Doctor Who - Hide (2013)

Wow. In old Who terms, this episode wouldn't just send your kids crawling behind the sofa, I think you'd be looking at a prolonged period of nightmares afterwards. It centres around something I've always found particularly creepy, ghostly images that only appear in photographs.

It started off reasonably light hearted though, with Clara's opening gambit of 'we're the Ghostbusters' perhaps not really matching the tone of the episode. There was also one line that took me out of the experience slightly, that the opposite of bliss was 'Carlisle'. I could see that it was just a joke but it wasn't that funny and at the same time just didn't seem like something a real person would say. I feel bad saying it but it felt like the one Moffat-like touch in an episode that Neil Cross seemed to have stamped his own identity on quite well. In a way I'm glad it was at least early on in the episode so you could take it as just a bit of fun before things started to get serious.

Compared to the bigger but largely forgettable cast of the last episode, this one really shone by focusing on only two extra characters. There was Professor Alec Palmer, played by Dougray Scott, who I almost mistook for Dominic West to begin with. A world weary ex-spy, he was clearly meant to parallel the Doctor, as he attempted to do some good in the world after all of the people he had lost or killed. His companion/assistant Emma Grayling, played by Jessica Raine, was an empathetic psychic who was essential to communicate with the ghostly presence in the pictures. Again like many of the Doctor's companions, she was unsure of whether there were feelings between her and the Professor, with the added complication of her empathetic powers making her unsure of what she reads from him.

The two of them are investigating a presence know as the 'Caliburn Ghast' or 'the Witch of the Well'. They have photographic evidence going back years, with the manifestation existing even before the construction of the mansion currently on the location. After Clara notices that the ghost was always in the exact same pose (whatever, I was trying not to look at it directly), the Doctor decides to take a quick jaunt through the Earth's history to take more pictures. While he clearly enjoys this distraction, Clara finds how easily he can do this rather cold, unsure of how anyone mortal can mean anything to him.

But that trek through time reveals that this 'ghost' is actually a rudimentary time traveller whose test flight has gone awry, trapping her in a pocket universe where time does not flow the same way we experience it. There is a slightly wibbly-wobbly reason why he can't just use the TARDIS to rescue them, so he constructs a makeshift device to allow Emma to help him create a link to get there and back. This ties together all of the characters as Professor Palmer can finally admit that he cares about Emma but also convince her that she's strong enough to use her powers this way.

While we now know what the ghostly presence is, there is still plenty to be afraid of once the Doctor makes the jump into the pocket universe. A strange twisted creature is stalking the stranded time traveller, which you only see in brief glimpses as it shifts in and out of view. The time traveller manages to escape just as Emma becomes overwhelmed by her efforts, breaking the link and leaving the Doctor unexpectedly stranded. Those who have seen the trailers for this series will have been expecting this scene, as the Doctor deduces that the creature is trying to scare him, begrudgingly admitting that it's been successful.

Once again Clara manages to save the day by insisting that Emma opens the bridge again, which she just about manages with the support of those around her. Meanwhile Clara manages to strike a temporary alliance with the TARDIS (who still doesn't seem to like her) and manages to pluck the Doctor out of the universe without landing, with Emma's psychic powers to guide them home.

I liked the Doctor's post rescue chat with Emma, who is revealed to have been the reason for his visit in the first place. On asking whether she can sense just who or what Clara is, the answer that she's just a normal ordinary girl is clearly not what the Doctor was looking for. I thought this was quite an apt reflection of what I've seen other people say about Clara, that she doesn't seem to be living up to the Dalek enhanced genius of her first incarnation - it felt like the question of 'isn't that enough?' could be directed at both the Doctor and the audience.

