9.04: “Before The Flood”, by Toby
Whithouse
Well, I loved the pre-credits
scene. The rest of the story? Less so.
Let’s talk about that pre-credit
scene, because it’s probably quite controversial. I loved it. I loved the
willingness to be weird, and strange, to break the fourth wall and disorient
the viewer. The Jokes were fun. I appreciated the references to Beethoven. It
seemed to be setting up an episode that was willing to be different and out
there, exactly the change of pace I wanted after last week’s (well made)
standard base-under siege formula.
Instead, we didn’t really get
that. We got an episode that raised plenty of interesting possibilities, then
tied them up before it could take them anywhere interesting. The episode comes
from the fascinating conceit of meeting ghosts before they die, but the Tivoli
was quickly killed off before we could explore his character in any more depth
than repeating the basic joke of David Walliams’s Tivoli character from “The
God Complex. The Fisher King is a suitably imposing looking villain given his
grandiose name, but his motivations are barely explored. Bennett’s anger with
the Doctor’s half-hearted attempts to protect O’Donnell lead to him sitting
around in the TARDIS for an episode, before telling Lunn to admit his feelings
for Cass in a somewhat unnecessary romantic subplot.
Bennet’s anger leads me to
another aspect of the episode that really annoyed me: they fridged O’Donnell.
If, as a writer, you kill a female character just to motivate a male character,
you’ve failed, and should start again. And her death was there to motivate
three men: Bennett, who got angry at the Doctor, the Doctor, who became more
desperate to save Clara, and Lunn by proxy, who Bennett pushed to tell Cass he
loved her. Having this and the “black man dies first” trope in the same story
is really disappointing. It’s cynical, lowest common denominator storytelling.
It’s not helped that her death is set up with a really lazy piece of “let’s
split up while running from the deadly monster” storytelling. Especially
because O’Donnell had some really wonderful moments: her utter glee after
flying in the TARDIS is a joy to watch. I’m left thinking her character had so
much more value than ending up as a prop in the story of the male characters.
Also deserving better material
than she got in this story was Clara. There was some interesting character
development for her, which I’ll discuss below, but “Before the Flood” marked
the third episode in a row where I was left wishing she’d actually get to have
some impact on the plot. I can sort of forgive “The Witch’s familiar”, which at
least gave us her wonderfully twisted double act with Missy, and the rather
touching scene where the Doctor sees her in the Dalek suit. The closest she
came in this story to influencing the narrative was the scene where she
persuades Lunn to fetch the phone. And it’s a fantastic moment that tells us
loads about Clara’s character development, but it ultimately has no impact on
the plot. It’s especially frustrating because her character arc, which revolves
around her increasingly reckless confidence as a time traveller, really needs
her to be shown being proactive, and not passive, in the story. This is Jenna
Coleman’s final season, and she’s a fantastic actress, for my money the best to
play a companion – they really should make use of her, and send her character
out in style, instead of what we’ve had in the last three episodes
(particularly this story).
So overall, we’re left with what,
for me, is the weakest of Capaldi’s stories so far, albiet one with a fair few
details I enjoyed. The design of the Fisher King and the ghosts is superb,
there is some top notch acting: if nothing else, this episode was proof that
Capaldi and Coleman can be intensely watchable with average material. And the
crew, in particular Cass, were mostly fun characters: some felt a little under
drawn, and the moment where Cass feels the vibrations of the axe by crouching
down (instead of maybe turning around to see if there was anything following
her). But overall, Cass was a wonderfully positive addition to the story, and
the portrayal of her deafness alleviated some of the more disappointing aspects
of the story.
And there was some intriguing
character development for Clara and the Doctor. They’re desperate to save one
another in this story, in a way that’s wonderful but also slightly worrying:
the scene where Clara demands that the Doctor change time and survive is
brilliantly done. Also fantastic is the scene where she persuades Lunn to get
the phone, which is fabulously ruthless and further serves to highlight the way
she has become more Doctor like, or simply more willing to embrace her Doctor
like qualities. And her consolation of Bennett was a lovely callback to her
grief for Danny, which emphasises the way she has chosen to move on and embrace
her life of adventure. These are interesting character threads, and I trust
that they’ll be better handled by the writers we have for the rest of the
season, all of whom I think are better than Whithouse, who I’ve increasingly
felt is overrated by fandom, having re-evaluated his episodes recently.
The two-parter as a whole was
made up of a first half that was formulaic, but was reasonably well done and
set up an interesting second half, only for the second half to fail to deliver
on that promise, rushing to wrap up everything that had been set up before it
could do anything interesting.
Not awful, but disappointing.
Now that we’ve got two completed
stories, let’s start up some season rankings (It is basically the order of
episode transmission at this point, though I suspect that will change next
week)
Episode Ranking
The Magican’s Apprentice
The Witch’s Familiar
Under the Lake
Before the Flood
Story Ranking
The Magician’s Apprentice/ The
Witch’s Familiar
Under the Lake/ Before the Flood
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