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auroracloud) wrote2018-12-10 10:45 am
auroracloud) wrote2018-12-10 10:45 am
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Doctor Who S11 episode 9: It Takes You Away
I haven't yet watched the Doctor Who S11 finale, though I will watch it at some point today. But I thought I'd take a moment to write my thoughts on the previous episode, It Takes You Away. I actually took a whole week (and two viewings) to figure out what to write about this episode!
There were a lot of things I liked about it, and I was really into it both of the times I watched it, but in the end it left me a bit flat and... empty is too strong a word, but it didn't leave me with enough. I think it came down to pacing. It was interesting that it told three different genres in one story - first a kind of a Scandi noir / dark folk tale mash up of cabin in the woods and something threatening you - then the antizone labyrinth stuff - then the mirror universe. But it spent too much time in the antizone part, where in the end few interesting things happened, and that meant there wasn't enough time left for the mirror universe. That made the ending horribly rushed and therefore unsatisfying.
The story had been building towards the climax of the Doctor staying alone with the Solitract (hopefully that's the spelling?) to tell it about the universe. But then they don't actually talk almost at all, especially not about the universe that the Solitract so much wants to hear about. Just a couple of vague lines about how it's big and beautiful, and then the story is rushing towards the Doctor and the Solitract being friends and therefore the Solitract needing to let her go because its reality collapses and then the Doctor is back in the antizone and then in the real world and that's it. Couldn't they have cut a couple of minutes of labyrinth-wandering with Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs (good performance from the actor, but an utterly unnecessary character as far as the story as a whole went) and instead put in some real conversation between the Doctor and the Solitract about the universe? That would have made it much more powerful that they supposedly became friends and then the Solitract cared enough to let her go. Ultimately, it frustrates me with the wasted potential! Because it's such a fascinating concept of the wacky, weird Doctor Who kind and then they just rush though it so you're left with almost nothing.
Another problem was that the story somewhat glossed over how horribly Erik was treating Hanne by leaving her alone and letting her believe there was a monster in the woods threatening her, and by pretending it was all right. Yeah, you have Graham and Yaz wanting to deck him for it, and the Doctor deservedly calling him an idiot, but the denouement just doesn't pack enough punch for him. Of course it's more satisfying to have a resolution where he goes back to trying to be a good father, not having the social services sweep in and take Hanne away or something; but there just should have been a bit more confrontation for him before the end. Maybe Hanne questioning him about why he left her and lied to her, and him having to take in the situation a bit more.
Both of those elements were the crux of what the story was about - the Doctor and the Solitract becoming friends and it having to let her go; and the story of Hanne and Erik - and they should have packed more emotional punch than they did. With the Doctor and the Solitract the problem was pacing and not giving them good enough dialogue at the crucial moment; with Hanne and Erik, the problem was the lack of honesty from the story itself about how horrible Erik's parenting was and lack of confrontation between them in the end. It wouldn't even have needed any extra time, just stronger dialogue addressing the matter. It's like the story ultimately shied away from any actual emotional meaning, after having set up for it. That's frustrating, because there's so much more it could have been.
That being said, I still enjoyed it overall. The atmosphere was great throughout, in all the three distinct parts, and the scenes were packed with appropriate tension. The guest cast was great, Hanne was a wonderful character and brilliantly acted by the actually blind actress, and I loved that while her blindness was a factor in the story, it was just one part of her, and she and her story were mainly about entirely different things. I also loved that the story gave a good amount of stuff for all three companions to do, and that the Doctor got a lot of properly Doctory moments, from all the adventuring and conjecturing all the way up to befriending a sentient universe.
Apparently the frog has been a divisive factor for people. I loved the frog! I thought the frog was possibly the best thing about the episode along with Hanne and Granny Five. The frog is whimsical and weird in the proper Doctor Who style, and that there are many more fascinating things about the world than just human beings. A sentient universe doesn't have to think like we do. It makes utter sense to me that after all it's learned about the world via the Doctor and her companions and Erik and their memories of Grace and Trine, the form it settles on when it can be anything it likes is a frog. Fans would always want it to be something grandiose or emotionally important to the Doctor - dunno, Susan, River, a nebula, something like that - but why on earth wouldn't it be a frog.
Other things I liked:
- The Woollen Rebellion!
- the Doctor eating soil and discovering all that information, and the alpaca farm
- the landscapes
- the fact that it was set in Norway. The show spends far too little time outside the UK when it's on Earth. More Scandinavia stories!
