Doctor Who Series 8 episodes 8-9 review - Mummy on the Orient Express/Flatline

It might be a day late, but here are my views of the latest 2 episodes of Doctor Who

Mummy on the Orient Express

After 2 meh episodes, this episode was really, really good, sort of

Start the clock

This is the kind of episode I love in Doctor Who, a sci-fi story with supernatural elements, planets, people who at least seem a little like people, and a great story to tie all of this together.

So basically, people who can see a mummy have 66 seconds to live, unless the Doctor can work out how to understand it

I do have one issue with this episode I’ll get out straight away. Clara leaving was, for all intents and purposes the Doctor’s fault, but it’s Clara that changes in order for their life to continue. Fair enough, she understands that the Doctor has to make to make tough choices all the time, often at great personal cost to him, but there is reason she felt like she couldn't do this any more.

But to the good of the episode, the mystery is intriguing, the answer is satisfying, reducing the supernatural to a scientific standard, and having the Doctor save as many people as he can. We've seen a lot in episodes thus far about the Doctor being entirely nonchalant about people dying. This particular attribute is developed in this episode, helping us to understand the kind of Doctor we’re dealing with for this.

It also introduces us to a possible new reoccurring villain, someone who clearly knows who the Doctor is and is completely free of conscience, allowing a compartment of kitchen staff to die, just because the Doctor uses his phone.

An interesting idea is looking at the way the mummy selects its victims, the idea that he picks off the people with health issues both physical and psychological, allows us to delve into the psyches of some of the supporting characters

We get an appearance from Frank Skinner, he’s the guy that starts the clock every time, and gives the Doctor some records to begin his investigation, but doesn't have any particularly crucial role in events, other than declining an offer to travel with the Doctor

This is not the episode I hoped it would be. My preference would be a fairly Clara light episode, resulting in the Doctor realising his flaws, allowing possible reconciliation with Clara at the end. This didn’t happen, and I’m not entirely glad that it didn't, however the episode itself managed to entertain me in spite of that reservation

Rating 9/10 (as an individual episode) 7/10 (part of overall saga)

Flatline

Well, those complaining about this being the Clara Oswald show will continue to complain with this episode, as she is literally the Doctor for the day.

This series has never really hit it's stride, when it's good, it's brilliant but it can also be average or downright terrible, I count this in the lower part of good (or the higher part of average).

Let me explain, Clara is tasked with being the Doctor for the day, when the Doctor is trapped in a dimensionally shrinking TARDIS. She teams up with a bunch of community support workers in order to defeat a group of monsters that live in two dimensions (until the end where they start to become 3-dimensional)

The problem I have is the way the monsters are defeated, not so much Clara tricking them, but the Doctor, who had been side-lined the entire episode basically waved his magic wand and defeated the creatures

They also don't bother giving the monsters any sort of personality. They just didn’t scare me. Speaking of lacking personality, that's pretty much a theme with this one. There's the grumpy old man, the misunderstood street artist, and everyone else is basically a red shirt.

The Doctor’s final words "You made an excellent Doctor, being good had nothing to do with that" are interesting, the entire Doctor has the entire season been trying to come to terms with who he is, and possibly his lesser sides. We also see our patron of heaven declare that she is one that chose Clara as a companion.

3 episodes left, can they be made to count?

Rating: 7.5/10

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