Doctor Who – Thin Ice

So last week’s Doctor Who was PRETTY DARNED GREAT. Here are SOME WORDS about how great it was (if you don’t want words, I was also talking about this ep on last week’s Teevee podcast with me Verity! cohort Erika Ensign, and Jason Snell):

• SO PRETTY. I do like a pretty episode and this ep was VERY PRETTY. Huge kudos to the set designer/location peoples and the costume designer. The Frost Fair was DELIGHTFUL and I would totally buy a Lego set of it. And the costumes OH. Bill and the Doctor, they just looked so much MOAR in those costumes. Like, these are good-looking people, yeah? But the dress and the hair and the hat. MAGNIFICENT. Specially chosen tea clothes should happen in all episodes REGARDLESS OF TIME AND SPACE LOCATION.

• Incidently the last time the Doctor landed on the Thames he was trying to sink the TARDIS to literally flush out the Master from its interior. NOT KIDDING THIS WAS A REAL PLAN. Also Christopher Bidmead, architect of said AMAZING plan, Doylishly, had a bit of a go at me on my LiveJournal for suggesting it might not be the best plan ever conceived. I WAS SO PROUD. (I love Logopolis btw; it was still A VERY SILLY PLAN.)

• “You don’t steer the TARDIS, you reason with it.” I sort of want fic that has Twelve going back in time to One and attempting to teach him better control of the ship via this method and seeing how that works out.

• So Bill’s first thought re 1814 is the same as Martha’s in the 16th century: “I’m Black, what if I get taken away as a slave??!” The way the Doctor responds, however, is quite different. In The Shakespeare Code, the Doctor says “walk around like you own the place” which OF COURSE that is going to work QUITE WELL when you are a white, able-bodied man in historical Europe. If you are a Black woman, BIT DIFFERENT. Anyway, here the Doctor has another response. He acknowledges the legitimacy of Bill’s fear, and that she’s right, it will be dangerous, and that they will find trouble. Which, yes, I love this validation of Bill’s POV from the Doctor; no dismissal, no obfuscation, no being patronising.

• HISTORICALLY, slavery in 1814 England was not TECHNICALLY a thing. This isn’t meant as a crit of the episode, rather I find the difference between history and the historical interpretation we get onscreen interesting. Also I really like legal history. Strictly speaking, slavery has not existed in England for centuries. The Saxons were big on it, the Normans were not and so it was effectively extinct a few centuries after the invasion (the legal record shows that every time someone attempted to enforce their enslavement of a person via the courts, it failed). HOWEVER, this isn’t to say things that we modern folks could colloquially call slavery didn’t exist, they did: there was indentured servitude, workhouses, transportation. Legally speaking, however, these things were not slavery. Besides, I think the sort of general level of knowledge re slavery in Britain is that it ended sometime in early 19th century and Wilberforce had something to do with it. So it makes perfect sense it’d be something Bill would be concerned about. And even though the Wilberforce backed Slave Trade Act had been passed several years earlier, it wasn’t for abolition, but to end the British slave *trade*, hence the name. Slavery would continue in British colonies until the 1830s.

• That is QUITE A GREAT PAN down into the the DEEEEEP where there is a MONSTER. Very proper.

• OH, the Doctor taking Bill’s hand as she steps out of the TARDIS is LOVELIENESS.

• No, but really, they should always have costumes such as these. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Doctor’s reaction to Bill’s “but butterfly effect! Every decision I make could change the future,” and the Doctor replies “exactly like every other day of your life, so stop worrying.” IT’S SO ELEGANT. AND TRUE. It encompasses both the grandiose notion that we as individuals have the power to affect the course of history AND recognises how utterly trivial most of our actions are compared to the mass inertia of human society.

• There is a very quick moment as the Doctor and Bill descend the steps to the Frost Fair, where the Doctor looks back at Bill and smiles and it is just MAGIC.

