Mummy on the Orient Express
Oct. 26th, 2014 09:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatWe enjoyed it.
NLSS Child having been very concerned, at the end of Kill the Moon, that Clara was leaving was relieved, if puzzled, to see her reappear here. The bridge between the two stories was certainly clumsy - the end of Kill the Moon should have been less final, or we should have seen a subsequent conversation. Some time was spent trying to explain what was going on to NLSS Child.
It also seemed a bit of a shame, to me, that Clara then spent so much of the story locked in the luggage compartment while the Doctor gained a new proto-companion in Perkins but, having seen Flatline, I can make a few guesses why it was set up that way which I may discuss further when I get around to writing about that.
Once again, Doctor Who was doing "spot the genre" - which seems to be something of a theme this season. However Doctor Who is often good at semi-historical pastiche. I suspect that writers, actors and set designers all have a better feel for what they are trying to achieve and the added confidence gives the story a boost (mostly, anyway, that one with the pirates was terrible).
It probably also helped that the explanation for, and mode of defeat of, the mummy had enough internal consistency to make it look like the Doctor actually worked for his conclusions rather than pulling some technobabble out of a hat. Even though, looked at dispassionately, he basically pulled some technobabble out of hat.
In general this was a strong slice of Doctor Who and it handled its place in the arc plot considerably better than Kill the Moon did. That said, although I'm warming to Capaldi's Doctor but I still feel I don't like him as much as I might wish to.
NLSS Child having been very concerned, at the end of Kill the Moon, that Clara was leaving was relieved, if puzzled, to see her reappear here. The bridge between the two stories was certainly clumsy - the end of Kill the Moon should have been less final, or we should have seen a subsequent conversation. Some time was spent trying to explain what was going on to NLSS Child.
It also seemed a bit of a shame, to me, that Clara then spent so much of the story locked in the luggage compartment while the Doctor gained a new proto-companion in Perkins but, having seen Flatline, I can make a few guesses why it was set up that way which I may discuss further when I get around to writing about that.
Once again, Doctor Who was doing "spot the genre" - which seems to be something of a theme this season. However Doctor Who is often good at semi-historical pastiche. I suspect that writers, actors and set designers all have a better feel for what they are trying to achieve and the added confidence gives the story a boost (mostly, anyway, that one with the pirates was terrible).
It probably also helped that the explanation for, and mode of defeat of, the mummy had enough internal consistency to make it look like the Doctor actually worked for his conclusions rather than pulling some technobabble out of a hat. Even though, looked at dispassionately, he basically pulled some technobabble out of hat.
In general this was a strong slice of Doctor Who and it handled its place in the arc plot considerably better than Kill the Moon did. That said, although I'm warming to Capaldi's Doctor but I still feel I don't like him as much as I might wish to.
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Date: 2014-10-27 02:42 am (UTC)This one and Flatline are basically the "Midnight"/"Turn Left" episddes for this season - they often do two episodes per season which are doctor-heavy/companino-light and vice versa to squeeze the production schedule to make toom for the Christmas Special. "The Lodger" is a similar doctor-heavy episode.
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Date: 2014-10-27 12:11 pm (UTC)