Let’s take a look at the best and worst bits of Toby Whithouse’s ‘Under the Lake’ and ‘Before the Flood’…
Missys
Classic Doctor Who serieszzzzz
While it’s refreshing to see an old-fashioned Doctor Who story where the Doctor and his companion stumble on the adventure rather than it being some Bring-the-Time-Lord-here, he-is-the-Chosen One, do-not-speak-the Prophecy of Trump, this-Dalek-task-force-will-destroy-the-whole-of-time-space-history-and-creation, look-here-are-the-Sontarans-and-Jedward-for-good-measure epic, it’s less of a joy to find that ‘old-fashioned Doctor Who story’ also means lots of rehashed exposition and running around in anonymous corridors.
The Bootstrap Paradox
No Googling required, Doctor: it’s the impossible principle of something being created from nothing. No one wrote Beethoven’s music and no one came up with the words that the hologram of the Doctor’s ghost had to say … and yet, they exist.
All very well, and it can work in Doctor Who (‘Blink’ immediately springs to mind as a specific instance and the series has been awash with various paradoxes for years), but in this case it makes a nonsense of the entire story. To flag it up at the bookends of the second episode isn’t so much hiding flaws in plain sight as proudly boasting about them.
Bloody hell, it’s the Doctor!
It’s just as well that the Doctor knows semaphore, because the climatic parts of both episodes are so heavily flagged that planes could land on them. Who’s the ghost floating through the water towards the base? Bloody hell, it’s the Doctor! Who’s inside the suspended animation chamber? Bloody hell, it’s the Doctor!
Potentially great moments, but both suffer from a lack of dramatic tension. Realisation comes too quickly (premature extrapolation, you might say) and what might have been proper, punch-the-air scenes end up surprising nobody.
Oh, Donnell
‘It’s bigger on the inside, it’s bigger on the inside, it’s bigger on the inside!’ gushes O’Donnell after a trip in the TARDIS.
Please, no more Doctor Who fans in Doctor Who. Particularly not ones who spew out lines as godawful as ‘Who wants to live forever anyway?’ and implausible River-esque nonsense about dangling people out of windows.
Maybe
The Mortician’s a Prentis (which is familiar)
Paul Kaye’s character – fascinating extra-terrestrial undertaker or annoying alien suck-up? YOU DECIDE.
> Buy Season 9 on DVD on Amazon.
> Buy Season 9 on Blu-ray on Amazon.
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