So far I'm really enjoying Clara's character and I think it was perhaps a wise move to reign in her more quirky characteristics. I feel that just like the Doctor, we shouldn't just treat her as a puzzle to be solved and I wonder if the Doctor's attitude may lead to his or her downfall as if he continues to undervalue her human side. Despite the fact it was played as cheering her up, I especially found the line about her being "the only mystery worth solving" particularly heartless, suggesting that he would have no interest if it were not for her two previous incarnations - something she's already tried to tell him she's not.

I often find myself complaining about the final resolution of Doctor Who episodes but even though the last twist in this tale managed to turn the episode on its head completely, I couldn't begrudge it having such a sweet ending. In a sense I think it made me laugh at myself for finding the whole thing so scary but at the same time knowing that was absolutely their intention. It'd be interesting to watch again with that last reveal in mind but I don't know if it'd make it any more of a comfortable experience.

Doctor Who - Cold War (2013)

Out of the three new episodes so far this year, this one was easily the most enjoyable from my point of view. It may also be my favourite episode penned by Mark Gatiss so far, it felt like the first one where he has really brought his love of horror to the script. Knowing he is such a horror fan perhaps helped me to overlook some of the more familiar touches or see them more as a tribute than ripping off other films.

This episode was widely touted as the return of the Ice Warriors, after a gap of nearly 40 years. They're not exactly an enemy I'm familiar with, other than their iconic but slightly cheesy, chunky costume. Their new look is familiar but a little sleeker and perhaps more menacing. But the biggest change comes when it decides to leave its armour, a surprise even to the Doctor. This lead to the episode going a completely different way than I expected, which was a good thing as I wasn't sure how well this unstoppable clunky monster was going to fit in otherwise.

While Clara is her usual plucky self to begin with, I thought that the episode handled her gradual appretiation of the gravity of the situation well as people started dying. Her being momentarily paralysed by fear went some way towards showing a more human side to her, rather than just being a puzzle to solve. In fact the Doctor's description of the aftermath and the Ice Warrior's reasoning created quite a strong image in my mind, without any gore actually being shown.

The characterisation of the Ice Warrior being the last of his kind with nothing to lose also made it a more scary prospect than a mindless killing machine. The 80's era Russian sub offering him the perfect opportunity to lash out at the whole of humanity for attacking and imprisoning him. Despite remaining confined to the submarine, this ended up putting the whole world in danger, with the Doctor quite willing to sacrifice everyone on board to avoid mutually assured destruction. This episode seemed to do everything it could to ramp up the tension, including having the TARDIS dematerialise not long after arrival, meaning there was no way for the Doctor to escape if he'd wanted to. This turned out to be a callback to a much older episode, even if it did come across as a slightly lame reason to put them in danger.

I have seen a lot of criticism about this episode and when you look at the wider picture it doesn't really have much impact. We didn't learn any more about Clara's existence by the end and the link to the Cold War of the title was quite tenuous and perhaps wasted the opportunity to really delve into that period of time. But I couldn't help but feel like sometimes this is all Doctor Who needs and it was nice to see a threat taken seriously when there are so many silly episodes, creating a tense atmosphere that keeps you on edge goes a long way towards getting good will from me. I guess the ending did kind of wind down the tension with things being resolved relatively peacefully but I'd been so taken in by what came before that it didn't matter. I didn't even baulk at the rather rubbery alien hands seen through most of the episode, which probably look incredibly lame in isolation. Probably the only thing that disappointed me was the use of CGI for the final shot of the unhelmeted Ice Warrior, though it did at least look like a reasonable solid design - they probably had no more budget for practical masks after last week's extravaganza.

Doctor Who - The Rings Of Akhaten (2013)

If the start of this episode suggested anything to me, it was that while this series may still have overarching mysteries about Clara, that other unknown aspects would not drag on for too long. We join the Doctor as he investigates Clara's mundane but tragic past and discover why the leaf from her diary is 'Page one'. Seeing her whole life so far in flashback may put some people's theories about her re-incarnations to rest, though I'm still considering whether it could relate to The Doctors Daughter, even if she can't be her.

