C+Q - Under the Lake (2015)

After The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar, an intense sugar rush of continuity references, set pieces, and snappy one-liners, we now move on to Under the Lake, a much slower and more self-contained episode that provides some much needed room to breathe. That's not to say that The Magician's Apprentice and The Witch's Familiar aren't fucking awesome, because as we all know, they definitely are (and that's an objective fact). However, those large-scale event episodes are a lot more fun to watch if they're sandwiched between smaller-scale adventures to add some contrast. High notes are all the more impressive if they're surrounded by low notes. In other words, Under the Lake, a traditional base-under-siege where the Doctor and his companion arrive in the middle of someone else's story and find a mystery to be solved, is the norm that event episodes are deviating from. In order to have deviation from the norm, that norm needs to be reinforced every now and then. That's not to say that this was a bad or boring episode because it was normal; far from it. Normal Doctor Who is still incredible television.

Despite the obvious effort that Toby Whithouse has put into making us care about the guest cast, the main stars of the show here are the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald, who have to be one of the best Doctor/companion duos the show has ever had. What's so exciting about seeing them interact on screen is that not only is there a real sense of history between them that we never got to see with Russell T Davies' one-year-only companions like Martha and Donna, but its clear that their relationship is still organically growing and changing. This episode is full of small moments that hint at a whole ocean of development in adventures to come. Two moments in particular, the cue card gag and the scene in the TARDIS, really stood out because they made clear two very important things: Clara is actively trying to improve the Doctor and the Doctor is actively trying to improve Clara. Instead of letting them settle into a comfortable status quo, there's still an element of friction between them, albeit a friction born out of a mutual sense of concern rather than Series 8's thinly-veiled dislike. When Clara travelled with the Eleventh Doctor, their relationship was completely smooth and without issue, but then The Time of the Doctor happened and their whole dynamic changed. Now that the immediate fallout of the regeneration has been dealt with in Series 8, it's as if both characters are trying to get back to the way they were before, with Clara trying to teach the Doctor compassion and the Doctor trying to help Clara control her at-times unhealthy addiction to adventures. I can't remember the last time we had a Doctor/companion relationship that was this nuanced. As much as I like seeing fresh blood injected into the show every now and then to mix things up, I have to admit I'm going to be seriously upset when Clara leaves. She is tied with Sarah Jane as being my personal favourite companion and if it turns out she's staying for Series 10 after all, I don't think I'd complain. She's already close to being the longest-running New Who companion, so fuck it. Let's really commit.

When discussing the characters in Under the Lake, it would be absolutely criminal to not talk about Cass, the deaf leader of the base who communicates in sign language. Not only is it fantastic to see disabled people represented on prime time TV, but what makes her even more powerful is that Cass isn't a victim. As I said, she's the leader of the base, and on multiple occasions she argues with the Doctor and makes her opinion clear. I'm sure there are a lot of deaf children out there who got a kick out of this episode. Although, I'm sort of surprised that the Doctor can't speak sign. I thought the TARDIS translation circuit used telepathy, so shouldn't it be able to translate even non-verbal communication? Oh well. With the exception of Bennet and O'Donnell, the other crew members are fairly forgettable, especially Pritchard who only exists to add artificial threat by giving us a death early on. It didn't really work though because as soon as he opened his mouth I knew he was dead. Luckily, this episode is just part one of a two-parter, so there's plenty of opportunity for Before the Flood to expand on the other characters and make them all a little more memorable.

Speaking of Before the Flood, we really aren't going to know how good Under the Lake is until we see how well it set everything up. If the resolutions in part two make sense and all the set-ups worked, then it should enhance part one in the same way that Silence in the Library has significantly improved now that we know who River Song is. The cliffhanger is very well done regardless. It's very, very easy to kill a character and then immediately bring them back, and it's not as if anyone actually believes the Doctor has died. At this point, the main hook of the cliffhanger is seeing whether the cop out resolution will be done in a way that's at least entertaining to watch. If nothing else I am looking forward to next week to see how the Doctor's adventure in the past and Clara's adventure in the future interact with each other because there's certainly a lot of potential there. So far, despite being comprised of two two-parters, each episode of Series 9 has felt distinct with the cliffhangers signalling a turning point in the tone or style of their respective stories. I imagine the next pair, Episode 5 and 6 are going to take this a step further given that both of them are written by different people despite having Maisie William's character in common.