It's not the first time I've been wrong about something.
Without hyperbole or exaggeration, my honest reaction as the credits rolled was, LITERALLY this:
No, really. That's the first thing I thought to myself. That was so terrible I think it gave me cancer. Not literal cancer of course. But there's actually a fairly accurate metaphor in there. This isn't something that's content to be bad on it's own. It's the sort of thing where the terribleness spreads out, and infects surrounding areas and eventually kills everything that was good and healthy unless it's expunged.
I'm not sure if there is any effective form of franchise chemotherapy aside from trying REALLY hard to ignore it and not buying the DVDs. Clearly more research is needed into this area.
I'm only being slightly facetious here. I've never quite understood the whole attitude of some fans that one particularly duff story or whatever somehow ruins everything that's come before it. I mean, just because The Phantom Menace was shit it shouldn't somehow retroactively decrease the quality of A New Hope, right?
But I'm starting to get it. I don't want to, but I am. I can't help but be reminded of the problematic areas of Doctor Who fandom during the 80s. You know, the ones who only tuned in to complain that things weren't as good as they used to be and slag of Sylvester McCoy?
Still the best Doctor.
See, the problem I have is that, more than anything else, I DON'T WANT TO BE THOSE PEOPLE. I don't think Peter Capaldi is a bad Doctor. Hell, don't even think Steven Moffat is a terrible writer. I know he can produce some really good stuff, but this year every time I switch on the TV it's just...
"I'm trying to give you cancer with my mind!"
Seriously, what the fuck? What is going on? It's actually reminding me of 80s Doctor Who in another way: The producer who doesn't want to be there. But whilst John Nathan Turner was forced to stay on despite wanting to leave he at least tried to make something good, despite the limitations the show was put under. At this point it really feels like Moffat is just shitting out deliberately awful scripts in some sort of misguided attempt to get fired or something. The only other explanation is that he's become so totally insulated from reality and half competent script editors that he really can't tell a good idea from a bad one any more. And that's frankly far too disturbing a possibility to consider.
So, anyway.... What's wrong with this particular episode? Can't you GUESS?
Note the token attempt to ward of the undead is accompanied by a look of dead eyed resignation.
Fucking Clara. How many times has she been written out now? I've actually lost count. Why do they keep bringing her back? And why do they keep doing SO BADLY? Just when you think we've finally moved beyond the shows baffling obsession with her her alleged, and thoroughly undemonstrated ULTIMATE SPECIALNESS. Just when you think maybe we'll admit that she never really managed to actually have a character or personality of her own and that it's time to try something different. Just when, even if you somehow LIKE the character it's time to giver her some closure. Just when you think maybe we'll start talking like normal people again rather than constantly declaiming peoples full and complete name as printed on their driving licence.
Just when you think it's safe to go back into the space-time continuum the writing suddenly collapses into a terrible singularity. A Black Plot Hole if you will. It sucks in good writing, annihilates interesting ideas and distorts the very fabric of the plot around it.
That's actually not a bad metaphor for the problems of writer fiat incredible specialness. The story bends around the character. It's not that they're doing anything noticeable to drive it terms of action or personality. Just that things start to revolve around them purely from the concentrated mass of bullshit. I mean, what has Clara EVER done? Hung around being this poorly defined caricature of a Doctor Who companion. Occasional flashes of actual personality, but quickly buried under this weight of predestined specialness.
This exactly why I have come to HATE the idea of prophecy as a story point. Because whilst you can use it to look at interesting ideas about free will and how we shape events around us it's mostly just used as a cheap excuse for something to occur simply because the writer couldn't think of a way for those event to occur naturally. And oh, look here. The whole plot of Hell Bent is based around a remarkably vague prophecy.
Can you see why I'm angry yet?
All the bullshit, all the pain, the torture. All those billions of years the Doctor was trapped in a D&D module (although technically since he reincarnated from scratch each time he died from his own point of view he was probably in there a week, tops). All because "something, something, hybrid. Probably"?
FUCK. RIGHT. OFF.
That's really not much to go on is it? That maybe there might be a thing and it might be bad but we don't actually know but maybe this one guy might? But rather than just ask we'll lock him up in the Tomb Of Horrors for all eternity on the off chance that somehow WON't just piss him off?
To be fair, he IS in the required level range.
