Doctor Who Hide and Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

[calapine]

I thought Hide was smashing, and possibly that Neil Cross had delivered his script and said "look guys, I'm REALLY SORRY, but I kind of forgot we're making Doctor Who in the twenty-first century and wrote a top-notch seventies adventure featuring UNIT instead. THAT'S OKAY, RIGHT?" and Moffat said, "Yes, of course, I shall make one or two adjustments and everything will be great." And it was.

• Lovely scares! So many lovely scares! From all the haunted house paraphenalia complete with The Haunting (proper one with the Doctor's Mum Susan in it, not the shit one) -esque horrid banging noises though thank goodness that didn't last very long because omg (the great thing about the banging in The Haunting is that it doesn't stop and just when you think it might, it keeps going. It's chillingly oppressive) to the more modern distorty weirdness when the Doctor was in the bubble universe. ALL THE HORROR STUFF A BIG THUMBS UP.
  
  
• Which is why I'm a little sad they didn't go all out and make it Proper Scary. They could have, so easily. I can see why they didn't - as a kid I'd have been freaked out enough and wanted a big metaphorical hug at the end, which is what I got, but as an adult, damn, they could have had some proper good creepiness by having some of it unexplained.
  
  
• Did like the explanation though - well, not the love thing so much, but the fact that it was a human pioneering time traveller. That was pretty cool.
  
  
• It felt like Proper Proper Doctor Who, like someone made a list of what Doctor Who was About and Neil Cross wrote all those things in his script which done wrongly feels like Gatiss banal mediocrity but done right makes you want to wrap it in a wee bow and call it a Christmas pudding.
  
  
• The slide from Haunted House into Sci-Fi Adventure was nice, but made me sad at first because I'd been really enjoying the scares, but then the scares got a new context and I was v happy again. I liked that lots, that we got to keep the creepy factor up till the slightly daft end.
  
  
• DOUGRAY SCOTT WAS AMAZING. Emma Grayling was quite a good one too. But Palmer (a name I can never hear without thinking "Palmer! Come in, Palmer!" because I was overexposed to The Three Doctors as a child) was top notch guesting and guest character. Lovely stuff.
  
  
• The trip through all of time was rather fun but I roll my eyes at Clara and the ghost thing. Whatever, guys! Can't we have a companion going "omg, that's amazing, that means we're all alive, all the time to you! That's brilliant!" A bit more glass half full and less emo would be winning.
  
  
• But Clara being scared of shit makes me happy. I love that she's upfront about being scared without being flaily about it. And I love the TARDIS is tetchy at her.
  
  
• CLOISTER BELL. :D:D Yeah, I'm easy.
  
  
• MISPRONOUNCIATION OF METEBELIS 3. So judgey.
  
  
• If I'd written this earlier I'd probs be quoting a bunch of stuff between Palmer and the Doctor because it was great. As it is, the bit that currently sticks out the most in my memory is "The paradoxes-" "Resolve themselves, by and large." There's just something about it, the delivery, the building of the way the Whoniverse works, the commentary on the current era...it was just a v pleasing moment.
  
  
• There was some padding and stuff with the TARDIS flying about, I think. And I did roll my eyes at UGLY ALIENS HAVE FEELINGS TOO. But whatevs, really, minor complaints about what was a proper good episode.

Onwards! To the marvellously titled Who of last week, yes:

• I was looking forward to this one lots for it promised LOTS OF INSIDE THE TARDIS ACTION. Which I love. Episode 1 of Castrovalva makes me so happy. Seeing the Cloister Room in Logopolis was awesome. The Invasion of Time was a HORRID DISAPPOINTMENT. The Hartnell years abound with glorious console room scenes. Season 7 and having the console outside the TARDIS made me all tetchy: I want to see INSIDE THE SHIP DAMMIT. The TV Movie made the TARDIS incredibly beautiful. All the New Series console rooms have been lovely in their own ways from green organic to retro silver spaceship-y. The lack of an interior door IRRITATED ME HUGELY. I hate that we've barely seen inside the TARDIS in New Who but every moment we have has been A LOVELY DELIGHT. Thus I had EXPECTATIONS. Expectations of this not being bloody Invasion of Time TARDIS, basically.
  
