Doctor Who (2005) 8-01: Deep Breath

Episode:

801

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Serial:

242

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Writer:

Steven Moffat

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Air Date:

23-Aug-2014

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Today on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the first story to star Peter Capaldi as the Twelfth Doctor. I keep forgetting if it's called Don't Breath or Deep Breath though. I'm fairly sure it's not Don't Speak at least, because that's a song.

Peter Capaldi was the oldest actor to the take the role, as he was 56 at the time he filmed this, just slightly older than William Hartnell had been when he made An Unearthly Child. That means this is the biggest age gap between Doctors, as Matt Smith had been the youngest. Unless you count John Hurt and complicate everything.

There was no change in showrunner this time, as Steven Moffat remained the producer and main writer, but there was a bit of a shift in tone for this era. I've noticed some people aren't all that keen on the Peter Capaldi seasons, but I've also noticed that it's usually the writing that gets blamed for that. Me, I think that all of Doctor Who's seasons are a mess, classic and modern, with plenty of terrible stories to go along with the great ones, and the Twelfth Doctor's seasons were no exception.

Just this once I've decided not to bother warning people about the massive SPOILERS below this point, so if this is the first review you've seen on my site and you don't know by now that I only drop in spoilers for other Doctor Who stories that aired before it and none that came afterwards, then that's your own problem I'm afraid.

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Hang on, something's gone wrong. This isn't right.

The first episode for the other modern Doctors, Rose, The Christmas Invasion and The Eleventh Hour, all started with a shot of the moon that panned across to the Earth and then zoomed down to London. They've got the London bit right here, and there's Big Ben like in all the rest of them, but there was no space zoom! Just a dinosaur.

It's a pretty good looking Tyrannosaur Rex though. TV dinosaur effects have really come a long way since the days of series like Sliders. Or since Doctor Who's own Invasion of the Dinosaurs. There's one slight problem with it I've spotted though, and this really is nitpicking: it's 90 meters too tall.

Turns out that this is the Victorian Era and the Paternoster Gang are making their fifth and final appearance to give us some familiar character to watch as we're getting used to the new Doctor. Inspector Gregson seems like someone who's appeared before as well, but nope he's new for this story. Well okay, he was in a two minute webcast prequel to The Snowmen, but I never saw it.

Madame Vastra claims that dinosaurs were mostly that size, which bothers me more than it should. Because they weren't! I've seen fossils and I've seen Invasion of the Dinosaurs, so I know. The rest of the production crew spent so much effort trying to get the costumes and set design historically accurate but writer Steven Moffat decided to upscale the dinosaur just to annoy me. Well, it also had to be big enough to be able to spit out the Tardis I suppose.

Gregson observes the dinosaur cough up a blue police box from the future and determines that it must have laid an egg. He has an understanding of eggs that rivals the writer of Kill the Moon, so I can see why he works with (relies on) the Paternoster Gang so much. He's like the Inspector Lestrade to Vastra's Sherlock Holmes. By the way, there's also an Inspector Gregson in the Sherlock Holmes stories, who is a rival to Lestrade, so that's interesting.

Vastra hands Gregson some sonic lanterns to place around the dinosaur to contain it (like the sonic devices in classic series story Face of Evil!) then goes down to investigate the Tardis. What she finds is a great looking set and a three minute comedy routine by the new Doctor, who is suffering from some proper old school regeneration madness.

It's just like the scene in The Christmas Invasion when Ten came out of the Tardis, said a few words to Jackie and Mickey, then collapsed. Except more so.

Strax knocks on the door and a madman appears out of the box dressed in Eleven's costume, sans bow tie. The console room is a bit of a smoking mess due to his bad driving, just like in Christmas Invasion, but he's far looper than Ten was, unable to tell people apart or remember names. Though to be fair it has been something like 900 years since he's seen most of them. This was Peter Capaldi's very first scene as the Doctor by the way, as they shot the episodes in order this time around. That might not have worked out for the best.

The Doctor eventually passes out after talking to his lady friend dinosaur and demanding everyone else stop fading away and going dark, which gives Jenny and Clara a chance to basically repeat Jackie and Rose's lines from the start of The Christmas Invasion:

Jenny: "Who's this? Where's the Doctor?"
Clara: "Right here. That's him. That's the Doctor."

Then Vastra finishes the scene off by quoting the Brig in Planet of the Spiders: "Well then. Here we go again." So Moffat's doing references now I guess. Doesn't make any sense when she says it though, she's never seen a Doctor regenerate before!

 Another new opening title sequence! The fourth the modern series has had so far.

They had a good run but after 51 years they finally went with a cliché obvious clock-related intro sequence. Though if it had to be done, I'm glad they did it this way, as it looks great. It was inspired by a fan made title sequence that Steven Moffat found on YouTube, so all the people in the comments of the video saying "SEND THIS TO THE BBC ITS SO GOOD!" must have had a nice surprise when the episode came on.

