Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror

[selenak]

That was fun. Also apparantly the first Doctor and Companion lite episode we've had since a long while, but definitely fun.



Mark Gatiss likes his slapstick, but the two most obvious examples - the recurring gag of the fainting client and Strax being written as dumber than when Moffat takes the pen (see: horse business) - weren't something I minded. As far as an outing for Madam Vastra and Jenny is concerned, this one put the emphasis on Jenny and allowed her to shine. I wonder whether Jenny's fighting outfit underneath the Victorian wardrobe was a nod to Emma Peel after they cast Diana Rigg as the primary antagonist? Anyway, it was fun. And Gatiss served up the Victorian tropes with gusto (evil elitist manufacturer! abusive parent! plucky streetwise orphan!), which reminds me the first New Who episode he wrote was the Dickens one. He does it with a zest that makes it impossible for me to mind.

I do wish we'd have had a bit more of Clara (btw, appreciate the continuity of Jenny - and Madam Vastra, though she has less time - reacting to her presence as one would given they'd seen her die), but otoh, the tag scene with her and the kids, though obviously a set up for the impending Neil Gaiman episode (yay!), gave me a powerful attack of nostalgia for The Sarah Jane Adventures. (And makes me wonder whether said next episode will be a bit as if what would have happened if the Doctor had taken Sarah Jane, Clyde and Rani out for a spin into space and time.)

Guest characters (other than Jenny, Vastra & Strax): Madam Gillyflower manages to fulfill several Dickensian villain roles (what with being an abusive parent AND a hypocritical haranguer preaching doon & an exploitative manufacturer owner, with an added element of what is apparantly an s7 theme, symbiosis (see also: Richard E. Grant's character and the Great Intelligence from the Christmas special), though there is no suggestion that Mr. Sweet influenced her behavior; her evils came from herself. Diana Rigg has fun in the role, but the only time a bit of variation is called for is in her death scene, when Mrs. Gillyflower is proud of Ada not forgiving for. Ada is the part that requires more acting effort, and while I had to handwave a bit that she's able to overpower her mother with her walking stick one moment and easily taken hostage and dragged up the stairs in the next I thought the actress did an excellent job. Ada, too, fulfilled several Victorian literature roles, but the script also give them twists: there was no magical cure for her blindness at the end, NOT forgiving was the key to her inner liberation, while she was attached to her monster she didn't suddenly change sides when realising he wouldn't stay (and wasn't a romantic option). If you want to get nitpicky you could say Ada's own guilt in aiding her mother, no matter how downtrodden and brainwashed she was, gets unexamined, but since the blinding apparantly happened very early in her childhood (since she believes her mother's story that her father did it as opposed to remembering the truth), and she was raised by Mrs. Gillyflower alone, I found it emotionally believable that someone raised in these circumstances would at best try to save individuals instead of refusing to collaborate, full stop. I also thought the scene in which the Doctor shows her who he is by putting her hands on his face (and the fact that Clara picks up on this and later when Ada asks who she is also remembers doing that in respect of Clara's blindness) affecting.

(Sidenote: the name "Ada" for me is irrevocably associated with Ada, Countess Lovelace, née Byron, she of the computer inventions and Babbage cooperations. Who had a terrible relationship with her mother Annabella, Lady Byron - Annabella writing when Ada died at the age of 36 of cancer, screaming in pain, about Ada's cancer that "the greatest of all mercies has been her disease - weaning her from temptation & turning her thoughts to higher and better things" is one of the most chilling real life examples of Victorian thought patterns. It's also why I'm glad Ada before her death changed her will so she'd be buried with her father. Not as a pro-Byron gesture but as a slap to Mum for this "better dying a horrible death than gambling and having adulterous sex" concept. Anyway, this does make me wonder whether Gatiss picked the name with a memory of this particular mother-daughter relationship.)

Generally: a lighthearted Victorian romp with lots of death and the threat of the apocalypse. As Doctor Who does. :) Now bring on the Gaiman episode!

Comments

[kalypso]

Curious fact: Mrs Gillyflower quotes Iras in the suicide scene of Antony and Cleopatra when she casts off Ada in the closing stages. The line is not inappropriate, but seems odd for most of her personas (Christian preacher, entrepreneur, villain).

I particularly liked the Doctor following up his reminiscence of Tegan with "Brave heart, Clara!"

Given that "Sweetville" was clearly intended to recall both Saltaire and Bournville, I was a bit disappointed that the Doctor didn't mention there were genuine Victorian projects which provided better than usual conditions for their workers.

[selenak]

Oh God, yes, I forgot to mention the Tegan shoutout was great. When he said he'd once spend years trying to get a gobby Australian back to Heathrow I thought that was it, and then came "Brave Heart, Clara" which made it wonderful.

[legionseagle]

Actually, I really liked the Sweetville thing because I've got conflicted views of Bournville, Saltaire, New Lanark and Port Sunlight and all the rest. My parents and obviously my grandparents worked in some pretty dodgy factories in their time, and my parents (and, from what I can tell, my grandparents too - obviously I only knew two grandparents and one of them not for long) were always deeply suspicious of paternalistic employers because yes, the conditions were far better but they always came with strings attached, specifically that the paternalistic employer always wanted to own the hands, body and soul, but the typical capitalist bastards simply wanted to rent the body, and what little free time the employee got, was theirs.

It occurs to me that Gatiss, being a northerner from an industrial region, might have absorbed similar sentiments from somewhere.

[jesuswasbatman]

Re forgiveness for Ada, I wonder if Gatiss had the same reaction I did to "Ghost Light", which was that the Doctor's indifference to Gwendolyn's death because although she was brainwashed into killing people "she enjoyed it too much" was not just cold but distinctly hypocritical.

[selenak]

Oh, that's an intriguing connection. And a good point. It's not that I don't think Ada deserves forgiveness, but that I'm aware that exploited and brutalized as she herself was, she also worked as an instrument to help her mother against others. (Again, as I said in the review, given her circumstances, it's hard to see how she could have done otherwise.)

[lonelywalker]

I wonder whether Jenny's fighting outfit underneath the Victorian wardrobe was a nod to Emma Peel after they cast Diana Rigg as the primary antagonist?
Wait, that was Diana Rigg??? I thought the same thing (+ Victorian Black Widow) about the catsuit but I completely failed to recognise Mrs. Peel *clunks hand against forehead*

[kalypso]

Well, obviously I get a different perspective coming from the family that set up a carpet factory with the stated aim of relieving local poverty and unemployment (though no doubt they hoped it would make some money too). And I'm comfortable with that, because the history of the carpet industry in Barnard Castle published in 1996 makes a point of saying that the firm was more generous than most; its apprenticeships (during which the master received a percentage of the apprentice's earnings) lasted for seven years, whereas others lasted much longer and some were set up for life.

[legionseagle]

I think there's a material difference between saying that you deal fairly with people and dictating what they drink, what they have access to in their libraries and what kinds of plants they grow in their allotments.

But obviously there's a different perspective according to whether one is the worker or the employer, yes.

[kalypso]

I'm not aware of company policy on allotments in the mid-nineteeth century, and I doubt there was a library at the time. The history is stronger on dispensaries and Sunday schools.

In the meantime, I have concluded that Mrs Gillyflower had an earlier career as an actress, and first attracted the eye of the wealthy businessman Mr Gillyflower while playing the role of Cleopatra. Sadly he suffered an unexpectedly early death a few years after their marriage.

[selenak]

It was indeed Mrs. Peel herself. She's currently also busy being matriarchal in Game of Thrones.