Hello everyone and welcome to another Doctor Who discussion post, this time looking at the eighth episode of Season 12, The Haunting of Villa Diodati. Last time we had Can You Hear Me? And although I felt that the way that it was resolved was incredibly rushed and the sonic screwdriver was relied on a tad too much, I really enjoyed the episode overall. It was definitely better than Praxeus! So how did the eighth outing fair? The name was awful and did anything but roll off the tongue however that was really only one of the issues I had with the episode…I really enjoyed it.

They did a cold open before the music which I really like and the whole time they managed to keep up the creepy and tense atmosphere. It was filmed well too as even though it was all set at night with only candles lighting the rooms, there was only one or two times where I couldn’t make out what was going on. The opening parts were actually quite humorous too where the Chibnell era is usually lacking in humour. The duel sequence had me chuckling with Ryan working well as the comic relief. Graham was a joy as always, and I liked how his seemingly unrelated bit was then confirmed to be indeed unrelated and he just happened to be haunted by real ghosts!

The episode’s villain (who at first when they saw it glowing from a distance looked like Mr. Burns from that x-files crossover Simpsons episode) turned out to be the lone Cyberman! It was a great way too raise the stakes of an already exciting episode. The half completed conversion design was great and much more realistic (for lack of a better term) than Torchwood’s Cyberwoman. He was intimidating and had a great presence on screen. You thought they were going to connect with the human side by talking about his children, only for him to reveal that he slaughtered them after his conversion. That took a very dark twist. The whole house changing repeatedly to hide was a fun concept and the guest cast were also fun, particularly the flirty Baron.

Things ended with the Doctor going against Captain Jack’s warning and giving the lone Cyberman what it wants. How high will the cost be? I guess I’ll just have to keep watching to find out.

DD Rating: 9/10