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Matthew Stott, a.k.a. Fine Young Doctor Who Thing on "Under the Lake":

I’ve not exactly been on the Toby Whithouse hype-train. He seems to get a lot of support as a possible show runner out there, and whilst I know he can do great things (Being Human), his Who work has rarely fully grabbed me. He’s not written ‘bad’ episodes, but also, out of the four he penned prior to ‘Under The Lake’, only one, ‘God Complex’, got me all ‘ooh!’ with little reservation. I mean, OF COURSE I loved all the Sarah Jane stuff in ‘School Reunion’, but outside of that, the episode didn’t do a whole lot.

I suspect that the calls for Whithouse to be the next Doctor Who showrunner is a reaction to the ever evolving, ever experimenting Steven Moffat. Whenever a writer brings a modernised version of a traditional story, some people react and want that writer to run Doctor Who. See Jamie Mathieson as evidence. Stott continues:

A lot of this felt like a retread of the familiar. Done very, very well, mind you, but adding little new or surprising to the mix.

#Under the Lake #Toby Whithouse

Mark, in his commentary on "Under the Lake":

A quick look at Twitter reveals that this has been a very popular story with fans. There seems to be a consensus that it’s like ‘classic Doctor Who.’ Not a particular Doctor, or decade, but just somehow like the original series. Over the ten years that the series has back on our screens, there seems to have been a smoothing of twentieth century seasons into a homogeneous whole that is looked upon very favourably. Where the wilderness years had fans divided over, say, the Colin Baker or Sylvester McCoy eras; 1963-89 now feels like it’s treated as a gold standard by some fans, and the polarisation is more prevalent between the Russell T Davies and Steven Moffat eras.

In the 1980s, there was a distinct antagonism between John Nathan-Turner (and his era) with his predecessor's era, Graham Williams. Now those eras all blend together. And so will Russell T Davies's and Steven Moffat's in decades to come.

#Under the Lake

Philip Sandifer reviews "Under the Lake":

And yet there’s no obvious reference point for this in the classic series. It doesn’t feel like a McCoy story or a Davison story. It’s tempting to call anything that’s a base under siege a Troughton story, but no, this isn’t how one of those works or feels either. Indeed, its basic formula is unmistakably a new series standard - the action-heavy setup to a premise-changing cliffhanger.

A common review of the story is that "Under the Lake" is a traditional Doctor Who story. It is a traditional base-under-siege story. But as Sandifer notes, writer Toby Whithouse did not watch "classic Doctor Who". He may not have seen those stories and definitely did not grow up with them like Moffat or Capaldi. It's as if Whithouse is writing traditional Doctor Who from a folk memory.

#Under the Lake

Stuart Ian Burns notes, in his review of "Under the Lake":

[…] we're almost seeing a reverse of the Fourth and Leela during their Hinchcliffe season, of Clara attempting to civilise him.

The twelfth Doctor is the savage, uncivilised man who must be taught the niceties of a cultured class.

#Under the Lake #Twelfth Doctor #Clara Oswald

Charlie Jane Anders, in her review of "Under the Lake"

The Doctor is so keen on discovering the truth about this fascinating phenomenon (and also possibly stopping a potentially huge threat) that he’s willing to put everyone in danger. It’s a bit of a throwback to the second Doctor Who episode ever, when he sabotaged the TARDIS, to force his companions to explore the Dalek city.

And the thing is, Clara does nothing about this. She’s even more gung-ho than the Doctor is, to get swept up in the adventure. […]

It’s been a huge trope on Doctor Who, in recent years, that the Doctor’s human traveling companions keep him anchored and connect him to humanity. […] So now the Doctor has a companion, but she’s too busy being another Doctor to fulfill her usual role in the grand scheme of things, and that spells trouble.

The Doctor and Clara are the most dangerous best friends, egging each other on to something more dangerous.

#Under the Lake

JR Southall, in his review of "Under the Lake":

There is a huge amount of imagery conveying the twin themes of communication through the visual spectrum – an aspect of Moffat’s work that has been present throughout his Doctor Who career – with an ever-present but never intrusive focus on eyes and reflections; the very lack of opaqueness in the ghosts themselves a consolidation of this.

The visual medium, the camera and eyes, become a character. Take note how this was used in "The God Complex" and "Mummy on the Orient Express".

#Under the Lake

Eddie McGuigan, in his preview of "Under the Lake", starts off by picturing Doctor Who in the 1970s (or your own childhood):

It was autumn, getting dark, maybe a little windy and cold outside. Curtains were drawn, tea had, everyone on the couch. The haunting melody would drag that old blue box down a swirling tunnel and open up to some plucky guest stars with some pretty distinct characteristics in a claustrophobic base set slightly in the future. There’d be a leader, brusque but true, a scientist, a creepy and slightly untrustworthy specialist, and a few immediately likeable characters who you could envisage as companions to the Doctor. Just as we’re getting to know them, something will happen – a likeable character will be killed, a monster will appear…

…and elsewhere in the base, tucked away in a cupboard or utility area there’ll be a strange, wheezing, groaning sound and an old blue Police Box will materialise out of thin air. It’ll sit for a second, as if gathering its thoughts, then an eccentric man will spring from the creaking door, sniffing the air, followed by a pretty, plucky companion, eyes wide with excitement at the start of a new adventure. Before long, the man – known only as the Doctor – will be embroiled in the situation, with his companion a loyal sidekick, and he’ll take control of the group meeting various levels of resistance, from suspicion, aggression to immediate new friendships.

