Before the Flood

The previous episode was a nice base under siege story and when the NEXT TIME trailer aired I was a) surprised that it was a two parter and b) disappointed that the story didn’t seem to be entirely under water. That said there were things in this story that might get me past the disappointment. The cliffhanger from the previous episode was rather good because it saw the Doctor appear in the sea with black eyes. The episode starts with a nice monologue with the Doctor running around the TARDIS console (a rarely used set this series) and he talks about the Bootstrap Paradox and Beethoven. The Doctor playing the guitar is something that is becoming the Doctor’s new Sonic Screwdriver. The pre-title scene says that the Doctor discovers that Beethoven never existed so he published the works of the composer himself thus becoming Beethoven.

The story features another example of a nod to a previous story and in this episode it was the Tivolian race who previous appeared in ‘The God Complex’ (written by Toby Whithouse) back in 2011. In that story the Tivolian was played by David Walliams but this time the representative from this race is Prentis played by Paul Kaye. I quite liked the character of Prentis although I thought that the ghost version was better.

The action is split between the base in 2119 in Scotland and an army base in the 1980’s. As much as I liked what happened in the army base I thought that the posters designed to make it look like it too place in the USSR. They may as well have had someone talking in a dodgy Russian accent as well. The one advantage of having this outside is that at least there was some light instead of the low light of the undersea base.

There is some interesting stuff about the Fisher King, firstly the name is a bit of an issue. Everytime I heard the name Fisher King, I just thought of the toymaker Fisher Price. Aside from the name I thought that the design was very good. I think that the design is one of the best that the show has come up with for quite some time. When it first appears in the episode we didn’t see it and I thought that this was to hide the fact that it wasn’t very good but that wasn’t the case and its highlight comes when it is about the be hit by the water from the burst dam. The big scene between the Fisher King and the Doctor is a very good one and the highlight of the whole two episodes. I liked the bit where the King describes the Timelords and “cowardly, vain curators who suddenly remembered they had teeth and became the most war-like race in the galaxy”.

The only problem with this story is that the narrative races along at such a pace that it kind of ties itself in knots and when it comes to wrap things up the story goes down a timey wimey route and I just started questioning what was going on. In a way I don’t really mind because the whole two parter has been put together very well with some very good performances especially from Peter Capaldi and Jenna Coleman. Even the supporting cast are well written and I think that the decision to have a deaf actress not just in the story but quite active in the story is something that seems to have been overlooked by the wider press. It’s weird to think that we are already a third of the way through the series and the ratings continue to be lower than usual and the late start time isn’t helping. The sooner that the show returns to earlier in the year when Strictly Come Dancing isn’t on the better because SCD is hurting Doctor Who.