Doctor Who 8.05 Time Heist

[selenak]

Which was fun. You could tell Moffat and Thompson always wanted to write a heist movie. And the purpose-of-heist-twist made it very Whovian indeed.



The guest charactes, Psi and Saibra, were both very likeable - Saibra's mutant power as a mixture between Mystique's and Rogue's made me distracted for some moments because of X-Men related speculation -, and though I should have known they were safe (this being a Moffat-co-penned episode, and he never kills off the guest stars he bothered to make likeable, at least not permanently; "nobody dies" being his thing, for good (mostly) or bad (occasionally, but not here)), I didn't guess ahead of time and thus was pleasantly surprised. I also liked that both got what they originally wanted from the mission.

Keeley Hawes as the other guest star (in two variations) had a less defined character beyond "campy villainess", which she played with relish, but the concept - Kalibraxos (spelling?) employing and burning her clones - fit with the overall themes (as did Saibra's power with its obvious implication re: the Doctor's psyche) -, and thet time travel twist made it into something refreshingly new. I mean, it was obvious someone at the highest level of the bank had to be in on the heist to place all the macguffin there, and it wasn't the clone, so it had to be the owner. But what, again, really surprised me and yet made sense in retrospect in terms of the Moff's tropes and use of time travel was the why. Which the Doctor figured out upon meeting Kalibraxos before she - present day her - did. That she (over the top soullless banker villain extraordinaire) should come to regret her life and try to use the Doctor to redeem at least one of the crimes she comitted strikes me a very humane, optimistic idea, unrealistic perhaps, but very Whovian. As was the reveal as to why the Doctor and Clara signed on to the heist to begin with and what the purpose of it was, i.e. to save the "monster" (and its mate). Along the way pointing out that the "monster" had motivations of his/her (forgot which of them was the female) own instead of just being a scary prop. (Though the true monster was Kalibraxos anyway; though at the same time she was the lynchpin that made the story possible.)

This was the first episode of the season in which Clara didn't have that much to do - possibly because of the narrative room given to the guest characters, with one of whom, Psi, she had a scene both moving (Psi's backstory) and possibly future-foreshadowing (that's what Psi's remark that one could tell Clara had been with the Doctor long because she'd gotten good at making excuses for him felt like, anyway). The Doctor's last scene showed that his supposed cluelessness at the start re: dating importance for Clara was faked, which I'm in two minds about; on the one hand, regeneration or no regeneration, the Doctor hasn't lost his memories of earlier regenerattions and hence SHOULD know/recognize Clara is in the early stages of aquiriing a boyfriend, otoh, it implies he's seeing her date as competition for her time at least, and could we just skip this plot device and go straight to the Doctor getting to know Danny as a person?

Between Saibra's "who could trust a person looking at you with your own eyes?" and Kalibraxos burning her clones, plus the "I hate the architect because he obviously resembles me to a t", the Doctor's issues were prominent, and yet it didn't feel like it, possibly because the heist concept meant the story was moving fast, or maybe because the angst scenes were given to Psi (with Clara) and Saibra (with the Doctor) , and Capaldi didn't play the Doctor's awareness of said issues as brooding, just as very matter of factly and not wanting to dwell on it while knowing it's there.


Trivia: what happened to the brainsucked customer was gruesome, but the ridiculous visual ruined the impact for me and took me straight to Spock's Brain territory whenever it was shown. (Otoh I totally bought Saibra and Psi not wanting to end up brainsucked and preferring to be dead, one reason why I didn't twig on the teleport plot twist and them being alive.)

Comments

[selenay]

Otoh I totally bought Saibra and Psi not wanting to end up brainsucked and preferring to be dead, one reason why I didn't twig on the teleport plot twist and them being alive.

I've been trying to figure out why it didn't occur to me that the shredders weren't deadly, and I think this was it. That's why I bought it. And the shredders being lethal is why I dismissed my early hypothesis that the Doctor was the architect, until we learned Psi and Saibre were alive.

There was some nice misdirection there that kept me guessing. Without that, I think the episode would have bee a lot flatter. I did like the guest characters, and wouldn't mind seeing them again.

Capaldi didn't play the Doctor's awareness of said issues as brooding, just as very matter of factly and not wanting to dwell on it while knowing it's there

This is such a contrast between Twelve and what we've had with Nine, Ten, and Eleven. I rather like it :-)

I really enjoyed this episode. It was just fun, with a sweet conclusion that seemed very Doctor-y. They seem to be mixing the thinky episodes with the fun episodes quite nicely this year.

