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Under The Lake featured was a reasonable well-paced episode with Morven Christie looking particularly scrummy. There’s also some amusing lines scattered about the script, such as when the Doctor’s shown to be so out of touch with human emotions that he needs cue cards to tell him what they right thing is to say to a crew who’ve lost their crew member: “I’m very sorry for the loss of your friend / family member / pet”
And part-way through when he wanted to hide in the TARDIS while Clara wanted to get out there and fight the good fight, he suggests she gets a hobby, or even a new relationship: “You lot – you’re bananas about relationships!”
Another plus was that this episode had ghosts that’ll spook out young children, but on the downside, there was a so-far redundant fact when the Doctor worked out that Prentis’ home planet was Tivoli, which they’ve encountered before, as it’s the same place as David Walliams’ character Gibbis from the 2011 episode The God Complex, when Matt Smith was the Doctor. Unless this is addressed in next week’s two-parter, it’s a waste of time to mention it now. And if it *is* important in any way, then surely more would’ve been made about it this week, rather than just giving it a cursory mention?
There were also plot holes and plenty of unexplained things which smacked of sloppy writing. Still, it made for a reasonable and undemanding 45 minutes of entertainment, if you don’t think about it too deeply… as I’ve just done.
One closing moan. The base featured a typical rag-tag crew including a token tomboy and every diversity group they could fit in. I’m all for inclusivity, but it also has to be feasible. You wouldn’t normally hire a deaf person for an under-sea base just to tick a box that fulfils the Disability Discrimination Act. The character of Cass was solely reliant on just one other member who could sign for her, but when in an emergency situation, what if she became separated from the signer, or if he was even killed? Then she’d be completely stuffed.
Since Steven Moffat oversees every episode, I’m really not sure whether this was him trying to be politically correct, or exactly what outcome he was expecting, other than being a plot device to figure out what the ghosts were saying.
Next time: The Doctor’s dead! (well, we knew that!) but in going back in time we see how the town was flooded and how it all began. Plus there’s more running about in corridors. Still, it looks like a good’un to close the two-parter.
Under The Lake is available on the BBC iPlayer until November 1st.
Doctor Who Series 9 Part 1 is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD, and individual episodes can be bought in HD and SD here. And click on all the images in this review for the full-sized version.
Score: 7/10
Director: Daniel O’Hara
Producer: Derek Ritchie
Screenplay: Toby Whithouse
Music: Murray Gold
Cast:
The Doctor: Peter Capaldi
Clara Oswald: Jenna Coleman
Moran: Colin McFarlane
O’Donnell: Morven Christie
Cass: Sophie Stone
Lunn: Zaqi Ismail
Bennett: Arsher Ali
Pritchard: Steven Robertson
Prentis: Paul Kaye
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.