Villordsutch reviews series 8 episode 1 of Doctor Who – ‘Deep Breath’…
“I hate being wrong in public. Everyone forget that happened.”
Written by: Steven Moffat
Directed by: Ben Wheatley
Doctor Who returned to our screens last night with ‘Deep Breath’, with Peter Capaldi finally taking the keys to the TARDIS and the BBC gaving us a special extra-long episode for the viewers to really be introduced to our new Doctor. As a long-time fan of Doctor Who, as well as Peter Capaldi, I was ecstatic when his name was revealed as our next Doctor ,though I know ripples across the globe echoed sentences including, “He’s old!”, “Who is he?” and “The Doctor’s supposed to go younger isn’t he?”. We’ll this episode hopefully put an end to all of those nay-sayers because last night everything happened.
‘Deep Breath’, written by Steven Moffat, was rather smartly set within Victorian London, more directly within the Paternoster Gang, a detective agency that has everything to make a watching family smile, smirk, question and really laugh. It’s here our confused Doctor makes his appearance, from within a choking T-Rex – in the middle of The Thames – the TARDIS is hacked up. It’s clear from the opening scenes that our regeneration hasn’t settled down yet as Clara (Jenna Coleman) is confused with Strax, and after a bit of flirting with the T-Rex, the Doctor collapses face first into the mud.
Our story continues yanking our emotions all over the place. At moments there’s slapstick with Strax knocking Clara for six with a copy of The Times, to utter horror when the Doctor leaves Clara to fend for herself in a room full of organ harvesting robots as she’ll slow him down. The episode dances through dark, funny, furious and shock in minutes then it goes on to do numerous laps of honour over and over again. Thanks to the excellent direction of Ben Wheatley this episode truly drains you of energy ,similar to Clara as she attempts to escape from beneath the restaurant, but you come out smiling and not screaming.
In amongst the questions raised about the Doctor’s face (you may remember the face from Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii and Torchwood: Children of Earth) one of the biggest things that surprised me was the fact I actually enjoyed Clara’s performance as a companion. Gone was the doe-eyed, empty girlfriend nothing character and here was a proper companion to the Doctor; a true fighter, arguing and with power, standing up for her beliefs even under the threat of death. The final moments with the Doctor telling Clara he’s not her boyfriend and he himself apologising felt more like it was Moffat apologising to us the viewers – though the following scene on the phone still didn’t stop me wondering who was suddenly cutting onions nearby.
An excellent opening episode for the new series of Doctor Who and I’m really looking forward to episode two ‘Into the Dalek’.
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit hiswebsite and follow him on Twitter.
Originally published August 24, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
