Day 813: Last Christmas

Well, tonight ought to be an easy night to get to sleep. It's not as if I foolishly watched an episode of Doctor Who all about dreams an hour before I was due to go to bed, knowing full well that I have regular bursts of hypnophobia (fear of sleep). That would be a very stupid move indeed.

So I'd forgotten that Last Christmas is all about dreams. It's not that I'd forgotten that the episode existed, it's just that there were bigger things that drew my attention away from it, such as the ending which was created specifically in case Jenna Coleman decided to leave at the end of this series (by the way, I think that this ending is far more beautiful than the departure that she ended up getting, but I wouldn't trade away the stories in Series 9 just so that this ending should be kept intact - Clara's story arc is definitely worth her staying). Also worth mentioning is the wonderful re-appearance from Danny Pink which added some much needed emotional closure to his story arc, giving Clara one last moment with him before she can accept the sad truth of his death. It makes the episode serve as an excellent coda to the series finale, and serves as an excellent conclusion to series 8's character based story arc.

But that's all dancing around the main issue here, which is that this story is all about the frankly terrifying notion that you can never realise whether you're in a dream or whether you're awake. It's a thought that I'm surprised more people aren't worried about, because it's completely disconcerting and, much like the Dream Crabs in this episode, once the thought enters your mind, it eats away at you until you're a husk of your former self. I mean, you could be dreaming right now as you read this, but you wouldn't be aware of it. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is one of the best concepts ever used for a Doctor Who story, and I'm truly glad that it was used in such a way where it was one of the clear focuses of the episode as something scary (unlike in Amy's Choice where it was just used as a plot device). So, props to Steven Moffat for doing that, he's certainly ensured that I'm going to be having trouble sleeping tonight.

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...

Day 807: Kill the Moon

FULL DISCLAIMER: Before I start this entry, I should mention the elephant in the room. Or perhaps a more apt description would be the space dragon in the room. Yes, this story works well as an allegory for a certain subject. Yes, I acknowledge that there are compelling arguments on both sides of the discussion about what this story actually means with regards to that subject. Yes, I have an opinion about what this story means with respect to that subject. No, I will not be discussing it at all in this entry. Yes, this is me running away from an internet shit-storm. And finally, yes, I do think that there's something better to talk about with this story.

I will put on the record that I love Kill the Moon. It's not just because I enjoy the story, or the full and frank discussion about the subject matter, or even the amazingly strong performances in the story (there's something so joyous about Capaldi's line delivery of "The moon's an egg" - it's understated and excited at the same time). It's because of that final scene in the TARDIS. The scene that I'm talking about is where Clara finally loses her temper at the Doctor because she can't cope with the way that he treats her any more. It couldn't really work in any other episode, because this is one that's centred around Clara making a certain decision, and although the story later commends her for making that decision, she still doesn't want to let go of the fact that it's been a traumatic moment for her. So she lets it all fly out at the Doctor, blaming him for leaving her when she needed him and daring to pretend that it wasn't worth anything when it would prove to be one of the most important decisions ever to be made in the history of the human race. And that calling out of the Doctor is very important because he has been an absolute jerk in this story and it feels refreshing to hear Clara acknowledge it in such a visceral manner as she does in this particular scene.

And what impresses me about this scene is not just the emotion behind it (Jenna Coleman's performance in this scene is probably her best performance in the entire series, and there's a lot of strong competition in that particular category), it's the fact that it actually means something. In other stories, in virtually every other era of the series, this story would have ended up with everything being tied up with a nice bow, resetting everything to square one for next week's story. Kill the Moon dares to be different, it dares to end the episode on a cliffhanger where no character is in any danger but we're not so sure about their emotional state. I remember when I first watched this a year or so ago, I genuinely didn't know whether Clara was going to be in the next episode or not. Granted, that may have ended up contributing to some, shall we say, interesting feelings about that next story, but that's for tomorrow. For now, I think that we should just bask in the glory of seeing such an emotionally powerful episode that ranks as one of my series highlights.

Oh, and yes, this is the first time in 800-odd entries that I have sworn on this blog. I feel really passionate about avoiding internet shit-storms.