Day 808: Mummy on the Orient Express

Of all the episodes of Capaldi's first series, I most looked forward to re-watching this one over the course of the blog. Not because I enjoyed it so much on first viewing that I immediately wanted to see it again, but because I was not impressed by this episode when I last watched it. It's because I went into it expecting something else - I was under the strong impression (and had indeed extensively theorised) that this would be an episode all about the Doctor on an adventure without Clara, and so we'd be dealing with the consequences of Kill the Moon through that lens. But instead we got something slightly different, which put me off-balance with watching it and eventually meant that I wasn't able to appreciate this story for what it was. So, around a year and a half later, I'm finally able to watch it again with relatively fresh eyes, and actually get around to enjoying it.

And it's quite a good story to enjoy anyway. For all that I was disappointed that it didn't appear on face value to be addressing the issues of Kill the Moon, it's far better at examining it than anything that I would have theorised would have happened. It works on the basis that there's been time between the two episodes, allowing Clara to breathe and think about what's happened. So instead of her shouting at the Doctor over what he does and how he treats people, she instead just keeps calm and subdued, considering everything that happens within the story. It's a strong performance from Jenna Coleman who perfectly conveys that slow thought process as she moves from deciding to leave the Doctor once and for all to staying with him for more adventuring.

And Clara's decision to stay with the Doctor is perhaps a bigger moment for her character than anything in Kill the Moon. Up until this point, we could feasibly see Clara as just another companion. She travels with the Doctor, they go on adventures, and then one day they stop because one of them has had enough. But when Clara reaches that point where she wants to stop, she can't. She's too addicted to her life with the Doctor to be able to leave, instead she jumps back onto the TARDIS console and gets ready for another adventure. This is, of course, a fatal flaw for her character - a sense that if she's not going to be going on a character journey that will end with her departing the TARDIS once and for all then something perhaps worse might happen to her. And all of that is confirmed in tomorrow's episode, which openly spells out what I've been saying for the past little while...