Face the Raven
Nov. 30th, 2015 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatNB. Not seen Heaven Sent yet because I'm in Delft. I'm desperately trying to avoid getting spoiled until I get home.
One of Doctor Who's strengths can be its ability to play in other people's sandboxes and, in the process, make them distinctively its own. The most obvious predecessor of Mayor Me's trap street is Diagon Alley, but children's literature is full of magical byways tucked away just out of sight of regular humans and the trap street is tapping in to all those archetypes. However Diagon Alley and its predecessors tend to be the natural environment of the ancient and the magical where this is a refugee camp, with the twist that many of those that have fled here are the foot soldiers of invasions defeated by the Doctor. That makes it something distinctive, it may be magical seeming and old-fashioned looking, but it is full of the temporary and the displaced. To be honest, I would have liked to see more exploration of the world of this refugee camp and would have preferred an episode in which the street was found a little earlier and then had space to introduce us to its an its inhabitants properly. While the initial meeting with Rigsy was fun and nicely portrayed the search for the street itself felt a little dull.
There had been pretty strong rumours going around that Clara was to be killed off. I was slightly dubious about them to be honest, no only because Moffat is notoriously unwilling to kill characters, but also because the show has pulled "they're going to die, oh no they aren't" tricks on more than one occasion in the past. Still, the moment the chronolock was transferred to Clara I was pretty sure it was going to end up with her death. The only real question in my mind is whether the death will stick. I reckon its about 50/50 - the story worked hard to play up the significance of the moment and of all the Doctor's companions Clara has been the one who probably feared (or perhaps cared about) the possibility of death the least so it is actually a good way for her to go, on the other hand see above. It was mostly well done, I thought. We've grown used to the Doctor going on vengeance quests, so to see him explicitly ordered not to was an interesting take on the situation and while it was milked a bit for sentimentality, the show didn't linger on fond farewells. I think, ultimately, I will be a little disappointed if Clara is rescued from this.
I'm not sure to what extent, in the long view, Face the Raven will appear as a standalone story and to what extent it will appear the first of a three-parter. It's difficult to really evaluate it, given that it it largely build-up for what comes next. Clara's death gives it a weight and significance but if you remove that (which you could fairly easily without damaging the overall shape of the plot) then it is simply the set-up that leads into the finale.
I'm not sure quite what to make of this one. I liked it, but I don't feel as though the story has really finished yet.
One of Doctor Who's strengths can be its ability to play in other people's sandboxes and, in the process, make them distinctively its own. The most obvious predecessor of Mayor Me's trap street is Diagon Alley, but children's literature is full of magical byways tucked away just out of sight of regular humans and the trap street is tapping in to all those archetypes. However Diagon Alley and its predecessors tend to be the natural environment of the ancient and the magical where this is a refugee camp, with the twist that many of those that have fled here are the foot soldiers of invasions defeated by the Doctor. That makes it something distinctive, it may be magical seeming and old-fashioned looking, but it is full of the temporary and the displaced. To be honest, I would have liked to see more exploration of the world of this refugee camp and would have preferred an episode in which the street was found a little earlier and then had space to introduce us to its an its inhabitants properly. While the initial meeting with Rigsy was fun and nicely portrayed the search for the street itself felt a little dull.
There had been pretty strong rumours going around that Clara was to be killed off. I was slightly dubious about them to be honest, no only because Moffat is notoriously unwilling to kill characters, but also because the show has pulled "they're going to die, oh no they aren't" tricks on more than one occasion in the past. Still, the moment the chronolock was transferred to Clara I was pretty sure it was going to end up with her death. The only real question in my mind is whether the death will stick. I reckon its about 50/50 - the story worked hard to play up the significance of the moment and of all the Doctor's companions Clara has been the one who probably feared (or perhaps cared about) the possibility of death the least so it is actually a good way for her to go, on the other hand see above. It was mostly well done, I thought. We've grown used to the Doctor going on vengeance quests, so to see him explicitly ordered not to was an interesting take on the situation and while it was milked a bit for sentimentality, the show didn't linger on fond farewells. I think, ultimately, I will be a little disappointed if Clara is rescued from this.
I'm not sure to what extent, in the long view, Face the Raven will appear as a standalone story and to what extent it will appear the first of a three-parter. It's difficult to really evaluate it, given that it it largely build-up for what comes next. Clara's death gives it a weight and significance but if you remove that (which you could fairly easily without damaging the overall shape of the plot) then it is simply the set-up that leads into the finale.
I'm not sure quite what to make of this one. I liked it, but I don't feel as though the story has really finished yet.