What are the chances that after "Under the Lake", Toby Whithouse will be discussed as a new showrunner. We saw it when Jamie Mathieson wrote the traditional yet modern "Mummy on the Orient Express". We will see it again with this story. Echoes of the past will want people yearning for it in the future.

#Under the Lake

Simon Brew previews "Under The Lake" at Den of Geek:

There's clearly been some effort to diversify the crew in a couple of ways, but the most interesting - and it's far from box-ticking - is that the captain here, Cass, is deaf, and requires someone to sign for her.

Series 9 has an undercurrent of diversity. More directors and writers who are female. A transgender villain who is wonderful. A leader who is deaf. And there is more.

#Under the Lake

Will Brooks, at Doctor Who Online, previews "Under the Lake":

In the past, Doctor Who has always taken a fairly firm line when it comes to supernatural elements such as ghosts; there's always a scientific explanation behind these things. It's rather brilliant, then, to see the Doctor so thrilled by the prospect that he might have been wrong all along, and that death really is just the start of a new adventure.

The Doctor is a traveller who loves to discover new things. Learning something new means that you have discovered you can be wrong. That's the Doctor. Excited to discover that he is wrong.

#Under the Lake

Cameron K McEwan in his preview of "Under the Lake", discusses the rudeness of the twelfth Doctor:

The idea that Doctor needs Clara to guide him in etiquette, given how selfish and solipsistic she can be at times, is risible. Steven Moffat has often made a great play about each regeneration of the same man. If Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor is indeed the same man then he wouldn’t need this device. Sure, he has been brusque and alien in almost every incarnation but he’s always been friendly, empathetic and understanding whomever he’s dealing with throughout the universe.

It evokes the casually callous and needlessly bitter, “She cares so I don’t have to!” from last year’s Into the Dalek and also reminds one of Steven’s other show Sherlock - where the great intelligence of Baker Street’s finest has to be compounded with the fact that’s he’s socially autistic and needs lesser mortals to teach him about the trivialities of life and human beings. If The Doctor is indeed the same man, then he doesn’t need this tutelage, especially from Clara - who is now a fidgety imp demanding monsters and "things blowing up" every week (join the club!) in a tad annoying way.

The Doctor is rude to adults (or people in authority), yet friendly to children (or people outside of authority). Has the twelfth Doctor moved too far from the norm?

#Under the Lake

Writer Andrew Ellard continues his tweetnotes, this time on "The Witch’s Familiar".

Ellard tweeted:

DW-TWF: What happens when a civilisation’s language is curtailed, when “other” means “wrong’? They start to believe it. #tweetnotes

And:

DW-TWF: How like a writer to feel that fascism can grow from restrictions of free expression. That people vitally need voice. #tweetnotes

Words are powerful. They can create worlds and start revolutions. When your words are changed and their meaning is no longer the same, you are neutered. Your power is taken away from you. Your identity is stolen.

All that remains is anger and conformity. All that remains is a Dalek.

Ellard also tweeted:

DW-TWF: That and Davros’s POV make this very definitely a story about what it is to be a Dalek, and what it is to make them. #tweetnotes

Previously, Ellard has raised the concern that smoff has focused on the heroes in Doctor Who, forgetting how villains compliment the themes and characters. Has this been addressed?

DW-TWF: Steven has zoomed in on villains at last and it’s brought the show access to new POVs and ways of doing things. #tweetnotes

#The Witch’s Familiar

Continuity Can Be Changed by Modernity — The Magician’s Apprentice

Writer Paul Cornell recently tweeted about a worrying debate:

Oh dear God, I just looked at the ‘how are there black Kaleds?’ thread on Outpost Gallifrey. Racism via continuity!“”

And:

It really is the same mindset: continuity mustn’t be changed by modernity. Actual continuity fascism, in one easy move.

And:

The *sane* bit: how, when they were skin colour racists? But, okay, they weren’t, just genetic ones. Sane reaction: oh. Okay then.

And:

But the metaphor of skin colour racism on Skaro solidified into 'personal canon’ and so there are now those who’ll fight for it.

We could raise the colour-blind casting style of today. Or we could raise the issue that Kaleds are not racist ("seeking racial purity”), it is the Daleks. Or we could raise the issue that racist casting of days in the past is not continuity.

Or we could simply enjoy having a diverse cast that represents everything truly diverse about Doctor Who.