There's a new theme as well and it's not quite my favourite. My main problem with it is that it lasted for four years and I got tired with it. That, and it has an irritating harsh synth lead.

After the new opening credits we find the Doctor ranting about bedrooms not making any sense and the mirror being furious and the whole scene comes off as a bit forced to me. I mean I'm sure what he saw in that mirror must have been terrifying to him and I do agree with him that a room with just a bed in it has limited use during the day, but he's surrounded by bookshelves and other furniture! That room has plenty of additional uses.

It's interesting though that he has a mirror right there and still hasn't consciously seen his own face yet. Also interesting is that he hasn't picked up on the Scottish accent he got from Amy yet, instead he thinks everyone else is talking strange. Except Vastra. I didn't even notice she had a Scottish accent until this scene... unless she just started putting it on. I rarely notice when people switch accents; I didn't even spot Amy switching to Scottish in The Eleventh Hour until it was pointed out to me.

Then the worst part of the episode happens, when Vastra tricks the Doctor into knocking himself out by asking him to project an image of perfect sleep into her mind, then insults men and humans in quick succession. The part that bothers me is that bloody sound effect they put on top, it's straight out Looney Tunes! It's the worst sound effect in Doctor Who history since the last time they had an obnoxious alarm sound. Though I did like how him knocking himself out like an idiot when Vastra asked him to 'save her time' kind of mirrored the scene in The Christmas Invasion where he woke up to be a big damn hero when Rose whispered "Help me."

Vastra's a bit bothered by the scene herself actually. Not by the sound effect, but by Clara asking how they can change him back. Which is a fair enough question I think... or at least it would've been for any other companion. Clara's the only companion to have seen all his incarnations so far and she even had an adventure with Ten and Captain Grumpy; she of all people should get the drill by now.

Clara finally asks the obvious question: if the Doctor's face is brand new then how can it have lines on it? She asks Jenny what she'd do if Vastra was different, and Jenny points out that she's already plenty different, as she's a lizard. Which is both a perfect answer and yet kind of isn't, as Vastra looks like a beautiful actress with a bit of lizard makeup on, and if she suddenly changed to look like the Silurians from the classic series I can imagine her reaction being a lot worse than Clara's.

As soon as Jenny's out of the room, the Doctor starts talking in his sleep and Clara realises/assumes that he's translating for the dinosaur. I developed a real dislike of scenes where he translates for animals (and babies) without language, after I realised that the Doctor wasn't lying to mess with people, but here it kind of works for me. I like how they're making the dinosaur sympathetic at least. Plus there's always the chance that he's actually talking about himself, though it's a bit of a stretch and it'd be weird that "I am alone. Can't see me," would be on his mind when he's in a house full of friends and not one of them doubts he's the Doctor.

Then Strax appears at the door, calls Clara "Boy" (she's not a boy), asks to take her coat (she's not wearing a coat) and then asks to take her hat (she's not wearing a hat). I saw some dumb Sontarans in the classic series, but Strax is on an entirely different level. It's like something went wrong with the cloning and his twin brother got the brain.

Meanwhile, in the streets of Victorian London, a man's going on to whoever will listen to him about how unrealistic the dinosaur is. Dude should get himself a blog.

Unfortunately he's chosen the wrong audience this time as it turns out he's talking to a man with half a face and tweezers, who decides he wants his eyes. Funny how Jack the Ripper got to be so notorious but the mechanical eyeball thief never made it into the papers (or the giant dinosaur for that matter).

He's a fantastic looking eyeball thief by the way. They really nailed the CGI this time.

Back at Paternoster HQ, Clara has been invited down to speak with Vastra, who's decided to wear her veil for the purposes of teaching a lesson. Though it feels somehow that it's the audience that she's really talking to and that doesn't make her comes across any less sanctimonious.

The conversation quickly turns to the subject of the Doctor's renewal, with Clara being the first companion to ever point out that it's weird that he came out of the regeneration looking older. Vastra basically accuses her of being in love with him, which gets a reaction. She continues by saying that the Doctor wore a young face for the same reason she wears a veil: to be accepted. (Also because if Last of the Time Lords revealed that if he showed his true age he'd look like Dobby the house-elf.) Vastra continues by saying the Doctor trusted the Clara by lifting the veil of his youthful appearance and asks if she's judging him.

I guess no one knows why the Doctor ends up with the faces he does, not even the Doctor, so she might be right! All I know is that she's sure giving Clara a lot of crap for not immediately accepting him when she herself called him a monkey like five minutes ago. Also Clara was just with Eleventh as an old man and accepted him just fine!

Clara eventually becomes sick of this and gets angry, saying that the only pin up she had when she was fifteen was Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, which is a bit weird. Then she basically accuses Vastra of being attracted to her, which earns her a round of applause from Jenny, which is also a bit weird. I'm not sure I'd start clapping when someone gave my lizard wife an epic telling off. But Vastra is satisfied that she finally got the response she was after, and this is the point in the series where Clara starts to become a more three dimensional person so I'm not complaining either.

