Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Serious stories which emotionally miss the mark

Spoiler Warning

After the silliness of the first two Doctor Who episodes, and with my being away for the third episode, I determined writing a joint review for it and the fourth was the best way forward.  Having watched both episodes now, it’s been an interesting tonal shift with attempts to pull at the heartstrings in each of the stories.    

Boom

Steven Moffat is one of my favourite Doctor Who writers, The Girl in the Fireplace (2006) remains my favourite episode of the show, although it has stiff competition from Vincent and the Doctor (2010).  Single episodes can be emotive (I was in tears at the end of the aforementioned favourites), but Boom fails in this respect despite its best efforts.

I love the concept of ‘stilling’ the Doctor.  The idea of making the Doctor save himself without moving at all and by controlling his emotions is great, especially as this incarnation seems to be in constant movement, emotions bubbling up and near to the surface.  It creates a great tension in the story with the Doctor hamstrung from interfering directly where normally he would in order to protect others.  The setting and CGI is done well enough that it feels like an alien planet and the use of the sky to help the Doctor put together the pieces of the puzzle while also highlighting Ruby’s continued awe at the new experience of being on an alien planet is well done.

Ncuti Gatwa generally does a great job throughout with showing the frustration and the control that the Doctor brings to bear so that he does not explode and take the planet with him.  If I have one criticism (and I’m not sure if this is aimed at the performance or the direction he was given) is that I would have used the Doctor being moved to tears by his experiences here to one event rather than him crying and tearing up a few times.  I think that would have had more impact overall than the sporadic appearance of them at all the ‘emotional’ moments.

I loved too the performance of Joe Anderson as John Francis Vater, the father killed in action by the Ambulance because he was blind, leaving behind his daughter.  He rocks both as the ‘alive’ version and as the Artificial Intelligence version corralled into his body packet.  There is a real sense that what remains of Vater is there in the AI and willing to do whatever it takes to save his daughter.

I also enjoyed Varada Sethu’s performance as Mundy Flynn.  It will be intriguing to see what she does in future when she returns as a Companion.  Here her rendition of Mundy is great; a dedicated soldier who puts up a front and who eventually looks beyond her faith to see the truth.  Her unrequited love interest, Canto, is also played nicely by Bhav Joshi and their sub-plot adds a bit of extra angst and drama in amongst the main action.

It was shocking when the Ambulance kills Vater and even more so when Canto is killed.  Kudos for the courage to kill the characters and to do it in a shocking way.  Yes, there is no real threat to the Doctor himself this early in the season and his run, but there was enough of a threat from these deaths to provide a grim thought that everyone else might die.

Except for Ruby.

Again, despite the injury and apparent near-death experience Ruby has here, it’s far too early to take it seriously.  Perhaps had the production team continued to play with fans over whether Millie Gibson was being replaced by Varatha Sethu as the Companion, there might have been a real world dilemma over the character’s ultimate fate here…but as we know Millie wasn’t replaced (and to be fair it is much kinder to Millie to have dispelled the rumours that she was replaced), the tension isn’t there when she gets shot.

Equally, it does feel far too early for the Doctor to be as openly horrified and pained about her potential death as he is.  They’ve been together for three whole adventures at this point that the audience has seen, and even if there are more ‘off-screen’ adventures that they’ve undertaken in between shows, there just isn’t the sense of deeper connection and care between them to have the audience believe the Doctor is that affected at the prospect of her demise yet.  That whole Ruby-gets-shot-and-is-about-to-die is overplayed on the emotion front although it works well to create the need to override the creepy Ambulance, played by recurring actress Susan Twist (another maybe mystery of the season).

It may have been a better device for Vater’s daughter to have been shot instead.  Unfortunately, Splice comes across as a particularly unsympathetic and weird child.  Played by Caoilinn Springall, the dialogue and actions seem to have been written for a child much, much younger than the one portrayed in this episode.  Ultimately that disconnect means the character’s authenticity suffers negatively in the face of the very assured and competent performances of the others.

