This week’s episode of Doctor Who may have been one of the most brilliant episodes of Series 8 so far as the companion gets to step in big time.
The concept for “Flatline” was mysterious creatures from a “2D Universe” that were trying to understand our 3D universe. Some of the best mysteries of Doctor Who are whenever the monster of the week isn’t 100% clear. The whole deal with the TARDIS’ exterior shrinking was hilarious, but it was also a great way to give Clara the opportunity to be the prime focus of the episode. Jenna Coleman has been one heck of an addition to the Doctor Who universe so it was greatly appreciated that she got to do so much in this episode.
Seeing her as “Doctor Oswald” was outstanding and even though she was communicating with the Doctor the whole time, you got to see her having to figure things out on her own. One of those moments is when she figures out a plan to re-energize the TARDIS that had at that point gone into seige mode. I really enjoyed the guest character Rigsy who was Clara’s own companion in a way. Rigsy was also the only guest character that I enjoyed as the rest of them lacked personalities and let me just say that I was really hoping for that community service leader to be taken by the 2D’s.
What “Flatline” also did that was very nice was that it allowed the Whovians to in a way get a little break from Capaldi’s Doctor, who is actually starting to find his footing very nicely in the series. While the episode did spend a lot of time with Clara, they do explore of the Doctor having to handle this situation where he, at the start, had no idea what was going on. There is a great scene where he thinks it’s the end for him where he, unaware that Clara could still hear him, reveals how he much he cares for her.
After a couple of weeks of struggle with this season, “Flatline” went back to the format that I’m used to where the Doctor and Clara didn’t end up fighting as much as they have for the past few weeks. Even though the Doctor did find out that Clara had lied to him regarding Danny accepting Clara continuing to travel with him on the TARDIS, they didn’t give it a lot of focus. All that happened was that he found out and made a remark about it to Clara before they went back to what they were doing.
As series 8 is starting to reach its end, we get a quick scene with the character of Missy who is viewing Clara via an iPad. Was I the only one who thought it was kind of funny that someone who was in “heaven” had access to an iPad? OK maybe it was just me, but on a serious note, it was interesting that she seems to know her and that Missy had “chosen well” before she gave us an evil laugh. With only three episodes left and the notion that she is going to play a huge part in the two last episodes, we will know soon what is up with her. Overall, “Flatline” was an incredibly solid episode and I can’t wait to see these last few episodes and what they have in store for us.
Doctor Who airs on Saturday nights, 9/8c on BBC America.
[Photo via BBC]
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Clara has ALWAYS the prime focus!