In the first episode of the eighth season of Doctor Who, there are dinosaurs, spontaneous human combustion, robots, and a whole lot more, and it all seems to work beautifully. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Doctor Who.
Trigger Warning: For body horror, gore.
Wow, I didn’t expect this, but it’s so good to be watching Doctor Who again.
I didn’t do a refresher before watching “Deep Breath,” and all I remembered from “The Time of the Doctor” is that Peter Capaldi showed up, all angry eyebrows and rage, and the TARDIS was going to crash. I wonder, then, if that was responsible for how I felt for the first third of this episode. Until the Doctor and Clara met inside Mancini’s, I felt like this story struggled for coherency. Had I been gone from the Who world for so long that I needed to settle back into it? Or was this a by-product of Capaldi’s appearance? I’d like to think it’s more of the latter than the former, as it certainly took me most of this episode to wrap my head around the idea that this man was now the Doctor.
And like the post-regeneration episodes in the history of this show, there must be a chance for everyone to adjust to a new reality. I do think that “Deep Breath” accomplishes this in an honest and unnerving manner, and the tone of this entire episode reflects just how uncomfortable this all is. From the color palettes to the content of the story, I actually think that this was one of the darkest episodes of new Who. Intentionally so! Twelve is not the cheery, youthful Doctor that Matt Smith portrayed for years, and this episode goes to great lengths to prove that to us. Does it always work? I think so, but this is an odd one, a story about Twelve and Clara meeting for the first time, all amidst UTTER NIGHTMARE FUEL.
Perhaps I feel so strange about the first third of this episode because it takes a while for “Deep Breath” to settle down. The opening of this is chaotic and ridiculous and violent. I mean, a T-rex in the middle of the Thames! The Doctor is babbling nonsense! He can speak dinosaur! Someone took a dude’s eye! THE DINOSAUR IS ON FIRE, WHAT THE FUCK, WHO WOULD SET A T-REX ON FIRE???
Like Clara, I felt aimless. The show jumped from one plot to another, from one non-sequitur to another, from one bit of angst to another. I could follow along, but I didn’t see where this was heading. How would Clara come to accept that Twelve was her Doctor? What did a dinosaur and an eye have to do with all of this? It wasn’t until the “Impossible Girl” ad sequence that I thought this episode approached something comprehensible, but in hindsight, I think that chaos works in favor of the story at large. It’s jarring because the chance from Matt Smith to Peter Capaldi is jarring as well.
Thus, “Deep Breath” has to tread the same paths as many of the past episodes that deal with transitions because… well, it’s part of the nature of the Who mythology. Even the cyborgs that end up being the antagonists are part of a common thread in Moffat’s era. I recognize that what makes them unsettling and frightening is very similar to a technique we’ve seen over and over again. Don’t breathe. Don’t blink. Don’t look away. Don’t think of this or that. Moffat’s scares are often derived from a restriction on a very basic human behavior, and I know that’s what “Deep Breath” does.
And I don’t care. I think it works remarkably well, both visually and as a way to express the inherent inhumanity of Twelve. The metaphor might be obvious at times – especially the bit about the broom parts – but it works. To harken back to “The Girl in the Fireplace” so directly, though, runs a risk of this coming off as self-serving or repetitive, but this wasn’t anywhere as goofy as that episode. No, this is straight up horror. I mean… an air balloon made out of the skin of humans???? WHAT THE FUCK, THAT IS HORRIFYING. Most of the body horror stuff is suggested, but that was straight-up shown to us in all its gory glory. The sequences in the hallways of the cyborgs’ ship? Terrifying. (I almost said “breathtaking.” God, puns are so wonderful.) The scene where it seems certain that the Doctor just left Clara behind?
The worst.
If anything, “Deep Breath” tells us that Peter Capaldi is not Matt Smith and never will be. Throughout this, Clara struggles to identify with the Doctor, despite that Jenny, Madame Vastra, and Strax all assure her that this is the same man, only… different. Her anger over his behavior is justified in part because he appears to abandon her so many times, but there’s a separate undercurrent to all of this. Who is she now that the Doctor is different? Even if she accepts that he’s the same person, what does she mean to him? That’s a difficult question to ask because this episode posits that the Doctor changed into this version of himself specifically to avoid the pratfalls of his previous incarnation. That’s why he’s brusque and rude and intimidating and old. He can’t rely on the things he used to, especially when so many of them got others hurt.
I don’t know that there’s a sense for the future in this episode aside from the stark differences between Eleven and Twelve (and that one other thing). Jenna Coleman is pretty spectacular here as the companion dealt a shock by the Doctor’s regeneration, but what is her role this season? Does she have a story outside of “The Impossible Girl”? Is this season meant as an attempt to analyze what’s made the Doctor flawed in the past? What sort of growth or change might we see in Twelve? Is he really just wearing a mask and hiding his true self? I suppose we’ll see. The appearance of Eleven at the end of this episode was a fine touch and a great chance to help both Clara and the audience accept that a new Doctor was here to stay, so I’m guessing that much of this season will focus on the “newness” of Twelve.
And Missy. Who the fuck is she? Did the Doctor actually shove the cyborg out of the balloon, or did it jump? Where is that weird, over-saturated world? How does Missy know the Doctor, and how does she know so much about him??? I AM INTRIGUED. And it’s nice to be excited about more Doctor Who, too.
The video for “Deep Breath” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
Mark Links Stuff
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