Overall, this episode did deliver a solid story, executed well for the most part.  It feels more like traditional fare than the two episodes before it, ditching the silliness for great Doctor speeches as he saves himself, Ruby, and the world by convincing AI Vater to save Splice.

73 Yards

The serious theme continues with the fourth episode which is a mysterious horror/psychological tale centred around Ruby Sunday.

I’ll say straight up that I’m not a fan of losing the Doctor for almost the entirety of the episode so early in the season.  Had this been towards the end of the season I think I might have enjoyed it more.  As it was, I sulked for the majority of the time when it became clear that Ruby was going to be alone.

Setting aside that dislike, the story does offer an intriguing look into Ruby’s character as she plays out events in an alternate reality either provoked by the original interaction with the Faerie Ring or by a wider cosmic interference playing with her (strange and weird things that cannot be explained is the whole Toymaker’s and his kind’s schtick). 

It is a poignant and relatable fear that gets explored; that everyone she meets and loves will ultimately abandon her; that she will be alone. And there is a powerful fable explored in that Ruby embraces her monster, her fear, and uses it to her own power, eventually coming to accept her monster fully and somehow finally making the connection that enables her old self to become whole and travel back to the moment where she fractured in the first place to alter events.

There are a lot of questions which go unanswered here. 

I’ve already posed one – was it the breaking of the Faerie circle which created the fracture or was it something else?  If Old Ruby is the monster trying to reach out and connect with young Ruby enough to prevent the event, why does she turn everyone against Ruby or frighten them into running off – what’s that all about?  Was Old Ruby a representative of Ruby’s fear of abandonment?  Why and how did Old Ruby finally close the distance between them to enable the save to be made?

Some stories are meant to be thought-provoking and I appreciate a script which treats the audience as thinking people and doesn’t spoon feed them.  This is all a bit too vague for me though.  I would have liked more possible answers presented in the story at least.  Maybe the whole pub scene tries to do that, but for me that scene is almost meant for a different story – one where the monster would have been a serial killer released by the breaking of the circle and Ruby having to mend that to save the Doctor.  It’s misdirection and ends up for me being a weird disconnect in the overall story.  That so much ultimately goes unanswered leaves me feeling dissatisfied at the end of the episode.

On the positive side, Millie Gibson does a good job throughout with Ruby’s frustration and her upset as she is abandoned and alone because of the monster.  She’s most assured in the scenes which deal with Ruby’s mother’s abandonment of Ruby mirroring Ruby’s fear that she was abandoned by her birth mother because she wasn’t wanted.  And it’s nice to see the continuing nods to the mysteries of Mrs Flood and the snow.

The Ruby saves the world from the most terrifying Prime Minister is a decent sub-plot in Ruby trying to find a reason for it all, but the time lapse isn’t well done, and she never looks truly older until she’s fully replaced by Amanda Walker.  Unfortunately, Millie also doesn’t quite act older either, her body language and demeanour remain her younger self, which takes the viewer out of the story.

I did also really like the appearance of Kate Lethbridge-Stewart.  While the scene is a little exposition heavy on UNIT’s role and their ‘care’ for the former Companions, it does try to in-story point out that we see something and try to explain it, making up rules if we need to.  Again, it all feels a little nonsensical to have UNIT appear though when ‘the monster’ also chases off UNIT.

Ultimately, I’m left feeling that the script just needed to be tighter to provide a more satisfactory story arc and resolution. For a story to leave something a mystery is fine, but here there is not enough to enable a cohesive speculation in my view of what the potential answers are to that mystery.  The concept is interesting, I just didn’t enjoy it. 

In conclusion:

It’s a positive for me to see Doctor Who tackle serious storylines after the first two episodes played up the silly.  The tonal shift is noticeable and there is a lot for the audience to consider and chew on in the themes and events depicted in each story.

But.

Boom fails for me to deliver the emotional impact it required to take it from solid to great, and 73 Yards might have played better later in the season and with a tighter story which didn’t leave the feeling that it was riven with plot holes instead of deliberately posing a mystery.

It feels like we’re finding the right groove, but we’re just not quite hitting the mark yet.