Doctor Who: Season 8, Episode 6

Doctor Who

Episode: “The Caretaker”

Channel: BBC

Director: Paul Murphy

Writers: Gareth Roberts and Steven Moffat

Genre: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Runtime: 45 min

Rated: TV-PG

Original Air Date: September 27, 2014

The previews for this episode misrepresented it a bit. Going in I was dreading an episode long examination of Clara's dating life and the hijinks that ensue as she goes gallivanting across space and time, only to rejoin the date minutes later. Luckily that part of the episode was rather understated, over before the first commercial break. What we did get was a rather generic monster of the week episode, sprinkled with a lot yelling by everyone involved.

Capaldi's incarnation of the Doctor is not as light-hearted as past iterations, but there were moments of real anger from him in this episode. Going forward I'd be interested in seeing more fear of the Doctor, not just from his enemies, but also his allies. This script was very quip heavy, I'm all for some playful banter, but every line of dialogue doesn't have to be boiled down to a snappy little one-liner. It's fun for a little while, but the Doctor's companion is the audience's proxy, requiring explanations for things that are basic to the Doctor. How often would you continue a relationship with someone when nearly every question asked is answered so snarkily?

The monster this week will fade from memory shortly after viewing the episode, completely generic. The main point of “The Caretaker” is seeing the two relationships being presented to the audience maturing a bit. By the end everyone seems to understand the others a little bit better. There is one hilariously misplaced bit of gymnastics that has to be mentioned. It seemed like the kind of scene that gets brought up very early in writing, and should've been the first deletion during revisions, but somehow it made it into the final product.

Conclusion: “The Caretaker” didn't give the audience any iconic Doctor Who moments, aside from the one cringe-worthy bit of leaping. It seemed rather a bridge between our introduction to Capaldi's Doctor and the real substance of the season. The protagonists know a lot more about each other than they did previously and now we can make progress towards what this season is really about.

Rating: 6.5/10