Meanwhile, the Doctor's woken up, sniffed out a bit of chalk like he's Daredevil, and decided that random equations are a good thing to draw all over the floor. There's even a couple of graphs in there! I hope Vastra has the sense to get Strax to clean it off later, lest it jumps humanity's understanding of science forward a few centuries. Not that it seemed to change anything when he gave Sir Patrick Moore the secret of faster than light travel in The Eleventh Hour.

He's soon distracted by the sound of the dinosaur outside though, and climbs to the roof via the window to yell out a solemn promise to get her back home!

But she explodes, so now that's not going to happen.

Fun fact: the dinosaur is standing directly in front of the London Eye prominently featured in Rose! Or at least she would've been if this episode had taken place 100 years later.

The Doctor decides that a giant spontaneously-combusting dinosaur is something he needs to investigate, so he jumps off the roof onto a tree, then flips down to steal some guy's horse. The scene shows the viewers two things: that the Doctor could still do action scenes, and that filming a scene of someone dropping through a tree is really hard. They gave it their best shot but they didn't quite pull it off. The comedy didn't work for me either really, with the Doctor telling the horse he's going to have to relieve him of his pet.

I like this shot of him galloping though Victorian London though. It looks awesome.

This less so. What the hell happened to the colour timing?

The Paternoster gang heard the dinosaur too and arrive at the scene just behind him... with Vastra locking her carriage door with a bloody car alarm remote chirp sound. The comedy in this one is really hit and miss, especially when sound effects are involved.

Now the colour looks fine again!

The Paternoster Gang find the Doctor standing on Westminster Bridge, saying hurtful things about the human race. Hey, he was the one that brought the dinosaur here and the 'pudding brains' he's disparaging took advice from an expert and kept the dinosaur contained without hurting her. So he should shut up.

Steven Moffat is a comedy writer and one of the tricks to making a dialogue funny is to give it an unexpected outcome, something maybe a bit absurd. You get a great example of that right here, as the Doctor's main question after seeing a giant dinosaur being burned to death in the middle of Victorian London is "Have there been any similar murders?" Then Vastra gives the equally unexpected answer of "Yes", which we actually saw just before with the Half-Face Man killing someone for his eyes. Though we don't know that guy was burned yet.

Speaking of Half-Face Man, the Doctor spots him and notices he's the only person here not looking at the giant dinosaur BBQ, much like he noticed Rory was the only one not looking at the sky in The Eleventh Hour, and decides to dive into the Thames and chase him. Probably would've been better to use the horse... but I'll let him off because he is literally mad right now. Plus he's not asleep, so that's a step up from Ten in his first story at least.

The next morning, Clara discovers that Strax has brought the Doctor's Tardis to Paternoster HQ to make sure they can catch him before he leaves and BURN HIM WITH ACID. I used to really like Strax (especially in the prequel to this episode where brought new viewers up to date on the previous Doctors) but his stupidity seems kind of excessive to me now. Maybe he's always been this bad and the joke's just gotten old.

I did like how he threw the newspaper to Clara with enough force to knock her down though, because I'm a child who likes slapstick.

This is a very Clara focused episode really. The Doctor's not quite as absent as he was in Rose and The Christmas Invasion, but he's definitely not dominating the story like he did in The Eleventh Hour. Her scenes have generally been about her feelings about the Doctor so far, though in this scene Strax detects that there's "a lot of muscular young men doing sport" in her brain as well. The two of them discuss the possibility that the Doctor might have abandoned her or "had his throat cut by the violent poor", which would strand her here, because she's got no way of working the Tardis herself.

Incidentally, this medical scanner, the scanner that Jenny used on the dinosaur and Vastra's car lock remote were all invented by Blue Peter competition winners, so I'm actually a monster for criticising the remote earlier and I'd be just as bad if I said this scene felt out of place, even though it kind of does.

It's interesting watching this right after The Eleventh Hour, as this story is a lot less plot driven and likes to hang out with characters for a bit and see how they feel about things. It's a bit more like The Christmas Invasion in that respect, which makes sense as that was about a companion reacting to the change as well. I wouldn't say that scenes like this are unwelcome, but they do seem like padding to get the runtime up to the full 76 minutes. Which would've been good news for classic series fans I guess! Incidentally, if this had been a classic three-parter, part one would've ended right around here.

Fortunately the Doctor isn't currently lying in a puddle of his own blood, but he's clearly lost track of the Half-Face Man and now he's going on a crazy rant to some poor tramp, played by the late Elizabeth Sladen's husband, making his second on-screen appearance in the series after Snakedance 30 years earlier.

He's figured out that he's got a Scottish accent and he's more than fine with that, but he's less keen on his independently scary eyebrows. I guess those eyebrows would be pretty off-putting to him after spending a thousand years or so with Matt Smith's delicate eyebrows waiting for him in the mirror. Still, at least he knows what he looks like now, even if he's not sure who.


