Sorry this review is a bit late, but as it’s Christmas and I
had general Christmas goings-on happening, I’ll forgive myself. Be warned: this
review pretty much entirely negative. It’s got to the stage where I write these
reviews just to get the opinions off my chest, so that my friends don’t have to
suffer my despair in person.
Let’s being with the introduction of Clara. Once again
Moffat has presented us with a plucky, adventurous, outrageously flirty,
headstrong female companion, but let’s sidestep this self-made cliché for a
second and address my main gripe with the way Clara met the Doctor. I do not
care how plucky/adventurous/headstrong you are… no one has a three-line
conversation with a man about a snowman, and then chases down his cab and breaks through the roof. The Doctor couldn’t
have just intercepted a snowman attack on her? No no, this is yet another
female character who’s ‘unique’ boldness has to be shoved down our throats.
 |
| I am
choking on this old record. |
Second of all, apparently the Doctor no longer gives a damn anything
and lives on a cloud. Why? I know he’s just lost his beloved Ponds, but the Doctor
has lost multiple companions over the years and it never stopped him caring.
Rose, the human he allowed himself to fall in love with. Donna, his best
friend. Sarah Jane, who’s awesomeness transcended Classic and Modern Who. I don’t
mean to be rude, but what was so fantastically special about Amy and Rory that
made their absence turn the Doctor into, well, an asshole. This episode is yet
another example of Moffat plucking a problem out of thin air, giving it no
build up, then ‘solving’ it and expecting us to care.
On the topic of ‘ponds’, there was that “one word rule”
conversation between Clara and Madame Vastra. Clara was asked to give a very
detailed reason why the Doctor should help her, and she chose the word… “pond”.
This word obviously holds a great relevance to the Doctor, but not to Clara. To
her, it’s just a description of where her problem originates from, not a reason
why she is worthy of help.
 |
| Answer everything with one word, because I feel like being awkward today. |
There seemed to be quite a lot of irrelevant details in this
episode, thinly veiling a central plot that involved a lot of fast explaining
and no logic. Was it really required that Clara was a barmaid at the beginning of
this episode? Why was the TARDIS parked on a cloud above London, instead of its
usual street corner? I get that the Doctor is supposedly in hiding but isn’t
the point of the TARIDS to sit unnoticed by the general public? It all just
seems like a lot of filler to pass the time until we get to some action (which
took about a million years… I was beginning to get very bored). And with so
many details and characters to be keeping up with, we’re left with a
generous sprinkling of plot holes (memory worms; you’ll forget the last hour of your life, unless the Doctor needs
you to drop off a future companion “where we found her”). The really sad thing is, the ideas behind
Moffat’s episodes are generally really good. It’s just that their execution is
so poor that you either don’t understand what’s happening, or forget with all
the background noise.
 |
| No! Bad Moffat! |
What else was there? Oh yes, the Doctor handing over the key
to the TARDIS after knowing Clara for less than 24 hours. Yes, she’s “Soufflé
Girl”. Yes, they’ve technically met before. But the Doctor hasn’t realised this at that point in the
episode. It took Martha seven episodes to earn what is referred to as a “frequent
fliers privilege”, and she was a companion also following a particularly harsh
loss for the Doctor. But no, apparently
now TARIDS keys can be handed out to whoever.
Once again, we have an episode with lot of background noise
that badly disguises a central plot that makes little to no sense. It is only
out of sheer loyalty to the show as a whole that I continue to watch what is
currently being churned out.
