This story in a nutshell: Finally...time for an interesting
companion.
Indefinable: Yes! The cunt is back! Forgive me language but
I can't help but swear when the show I love abandons something that wasn't
quite working - Capaldi as a middle aged rock star Doctor - and remembers what
did work so well in the previous year. It will long be remembered that the twelfth
Doctor is at his best when he is a moody git and when he has a massive chip on
his shoulder about something. It's quite in a way that any incarnation of the
Doctor should be at their most memorable when they are in pain but when you
have an actor with the gravitas of Peter Capaldi then you need to utilise him
to the full. And that isn't shoving an electric guitar in his hand and turning
him into an ageing hipster, it is forcing the character to face some dark
situations and deal with the emotional fallout. Fear the Raven is the
transition period for number twelve, taking a blissfully happy Doctor and
systematically tearing down his smile and leaving him hopeless. It actually
applauded, what a sadist. I love the idea that when this Doctor is trying to be
nice, you have to be worried. It's a portent of doom. You can almost understand
why Clara thinks she can adopt the Doctor's style and absolute belief in his
ability because she has seen him make the 'I am the Doctor and I defeat the
monsters!' speech ad nauseum. Well she gets her last exposure to it here, as he
charges off to save Rigsy. My favourite moment in Face the Raven came when
Clara asks the Doctor if he can fix it and save her and he looks at her sadly
and says no. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Laugh because Clara is
doomed or cry because the Doctor is facing his worst demon - hopelessness. Ultimately
the Doctor is responsible for saving the Time Lords and the Doctor is
responsible for saving Ashildr and so when those two things come together and
generate the downfall of Clara Oswald...he is ultimately responsible for the
cause of her demise too. I wonder if he will ever come to that realisation and
it will break him?
Impossible Girl: Well thank goodness she's gone. I've
already seen next weeks episode and I can confirm what I always suspected, that
this Doctor works extraordinarily well without her. Suddenly he's on another
level and it's all because his happiness with Clara has been snuffed out. The
biggest joke about Clara is that one of the most important of companions
(insofar as she visited the Doctor as a child, she was there to convince him to
act at one of the most important moments of his life and she splintered off
throughout his life and saved him in countless ways) turned out to be one of
the least memorable. Perhaps if less time had been spent weaving her into the
Doctor's timeline so her impact would never be forgotten and more time had been
spent giving her an actual personality and a believable backstory that served
as a foundation to the character it might have been sad to say goodbye. But all
I felt was relief. I said above that it was almost entirely the Doctor's fault
that Clara was able to die but she had her own hand in her death too, of
course. She is so arrogant that she believes that there isn't anything that she
and the Doctor cannot cure. Even a black mark on her soul, a death warrant
scrawled in blood. And when you think about it it was Clara herself that had
the audacity to change the Doctor's mind about the fate of his own people. She
was the one who pushed his buttons and emotionally manipulated him into saving
them. So twice over she is responsible for putting herself in the ground...both
times it was through her arrogance that she is right and the Doctor's apparent
defeat is wrong. I really like that. What doesn't work for me is the inference
that Clara has become some kind of proto-Doctor and this is her punishment for
fulfilling that role. Anybody who denies that that is what is being said in
Face the Raven, the Doctor directly admits as much in Heaven Sent. Whilst the
idea that she has stepped up and taken on his role might bear fruit in series
eight - especially in episodes such as Deep Breath (where she had to take the
reins), Kill the Moon (where he decides to step out of the action at a pivotal
moment), Flatline (where he was trapped in the TARDIS), In the Forest of the
Night (where she forces him to leave) and Death in Heaven (where she actually
takes his name and first billing in the titles) - it lacks any truth in series
nine where she has taken a massive step back and fallen into the traditional
companion role. If this was what they were building up to in her final season
we needed to see far more evidence that she was taking stupid risks and following
her Doctorly instincts in a dangerous way for the idea to feel like it has come
to a natural conclusion in Face the Raven. But the simple truth is that, a few
moments aside, Clara has become inessential again in her final year (removed
completely from The Woman Who Lived, swapped for a more interesting version in
the Zygon two parter and beyond bland in episodes such as Sleep No More). So as
I said, had this episode come at the beginning of series nine, after her
breakout season last year, it would have held more dramatic weight and been
bourne out of the evidence of her actions. But at the tail of this season, it
feels like an empty gesture at the end of a season that hasn't needed her. I
still think she would have been better off bowing out at the end of Last
Christmas. Always leave them wanting more, not desperate to get rid of you.