- Graham and his sandwich! I'm 100 % with Graham on this one. That's entirely sensible behavior, and I don't even know why everyone else is rolling their eyes at him. I'm the person who always needs to sort out when I'm going to get some food if I'm travelling with people who aren't as susceptible to low blood sugar as I am. Because I, too, get really cranky if I don't get food at regular intervals. Graham has noticed they don't always get to eat, knows the effect of low blood sugar level on him, and made precautions, which makes him one of the most sensible companions the Doctor has ever had.
- I already mentioned Hanne several times, but I'm still going to mention her. Both the character and the actress. I also loved that she felt like a real teenager, the way a real 14-year-old intelligent, sensitive girl would be when abandoned by her parent, frustrated and scared. And she was awesome going through the portal alone!
- The way everything was reversed in the mirror universe. I didn't even realize it until after the fact, when several podcasts pointed it out - they'd basically flipped the film so that text was backwards, everyone's partings were on the wrong side etc. But it created a wonderfully eerie, unsettling atmosphere that was reinforced by the lighting and directing of the mirror universe scenes.
- The music! It was especially wonderful in this story, becoming part of the story in a visceral way that you mostly don't even notice.
- The Doctor's seven grannies, Granny Five and her stories and her theory about Granny Two being a Zygon agent. There's fanfic waiting to happen. Well, some has probably happened already, I haven't checked yet.
- Yaz suggesting that the Doctor should reverse the polarity. (I'm not a Pertwee fan, but it's such a classic anyway. Besides, it gets referenced enough in other eras, especially by Five I think?, that it's a fun Classic Who allusion for me as well.)
- The moment between Ryan and Graham in the end. It got me a bit misty-eyed; not specifically the 'Granddad' but just the whole journey they've become. I loved that from the tension in the beginning they've come to really being family and looking out for each other. I haven't been invested in wanting Ryan to call him Granddad, because well, you don't really do that when someone marries into your family in your late teens, not in my culture at least. But I liked the way it was done here, with Ryan choosing to, because he knew it would make Graham feel better in that moment of grief which Ryan well understood, and because he wanted to acknowledge their connection.
Things I didn't like:
- the Doctor thinking it's weird that a cabin in the woods in winter doesn't have smoke coming out from the chimney. I live in Finland which is culturally pretty close to Norway, and in my experience (admittedly urban but I do have lots of relatives in small places) many houses have chimneys but smoke isn't coming out of them all the time. For one thing, we do actually get central heating, electricity and all that jazz even in northern Europe! And even if the house is too far away from everything else and has to provide its own heating, it doesn't mean you have a fire in the fireplace all the time. There are other ways to heat, and even a fireplace doesn't need to be lit all the time.
- the Doctor supposedly not realizing that Hanne would hear the difference between writing and drawing on the wall. Even I could hear it, and a blind person would rely on her hearing more.
- While I loved the Doctor's seven grannies and their wacky tales, I wish that in her conjecturing she'd had more to go on than just a Time Lord fairy tale. It seemed a bit far-fetched to conclude this had to be the Solitract based on just that, even if it ended up being true.
- While the thing about Erik just setting up the monster to keep Hanne inside was wonderfully creepy and twisted, it makes no sense that just an average speaker in one spot would really create the effects we were hearing, or that they would fool her. It wouldn't sound realistic at that range, and even less so for a blind person who relies a lot on her hearing. They could have gone through more trouble, just show there were several speakers in different locations, and make them good speakers that would be more likely to create a realistic effect. That was just lazy.
This use of Grace worked better for me than in the Arachnids. Still, I'm not entirely sure how comfortable I am with it. It was interesting observing the different ways Graham and Erik dealt with grief, however, and how Graham was ultimately able to admit this couldn't be Grace and he had to let her go and go back to the living. I also liked that the Solitract spoke with her voice; felt like it had come to really like her while being her, and it felt appropriate also as a goodbye to her character.
All in all... I'm frustrated because this could have been so much better with more care taken with pacing and certain key elements, but it was still an enjoyable story, it was really well directed and acted, and the lighting and music were great. I applaud the courage to create something this weird, concept-heavy and unusual, and the courage to have the climax be a frog on a chair. But it falls short of what it could have been and ultimately didn't achieve the sort of punch it should have had. Still, it's in my top 5 for this series; behind all the three historicals, but ahead of most other episodes.
Before the finale, my favourite remains the Witchfinders, followed by Demons in the Punjab; the latter is a superior episode in itself, but it's so heavy that the Witchfinders is more what I'm typically looking for when I want Doctor Who, which is why it gets the top spot. We'll see what I think of the series as a whole once I've watched the finale.
