon a reversal at the end creates a sufficient library that those who watch their works are able to predict their reversals. Unfortunately for Steven Moffat and fans of Doctor Who, if that point had not been reached before, it is certainly hit by the episode “Time Heist.” “Time Heist” is like Mission Impossible III (reviewed here!) was for fans of Alias (reviewed here!); it was entirely unsurprising to anyone who was a fan of the works of J.J. Abrams. Virtually every move in the film was predictable because it was something of a “best of” Alias and fans of Abrams’s other works had seen all of the best plays.

In a similar fashion, “Time Heist” moves right along, but it plays very much like a Steven Moffat “best of,” even if he has not previously done a Doctor Who bank robbery caper. There are some new specifics to Moffat’s Doctor Who Universe that are unique; the indented head and the floor bomb are pretty cool, but feel less surprising than they are well-executed in “Time Heist.” After all of the uncertainty raised in “Into The Dalek” (reviewed here!) as to what kind of man the new regeneration of The Doctor is, “Time Heist” finally explicitly declares that he is a good man.

Opening with The Doctor interrupting Clara as she prepares for a date with Danny Pink, when the TARDIS’s telephone rings, the Doctor, Clara and two people they have never seen before find themselves seated at a table, holding memory worms. After the quartet hears a recording of each of them consenting to the memory wipe they have just experienced, they watch a recording from The Architect. The Architect insists that the quartet is going to rob the Bank Of Karabraxos, an impregnable bank for the ultra rich. One of the two people in the group is an augmented human, who has the ability to download all of the information the Architect left for them. The other additional person, Saibra, is able to mimic the appearance of anyone or anything whose DNA she encounters. Together, the four step into the Bank Of Karabraxos where they witness the price of failure. An individual who is in the lobby at the same time encounters the telepathic Teller, who senses the man’s guilt and liquefies the man’s brain.

As Psi, Saibra, The Doctor and Clara advance into the vault, the head of the Bank Of Karabraxos, Ms. Delphox starts to hunt the quartet. Finding cases left throughout the underbelly of the Bank, the quartet gains tools and information on their purpose. They are pursued by the alien Teller, who is the last of its kind. As the Teller hones in on the group’s mental energy, it comes to feed upon each of them. But when the Doctor and Clara make it to the deepest vault, a solar storm hits and gives The Doctor the tools needed to complete the robbery.

Moffat’s script is hardly an audacious one; in fact, he seems to address how mundane the concept of “Time Heist” is early in the episode. “Time Heist” is essentially a drawn out punchline to the joke, “A time traveler goes to rob a bank . . .*” with Doctor Who sensibilities. So, just like fans of Star Trek expect characters who wear a StarFleet uniform to act with a certain set of values (the Prime Directive, respect for life and freedom, etc.), fans of Doctor Who expect there to be a purpose for the actions of the Doctor. “Time Heist” continues to neglect the overall mission inherent to the new Doctor’s story – namely finding Gallifrey – but climaxes in a revelation consistent with the values of The Doctor.

Sadly, it is not a terribly surprising or clever mission.

“Time Heist,” as a thoroughly underwhelming episode, could not come at a worse time for Peter Capaldi and Doctor Who. Capaldi is embodying one of the most compelling and interesting Doctors in recent memory, but the story in “Time Heist” does nothing to truly advance his character. Unlike most of the prior episodes in which Capaldi has appeared, after the teaser, Capaldi is given nothing remarkable to perform. The Doctor does not advance or develop in “Time Heist;” he is simply restored to a familiar set of values that Doctor Who fans will recognize.

“Time Heist” is plot-heavy, has a cool-looking alien, but does not allow anyone to shine. The result is one of the worst, most mundane episodes of the modern Doctor Who.

For other heist stories, please check out my reviews of:
“Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
The Usual Suspects
Prison Break - Season 1

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Eighth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

1.5/10

Check out how this episode stacks up against other episodes and seasons of Doctor Who by visiting my Doctor Who Review Index Page where the episodes are organized from Best to Worst!

* “. . . realizes he’s done it before.”
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Average Until The Exceptional, “Listen” Is Intriguing Doctor Who!

The Good: Cool, creepy idea, Intriguing continuity, Neat character moments
The Bad: Plot-heavy, Very average performances
The Basics: With “Listen,” Doctor Who seems to be creating a new, creepy, alien race, but the episode only truly gets going at the end when the idea is tied in to Clara’s Impossible Girl arc.


One of the nice things about completing a vacation at the beginning of Season Premiere Season (mid-September) is that one comes home to a decent number of programs they might be excited for. As a new fan of Doctor Who, I find myself returning home to a backlog of Doctor Who episodes I am excited to watch. The first episode I missed while on vacation was “Listen.”

