Deep Breath

Nine episodes in, I’ve realised that I’m really loving Doctor Who again, for the first time since series five, if I’m honest. As a result, I now feel like I should have been saying something about it. But I haven’t been. Well, not online, anyhow.

So… here comes lightning fast mini-posts on every episode so far. Unfortunately, I need to start this project with ‘Deep Breath’, which didn’t really knock my socks off, except in a few areas.

This story has a pretty odd and uninvolving plot, but some awesome character moments with the new Doctor. These awesome moments did not include, for me, the pre-titles sequence, which I found a little cheesy and awkward. However, at least they didn’t use the “Doctor Who?” gag again. So, there’s that. Later on, Capaldi’s scenes were electrifying: particularly his conversations with Clara and Half-Face in the restaurant. Particularly in the latter case, I don’t think I’ve seen that level of quiet steel from a Doctor since the seventh… and Capaldi is probably a little better at it than McCoy was.

I was spoiled for the phone call at the end, so that’s a bit of a shame. But the whole scene gave me echoes of that lovely bit at the end of 'The End of the World’, which was a pretty happy Doctor Who-watching moment for me. So that was nice.

Clara was excellent here too, but she’s even better later. So I’ll talk about her later, and you’ll like it.