Style
Over Substance in (New) Doctor Who
By
Cynthianna
***Spoiler Alert! You may want to watch the episode first before reading this review.***
Which
came first—the chicken or the egg? In Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who universe the answer is of course “both.”
Before the Flood starts out with
a scene in which we see the Doctor by himself in the TARDIS. He breaks the “fourth
wall” by talking directly to the viewer as he peers directly into the camera
lens. In spite of Peter Capaldi’s engaging performance, this is still considered
a very poor writing technique. Dumping information into the viewer’s lap upfront
means the writer doesn’t trust that the viewer is intelligent enough to discern
it for himself or herself simply by watching the episode.
As
in all strong writing, the principle of “show
not tell” should be adhered to. The “wink-wink” of actors talking knowingly into
a camera should be avoided, as it indicates to the viewer that the character of
the Doctor realizes he’s a fictional construct and the episode is all just so much
make-believe. Instantly, all tension and wonder at how the Doctor will survive
this week’s dilemma evaporates. Why should we continue watching if we know how
it’s all going to end?
But
under the current producer’s guidelines it seems that the series protocol is to
write down to the lowest common denominator of viewer intelligence. So, the
Doctor starts out by telling us all that he believes in time paradoxes (even
though this form of time travel has been forbidden in the past). He,
essentially, is going to rewrite his own history, and he knows full well that he’s
going to do it. Okay, this paradox of time travel was used to great comic effect
on Futurama when Fry goes back in
time and accidentally sleeps with his own grandmother, impregnates her and
becomes his own grandfather. But why does Doctor
Who feel it needs to repeat this particular sci-fi cliché?
With
a thin plot about a time paradox that’s been done many times before (and often to provide comedy),
there’s not much else to enjoy in Before
the Flood other than the very nice underwater base set and the very
interesting Cold War 1980s military training village the Doctor and two others
travel back to in order to save Clara. Of course, he has to save Clara at the
cost of the others’ lives. Saving other characters isn’t important, as their
function is to serve as cannon fodder to create “tension” in an episode that
has no inherent tension. (And why do they travel in time to the Soviet-style
village in Britain anyway? Couldn’t it have been just a normal Scottish village
built near a massive dam? No explanation is given, and it’s a shame, as it
looked like a very unique place to set a Ten
Little Indians type of tale.)
To
sum up, we’re given the entire episode’s plot premise in the first few minutes,
and to fill in the remaining 45 minutes we have lots of running around on well-constructed
sets and a few explosions and SFX. Well done. A couple of the survivor side characters
express love and admiration for each other. Nice enough. The handsome Peter
Capaldi smiles some at the camera and shows off his awesome guitar-playing
skills. Fan girl “squee!”
All
of these things are done well, but you're left with a hollow feeling inside. You feel
that nothing really has happened of any consequence for
the Doctor, and nothing was ever at risk since we know how it all will end in the first scene. A true triumph of style over substance. If we know the “punch
line” from the start, why tell the joke at all?
Which
came first—the chicken or the egg? Does it really matter if they’re both cracked?
What do you think? Please leave your comments below. And check out my reviews of earlier episodes of this series of Doctor Who:
