Timelord Thoughts 4b - Before The Flood - Print Version

So in a way that kind of parallels this episode, I wrote this "print version" post before I recorded the podcast, but published the "audio version" post first which talks about something I hadn't done yet. If you understand that then you'll have no problem with:

Before The Flood

• Ah now. That opening sequence. I've no problem with the Doctor breaking the fourth wall. He's done it before ("And a Merry Christmas to all of you at home"). The Twelfth Doctor has even done it himself (sort of) in "Listen". But the show has never been this blatant before. This didn't just break the fourth wall, it smashed through your screen, ripped off your arm and slapped you in the face with it. Maybe the Doctor *knows* he's just a character in a TV series? I'm also not sure that you should start your story by saying to the audience "In order to understand the following plot you are going to have to do some homework".
• Having said that, Capaldi sells the scene completely, coming across as a cross between a "Jackanory" presenter reading you a story (Google it) and a particularly brusque history teacher (and I've had a couple of those).
• Of course the Doctor is a lover of vinyl albums. None of this here today, gone tomorrow digital format nonsense.
• I take it back. The bookshelves are still there and looking fuller than ever. It also looks like the Doctor has taken to displaying a few of the items he has picked up on his travels. Very homely - although probably a nightmare to clean up every time the TARDIS makes a sudden jolt.
• "Very intense. Loved an arm wrestle". Great line.

 

• I'll come back to "The Bootstrap Paradox" properly later on but I'll just say this - Robert Heinlein. Harry Potter. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Blink. And another film which oddly enough is the next post in the "View From The Fifth Row" series on the blog.
• A "Magpie Electronics" stamp on the amp. That little man from "The Idiot's Lantern" sure did well for himself. Plus could that be a... clockwork squirrel on top of it?
• I bet Peter Capaldi himself suggested the "rock" version of the theme. They just about get away with it but I'm not dying to hear it again and the guitar doesn't mesh well with Murray Gold's screeching.
• So O'Donnell knows the names of some of the Doctor's companions (only the new series ones mind you) I'd have been more impressed if she had mentioned Barbara, Dodo or Tegan.This season is very keen on referencing the past isn't it? You'd almost think we were at an anniversary or something.
• Shouldn't it have been that she was in UNIT intelligence?
• I do like the way the Doctor wets his finger to tell what year they are in. Very Fourth Doctor.
• The Minster of War. You don't chuck in something like that into a script for no good reason. Expect that to pay off either by the end of the season or perhaps when Capaldi leaves (Moffat loves his long games). Maybe at Christmas even.
• The Doctor expects that he'll find out about the Minster of War "soon enough", which means that he believes he has a future beyond this current adventure. So why is he so adamant that that his ghost is a future he can't change? (I know I'm getting ahead of myself)
• The "It's bigger on the inside" fangirl moment. Just no.
• Well that was convenient wasn't it? The spaceship just being there all nice and easy to find. And left open too.
• I quite like Albar Prentis. At least we now have an explanation for his Dickensian garb. Not sure why he says "and humans too" - what was he expecting to find on 20th Century Earth?
• Prentis is a bit like an exaggerated Dicken's character anyway. Some might say there are hints of "League of Gentlemen" or even "Psychoville". Who am I to argue.
• You can just catch that his business card has the slogan "May the remorse be with you"