  
• SPACESHIP. Which actually looks pleasingly like one of Babylon 5's Earth ships. But less blue. Or Red Dwarf. But less red. It's a spaceship anyway, a lovely spaceship.
  
  
• I really liked Amy's clothes. I like Clara's even more. They're not on Joan Watson's level quite, but I would tots wear all her outfits.
  
  
• CLOISTER BELL! :D:D Yep, still makes me happy.
  
  
• Watching Cold War one thing that annoyed was, heh, we have an episode with an all male guest cast, which would be fine except we're never going to get an episode with an all female guest cast, are we? Thus it ticks me off. I could also have said, and would have believed, we'd never get an episode with an all POC guest cast, but, heh, here it is! So kudos for that. (It does make the lack of any all female guest cast extra annoying though, what with women being over fifty percent of the population.)
  
  (Doctor Who does a decent job in casting a good number of black actors right through the New Series, I think, but there're a lot fewer South Asian ones, and that's the UK's biggest ethnic minority. Percentage-wise, the US population has two and a half times more black people than the UK. Which I point out cause I sometimes get the feeling American viewers expect American level of representation there and overlook the lack of South Asian representation.)
  
  
• "You crazy lunatic!" Yes, quite. I agree. Though, actually, Smith gave off a very Hartnell vibe during bits of that - and I can def see One pulling that sort of stunt to try and save Susan. The self-destruct countdown made me go "aw, Attack of the Cybermen, when Cybermen were cool". OH HE WAS BLUFFING. Well, I'm glad...and now wondering if Six was bluffing too. Ah, fanwank...oh, and now the TARDIS really is going to blow up, of course it is. Clara is lolarious though. Yay, Clara.
  
  
• Castle-like walls! Big wooden doors! Tinkly things! Is that a wee TARDIS Amy made? Do we have to have a plot? How about a half hour of Clara exploring the junk the Doctor keeps lying around? That wouldn't be too fanwanky would it?
  
  
• Giant telescope! Aw, man! Ignore the monster, Clara, go take a look at the telescope! Swimming pool! That looks SLIGHTLY BETTER than the one in Invasion of Time.
  
  
• The lack of camera focus to make the monsters look less cheap scarier pleases me.
  
  
• THE LIBRARY. OMG, THE LIBRARY. This is great. PROPER TARDIS ROOMS. EPIC ROOMS.
  
  
• PAST DOCTOR VOICES. PAST DOCTORS AND COMPANIONS TALKING ABOUT THE TARDIS. MA WEE FANNISH HEART.
  
  
• Living metal...like validium? I assume this living metal doesn't think though. It is very pretty. With wee lights and stuff.
  
  
• That History of the Time War book is so going to be made into merchandise, isn't it?
  
  
• It's all gone a bit Castrovalva. This is awfully good fun.
  
  
• And there are lots of corridors and sometimes they walk down them and sometimes they run, and sometimes there are monsters chasing them; it's all good.
  
  
• Yes, Doctor, the Time Lords were SO CLEVER that they designed a ship where when stuff starts to break apart big deadly spikes smash through the corridors where people might be.
  
  
• OH TRICKY. He was a lovely android too. That was a little bit heart-breaking. HE BETTER MAKE IT OUT OF THIS...OH COME ON, you can't have them dying OF REDEMPTION.
  
  
• I...care so little about whether the Eye of Harmony stuff makes continuity sense or not. It didn't need a human eye to open it and there were no declarations of the Doctor being half-human, so I'm good.
  
  
• "Secrets keep us safe." SO GOOD. And then Matt Smith's face at the wee machine. SO GOOD. ALL THAT SCENE MATT SMITH IS QUITE AMAZING.
  
  
• The exploding heart of the TARDIS is most beautiful and marvellous and pretty on my screen.
  
  
• EVERYBODY LIVES YAY! I am going to assume they tell Tricky the truth PRETTY QUICK and he gets to be captain.
  
  
• That was basically LOVELY FANWANK that made me glee. APPROVAL. Also Matt Smith was on top notch form.
  
  
• I'm a bit nervous about next week. On the one hand, Vastra&Jenny totally not a backdoor pilot, omg, yay! AND DIANA RIGG. On the other, Gatiss is writing. FINGERS CROSSED.