All New Who

dude with the wandering fingers hanging out in people's and children's bedrooms. Nope.

Both have a similar reveal- in Hide that the spooky knocking was not a ghost but the other alien banging on the door in the dimensionally shifted house, and here that the ghost was in fact Shelley out of phase with everyone else and unable to be seen.
So whilst its the best we have got, its still nothing more than average Who.
Its got a lot of praise in some quarters this one, but that's mainly I think because even finding a muddy oasis in the desert the camels have shat in is still water in a desert.

So the premise- well its the night of the party at which Mary Shelley, with her baby son present, poets Shelley and Byron and some hangers-on, an overly aggressive young Doctor and a lass with a crush on Byron and a coupleof house servants, challenged each other to come up with a scary story- Shelley gave as Vampyre and Mary, Frankenstein.

The Doctor and the 'Fam' turn up to find history seems off track, Shelley is absent and no one is writing anything.
Now a lot happens in terms of spooky events and stuff, but the plot boils down to a Marvelesque glowly McGuffin.
There is a super cyberman AI that looks like a Terminator 2 effect, wibbbly silver liquidy like stuff. Someone at some point in the future in order to defeat the Cyberman stole it from them to shut them down and sent it back through time to hide it. Shelley finds it and it goes into him using him to keep itself safe from the cybermen (why the cyber AI doesn't want to go back is left unanswered far a I could tell) but the last lone cyberman comes back to track it down.
This is the lone cyberman Captain Jack warned the Fam to tell the Doctor about and not to give it what it wants- a cameo after watching this episode that seems all the more shoehorned in an pointless, as the warning is not needed, its obvious giving the evil cyberman the cyber AI is a bad thing to do.
Obviously therefore 13 gives it to the Cyberman, as otherwise it would kill Shelley and change time, but by giving it to the cyberman she knows she is screwing up the future somewhere. And we get one of those Doctor speeches about how there sometimes are no good choices but the Doctor has to make them anyway. This is as Doctory as Jodie has ever been.
But there are problems with this- they made a point in last series of making the Doctor less front and centre, less the one making all the big decisions alone, and more the team player and to try to sell the 'fam' thing. So in order to have this speech they have to change 13, again- she starts by telling them that last series mantra of 'its a flat team structure with no leader' is bull and there is only one person in charge and its her- but it feels late and feels unnatural, like they realised they'd made a mistake last series in how they characterised the Doctor and are rowing the boat back all the way to the boathouse to fix it.
And secondly its been done better in Mummy on the Orient Express- and where Jodie takes a big speech to sum it up, 12 delivers his in fewer words but to greater impact, as the conversation is not just about the Doctor having to make hard choices, but about the companions relationship with the Doctor and how he goes about making those choices, the conversation is important to both characters in the screen- 12 opening up and Clara beginning to understand him after wanting to leave due to not understanding him or his actions. Here's the comparison-

CLARA: So, when you lied to Maisie, when you made me lie to Maisie
DOCTOR: I couldn't risk Gus finding out my plan and stopping me.
CLARA: So you were pretending to be heartless.
DOCTOR: Would you like to think that about me? Would that make it easier? I didn't know if I could save her. I couldn't save Quell, I couldn't save Moorhouse. There was a good chance that she'd die too. At which point, I would have just moved onto the next, and the next, until I beat it. Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose.



And heres 13's take on the same sentiment-

Doctor: His thoughts, his words inspire and influence thousands for centuries. If he dies now, who knows what damage that will have on future history? Words matter! One death, one ripple, and history will change in a blink. The future will not be the world you know. The world you came from, the world you were created in won't exist, so neither will you. It's not just his life at stake. It's yours. You want to sacrifice yourself for this? You want me to sacrifice you? You want to call it? Do it now. All of you. Yeah. Cos sometimes this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit in the stratosphere. Alone. Left to choose. Save the poet, save the universe. Watch people burn now or tomorrow. Sometimes, even I can't win.

And then to come back to again later in the scene to drive the point home again-

Cyberman: It will tear this reality, and this planet will remain only in shreds!
Doctor: This world doesn't end in 1816. It can't.
Cyberman: It will.
Ryan: He's bluffing. Don't listen to him.
Doctor: But I can't be sure. I can't risk this planet! I can't win!

(No vid available for it yet)


Like others of the few decent bits in Chibbers Who they often feel like echoes of what has gone before, only not as good in either writing or performances. As this speech its about 13 and having to make big choices, but we haven't had the build up for it have an impact on the 'fam', its not developing the relationship between them, or taking it anywhere new- there response is to give one of those 'were with you no matter what' replies whilst all standing a line rooted to the spot, that they've done at least three times already. Because there is nothing else to say, the speech says nothing else, means nothing else, has no broader impact on characters as its not been developed before hand, quite the oppositie in fact.

Also what's with ghosts in Who? There appears to be a, not sure if its meant as a running gag or set up for something, or if its purely disposable- but Grahame throughout sees a maid and little girl, who no one else sees, and who dont seem to be part of what is going on. And at the end the Doctor strongly implies that Grahame saw genuine ghosts.
Ghosts? In Doctor Who? One of the key tenants of Who is its never ghosts, its actually ben touched on before in Under the Lake with 12, this was how 12 reacted to just the possibility that he had found actual ghosts and that therefore some form of afterlife must exist-



And it of course it wasn't ghosts.
And now 1 regen later the Doctor is all casually accepting of ghosts as a thing that just exist?
That was oddly jarring and inconsistent, not just with the Doctors character but with history of the show for over 50 years of there being no bloody ghosts!

Jodie is about as good as she has been in this one, but its in no small part down to another large cast episode so her time to babble pointlessly is limited, though she does do a bit, the tell dont show exposition monster is back in full force too.
Yaz has a little more than usual to do and she seems to be turning into the 'I want to do risky stuff' companion, you know like Clara, but without the lengthy character development leading us to this point- Yaz just suddenly started doing this in the plastic episode for no reason and carries it on here.
Ryan is there, thats about it for him, and Graham,though he continues to give a likeable performance is at this stage pretty much reduced to being a collection of humorous old man observations and comments.

Its worth noting that Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, Captain Jack, Martha, The Master, Donna Noble, Wilf Noble, Rory Williams, River Song, Missy and Bill have all now had less on screen time than the 'fam' have.

Do you feel that you know the fams characters and that they are as well formed and impressed on your mind as those RTD and Moffat era characters?
I personally find it shocking that the main companions are still so flatly and blandly drawn without a memorable trait between them. Done nothing of note in all that time, had zero meaningful interactions with the Doctor or even with events. Its shockingly bad.

Anyhow the whole hunt the glowly McGuffin just turns out to be the set up for the finale which starts next week- yup this miserable series is drawing to a close, and the most memorable thing in it was the 'new Doctor' Ruth' which has caused more consternation than excitement.