The Doctor Who Mid-Week Review: The Bells of Saint John

I’m the Doctor

Welcome to my new feature: The Doctor Who Mid-Week Review! where we will take a look at the previous week’s Doctor Who episode. I know it is a little past mid week and a new adventure with our wily Time Lord friend is almost upon us, but it is all relative and timey whimey, so good. When I decided to take on the mission of doing these reviews, I had to ask myself, “Self, can we do this and remain spoiler free?” To which I replied, “Probably not, but we can keep it very minor and then have a spoilers section to discuss theories and predictions!” So bully on, this feature will have two parts. The top will be a nearly spoiler free review of the show, and the bottom will contain spoiler filled thoughts and predictions about what is coming all packed nicely in a spoiler box. So on to the review!

The Bells of Saint John

The Bells of Saint John is the seventh numbered episode of season (series) seven of the reignited Doctor Who series. I am going to assume if you are here you are familiar with the basics of the Whoverse, but this episode does offer an incredibly succinct introduction, “I’m the Doctor. I’m an alien from outer space. I’m 1000 years old, have two hearts and can’t fly an airplane.” Anyway, I had figured this would be episode six, since the Christmas episodes generally don’t count, but apparently this season gets credited with the 2011 and 2012 Christmas eps, and the 2012 one counts as episode six. Season 7 will have a total of 14 episodes

The Impossible Girl

.

After the events of episode 6 “The Snowmen”, the Doctor has launched on a search for the “Impossible Girl” who has been previously named Oswin Oswald and Clara Oswin Oswald. Having retreated to 1208 to ponder the mystery of this girl, the Doctor suddenly finds himself essentially being handed her on a platter. We fast forward to modern day and the rest of the episode takes place from here.

This time the girl’s name is Clara Oswald. The Doctor has no more than found her when she comes under the attack of the episode’s villains; a shady group working for a mysterious employer that is stealing human “souls” via wi-fi connections. This falls squarely into the Whoverse’s wheelhouse, taking something everyday and turning it into

The Doctor and Clara

something scary. Suffice it to say, this is all the motivation the Doctor needs to start looking for and shutting down this threat.

The interaction between the Doctor and Clara is excellent. The two characters play off of each other as if they were written for each other….oh wait ;). The Doctor clearly is protective of and cares for Clara, but beneath all that is the mystery of this girl. How has she been where she has been? How is she always the same, yet different? Is she a gift, or a trap? All of this whets the Doctor’s insatiable curiosity appetite. The two characters and actors clearly work well together, and I hope this is a more that 7 episode relationship.

Of course there is the new TARDIS interior. While the changes to the TARDIS control room were usually smaller in the “olden days”, the styles have shifted radically in each iteration of the revived series. We get to see a bit more of the cabin, it is a split level like Smith’s original control room, but that is about where the similarities end. It is obviously designed to evoke an incorporation of the older style console rooms, while still bringing in the modern stylized versions. The console is more space ship like with almost no goofy things like tire pumps and typewriters included. The moving rings on the ceiling are covered in Galifrean and bring to mind other versions of the TARDIS like the Master or Rani’s. There are also controls on the panels surrounding the man control console. There is some sort of balcony running all around the control room, but we haven’t really gotten a feel for that yet. Also we are acknowledging again that there is a LOT more TARDIS than just the control room. That was brought up in the fan favorite “The Doctor’s Wife” and looks to be

The New Bessie?

playing a part again. Finally there is the motor bike…Will it be the new Bessie (the third Doctor’s car) or was it a one time prop? I guess only time will tell.

All in all I thought this was a very good episode and set the stage well for the remainder of this season, and possibly beyond. And now dear friends, if you want to remain spoiler free, this is where we part ways. What did you think of the episode? What do you think of Doctor Who in general? Have you even ever watched an episode? Please leave comments below, and please do be careful of spoilers sweeties. 😉 The spoiler tags DO work in the comments.

An now the SPOILER SECTION!!!!!! Opening the spoiler section will expose you to key plot points of this and other tie in episodes and predictions. Only enter if you have seen

the episode or don’t have spoiler concerns!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

[spoiler]
So we have a few things here…. First off obviously the Great Intelligence isn’t quite as inert as was believed at the end of The Snowmen. Is this the same Great Intelligence from the Patrick Troughton Yeti series (which I have never seen and less than half of still exists in the BBC archives)? It would seem this will be the big bad for the last 7 episodes.

Clara comes up with Oswin as an amalgamation of “Oswald for the Win”.

When we meet Clara, she is impossibly ignorant of the Internet. We see her as a child in the prologue, so she didn’t just appear as a young adult. So is this a clue or just a story device.

In the Dalek Asylum, Oswin is a master hacker and brilliant – even before she was converted. Victorian Clara was brilliant and completely out of her element in that time period. Modern Clara seems almost out of her time as well. Identified as quite bright but not having any computer skills until the splice in a computer knowledge package

into her, which she retained into the real world, at least the first time.

The book the daughter was reading, Summer Falls, is written by Amelia Williams (Pond – in that time period she would have had to take Rory’s name to maintain cover). She was on Chapter 10, but apparently Clara loves chapter 11. Coincidence we are on the 11th doctor? I don’t think so.  Also this book is now available for sale.  I assume there are some clues in there.

She is resistant to his call to run off, even though she wants to travel. She isn’t the first, but it does seem unlikely.

The leaf, where does it come from? It is obviously more than just a leaf. “Fall” of the eleventh?

Is the question Doctor Who? Seems too obvious. Not too mention I don’t think we really want to know. I mean look at where getting the true origin of Wolverine got us.

Clara is something that shouldn’t exist. Is she tied to his “daughter” Jeanie? More likely she is a temporal aftershock of some type of something that is to come. The cause and effect of some major event. Is this tied to the 50th anniversary episode? We know that Ten and Rose are coming in. Without the Time Lords to sustain the paradox or overrule the basic rules of time how will the two be brought together. We did see it happen once in the modern series, though it almost cause the universe to rip itself apart. Or will they remain separate and somehow be working on the same story without even really knowing it? This seems more likely since it has to be taken from before Rose’s departure from this reality.

Now we also have rumors that Matt Smith is leaving the show after the 50th anniversary. I really doubt this.

As always, things will be back to more or less normal and Moffet and crew will have taken us on a heck of a ride to get there.

Also this Clara said it’s bigger on the inside, though to be fair the Doctor said it first and they were in a bit of a rush. I know there was more I wanted to go over but I totally can’t think of it. If I remember I’ll put up spoiler comments in the comments section. What do you all think will happen? Remember to use the spoiler tags.
[/spoiler]