This would've been an opportunity for the Doctor to tell his terrified new friend that he lifted the veil to show people his true age, but in actuality he has no bloody idea who frowned that new face he's wearing and it's bothering him. Fans at the time had a fairly good idea where the face came from though:

4-02: The Fires of Pompeii

A guy called Lobus Caecilius from The Fires of Pompeii. It's not the first time that the Doctor's ended up looking like someone he's met before, as the Sixth Doctor looked a lot like Commander Maxil from Arc of Infinity, but it is the first time he's noticed and drawn attention to it.

Then he decides to yell at the poor tramp to give him his coat, because there's no sense them both being cold. Either his regeneration madness is lasting a while this time or he's turned into a bit of a bastard. Still, at least he hasn't strangled anyone... yet.

Both the Doctor and Vastra are onto the fact that there's been a number of cases of spontaneous combustion recently, but that's as far as their investigations have taken them.

In fact Jenny believes that Vastra's taken a break to do some painting, when really she just wanted her wife to pose while she messed around with her board full of notes connected by string. I know Vastra's supposed to be a bit weird, as she's a lizard detective from the ancient past who eats criminals, but this seems bizarre even for her. Jenny even dressed up for it as well, which I believe is slightly different to the description in the script, which had her wearing some cloth and not much else. I'm not shocked that idea didn't make it all the way to screen.

Just then Clara comes in holding a newspaper... maybe not a good idea for the story to remind us that newspapers exist in a episode where a giant dinosaur was forgotten by history. She ignores Vastra's instructions to take her clothes off and shows them what she's found: an ad saying "Impossible girl. Lunch on the other side?"

I wonder if that's an actual newspaper they just edited a new advert into. Seems like a lot of text to write otherwise.

Clara assumes that it's a message for her from the Doctor, which I guess implies we've jumped ahead a day or two, otherwise they're bloody fast at getting these papers out. I suppose she's assuming that he's assuming that they'd be checking this particular paper closely for more news about victims.

I can almost kind of buy that he'd get in touch via an advert, if he wants to see her but is still too crazy to just go back to Vastra's house. But I don't buy that he'd know that directly behind his ad, on the other side of the paper, there'd be an ad for Mancini's Family Restaurant. Unless you can pay extra for that.

Clara visits the restaurant to see if she was right about the clue and sure enough the Doctor arrives in time for lunch, though his smell gets there a little sooner. Turns out he traded his watch for the guy's coat in the end, so he hasn't become a heartless coat thief, preying on the poor. There's another tonal shift here as the dialogue gets very sitcom, with the characters trading quips and snarky comments about each other until they realise that neither of them put the ad in the paper. The scene doesn't quite feel like it belongs in the same episode to me, but the actors played it so well I'm not eager to complain. They've got good chemistry, these two.

Plus I like the idea that they've been lured in by a vanity trap, which had them so distracted by how clever they were it never occurred to them they might be falling for a trick. The Doctor yanks one of Clara's hairs out (it was the only one out of place, he figured she'd want it killed), and drops it to confirm a theory. He's noticed something very wrong with the other people in the restaurant; not that they're not really eating, that's normal for background extras, but that they're not really breathing. Apparently air isn't moved around so much by people fake-eating. Also they're making clockwork sounds, so that seems like a clue.

The two of them attempt to leave, but the fake customers take offence to that, so they return to their seats. A waiter arrives to scan their organs (this is happening a lot to Clara this story) and the Doctor tears his mask off to reveal a metal frame with a flame inside.

Okay I've got two questions: what and huh?

My knowledge of biology is as limited as my knowledge of robotics, but it seems to me that if you're putting a human face over a frame, then there needs to be something underneath to animate it. Also a flame is not a suitable replacement for a brain! It's not a suitable replacement for any organ really, plus it'd make his face glow, send smoke out of his ears and set his hair on fire. I'd be shaking my head at it, but then I'd have to shake my head at the masks in City of Death and The Leisure Hive as well, and I could never say a bad word about Scaroth or the shocking bird chameleon reveal.

With the scan complete they're sent down on the Tracy Island chair ride to either their gruesome death or the cockpit of Thunderbird 2.

It's leaning towards 'gruesome death' but the robots don't seem to be in any hurry.

With some teamwork and bitching they manage to use the sonic screwdriver to free themselves and then get up and explore the room. They find cyborgs in Borg-like alcoves around the walls and the Half-Face Man sitting in a charging chair in the middle. The Doctor determines that as cyborgs go they're more like the Terminator than the Cybermen, as they've been replacing their worn out metal parts with anything they could find, such as human organs. Except for the Half-Face Man's face, he hasn't bothered replacing the gaping hole in that despite stealing that guy's eyes earlier in the story. The guy needs to sort out his veil if he wants to be accepted by society.

