C+Q - The Bells of Saint John (2013)

The weird thing about this episode that hits you during the pre-title sequence is the way it presents the 21st century as some bizarre and exotic new world, in the same way any other episode would introduce an alien planet. Since its revival in 2005, Doctor Who has had many episodes set in contemporary London but here it's shown in a brand new way.

This episode is like a modern day action thriller as written by a comically out-of-touch old person, both in the way it treats the modern day like something fascinating a new, and in its lack of understanding of modern technology. You can tell from the moment people start hacking each other by typing at hyper-speed with only one hand without even touching the mouse while Matrix-style code appears on the screen. If it weren't for the epic triumphant music that played during this moment, in Clara's house when the Doctor is trying to save her from being uploaded, I'd say that it was an intentional satire. It's possible of course that these are all silly exaggerations of what using computers actually looks like for some fun aesthetic purpose. After all, I love a bit of silliness for silliness' sake. Unfortunately, I'm lead to believe this is the result of the episode being genuinely out of touch. This is a script that features completely straight-faced references to social media sites like Myspace, Bebo, and Habbo as if they're websites people in 2013 would've used.

Despite containing historical inaccuracies for a time period in which the production crew is currently living, the main plot of The Bells of Saint John is actually really strong. There are some fantastic sequences, like the Doctor being a monk meditating on Clara's echoes before getting a call on the TARDIS phone. Some have argued that this introduction is flawed because the TARDIS's phone must have been ringing for ages for one of the monks to have heard it, ran to get the Doctor, and then ran back again, but it's clearly mentioned that Clara has been trying to get the helpline to pick up for a while ("Angie, is the internet working? I'm trying to phone the helpline, but they won't answer."), so it's directly addressed.

An example of truly great writing comes in the following exchange: "Why don't I have the internet?" "It's 1207." "I've got half-past three. Am I phoning a different time zone?" "Yeah, you really sort of are." That's genius. What came first: the idea that "twelve-oh-seven" sounds like a time of day or the plot detail that the Doctor is actually in the year 1207? That joke seems so natural and perfect because I can't tell which part of the joke was written first. Also there's the bit of cultural background that helplines are often in different countries, reinforcing the time zone reference.

Like this joke, the entire episode is elegantly written and beautifully plotted. The pacing is perfect and gives us a timey-wimey opening with a wacky and whimsical return for the show, some ambitious but logical action set pieces, and some occasional slower moments where the characters have a proper sit-down to establish Clara's personality and to develop her chemistry with the Doctor. Other than a few little issues, like wondering why Miss Kizlet doesn't just keep all her staff on maximum IQ and Obedience all day every day when she clearly could, the script is pretty damn tight.

This episode is packed with big memorable moments, like when the Doctor bursts into Clara's home after hearing her voice calling for help, finding her unconscious body on the floor but her voice can still be heard. Or when all the lights in London go off except the ones on the street where the Doctor and Clara are, allowing a crashing plane to be directed straight at them. The transition from the street into the TARDIS and from the TARDIS into the plane a fantastic bit of direction from Colm McCarthy, and I'm glad someone has at least attempted such a shot, although the seams are obvious. But by far the highlight, just because of how ridiculously Doctor Who it is, is when the Doctor rides up the side of the shard on a motorbike. Anyone who complains about how mad it is clearly has no sense of fun.

I could go on and on about this episode but it would just be a big list of the bits I thought were clever. Like how the Spoonheads are designed so a chunk is missing out of the back of their heads, so when the Doctor hacks a Spoonhead to act as his eyes and ears during the final confrontation with Miss Kizlet, he wears his motorbike helmet which covers up the missing chunk, once again making me ask which part of the script came first: the fact that Spoonheads have bits of their head missing (hence the name 'Spoonhead') or the fact that the Doctor would logically at that point in the plot be wearing a motorbike helmet which perfectly covers the hole? Because the plot fits together so elegantly, it feels less like a fabricated work of fiction and more like a logical sequence of events, while still managing to have twists, turns, and big dramatic reveals that work.

Oh, and there's the great bit at the end when the Doctor-Spoonhead-thing uses Miss Kizlet's magic iPad to make her servants obey her and download her from the cloud. I don't want to just list all the good bits but really, that's all I can do. Sure, some of the science is flimsy but at least it's consistently flimsy and the flimsiness is established by the pre-title sequence. The episode lets you know up-front that it runs on out-of-touch old person logic, which is at least a consistent form of logic.

The Bells of Saint John is basically all you could ask for from a Doctor Who story. It's intelligent, fun, well-directed, well-acted, and is a perfect episode to show to someone who's never seen it before. Despite the charisma of Jenna Coleman, Clara's character as written is a little bland right now other than a few details about her current situation and future ambitions, but this is only episode one and it mainly exists to get viewers back into the quick and witty swashbuckling sense adventure for the new run of Doctor Who. Next episode, The Rings of Akhaten, really goes into detail about Clara's life and gives her a lot more depth and complexity to be built upon in future (spoiler alert: she grows into my favourite companion). Overall, Bells is a fantastic episode, and a great start to 2013.