Moffat Era Rewatch: Notes on "Cold War"

·      Ask Mark Gatiss to write a base under siege story and you get what you’d expect – a solid, incredibly traditional episode of Doctor Who. It’s not exciting, but taken on its own terms, this is a perfectly good story that continues series seven’s pretty consistent run of episodes (for my money, it has yet to have given us a bad story).

·      Clara is less prominent here than she was in “Akhaten” – Gatiss’s traditionalism means he’s rarely going to come up with a particularly plot driving role for the companion, but there are some solid character notes for Clara throught the episode nonetheless. Gatiss writes a traditional companion, but does usually give them good material. Clara reacts with fear to her first truly unpleasant adventure, as the danger of TARDIS travel first becomes clear to her. But it’s a fear that Clara visibly wants to hide, and keep under control: the foundations for “let me be brave” are laid out here. Also notable is her self assessment: Clara asks the Doctor if she did well enough when interrogating Skaldak, and later quietly asses her own performance to assure herself she didn’t do anything wrong: once again, we get early hints of Clara’s determination to be as good at travelling in time and space as possible, whatever the consequences.

·      The episode’s main thematic content comes in its exploration of Skaldak, and the differing value system he represents, as a war hero in his own society, and a dangerous war criminal by the standards of our society. The parallels between these themes and the Cold War tensions explored by the tension are nicely made and delved into. The episode is continuing the season (and the era’s) exploration of soldiers, bringing up the “Doctor as Soldier” theme that will be key to the 50^th anniversary when the Captain accuses the Doctor of being easily read as a soldier by Skaldak. It’s all tightly constructed, and builds to a reasonably satisfying conclusion, but “Cold War” never quite pushes these themes far enough or into interesting enough places to stand out as anything more than the standard episode it’s aiming to be.