Doctor Who : Hide

After narrowly escaping nuclear disaster last week on the Soviet submarine where does the Doctor and Clara end up this week?

***SPOILER***


We join Alec Palmer and Emma Grayling (Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine) calling out for a ghost in 1974. Emma actually makes contact with a ghost and then they hear knocking on the front door.

It isn't that bad, it's just the Doctor and Clara looking for ghosts.

After the titles we are told by the Doctor that Alec is a war hero with a lot of talents and Emma is his "companion". Emma is using he empathy to help Alec with his ghost hunting basically.

The ghost story finally kicks in and the Doctor and Clara go looking for their ghost. Whilst they are away they walk into a cliche of ghost story moments including the "cold" spots and candles going out on their own. The whole part of this scene I felt was to show that Clara hides behind bravado a lot of the time and tries to be brave for the sake of the Doctor and being brought along on this magical ride, personally I think this moment was explained wonderfully in Cold War and didn't need to be picked up again. We know that Clara gets scared, so scared in fact (like any normal human) that the wonderful David Warner had to force her mind elsewhere.

Anyway downstairs the ghost is calling out to Emma again, this time everyone see's something strange going on (like a window into another world through some sort of black thing) and after the moment ends "help me" is written on the wall.

With shaken nerves it seems this is the ideal time to.... Have a cup of tea and talk about our feelings. Emma doesn't trust herself with love because of her empathy, she feels like people feel the way she wants them too. Alec's past is keeping him from telling Emma why he loves her. After the moment passes though the Doctor and Clara are back out to find more out about the Ghost.

There is a moment that Emma tells Clara not to trust the Doctor because there is a sliver of ice in his heart, this doesn't seem to really play out much more in the episode but it might be foreshadowing for future development between the two.

We get more on the whole "TARDIS doesn't like Clara" story that is being developed over this episode and Rings. Now it might just be because the writer is the same (Neil Cross) but it could also be a plot point. The TARDIS really doesn't seem to like Clara this episode though, whereas most people thought in Rings that is was just a strange way to word her feelings. This time Clara actually tells the Doctor about it.

The Doctors investigations take him from the birth of the world to the end of the world. This shakes Clara especially when she explains why she feels upset and the Doctor seems unconcerned. Of course we know this is because the Doctor is a 1,000 year old man who has seen the birth and death of countless planets, universes etc. Clara on the other hand is just a normal girl and like most of us thinks the Earth will be here forever and always has been here. The realization that even the planet she lives on will one day end its existence shakes her. She confronts the Doctor about how he see's humans if he doesn't even bat an eyelid after seeing the planet dying, he tells her in return that she is the only mystery worth solving.

So the Doctor figures out exactly what was happening and runs off to get a load of things to solve the mystery by using Emma who is "like a beacon" to this life in a pocket universe. Basically the "Ghost" is a time traveler (or at least a test pilot for time traveling) that has become stuck in the pocket universe. He is basically going to use Emma's power to open a door to the pocket universe to help save the time traveler.

The episode actually starts to get a little scary in a way, after finding the time traveler he finds out that she has been running from some scary monster who is now chasing them. The Doctor and the ghost (I can't find out how to spell her name sorry) run to the door that Emma is keeping open (painfully) with her connection but by the time the Doctor is ready to come back through the door Emma has no more left to give and the connection is lost. This leaves the Doctor back outside in the woods with the monster.

Clara runs to the TARDIS (who has the Cloister bells ringing) to ask for help but the TARDIS isn't willing to help, finally the TARDIS relents and Clara rides the TARDIS through the door which Emma has reopened, they save the Doctor at the last minute and everyone is happy!

We find out the time traveler is the great, great, great, great, great granddaughter of Emma and Alec and then the Doctor realizes that the "monster" has a mate living in this universe so Emma reopens the door so that the Doctor can save the "monster".

Everyone is happy! And everyone is in love.

So how did I feel about the episode?

I'm not too sure to be honest. It seems to be half of a classic episode and half of a alright but not great episode.

There were two stories, that of the "ghost" and that of Alec and Emma. I loved the ghost story as it as the right kind of ghost story, classic and fun and then all of the sudden there as a scientific explanation for it all. Good story. Then there was the story of Emma and Alec, who they were and what they felt and were hiding from each other. That was all fine and stuff but it was done in giant blocks of discussion were Clara and Emma sat down for tea as the Doctor and Alec stood around developing photos.

Of course the story of Emma and Alec had some lovely moments, really lovely moments including the moment that Emma decided to put her heart out there on the line.

Emma and Alec were wonderful characters played by wonderful actors but the amount of information that was presented to us in between this brilliantly written ghost story slowed it all down. I had to watch the episode twice, I enjoyed it both times but the first time I lost interest in the Emma/Alec story the first time, 7 hour work day, news to catch up with, when they all started talking I went online for a moment and missed a plot point. Second time I caught all the dialogue and guess I already guessed it all, it was basically written on their faces, as for the background on Alec I thought it was really unneeded.

Though I guess the one thing I had a problem with, and to be honest when I say problem I don't mean it in a terrible way, was the ending. It felt tacked on. It didn't ruin the episode, no matter how many times I watch it I'll love seeing it play out and still be able to feel the moments, but it was a bit sickly happy wasn't it? Even the monsters were good guys really they were just lost lovers "awwwww".

The look of the story was a big plus for it though, it felt like a ghost story setting. Having only two other characters in the episode gave it a nice feel as well. No one was ever in any real trouble until we found out the ghost was, up to that point it was just like Scooby-doo which isn't a bad thing, people trying to investigate a mystery... We could do with a LOT more stories like that in Doctor Who!

The story of Clara didn't really continue other than we now know that the TARDIS dislikes her and that Emma thinks she is a nice girl. A lot of the "moments" Clara had this episode we'd already seen them done better in Cold War, or at least I thought they hit it better.

To be honest I don't think Neil Cross found the right balance. I think he had a brilliant idea and it was brilliantly executed BUT there was too much dragging the episode into a slower pace. He could have done without some of the background on both characters and let the smaller moments do the talking.

This didn't ruin the story but it makes it hard to really rate it. As you can tell I quite like my mysteries and stories. I don't mind the emotions and drama but it isn't something I want to be hit in the face with. I like the little moments, like in Cold War between Clara and David Warner, different dramatic moments maybe but it was subtle, it didn't take us outside of the episode. It was a clean way of saying this is how the character feels and here is a nice moment to carry the story on. Here they'd be terrified of what the ghost or the message meant then suddenly be sitting down having a cup of tea chatting instead of trying to find more out about the ghost.

Matt gets better every episode and he has to right now, he's up against some of the most magnificent acting I've seen on this show (I mean Tobias Menzies is the godliest of actors so you know...) all the characters in this were wonderfully put together, they acted realistically and you felt for them. (Of course now you'll say that is because we sat down and had a cup of tea with them but personally I would have cared without that as they were nice characters like the girl from the God Complex).

After a disappointing first two episodes this one carries on the good work of Cold War. Self contained and well explained the plot was easy to follow and the story was well written. I'd really like to see more of Neil Cross in Who as even though I was iffy on Rings he's had two really good scripts so far!