{"id":5614,"date":"2016-05-30T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-30T15:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/?p=5614"},"modified":"2016-05-20T15:17:10","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:17:10","slug":"mark-watches-doctor-who-s09e03-under-the-lake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/2016\/05\/mark-watches-doctor-who-s09e03-under-the-lake\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Watches ‘Doctor Who’: S09E03 – Under the Lake"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the third episode of the ninth series of\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, this is terrifying and I LOVE IT A GREAT DEAL. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

I love it when\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0tackles science fiction and when it borrows from the horror genre, and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Under the Lake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d combines the best of both worlds. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got a bit of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Waters of Mars\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in its spirit, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good thing. THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD THINGS. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s talk about them.<\/p>\n

Cass<\/b><\/p>\n

Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122al, the acting commander in this episode is a deaf woman who speaks in sign language the entire time, her disability is never magically explained away, IT LATER BECOMES ABSOLUTELY VITAL TO THE PLOT AND GIVES HER AN ADVANTAGE OVER THE OTHERS, and she is never undermined or dismissed by the story. I am\u00c2\u00a0obsessed<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0with Cass, and I am so pleased with her portrayal. And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a second half!!! So I get more of Cass and more of Lunn! EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL.<\/p>\n

Tropes<\/b><\/p>\n

I will be the first to admit that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Under the Lake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is liberally littered with science fiction and horror tropes. We could sit here and pick them out of this script with very little effort. The episode is a bottle story meant to highlight how claustrophobic the setting is; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an annoying dude who represents corporate interests; there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a gimmick that allows the group to be momentarily safe from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153monster\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; the ghosts try to pick the group off one by one.<\/p>\n

I think you get the point. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like this is all unfamiliar ground for the show\u00c2\u00a0anyway<\/i>. But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all in the execution of this story that Toby Whithouse\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s script impresses me. The atmosphere is utterly terrifying, first of all, so props to the set designers. But the bewildering mystery at the heart of this episode never suffers from a phenomenon most of us used to complain about while watching this show: dangling the carrot without ever giving us anything. Oh, the plot carrot is still dangled often here, but practically everything we saw hinted in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Under the Lake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was acknowledged in some sense. My god, the pacing\u00c2\u00a0alone<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0in this episode is a work of art. I was never bored; I never felt like a monologue was misplaced or acted as filler. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all expertly crafted!<\/p>\n

The Team<\/b><\/p>\n

But one of the major reasons I loved this episode so much involves a trope subversion. In closed-room, claustrophobic scenarios like this, you often see everyone turn on one another as paranoia mounts and suspicions collide. I believed that Pritchard would be the one responsible for setting this off since he seemed the most adversarial out of the bunch. However, once he died, Whithouse took his story in a much more fulfilling direction. Instead of turning on one another, this team\u00c2\u00a0bonded together<\/i>. There are very few scenes where anyone openly questions someone else. These people, who must have spent quite a bit of time together prior to discovering the alien spacecraft, are all quite close to one another, and it shows through their interactions. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re honestly one of the best ensemble guest casts we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever gotten on\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Incomplete<\/b><\/p>\n

If this was a standalone episode, I think it would have a chance to experience something scary and creepy and\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, not much more. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s okay, though, and I am hoping that the second half of this story delves more into some character development and insight. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Under the Lake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has to set up a lot of things to get us to that cliffhanger, and I appreciated that I felt like most of what had been teased was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153solved.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d We know that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an alien species who turns living creatures into signal boosters to help their species find\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 their bodies? We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the stasis chamber and whether or not it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s alive or dead. The point I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m making, though, is that all the worldbuilding we needed is largely done, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m excited to see where Whithouse is going to take this. I GENUINELY DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW. Regardless, this was an exhilarating experience. It is so awesome to be having such a wonderful time watching\u00c2\u00a0Doctor Who<\/i>, and so far, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve enjoyed all three episodes of this series.<\/p>\n

The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Under the Lake\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded\u00c2\u00a0here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n

– I am now on Patreon<\/a><\/b>!!! MANY SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR YOU IF YOU SUPPORT ME<\/a>.
\n– I\u00c2\u00a0will be at numerous conventions in 2016! Check the full list of events on my Tour Dates \/ Appearances page.<\/a>
\n– My Master Schedule<\/a> is updated for the near and distant future for most projects, so please check it often.\u00c2\u00a0My next Double Features for Mark Watches will be Death Note<\/em>\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Neon Genesis Evangelion<\/em>. On Mark Reads, Diane Duane’s Young Wizards<\/i> series will replace the Emelan books.
\n<\/b>-\u00c2\u00a0Mark Does Stuff is on Facebook!<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0I’ve got a community page up that I’m running. Guaranteed shenanigans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"