And then, when he gives us the information we're looking for at the end of that episode we'll ignore it? Because it's really just trolling for the cliffhanger or something? Although to be fair it's not like they're the only ones. The writers seem to ignore it as well. We COULD have had something interesting going on there. And I don't mean that half-human stuff from the TV movie. Obviously that was going to come up at some point. But perhaps if you had a big reveal about the Doctor not being exactly pure Time Lord. I mean, there is a pretty big class divide on Gallifrey. You've got the aristocracy in the capital, and the Shobogans and other commoners outside. That gives you a reasonable resolution for your plot twist whilst keeping somewhat in character for the Doctor himself. After all, he's never been exactly super comfortable in the aristocratic role. But that might have meant that we would go 10 minutes without Claras insufferable SPECIALNESS, so never mind.
Because that's what this prophecy is about. It's none of this silly hand waiving about it somehow being 2 people. Hybridisation doesn't work that way. When you're old enough ask your Mum or something. No, the Hybrid isn't the Doctor and Clara. It isn't even Clara. It's her SPECIALNESS. That's the destructive force that's going to wreck everything. Causality itself will be destroyed as Clara somehow becomes responsible for everything that ever happened. Because reasons. Reasons of SPECIALNESS.
ARGH. I rally don't like this shit. It spoils this story by making everything about Clara again, as opposed to ANYTHING else. It spoils the previous story as now rather than enduring all the torture, death and reincarnation to protect a terrible secret that no one must ever know, the Doctor was actually just doing it because of Claras SPECIALNESS. It spoils the one before that because even whilst it wasn't exactly great, it was at least some sort of definitive closure on the whole Clara debacle. But that's now been erased because of bloody SPECIALNESS.
This seems to be an increasing problem with the Moffat era of Doctor Who. He really doesn't know when to quit whilst he's ahead. It seems like somebody got confused back in series 5 or 6. Sure it was kind of fun when they kept killing Rory and bringing him back. But that's because THAT WAS RORY. Everbody likes Rory. But even there it became something of a running joke. Amy & Rory got written out in a really good way in The God Complex, but then got brought back straight away so they could have ANOTHER exit in Muppets Jason Angels Take Manhattan. Only that was crap. Then Clara get's introduced, killed, reintroduced, buggers around and finally get's written out in an actually rather good fashion in Death In Heaven. And then promptly get's randomly thrown back in in the frankly abysmal Last Christmas. And now she's been written out and brought back TWICE in the space of three episodes! WHY? Even if she was a decent character, it's entirely possible to have too much of a good thing. Is somebody holding your children hostage Mr Moffat? One Myrka episode for yes, two Myrka episodes for no.
I really don't like spending so much time banging on about Clara like this. I really don't. There are much more interesting things we could talk about. Or at least things that don't give me a raging headache. But this is the problem. There really isn't much else, because she really has been made to dominate things so completely. I mean, I'd like to complain about the awful reintroduction of Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™. Another obvious mistake that we can't seem to let go of for some reason. But I can't do it without addressing the obvious fact that she's just compounding the Clara problem by sending the TWO worst characters in the entire history of Doctor Who off to roam time and space in a restaurant rather than just one of them. I want to ask how come if the Mire medical chips are so fucking great that they can last BILLIONS OF YEARS there aren't a whole bunch of More hanging around at the end of time? I want to point out that if Binty McWizard-Viking from TVs Game Of Thrones™ really has been alive for BILLIONS OF YEARS she should be mentally unstable in ways we can't even comprehend and sending her off to do it again is clearly a bad idea. I want to ask what happened to that twat the fake beard who got the other chip and thus logically should be hanging around as well? But even these massive and obvious plot holes are being pulled into the all consuming event horizon of Clara and her infinite SPECIALNESS.
Infinite Space. Infinite Clara.
I'd like to talk about how the prohect is worded in such a way that any idiot should be able to work out that it sounds like the Doctor is going to get upset and do something silly. But let's be honest, he doesn't actually get to DO much, does he? Turns up, deposes Rassilon, and then before anything interesting can happen Clara happens instead and the Doctor MURDERS AN ALLY IN COLD BLOOD BECAUSE SPECIALNESS.
I really can't emphasize this enough. The General was a friendly guy. He was trying to help. And the Doctor killed him. Just shot him down for no good reason. Could have done literally anything else. For example something that would have made actual sense for the character. But no.