The cyborgs start waking up, so the Doctor and Clara decide to make a run for it. But the Doctor hesitates as he tries to remember what episode this is reminding him of (it's The Girl in the Fireplace) and manages to get Clara trapped on the wrong side of a door.

There's a gap under the door and she's very keen on him passing her the sonic screwdriver, but he decides he might need it and makes a run for it without her.

It's funny how The Christmas Invasion and The Eleventh Hour continually worked to reassure viewers that the new Doctor was still someone friendly and heroic they could like and trust, while this keeps trying to make viewers doubt him. Every time he seems to be behaving like the Doctor again he insults someone, or tries to take their coat, or pragmatically abandons them to the cyborgs. It wouldn't have been so bad if he'd at least said something reassuring or asked her to trust him.

By the way, if this had been an old-school three-parter, this could've been the second cliffhanger. Either this, or the next part where Clara tries holding her breath so that they'll think she's a robot. And her plan actually works, as it turns out that's the only way the cyborgs can tell themselves apart from humans. They must have really sensitive air sensors and really small brains.

Unfortunately this is one of those scenes designed to get the audience seeing how long they can hold their breath too, so every corridor she goes down is full of robots. Personally if it'd been me down there and I couldn't hold my breath any longer I would've taken a couple of deep breaths and then made a run for it, but Clara just keeps going. Turns out that she has the rare ability to hold her breath until she passes out! Trouble is that passing out is also a dead giveaway that she's not a robot and she's dragged back to the Half-Face Man. And while she's unconscious she dreams of school.

I'd forgotten they'd shown her teaching at Coal Hill School in Day of the Doctor, so this came as a bit of a surprise to me this time around. It's such a strange interlude that I have to wonder if it was put in more to set up a certain character that shows up in the dream, than to explain her choices in the interrogation that comes after. Or maybe it's mostly here to remind people that she's a teacher. An English teacher to be specific, as she's utterly failing to teach the class about simile and metaphor right now

I can tell this was written by a guy who used to be a teacher himself as this is exactly what school was like for me. Which is why I don't do my writing good.

Clara wakes up to discover that she's not dead yet, which turns out to be entirely due to the Doctor pragmatically running away. The Half-Face Man wants to know where he escaped to and threatens to kill her if she doesn't tell him. Clara is clearly scared out of her mind, Jenna Coleman's making sure we're well aware of that and selling the threat. But she's also defiant, because she knows how annoying it is when someone calls your bluff.

By the way, that's the Doctor in disguise behind her on the left, holding his breath through this entire scene. Uh, spoiler.

You can literally see the cogs turning in the Half-Face Man's head as he tries to figure out a way to threaten her. In the rest of the episode the effect was achieved with CGI, but here it's an actual mechanism inside a dummy and they sure loved to do extreme close ups of his eye. When it's the actor the gears look a little fake and when it's the dummy the face looks a little fake, but either way it's a great effect, especially for TV.

Clara actually manages to get more answers out of him than he gets out of her, learning that they killed the dinosaur for its optic nerve, they've been doing this long enough to know how useful dinosaur optic nerve is, and their goal is to reach the Promised Land. She does eventually give away where the Doctor is though, saying that if she still knows him at all, he'll have her back.

And she's right, because as soon as Clara needs him, he pulls his mask off!

So wait, the eyes were part of the mask? I guess that was true of the waiter as well. These masks are weird! This one doubly so, as I've read that it was actually of Matt Smith.

By rescuing Clara and revealing his face the Doctor's finally earned his theme music, though it's subtle at the moment. It's darker and much less whimsical than Eleventh's theme but it's still pretty good.

He puts his sonic screwdriver into the charging chair and tells the Half-Face Man he can blow the whole room up, then asks why he put the advert in the newspaper to bring them both down here. But it turns out that the Half-Face Man has no idea what he's talking about, so that's awkward. This apparently nullifies the Doctor's threat to blow the place up, so now he has to switch to plan B: telling his understandably pissed off companion to call in the cavalry.

Clara had a transmitter on her the whole time so she could call in the Paternoster Gang as backup! And the Doctor knew about it. So that kind of retroactively ruined the scene of her desperately holding her breath so long she passed out, and the scene of her interrogation too. Plus it means the Doctor had reason to believe she'd be okay whatever happened! Man, this doesn't seem like a good thing to have written in.

You know I'm sure they did a stuntman switch here, with stunt Jenny and stunt Vastra dropping below the edge of the frame and the actors popping back up. And then stunt Strax plummets to the floor behind them, because he clearly hasn't been practising enough at descending on a ribbon.

They should've just dropped a pair of ropes down though, as the three of them seem outmatched by the robots and aren't being much help. I guess the Half-Face Man is more concerned about the police upstairs closing his restaurant down, because he makes a run for the Tracy Island seat to ride it back up. He tells the other robots he's leaving in the escape capsule and they seem totally okay with him bailing on them, but he's apparently resigned himself to answering all of Clara's questions because when she asks what he repaired it with, he hangs around just long enough to reply "With you."