Please don't mention any spoilers about the finale if you comment on this post, because the comments might be read by people who haven't seen the finale yet, including me.
There were a lot of things I liked about it, and I was really into it both of the times I watched it, but in the end it left me a bit flat and... empty is too strong a word, but it didn't leave me with enough. I think it came down to pacing. It was interesting that it told three different genres in one story - first a kind of a Scandi noir / dark folk tale mash up of cabin in the woods and something threatening you - then the antizone labyrinth stuff - then the mirror universe. But it spent too much time in the antizone part, where in the end few interesting things happened, and that meant there wasn't enough time left for the mirror universe. That made the ending horribly rushed and therefore unsatisfying.
The story had been building towards the climax of the Doctor staying alone with the Solitract (hopefully that's the spelling?) to tell it about the universe. But then they don't actually talk almost at all, especially not about the universe that the Solitract so much wants to hear about. Just a couple of vague lines about how it's big and beautiful, and then the story is rushing towards the Doctor and the Solitract being friends and therefore the Solitract needing to let her go because its reality collapses and then the Doctor is back in the antizone and then in the real world and that's it. Couldn't they have cut a couple of minutes of labyrinth-wandering with Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs (good performance from the actor, but an utterly unnecessary character as far as the story as a whole went) and instead put in some real conversation between the Doctor and the Solitract about the universe? That would have made it much more powerful that they supposedly became friends and then the Solitract cared enough to let her go. Ultimately, it frustrates me with the wasted potential! Because it's such a fascinating concept of the wacky, weird Doctor Who kind and then they just rush though it so you're left with almost nothing.
Another problem was that the story somewhat glossed over how horribly Erik was treating Hanne by leaving her alone and letting her believe there was a monster in the woods threatening her, and by pretending it was all right. Yeah, you have Graham and Yaz wanting to deck him for it, and the Doctor deservedly calling him an idiot, but the denouement just doesn't pack enough punch for him. Of course it's more satisfying to have a resolution where he goes back to trying to be a good father, not having the social services sweep in and take Hanne away or something; but there just should have been a bit more confrontation for him before the end. Maybe Hanne questioning him about why he left her and lied to her, and him having to take in the situation a bit more.
Both of those elements were the crux of what the story was about - the Doctor and the Solitract becoming friends and it having to let her go; and the story of Hanne and Erik - and they should have packed more emotional punch than they did. With the Doctor and the Solitract the problem was pacing and not giving them good enough dialogue at the crucial moment; with Hanne and Erik, the problem was the lack of honesty from the story itself about how horrible Erik's parenting was and lack of confrontation between them in the end. It wouldn't even have needed any extra time, just stronger dialogue addressing the matter. It's like the story ultimately shied away from any actual emotional meaning, after having set up for it. That's frustrating, because there's so much more it could have been.
That being said, I still enjoyed it overall. The atmosphere was great throughout, in all the three distinct parts, and the scenes were packed with appropriate tension. The guest cast was great, Hanne was a wonderful character and brilliantly acted by the actually blind actress, and I loved that while her blindness was a factor in the story, it was just one part of her, and she and her story were mainly about entirely different things. I also loved that the story gave a good amount of stuff for all three companions to do, and that the Doctor got a lot of properly Doctory moments, from all the adventuring and conjecturing all the way up to befriending a sentient universe.
Apparently the frog has been a divisive factor for people. I loved the frog! I thought the frog was possibly the best thing about the episode along with Hanne and Granny Five. The frog is whimsical and weird in the proper Doctor Who style, and that there are many more fascinating things about the world than just human beings. A sentient universe doesn't have to think like we do. It makes utter sense to me that after all it's learned about the world via the Doctor and her companions and Erik and their memories of Grace and Trine, the form it settles on when it can be anything it likes is a frog. Fans would always want it to be something grandiose or emotionally important to the Doctor - dunno, Susan, River, a nebula, something like that - but why on earth wouldn't it be a frog.
Other things I liked:
- The Woollen Rebellion!
- the Doctor eating soil and discovering all that information, and the alpaca farm
- the landscapes
- the fact that it was set in Norway. The show spends far too little time outside the UK when it's on Earth. More Scandinavia stories!
- Graham and his sandwich! I'm 100 % with Graham on this one. That's entirely sensible behavior, and I don't even know why everyone else is rolling their eyes at him. I'm the person who always needs to sort out when I'm going to get some food if I'm travelling with people who aren't as susceptible to low blood sugar as I am. Because I, too, get really cranky if I don't get food at regular intervals. Graham has noticed they don't always get to eat, knows the effect of low blood sugar level on him, and made precautions, which makes him one of the most sensible companions the Doctor has ever had.
