Professor Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott) and his assistant, Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine) are in a hunted house, Caliburn and have set up all the equipment to monitor a ghost. Emma is a psychic empath and the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) arrive whom Alec thinks is from the ministry, calling him "Doctor What?" That was different, the Doctor liked that. Cue the Doctor having a love fest over all the equipment in the house. Alec shows them the photos he's taken and the notes which were left in the house for the "Witch of the well" so they think they're on a ghost hunt. Clara wonders why Alec would buy a haunted house.
The Doctor takes Clara exploring round the house in search of a ghost and soon finds a coldspot in the house, then Clara tells him to stop holding her hand, but he has his hands. Clara and Emma share some conversation and whiskey which she hates and refers to it as the eleventh horrible thing around. Oh there's that number eleven gain. Asking Emma if she and the professor have, you know...it's obvious he has feelings for her as obvious as a "big chin." Emma tells Clara not to trust the Doctor as he has a "sliver of ice in his heart", only the one heart then and not both? Whilst the Doctor and Alec develop the photos he's just taken and he asks why he's here. He feels haunted by his actions during the war and would like to say sorry if he could for all those people he led to their deaths.
The Doctor borrows his camera and sets off in the TARDIS where there's nowhere for Clara to put her wet umbrella. He takes out his suit which is orange and hurts her eyes, belonging to the Tenth Doctor (David Tennent) and steps off into a fiery world to take photos as well as through various eras of time. He puts on a slideshow and tells them they're not looking for a ghost but a trapped woman, a time traveller from the future who is trapped in a pocket of time. They have to rescue her and bring her back. Clara says she hasn't been born yet in 1974 and he's also seen her death in the future. They're all ghosts to him. He's interested in Clara since she's the biggest mystery of them all.
Clara: "So when are we going?"
Doctor: "That is good, that is top notch."
Clara: "the answer is."
Doctor: "We're going always."
He has to rescue the traveller whose name is Hila (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) and Emma must help him by using her abilities and the help of the blue psychic Metabelis Crystal. So he ties himself to a rope and ends up in the pocket universe. A bleak wood which is floating on the edge of space or in some space. He calls out to Hila and finally meets her but the rope has moved and so they follow the echoes of Emma's voice and the echo of the house. Where the creature follows them to and he uses his bowtie to hold the door shut. Hila gets back but the Doctor is stranded. He is chased by the creature which hides and tells him he's trying to scare him, which he adds works, "I am the Doctor and I am afraid." Don't think so.
Clara has an encounter with the TARDIS which won't let her in and manifests itself in her image, finally allowing her in as she heads to rescue the Doctor who piggy backs on the TARDIS. This wasn't so much a ghost story but a love story which is also mirrored by the creature, the Doctor gets Alec and Emma together, to hold hands for always and then realizes there are two of the creature; being credited as 'The Crooked Man'. One inside the house which held Clara's hand, as the two must have been separated. Thus he must go and rescue the other one and gets the creature to piggyback this time.
Emma tells him he didn't come here cos of the haunted house but cos of her. He wanted to ask about Clara and he just describes her as a girl, a sometimes scared, ordinary girl. But is she? Seeing as we're still hoping for that mystery to unravel soon. The Doctor introduces Hila as their great, a few times removed, grand daughter that's why there was the psychic connection between her and Emma. Oh and he even gets his bowtie back. Of course the Doctor and Clara can't be romantically linked, the scene where he puts his arm around Clara mentions love and then quickly moves his arm away.
So this episode showed you can do a ghost story in a Doctor Who episode but ten it borders onto a tale of love and lost love at that. Perhaps the best part was Clara asking if he's "okay with that?" with watching the world die and then going on about business as usual for which he didn't really have an answer, other than "wibbly vortex." Probably the saddest moment the two have shared thus far in this series. (Forget about the times where she's died twice.) Since this was a love story we weren't going to get any explanations as to why or how Hila found herself in a pocket and how the creature ended up there too, sufficed to say, she was a time traveller which is probably the only explanation we need. Other than asking why Dougray Scott to me sounded a bit Orson Welles? ha.
Clara and her conversation via the TARDIS visual voice interface where she calls her a cow verging on a fight there of the feline variety. The Crystal was previously seen in the episodes with the Third Doctor, Planet of the Spiders and The Green Death. At least we got to hear "Geronimo" again. An improvement many would say to the past episodes, especially The Rings Of Akhten but would have preferred a little more scary than love.
No comments:
Post a Comment