The Doctor must put this out of his mind for the moment, as well as avoid giving away the fact that he's effectively stalked her for her entire life so far. As is so often the case, for their first planned TARDIS trip Clara suggests that he surprise her with "something awesome", which is provided by the titular rings of Akhaten - a series of impossible planetoids orbiting a huge sun.

It was hard to ignore the influence of Guillermo del Toro's take on Hellboy in this episode. From the moment the Doctor and Clara step out onto this bustling alien world I was reminded of the Goblin market from the sequel, though the cramped nature of a much smaller set was very evident. Plus the ominous creatures later named as the Vigil were also reminiscent of Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, the clockwork Nazi from the original. I liked the fact that the variety of aliens had gradually been constructed in sculptor Neill Gorton's spare time, as they would not have the time or budget to create them specifically for one episode.

The meat of this episode centers around the myths and rituals of this group of worlds, which to its followers is the origin of all life in the universe. The Doctor dismisses this kindly as a 'Nice story' and initially shows little concern at the 'Festival of Offerings', a ceremony designed to keep an ancient god from awakening. The hymns that are meant to accomplish this are very simple and literal but I wondered if that was supposed to be a consequence of the TARDIS translating an alien language into English. It got me thinking about how so many Sci-Fi shows feature some kind of universal translator but you never really come across aliens with a really strange turn of phrase or lack of rhyming/subtlety that might result from a simple translation.

As you might expect, the ancient god does turn out to be real and the hymns and rituals were never enough to keep it asleep, instead it's normally pacified via a thinly veiled human (alien?) sacrifice. I thought that the way this was revealed was a little difficult to follow, right on that line where some more explanatory dialogue could have helped but would have stood out at the same time. The Doctor throws himself into saving the child chosen for the sacrifice, with little concern for whether he'll be able to deal with the consequences of doing so. I liked that he showed at least a little reflection on this decision when his initial conclusion was proved wrong, showing that he's not infallible.

Sadly the simplicity of this episode's resolution, that the power of a god could be undone by a Timelord's memories and a dried leaf, made it feel a little disappointing again. Almost any story you can think of that features some kind of ancient god usually revolves around preventing it from awakening, because if it can awake and then be defeated then how much of a threat was it in the first place? I did enjoy the misdirection about just what the god was, especially since the bizarre mummy like creature had featured prominently in the episode preview at the end of last week's episode. It's true form was a little underwhelming though, which again probably couldn't have lived up to anyone's imagination - I felt the same about the unnecessary reveal at the end of The Cabin in the Woods.

Others perhaps got more out of the episode than me, I liked the Badass Digest take on it, even if their description didn't seem to line up with how good I felt the episode was. That piece also highlighted the idea that the episode was almost anti-religious in a sense, which is quite an accomplishment for a mainstream piece of Saturday night entertainment.

Doctor Who - The Bells of Saint John (2013)

So Clara did manage to survive an episode - well technically she kinda died twice but the important thing is that by the end of the episode she was still around and able to consider the doctors offer of travelling through time and space. I say consider as she was characteristically cagey about the whole thing, not giving him a straight answer or jumping on board the TARDIS instantly. I can't recall another companion who's acted like that, so it was a nice little distinguishing factor.

But anyway, back to the start of the episode, which began with a slightly ill-fitting montage of people connecting to Wi-Fi, with an internet conspiratist warning not to connect to a network with strange symbols, lest you find yourself dead a few days later a la The Ring. I found myself wondering how this person came across his information but it's eventually revealed he's already doomed, which I'm not sure makes any more sense. The basic premise reminded me a little of the David Tennant era episode 'The Idiot's Lantern' but something about its approach to modern technology made me cringe a little.

