After the Doctor’s past adventures of flying through time and space, what this show needed was another ghost story. So far this gas to be the darkest story of season nine so far. Here and there are mentions of UNIT (The Unified Intelligence Taskforce) and not to mention death around every corner. The visuals of the underwater base left me feeling claustrophobic, which added to the experience of watching the Doctor and Clara’s newest adventure.
I found the ghosts creepy and I was in awe over the costume of the Fisher King, not to mention the sheer size of the beast. Having a villain that can tower of the Doctor makes them for intimidating and frightening. 'Before the Flood' started off with what is now a regular occurrence in NuWho stories where higgledy-piggledy dialogue is delivered explaining time travel and the risk of encountering a paradox. To fair in this scene Capaldi’s Doctor does break the 4th Wall and instructs us to Google the Bootstrap Paradox. For me the guitar solo he delivers in the opening credits is sheer brilliance and has somehow encouraged me to attempt to play the guitar. I said attempt. As for Capaldi he can already play the instrument.
Another thing I really liked about these episodes was the fact that for the first time in Doctor Who history, we had a character that could only communicate through sign language. I liked how the show had a character with a disability and not to mention how she was always in danger wherever she went. I happened to like the connection they had between her and Beethoven, as in one scene she touched the ground to feel the vibrations from any impending doom, Beethoven on the other hand was a talented musician through the use of feeling the vibrations from the notes he conducted.
Throughout the two episodes I had a the sense of foreboding with the setting of the story. In Doctor Who the 22nd Century is when Earth gets overthrown by the Daleks. So could the scene between Cas and Lunn been adding to give the audience the gentle nudge to that their fate has been sealed anyway by impending doom that the Daleks will bring in their wake?
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this story, what better writer to hire for a ghost story than Toby Whithouse, the creator of BBC Three’s Being Human. Overall 8/10.
