Writer: Toby Whithouse
Director: Daniel O’Hara
Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jenna Coleman, Paul Kaye, Sophie Stone
Synopsis: With the Doctor seemingly doomed to his fate to become a ghost, the crew faces a race against time to figure out how to change the future – all while a fearsome alien warlord puts his plan into motion…
Verdict:
Last week saw an unfortunate return to form for Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, insofar as series 8’s lacklustre writing and phoned-in scripts rearing their ugly head. Thankfully, like the opening two-parter, Before the Flood bucks that trend – at least a little – by using its core time travel mechanic to serve up a prequel and sequel side-by-side.
Writer Toby Whithouse uses this concept wisely for the most part, though thanks to last week’s cliffhanger, Before the Flood still hinges largely on the tired trope of the Doctor’s impending demise. The show’s inconsistent relationship with ‘the rules’ has effectively removed any sense of peril on the Doctor’s part at this point; one minute he welcomes his fate with open arms, steadfast in his refusal to bend the laws of time, but in the next he’s resolute in his ability to forget that entirely and do whatever he likes.
This is true across series; even across Doctors, with Matt Smith going through something similar during his final episode, Time of the Doctor. In Before the Flood, the show flirts dangerously with the notion that Moffat and his rotating team of writers are running out of ideas. Thankfully, it still has a couple of aces up its sleeve to counter the tiredness of its overarching themes.
The episode opens with the Doctor (and a couple of those faceless supporting characters from last week) touching down in 1980s Scotland – before the flood (get it?), before Harold Saxon and, apparently, before the ‘war minister’ (an intriguing slip of the tongue from Doctor fan girl O’Donnell, who exists purely to deliver the same exasperating Tumblr fan service as Oswald did in Series 8).
In the town, which for whatever reason is plastered with communist symbols (did the Scots join Russia during the Cold War?), the trio stumble upon the spaceship they first encountered aboard the underwater station in Under the Lake – and the not-a-ghost-yet Tivolian (if that’s not the established moniker for beings from Tivoli, then consider it coined).
Tivoli is renowned, as you may remember from a previous Toby Whithouse caper, The God Complex, for being the most conquered planet in the galaxy. Essentially, the Tivolian (there’s that word again) is the episode’s comic relief, and has rather more success in that role than the few attempts at injecting the other characters with humour (a la O’Donnell’s Tumblr shtick).
After a little back and forth (and the reveal of the meaning behind the ghost Doctor’s list of names) we finally end up with a good look at the Fisher King. In a nutshell, he’s a vaguely interesting villain with a terrible name but a great design and voice (courtesy of Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor). Unfortunately, he’s rather wasted in a resolution that’s more than a little difficult to follow at times, and requires rather a lot of presumption on the part of the viewer.
Back in the future, Clara finally gets a bit of character development (but not enough to make us wish she wasn’t going away forever at some point in this series), displaying an intriguing darker side to her personality as she brazenly risks the life of one of the base’s crew on little more than guesswork and assumptions. Cass’ quip of ‘Did travelling with the Doctor change you, or were you always so willing to put other people’s lives at risk?’ gives us plenty to think about in terms of the Twelfth Doctor’s relationship with his companion(s), so it’s ironic that it’s delivered by a different character entirely.
Before the Flood isn’t anything revolutionary, but it at least offers a few twists on a tired formula – more so than Under the Lake, anyway – and a couple of interesting character moments (including the Doctor’s opening monologue about Beethoven, which could probably have been worked into an organic conversation with another character but served its purpose in this format too).
Best Bit:
The sound of the axe dragging along the floor while one of the ghosts stalks Cass is perhaps the most unnerving Doctor Who has been in a long time, and shows just how effective last week’s Under the Lake could have been.
Best Line:
The Tivolian: Although, at the risk of starting a bidding war, you could enslave me! In the ship, I have directions to my planet, and a selection of items you could oppress me with!
Doctor Who returns to BBC One next Saturday. You can check out THN’s Doctor Who Blog straight after.