#The Magician’s Apprentice

Philip Sandifer, in his review of "The Witch's Familiar"

Of course, none of this is helped by the basic problem, which is that Moffat built an entire two-parter out of the most overrated (and, as Jack points out on last week’s podcast, misrepresented) scene in the history of the series. The Doctor’s debate over destroying the Daleks is crap. It was crap in 1975. It’s crap today. It has always relied on a crass substitution of aesthetics for ethics that ends up saying nothing. The Doctor cannot destroy the Daleks or actually shove Davros into a handmine because the larger structure of Doctor Who cannot possibly allow this. And so with one option foreclosed for entirely aesthetic reasons the actual content of the debate becomes empty. Genesis of the Daleks sidestepped that by ultimately taking the debate out of the Doctor’s hands. But The Magician’s Apprentice/The Witch’s Familiar puts it back in his hands, and ends up with all the obvious problems. Put another way, the Doctor’s initial choice in The Magician’s Apprentice of walking away without doing anything one way or the other is fundamentally the least interesting decision he could take. And moreover, once he took it there was only one actual direction the story could go from there, which was, of course, where it actually ended. Add to that a fake-out cliffhanger that pretends the Doctor is going to take the aesthetically impossible route (at least temporarily) and you get a story that’s tremendously frustrating.

The story may have been driven by the fourth Doctor's "do I have the right?" speech in "Genesis of the Daleks", yet it was more inspired by the dynamics of the Doctor and Davros.

#The Witch’s Familiar

Simon Brew, at Den of Geek, in his review of "The Magician's Apprentice", discusses the "deaths" if Clara and Missy:

It’d be a lovely Hitchcock-esque trick to genuinely kill one of them off, and in turn it’d destabilise expectations going forward. But this is episode one of a 12-installment run (13, including the Christmas special, of course). It’s certainly successfully grabbed my attention, but in turn, it’s posed lots of teasers, and not all of them feel very teasing. Perhaps if this was an episode 11 cliffhanger, it’d feel different.

This is one of the problems with reviewing stories halfway through (or even seasons partway). Maybe Clara did die at the end of "The Magician's Apprentice" and we see her ghost in future episodes. Maybe not.

But this early in the series, a character's apparent death is, well, not seen as a death.

#The Magician’s Apprentice

Kashann Kilson, on Steven Moffat trolling his critics:

And just as you began to ask how in the hell all that happened, the Doctor uttered a line that might be the single greatest act of trolling in the history of the Whoverse:

“Of course the real question is where did I get that cup of tea? Answer: I’m the Doctor. Just accept it.”

In the Russell Davies/Steven Moffat reboot, tongue-in-cheek one-liners have become a staple of the show. But even against that backdrop it’s obvious this gag was show runner and episode author Steven Moffat razzing critics of the current series who point, quite reasonably, to its numerous gaping plot holes and scattershot inconsistencies. In that Whovian equivalent of a Kanye shrug, Moffat is acknowledging that Dr. Who might not stand up to the scrutiny reserved for other shows within the genre, but ultimately, it really doesn’t have to.

Does any other show have this much scrutiny? Kilson continues:

Even through the most cursory critical lens, Dr. Who is, and has always been, a hot mess riddled with inconsistencies, overlaps, and plot holes. But oh, what a beautiful mess it has been.

Oh yes it is.

#The Witch’s Familiar

David Hill, at Doctor Who Watch, in a discussion on how Steven Moffat has found his Doctor:

Over the past couple of years, it has been a common thread amongst Whovians to state that Steven Moffat has lost his touch, and it is time for him to step away from Doctor Who. His tenure was starting to become stale, with the same general plots and stories, and the same creatures returning. Oh look, more Cybermen and Daleks. Yay! Or, even worse, a meandering episode with the same substance of a Seinfeld rerun. Look, it’s an episode about nothing at all. The Moon is an egg? Get me another beer.

Over the past couple of years, it has been a common thread amongst Whovians to state that Russell T Davies has lost his touch, and it is time for him to step away from Doctor Who. His tenure was starting to become stale, with the same general plots and stories, and the same creatures returning. Oh look, more Cybermen and Daleks. Yay! Or, even worse, a meandering episode with the same substance of Coronation Street. Look, it's an episode about a lonely angel. The bees are disappearing? Get me another shot.

#The Witch’s Familiar

Matthew Stott, Mr Doctor Who Thing, on enjoying Doctor Who:

Doctor Who is something they love part of. A show that they now endure because…. because…? Because there is that part of it they used to love. And they hope it’ll be just like it was again for that specially selected period of time. But a little heads up: it probably won’t be like that again. Not quite. It can’t be. It’s not just one thing this show, it’s been made by too many different people, people who must bring themselves to it. Who must steer the ship in a slightly different direction.

In the 1980s, Doctor Who fandom was heavily influenced by the "elder fans", people who told us the quality of stories we could not longer see. They told us what was bad in the past, and how the current series compared to it. They didn't take into account how different tastes exist. And that's where we are as well. We may not have the "elder fans", though we do have fans who see themselves as standing up for true Doctor Who and hating what they currently see. What they like and hate is fair. What I like and hate is fair. What you like and hate is fair. And none of this needs to align. We should revel in that.

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