After the impressive Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, I was hoping that they could continue the good form. I must say that when I saw the trailer at the end of the last episode I thought that it would be a bit dry in terms of action. That’s not what we got here. According to Wikipedia, this was the 100th episode since the show returned in 2005 (not including mini-episodes). The story take place in Yorkshire in 1893 where the Doctor is trying to take Clara to London and as they have rolled up in the North there are plenty of impressions which are quite amusing but maybe not to any from Yorkshire. It seemed like this was going to be a Doctor-lite episode as its quite sometime before we see him. It seemed like Vasta, Jenny and Strax were going to be the stars of the episode but that wasn’t the case. The main plot sees people coated in red and rather amusingly dubbed ‘the crimson horror’. We are introduced to Mrs Gillyflower who is preparing a rocket that will detonate above the country and this will be of great benefit to Mr Sweet.
The whole Sweetville village did seem to remind me of Bournville where on the outside people live but once they go in they don’t come out again. The whole secret of who Mr Sweet is was one of the things that I was wondering about as the episode progressed and I must say that I didn’t see it coming. Having said that the revelation didn’t seem to have a punch to it. Once I thought that I didn’t see it coming, my thoughts moved to how silly the creature looked.
The two most noticeable performances in this story came from Dame Diana Rigg (former Mrs James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and her real life daughter Rachael Stirling. Diana Rigg plays Mrs Gillyflower. Now the character would have been just a mad old woman who has a weird creature attached to her chest but with Dame Diana Rigg it becomes something more entertaining as she plays it exactly as it should be with a certain amount of campness. It was still an enjoyable performance but I thought that Stirling’s performance was a lot more restrained and much more engaging. When we are introduced to Ada, she is a blind, disfigured woman and forms an attachment with ‘monster’ who is the Doctor. As we learn that the disfigurement was caused by her mother, it seemed to compound the sympathy that we were suppose to feel for her. It was a lovely performance.
The main issue I have with Steven Moffat is how he has managed to devalue both the Silurians and Sontarans in just a couple of years. Strax is basically below Madame Vastra as she seems to enjoy bossing him around. So whenever the show returns to these two characters I just remember when they use to be great.
The central performances were all good. Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman continue to work well together and their relationship seems a lot more enjoyable to watch than the Doctor/Amy which I never had a problem with before until Clara came on the show. Despite my reservations to what Moffat has done to the characters. I thought that Neve McIntosh and Dan Starkey were quite comical and at first I liked that but then I remembered that Starkey is playing a Sontaran and Strax being in a comical situation where he gets directions of a kid called Thomas Thomas (Sat-Nav joke) seemed like another nail in the Sontaran coffin. Catrin Stewart plays the strongest character out of the three as Jenny. She could easily slip into the Jago and Litefoot series of adventures and be a rival to Ellie.
The final scene where Clara returns to nanny duties and those annoying kids show pictures of her adventures that she has had in previous adventures was quite good because I was wondering just how Clara was going to get out of this one. However sadly the trailer shows that those annyoying kids would be joining the Doctor and Clara against the Cybermen. Oh well.
As an episode I think that The Crimson Horror was far better than I was expecting. It was typical Gatiss and I did enjoy it. I wouldn’t say its one of the best or even the best that Gatiss has ever done but in the current run it’s enjoyable. This whole series continues to impress.
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