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DW 9.03 and 9.04 Under the Lake & Before the Flood
Note: This is not meta. It’s barely a review.
Lots of people (the majority) liked this episode. Here are some reviews:
Tom & Lorenzo
Tor
Dr Who reviews
Den of Geek
The Appreciation Index was 83.
Now, what this episode did, was a pretty much text book Base Under Siege:
- Nice crew (getting picked off, of course)
- Evolving threat (in all sorts of ways)
- Lots of running down corridors
- Nasty big bad
- Timey-wimey-ness
- Clever solution
- Character touches specific to this particular Doctor & companion
- Must also mention the awesomeness of having a disabled character who was brilliant & not tragic ♥
ETA: I think Phil Sandifer got it pretty spot-on in his review of Under the Lake (which he liked a lot):
Recall that Whithouse, when he debuted on the series nearly a decade ago, noted that he’d not been a classic series fan. Indeed, and this is a fact that I don’t think has been remarked upon much, he was the first new series writer for whom their episode was the first Doctor Who they’d ever done; the literal first of the new school. And so this feels, rather fascinatingly, like a classic series homage written by someone for whom the classic series is a slightly alien thing; like Doctor Who being written as a second language.
(x)
Actually, if you wanted to show someone a ‘typical’ Doctor Who episode, with all the touches you could expect, you could do a lot worse than this one. Especially as it had things that were not necessary for the story, but that are part of the ‘verse. Such as (mild grumbling ahead):
- TARDIS overacting/cloister bell
- The Doctor was apparently going to die (AGAIN!)
- The Doctor doing Tell Don’t Show ('They’re ghosts!' 'I want to kiss it to death!') It was as if he had to explain why it was amazing. Ditto the TARDIS over-reacting & his death. As if to having to underline physically that this was really bad. And it wasn’t. It was just a standard base under siege. Maybe it felt particularly jarring coming right off the opener: The Doctor trapped alone on Skaro by Davros in the middle of the Daleks’ city – that’s bad. But as Missy explained so beautifully: The Doctor caught in an impossible situation means that he’s happy… ;)
- Explaining the mechanics of the story. Don’t get me wrong, the intro was very neat. But it was… not very elegant. Moffat did a perfect bootstrap in seven minutes flat, most of which were spent on Ten fanboying over Five. Blink was a whole, elegant episode of bootstrap. I presume the reason it was spelled out so specifically is because it’ll be used later on, possibly during the finale. Much like Missy had the ancient Daleks in the sewer attack the living one, so we knew what would happen once they ‘rose’.
Now I said that there was no meta, and there wasn’t.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
purplefringe put it best:
Last Saturday - for the first time, probably since 2005, definitely since 2010 - watching Doctor Who was a calming, relaxing experience that actually quietened my brain down. It was...weird. Nice, but weird.
Basically – there were no mirrors. Like, at all. So yeah, I have no thoughts for you. I guess I’m so thrown because The God Complex and A Town Called Mercy held up such incredible mirrors to the Doctor that they’re still relevant - they said something fundamental and brilliant and I love them to pieces. So the complete and utter lack this time round was just bewildering. (I’m used to being overwhelmed with too many mirrors, this is very very strange.)
There were vague mirrors between Bennett and Clara (rather heavy handed, but it led to Lunn/Cass, so no complaints) and there are very tenuous things to be done with the Fisher King and the Doctor and war and dams/water (if we look at the dam as a metaphor for Gallifrey, then bringing it back – extending that crack – could ‘drown’ the universe in war), but that’s not exactly a scintillating insight (it was more or less my only thought after part 1). I guess I was expecting something far more layered and fascinating, since they named their bad guy the Fisher King; keeping my copy of the Wasteland ready. (Ghosts! An actual wasteland!) But no, nothing there. (Unless it comes back later and does something clever then. Never say never. For now, however, I have nothing for you…)
It seems that it’s only those of us with literary pretentions that are unsure about this one. (Phil Sandifer didn’t like it!) So I hope everyone enjoyed it, and that I didn’t harsh anyone’s squee.