• So the Arcateenians (weren't they featured in Torchwood once?) want the Fisher King buried on a barren savage outpost. Don't you think that they'd kind of, you know, make sure he was dead first?
• "A selection of items you could oppress me with". That made me chuckle.
• Why does the Doctor ask Prentis if he used a "special kind of pen" to rip people's souls out to send the signal? He's one of the ghosts. Surely he wouldn't kill himself?
• Meanwhile back on The Drum. There's that dragon painting with the people in what looks like a Viking boat again. Hiding in plain sight. Remember I called it here first. It's important. Somehow.
• Nice that it's Lunn comforting a scared Clara rather than the other way round.
• Important that Lunn's name is not on the list the Doctor is mouthing.
• See? "This isn't a potential future. This is the future now. It's already happened". You can't foreshadow a yet to be seen adventure AND convince the viewer that the Doctor is *definitely* going to turn into a ghost. Nor make us believe that the Doctor thinks that as well.
• If changing the future would cause catastrophic ripples across time then why doesn't that happen every time the Doctor gets involved and changes a planet's history? It's just creating a false sense of peril.
• Why does the Doctor refer to this regeneration as "A bit of a clerical error"? Is it because it's the first of a new cycle given to him by the Timelords or is there something more at work as part of the season arc?
• God Clara really is SO needy. It's the control freak in her coming out again. She hasn't dealt with the loss of Danny Pink at all. All this talk of death is definitely heading somewhere. I don't think for a moment that Moffat will kill her off - except that he might. My friend Al has a theory about the season finale and I am inclined to agree with him. It'll be very interesting to see if he is right. I'm not going to reveal the theory here because I don't want to steal his thunder but anyone who has heard his thoughts on previous seasons may be able to figure out where things might be going.
• Fantastic wide shot of the TARDIS console room there.
• Of course the Fisher King is still alive. Lovely use of shadows on the walls to indicate his size and shape. Bye bye Prentis. A shame you did so little after all that build up.
• Ghost Doctor opens the Faraday cage and lets the others out. I'll come back to this in a bit.
• This is really going for the Classic series vibe with a game of capture-release-imprison-escape isn't it? Otherwise known as padding.
• The look that the Doctor has as O'Donnell insists on leaving the TARDIS. He *knows* what is going to happen.
• Can I just say, I do like the Soviet era trappings that have been left in the village and the general dilapidated feel of the whole place. The sets and locations are excellent this year.
• Bennett's naive faith that a flimsy wooden chair will keep out a hulking alien monster is endearing.
• Yet another great example of "less is more" with the Fisher King only partially glimpsed though the shattered window the Doctor and Bennett are hiding in.
• Sorry O'Donnell, I know that the scene of plastic dummies having dinner against a mountain backdrop might be interesting but there is an alien killer on the loose. This is no time to pause and sight-see. First rule of alien-avoidance - don't turn your back to the doorway...
• When she does turn round (slowly) she just stands there like it's the most normal thing in the world. I would have expected a scream or an attempt to run away and a clawed hand coming out to grab her. It's a pathetic end to an interesting character.
• To finish her off we get a half-hearted moan from O'Donnell - who appears to not have a scratch on her.
• Nice to see that Bennett isn't an idiot and notices the order of the victims and calls the Doctor out on his failure to try and prevent her death. 

• "I'm a dead man walking. I'm changing history to save Clara". Except five minutes ago you said you couldn't change anything to save anyone - and if the order is correct and you stop Clara dying then you won't die either Doctor. I think.
• Okay now that sudden appearance of O'Donnell in front of the porthole was a real jump out of your seat moment. I'm a (supposedly) grown man so who knows what it did to the little ones.
• A little bit of the Timelord Victorious creeping into Capaldi's Doctor there. I wonder if there might be a race of people somewhere in the universe now who will have things to say about him trying to transgress the laws of time... The TARDIS doesn't seem keen either. 
• Hang on, if the Doctor was trying to travel back to Clara - who is in the future in 2119 - and the TARDIS won't let him leave, why did he go backwards half an hour in time? Why not stop dead or just zip forwards five minutes and that's it?
• It's a nice speech from Capaldi about how they can't warn Prentis or O'Donnell because "you can't cheat time". At least it would be if that wasn't exactly what the Doctor is planning to do. Rule number one, the Doctor lies. Now I know that this all feeds from that piece to camera the Doctor gave at the top of the show about Beethoven, so obviously he's going to figure out a way to keep time flowing on it's natural course without dying. Those of us with memories of season 6 will recall that he's done something similar before, when the Eleventh Doctor was apparently "killed " by the Impossible Astronaut at Lake Silencio - and it turned out to be the Tesselecta. It's a well worn time travel trope, so the interesting bit is seeing exactly how he resolves the conundrum this time. One part should be obvious to everyone watching by now. It's not a Bootstrap Paradox though. Not yet. Do you need a diagram?
• The Doctor says that they "don't have that right" to tell Prentis about his impending death. He must get really fed up then because people are doing it to him all the time. He can't move for prophecy this or foretelling that about his imminent demise.
• I don't blame Bennett for wanting to try and save O'Donnell. I am sure we would all do the same for the ones we love given the chance. If you didn't realise they had feelings for each other, the soft focus, sunlight steaming through her hair, swelling music will spell it out for you. Cass and Lunn's potential relationship has been dealt with much more subtly.
• At least they covered the bang and O'Donnell turning to look at something from the earlier original scene. It's all gone a bit "Back To The Future 2" where Marty McFly hides from himself at the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance. Thinking about it that film needed a diagram to sort out the timelines too. It also echoes an Alan Moore short story in 2000 AD called "Chrono-Cops". Still if you're going to steal from other time travel stories...
• Now we know why they went back in time 30 minutes. It was so they could fit in this scene  / dialogue. Push home exactly how hard this thing the Doctor is doing is meant to be. 
• Finally Clara figures out the thing about Lunn that was obvious to the rest of us ages ago. It's true that being with the Doctor has changed her and made her more...pragmatic? With other companions the Doctor made them into "weapons" (which I think is debatable) or helped them realise their true potential. With Clara I think she's at risk of losing her humanity and becoming as alien as the Doctor.
• Yet again the actors playing Cass and Lunn really make you believe that there is something bubbling underneath the surface, but they just can't say it to each other. Cass's distrust of Clara's methods is truthful to her feelings for the man she has become so close to.
• We've had three utterances of "Back to the TARDIS" in the last eighteen minutes (I've been counting).

