Eyes On The Box//Doctor Who Series 7 Episode 10: 'Hide'
Warning:
Contains spoilers!
Cast:
Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman, Dougray Scott, Jessica Raine, Kemi-Bo Jacobs
Written by Neil
Cross, Directed by Jamie Payne
The
story: It’s 1974 and Caliburn House is haunted. But by
what?
Luther
creator Neil Cross caused much debate on the old interweb a couple of weeks
back with his Doctor Who episode The Rings of Akhaten. Some loved it;
some hated it enormously. Hide is likely to be far less divisive and
rightly so, as it’s a far more gratifying episode.
The Doctor (Matt Smith) and Clara
(Jenna-Louise Coleman) arrive at Caliburn House, where the ghostly form of a
woman who appears to be haunting the place is being investigated by Professor
Alec Palmer and his assistant, Emma Grayling (Dougray Scott and Jessica Raine).
This being Doctor
Who, the ghost of course was no such thing, but a girl from the future trapped
in spooky forest in a pocket universe being chased by a terrifying creature.
The sonic screwdriver is rather pleasingly left alone for much of this episode
as the Doctor and Clara sprint across the universe to gather the things needed
to harness Emma’s empathic psychic powers and for the Doctor to rescue Hila
(Kemi-Bo Jacobs) from the pocket universe with a very uncertain, “Geronimo.”
Clara’s uncertain
relationship with the TARDIS is further explored here, and the scene where the
TARDIS Voice Visual Interface projects an image of Clara to herself is almost a
glass of Lambrini away from a hair pulling bitch fight. Lovely stuff. But
ultimately, the TARDIS comes good, lets Clara in, and takes her on a
crash-bang-wallop trip to rescue the Doctor and Hila.
“This isn’t a ghost
story. It’s a love story,” states the Doctor. And this is true on more than one
level, from Alec and Emma’s awkward, unspoken love for each other to the
slightly silly monster in the wood looking for his long lost love story.
Alec and Emma’s relationship is a
mirror to that of the Doctor and Clara, with Alec reflecting the Doctor’s
brilliance and aloneness. In a wonderfully touching scene, Alec and Emma
discuss deceit: The Doctor’s inherent deceitfulness, “Experience makes liars of
us all,” and their own deceit in hiding their feelings for each other. It’s
beautifully played by this week’s excellent guest stars.
Despite the somewhat rushed and
slightly daft ending, Neil Cross has redeemed himself with Hide, which
is ultimately a finely drawn tale with much to please, without totally scaring
the kids. The 1974 setting gives the set designers the opportunity to deploy
much in the way of delightfully kitsch 70s design and clothing. Emma’s wide
collared shirt and Argyll patterned tank top put me in mind of Miss Anderson,
my second year junior school teacher.
But I digress. This episode also does a neat job of setting
up next week’s Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, the latest
TARDIS-centric episode since Neil Gaiman’s The Doctor’s Wife, which is
one of the most highly regarded episodes since the series re-started in 2005.
Some big boots to fill, then. Can’t
wait.
Best
line: “It’s 1974. You’re the assistant.”
Oo-er:
Alec Palmer has a history of disrupting U-boat crews in World War II. In 2001
film Enigma, Dougray Scott played Tom Jericho, a Bletchley Park
codebreaker who was instrumental in breaking the U-boat enigma code.
Did you know:
Jessica Raine is playing Verity Lambert, the founding producer of Doctor Who,
in Mark Gatiss’s An Adventure in Space and Time as part of this year’s
Doctor Who 50th Anniversary celebrations.
Fan
pleasing moments: The return of David Tennant’s orange
spacesuit, the Doctor looking for an umbrella stand in the TARDIS, “I think I
had one”, the Cloister Bell sounding, the Metebelis Crystal, “Doctor what?”
Reviewed by Andrea McGuire.