“Listen” looked very much like an average Doctor Who thriller episode from its previews (and its beginning), but it turned into something else (unfortunately) late in the episode. The result is an episode that is tough to review on its own and took me multiple viewings to truly come to a solid opinion on. Perhaps that is a new thing for me, being less judgmental; I did not have an immediate evaluation of The Giver (reviewed here!) while on vacation, either! “Listen” is one of the rare episodes of Doctor Who that is fairly weak on its own, but is a very strong episode in the larger context and story of Doctor Who. This is an episode that solidifies the concept of Clara Oswald as the Impossible Girl, a young woman who influenced all of the Doctors and who was integral to creating the man he became. “Listen” has a concept where Clara takes on a similar property to River Song, where the effects of her influence precede the cause of them . . . and in that way, the episode is smart and clever.

Unfortunately, it is late in the third act when that tie-in occurs and viewers are stuck in a largely mediocre episode until then.

Opening with the Doctor on (and in) the TARDIS, hypothesizing about the existence of a perfect hiding entity. He believes that talking to oneself occurs because we know we are not truly alone, that we are in the company of a race that hides perfectly from other living beings. Clara returns to her apartment from a disastrous date with Danny Pink to find The Doctor there, waiting. He proposes that all living beings have a silent companion and he enlists Clara to try to help him prove their existence. Believing that all people have a common nightmare – where one awakens from sleep, gets out of bed and feels a hand grab them from under the bed – is implanted by the perfect hider, The Doctor has Clara mentally link to the TARDIS to find the moment she had the dream. Going in search of that moment takes an unfortunate turn when Clara’s phone rings and she gets distracted thinking of Danny Pink.

Clara and The Doctor end up at a children’s home in Gloucester, where The Doctor meets with the caretaker while Clara encounters little Rupert Pink (the orphaned child who would grow up to be Danny Pink). In trying to reassure Rupert, Clara and Rupert get under his bed . . . and something reveals itself on the bed atop them! The Doctor arrives to save their lives by getting all three to turn their backs on the entity in order to make sure it does not feel threatened. After returning to the present where Clara tries to resume her date with Danny, she witnesses an astronaut walking through the restaurant. Following him, she and The Doctor end up at the very end of time and the universe with Orson Pink (one of Danny’s descendants) where he is stranded . . . and believes he is not alone.

“Listen” has two strong elements working in its favor. The first is that it has pretty wonderful banter in it. The Doctor is hilarious in his dialogue interactions with Clara. Together, they check out a version of Clara walking away and Clara quips about how being the last man in the universe is not a competition. The Doctor’s comments on Clara’s apartment and face are delightful. A decent chunk of “Listen” is laugh-out-loud funny.

The rest of “Listen” is clever or creepy and that is the second strong element. While the relationship between Clara and Orson is skirted around without being made entirely explicit, the episode’s most clever moments do not occur until the climax when the episode transitions from being an implicit Clara episode to a powerfully-Clara focused episode. Until that moment of transition, “Listen” is an unfortunately average “creature of the week freakout” episode. The Doctor goes in search of an entity that is, if it exists, impossible to find. By going to the end of the universe, The Doctor has the reasonable theory that the unseen entities might be willing to expose themselves to him (given that they have nothing to fear). The leaps between the creepy creature story and the Clara story make “Listen” look and feel like a number of other episodes of Doctor Who until the episode’s final moments.

Unfortunately, while the episode ends strong, it has some serious conceptual problems. The basic concept of “Listen” is problematic in that The Doctor’s whole idea has Clara crossing her own timestream, something which is explicitly forbidden. As the Impossible Girl, Clara Oswald has already witnessed all incarnations of The Doctor, past, present, and future, and influenced him to become the man he becomes (as well as saved his life at every moment of it). So, that Clara has to do the legwork of “The Day Of The Doctor” in “Listen” is an awful mix of brilliant and terrible. The short of it is this: it makes perfect sense that Clara would have done exactly what she does in “Listen” in terms of influencing the past . . . but it should have been Clara from the climax of “Name Of The Doctor” who actually did it, not the Clara who is now months older, traveling around with the current Doctor.

On the acting front, “Listen” is average. Jenna Coleman gives a momentarily great performance under the bed when Clara realizes exactly where she is. Wordlessly, she embodies an epiphany perfectly. That moment is counter-balanced by scenes wherein Coleman and Samuel Anderson (Danny Pink) have generally awful on-screen chemistry. As a result, for an episode that seems like it is ultimately a Clara episode, Peter Capaldi dominates. Capaldi has great facial expressions and deliveries throughout “Listen,” even if his character has no real development over the course of the episode.

Ultimately, the cool way that “Listen” retroactively influences prior episodes keeps the episode from being a dud, but those who are not already in love with Doctor Who are unlikely to have the patience to appreciate what the episode has to offer given how long it takes to come up.

For other works featuring John Hurt, please visit my reviews of:
Snowpiercer
Only Lovers Left Alive
Charlie Countryman
Immortals
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Hellboy
V For Vendetta
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone
Dead Man
Jim Henson's The Storyteller
Alien
The Lord Of The Rings (1978 animated)
A Man For All Seasons

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Eighth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the debut season of Peter Capaldi as The Doctor here!
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5.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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