Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 4 - Before the Flood review

Ah, Moffatt era, your isms are all over this episode, don’t ever change, not that you ever have before.

Yeah, this episode is good, but it’s not got the horror or suspense you get with the first one, in fact there’s little suspense. Hands up if you guessed it was the Doctor in the suspended animation chamber

Yeah… I thought so. This is all of the Moffatt era. Non-linear storytelling, check? Prophesied bullsh*t check (although Davies did that too) badass female characters that have barely any reason to be badass? Check check. Mostly boring male characters, check. Completely bullsh*t resolution, check

Jesus Christ, is there anything that sonic device cannot do?! (I don’t care that they’re sunglasses now, it’s still a magic wand) so now it can project a hologram in the freaking water whilst muttering a load of paradoxes that the Doctor will explain that he wrote Beethoven (I’m sure the real Beethoven is rolling in his grave) which was rather unnecessary as it’s a closed-loop paradox, in that there’s no need for a parallel universe to exist to explain it. Then again, it’s at least something that I wish I could’ve seen in the Flash.

So the villain, he was… OK, I think. He was in maybe 20 minutes of the episode, and they only showed his face when he faced the Doctor. I’ll admit I liked the way the Doctor psyched him out then blew up the damn but again, hands up if you saw that coming

Yeah... I really don’t want to continue ranting on, I thought this episode was pretty good, and I think it did good work with Clara without her dominating the episode, something they really struggled with last season. It’s clear that Clara is becoming more like the Doctor, which is not only bad for her but rather ominous for her final fate (then again, Clara dying would hardly be new, she’s died 3 times over in her first season)

Rating 7/10

Next Doctor Who review will cover the two parter The Girl who Died/The Woman Who Lived in two weeks.

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