Now, bring on the Vikings!!!
Lots of people (the majority) liked this episode. Here are some reviews:
Tom & Lorenzo
Tor
Dr Who reviews
Den of Geek
The Appreciation Index was 83.
Now, what this episode did, was a pretty much text book Base Under Siege:
- Nice crew (getting picked off, of course)
- Evolving threat (in all sorts of ways)
- Lots of running down corridors
- Nasty big bad
- Timey-wimey-ness
- Clever solution
- Character touches specific to this particular Doctor & companion
- Must also mention the awesomeness of having a disabled character who was brilliant & not tragic ♥
ETA: I think Phil Sandifer got it pretty spot-on in his review of Under the Lake (which he liked a lot):
Recall that Whithouse, when he debuted on the series nearly a decade ago, noted that he’d not been a classic series fan. Indeed, and this is a fact that I don’t think has been remarked upon much, he was the first new series writer for whom their episode was the first Doctor Who they’d ever done; the literal first of the new school. And so this feels, rather fascinatingly, like a classic series homage written by someone for whom the classic series is a slightly alien thing; like Doctor Who being written as a second language.
(x)
Actually, if you wanted to show someone a ‘typical’ Doctor Who episode, with all the touches you could expect, you could do a lot worse than this one. Especially as it had things that were not necessary for the story, but that are part of the ‘verse. Such as (mild grumbling ahead):
- TARDIS overacting/cloister bell
- The Doctor was apparently going to die (AGAIN!)
- The Doctor doing Tell Don’t Show ('They’re ghosts!' 'I want to kiss it to death!') It was as if he had to explain why it was amazing. Ditto the TARDIS over-reacting & his death. As if to having to underline physically that this was really bad. And it wasn’t. It was just a standard base under siege. Maybe it felt particularly jarring coming right off the opener: The Doctor trapped alone on Skaro by Davros in the middle of the Daleks’ city – that’s bad. But as Missy explained so beautifully: The Doctor caught in an impossible situation means that he’s happy… ;)
- Explaining the mechanics of the story. Don’t get me wrong, the intro was very neat. But it was… not very elegant. Moffat did a perfect bootstrap in seven minutes flat, most of which were spent on Ten fanboying over Five. Blink was a whole, elegant episode of bootstrap. I presume the reason it was spelled out so specifically is because it’ll be used later on, possibly during the finale. Much like Missy had the ancient Daleks in the sewer attack the living one, so we knew what would happen once they ‘rose’.
Now I said that there was no meta, and there wasn’t.
purplefringe put it best:Last Saturday - for the first time, probably since 2005, definitely since 2010 - watching Doctor Who was a calming, relaxing experience that actually quietened my brain down. It was...weird. Nice, but weird.
Basically – there were no mirrors. Like, at all. So yeah, I have no thoughts for you. I guess I’m so thrown because The God Complex and A Town Called Mercy held up such incredible mirrors to the Doctor that they’re still relevant - they said something fundamental and brilliant and I love them to pieces. So the complete and utter lack this time round was just bewildering. (I’m used to being overwhelmed with too many mirrors, this is very very strange.)
There were vague mirrors between Bennett and Clara (rather heavy handed, but it led to Lunn/Cass, so no complaints) and there are very tenuous things to be done with the Fisher King and the Doctor and war and dams/water (if we look at the dam as a metaphor for Gallifrey, then bringing it back – extending that crack – could ‘drown’ the universe in war), but that’s not exactly a scintillating insight (it was more or less my only thought after part 1). I guess I was expecting something far more layered and fascinating, since they named their bad guy the Fisher King; keeping my copy of the Wasteland ready. (Ghosts! An actual wasteland!) But no, nothing there. (Unless it comes back later and does something clever then. Never say never. For now, however, I have nothing for you…)
It seems that it’s only those of us with literary pretentions that are unsure about this one. (Phil Sandifer didn’t like it!) So I hope everyone enjoyed it, and that I didn’t harsh anyone’s squee.
Now, bring on the Vikings!!!