Deep Breath

Dear Gary—

“Look at the eyebrows. These are attack eyebrows.”

Welcome Doctor Twelve.

 “They’re cross. They’re crosser than the rest of my face. They’re independently cross. They probably want to cede from the rest of my face and set up their own independent state of eyebrows.”

Peter Capaldi is the Doctor.

Matt Smith won me over immediately with his charm. With his independently cross attack eyebrows Peter Capaldi manages to trump Matt Smith. At times the Eleventh Doctor’s charm got in the way. He always had to be likeable even when doing some despicable things. Doctor Twelve has no such pretenses. His is a practical, no nonsense approach that sets him apart. (“There’s no point in us both being cold.”) There is no doubt that Peter Capaldi is the Doctor, and more than that, he is his own Doctor.

Clara takes a bit more convincing, however.

“How do we fix him?”

It is a perfectly natural first reaction. Vastra’s response is condescending and unwarranted.

The tone of this inaugural episode Deep Breath is captured perfectly in those first few moments with the giant dinosaur vomiting up a blue box in Victorian London; with Strax’s “Hello; exit the box,” greeting; with the Doctor’s struggle to put names to faces; with a disheveled “the-not-me-one; the asking questions one.”  Vastra, Jenny, and Strax fit right in.

However, this detecting trio is beginning to wear a bit thin. In particular I am starting to dislike Madame Vastra and her superior air. Her dismissal of the puny ‘apes’ around her and of Inspector Gregson are one thing, but her treatment of Strax and Jenny is insufferable. Jenny’s declaration of love for Vastra is a moving speech, but it would be more powerful if their relationship wasn’t played strictly for laughs. I would think Jenny would have more self respect and that she would react to Vastra’s chauvinism with more than a sitcom shrug of the shoulders and roll of the eyes. It is a disappointing dynamic that is neither subtle nor enlightened.  Even my favorite, Strax, is becoming too much of a good thing.

I can overlook this disturbing aspect, though, and skim along the amusing surface of the tale. Vastra, Jenny, and Strax provide a familiar structure allowing for Clara to work through her feelings for this new and alien face of a man she thought she knew.

You well know, Gary, that I never quite understood the relationship between Clara and the Eleventh Doctor or why Clara stuck around. Doctor Who didn’t really know what to make of it, either, and in the end had to fall back on the trite libido crutch. With the advent of Doctor Twelve that illusion is smashed and Clara has to figure out her new role. Starting from scratch, the show has a chance to rebuild this bond into something believable. For this one episode, at least, it gets it right.

It begins by separating the two, and this is where the so-called Paternoster Gang comes in handy. Vastra’s treatment of Clara is heavy-handed, but it is a quick and easy, not to mention entertaining, way to show Clara processing the Doctor’s regeneration. I’m not sure that having Marcus Aurelius as your only pin-up at 15 and bragging you can flirt with a mountain range are worthy of a standing ovation, but I love that she tells off Vastra; and in the end the content of her speech isn’t really that important; it is the context and delivery that matters as a shortcut way to reveal Clara’s mettle.

The Doctor on his own is equally enlightening and entertaining. His compassion for the dinosaur, his aversion to furious mirrors, his relish in being Scottish, and his brusque interactions with the tramp encapsulate this Doctor perfectly.

After their separate journeys of self-discovery, the Doctor and Clara are ready to meet once again, and it is appropriate that they do not exactly hit it off. Their “egomaniac, needy, game-player sort of person” exchange is hilarious and to the point. I can only hope that this slightly prickly banter keeps up; I much prefer it to the gushing and fawning that so often characterizes the Doctor’s companions of late. The mutual respect and trust that is essential for the dynamic has to be earned, and that is exactly what the Doctor and Clara proceed to do as they navigate the hell’s kitchen scenario they have walked into.

It starts with their vaguely contentious and highly amusing cooperation as they implement their sonic screwdriver escape. It becomes full blown, however, when the Doctor seemingly abandons Clara to her fate. In actuality he is placing complete faith in Clara and she lives up to that confidence. Using the Doctor’s hints about holding her breath she makes her way through the murderous cyborgs until she comes face to half face with the robot leader, at which point she cleverly draws upon her teaching skills to outwit the control ‘bot. The payoff is as she stands terrified but defiant before the stalemated Half-Face and takes that final leap of faith:

“I know where he will be; where he will always be. If the Doctor is still the Doctor, he will have my back.”

Right on cue the Doctor arrives, and again it is brilliantly played—the trust, the respect, and the prickly banter.

Doctor: “See, Clara? That’s how you disguise yourself as a droid.”

Clara: “Yeah, well, I didn’t have a lot of time. I’d been suddenly abandoned.”

