Doctor Who Rewatch: Notes on "Flatline"

·      “Flatline” is terrific, and definitely one of the best episodes of the Capaldi era so far. Jamie Mathieson is quickly emerging as one of the best new talents in the writer’s room, and while you can make the case that “Mummy on the Orient Express” is slightly better constructed, I think Flatline is the slightly better episode overall, feeling more innovative, and having a more interesting mix of ideas and themes, as well as a cracking plot and superb characterisation for the leads.

·      The first thing worth noting is the council estate setting, and the way this refreshingly explores class issues, something always welcome when done well in Doctor Who, a show that can be somewhat overwhelmingly middle class most of the time. Throughout the episode, the impact of both institutional and personal class prejudice quietly underpin the story. When Clara and Rigsy ask PC Forrest about the disappearances, the PC says “the top brass [in the police] are hoping it will all go away”, a telling demonstration of the institutional indifference to the mysterious disappearances in the council estate, and in the fate of the people who live on the estate in general. This serves as the backdrop for the personal side of class prejudice, represented throughout the story by Fenton, who takes glee in making Rigsy paint over his art, calling the graffiti “filth”, and describing the victims of the boneless as “community payback scum”: there is a tacit link made here between the institutional indifference to the disappearances of the estate residents, and the shameless bullying and verbal abuse Fenton repeatedly hurls at Rigsy.

·      Rigsy, however, represents a positive response to this prejudice: he starts episode being asked to erase his art, starting with his signature, symbolically having his identity stripped from him, but the thing that he is told by Fenton has no value, and is treated as a public menace for, is crucial to helping our heroes beat the boneless. First, his knowledge of the tunnels gives the humans a way out when surrounded by the boneless, the activity Fenton describes as “painting filth” saving the group, and then his graffiti ends up being key to Clara’s plan to enable the Doctor to defeat the boneless and help save the day. This aspect of the episode is a continuation of Doctor Who being in touch with the political pulse of modern day Britain, and here that’s very good for the show. A Doctor Who that is onside with a character like Rigsy, and is willing to share his perspective, is something that can make a genuine positive impact on the world.

·      Also interesting are “The Boneless”: while this season has made a point of repeatedly depicting monsters that have an element of the inexplicable to them, this is the first time in a long time the Moffat era has seen the Doctor confront an unknowable Lovecraftian horror, a fact best captured by the terrific image of the giant 3 dimensional hand snatching a man from a train tunnel. In a way, this plot subverts the Moffat era trope of the monsters turning out to have sympathetic motivations: this time, they just seem to be motivated by cruelty. The Doctor keeps trying to communicate with them, to understand them, but when he succeeds, they start threatening the humans, and carry on the killing. Particularly macabre is the Doctor’s realisation they are “wearing the dead as camoflaugue”: what seems to be a memorial to lost loved ones is in fact a trap to ensnare more victims. The Boneless subvert an image of comfort, turning it into a source of terror. This moment also brings elements of a zombie movie to them as they become the shambling, reanimated dead wearing what’s left of the bodies of those discarded by society. Ultimately, the Doctor defeats them when he gives them a name: by naming them, they are no longer unknowable, ridding them of the threat they pose.

·      And this leads me to a note I wanted to make about Fenton. Some may argue he’s unrealistically nasty. Personally, I think it makes for a nice wrong footing for a character to appear to be a jerk, and for it to turn out that, underneath it all, he’s an even bigger jerk. And I think it's good that, in an episode that suggests the villians really are irredeemable monsters, it's nice to have an irredeemable jerk that it's nonetheless moral and right for Clara and the Doctor to save.

·      This is also a significant episode for the Doctor, even though it’s a Doctor lite episode: his role is only really reduced in that most of his scenes are filmed on board the TARDIS, meaning he is still able to be present for most of the story. And it’s the most fun the twelfth Doctor’s been allowed to be: the swelling hero music of the twelfth Doctor’s theme playing over the Adams family bit is hilarious, as is the Doctor’s Dad-dance, and his 2-Dis pun. Also charming is his initial glee at discovering the TARDIS has shrunk. Now we have seen him fully become a clear hero in “Mummy on the Orient Express”, the show really lets us enjoy his Doctor more than it has before, even giving an “I am the Doctor” speech at the end of the episode. However, the tiredness in his voice is notable throughout the speech: “if you insist on playing your role, then it seems I must play mine” he says, with emphasis on the “must”: that sense of tiredness, of exhaustion and depression that has accumulated over the course of his long life, is one that defines Capaldi’s Doctor. But in many ways, he is the moral centre of an episode for the first time, recognizing the importance of the lives lost, being shocked at how quickly Clara moves on (as she echoes his actions in “Into the Dalek”) not wanting to think “on balance”, seeking to find the good in the Boneless, and praising Rigsy’s painting at the end of the episode. The peeling away the layers approach to the characterisation of Capaldi’s Doctor is really paying off dividends.

