A difficult question for Doctor Who is how to start the episode? What can you do that sets up an appropriately interesting story and gives you the potential for carrying on in a way that works? How about the Doctor gets a call on the TARDIS phone and when he answers it he and Clara suddenly wake up in a room with two strangers and no memory of how they got there? Sounds good to me.
Clara, The Doctor, Psi (a cyborg) and Sabira (a shape-shifting mutant) are told by a mysterious figure known only as the architect that they have agreed to rob the most secure bank in the universe. Who is the architect? What are they there to steal? If the architect has been in the bank placing objects for them to use later why does he need them in the first place? These are the questions they must figure out while trying to escape bank security. The most pertinent question though, is why did they need to have their minds wiped in the first place? The simple answer, the Teller.
The Teller is an alien creature like the Doctor has never seen before, it can telepathically detect guilt, and turn your brain into soup; like actual soup, it leaks out of your eyes and everything. This is a terrifying creature; it looks unique and alien with its long eye stalks that turn up into horns as it bellows before walking to you and stopping you in your tracks to turn your brain to soup.
Clara, The Doctor, Psi (a cyborg) and Sabira (a shape-shifting mutant) are told by a mysterious figure known only as the architect that they have agreed to rob the most secure bank in the universe. Who is the architect? What are they there to steal? If the architect has been in the bank placing objects for them to use later why does he need them in the first place? These are the questions they must figure out while trying to escape bank security. The most pertinent question though, is why did they need to have their minds wiped in the first place? The simple answer, the Teller.
The Teller is an alien creature like the Doctor has never seen before, it can telepathically detect guilt, and turn your brain into soup; like actual soup, it leaks out of your eyes and everything. This is a terrifying creature; it looks unique and alien with its long eye stalks that turn up into horns as it bellows before walking to you and stopping you in your tracks to turn your brain to soup.
If anything this episode feels like it didn’t quite have enough time to tell its story, with an ending that goes a mile a minute to get it all across. However what is there is solid, the supporting characters are all cool and the Doctor and Clara are their usual cool selves, though I didn’t much like the Doctor’s joke about how he used to dress; the two outfits he made fun of are way cooler than his current one... I guess maybe there was so much plot to get through there wasn’t time to give them much in the way of the character moments they’ve had in previous episodes. Also that it followed on from an episode as good as Listen probably didn’t help it.
So basically this wasn’t a bad episode, far from it, there’s loads of good stuff here, it was just unfortunate to follow a much stronger episode and it perhaps needed a bit of work on the pacing of the episode. Fun stuff, but not the best so far.
So basically this wasn’t a bad episode, far from it, there’s loads of good stuff here, it was just unfortunate to follow a much stronger episode and it perhaps needed a bit of work on the pacing of the episode. Fun stuff, but not the best so far.