What I do want to say in her favour though, despite the repeated mishandling of
the character by the writers are the performances of Jenna Coleman. Clara might
be faceless so that she can practically be moulded into a different character
each week (her naiveté in the opening two parter this year doesn't square up at
all with her confidence last year) but Coleman manages to bring a likeability
to the role that means that whilst this companion never lit my world on fire
she was at least amiable. Certainly her chemistry with Peter Capaldi is
palpable and never is it more apparent than throughout Face the Raven. Clara
hanging from the TARDIS over London and loving the danger of it is a
beautifully realised scene (given how preposterous it is) but we needed to see
more of that kind of material in order for her decision to take the death
sentence from Rigsy to make sense. There is another mention of Jane Austen,
another half-arsed indication that Clara might be bisexual. Since this is never
explored or seen as something that requires further elucidation it is another
potentially interesting side of Clara that we never get to engage with.
Certainly the reference doesn't make her more interesting, which I think is the
idea. Clara's reaction to the Doctor's rage at being unable to save her is the
one emotional beat that rung true from her. She's ironed out all his rough
edges since his regeneration (practically neutering him as a result) and here
he stands on a precipice again, ready to dive back into anger and despair.
She's terrified at the thought of his returning to that dangerous state and
makes him promise not to exact revenge because of her stupid mistake. That is
probably the most selfless thing Clara has ever done. Knowing that she is going
to die and protecting her friend from himself rather than raging against her
own fate. At her last breath though Clara is nothing like the Doctor. She just
sort of gives up.
Sparkling Dialogue: 'I guess you're just going to have to be
brave...'
'Everything you're about to say, I already know.'
The Good:
* Hidden streets in every city in the world that harbours
aliens on the run and hiding from pain sight. It's something that would excite
children and adults in equal measure. Kids because they can let their
imaginations run riot as they walk the streets wondering if they are near an
entrance to another world. And adults because they can get lost in the fantasy
of why the aliens there and what has forced them to go into refuge. Doctor Who
is one of those shows that can really thrill me with an idea alone (that
springs from the classic series that was loaded with imagination and couldn't
always go all the way to realising it...but the ideas were so exciting anyway)
but in Face the Raven this idea is mooted, then sought and then brought to the
screen with real splendour. There is a gentle feminine touch that runs all the
way through Fear the Raven and it extends to the characterisation of the characters,
the exploration of the ideas and the realisation of the setting. There is a
gentleness to what hits the screen which contrasts brilliantly with the urgency
of the situation and how the panic snowballs into terror come the conclusion.
* A tattoo that heralds the coming of the reaper (or the
raven in this case) might not be an original idea (The Sarah Jane Adventures
made the idea of alien scrawl on your arm terrifying in The Mark of the
Berserker) but it is still a disturbing one. One that counts down the minutes
until your death is the original element and it is enough to get Rigsy in a
cold sweat and summon the Doctor.
* I enjoyed the Torchwood reference because there is not
enough effort made to suggest that the spin offs that Russell T Davies created
are still in existence. It was also a smart way to turn Rigsy's mark of death
into a mystery, with disturbing flashbacks breaking through his amnesia and
slowly drip feeding the audience information about his branding.
* Part of the fun of the hidden streets notion is the use of
old monsters in disguise. Series nine might be a little continuity heavy in
places (Daleks, Davros, Zygons and Time Lords all with their complex back
stories) but this is a gentle way to tickle a fans taste buds without losing
the wider audience. Judoon, Sontarans, Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Silurians and
Ood all feature.
* The Raven turning to black smoke and screaming as it comes
for you, sweeping through the streets and stabbing you in the back, black smoke
pouring from your mouth as you expire. It's one of the more disturbing means of
dispatch the show has presented in many years.
* Who are these mysterious people that have done a deal with
Ashildr to procure the Doctor? In the same way that Utopia kicked off a
dramatic two part finale with something a little quieter (mind you I don't
think anybody could call the final ten minutes of Utopia quiet, just the first
half an hour), Face the Raven is all set up for the Heaven Sent/Hell Bent
conclusion to series nine. It certainly generates a great deal of
questions...and curiosity. I defy anybody to not want to know more and to not
want to experience the fallout of Face the Raven. The show hasn't been left in
a place this gripping since the climax of Kill the Moon last year.