I've got a question of my own: why would she ever ask that? She knew full well that the answer was going to be somewhere between 'building materials we bought with our restaurant's profits' and 'hearts from a dozen young orphans'.

The Doctor decides to follow him up using the convenient handle. Now his theme's really making his presence known, and I appreciate that because it is a good theme.

Inspector Gregson and the police have arrived at this point, and they find a restaurant covered in dead robots and the Half-Face Man threatening them with a flamethrower. They decide to make an quick exit and watch as the room takes to the sky thanks to a concealed hot-air balloon. So that's their purpose in the story done with.

Hang on, what happened to all the windows? The inside of the restaurant has windows but there's nothing on the outside.

Anyway, the Doctor found a way into the floating room in time and now he would like to know if the Half-Face Man wants a drink, because he has a feeling he'll have to kill him soon. He also wants to know how he's powering the room, and the Half-Face Man replies "Skin." Oh come on, you can't do the 'it's made of people' reveal twice in a row like that. Also, could he find nothing better to make a balloon out of? Hot-air balloons had been a thing for a hundred years at this point and I doubt many of them were made of leather.

The Doctor investigates a bit more and unplugs one of the fuse-like things in the wall.

I love the colour in this shot and the design of whatever these things are.

Apparently the folks who made the Half-Face Man's ship loved to print its name all over everything, which makes it a little ironic that the Doctor went the entirety of The Girl in the Fireplace without ever knowing he was on the SS Madame De Pompadour. I hope these are the only two ships of their kind, as they seem to have a nasty habit of breaking down and screwing with history.

The Doctor knows this seems familiar but he still can't place it. In his defence, The Girl in the Fireplace happened over 1000 years ago for him. But what this means is that the Half-Face Man is a Clockwork Droid, or used to be at least.

While the Doctor's having his chat, the others are still under the remains of the restaurant building, having a really chaotic and hard to follow fight scene. It's not all that impressive to watch.

Clara tries the sonic screwdriver on the door to give them a way out, but it doesn't work. So if the Doctor had given it to her earlier it wouldn't have done either of them any good. They're soon overwhelmed and decide to switch to a new strategy: holding their breath. This keeps the robots off them for a bit but they can't keep it up for long.

So hang on, whenever they hold their breath the robots back off? Surely that means they can wait for them to get far enough away, breathe for a bit and then hold their breath again when they get too close.

The Doctor has thought up a more permanent solution to their problem: shut down the control node, who he suspects is the Half-Face Man.

But the Half-Face Man doesn't want to die as he's determined to reach the Promised Land. I would've thought that meant the century he originally came from, but the Doctor believes it's a superstition he's picked up. I guess because there's some organic braincells in there giving him a more human way of thinking. I can't say I expected to hear the Doctor straight up call someone's religion a superstition, this isn't Star Trek: The Next Generation, but then I suppose everyone knows that there's no such thing as Silicon Heaven.

The Doctor brings up Trigger's Broom to explain his point, (better known as the Ship of Theseus). He says that if you replace the handle of a broom and then replace the brush, and do this over and over again, is it still the same broom? He's of the opinion that it's not, and a Clockwork Droid who has replaced every part of himself over and over isn't the same anymore either. I guess the point he's making that if he's not even himself anymore then why keep going like this?

He holds up a reflective tray and bets that he probably can't even remember where he got that face from.

But it's reflective on both sides. Oops, the argument applies to him as much as it applies to the Half-Face Man. More so, in fact, as he has a full face. The Doctor's regenerated more than almost any other Time Lord, more than Time Lords should, and his subtle reaction shows that he's worried that there's nothing of the original person left.

The Doctor opens the door and is lucky to catch the Half-Face Man's arm before he's shoved out. It's a bit early in his run for him to plummet to his death in the city below, as he's still finishing off regenerating. I'm glad that the villain didn't stand just stand there throughout the whole speech like Prisoner Zero in The Eleventh Hour though, he did eventually make his move.

The Half-Face Man still isn't convinced that suicide's the way to go here, as self-destruction is against his basic programming. But murder's against the Doctor's programming so they're going to have to come up with something here or else they'll be jammed in a doorway all day. The Half-Face Man's a little surprised he didn't win straight away, but I guess Time Lords are stronger than they look.

While this is going on, the others are really struggling. Vastra keeps Jenny going a little longer by transferring oxygen in a close up (which may look like two lesbians kissing on television, but is strictly for important plot reasons). But when Strax decides he's going to shoot himself to give the rest of his unit more time, they have to stop him and take a breath.

Fortunately, they're saved at the last moment when the robots deactivate and we see the Half-Face Man lying dead, impaled on the spire of Big Ben. Which, incidentally, is what Eleven nearly collided with at the very start of The Eleventh Hour. It's a surprisingly dangerous piece of architecture, they should've been more careful when designing it.

