From The Boss Dungeon Vaults: Doctor Who Series 8 First Impressions (Episode 1: Deep Breath)

(Hello! Long time no see, kids! Sorry, this isn't about Nintendo games. We're shifting gears to talk about old British people in magic space boxes for a bit. With Series 9 of Doctor Who looming over us, it's finally time I got to some archival business. A year ago or so at this time, when Series 8 was airing, I was given the opportunity to post First Impressions articles on a website called Boss Dungeon. Said website eventually went under due to a bunch of reasons, and though that's tragic, I'm still very grateful to its webmistress, Andrea Ritsu, for giving me the chance to talk about new Doctor Who as it was coming out! Though Boss Dungeon is gone, I still have all the writeups right here. What we're doing here is reposting them, mostly as they were... but the really fun part? I'm rewatching Series 8 again, right here and now, in anticipation of the next series. As we go along our archival journey, I'll be posting my current thoughts on these episodes. This is gonna be a thing. Alright, let's start with Deep Breath. A primer for anyone who doesn't know a thing about Doctor Who: this show is about a very old man with a big blue box that's bigger on the inside, and it can travel anywhere in time and space. He goes around time and space with ordinary humans, showing them the wonders of the universe and usually running away from scary monsters in the process. If he is mortally wounded, he can revive himself by changing his face and personality, becoming a totally different actor incarnation. That has just happened in the leadup to the first episode of Series 8, and the Doctor has just become Peter Capaldi. From there, this is what I thought in late August...)

New series. New opening. New Doctor. Once again, Doctor Who has changed everything by recasting its lead actor. After nine months of shivering with anticipation, the world got its first extended glimpse and glimmer of Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. How was it?

It was okay.

Deep Breath invokes both the method used to avoid the monster of the week, and the average fan's nervous reaction as they dive in to the unknown depths of a new era of Doctor Who. Over 50 years, the show has done this song and dance several times before. It's a guaranteed part of being a Doctor Who fan; one day the lead actor you've grown to adore will suffer some mortal wound, and in a flash of bright light there will be some other fellow running around acting weird. Such is the concept of regeneration. That's the secret to Doctor Who's success, but with the birth of one era comes the death of another. Since 2010 we've had Matt Smith running around all of time and space as the Doctor, and now he's mostly gone. Let's try to make sense of this confusion, and take things objectively.

We're in Victorian London this week, and immediately we have a touch of the fantastic when we see a T-Rex walk on screen and roar. That's not a thing that belongs in Victorian London! Nor is a blue box, or a deranged alien with a Scottish accent. As far as I can tell, this is the first regeneration story Doctor Who has done that's set in the past. Really, the T-Rex is just a spectacle to raise eyebrows. The real threat of this episode involves scary clockwork robots who steal organs from people. Those of you with a keen memory of past Doctor Who stories will echo the Doctor here; there's something familiar about all of this. Writer Steven Moffat also adds in a "rule" for avoiding the scary robots; they can't see you if you hold your breath and move like a clockwork robot. Writing it out sounds silly, but it does create some tense scenes where characters struggle to hold their breath and walk past stationary clockwork half-people. It bears similarity to the infamous Weeping Angels, where they can't get you if you stare at them and don't blink. Turning automatic bodily responses into the only way to avoid getting killed by a monster makes things somewhat scary, though the clockwork robots have nothing on the Weeping Angels.

The Paternoster gang from the previous series return, giving this new and weird show starring Peter Capaldi a link to the previous show called Doctor Who that most viewers remember. They add a definite element of physical comedy to the episode that's well appreciated, for the most part. (There's one cartoonish sound effect that's a bit TOO silly, but we'll let that slide.) Their other role is, as stated, adding some familiarity to this strange show called Doctor Who. Part of the appeal of Doctor Who is the way it can use its open setting of travelling through time and space to create madcap ideas. Frankly, if you can't get excited about a show that has a scene where a Victorian lady and her lizard-woman-from-the-dawn-of-time wife fighting off clockwork half-people robots with swords, the show might not be your thing.

The crux of this episode, and the most important part, is the interaction between the new Doctor and his companion, Clara. At first, Clara seems incredibly put off by the fact that an old Scottish man is the Doctor now... even though from a series standpoint she should be aware of the concept of regeneration and the Doctor being mostly old people in his incarnations. Over the course of this episode, she's feisty and not afraid to talk back to the Doctor. It gives her a bit more character than she had before, and brings back memories of Donna Noble from just a few years ago. Good memories, too. The Doctor and Clara's new relationship is still up in the air, but as it is now it reminds me of the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown, from way the hell back in 1985. Theirs was far more acerbic, however, so that's welcome.

As for the man himself, Peter Capaldi? Well, we have the old "post-regenerative crisis" malarkey wheeled out again, causing our leading man to act like a madman, babble on about things and misremember people's names, and spend a bunch of time passed out or wandering around London in his dressing gown. He appears to settle down by the midpoint of the episode, but he still has a bit of an angry spark (Scottishness?) to him. The only real sour note is when he appears to abandon Clara, running off and leaving her at threat from clockwork robots. He does return to save her, but dismisses her complaints of abandonment with a "sorry-not-sorry". The other possible odd moment is when it's left ambiguous as to whether or not he kills the villain. This one doesn't ruffle me as much because the whole "man who never would" angle doesn't hold much weight. He might have done it, and he might not have... but I can buy it either way.

