Posted in: Movies, TV | Tagged: bbc, dark waters, doctor who, entertainment, peter capaldi, tv

Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: Dark Water

Spoilers. I mean, of course there will be.

1. Shut Up

If Clara is becoming The Doctor, then she has his recent "shutting up" spiel down to pat. But her attempt to become a darker Doctor in Dark Waters, only reveals the Doctor's true nature – anything but dark. Impatient, driven, yes, but forgiving. A Doctor of second chances. In a midst of despair, the Doctor's light still shines. People who say this is a dark episode are missing that.

But we do, again, have the word reduced in dimensions, flattened, a blackbard, a white board, a schematic, 2D beings and now… post it notes.

2. Is This An Episode Of Casualty?

We begin with a mundane scene, almost too mundane, which leads to an accident, ambulances, the usual. Except instead of the familiar heartbeat theme tune of Casualty, we get the double heart beat of the Doctor Who bass line…

He has survived war. He has survived the attack of alien war machines. He has led children through an instant forest. And what gets him in the end? A bloody car. Even Rory never died this casually. And, like Rory, we know he's coming back. As an Auton? No, but close…

3. The Temptation Of Rose

That's the reason Rose went time travelling with the Doctor, we learned. To revisit the moment of her father's death – and then stop it. And now it's Clara's turn to do the same with Danny. But we get a very different solution. Hang on, I thought the Doctor could open the TARDIS door with a click of his fingers now.  And so could Clara. Plot hole explained by dream logic? But also another example of this series' theme of The Doctor In Control. One lever TARDIS, one lever Clara.

Dig the cloister bell sound with each melty key…

Shouldn't this have gained the attention of the Eye Of Sauron though?

4. Hell Is Other People. All Of Them.

Go to hell? Clara is already there. Again, the big ideas for this series of Doctor Who, each time going or showing something we haven't seen before. Baby in the moon. 2D worlds. Inside a Dalek, Instant forest.  And now, hell. Again, we're getting a Sapphire And Steel vibe here, stretching the usual boundaries of the show to supernatural dimensions.

And there's a promise that 3W is not going to keep.

5. Back To The Kissing.

Yes, War Doctor, there is going to be a lot of this. And, so we now know what Missy is, I am pleased that the actress Michelle Gomez is channelling her Green Wing persona. Have you seen Green Wing? You really should. It's even better to watch, and possibly makes more sense, if you consider it's a prequel to this series of Doctor Who.

Here, watch all of her bits from Series 1.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op3VWN5dEd0[/youtube]

6. The Sounds Of The Damned.

This wouldn't be the first time people have recorded the sound of the dead. One recording alleged to record the sounds of the dead from a Siberian mine, Hades being literally below the earth's crust.

Of course capturing them and keeping them in some maddening bureaucracy is another. Afterlife Inc anyone?

7. We Have Steve Jobs

Too soon? I did presume it was just those who had died in proximity to the Doctor that were gathered up, scooped into the Nethersphere to be used as weapons against him, but it seems not. It's everyone, including the head of Apple. Maybe he could still fix the iPad2 iOS 8 issues. Though I'm wondering how the clockwork robot from the first episode will be,,, transformed into a Cyberman. Isn't he pretty much there already, his conscience should be the easiest to wipe.

8. Danny The Cyberman

And now we see what Danny did as a soldier. And now we understand why he cried. But also why he became a teacher at a shitty school. Penance.

But  they scanned Clara telepathically and this could be a fake Danny, what could she ask Danny, what could he tell her, that they wouldn't already know, if creating an artificial Danny to respond?

Like the Great Intelligence's operation, Danny has control over his emotional state, whether or not to become a Cyberman. A decision every one of us could take given the right emotional pressure?

And is this why they constantly scream "Delete"? Is that all they wanted to be?

RTD hid Cybermen as ghosts. Moffat as skeletons. Next up, werewolves?

9. He Said, She Said

The Master is now The Mistress. And, after The Corsair's own switching of genders, we are one step closer to The Doctor joining her. In a Big Finish alternate episode, the Doctor changed genders but only after regenerating after committing suicide. When last we saw The Master he had dived after Rassilon and the Time Lord Council into the Time War. What did he do to himself to see her to return in this fashion? And is the switching of personal pronouns going to get annoying after a while?

And, yes, of course, Moffat Lies.

10. Laser Blast From The Past

Every episode of this season has deliberately echoed episodes past. Whether it's lines like "Here we go again", Marco Polo's gong in the vault, lines from Power Of The Daleks,  the motto of Coal Hill School being taken from The Sensorites, even The Twelfth Doctor arguing in voice with the Fourth. But this is probably the most literal of them all. The Cybermen, on the steps of St Paul's straight from The Invasion.

Beautiful.

Bonus Thought: Who Hell He?

Playing the child that Danny killed, and making an odd reappearance at the very end, credits say that's Antonio Bourouphael. Child actor, he's also a bit of a jazz dancer.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGGvtFwVLNM[/youtube]

Maybe we'll see some of that next week!

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