• The Doctor's confrontation with the Fisher King would have been the ideal time to explain how he created the ghosts. Wouldn't it? Is it as simple as he shoots them with that thing that looks like an alien shotgun? The thing that the Arcateenians just conveniently left wrapped up with him in those bandages still full of energy? They make the Tivolians look like geniuses. 
• The scene of Lunn creeping around the base and then being surrounding by the ghosts as they almost seemed to be sniffing him to see if he had the co-ordinates in his mind was genuinely eerie.As good as anything a mainstream Hollywood horror film could come up with. 
• The Fisher King's people will drain the oceans? Exactly what for? A nod to "The Underwater Menace" perhaps. Or "The Web of Caves"...
• He refers to the Doctor as "one man, lost in time". Could be something. Could be nothing. Could just be a reference to the fact that the Doctor said he was from the future.
• I knew collecting the phone wouldn't be that easy. I love the way that Pritchard's ghost just happens to float by to gloat.
• Good old Cass. She's the real hero in this episode.
• The Fisher King really is an excellent scary creation. It's refreshing to see a monster design which, facially at least, looks nothing like a normal humanoid - and no attempt has been made to give it a human mouth either - those mandibles are nasty. It's a nine foot tall piece of evil with an immobile face and fibreglass carapace. It makes me feel all warm and nostalgic inside.

 

• So further evidence that the events of the Time War caused the Timelords to change from being non-interventionist "curators" to "the most war-like race in the galaxy". I'm not sure any reunion is going to be a happy one.
• Sorry Clara, you're not as all-knowing as you think you are. Cass tricked you very easily.
• And now Doctor Who does slasher films, as the axe dragging Moran stalks poor Cass.
• Don't we already live in a universe ruled by cats? I know I do.
• The Doctor's rant doesn't quite make sense. A "ghastly" future would one ruled by the Fisher King. I think what he means is *any* future is better than one ruled by this alien overlord. Also strictly speaking he robbed them of their lives, or maybe even their afterlives - not their deaths. That doesn't sound so melodramatic though.
• Back to the ghostly stalking. It's the standout scene in the episode, especially the way the camera expertly cuts back and forth from the metallic sound of the axe on the floor to the total silence from Cass's point of view. It looks like this particular ghost has a warped sense of humour. The tension ratchets up and up...

• It's just a shame that it's spoilt by Cass going all Marvel's Daredevil on us with her vibration detecting powers. (I know she's not got powers but the effect is the same, as is the imagery used). She could have just turned around. Despite this, Sophie Stone really gives it her all and looks genuinely terrified.
• That was all bluff from the Doctor wasn't it?
• In and out of that bloody Faraday cage. It's all getting a bit tiresome.
• When exactly did the Doctor have time to schlep all the way over to the dam wall and plant the power cell as an explosive? The only gap I can find is during that half hour leap back after which we see him say "Now I'm ready".
• We've seen the security protocol holograms before but what's an echelon circuit? Notice that the hologram has last seasons suit and short hair.

