Behind That Door: Everything
OK, I seem to have a lot to say about this one.
What an interesting, intriguing episode! As with many eps this season, it took me a little while to get into it, but once I did, I was utterly enthralled. I loved all the glimpses of the TARDIS's interior spaces, and I loved the fact that they really were mostly just glimpses, mysterious and wonderful and not over-explained. And I loved that the contents of those spaces were such a combination of the familiar and the alien. (Also, I may have made a small aroused noise at the sight of the library, but that's fairly normal with me and libraries.)
I also found the monsters and their true nature effectively horrifying and creepy. You really do get the feeling very early on that the story behind them is genuinely awful, and that does pay off by the end. Seriously, there's just something about that whole basic idea that gives me a major case of the heebie-jeebies.
The temporal reset button ending -- which is a literal reset button ending! -- could have come across as a lame cop-out, but instead I think the timey-wimeyness of it all really worked. Poor Sexy, though. She genuinely seemed to be suffering, as well as being pissed off, and I'll bet you anything she remembers all of it. She's certainly not going to like Clara any more after that! Come to think of it, given her non-linear perceptions, maybe that's actually the reason she didn't like Clara in the first place.
Between the grimy salvage operators (complete with "android," although that subplot was kind of weird) and the lurking monsters, there was a definite Alien-esque feel to parts of this. I like that. In fact, the show has been playing around with a lot of different tropes and genres lately, and I approve. It's always seemed to me that one of the (many) great things about Who is that it lends itself to telling all kinds of different stories, and it's nice to see that being taken advantage of.
I'm also deeply pleased with the way that, in this anniversary season, the show seems to be deliberately paying homage to itself and celebrating its own history, but without any of that awkward, self-congratulatory feel that it sometimes got during the RTD era. (And, I should point out, I say that as someone who genuinely liked a lot of Davies-era stuff and who has absolutely zero interest in sparking yet another tedious RTD vs. Moff debate.) By the way, I was rather tickled by the fact that a lot of the dialog echoes used in the scene where Brother #1 is taking apart the TARDIS console are ones that were also used in this vid. (And if you haven't seen that one yet, you should go and do so immediately!)
So, it seems that we are eventually going to learn the Doctor's name, and the show is definitely prompting us to keep that particular mystery in mind. I am dubious about this, as I cannot see any way in which that's not going to be either anti-climactic or cheesy, or very probably both. But this show does have a way of surprising me and pulling off things that don't seem like they should remotely work, so here's hoping. I confess, part of me is half hoping it actually does turn out to be the Gallifreyan equivalent of John Smith, but I suppose that's rather unlikely.
Next week: some always-welcome familiar faces! Yay!!
What an interesting, intriguing episode! As with many eps this season, it took me a little while to get into it, but once I did, I was utterly enthralled. I loved all the glimpses of the TARDIS's interior spaces, and I loved the fact that they really were mostly just glimpses, mysterious and wonderful and not over-explained. And I loved that the contents of those spaces were such a combination of the familiar and the alien. (Also, I may have made a small aroused noise at the sight of the library, but that's fairly normal with me and libraries.)
I also found the monsters and their true nature effectively horrifying and creepy. You really do get the feeling very early on that the story behind them is genuinely awful, and that does pay off by the end. Seriously, there's just something about that whole basic idea that gives me a major case of the heebie-jeebies.
The temporal reset button ending -- which is a literal reset button ending! -- could have come across as a lame cop-out, but instead I think the timey-wimeyness of it all really worked. Poor Sexy, though. She genuinely seemed to be suffering, as well as being pissed off, and I'll bet you anything she remembers all of it. She's certainly not going to like Clara any more after that! Come to think of it, given her non-linear perceptions, maybe that's actually the reason she didn't like Clara in the first place.
Between the grimy salvage operators (complete with "android," although that subplot was kind of weird) and the lurking monsters, there was a definite Alien-esque feel to parts of this. I like that. In fact, the show has been playing around with a lot of different tropes and genres lately, and I approve. It's always seemed to me that one of the (many) great things about Who is that it lends itself to telling all kinds of different stories, and it's nice to see that being taken advantage of.
I'm also deeply pleased with the way that, in this anniversary season, the show seems to be deliberately paying homage to itself and celebrating its own history, but without any of that awkward, self-congratulatory feel that it sometimes got during the RTD era. (And, I should point out, I say that as someone who genuinely liked a lot of Davies-era stuff and who has absolutely zero interest in sparking yet another tedious RTD vs. Moff debate.) By the way, I was rather tickled by the fact that a lot of the dialog echoes used in the scene where Brother #1 is taking apart the TARDIS console are ones that were also used in this vid. (And if you haven't seen that one yet, you should go and do so immediately!)
So, it seems that we are eventually going to learn the Doctor's name, and the show is definitely prompting us to keep that particular mystery in mind. I am dubious about this, as I cannot see any way in which that's not going to be either anti-climactic or cheesy, or very probably both. But this show does have a way of surprising me and pulling off things that don't seem like they should remotely work, so here's hoping. I confess, part of me is half hoping it actually does turn out to be the Gallifreyan equivalent of John Smith, but I suppose that's rather unlikely.
Next week: some always-welcome familiar faces! Yay!!