We then join the Doctor at a monastery in Cumbria in the year 1207, where the meaning of the episodes title is revealed. I thought this might be a dual time stream kind of episode but the Doctor quickly returns to the present when contacted by Clara via the TARDIS' external phone. I'm was sure that River had called in this manner before but I can only find references to it ringing in 'The Empty Child'. Either way I wondered why this episode treated it with complete surprise and it also begged the question of just who is setting Clara on her way towards the Doctors 'helpline'. The Doctor is all set to ignore her request for tech support until he hears her repeat her last incarnation's final words as a mnemonic to remember her Wi-Fi password.

Turning up dressed as a monk is not cool though and a quick costume change leaves Clara vulnerable to the 'uploaders'. It's revealed that the Wi-Fi users have been uploaded by a subconsciously camouflaged robot, which had somehow made its way into a locked house, I assume on the off chance that someone connected to the Wi-Fi. I understand that Steven Moffat wanted to make an episode that would play on the omnipresent nature of Wi-Fi but it hardly seemed like it was necessary to their plans.

The Doctor intervenes and saves Clara's life - or brings her back to life, not quite sure - leading the uploaders to attempt to wipe them out. They go about this by lighting up Clara's neighbourhood as a target and incapacitating the crew and passengers of a plane so that it will hit them. The Doctor's response is to land the TARDIS on board and bring it out of its dive, despite not knowing how to fly a plane. This whole sequence was probably only a few minutes long but I loved every second and if I wasn't already sold on Clara, she cemented her position by holding onto and drinking a cup of tea throughout the whole process.

They then take a short Tardis trip to next morning, in an attempt to frustrate the uploaders and discover their location. I wasn't entirely comfortable with the Doctor being totally tech literate in this episode. Watching him engage a keyboard war with elite hackers just didn't seem to suit him and he's often shown more bemusement at Earth technology than anything else. While it can often be a lazy magic bullet that can do anything, this is one occasion where I would prefer to see his sonic screwdriver used to solve some of these problems.

Clara seemed much more at home with technological wizardry though, after receiving an unintended 'upgrade' after her first encounter with the soul sucking robot. It perhaps did seem a little unlikely that someone of her age would know nothing about computers to begin with, but I enjoyed her use of them, including a clever plan to track down the uploaders using social media - a rare example of such networks being referenced that didn't feel tacked on. But once again the Doctor leaves her alone while enacting this plan, giving a robot disguised as him the chance to upload her fully.

What followed from this was another great scene, with the Doctor breaking out his anti-gravity Motorbike to storm the Shard, which wouldn't have seemed out of place in a Platinum game. He cleverly undoes their plans by subjecting their leader to the same fate as Clara, prompting her to order everyone's release. The Doctor was in fact still sitting with Clara sipping a coffee, hacking the uploading robot to enact his plan remotely.

While this episode initially reminded me of  'The Idiot's Lantern', its resolution also reminded me of last years 'The Power of Three', due to its last minute undoing of the soul storage. It was perhaps a little darker than that though, as characters state that many of the uploaded minds won't have a body to return to, giving the episode an implied body count at least. I can't have been the only one pondering whether any would return to a body that had already been buried or stored in a morgue?

The uploaders are also revealed to have only been working for the Great Intelligence, last seen in 'The Snowmen', with Celia Imrie's character reverting to a childhood state, clearly under the influence for a disturbing amount of time. I felt a little cheated that we didn't get Ian McKellen voicing the Intelligence again but it was instead represented by Richard E. Grant's character from 'The Snowmen', suggesting we may see more of them both.

Overall I think I enjoyed this episode, though it definitely had some issues. The slight lapses in logic and its tech angle feeling slightly out of touch was generally outweighed by the fun snappy dialogue and surprisingly good action sequences. Steven Moffat has stated that this was intended to be an action episode above all else, so while it's a partial success in that respect, it's a shame it couldn't have had a slightly better premise. I'm still feeling pretty positive about this second half of the season, which is a world away from my feelings at the end of the last half. I think it just proves that Amy and Rory's involvement had run its course and that a new companion can give the show some life again.