• “Bit more Black than they show in the movies.” CORRECT. Especially in London, which has had a population of non-white people in at least the hundreds since Elizabethan times. Having everyone be white by this time would be HISTORICALLY INACCURATE. The historical record shows that there have been people of colour living in the British Isles CONTIGUOUSLY for over four hundred years. That means that there is NO TIME in the past four hundred and mumble years where there is NOT solid historical evidence that everyone living here was not white. Before that things get slightly trickier – there were DEFINITELY people of colour who came over with the Romans, as part of the armies and infrastructure and it’s not impossible that some stayed and their descendants went on living here through the centuries, or that people came from distant parts of the world in the post-Roman centuries and ended up living here. But the evidence is sporadic rather than continuous.

• “So was Jesus.” Okay, I don’t talk about my faith very much, but I’m Church of Scotland. Of course Jesus wasn’t white (almost certainly; in the same way Kenneth MacAlpin almost certainly was). He was born in Judea. I find the idea that acknowledging Jesus was a person of colour is somehow OUTLANDISH and/or OFFENSIVE, both bizarre and gross. IT’S JUST GEOGRAPHY PEOPLE.

• I mean they don’t even have to be speaking to each other. It’s all done in body language and facial expression, the Doctor and Bill at the fair. IT’S SO CHARMING. They are v good, yes.

• OH THE DOCTOR TRYING TO BOND OVER SWINDLING IS RIDIC AND LOVELY.

• “Sometimes you see light sunder the ice…you were enjoying yourself, I assumed we’d get to work eventually.” HAVE I MENTIONED HOW ADORABLE I FIND BILL AND THE DOCTOR? Also, this feels so earned, the warmth and geniality of Twelve at this point. It’s like Four’s character arc condensed down into three seasons (srsly, watch any s12 and tell me Twelve is harsher than Four and I don’t mean to Harry) and this is our MAGICAL SEASON 17.

• The kid who snatches the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver has the best thief face. It is an amazing expression, well done that child.

• UNLIKE LAST WEEK, this is doing Bill learns about the Doctor’s modus operandi in a way I find compelling. The sonic screwdriver explanation, and the artificial or organic lights beneath the ice being the examples that have just happened on the telly screen.

• THEY KILLED A CHILD. Doctor Who doesn’t do that very often, does it? There’s some nice clattery incidental music there too, and Pearl Mackie’s face of stunned horror is super.

• And then there is THE SCENE, the standout magnificent scene in this episode. IT’S SO GOOD. And it works for new viewers as well as old as we’re sharply reminded of just how used to the Doctor killing people weare, or how he gets people killed, and it’s NORMAL. Except it’s not, not really. If you found out one of your friends had killed so many people they couldn’t actually recall how many, FOR MOST OF US, that would be RATHER UNSETTLING. And here we get hit in the face (IN A GOOD WAY) with that perspective. And both Capaldi and Mackie are magnificent.

• “Morally and practically that is not a useful distinction; unlearn it.” And then her snap back “Don’t tell me what to think.” IT’S JUST SO SHARP. And the TENSION as she asks “how many people have you seen die?” because WE KNOW what the next question is and there is NO GOOD ANSWER. And then he avoids the question and the TONE is just so perfect, like he’s doing this by rote, knowing that she’s not going to actually be deflected but still wanting to hold back the moment for just a little longer. And then the ACCEPTANCE and that momentary smile, as though he’s ashamed for the deflections. AND THEN HE AGES. Like hundreds of years before your eyes, he’s suddenly SO FUCKING OLD AND QUITE ANGRY. And Mackie’s just as good: her expression of realisation as she lets go of the picture she had of this mysterious Doctor in her head as it metamorphises into something less wonderful, more terrible.

• And I do love that he properly ENGAGES with what she’s saying. It’s not dismissed or swept aside and he doesn’t patronise her.

• SO MANY PIES IN THAT HAT.

• “Conjecture..proposal..plan.” THIS COULD SO BE SEVEN AND ACE. But with less explosives.

• I do love the diving suits. And the pilot fish. And that completely terrestrial-seeming giant fish.

• “You assume it’s alien.” There’s a lot of weird stuff in the sea. So I totally assume that fish is native and this is a pure historical Who ep.

