Story 242, Episode 801, Series 8 Episode 1
Doctor: Twelfth
Companions: Clara Oswald, Madame Vastra
50 Years of Doctor Who had wrapped up with The Day of the Doctor, and the Smith era itself ended in The Time of the Doctor. It had been eight months since any Doctor Who, and nearly a year and a half since Season 7. That and we had Peter Capaldi debuting as Doctor #12. Did it live up to the hype? Absolutely.
The Review
A dinosaur in Victorian London was quite the way to open it, and I was already thinking how humanity forgot about it. Just take the explanation of the cracks in time erasing events from Series 5. The Paternoster Gang is on the case, and the dinosaur spits out the TARDIS. Strax knocks on the door, the Doctor opens it, sushes him and shuts it. Welcome to the second half-century of Doctor Who. Deep Breath was an amazing episode that introduced us to Peter Capaldi’s version of our favorite Time Lord in style. A far cry from the raw energy of The Eleventh Hour, Deep Breath was just as good and completely different. We start off slow with Clara worrying about the Doctor and wanting Matt Smith back. Madame Vastra tells her off by saying that the Doctor looked young so he could flirt with everyone, and now he is truly showing his age. Clara rages that she has never dreamed of ‘fit young men’ (blatant lies), but more important things are happening. The Doctor awakes to see the dinosaur spontaneously combust. Yup. The Doctor goes undercover to investigate and has a great scene where he scares a homeless man by wondering why his face is familiar and who he is. He reconnects with Clara as they both respond to an ‘Impossible Girl’ ad, but are taken hostage by clockwork robots wearing human flesh.
The Doctor shocking abandons Clara and she is forced to try and escape the droids by not breathing, and fails. Clara refuses to answer the Leader’s information, but the Doctor is there for her. The Doctor follows the Leader on a balloon of skin taking the restaurant where and the Leader wishes to go to the Promised Land. The best scene occurs as the Doctor questions how much of the original droid is left and if he knows his face’s source, but realizes the same of him. The Leader refuses to kill himself, the Doctor refuses to kill it. Somehow the Leader ends up impaled on Big Ben. The Doctor and Clara leave and the Doctor acts very distant, but a call from Matt Smith reassures Clara that Peter Capaldi is the Doctor. And he so was.
It’s hard to do this episode justice, but it felt like the version of Doctor Who I had wanted but never knew I did. This is the Doctor now and with Clara I couldn’t be happier. There was a weird post scene with the Leader in ‘Heaven’ with ‘Missy’, apparently the Doctor’s girlfriend. I’ll be we’ll be seeing her more…
9.5/10. A fantastic opener for the second 50 years of the show, Peter Capaldi, and Series 8. Bring it on!
Reviewing Doctor Who from Start to Finish 