No don’t look at us!

We're never told whether or not the Doctor pushed him, but I don't think it matters. The scene's supposed to make us wonder how dark this Doctor is and how far he's willing to go. But this is the guy who made anti-plastic to kill the Nestene Consciousness if it came to that, he dropped the Sycorax leader to his death after he tried to stab him in the back, and he had no problem sending Prisoner Zero back to his probable execution. The Doctor has always been willing to kill if he had to, the difference between this and earlier stories is that we're supposed to think about it and judge him for it. It's a very 'you're supposed to have opinions and concerns about this' moment.
 
Whether he talked him into it or gave him a shove, the Doctor did kill the Half-Face Man. And he didn't enjoy it. The thing we don't know is what the Half-Face Man chose.

Running off with the Tardis without picking up Clara first though, that's a definite asshole move. It's strange seeing the outline of the Tardis like that. Makes you realise how packed in the actors must be when they're waiting to walk out at the start of an episode.

Clara's pretty much trapped here in Victorian London now. She's going to have to get a job as a barmaid and as a governess. Actually she asks Vastra for a job with the Paternoster Gang, but the Doctor's comes back during their conversation so that wasn't much of a problem.

And that's the last time we'll ever get to see the Paternoster Gang. Unless Chris Chibnall decides to bring them back.

Then we finally get to see the new Tardis console room, looking exactly the same as it used to. Well that's not entirely true, as there's some bookcases around the outside, and a chair, and he's changed the time rotor lights from green to orange. This gives Clara a chance to use the oft-repeated "You've redecorated, I don't like it," line she overheard Ten saying in The Day of the Doctor. The Doctor's not convinced himself, as he wants more round things (which he'll eventually get).

Personally I love the extra furniture around the outside walkway as gives some purpose to it. At first I wasn't so sure because it looked like the bookcases were too thin and didn't give the actors much room to walk anymore, but they're actually pretty deep and they slot in between the beams so it's fine.

The Doctor's also changed his costume and I honestly didn't notice first time I watched this. I thought he was showing off the outfit he'd nicked off the cyborg, but nope it is a little different. 10-15% more Pertwee, though he never would've worn that cardigan. Also he's got his shirt buttoned up with no tie, bow or otherwise! And still no question mark collars or celery thankfully.

He explains that he's made mistakes and he's going to fix that. Starting by explaining that he's not her boyfriend... that's a mistake he made as Eleven. (She totally fancied him too though).

She changes the subject, bringing up the mystery of who put the advert in the paper. He counters with another question: who gave her his number in The Bells of Saint John? Seems that they might be the same woman, who wants to keep them together for whatever reason. But even after the conversation with Vastra, and the dinosaur translating, and him having her back, and the fact he saved her life, she still doesn't feel like she knows him well enough to travel with him again! I guess she just needed to get back to the present day and away from Vastra and her veil of judgementalism before she could admit it. Plus it gave her an excuse to quote the Tenth Doctor again, saying "I'm so, so sorry."

Just then she gets a surprise phone call. The Doctor says it might be her boyfriend...

... and it is!

It's the Eleventh Doctor in his green-lit under-furnished Tardis! Man he looks different to the last time I saw him in The Eleventh Hour. Maybe it's the lighting, or the wig. His half of the scene was filmed during the Time of the Doctor Christmas special, so that solves the mystery of why the Tardis phone was left off its hook at the end of Time of the Doctor. It was some nice forward thinking by Steven Moffat; more sci-fi series should film extra content for use in future time travel stories. Also clever is how the previous scene reminded viewers that Clara met Eleven when 'the woman in the shop' gave her his number and said it was a computer help line. So her first and last interaction with him was over the Tardis phone. Not sure he needed a second final scene after his other one was so perfect, but whatever.

Eleven asks Clara to stick around and look after Twelve, because he knows he'll be scared and he'll need her. Man, Steven Moffat must have been really concerned that audiences wouldn't accept Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. He's literally got the last actor begging fans to give him a chance! And Clara finally gives in... well, almost. She's close now though.

The Doctor asks if she's going to help him, like Eleven asked, and she says he shouldn't have been listening. He explains that he didn't have to, as he's who she was just talking to, which she knew... but maybe hadn't fully processed until now. He's so desperate for her to look through the face and the new persona and see him, so she gives him a bit of a stare for 20 seconds...

... and she finally does! Though he immediately goes and spoils it by saying he's not the hugging type anymore. Plus he hadn't taken her home like he meant to, this is actually Glasgow. Just like when the Fourth Doctor accidentally dropped Sarah Jane Smith off in Aberdeen. One of these days he's going to end up with a companion from Edinburgh and accidentally drop them off in Brighton.

Incidentally Peter Capaldi's from Glasgow, so it makes sense his Doctor would instinctively come back here.

The two of them go off for coffee, happy ending!