All in all, this episode was okay. It wasn't a standout hit like the Eleventh Doctor's debut episode, but barring a few eyebrow-raising moments I can get behind this new Doctor/companion dynamic. There's a cute moment near the end that I won't spoil, and the possible seeding of a new season-long mystery. Now that makes me groan a little, because this is the third season in a row to have a "season-long mystery" that will probably just amount to a cryptic lady or phrase popping up over eleven episodes, and then the reveal near the end. Perhaps this one will actually seed clues as the show goes on instead of just teasing, but we'll see. It's not the best, but one can be excited for what's to come.


Next week: Daleks! How can you not be excited for new angry eyebrows Scottish Doctor vs. the Daleks?

AND NOW WHAT I THINK... NOW

(I'm gonna be writing these parts with hindsight and knowledge of how the series turns out, so... spoilers for the rest of the Series 8 episodes will probably crop up, as I compare stuff. Be warned.)

Hindsight is a hell of a thing. Now I know how Peter Capaldi turns out. Back when this aired, he was just some angry Scottish asshole and I wasn't sure if I liked him or not. It took a few episodes, but I was sold on him. I remember being bummed out at the time, though. The Eleventh Hour so solidly sold me on Smith, and Deep Breath just didn't do that for me with Capaldi. Doctor Who had changed, and I wasn't sure who the Doctor was any more. Much like Clara Oswald in this episode. Much ink has been spilled on the inconsistency of her being aware of different incarnations of the Doctor in the Series 7 finale... and yet being written here as if all of a sudden the Doctor has "totally changed". I'm gonna stake my territory here and say that nitpicking out inconsistencies and plot holes in Doctor Who is really boring and far too easy to do. I don't do it when I talk about Doctor Who. My friends often do. I guest star in Doctor Who review things a lot, because I'm part of a little group. Some of them are of this school of thought, and again, many deep breaths have been taken before launching into a tiny rant about how this or that don't make no sense and god damn it Moffat et cetera et cetera. So, that's boring to me. It's been done and I don't agree with it, but the Moffat era is basically Marmite at this point. You either love it or you hate it and want him to just move on to Sherlock full time. Or something. Here's what I think Moffat is doing with Deep Breath; he's playing the meta game. Not really tongue-in-cheek, but more self aware. There are little things and hints that suggest to this in the episode. Clara not being sure who the Doctor is any more? That's holding a mirror up to the audience. It's commentary on the assumed reaction of the public when these regenerations happen. Some people... a lot of people, are going to be unsure about it. I was! Rewatching it now, in hindsight, and remembering how I felt... that's the vibe I get. Meta-commentary on the audience not being so hot on Capaldi. Moffat is just the kind of clever TV-savvy fellow to attempt to pull such a trick, too. Then you have things where the Doctor doesn't get his own references. Ranting about his face looking familiar as a callback to Peter Capaldi's past roles in Doctor Who stuff, or the whole thing with the reveal of the villains being related to the villains from Moffat's Tennant-era story, Girl In The Fireplace... and the Doctor not connecting the dots there. The section of fandom who cares about lore consistency and the callbacks will get it and light up, but the 2000 year-old Time Lord doesn't remember.

And then, of course, that final scene. Not the one with the lady, but the one where Matt Smith calls up Clara and asks her really nicely to give this new guy a chance. The cynical among us will call this pandering to the fangirls, pleading and begging them to stay despite the fact that the Doctor isn't a good-looking twentysomething in pinstripes or a bow tie. The Doctor was never anyone's "boyfriend", and now we've gone back to how it was 40 years ago, like when he was your kooky uncle with the ridiculous scarf. Again, this is metacommentary, but it's the only part I have no real defense of. Matt Smith asking me to give the Doctor a chance didn't change my mind any. I was giving him a chance already, and Capaldi eventually proved himself over the series. It was unneeded, I think. Same with a lot of the gags and physical comedy and whatnot. It padded the episode out, and the only real chuckle I got out of it was Clara getting whapped in the face with a newspaper. That's base level humor, though. There's a fellow who goes by the name of Whoflix that does fan edits of the show, both classic and new. He cut Deep Breath down to about a 45 minute episode, and I thought it worked a lot better. Well. Deep Breath. We took the plunge, we kept the air in... and the episode is still okay. There are things that don't work, but on some level I can understand what Moffat was trying to do. As always, he was being clever with his narrative and how he expected the audience to perceive it. On other levels... it doesn't work. It's an okay episode, but that's the thing. A regeneration episode needs to really punch it in order to sell people on your new Doctor. The show, with rare exceptions, has faltered when it comes to this. The Eleventh Hour was a great intro to Matt Smith. Deep Breath left me unsure if I liked Capaldi or not, and it bummed me out. It honestly soured my mood a little. Then there's Missy. In hindsight, I'm not sure how her scheme is supposed to work if she's also nicking people from the future, and people who aren't even people but half-faced robots. Whose goddamn body is she going to put the half-faced man into in 2015? Now I'm getting into lore inconsistency. See? It's easy and kinda boring to do. The Moffat era, especially, doesn't quite stand up to this sort of "Whoniverse" critique. You end up picking at it and picking at it until nothing's left. I don't know how it makes sense, but given time my brain could think up some sort of explanation for how it could make sense. If one were to be optimistic, they'd say that Moffat is challenging you and making you think about the plot rather than just spelling it out... but that's a rabbit hole we won't jump into.

Instead, let's shrink down and go play inside a Dalek.