S8 E08 Mummy on the orient express.
First do listen to this.. It is the rendition of Queen´s Don´t stop me now that is used in the opening
Remember
how I noted that the early episodes tended to be split between scary and silly.
Well this time I feel we get a decent mix of both, even if there is a lean
towards suspense and thriller as the Doctor and Clara take on an undead terror
on a train... in space.
The story
is as follow. Taking up where we left of the Doctor and Clara are still on the
path to ”breaking up” but the Doctor suggest one last trip. A care free romp on
the best train in space. At the same time an old woman dies from a killer only
she can see. As per usual the mystery is afoot… It turns out that the killer
strikes a strong resemblance to a myth about a being called the “foretold” that
kill within 66 seconds of finding it´s victim. So while Clara gets locked in with
the grandchild of the first victim after Clara bumped in to her and decided to
try and help her get to the body of her grandmother. The Doctor and a
technician called Perkins set about solving the mystery of why a woman with a
state of the art life support just dropped dead as he refuse to believe in a
curse or other magic. After another death the crew of the train put cuffs on
the Doctor all while Clara, unbeknown to the Doctor try to break herself and her
new friend out of their self-made prison after a broken lock locked them in.
Things looks bleak until another death happens pretty much right in front of
the crew. But as the Doctor gather the crew and passengers around him and calls
out and entity called “Gus” it turns out that the entire trip was set up to
find a way to stop the foretold. After two more deaths the Doctor figures out
that the foretold targets weak or ill people and he set up the girl that is
with Clara after the computers predict that she is the next target. He force
Clara to lie to the girl in order to get her to follow along with the plan even
if it is most certain that she will die.
By transferring
the girl’s mental trauma to himself the Doctor get the foretold to target him
instead as he put the last pieces of the puzzle together and figure out how to
stop the foretold. Turns out that it is a tech enhanced bio-weapon. With the crisis
out of the way we get one last scene with the Doctor and Clara back in the
TARDIS as Clara do a 180 on her decision to leave the doctor so fast that it
might have caused a whiplash. Poor Danny… I do feel for him.
So I liked
this episode as it had a good solid story and good pacing. While the mystery in
itself was not all that mysterious it is well acted and the monster of the week
is intriguing. The at time lighter tone fits very well and never goes in to
silly territory and they even manages to slip on some slight character
development… even if it is pretty much negated by the end. With all that being said the Doctor is an
utter arse, there is literally nothing beyond his voice to redeem him and the
way he acts.
Now this
should not be confused with me disliking Peter Capaldi that I instead have to
give some real props. His portrayal of the Doctor is very good and his acting
in my mind is spot on. I am also very curious where this is taking the Doctor
even if I do not like the current behaviour.
I am also glad that we did not have any Missy in this episode. That
storyline as I mentioned earlier does not do anything for me. At the same time I
am slightly wondering where they are going with this season because it seems to
have little to no direction compared to most earlier ones. Perhaps that is a
good thing and maybe I have become lazy from having things written on my nose. Now as far as the look of the episode it sefl it is absolutely stunning, even if the foretold look a bit... well like a guy in a costume... With especially some close ups being a bit rough, But that does in a way come with the territory of Doctor Who so it did not really bother me per se. Music was also really good and the new theme is growing on me from my rather "meh" impression at the start.
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