·      But perhaps the most significant development in this episode comes from Jenna Coleman being allowed to take centre stage, as Clara takes on the Doctor’s role. In the first act of the episode, this is played as a joke, as Clara’s glee at getting to say “I’m the Doctor” is incredibly apparent, and she uses the early stages of the investigation – going to Rigsy for information and introducing herself as the Doctor – to have fun, taking the opportunity to make fun of the Doctor’s self importance. But this fun quickly takes a more serious turn as she also takes on the Doctor’s alienness and detachment, something that has been lurking beneath the surface for her, and just needed this opportunity to come to the fore: she nearly scares off Rigsy after initially charming him before she manages to convince him to stay, and taking him on as her companion: there are echoes of the eleventh Doctor’s initial cluelessness causing Clara to slam the door in his face until he begins to win her over in “The Bells of St John”.

·      The significance of Clara taking on the Doctor’s role becomes even clearer when the Doctor realizes Clara has been lying to him and Danny. A particularly important quote here is Clara’s “is it really lying if you’re doing it for someone’s own good?” The Doctor’s willingness to lie and arrogance are not just traits Clara is pretending to have, but are traits that have been beneath the surface all along: “don’t you dare lump me in with all the rest of those little humans” she said in “Kill the Moon”, describing the way she saw the Doctor’s attitude, but also hinting that she doesn’t want to be thought of as an “ordinary” human, and “Mummy on the Orient Express made it clear she is addicted to making impossible choices, just like the Doctor. That arrogance comes to the fore here, as she convinces herself she’s lying to Danny for his own good: playing the role of Doctor just throws that aspect of her personality, already evident from her personal life, into sharper relief.

·      The next significant step in the “Doctoring” of Clara comes when she takes control of the room, establishing herself as the leader of the group. I love the way the scene is played by Coleman: Clara establishes command over the bullying Fenton by walking away from him with her back to him, forcing him to chase after her, and she scans the room while he rants, clearly communicating that he is a secondary priority to her, showing complete indifference until he stops his ranting, then turning around and whispering “I’m the one chance you’ve got of staying alive” in his ear. She identifies Fenton as the obstacle to her taking charge, undermines his bullying and attempt to take control (he’s outmatched here) then appeals directly and immediately to his biggest priority in the situation, which she correctly identifies as his desire to stay alive. This leads to the chilling “lie to them” exchange with the Doctor, where we see her unromanticised picture of the Doctor’s utilitarian approach to survival in a deadly situation, far removed from the “we don’t walk away” idealism established in “The Rings of Akhaten”: the events of this season, and “Kill the Moon” in particular, have changed Clara’s approach to being the Doctor.

·      In saving Rigsy when he tries to sacrifice himself, Clara gets another Doctor hero moment, in the form of the headband speech, another demonstration of her changing approach to heroism: she convinces Rigsy to stay not with an emotional appeal, but in a cold, detached manner. “Go on, then, do it” she says dryly when Rigsy says he has to make this sacrifice, before pointing out her headband can do the same job, a remarkably sarcastic way of acknowledging that really, Rigsy matters more than the headband. This sequence also marks the point where she stops running from the boneless, and starts to turn the tide, fighting back.

·      And she does so by using the monster’s ability against them. As Clara says, it’s a classic trick the Doctor uses to defeat an enemy: figure out how to use the rules that define her enemy against them, and she pulls it off with aplomb.

·      The end of the episode makes explicit the impact of Clara mirroring the Doctor the as the Doctor is confronted with the way his behavior so far this season has impacted on Clara, and her perception of what it means to “be a Doctor”. She looks at herself early on in the episode, enjoying taking on the Doctor’s role: in turn, the Doctor sees himself reflected in Clara, and doesn’t like what he sees. In this episode, Clara has been as charming, quick witted, and brilliant in the face of danger as any Doctor – she does a perfect impersonation, because she is perfectly suited to being the Doctor. But goodness has nothing to do with that part of being the Doctor: it’s rooted in the impulse that motivates the Doctor, the desire to help people in need. This is something the Twelfth Doctor, who doesn’t associate goodness with what he does anymore, and Clara, whose idea of being the Doctor has dramatically changed in her travels with Twelve post regeneration, both need to relearn.