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The Doctor investigates strange phenomena
at the birth of Frankenstein.
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THE PLOT:
Lake Geneva, 1816. Lord Byron (Jacob Collins-Levy) is hosting Dr. John Polidori (Maxim Baldry) and his friends, Percy Bysshe Shelley (Lewis Rainer), his young fiancee Mary Godwin (Lili Miller), and her sister Claire Clairmont (Nadia Parkes). Kept indoors by a storm, Byron agrees to read to the group - and Mary eagerly requests a tale of bloodcurdling horror.
The proceedings are interrupted by a knock on the door. The Doctor and her friends have arrived to witness the night that created Frankenstein. But things are not as they should be. Percy, one of the architects of the creative storm, is absent entirely, and the others now seem less interested in storytelling than in chatting and dancing - or in Byron's case, in making amorous advances toward the Doctor.
For her part, the Doctor feels a strange "vibe" coming from the villa, making it hard for her to concentrate. "I don't want to worry you," she tells her hosts, "But I'm sensing that it's sort of unrelentingly evil." Soon, the group find themselves exiting rooms only to find they have entered them again, or descending staircases only to discovery themselves at the top again. The slumbering Polidori sleepwalks through a wall, while the hand of a skeleton from Lord Byron's collection propels itself across the floor.
Is it a ghost story? Or are the Doctor and her friends experiencing another kind of haunting?
CHARACTERS:
The Doctor: "Sometimes, this team structure isn't flat. It's mountainous, with me at the summit, in the stratosphere - alone, left to choose... Watch people burn now or tomorrow. Sometimes, even I can't win." The last part of this episode sees the Doctor forced to make a choice between two evils - between one life now, or potentially billions of lives later. Ryan makes the obvious response, earning him the Doctor's fury as she soundly rejects the mathematics of choosing a death. "One death, one ripple, and history will change in a blink! ...The world you were created in won't exist, so neither will you." It's the kind of Doctor speech Peter Capaldi received regularly during his tenure, and it is a delight to see Whittaker sink her teeth in with full ferocity. Her anger, resolve, and even at times despair are all the more effective because her Doctor is at her breeziest in the story's early stages, making an effective contrast between the usual "lighter" Thirteenth Doctor and the grim figure at the story's conclusion.
Yaz: Catches Claire, who is besotted with Byron, trying to break into his study to read his letters. She reproves the young woman for "breaking and entering," but is sympathetic toward her. When Claire asks if Yaz has ever felt strongly about somebody unattainable, Yaz replies wistfully in the affirmative - The first actual, on-screen indication I've seen that her feelings for the Doctor might go deeper than simple admiration or hero worship. When the Doctor insists on confronting the episode's villain alone, Yaz protests - earning a dose of the Doctor's fire as the Doctor insists that she "won't lose anyone else!" (also the first direct on-screen evidence of my theory that Thirteen's attitude toward her companions is a direct response to the losses suffered by her previous incarnation).
Ryan: The harsher outlook we saw in It Takes You Away is glimpsed again here. When it becomes clear that saving one of the poets will risk countless lives in the future, Ryan is the one who offers up the obvious math of one life vs. many. One-on-one, however, he remains the most likely of the group to actively support others. When Mary worries that her writing efforts pale next to those of her male companions, Ryan urges her to keep trying - advice he repeats at the episode's end. He also comes very close to stumbling into a duel with the short-fused Polidari.
Graham: Has a ghostly encounter that differs entirely from the others in the episode, leaving the Doctor actively wondering if he actually saw genuine ghosts. When Polidari challenges Ryan to a duel, we again see his protectiveness of his grandson as he announces that he forbids it. Polidari ignores the declaration entirely, but had the skeletal hand not intervenes, I doubt Graham would have simply stood by.
THOUGHTS:
A quick note about my feelings regarding this story's apparent overwriting of the 8th Doctor/Mary Shelley audios: I don't care. I enjoyed those audios when I listened to them several years ago. I fully expect that if I ever re-listen to them, I will still enjoy them. Doctor Who has previously offered multiple, entirely contradictory accounts of the fall of Atlantis, and that was just on television. The last thing I want the television writers to do is to tiptoe around the now several hundred book and audio stories; I just want them to write good shows.
This story, Maxine Alderton's Doctor Who debut, is a very good show. Based on this, I hope it is her first script of many. The dialogue is crisp, sometimes amusing, sometimes disquieting, and often quotable. The characterizations are strong for both regulars and guest cast, and the ensemble is effectively balanced, with every character getting his or her moment. This might just be the strongest characterization yet for the Thirteenth Doctor, showing off both her whimsical and serious sides to good effect.
I praised director Emma Sullivan for her atmospheric helming of Can You Hear Me?, in which I felt her directing gave a considerable boost to an interesting but rushed and underdeveloped story. Given a script that fits much better into its 50 minute slot, she performs even more strongly. The various halls and rooms, and the light and shadow illuminating them, are used to maximum visual effect, with the story being enjoyably creepy even before its midpoint turn.
The villain is one of the most memorable and threatening we have seen in a while. There's a particularly nasty moment in which he finds a maid, hiding with an infant. We watch the scene in long shot: Him standing over her hiding place. She is hidden from our view, but we hear her cries mingled with the infant's wails. He reaches down and there's a snap, after which the only remaining sound is the baby. It's an enormously unsettling moment, all the moreso for the gruesomeness occurring just out of our vision.
It all ends with an effective lead into the two-part finale - along with a tantalizing final shot of the Doctor that could be read either as heroic or sinister - which leaves me awaiting the season's big finish. Hopefully, this finale doesn't drop the ball the way last year's did. Either way, however, this was a very strong hour of television, and one of Jodie Whittaker's best showings in the role to date.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
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