Doctor Who: The Caretaker

(spoilers for s08e06)

The premise is simple - it's supposedly a simple job as well - a dangerous alien threat and the Doctor wanting to get rid of it before anyone else notices, possibly blowing up things in the process? Sounds like any episode really, though it's really not about this threat whatsoever. I've honestly forgotten about what was attacking to begin with, despite the police man's severed hand (poor chap).

Anyway, the threat of an alien has the Doctor undercover at Clara's work (aka school), which turns out to be a hilarious thing of course. At the start of the episode it's clear that Clara's really having issues in general over what's going on, having to keep her other life hidden from Mr Pink (yes, the reference had to happen at some point). This episode is primarily about that very thing, how Danny and the Doctor meet. And that's where the writing just goes - well - a wee bit wobbly to say the least.

This series has been very interesting, but there's one growing problem. Everyone's quirky, especially in this episode. I found myself able to shove it away, though now I'm starting to grow annoyed. I did enjoy the episode, loved the laughs, but it's starting to worry me how much of a cartoon Clara's become. She's got one-liner after one-liners, weird moments, cutsy stuff, and it's all sort of drowning out everything else. It's just becoming a bit too much. The thing is, when you've got an interesting character like the Doctor - he needs normal people to be around him, or else it becomes very messy.

There's too many quirky characters, even Danny was made into this very infantile caricature of what I liked to believe was depth in those few seconds of first screen-time. The Doctor became a nuisance as well, and I know it's because - 'he wants to know if I really deserve you', but it's rather unconvincing at best. If the emotional bits had been developed further, if Danny had done more than somersault (which was what at the time), then maybe. Everyone's trying to be interesting, but no one struck me as believable this episode, so I'm hoping further episodes try to rebuild what they'd begun with. I truly hope so, or I'll be waiting for some rather ordinary character to step into the TARDIS because it's just getting a bit thin.

Clara is important indeed she is, she's proved that by snaking out villains plans, and kept the Doctor's head and heart in the right place, but she was poorly written this episode. The entire episode in itself left a bad taste in my mouth, making me sigh more than anything else, and I certainly hope that 'Kill the Moon' will make my skin crawl in a good way.

4/10