World of Who:Before the Flood

Wow. This episode was really fun and interesting with a couple of call back ideas to past episodes. Deciding to go back to before the flood occurred, the Doctor and company (Bennet, and O'Donnel) try to figure out how the ghost are created. What happens is what I think is a clever rendition of the Bootstrap Paradox that the Doctor introduces early in the episode's beginning.

So Toby Whithouse really has a knack for writing very tense episodes and has a good eye for tone. I didn't realize how many episodes of Doctor Who he wrote that I actually liked. This is the third time he's written an episode about an alien species that knows about the Time Lords and I would like to see that happen more often and he has a good flair for mystery. The more I look at this episode and the story as a whole, I'm more convinced this was a more fleshed out version of Mummy on the Orient Express, an episode by Jamie Matherson who along with Whithouse are also considered by fans to take over after Moffat steps down as head writer for the show. The use of the Bootstrap Paradox and trapping the Doctor in his own time line I feel were really interesting ideas and why I'm not 100% sold on the prologue of the Doctor explaining what it is I can see why that happened because we do have fans that like to accuse the show of not making sense and just using "Timey Wimey" as an excuse for things Moffat and others doesn't want to explain.

I really did like the reference to Water of Mars where the 10th Doctor goes a bit crazy when he tries to rewrite time and call himself "Time Lord Victorious". The TARDIS won't let him do it again and the Doctor quickly realizes why it couldn't and shouldn't. This episodes makes a bit better use the Doctor's intelligence more than the previous story with Davros did as he tricks the Fisher King and shows to have been somewhat in control of the situation by the end of it, arranging for his "ghost" to appear before Clara and the others and put a series of things in place even for himself.

I really liked Clara and company this episode, they were all more fleshed out in this episode than the first one where I feel the first episode was just to really give you a good look at everyone. Like Flatline, and Mummy on the Orient Express,Clara finds herself being put in the position of the Doctor and has to make the hard decisions but is also faced with what she sounds like. I like how she tells Cass and Tim that she was taught to do what she has to ensure the most people survive but I think she really showed her character when comforted Bennet. The side story this story had going was Clara wanting to spend more time traveling and the Doctory worrying she was cutting herself off from her own world due to the death of Danny. Instead of doing a series of story plots about that, Clara had a moment where she helped Bennet who had just lost O'Donnel, someone he loved who then tells Time to confess to Cass. I like it when our characters have stuff to do when the Doctor isn't in the room provided that stuff makes sense. I enjoyed Cass's character greatly though I did feel the romance was a bit too much, with O'Donnel and Bennet's tragic love and Tim and Cass being in love with each other. Oh and did anyone else find it hilarious that Clara was loudly whispering for Cass?!

Overall I enjoyed both Under the Lake and Before the Flood a lot. It was a fun story that really took it's time to give a good blend of fear, tension, and mystery. The tone was handled well, the sonic sunglasses were not stupid (still kind of want them gone), and I hope this season really keeps going with this decent to good pace. The Fisher King and the ghost's designs were really awesome and I would have liked to have gotten more onto exactly what the Fisher King was but I think he just wasn't that important to the grand scheme of the story. This is more like the God Complex episode except in a way, the ghost's are the minotaur that was the antagonist. Actually, looking back on it, this episode was really a good redo of that episode. I'm gonna go watch the God Complex  now!

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