The Bad:
* ...which brings me to Ashildr. A character who
conceptually it was well worth bringing back but who was so neutered and
misrepresented in The Woman Who Lived that it left me associating her with the
taste of bile crawling up my throat and into my mouth. A combination of Maisie
Williams' flat performance (a shock after her joyful turn in The Girl Who Died)
and some underwritten characterisation pushed the immortal Ashildr into the
league of least memorable guest characters. It was astonishing because the idea
of an immortal of the Doctor's making causing trouble throughout history was a
vigorous central idea for an episode but the translation of that idea was lost
to tedious pondering over the idea of immortality itself. The trouble with the
return of Ashildr and Rigsy is that they didn't excite me. Quite the reverse in
fact. But the upside of that is that both characters managed to surprise me in
Face the Raven...not because they were suddenly vivid and alive (although
Ashildr benefits greatly from her return here) but because a great deal of
damage limitation has been achieved and it leaves both characters in a better
position for return visits after this. I certainly would like to see Ashildr
back after the dramatic events of the climax and how it leaves her and the
Doctor. That does excite me.
* Essentially Face the Raven is designed to remove Clara
from the series in as turbulent a way as possible for the Doctor. In a way that
leaves him helpless to stop her from croaking it and out for revenge. But in
order to reach that point it utilities a mystery (what did Rigsy do to earn the
mark of death?) which dominates the first half and rather gets forgotten about
in the second half. The answers never match the potency of the mystery as
presented and the episode becomes entirely focussed on Clara making you wonder
what all the fuss was about in the first place. Like I said, it was basically a
stepping stone to pushing Clara on her way.
* Death takes forever in Doctor Who these days. Eccleston's
Doctor making a bit of splash about the fact that he was leaving in The Parting
of the Ways was fine because he was introducing a new generation of kids to the
concept of regeneration. Tennant took an age to snuff it but then he was
wrapping up an entire era of the show so the self indulgent whirlwind tour of
everything that made it special was forgivable. Come Matt Smith's exit and
we're actual pausing to destroy an entire Dalek army and making speeches. And
now Clara, hardly a companion that deserves such attention, spends over five
minutes preparing the Doctor for her death before walking out on the streets
and meeting her maker. It goes on forever. At this rate by the time
Capaldi leaves we will need an entire episode of him giving a monologue on
death before he explodes into the next Doctor. Death used to be shocking, quick
and gutsy on Doctor Who. Now it is the most ponderous of experience. In terms
of being brave, Clara facing the raven is the show showing it's audience that
death can be faced with your head held high. In terms of being dramatic,
running away from the raven would have been far more effective. It depends which
way you fall on the matter.
Result: Ominous, with a great sense of location and some
gorgeous touches that make the overall experience a memorable one. There is a
sumptuous visual element to Face the Raven that lends it a lot of presence and
the way the episode starts to prickle like sweat on your back that you just
cannot reach is expertly handled. The things that didn't quite work for me were
Clara's death itself (don't pop on this site if you don't want to read
spoilers) and the importance of the return of Ashildr and Rigsy, one of whom
was a character that bombed earlier this season and the other who was a
faceless element of last years strongest story. Fortunately they are both given
much better treatment this time around and emerge as much stronger characters
as a result. I thought the whole notion of the hidden streets was really
imaginative and finding it was brought to the screen with panache, the first
ten minutes are some of the most entertaining of the season as a result. And
when we get there the use of old monsters in an unusual way was cleverly
handled and the concept of the alien bolthole opens up storytelling
possibilities for the future. I would love to see this idea used again. Clara
is the most troublesome feature, just as she has been for much of the last two
and a half years worth of Doctor Who. Her death winds up being as awkward and
as vanilla as her life. She just sort of gives up on the Doctor's say so and
walks straight into the arms of the reaper. But not before making half a dozen
speeches whilst a crow that should have reached her in ten seconds stops off
for lunch. Seriously...death is such a rare thing on Doctor Who now and it goes
on forever (before being undone). It should have been short, sharp and
unexpected rather than a ponderous and clock watching experience. When you are
shouting 'just die already!' at the screen you have lost the emotional
connection with the moment somehow. But then it is very hard to have much of a
connection with a piece of pure cardboard. I'm being tough but in essence I am
astonished how a character that had the ability to be hugely impacting wound up
being as forgettable as she did (and not because the actress in the role isn't
up to scratch). Clara is the ultimate vanilla companion, the average yard stick
that all the others can be judged by. The build up to her death is far more
impressive than the moment itself, that feeling that you cannot outrun the
raven. Unsurprisingly the most interesting thing about her death is the fallout
and where it leaves the Doctor, not the loss of the character itself. It's
Capaldi that sells the moment (although I have to be honest Coleman is no
slouch either) and his restrained rage after he has lost his best friend is a
sight to see and leaves the show in an exciting, turbulent place for the
future. What I think gloriously apt about Clara's death is that I have been
harping on about how irritatingly clever clever and smug the character has been
pitched and ultimately it is her own ego that brings her down. That's hilarious:
8/10