Which means next week's episode might be thinky? I don't know.

[kalypso]

I remember thinking it was unlikely that Saibra was dead because she hadn't yet deployed her mutation in a significant way for the heist. Or had she done it while I wasn't concentrating?

[selenay]

She used her mutation to get past the DNA locks - when she became that random guy for a while?

[kalypso]

Ah, random guy was Saibra? I never quite got that bit, I must have glanced away at the key moment. I am not good at staring at the screen full-time.

That does work better, because I kept thinking that there should be a phase which was the apparent reason for needing Saibra but that she'd have a more important use for her ability later.

[lonelywalker]

I was very surprised by the "exit strategies" at first because I thought it was pretty extreme for the BBC to be showing two suicides (of human characters) in a "family" show, even if they were bloodless... which of course should've clued me in that in fact everyone was fine.

I've been wondering about the Doctor's ongoing apparent cluelessness regarding Clara's appearance and social life. And although I initially thought it was just carrying on from when he'd recently regenerated and couldn't tell anyone apart, I suspect it is some kind of effort to distance himself from her (he's not her boyfriend!) while still having Eleven's FEELS about her.

(Or, of course, just being irritated in the way you are when your best/only friend starts dating someone and ditching you.)

[selenak]

If you think about it, Twelve is the first regeneration in New Who who doesn't live with the knowledge he's genocided his people and destroyed Gallifrey. That's bound to make a difference in the characterisation. Not that he doesn't have other things to regret, plus he knows he did it the first time around, but still. And well, as we've said before, he lived out a whole long, long biological life time as Eleven, for the first time since his very first body. It all makes for a coming-to-terms in a quite different way.

re: guest characters, I'd enjoy seeing them again, too!

[selenak]

The later is definitely a possibility as well.:)

[selenay]

The transition from Saibre to random guy was very 'blink and you miss it' :-)

[selenay]

Hmm, I hadn't thought about the Doctor not having the genocide burden anymore. But that does make sense for the changes in his characterisation. There's less for him to be emo about, because the biggest tragedy of his life didn't happen the way he'd remembered it for so long. He's still got all those other regrets, but they're not the same level of terrible as the genocide he didn't actually commit.

And did he really do it the first time around? Or was what we saw the way it had always happened, but his mind had got jumbled, so he assumed he'd done it until the parts of his timeline caught up? Time travel is so confusing!

I'm assuming we might see Psi again, as he has the Doctor's phone number :-D

[nenya_kanadka]

This episode felt so very Who to me. To the point that I picked up on a couple of the plot twists well in advance--I was so upset at Psi and Saibra's apparent deaths, but I couldn't stop thinking about Rose and the game station and teleports, so I was delighted but not terribly surprised when they came back. They left it long enough that I wasn't sure, though, and had to reallyreally hope I'd guessed correctly!

I didn't guess the part about the clones, though that too is very Who, as was the monster being a captive. "Last of his kind" made me twig to him being somehow important, that being a phrase that usually signifies something in Doctor Who. Was lovely to find that he wasn't actually the last, and that even the wicked bank manager had some compassion at last.

Loved the initial shock of being dropped from the first phone call into the mindwipe scene hours or days later. Very nice. Adored the guest stars. I actually liked the SFX for the brain-melting scene, but then I'm fairly easy to please on that score. I often don't notice the cracks in the cardboard stage sets. ;-)

[nenya_kanadka]

I've been thinking from the start that Twelve is the first one since Eight that doesn't have that "I killed everyone and there wasn't a better choice" memory in his head. Or at least he now remembers not doing it, too. I enjoyed Nine's brooding for a while but by the time it came to Ten or Eleven it was old hat and more depressing and annoying than anything. So I'm loving the Doctor being more snappish (a bit like Three, that) than emo. I'd love it if he stopped pretending not to care about people (he clearly does care--witness his delight when Psi and Saibra were actually alive!) and being quite so unnecessarily rude, but while I don't expect him to be Mr Cuddlebunnies any time soon, it is such a relief on so many levels for him to not be mourning the loss of Gallifrey continually.

I really want him to go looking for it, too, or to have Time Lords drop into his tracks again like they used to. And not just River, much as I love River and would adore seeing her face off with Capaldi. :D