By Ken Parker
Every week we are given a glimpse at
the upcoming episode and this one looked promising. On board a space
train with people in danger from a mummy, I love this type of
setting and things seemed to point to a classic story. Where did this
story fail and why did they copy the script from a previous episode
this season?
The siege story is not new to Doctor
Who. Having the Doctor trapped within an enclosed setting with a
dangerous element killing people off one by one is one of the most
successful formats for the show. “The Moonbase”, “Robots of
Death”, “Horror of Fang Rock” and “Midnight” are some of
the better examples of this type of story. The writers of this
episode go with the usual classical imagery but with a science twist.
We have the setting of the Orient Express train but in space. Like
the Titanic before it, we have a sci-fi setting and not a historical
one. We also have the classic monster of a mummy which ends up being
something scientific. Mixing this imagery within the futuristic
setting is fine but loses some of its atmosphere for sure. Once the
real train setting was revealed the episode looked flat and
uninteresting. Keeping the Orient Express look would have been easy and less expensive as they would have only
needed one set – not sure why they did that.
One of the most important parts of a
siege story is the threat and certainly the return of the mummy on a
regular basis, along with the countdown, was an effective device for
the story. It was the main thrust of the tension in the script but
beyond that, that was it. The characters in a siege story have to be
somewhat important and in this story it was hard to feel for them.
Apart from some attempts to bolster Maisie, Perkins, Quell and
Moorhouse, the characters seem to fall flat – often just standing
there pointing when their end was near. The background characters
were noticeably just standing around and that was annoying. I think
some of this is attributed to the poor directing and cinematography.
It must have been hard to shoot in such a tight set but the editing
and such was not as polished as some other episodes even this season.
For a siege story I felt that the
surrounding elements were a let down on many levels. Peter Capaldi
is excellent in this story and continues to shine. Clara's character
is realistically handled and it is obvious by the end of the episode
that she is 'addicted' to traveling in the TARDIS and will not stop
right away. Like the Doctor's seemingly higher hatred of soldiers
this season alienating viewers from his character, I can see why some
people might be annoyed with Clara's change of heart. Still, Jenna
Coleman is playing the part in a realistic manner. Clara hates and
loves traveling with the Doctor and her 'addiction' is certainly
going to get in the way later on I would think.
The story – The Doctor pretends to
land at a location just for a rest but in reality is investigating
the sudden appearance of something that is killing people off one by
one. The Doctor is trying to figure out how to stop the menace and
in the end discovers that the militaristic nature of the menace is
its weak point and is the answer to stopping it once and for all.
THAT was the story for “The Caretaker”!! Too soon to have a copy
cat story? Perhaps. This was the biggest negative for me and while
I am all for remakes and rehashes from time to time, this was not the
case here. Back many years “Remembrance of the Daleks” and
“Silver Nemisis” sported similar scripts and that didn't help
“Silver Nemesis” at all.
I wanted to like this story so much but
I found it to be my least favorite of the season. The story is a
copy and any double meanings or extra plot elements are non existent
or at least lost on me. I do like the fact that Clara can't give up
the travels and her dilemma with Danny adds levels of character for her. But beyond that, the story lacks
much of what I hoped to have in this story. I think the direction
was a big let down but many other things did not support the episodes
shortcomings.
No comments:
Post a Comment