DR.WHO REVIEW: (careful if you haven't seen it yet as here be spoilers).
At last, after a very poor series of episodes DR.WHO slid into the safe harbour of a Mark Gatiss story and all was well again. Last night's THE CRIMSON HORROR brought all of Gatiss' trademark obsessions of body horror, steampunk and comic book plotting to the fore and it was a delight from start to almost finish. I'll get to the almost in a moment.
Bravely, The Doctor was off screen for the first 10 minutes leaving Madame Vastra, Strax and Jenny to carry the episode and very well they did. With some deeper character work there's a spin-off series there. Diana Rigg was utterly believable as Mrs Gillyflower (even with rubber monster attached) but Rachel Stirling stole it as her blind(ed) daughter, Ada.
New WHO always works in Victorian milieu and this played with genuine tropes such as End of Days religiosity and muscular Christianity (the "supermodel" guards) as well as Utopian work schemes such as the factory/village complex extrapolated from real model communities like Port Sunlight, Bourneville or even Trowse near Norwich.
Writers still having a problem with Clara though. She seems too knowing to ever be in much danger. Best image of the episode though did actually involve her, the sheer Victorian horror of being preserved under glass. Brilliant! Now to the almost. The awful last few minutes.
Clara goes home and the kids have been trawling the internet for images of her time-travelling, like you do. With all the penny dreadful plotting of the episode (many different aliens, symbionts, a Wax Museum Doctor, steam powered missiles) I just couldn't swallow that these kids would use the internet for STUDY! Searching for historical pictures just in case their nanny was there and then blackmailing Clara to get on the time machine. Just utterly unbelievable! Kids in the TARDIS? Just SO wrong. Please don't turn DR.WHO into SPYKIDS on a CBBC budget.
At last, after a very poor series of episodes DR.WHO slid into the safe harbour of a Mark Gatiss story and all was well again. Last night's THE CRIMSON HORROR brought all of Gatiss' trademark obsessions of body horror, steampunk and comic book plotting to the fore and it was a delight from start to almost finish. I'll get to the almost in a moment.
Bravely, The Doctor was off screen for the first 10 minutes leaving Madame Vastra, Strax and Jenny to carry the episode and very well they did. With some deeper character work there's a spin-off series there. Diana Rigg was utterly believable as Mrs Gillyflower (even with rubber monster attached) but Rachel Stirling stole it as her blind(ed) daughter, Ada.
New WHO always works in Victorian milieu and this played with genuine tropes such as End of Days religiosity and muscular Christianity (the "supermodel" guards) as well as Utopian work schemes such as the factory/village complex extrapolated from real model communities like Port Sunlight, Bourneville or even Trowse near Norwich.
Writers still having a problem with Clara though. She seems too knowing to ever be in much danger. Best image of the episode though did actually involve her, the sheer Victorian horror of being preserved under glass. Brilliant! Now to the almost. The awful last few minutes.
Clara goes home and the kids have been trawling the internet for images of her time-travelling, like you do. With all the penny dreadful plotting of the episode (many different aliens, symbionts, a Wax Museum Doctor, steam powered missiles) I just couldn't swallow that these kids would use the internet for STUDY! Searching for historical pictures just in case their nanny was there and then blackmailing Clara to get on the time machine. Just utterly unbelievable! Kids in the TARDIS? Just SO wrong. Please don't turn DR.WHO into SPYKIDS on a CBBC budget.