- I already mentioned Hanne several times, but I'm still going to mention her. Both the character and the actress. I also loved that she felt like a real teenager, the way a real 14-year-old intelligent, sensitive girl would be when abandoned by her parent, frustrated and scared. And she was awesome going through the portal alone!
- The way everything was reversed in the mirror universe. I didn't even realize it until after the fact, when several podcasts pointed it out - they'd basically flipped the film so that text was backwards, everyone's partings were on the wrong side etc. But it created a wonderfully eerie, unsettling atmosphere that was reinforced by the lighting and directing of the mirror universe scenes.
- The music! It was especially wonderful in this story, becoming part of the story in a visceral way that you mostly don't even notice.
- The Doctor's seven grannies, Granny Five and her stories and her theory about Granny Two being a Zygon agent. There's fanfic waiting to happen. Well, some has probably happened already, I haven't checked yet.
- Yaz suggesting that the Doctor should reverse the polarity. (I'm not a Pertwee fan, but it's such a classic anyway. Besides, it gets referenced enough in other eras, especially by Five I think?, that it's a fun Classic Who allusion for me as well.)
- The moment between Ryan and Graham in the end. It got me a bit misty-eyed; not specifically the 'Granddad' but just the whole journey they've become. I loved that from the tension in the beginning they've come to really being family and looking out for each other. I haven't been invested in wanting Ryan to call him Granddad, because well, you don't really do that when someone marries into your family in your late teens, not in my culture at least. But I liked the way it was done here, with Ryan choosing to, because he knew it would make Graham feel better in that moment of grief which Ryan well understood, and because he wanted to acknowledge their connection.
Things I didn't like:
- the Doctor thinking it's weird that a cabin in the woods in winter doesn't have smoke coming out from the chimney. I live in Finland which is culturally pretty close to Norway, and in my experience (admittedly urban but I do have lots of relatives in small places) many houses have chimneys but smoke isn't coming out of them all the time. For one thing, we do actually get central heating, electricity and all that jazz even in northern Europe! And even if the house is too far away from everything else and has to provide its own heating, it doesn't mean you have a fire in the fireplace all the time. There are other ways to heat, and even a fireplace doesn't need to be lit all the time.
- the Doctor supposedly not realizing that Hanne would hear the difference between writing and drawing on the wall. Even I could hear it, and a blind person would rely on her hearing more.
- While I loved the Doctor's seven grannies and their wacky tales, I wish that in her conjecturing she'd had more to go on than just a Time Lord fairy tale. It seemed a bit far-fetched to conclude this had to be the Solitract based on just that, even if it ended up being true.
- While the thing about Erik just setting up the monster to keep Hanne inside was wonderfully creepy and twisted, it makes no sense that just an average speaker in one spot would really create the effects we were hearing, or that they would fool her. It wouldn't sound realistic at that range, and even less so for a blind person who relies a lot on her hearing. They could have gone through more trouble, just show there were several speakers in different locations, and make them good speakers that would be more likely to create a realistic effect. That was just lazy.
This use of Grace worked better for me than in the Arachnids. Still, I'm not entirely sure how comfortable I am with it. It was interesting observing the different ways Graham and Erik dealt with grief, however, and how Graham was ultimately able to admit this couldn't be Grace and he had to let her go and go back to the living. I also liked that the Solitract spoke with her voice; felt like it had come to really like her while being her, and it felt appropriate also as a goodbye to her character.
All in all... I'm frustrated because this could have been so much better with more care taken with pacing and certain key elements, but it was still an enjoyable story, it was really well directed and acted, and the lighting and music were great. I applaud the courage to create something this weird, concept-heavy and unusual, and the courage to have the climax be a frog on a chair. But it falls short of what it could have been and ultimately didn't achieve the sort of punch it should have had. Still, it's in my top 5 for this series; behind all the three historicals, but ahead of most other episodes.
Before the finale, my favourite remains the Witchfinders, followed by Demons in the Punjab; the latter is a superior episode in itself, but it's so heavy that the Witchfinders is more what I'm typically looking for when I want Doctor Who, which is why it gets the top spot. We'll see what I think of the series as a whole once I've watched the finale.
Please don't mention any spoilers about the finale if you comment on this post, because the comments might be read by people who haven't seen the finale yet, including me.
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I love all the grannies and especially love Graham's sandwich carrying habits. He's exactly like me when it comes to travelling.