This episode has a storyline where our newly regenerated Doctor (Peter Capaldi) arrives in Victorian England having brought with him a giant dinosaur. The TARDIS was in fact stuck in the dinosaur's throat! The Doctor and Clara then meet up with the Doctor's friends the 'Paternoster Gang'. Clara and the Doctor both struggle with his new and as yet unresolved transformation. Meanwhile, there is a spate of 'spontaneous combustions' which the Doctor and his friends seek to investigate. There is also a half faced man lurking around.
Capaldi is impressive in his full debut with excellent acting and personality on show. Moffatt's writing of many of the scenes based around introducing Capaldi's characterisation is extremely well executed. Judged purely for the introduction of the new Doctor this episode is incredibly good. It has a strong script for Capaldi which he exploits fully. It is funny, references the show's history and has intelligent and thoughtful dialogue based around the Doctor struggling with regeneration and starting to establish his personality.
The story itself if you take out the new Doctor introduction part of the plot is quite fun and entertaining at times but has issues which spoil it for me:
Firstly the giant dinosaur was an issue for me. Why did Moffatt have to make it a GIANT dinosaur?! It is about 8 or 10 times the size of known Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils if you measure it against the Houses of Parliament! It is thereby discarding all we know in science about dinosaurs purely to add spectacle. It would have worked MUCH better with a regular sized dinosaur biting rather than swallowing the TARDIS. That would have been clearly far more credible scientifically as well as in terms of being less visible to so much of the public. As it is we are meant to believe a minor police detective is allowed to handle what would have been the most crazy and important event witnessed at the time with news not spreading all that much considering a giant dinosaur is marauding down the Thames in plain sight for miles. It is rather dumb I think.
Secondly, why would the half faced man not have a finished face or at least a mask as some means of making his appearance not stand out so obviously? They have had the time and resources to build all sorts of things and finish many other faces and yet he does not finish his own face and roams around London without anyone noticing his obvious missing human features. I think it would have been more credible and more exciting if he approached people when he was masked by a scarf or something and then removed the scarf to reveal he is mechanised.
Thirdly, why does Clara react so badly to the Doctor's change to an older man?! Of all companions she has even less excuse for this having met all the other incarnations before, including the 1st Doctor and the War Doctor, and coped perfectly well. Even if she had 'forgotten' these encounters with other versions of the Doctor it would still make her a remarkably shallow character to react so badly. It would have been much better if she accepted his new appearance but found his new abrasive personality hard to accept and started to get more uncomfortable before getting used to him maybe a few episodes later.
In addition, I find the idea these mechanical men have been on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs and are still no further forward as well as never being noticed another silly thing thrown into the mix. Plus some of the humour in the episode is a bit overly silly for my taste.
I had been greatly looking forward to a rumoured return to a more thoughtful, slow burning drama in this series and was hoping for great things from lifelong Who fan Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. I think they met those expectations with the filming style in this episode and I was very, very happy with Capaldi who showed potential to be creating one of the better characterisations of the Doctor. I just wish Moffatt could have curbed his tendency to throw every zany idea in without enough care.
My Rating: 6.5/10.
My Series 8 Episode Ranking: 7th out of 12.
Capaldi is impressive in his full debut with excellent acting and personality on show. Moffatt's writing of many of the scenes based around introducing Capaldi's characterisation is extremely well executed. Judged purely for the introduction of the new Doctor this episode is incredibly good. It has a strong script for Capaldi which he exploits fully. It is funny, references the show's history and has intelligent and thoughtful dialogue based around the Doctor struggling with regeneration and starting to establish his personality.
The story itself if you take out the new Doctor introduction part of the plot is quite fun and entertaining at times but has issues which spoil it for me:
Firstly the giant dinosaur was an issue for me. Why did Moffatt have to make it a GIANT dinosaur?! It is about 8 or 10 times the size of known Tyrannosaurus Rex fossils if you measure it against the Houses of Parliament! It is thereby discarding all we know in science about dinosaurs purely to add spectacle. It would have worked MUCH better with a regular sized dinosaur biting rather than swallowing the TARDIS. That would have been clearly far more credible scientifically as well as in terms of being less visible to so much of the public. As it is we are meant to believe a minor police detective is allowed to handle what would have been the most crazy and important event witnessed at the time with news not spreading all that much considering a giant dinosaur is marauding down the Thames in plain sight for miles. It is rather dumb I think.
Secondly, why would the half faced man not have a finished face or at least a mask as some means of making his appearance not stand out so obviously? They have had the time and resources to build all sorts of things and finish many other faces and yet he does not finish his own face and roams around London without anyone noticing his obvious missing human features. I think it would have been more credible and more exciting if he approached people when he was masked by a scarf or something and then removed the scarf to reveal he is mechanised.
Thirdly, why does Clara react so badly to the Doctor's change to an older man?! Of all companions she has even less excuse for this having met all the other incarnations before, including the 1st Doctor and the War Doctor, and coped perfectly well. Even if she had 'forgotten' these encounters with other versions of the Doctor it would still make her a remarkably shallow character to react so badly. It would have been much better if she accepted his new appearance but found his new abrasive personality hard to accept and started to get more uncomfortable before getting used to him maybe a few episodes later.
In addition, I find the idea these mechanical men have been on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs and are still no further forward as well as never being noticed another silly thing thrown into the mix. Plus some of the humour in the episode is a bit overly silly for my taste.
I had been greatly looking forward to a rumoured return to a more thoughtful, slow burning drama in this series and was hoping for great things from lifelong Who fan Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. I think they met those expectations with the filming style in this episode and I was very, very happy with Capaldi who showed potential to be creating one of the better characterisations of the Doctor. I just wish Moffatt could have curbed his tendency to throw every zany idea in without enough care.
My Rating: 6.5/10.
My Series 8 Episode Ranking: 7th out of 12.