Doctor: “Yeah, sorry. Well no, actually, I’m not. You’re brilliant on adrenaline. And you were out of your depth, sir. Never try and control a control freak.”

Clara: “I am not a control freak.”

Doctor: “Yes, ma’am.”

This is the Doctor/companion dynamic that has always worked best.

Now the story falls apart a little, but that’s OK because the importance of the episode is to establish these characters.  The Doctor could of course end everything with one flick of his magic sonic, but instead we have the reappearance of the dynamic trio for a bit of action and suspense and we have the stand-off between the Doctor and Half-Face, the whole purpose of which is to set up the obligatory season arc that I really could do without. It mars an otherwise decent adventure and does not ring true.

“Do you have it in you to murder me?” It is a false dilemma. Because Half-Face isn’t anywhere close to being human. He is a robot, a droid, a machine. An artificial intelligence. He isn’t any more human than the woman suit Buffalo Bill fashions in Silence of the Lambs. He isn’t any more human than the Madame de Pompadour is in The Girl in the Fireplace. Just because he has an outer covering of human flesh, some freshly harvested human eyes, and some mismatched human hands, doesn’t mean he has grown a human soul. I can believe this less than I can believe that in 1935’s Mad Love the murderous Rollo’s hands that have been grafted onto Stephan Orlac’s arms have taken on an independently destructive will of their own and turned Orlac into an expert knife thrower.  (Sorry, Gary. This is the time of year when Frankie and I settle back to enjoy all of those good old black and whites and I couldn’t resist referencing this classic of B filmdom.) So no, if the Doctor pushes Half-Face out of the balloon, or if he pours a glass of wine on his head as Doctor Ten would do, it would not be murder. Frankenstein’s monster is still a monster. Half-Face is still a droid.

This makes the whole Missy paradise nonsense even more nonsensical and clumsy. It is maddening enough that we have to be introduced to this villain of the season. It could have been effected in a much more shrewd and crafty way.

Setting the Missy unpleasantness aside, Deep Breath is a breath of fresh air, mainly on the strength of Peter Capaldi and on the much more interesting bond forming between the Doctor and Clara. The “I’m not your boyfriend” line is a good start and I hope Doctor Who takes this statement to heart. The phone call from Doctor Eleven is a good touch as well, bringing closure to that era and culminating in Clara’s full acceptance of the Doctor’s new persona as she flings her arms about his neck.

Doctor: “I . . . I don’t think that I’m a hugging person now.”

Clara: “I’m not sure you get a vote.”

Gone are the false, romantic, high school notions. This is a clean start to a promising pairing.

“I think there should be more round things on the walls . . .”

Not everything is perfect, Gary, but things change and move forward. I’m moving forward with more hope than I expected.

Matt Smith

Dear Gary—

I don’t believe you ever saw Matt Smith as the Doctor, or perhaps you caught only his first outing or two. You missed a lot, some of it good but a great deal of it bad.

The good—the best—centers on Matt Smith. He is funny, poignant, dark, witty, childlike, intelligent, and mysterious in turn; sometimes all at once. He is always interesting, but more importantly he remains likeable even while the character is rapidly becoming unpleasant.

No longer can the Doctor call himself a pacifist. Too often during this Eleventh Doctor’s run he has casually destroyed thousands (blowing an entire Cyber fleet out of the sky simply to get an answer to a question in A Good Man Goes to War) and just as casually he has murdered  individuals (Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship).  He doesn't have an aversion to gun-toting companions any more and he has no qualms about embracing mass murderers if he happens to take a shine to them (the Bloody Queen Elizabeth the Tenth as the most egregious example). The Doctor cannot claim the moral high ground these days; yet time after time he does just that, and he takes it to the heights of hypocrisy. Through it all, however, Matt Smith shines; he almost makes one forget the offhand cruelty.

Just as violence comes casually to him, so too, apparently, does sex. The Doctor’s Time Lord version of a one night stand with Rose and his intense connection with Madame de Pompadour seem innocent compared with the string of conquests this Eleventh incarnation has left in his wake. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Doctor Who universe is populated by an entire generation of half Time Lords. (I think I would watch a spin-off of Tasha Lem as a single mother raising her Doctor baby while leading the Papal Mainframe and trying to suppress her Dalek puppet self.) This is an area where Matt Smith doesn’t shine so much; he’s awkward and uncomfortable in the role of Lothario; it doesn’t suit him.