But then the Half-Face Man wakes up in the Promised Land! I'm not sure it's entirely what he was expecting as he doesn't seem too hyped about it, but it looks pretty nice. Plus it comes with a lunatic Mary Poppins-type.

She calls the Doctor her boyfriend and asks if he jumped or if he was pushed. But she doesn't try too hard to get an answer out of him as she feels like getting up and doing a bit of a dance. Could this be 'the woman in the shop'? The egomaniac needy game player who left the ad in the paper? I guess that's what we're supposed to think, but all we really know at this point is that cyborgs are allowed in Heaven after all. Or wherever this is.

Well I mean I know exactly what's going on, I've seen the whole season, so it's interesting to me to see this character's first appearance again. She's... suitably weird.


CONCLUSION

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A new Doctor's first story typically has three goals: introduce the series to new viewers, introduce the new Doctor to current viewers, and give both groups plenty of reasons to love him. This on the other hand drops poor bewildered new viewers into Victorian London with a giant T-Rex, a lizard detective, and a dumb potato-man butler. It shows an erratic Doctor who we're continually encouraged to doubt and be concerned about. And it begs us to love him anyway and shames us when we don't.

Unlike the other modern Doctors we don't really come away with a clear idea of who Twelve is by the end of his first story, because just when you think you've got a handle on him in the next scene he's a different person again! Though it's made very clear that he's as bothered by this as anyone, because he doesn't know himself anymore and he's in real danger of losing his closest friend over this. There was never any chance that Rose wouldn't immediately love Ten once he woke up and saved the day, but at no point in this story is Twelve ever safe and friendly like you'd want. He's still plenty eccentric and comedic, he's definitely the Doctor, but he's more like the Ninth Doctor without the grinning... or the Sixth. It's weird how a Doctor who went out so at peace with himself would regenerate into someone who clearly isn't.

Me, I'm a Rick and Morty fan so I was on board with a mad misanthropic Doctor from the start, but I can see why he was off-putting to Clara and some of the fans. Maybe more so than intended, as giving the the guy from In the Thick of It all those insults and put-downs to deliver was asking for trouble. He's had practice. But giving Clara a difficult Doctor to deal with meant that she had to regenerate as well, becoming a person instead of a puzzle and developing multiple traits, some of them even shown on screen instead being purely informed attributes! I liked Clara right from the start, Bells of Saint John is one of my favourite episodes, but I can't deny that she was a little too perfect up to this point. Here she gets riled up and put through the ringer, and she comes out of it a more three dimensional and interesting character.

It's funny watching Deep Breath right after The Eleventh Hour as I could almost believe that they're by different writers, there's such a shift in tone. Well, shift in tones really, as this is all over the place, but overall it's both darker and more absurd than The Eleventh Hour was, with almost every character in it being eccentric in some way. There's very little 'normal' in it to provide a contrast with the Doctor. Plus it doesn't have the same momentum, as the characters aren't finding leads, they're confused and distracted. It lasts for 76 minutes and though I didn't feel it, I certainly noticed that kept stopping for another skit with Clara and Strax, or to let the Doctor freak out about something. It's like a special edition director's cut with all the deleted scenes put back in, not a precise clockwork clock where every cog is essential. In fact it spends so long spinning its wheels that the mysterious 'woman in the shop' has to straight up give them the clue they need to find the villains because otherwise they were getting nowhere. Plus the stakes are incredibly low by Doctor Who event episode standards as the world isn't even close to being in danger, and the Doctor doesn't win by being ingenious in the end, he wins by being persistent and being willing to go to whatever lengths are required to save his friends. We never learn what got the Half-Face Man out of that door, but one way or another he was going out.

The Half-Face Man is a good foil for the Doctor as he's a similarly ancient being who's regenerated so many times he's become something very different to what he was. In fact the Half-Face Man was pretty good in general, with a great concept, realisation and performance. He was even surprisingly sympathetic I thought by the end, and I definitely didn't expect him to actually get to Heaven. Though I was a bit confused about what exactly the Promised Land was to him, as he seemed to think the way to get there was through doing a lot of bad things and living forever. The Doctor, on the other hand, doesn't seem to believe in an afterlife, but he's determined to save people regardless.

I'm pretty sure I like the episode, even the first half that everyone else hates, but it was a bit of a disappointment to me coming after The Eleventh Hour. I feel like it wasn't as well designed and the dialogue wasn't as strong. In fact I found some of the conversations to be a little awkward, like Steven Moffat had been so focused on getting the double meaning and subtext into the lines, that he didn't quite get the surface level meaning across sometimes. Or maybe I'm just an idiot. Either way, I'd personally rate this as being somewhere between Rose and The Christmas Invasion. It had higher highs than Christmas Invasion, but lower lows, and I really didn't like that giant dinosaur.

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COMING SOON

Doctor Who continued on to Into the Dalek, but next on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'll be writing about Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor in The Woman Who Fell to Earth!

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