We have carried on our rewatching and rating to season 8 of the modern Doctor Who. Here’s our take:
- “Deep Breath” – 5.5
- “Into the Dalek” – 5
- “Robot of Sherwood” – 2
- “Listen” – 1.5
- “Time Heist” – 5
- “The Caretaker” – 3
- “Kill the Moon” – 6
- “Mummy on the Orient Express” – 6.5
- “Flatline” – 5.5
- “In the Forest of the Night” – 5
- “Dark Water” – 1.5
- “Death in Heaven” – 1.5
The average rating this season comes out to exactly 4, which is weak but not terrible. This comes in as the second-lowest-rated season after season 5, at 3.7. This season’s episodes are all over the place, which for Doctor Who is not a bad thing. Not all of the episodes work, but we appreciate the willingness to try out strange ideas, unexpected settings, and dramatically different moods.
This season also introduces Peter Capaldi as the Doctor, and it’s a bit of a shaky start. Capaldi’s intensity is a nice change from Matt Smith’s quirky detachment, but too often it manifests as anger. As that anger often gets focused on Clara, we have the uncomfortable dynamic of a young woman saddled with the emotional labor of managing a cranky older man’s moods, and one begins to wonder if someone in the production team is having a bit of a temper tantrum about changing gender dynamics in the workplace. Still, straight out of the gate, Capaldi is more convincing as the Doctor than Smith ever was.
Three episodes are tied for our lowest rating of the season, at 1.5. The first is “Listen,” an ambitiously strange episode that tries to recapture the atmospheric spookiness of the classic “Blink,” but falls flat. The Doctor is looking for a creature so good at hiding that no one has ever seen it. This intriguing setup leads to a disjointed series of maybe / maybe-not monster hunts that for some reason revolve around Clara’s fellow teacher and potential boyfriend Danny Pink. Despite some well-written and tensely-directed individual scenes, the episode remains too unfocused and too committed to the is-it-or-isn’t-it schtick to develop any meaningful narrative drive or reach any satisfying conclusion. The pieces of the puzzle lie scattered on the floor, refusing to come together and make a picture.
The other two 1.5s are the obligatory concluding two-parter “Dark Water” and “Death in Heaven,” in which the latest regeneration of the Doctor’s old nemesis, the Master—now female and going by Missy—reveals that she has been hijacking dead people to make liquid cybermen out of their bodies so that she can make the Doctor uncomfortable by… you know, nothing about the plot of these episodes makes any sense, or, really, matters. Michelle Gomez has a blast chewing the scenery as Missy (and provides a valuable canonical precedent for Time Folks gender-flipping during regeneration), but as usual in this series, the Master’s overly contrived plans just come off as a juvenile play for attention. As tends to happen on Doctor Who, putting the whole world in peril actually serves to lower the stakes, rather than raise them, and this season’s ender comes off as more petty than anything else.
At the other end of the scale, “Mummy on the Orient Express” is the best episode of the season, at 6.5. In this episode, a version of the Orient Express train flying through space is plagued by the appearance of a legendary monster only visible to its victims. On one hand, this episode would have benefited from some more development. Unlike on the replica Titanic of “The Voyage of the Damned,” we never get any kind of explanation as to why a space train in the future is a replica of the Orient Express with all the guests wearing period clothing. The guest cast, though excellent, is underused, and the ending leaves a huge plot thread conspicuously dangling. On the other hand, there are a lot of strong elements. The mystery is intriguing and its resolution neatly ties up the clues. The pacing runs along smoothly, and the device of an on-screen timer counting down the mummy’s attack is cleverly used to build tension. For mystery fans, there is also a subtle nod to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, as what seems like a train full of strangers turns out to have been assembled for a very particular purpose.
What’s your take on this season? Does Capaldi do it for you? Is “Listen” just your cup of tea? Not enthused by the mummy on the space train? Let us know!
Image: Doctor Who season 8 cover via IMDb
In the Seen on Screen occasional feature, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.
Co-Geeking 
Doctor Who never handles space opera as well as Star Trek. DW operates best at a more personal, intimate level of weird, and at that it excels!
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Very true! The small-scale stories are where Doctor Who really shines.
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Peter’s episodes grow in appreciation of his approach as Doctor. He is so much more disciplined than Smith. He’s more like Tennant if his Doctor had aged. Listen shows the Doctor has vulnerability. Express showed his savvy and compassion. Peter really added to the show’s ability to demonstrate the Doctor’s range.
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Agreed, Capaldi really has the range for the role. I like the idea of him as Tennant’s Doctor older and crankier; I think you’ve hit it.
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Oh, I will miss Peter. Like Tennant’s Doctor, he also mourned the change during the regeneration by saying “I don’t want to go!” There is something to that—not wanting to go but knowing it’s time.
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