• The Doctor and Bill at the workhouse, as well has having MAGIC PAPER, are also Extremely Well-Dressed. Much as the Doctor is CHARMING and PERSUASIVE, they’re also utilising class privilege to get the info they want. (Which I rather like as a way for the episode to acknowledge the Doctor’s class position, though he fights for the disenfranchised.)

• “It even burns underwater.” So this is like Greek fire, right? SEE, HISTORICAL.

• “Leave the talking to me…because you have a temper.” It really is absurdly Seven and Ace. But McCoy would never have punched with such elegance. And, yes, I am totally fine with the Doctor punching someone who’s just been appallingly racist to his companion. I also like the racism is called racism. And Mackie’s look of disgust is perfect.

• But then we are right back to the Doctor using FLATTERY to let the villain of the piece talk himself to his eventual, lolarious death. It’s so nicely played too, Sutcliffe’s slimy appreciation of the faux adulation.

• “Without that beast my mills would rely on coal mines, and men die in coal mines all the time.” Indeed. I think it is just fine we get an out and out villain, especially since one was lacking in the past two episodes, but it could have nudged towards this angle a bit more to make it more complex? Maybe? I dunno if it’d actually have been better. JUST A THOUGHT.

• “I move this Empire forward.” I loled at that, cause one thing I was waiting for was the (not gratuitous – it totally ties in with the themes) shot at the British Empire.

• And then we hit the other MOMENT of the episode what made my heart delight, and it was: “Human progress isn’t measured by industry, it’s measured by the value you place on a life.” QUITE. Any society is only as civilised as its least fortunate member. This is something Doctor Who comes back to again and again, and I particularly like this iteration as it’s so unashamedly tying that back into race and class.

• Both Sutcliffe and Bill praise the speech which was, oh, I don’t know the right word. I am going to pretend Moffat or Dollard wrote the speech and the other one wrote the praise of the speech.

• Speaking of, Sarah Dollard! Only the second woman to solo author two Doctor Who stories! (And only the third if you count co-writing credits). And, look, when so few women write for Doctor Who, you desperately want their every story to be brilliant. It shouldn’t have to be, but you want it to be nonetheless. And Dollard has delivered two standout awesome stories. This is most yayful. We are also, incidentally at a high water mark for women writing Who: for a whole TWO YEARS in a row TWO WOMEN will be contriburing scripts to the season. Now, you can rightly be ticked off that it’s still so low, but EVEN SO, this is as good as it’s ever been.

• I love that Bill screams for help. It is just so sensible.

• “The Lochless Monster.” Lols.

• And I do like the Doctor leaving the decision to Bill in less mean and silly way than THAT TIME THE MOON WAS AN EGG (NEVER FORGET). “If your future is built on the suffering of that creature, what is your future worth?” I LOVE THAT LINE TOO. METAPHOR FOR SO MANY THINGS. There are bits of this I don’t like, but that’s taste; both “I serve at the pleasure of the human race” and “I need an order” irritate me for trivial reasons.

• The Doctor pulling Bill off the ice was SO BEAUTIFUL.

• I am so-so on the giving orphan kids vast inheritance. I mean, HURRAH, and all that, but social welfare > random acts of kindess BUT I SUPPOSE we can’t go messing about with Acts of Parliament.

• And back to the university! That is a bit marvellous, that, the feeling of coming home and it’s not the TARDIS, it’s the Doctor’s study.

• Okay, so there is A KNOCKING THING in the vault. Which probably means they have HANDS. I am trying to think of the coolest answer as to what’s in there and the best one I have is another regeneration of the Doctor but he was already trapped in the Pandorica, he wouldn’t get stuck in a box twice now, WOULD HE?

IN CONCLUSION, easily the best ep of the season so far and a truly delightful episode it was. The other two I enjoyed, but this was the first one I instantly wanted to watch again right away. And I seem to have written over double the words about it than I did for the other two. And that’s after doing a podcast about it. EIGHT OUT OF TEN TERRESTRIAL GIANT FISH.

Ooh, next week it’s Poirot! Yay!