chieko!!

bad news for whovians as of late but that will never stop me from drawing my wife -- will you take her hand? she wants you to be her new companion :)

Deep Breath (1894)

We don’t actually have a date given for this episode, but since the other episodes with the Paternoster Gang occur 120 years before their airdate, I’ve just assumed the pattern to continue to this one. In any case, since it’s definitely after ‘The Crimson Horror’ and we haven’t seen Jenny age significantly, this is definitely in the correct point in the order, even if the exact date is slightly out.

While it isn’t my absolute favourite introduction to a Doctor (I really love ‘The Christmas Invasion’ and ‘The Eleventh Hour’), I do enjoy this episode. It does a great job of diving into the emotional consequences for both the Doctor himself, and for Clara. I know some people don’t like how reluctant she is to accept the new him but I do understand how hard she finds it, especially given how drastically different his new demeanour is, and it makes for a great arc over the story.

I enjoy seeing his crisis over his new face with the homeless man, the question of who frowned the face and that kind of thing. His realisation that he’s Scottish is hilarious. I also just want to take a moment to appreciate how perfect a casting Peter Capaldi is for the Doctor and how wonderful his characterisation is in this episode, perfectly setting up the arc he goes on in the next three series of struggling over his identity and whether or not he is a good man (even if he doesn’t say those words until the following episode). It’s beautiful and heartbreaking that one of his first moments is instinctively wanting to protect a dinosaur he endangered and doing the baby rocking thing with his arms, just to watch her die, completely helpless to do anything.

It’s an interesting decision to have the Paternoster Gang in this episode. From my perspective as a lifelong fan it really works, having friendly aliens there who both the Doctor and Clara know already is a great way to contrast Clara’s non-acceptance with somebody who understands. However I do wonder if it was confusing for new viewers who came to this era fresh because it’s a new Doctor. It is a shame that this was the last time we saw the Gang and I do hope someone brings them back someday.

The Half-Face Man is an interesting villain and a good example of a callback that doesn’t alienate people who haven’t seen the original. It’s a good subversion of a trope, having a robot who has made himself more human and picked up superstitions, emotions and curiosity. And of course the gimmick of “don’t breathe” is very fun and Moffat-y.

I love the interrogation scene with Clara, where she does a fantastic job of standing her ground and tricking and coercing the Half-Face Man into revealing his information without revealing hers, despite being the one being interrogated. It’s a character trait I love in Clara that she’s able to do this, because we see the same in ‘Robot of Sherwood’, and it does a great job of showing how competent and Doctor-like she is, but she’s still clearly very scared and human and doesn’t exactly know what she’s doing.

The scene with the Doctor and the Half-Face Man in the balloon is wonderful. I love the moment where the Doctor tells him he’s changed and replaced himself so much he’s not even the same thing as he was originally, not even remembering where his face came from, and holding up a dish as a mirror. The shot of the Doctor seeing his own face in the other side is a fantastic demonstration of the parallel, as all the same things can be said of the Doctor. And it’s fantastic that Moffat leaves it as an open-ended question about whether the Doctor pushed the Half-Face Man or whether he fell intentionally.

My favourite scene of the episode is the penultimate one, back in the present day with just the Doctor and Clara. For me, having a little bonus scene with the Eleventh Doctor (who’s my personal favourite) really helped me to accept the change. But it’s a genius bit of dialogue for Clara to tell Twelve off for listening into her conversation with Eleven, just for him to say that it was HIM talking. I think there’s never been a better illustration of different Doctors being different and yet the same person, despite us having literally seen him change nine times at this point (before anyone gets pedantic, I’m not counting Troughton, McGann or Hurt’s as we only saw one side of each of those). And I love this being the moment that Clara truly internalises that this is still the same man.