Look, I get that you want to show the Doctor going too far. But that's just not the way to do it. The Doctor going too far is not him just picking up a gun and shooting someone. It needs to be a lot more far reaching than that. Sure, Claras infinite specialness may wreck the shit out of the timelines, but that's not something we actually get to see. And I appreciate that having a white dude regenerate into a black woman is a fun bit of trolling for those who view such things are particularly offensive, but I'm sure you could have engineered it in a more reasonable fashion. Perhaps having him get killed in the Matrix crypt, thus demonstrating that it's actually some sort of dangerous and not just the prop store in need of a good dusting would have been a plan. But why do something well when you can do it badly?
Speaking of which, let's wrap this up and discuss the final resolution. So the Doctor retrieves Clara from her timeline as some sort of zombie (because SPECIALNESS), and intends to then wipe her memories because....
Nobody knows. No adequate reason is given. Although it's nice that they include a line explaining how he normally erases memories telepathically that makes him sound even more like a rapist than that one Cards Against Humanity card. So anyway, then Clara interferes with the rohypnol mind wipe device so that rather than wiping her memories it will instead wipe the Doctors. And then the Doctor figures, fuck it, clearly somebody has to have a mind wipe because it's not like I've JUST EXPLICITLY STATED I HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE TO THIS POTENTIALLY COMPROMISED MACGUFFIN AND THUS DON'T ACTUALLY NEED TO DEAL WITH THIS SHIT AT ALL and presses the button anyway.
Do you see what I mean when I talk about the distorting effects of Clara on the plot being comperable to the sort of space/time distortions produced by a black hole? There is literally NO REASON for anyone to get mindwiped here, least of all the Doctor. But the plot has crossed the Schwazchild Radius and the only thing left is to watch everything you used to love about the show spaghettify.
Luckily light can't escape past the event horizon. Because you REALLY don't want to see what she's doing to Genesis Of The Daleks in there.
And again, I get what their going for. A thoroughly literal inversion of the tragic exit of Donna Noble. But they're missing out on a few important points. Firstly, there's the obvious one that we we sad at the way Donna left because she was a good character and we actually gave shit. Second;y, it was sad because when Donna lost her memories she lost all her development and progression as a character. Here, there isn't actually any loss going on at all. The Doctor can apparently still remember all the stuff he did when Clara was around, but can't actually remember her specifically? So presumably she exists as some sort of blank space without any personality or any sense of them doing anything?
Wait..... THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR SOMEHOW.
So, is this Moffat attempting to be ultimately meta? Or is it just a rather unfortunate coincidence that erasing Clara from the Doctors memory yields exactly the same results as leaving her in there? I mean, it would explain a lot. The way she never manages any personality beyond generic companion traits. The way she never seems to actually DO anything useful. Even the way events just seem to curve around her. It's not that the past 2 and half series have been incredibly badly written, it's just that the Doctor can't actually remember whatever it is that she was doing that apparently helped. Why she only seems to be helpful offscreen. Hell, one could even make the argument that this is why she keeps being written out and coming back. He's just not sure how she actually left.
Or maybe this is just a post hoc conspiracy theory posited by a brain that's saturated in wild speculation is desperatly trying to extract something worthwhile from the burning wreckage of what used to be his favourite show?
Yeah, it's the latter option. I know. But all throughout this series I've been desperately trying to not just give up. It's so tempting to just say I'm done. Drop the mic, exit stage left and go on an Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. marathon instead. As it stands right now I'm not sure if I want to commit to doing any more of these reviews. I mean, if you don't have anything nice to say an all that. Maybe I just need some time off and then come back with some Big Finish audios or something. I'm certainly glad they've got the licence for the new series stuff now. Maybe in 5 years time Peter Capaldi will have the same chance as Colin Baker, to actually show what he can do with the character when unhindered by production troubles. That could be nice.
But right now? I'm not even sure about the Christmas special. Sure, it looks like it might actually be quite fun, but now that there's this Sword Of DamoClara hanging over everything... If they never revisit this particular set of plot holes they're still going to bug me. And if (when?) they DO come back to it I really don't see there's any way I'm not going to utterly hate it.
Not a fun position to be in, but at least it's not ACTUAL cancer.
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