pinkpurplebluexxx-deactivated20:

I really disliked it which is hugely disappointing to me because one of my favourite actresses, Bethany Black, was in it.

I was hoping she’d have a bigger role, and one which gave her the opportunity to shine. Yes, she’s the first trans actress to be in Doctor Who, which is absolutely a celebratory thing, but I think probably coincidental considering her talent. Bethany was chosen, I assume, because she is a brilliant actress with real vulnerability to her performance. (I loved her in Cucumber and Banana by RTD. I think she was one of the stand-out performers in that).

How you cast someone like Bethany and then have them play a part like 474 is beyond me. Don’t get me wrong, I liked 474, but I wanted to see Bethany’s range.

I didn’t feel the characters were very well developed, which is a shame. They felt more like caricatures. Under The Lake made me care for every member of the crew, so we know it can be done in the space of an episode.

Diversity-wise I was pleased. But diversity doesn’t make an episode good. It’s something which should already be there, since we are in 2015, so although I appreciate it, it doesn’t improve the episode for me.

I admire the fact they tried something new with the way it was filmed, but I don’t think it worked overall. Sometimes it was so shaky you couldn’t tell what was going on, and it seemed to work like a barrier and keep many viewers detached from the story, which is the opposite of what I think it was intended to do.

Still, it’s better to try a new idea than do something boring, so I appreciate this experiment, even if it failed for me.

One problem I found was that a lot of people didn’t really understand the story. And not in a clever way, just in a rather confused, what-was-that-about? sort of way.

I think you can be smart with your story without leaving your viewers at a complete loss. It’s good to leave some blanks sometimes, to add to the fear-factor, but you need to at least five the viewers a basic understanding of that’s going on so that they can follow it and feel involved.

The monsters… oh the monsters.

Finally, ammunition against those that want to talk-down RTD because of his farting Slitheen. Under Moffat we now have sentient humanoid eye bogies. I think with that we’re even. (And that’s a generous assessment considering the Slitheen did have a proper motive/personalities/storyline).

Some of the ideas were clever. Capitalism trying to eliminate sleep was something which interested me. I wish the episode had been more philosophical to be honest, and really explored the pros and cons of that.

I feel awful for saying it, because Mark Gatiss does seem like a nice man and he works hard and clearly adores Doctor Who, but I do wonder if he’s suited to writing for the show at the moment. He writes well for Sherlock, and An Adventure in Space and Time was stunning, so perhaps he feels restricted by the family audience? I’m just not sure what happens when Gatiss writes for Doctor Who at the moment. Things seem to go very wrong.

I also feel like if Mark was a new writer then he wouldn’t keep getting asked back in the way he is. It does seem that Moffat likes to hire his friends regardless of the quality of their scripts. Which is a shame considering we so desperately would love to see some new young writers, especially some young female writers.

I really disliked this episode. For many reasons.

I was glad to see Bethany Black, however, which was the saving grace of the thing, although how annoying that she wasn’t given a bigger part.

Ah well, perhaps she’ll be asked back as a companion when Clara leaves? I live in hope.

xxx