Doctor Who:
Deep Breath
By Steven Moffat
“We will reach the promise
land.”
After a 7 ½ month wait
Doctor Who has returned and more importantly we are finally treated to Peter
Capaldi’s first episode as The Doctor.
Deep Breath has materialized and for most of us this will be the first
chance we get to see the new Doctor. Excitement
fills the air worldwide, still getting use to the worldwide popularity, as
thousands of fans are gathering around to get their first glimpse of the new
Doctor. So was I as I eagerly waited for
August 23rd. I was really anxious to see Peter Capaldi take center
stage and to see his first proper story Deep Breath and here is what I thought
of the debut of Series 8 and the Capaldi era.
First impressions are
always important more so in Doctor Who when a new Doctor takes over. More important than when a new creative team
is running the show as the lead actor is integral to the show’s success. If the lead actor is not good or favorable
with the fans the show will struggle.
Even if the scripts are magnificent a poor Doctor will sink the
ship. After watching Deep Breath twice
we do not have to worry about Peter Capaldi being a bad Doctor. No we have nothing to worry about here. While watching Deep Breath it seemed to me as
if Peter Capaldi was born to play The Doctor. You don’t get the feeling of an actor going
through the motions or acting as well as he can because it is his job. There
have been a few of those more recently Christopher Eccelston. No you get an actor who seems passionate about
being The Doctor and taking care with the way his Doctor is portrayed. But it’s only been one episode so far how can
you tell just by watching his debut story?
Well go back and watch Robot and the way Tom Baker approached the part
in his debut story and you get the same feeling with Peter Capaldi that was
there when Tom Baker took over in 1975. So far I am really enjoying what I have seen
from Peter Capaldi and I am really excited to see more of his performances
during Series 8 as I believe they will be superb.
With a new Doctor come
changes. One of the most noticeable ones
is with the theme tune and opening credits. The opening credits were pretty spectacular
as it was a steam punk style with cogs from a clock floating around and then
you see the roman numerals that adorn a clock face. Now this is a quite the change as most
opening credits is the time vortex or space.
I really like them as they are
different and they tried to do something different rather than do the same old
same old. Now the theme music was more subdued
and laid back. That will take some time
to get used to as it wasn’t in the style of in your face type of theme. But on hearing it a couple times now it is
starting to grow on me. I give them
credit for going in a different direction with the theme and opening as it does
spruce up the place a bit.
So what about the story as
a whole? Well in my opinion it was kind
of lacking in a story. There were some fun moments and some good
serious moments but it just seemed like that, moments. Once we got past the whole Doctor in his post
regeneration wackiness and the T- Rex in the Thames the story did seem to get
interesting somewhat. To me Deep Breath was
mediocre and not very strong. The 11th
Hour was a far superior debut story as it was clever and gave The Doctor
something to deduce and find a way to save the day. With Deep Breath it just seemed to be oh by
the way here are some robots go and stop them.
It was good to see similar robots from The Girl In The Fireplace and to
harken on that theme again. Trouble was
it was done a lot better in The Girl In The Fireplace. I do have to say the robots were freaky as
you could see in the main robot’s head the gears moving in his head and the eye
moving and seeing it connected to the robot part. If anything for a mediocre story Deep Breath
did have some scary moments which is a good thing to get the kids behind the
sofa.
I did like all the scenes inside
the restaurant and below in the spaceship as they were well done and Clara was
handled really well as she stood up to the robot and dared it to kill her. That was a pretty good character builder as
we get to learn more about Clara and what type of a person she is. One that has learned from her past mistakes
and one that will not be pushed around anymore. What did confuse me a bit about Clara is her
reaction to The Doctor’s regeneration.
In The Name of The Doctor she goes through his time stream and saves his
life and meeting up with all the different versions of The Doctor. So why suddenly is she all confused about The
Doctor she is with now. If there was one companion who should know about the
different Doctor’s it would be Clara. If
anything her leeriness about the new Doctor did give us a pretty cool cameo by
the 11th Doctor calling Clara from Trenzalore before he regenerates
telling her to help the new guy and to trust
him. That was pretty cool and
something else they never did before.
Deep Breath also gives us
some insight into what to expect for the rest of the series as there is a woman
claiming to be The Doctor’s girlfriend.
The mysterious Missy who is in a place she calls Heaven might just be
the woman who gave Clara the phone number to call The Doctor. A mystery has unfolded and it will be fun to
see how it works itself out as the series progresses. Deep Breath may not have been the greatest
story Steven Moffat has written and it is not the worst but it is what it is an
average story. It had some good moments
with The Doctor confronting the robots and some decent action sequences. It also gave us some comedy moments some of
which were overdone with Strax which have become predictable and not as funny
anymore. With that aside Deep Breath is not my favorite
debut story and it is by far not my least favorite. If anything we had a great
performance by Peter Capaldi that shed any fear that he might not be a great
Doctor.
Grade C +
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