• It's a nice effect of the dam cracking up and the water rushing towards the Fisher King - who can do nothing but embrace his impending destruction. I hope we haven't seen the last of his race. It's a shame that more wasn't made of his name though. As others have pointed after out last week's episode, one of the original Welsh legends of the Fisher King (in the Mabinogion) has him called Bran the Blessed, who has a cauldron that can resurrect the dead but they cannot speak.
• Come on - we all knew that there was no chance of it being anyone other than the Doctor in that stasis unit.
• Oh for **** sake! The stem of the sonic sunglasses fits into any electronic receptacle? I feel one of my headaches coming on.
• So the Doctor ghost was just a hologram, thereby keeping the flow of time intact. Basically the same solution as the Tessalecta then. That's a shame. 

• How could the sonic glasses beam the hologram into the base when the Doctor (and the glasses) were either in the past and/or locked in the stasis chamber? If they have the power to project from within the chamber, how come the Doctor couldn't see that he was within it when it was first brought aboard the base? It just doesn't make sense.
• Likewise saying that the reasons the ghosts only came out at night was because they were "electromagnetic projections out of phase with the base's day mode" is just nonsensical bobbins.
• Bennett's message to Cass and Lunn and it's effect is just lovely. Anyone who thinks that relationship came out of left field hasn't been paying attention properly.
• The Doctor's putting an awful lot of faith in the UNIT of 2119 to clear up the mess.
• Very nice to see this Doctor smiling too as he explains the predestination loop and how there never was any threat from the Fisher King in the present because the Doctor had killed him in the past.
• And *there's* the bootstrap paradox. The Doctor only knew what to do because he'd told himself what to do. Wikipedia just went crazy.  

Conclusion:

Nowhere near as good as last week, with some shameless padding,  The final trick of how the Doctor survives was too reminiscent of other episodes and there were also several big unanswered questions, logic gaps and plot holes:

• How can the ghosts pick up metal objects? I can fan-theorise that it might be something to do with them being electromagnetic projections but was it ever properly explained?
• If everything that happened in 1980 was already history by the time The Doctor and Clara first arrived on The Drum, then why wasn’t O’Donnell’s ghost there the whole time along with Prentis?
• What was the reason for the hollowed out eyes - apart from it looking scary?
•  Why did Clara have to wait for a second phone call from the Doctor at all? A couple of hours may have passed for him back in 1980, but for her it should have been instantaneous and the phone should have rung the moment she ended the first call. Time travel remember?
• Exactly why did the Fisher King have to drag the stasis unit into the church? Wouldn't his plan have worked just as well with it still in the ship? Or was he worried that someone not of his race would open it up and kill him?
• So the ghost Doctor let the other ghosts out of the Faraday cage so that it would force Clara, Lunn and Cass *into* the cage, knowing that Clara would put the phone outside and that the ghosts would steal it, forcing Lunn to go and get it and for him to get trapped and the others to go rescue him so they would all be next to the stasis chamber when it opened and the Doctor could jump out and save the day. No sorry I don't buy that.
• Okay so the dragon painting didn't have anything to do with this week's plot resolution - but look closer at it. It's three people travelling in a (time) ship menaced by a creature who's face sort-of resembles the Fisher King. Did another version of the Doctor paint it there to give a clue to himself?  

So I think what disappointed me most is that this episode wanted to be original but ended up just spoiling some of it's own mystery. They have a prologue that states "This is the theory that's going to form the cornerstone of the plot resolution" and at the end gleefully revel in "look how clever we were". But by giving the upfront lecture, it kinds of stops you putting the puzzle together yourself (the "a-ha!" moment as I've taken to calling it). It's like revealing the solution to a magic trick before performing it. I've nothing against reverse structure narratives ("Columbo" made an entire show out of showing you the criminal first and then how the detective figures it out.) and I love time travel paradox stories, but this just didn't work for me. It contradicted itself several times and tried to paper over the cracks with other stuff that also didn't make sense. Overall it was lots out of ten for effort and creature design but minus quite a few for a second half that failed to live up to its promise.