What Are You Doing In That Piano?

I think that possibly my favorite time in any series of Doctor Who is part where all the pre-season hype has more or less run out, and we stop having any real clue as to what's going to be happening in the next episode. There will be a big fuss over the first few episodes of a series, and various tidbits will leak out, but eventually all that will plateau and we'll get some genuine mystery happening before the build up to the finale.

This feels like the point we've reached now with Hide. Which is kinda weird when you think about it. I mean, there wasn't really anything in the way of major spoilers for The bells Of St John or The Rings Of Akhaten. The nearest we've really had was the fact we knew there were Ice Warriors in Cold War. And the fact that the next episode is called Journey To The Center Of The TARDIS is in itself a bit of a giveaway. But still...

What I suppose I'm driving at here is the simple fact that they I was going into this episode without much in the way of preconceptions. Which, as I've discussed previously, is always a good thing. So, how would I rate this tale of ethereal terror and ghostly happenings?

All things considered, it's surprisingly solid.

So, after a somewhat shaky start this series has really started to find it's feet. Hide is, as I said, a good solid chunk of Doctor Who and even manages to continue the old school vibe started in Cold War. I mean, not only do we have a supposedly haunted house and a scheming Doctor there to test his companion ala Ghost Light, we even manage to fit in a bit of City Of Death with the flitting back to proto-historic Earth before life had evolved AND having a similarly timey-wimey plot hook. Although they missed a trick by not having anyone pull their face off and turn out to be Scaroth.

I WAS THE TURKEY ALL ALONG! IT WAS MEEEE!!!!

Although bonus points for actually remembering there was no bloody oxygen this time, so I guess it all evens out in the end.

If there's one particularly curious aspect to this particular episode then it's the fact that despite (or rather because) it's a well plotted, decent story with a lot of good ideas it does rather highlight the major weakness of the current format: That there's little time to really explore the ideas on offer. I don't think the episode really suffered for it to be honest, but I can't help but feel the various plot threads on offer could have sustained a longer run time. Once the nature of the ghost is revealed things hurtle forwards at a fairly frantic pace. But having a ghost that isn't actually a ghost but a time traveler stranded in a pocket reality where time moves at a different pace who is turn pursued by a terrifying monster who is in fact not really a monster but another stranded being trying to escape the pocket reality before it collapses and return to it's mate does kinda deserve a bit more time to play with, especially after all the spooky build up taking so long. But, much like Ghost Light, it's probably better to pack it all in tightly than drag the whole thing out until it becomes boring.

Really, I'm not sure there's anything you could really take out to fit any more of that stuff in anyway. the spooky build up works extremely well, especially those sudden brief glimpses of horrific SOMETHING letting you know there's more going on than just the ghost. And there's a lot of really good character stuff, even if the guest characters are practicing for sexual tension olympics. Lovely performances though, you gotta give the actors credit.

Kudos also goes to the Director for not only building up a good creepy atmosphere to the whole thing, but also keeping the monster hidden throughout. We never get a good look at it, at least until the very end. And even then we only see a part, never the whole thing. Just glimpses of something grotesque and twisted. It's all very Lovecraftian.

Speaking of mind bending horror, did the bit where the Doctor jumps into the pocket universe remind anyone else of Timelash? All sparkly and silver as it was. Of course, if I was feeling particularly churlish I'd start whinging about how exactly the two separate timestreams sync up, and how the Doctor said it was meant to collapse in about 3 minutes but he was running around in there for what seemed like ages. But you know who else has 3 minutes to save the world but a remarkable flexibility as to how long those minutes last for?

Motherfucking ULTRAMAN. Just another thing him and the Doctor have in common I suppose. So we don't even need to say Wibbly-Wobbley-Timey-Wimey-Shut-Up-It's-Not-Real because Ultraman ALWAYS wins.

No, there's only one real criticism one can make in this particular episode I think. That at no point, from the first read through, through to the recording and even into post production, not once did anybody tell Matt Smith how to pronounce Metebelis. NOT ONCE. I mean, come on. I might just about accept that no-one on set had seen any Pertwee episodes where the name was mentioned (I.E. most of them). But surely the SOMEONE at either the read through or final edits would have picked this up. And by someone I of course mean Steven Moffatt, who I'm sure doesn't have better thing to with his time than nitpick inconsequential stuff like this. You gotta feel sorry for matt Smith though, he looks like a right old silly billy now, doesn't he?

Although, thinking about it that's hit references for the third, fourth, sixth AND seventh Doctors in one episode. If only they'd put a cricket ball in there we could have got a bingo. Although I guess we could count the hatstand reference? Or would that technically be a First or Second Doctor reference/ Throw in the Eye Of Harmony bit for the Eighth Doctor and I think we can declare hyper mega ultra bingo. Seriously, this must be the most old school references concentrated into a single script since Attack Of The Cybermen. Which just goes to show the difference a bit of subtlety in your approach to such things can make.

 Sheer poetry, dear boy! Now please stop bothering me.

The final thing to discuss is, of course, the matter of Clara. Is it me or she thus far proving to be kinda... Useless? I mean, yeah in the first episode a plot hole gave her a magic brain link to hacker typer, but she still spent most of the episode unconscious. The second episode gave her a little bit to do, and then she just kinda hung around until the Deus Ex Machina resolution was required and in Cold War she was just... Kinda there. And here again she's along for the ride, but not really engaged. I mean, even her big dramatic rescue of the Doctor isn't actually realized by anything SHE does. It's the TARDIS and the psychic girly putting in all the effort and risking life and sanity. Hell, seems like the only reason the TARDIS even let her in this first place is that this version of the console room has an in-flight spin dry mode. The whole TARDIS not liking her angle is interesting, but is yet to lead to any particular developments or payoff. And to be fair it is still a bit early for giving much away. I imagine we'll get more of that next week. But so far all it really indicates is there's probably some dodgy timey-wimey thing going on with her. Which we kinda knew anyway, what with the part two versions getting killed and everything.

Still, time will tell on that front. Or perhaps Timey-Wimey will tell. We'll see. In the meantime things seem to be shaping up for a pretty good chunk of series. Good stuff here, and promising stuff ahead.