Doctor Who – Cold War
Review By Ken Parker
Now this......is Doctor Who!!!
Some Spoilers
If any of you had read previous reviews
of mine you know I have been very critical of the current Doctor Who
series. There have been some excellent episodes as well as some
horrible ones but overall I have been disappointed, especially
recently with Steven Moffat and his inability to recapture the magic
of his early stories before taking over as show runner. One of my
biggest complaints of late has been the episodes with lots of
characters and lots of running around, yelling and cluttered story
lines that rely on big reveals, secrets and other gimmicks that trick
you into thinking the story is actually good. Instead we have
complete stories that ultimately do nothing but tell you that River
Song is Amy and Rory's daughter and that the Doctor is cool. For the
5th time this season we have an episode that doesn't do
that.
Cold War sees the Doctor and Clara
stumbling on board a Russian submarine during a critical year of the
cold war -1983. The sub is damaged and there is an Ice Warrior on
board. Can't get any worse, can it? Well, of course it can.
This is one of my favorite types of
stories. A claustrophobic setting and a single monster on board.
Perfect. Writer Mark Gatiss weaves the story with an excellent
balance of threat, action and quiet moments. Like the previous two
stories of the second half of this season, there seems to be a
conscious move in keeping the plots simple and the character numbers
to a minimum. This is giving both Matt Smith and Jenna Louise
Coleman time to develop their chemistry together, something we have
not seen since David Tennant and Billy Piper.
When I first heard that the Ice
Warriors were going to be in this one I thought it was a bit odd but
it all makes perfect sense. I have to say that I love the execution
of the Ice Warrior – one of the best Classic monster returns to the
current series. The redesign of the Ice Warrior is excellent as is
the character and the reveal of the Warrior inside the armor. The
idea that the armor is robotic and capable of the things that it does
in the story makes a lot of sense and is a great update of that alien
which first debuted in the 60's during Patrick Troughton's era.
The supporting cast was good, It
appeared that David Warner was going to be a waste but he ended up
being an important interaction for Clara in her understanding of her
travels with the Doctor. I had mentioned before little moments
making the story. In Cold War the Doctor tells Clara to stay there
and don't argue and Clara states that she is not arguing. A great
contrast with previous companions who would only argue. Another
moment was Clara singing “Hungry Like a Wolf”. Everything these
characters doesn't have to make perfect sense nor does it have to be
evaluated to death. I am sure fans are going to look at the song and
think Hungry like a bad Wolf or something stupid like that. The
development of Clara is going really well and only after 5 stories
she is more appealing as a companion that Amy ever was.
It is great to see an alien that shows
mercy and isn't one dimensional. It is just as great to see a human
leader also not go completely gun-ho and kill the enemy. Although you
would think that he would have been a bit more upset that the Ice
Warrior killed several of his crew.
Over the past season we have seen sad
stories, stories with great character work and some good action.
Cold War hits everything just right and is by far my favorite of the
season and probably my favorite Matt Smith story to date and I am
surprised by this. I had hoped that the series would begin to settle
down and become more like this and time will tell. I personally
doubt it but if I can have a few episodes like this a season, I
cannot complain that much.
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