WARNING: THIS REVIEW HAS SPOILERS
It's the most wonderful time of the year, no gentle reader not Christmas or Talk Like A Pirate Day, it's time once again to welcome The Doctor back into living rooms all over the country. So with around 150 of my fellow fans I squeezed into a tiny pub somewhere in the frozen centre of London and turned my ear to The Bells of St John.
The typically madcap trailers leading up to this episode lead me to believe that this was going to be The Eleventh Hour take two, and that is no bad thing considering that The Eleventh Hour is one of my favourite stories since the 2005 return. For me this episode was The Eleventh Hour refined, where that episode can feel a little overwhelming as it races through timezones, plot points and baddies The Bells of St John takes all those beats and slows them down enough so that you can take in everything in one, beautifully crafted hit. This is exactly what I wanted to see in a series opener, it's light, tons of fun, literally laugh a minute and packed full of smashing performances. This is a example of how Doctor Who is a show for everybody, young, old, sci-fi fan or no I think a person who had never seen a minute of Doctor Who in their lives would find as much to enjoy here as a seasoned veteran of the Whoniverse.
Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman build on the momentum and chemistry they developed in The Snowmen, it feels like they've been doing the show together forever and they bounce around and off each other marvelously. Matt Smith is probably at his most "Second Doctor-ish" here, leaping about the place like Tigger one moment, brooding in a cassock the next. There was also some subtle touches in his acting that I only picked up second time round, check out the moment where he resigns himself to helping Clara "find the Wi-Fi" he drops into the bored monotone of a put upon IT helpdesk callcentre worker which made the pub I was in laugh out loud. I loved the tenderness he brought through in this episode, the care he displayed towards Clara was one of a concerned friend rather that the romance angle so hated by some sections of fandom. After all only a true friend would start eating a biscuit then thoughtfully leave you half to enjoy upon waking up! Coleman was no slouch either, moving effortlessly from IT illiterate Nanny who dreams of travelling to saving a plane from plummeting to the ground (all while clutching a mug of coffee!), I really enjoyed the way she chose to portray Clara's growing knowledge thanks to being partially downloaded, laughing in a combination of excitement and nervousness as she effortlessly hacks into the impregnable Great Intelligence network.
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| Oswining! |
Above all though I absolutely loved this script by Doctor Who supremo The Moff, remember when I said this was laugh a minute? That's not an exaggeration, the fans I was with at the pub were giggling away at not only the physical comedy like the moment where The Doctor slowly winds the cable from the TARDIS phone around a hapless monk but also at some extremely nerdy in jokes, like when the drones at The Shard accidentally identify a phone box at Earls Court as the TARDIS. In the real world there is actually an old 1960s police box outside Earls Court Underground station, I've had my picture taken with it on more than one occasion. In typical Moffat style the baddie of the piece is something ordinary made scary, this time the Wi-Fi soup we all live in nowadays. The script also set up the forthcoming episodes nicely, the return of The Great Intelligence was unexpected and most welcome, again handily building on the momentum from last Christmas and there are lots of little mysteries that I think will have us coming back to this episode for a rewatch come the end of episode 8. Why are the ages of 16 and 23 missing from Clara's travel book? Who was the woman who gave Clara the number for the TARDIS? And just what is The Great Intelligence up to?
In conclusion this was a great start to the series, clutch to your sofas you clever fans, and enjoy...
Alas, my dearest Emma, I was not as enchanted as you with this one. That being said I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I was really bothered by Matt Smith's performance through most of it. It was almost as if he were doing a comic imitation of The Doctor. While I don't mind a bit of goofiness from time to time, the steady stream of silly faces and, to me, out of character behaviors began to grate. I love Clara, though, and so long as Smith tones down the cartoonish buffoonery I'll be well please henceforth.
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