Doctor Who - Time Heist
Well - that felt rather old school Doctor Who to me in some ways...
...except an old school Doctor Who where there wasn't quite enough time to develop the characters and tell the story - or maybe I've just not watched enough old Doctor Who lately to say that, but... I liked the idea of the story quite alot, and I liked Psi and Sabre alot - but they felt so rushed as characters! If it'd been even three old episodes it would have been an hour and a half (I think?) and actually more time for us to feel who they were, but an hour wasn't quite enough. Sabre was interesting, and her story was sort of new and clear enough that she felt reasonably rounded - once you got her problem - which was stated quite baldly, mind - then she made sense. Psi also stated his story quite baldly at one point, but it wasn't quite enough to explain his character - okay, he'd been in prison and wiped his memories for someone he loved, but that didn't explain why he was aggressive to the Doctor, or why Clara was apparently fond of him so quickly - he needed more. I thought he could have been really interesting too - hints of Adric for some reason, and of that lad who augmented himself when Ecclestone (I think) was the Doctor, and... but he was never even explained that much, he didn't have the time.
I liked the teller too, though it reminded me a bit of the haunted house one not long ago, and physically of something I can't quite put my finger on... I didn't like Ms Delphox - will humanity really not get over the whole powerful-woman=sexy-dominatrix thing by the time we can augment humans to interface with computers etc? I'd like to see a different powerful-woman type now... (I know, I'm sure there have been some, DW isn't so bad - but I'm tired of the businesswoman=powerful woman thing!)
So mixed feelings about this one - it was a nice straightforward story-of-the-week, which was fun, but on the other hand (and a bit like Robin Hood last week, come to think of it) I think it could have been just that bit more if we'd only had an extra half an hour... Even Clara didn't annoy me too much, mind, she wasn't too super-Clara this time... plus Why's your face coloured in? amused me no end... *g*