A similar pattern follows the companions of this Eleventh Doctor. Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, and Jenna-Louise Coleman (and Alex Kingston) do wonders with their roles. Amy and Rory in particular settle in as proper, well-rounded companions. However, they start this trend of what I have come to call yo-yo companions. That is, companions who bounce back and forth between their every day Earth lives and their out-of –this-world TARDIS lives. This aspect is acknowledged and developed with the Ponds, but never to my complete satisfaction. I just can’t accept that this duo would roll with all of the heart-rending punches they are handed and not rebel against their surreal existence if they are truly committed to life and all it offers. The half-hearted attempts they make at normalcy are never believable; and when they are robbed of their infant daughter and any chance at a happy family life with barely a whimper I have to throw up my hands in defeat and recognize that these are not people but actors playing a part as outlined in a script. As actors they are wonderful and enjoyable to watch; however any pretense that the fictional personalities of Amy and Rory are flesh and blood people trying to make a life for themselves, let alone parents, is maddening. Their lives center on the Doctor and what the written page offers, nothing else. I cannot suspend my disbelief far enough to accept them as anything more.

At least Karen and Arthur are given some complexity to keep the audience from second-guessing too much. Jenna-Louise is not so lucky. She has no substantial or consistent structure around which she can base her character. Is she Oswin or is she Clara or is she Soufflé Girl? Is she a governess, a barmaid, a nanny, or a schoolteacher? Is she brave or is she timid? Is she brilliant or is she artificially intelligent? She blew into this world on a leaf—and it shows. She is buffeted by every Doctor Who wind and never truly alights. Yet Jenna-Louise Coleman is captivating.

That is the story of this Eleventh Doctor. Matt, Karen, Arthur, Jenna (and Alex Kingston). Not the Doctor, Amy, Rory, Clara/Oswin/ Soufflé Girl (and River). It is the good fortune of casting. It is the misfortune of a show that too often leaves its script showing. It is the curse of a production team that doesn’t trust its own format and doesn’t have confidence in its actors to simply inhabit their roles. Rather it force feeds artificial arcs that burden the players and that overshadow the adventures. It started in a small way with Doctors Nine and Ten, but it has come on with a vengeance with Doctor Eleven.

I spent a good deal of my time on my slow path through this stretch being angry thanks in large part to the onerous arcs. First there is the Crack of a season; that one is bad enough. The following one, however, is far worse. I’ll never forget those first few minutes of The Impossible Astronaut that almost lost me as a Doctor Who viewer forever. The Probable Girl arc is more irritating than maddening, but it is the most damaging to character development, Clara in particular. And then there is the inane Doctor Who? arc that spans across several seasons. This question mark arc does manage to salvage itself with the wonderful punch line of The Name of the Doctor; and all of the arcs come together beautifully in Matt Smith’s curtain call The Time of the Doctor. Overall, though, the arcs saddle the series with improbable scenarios and impossibly intricate threads that distract from the adventures.

However, my biggest wrath is reserved for what I consider the worst Doctor Who episode ever: The Beast Below. I said it all in my entry on that particular story and I don’t care to revisit it.

There are some wonderful highlights as well. Matt Smith’s introduction in The Eleventh Hour with young Amelia Pond is delightful. Vincent and the Doctor and The Lodger are two enjoyable diversions. The Doctor’s Wife is one of the best of New Who. The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe is a Christmas treat. Hide is a solid entry. Rounding it all out are two of my favorites: the fiftieth anniversary The Day of the Doctor and my guilty pleasure The Time of the Doctor.

Matt Smith’s era sees the dramatic and viable return of some Classic Who monsters; namely the Silurians and the Zygons. Too bad the Great Intelligence isn’t handled more intelligently, though. It also has more than its fair share of the obligatory Daleks and Cybermen; develops further on the New Who creation The Weeping Angels (much to my disappointment); and introduces a new alien in the dreadful (in my opinion) Silents.

The trio of recurring characters—Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint, and Strax—could have a spinoff of their own. They are fully realized personalities with little background provided. They are launched in A Good Man Goes to War as though they have always been part of the show; and they feel as though they have always been a part of the show. Ever entertaining, this Victorian era detective gang is a most welcome addition, even if at times they feel superfluous and merely added to provide comic relief.

In sum, the Matt Smith years are much like the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead. When it is good it is very, very good, but when it is bad it is horrid. I am very much afraid, Gary, that the horrid too often overshadows. Lacking in consistency and relying too heavily on calculation, coincidence, and contrivance, the show is rapidly losing me.

Standing above it all, however, is Matt Smith. He is very, very good and never horrid. Given better material he would float towards the top of my rankings. As it is he is laden down; if I were to seriously reconsider my rankings he would be in danger of dropping a notch or two through no fault of his own.

But Matt Smith leaves on a high note, Gary, and I’ll grab on and follow it to the next chapter of my slow path.