Okay. So I've failed at doing weekly review on the spring series of Doctor Who, as evidenced that you're getting this review shortly before the finale airs. I accept your disdain, I mean I have TONS of excuses, but I know none of you care about them, so let's just move right on from there shall we? Instead let's focus on how Neil Gaiman, and his newest episode of Who, is pretty fantastic. Exhibit A? This kickass poster! CYBERMEN! Eeep!
After the outcome of last week's episode, with Clara's clever charges, Angie and Artie, finding lots of pictures of her jaunts through time, the Doctor and Clara take the kids to Hedgewick's, a whole planet that's an amusement park....or at least that's what it seems like on the surface, classic Neil Gaiman.(I love this man, seriously, if you haven't read any of his books, short stories or graphic novels, well, shame on you!)
While playing on the moon that's not the moon the gang runs into Webley, a squatter who's been waiting to be taken off-world, but his ride's six months late. Webley's a collector and has bits of junk from all over space and time, which normally the Doctor would love, but he can tell something's a bit off and then they run into a Cyberman! The Doctor has a bit of a freakout, but Webley assures him that it's been deactivated and re-purposed to play chess. Well, not so much re-purposed but manned by Porridge, played by Warwick Davis, the star of one of my favourite 80s movies, Willow!
While all this has been going on the Doctor has been noticing things, as the Doctor is known to do, and goes off in search of the 'funny insects' to add to his funny insect collection.(To be quite honest, I wouldn't put it past the Doctor to have one of these) Before he and Clara go off to do some serious investigating he tells the kids not to wander off. I love it, nothing sums up Doctor Who more than that line for me. He tells everyone he meets not to do it, it's his number one rule, and no one ever follows it. But what would the fun of the show be if everyone always stayed where the Doctor told them and didn't get into trouble?! Needless to say, in typical defiant teenager style, Angie immediately sets off to explore and leaves her little brother Artie, alone in the dark...clearly you can tell things are going to work out great for both of them. (You can hear that sarcasm right? I thought so.)
Inevitably both Artie and Angie get snatched by the Cybermen, the latter by a super fast one that we never see again, I'm assuming it used all its powers to catch her...*shrug* oh well, it looked cool. Well, we all know how the Doctor feels about kids in trouble, so he goes off and finds the cybermites, aka the funny insects, and transmats himself into the heart of Cyberman headquarters to save the kids. But not before putting Clara in charge of the Punishment Unit of army guys who've been relegated to Hedgewick's for being generally bad at being soldiers. He instructs her, in no uncertain terms, to not blow up the planet.
Arriving in Cyber-headquarters the Doctor is confronted by creepy half-Cyberman Webley, who informs him that they Cybermen need children, they use their creative minds to help build the new Cyberplanner, which would allow them to restart their reign of terror throughout the Universe. However they've been observing the Doctor and have decided to make
him the new Cyberplanner. The Doctor finally thinks he has a leg up, as Cybermen can only convert humans. But it turns out these Cybermen have been upgraded and can now convert any life form, Time Lords included.
All this leads up to the most epic showdown in Doctor Who: the Doctor vs himself. Welll, the Doctor vs the Cyberplanner that's trying to take over his body. All of our new Doctors, Nine, Ten and Eleven, have been quite capable of treading the line between silly and serious, but Matt Smith makes a full turn to sinister as Mr. Clever, which is what the Cyberplanner dubs himself once entering the Doctor's body. He is absolutely amazing, and quite terrifying at times. If he decides to play villains after his stint as the Doctor is over I wouldn't be surprised at all, because he was spectacular at it and looked to be having an absolute blast.
While the Doctor is having a crisis of self, Clara, Porridge and the Punishment unit have taken up a defensible position in Natty Longshoe's Comical Castle. "Real castle, drawbridge, moat?" Clara asked the platoon Capt. to which she replied, "Yes. But comical." Amazing, and again classic Gaiman.
Doctor/Mr. Clever make their way to the castle with Webley and the cyberkids and the showdown continues over a game of chess, the winner getting control of the Doctor's body. I'm not going to spoil too much of the ending here for those who, for some silly reason, have yet to see this episode, but yes, a battle does ensue, and yes, the Doctor will, of course, find a way to defeat the Cyberplanner, and the Cybermen, but perhaps not in the way you expect.
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode. It made the Cybermen a much more frightening villain then they've ever been in the new series, in my opinion. Before they were just robots who wanted to take over mankind, but Neil Gaiman made them a little bit sneaky and just a little bit clever and that put them over the edge into scary. One of the other things I loved about this episode were two little words: 'Fantastic' and 'Allons-y', if you're a bit Who fan (and if you're reading this, I'm assuming you, either that or you're indulging my rambliness, either way THANKS!) then you recognised the Ninth and Tenth Doctors' catchphrases, both were said by Mr. Clever, I'm not sure what that signifies, but I certainly got a fangirl kick out of it.
My only quibble, which is one that I've been noticing over the entire seventh series, is the whole 'impossible girl' thing. It happened in the first half of the season with it taking all those episodes for the Ponds to leave, but being able to wrap it up neatly in one episode. Then here we are in the second half of the season with the Doctor being asked over and over again by Clara by what that means, 'why am I impossible?' and everytime he says he'll explain later. The previews for the finale lead me to believe we're going to figure out that mystery at last and yet again it will be wrapped up in one episode. I miss the days of the overarching threat, 'Bad Wolf,' 'Torchwood', the Crack in Time! If it's glossed over episode to episode it's not an arc, it's an annoyance. ANYWAYS! Enough rambling for now!
okay one last quote, 'cause it's perfect:
Clara: I trust the Doctor.
Captain: You think he knows what he's doing?
Clara: I'm not sure I'd go that far.
