DOCTOR WHO – The Journey Had a Few Missteps

Season 7, Episode 10 “Journey To The Center Of The TARDIS”

Well. That was… actually kinda disappointing.

No, no, that was an INCREDIBLY MISSED OPPORTUNITY. GAAHHHH!!!

SPOILERS all the way down folks.

OK. There are some really great moments in “Journey to the Center of the TARDIS”. There really, really are. Unfortunately they are surrounded by some really awful storytelling and dodgy logic and just bad premises. For every peek through a doorway at something that makes my fanboy heart skip a beat, there was something to make me groan, and after the far superior “Hide”… sigh.

So our premise here is that the Doctor, in trying to reassure Clara that she and the TARDIS can get along, doing something he has never done before as far as I can recall, sets the TARDIS controls in Beginner Mode so Clara can learn how to fly her. Somehow this also turns off the defenses, most notably the shields, and a passing salvage ship hits our valiant ship with a Grav Lock, causing much damage and chaos. Let’s leave aside for a moment the fairly stupid idea of basically making your incredibly powerful timeship completely vulnerable to everything and everyone, without checking to see if there is anything around that might, oh I don’t know, potentially be a problem, all to let someone you barely know, and happens to be the third version of a person you have encountered, which is, in fact, quite odd and unlikely and possibly incredibly dangerous, learn how to fly the incredibly powerful timeship. It’s hard to leave that aside, because of the fairly stupid idea part, but let’s do try.

Of course it all goes to hell, and the TARDIS is picked up by the salvage ship, Clara has gone missing, and the Doctor, convincing the crew of the ship that he is a) crazy and b) crazy and suicidal, forces them to help him find her before the TARDIS goes BOOM. Clara herself gets a running mini tour of the TARDIS, by being chased by, as she puts it, “zombie creatures”, but takes time out to read a book, before it all comes to a head with a countdown to oblivion, saved only by a timey-wimey reset, complete with an actual reset button.

Riiiiigggghhhhhtttttt.

OK, some shows have Clip Shows. You know the ones, where about 40% of the episode is new material, and the rest is a montage of bits from previous stories? It’s a budget thing, it’s a time thing, and it can be a lot of fun, but essentially, it’s filler, right? This episode isn’t a bunch of clips, but it really does feel like filler, and that’s a damn shame, because, like I said, there are some really great moments here. But when we’re also dealing with creatures who are attacking our heroes for no actual reason, which is even worse after we learn who and what they are, and a family dynamic that is so mind-bogglingly WRONG… I would have preferred a Clip Show.

Lets consider the Brothers Van Baalen, if only briefly. Brother 1, Gregor, played by Ashley Walters, is a jerk. Brother 2 is Bram, played by Mark Oliver, a not at all bright jerk, and then there’s Tricky, who is introduced as an android, but turns out to be Brother 3, played by Jahvel Hall. Hall has a really thankless task here, because he has to play someone who is apparently either an idiot or dangerously delusional, because there is no way whatsoever that he could possibly accept that he is a machine unless he is either one or both. Artificial eyes and voice box do not replace eating, sleeping and the other bodily functions that would give away the fact that he’s human in an instant, so, with all due respect to the actors saddled with these awful parts, who I believe did the best they could with what they were given, let’s leave the Brothers Van Baalen far, far behind.

And then we have the Reset Button. OK, we have this in every science fiction series ever, right? Star Trek: The Next Generation did it a LOT, Farscape did a really good one, Who’s “The Big Bang” and “The Wedding Of River Song” are essentially Reset Button episodes. Something awful happens, our heroes find a way to undo it, hooray the day is saved. Most of the time there isn’t actually an actual Reset Button, and while I give kudos for going there, it’s not as clever or funny as they seem to think it is here, so again, let’s move on.

As for our monsters, that they are revealed to be Clara, The Doctor and the Van Baalen’s future selves would be quite dramatic, if only there was a reason of any kind for them to be trying to kill their earlier selves. There isn’t. I’ve watched this episode 7 times folks. There is no reason given. At all. Zero. Oh, and note to Clara: When being chased by a monster? Stopping to read a book is probably a really dumb thing to do. Just saying.

So, what was good here? Surprisingly, there was a lot, so much in fact, that it really does feel like a squandered opportunity to have given us this much of the TARDIS to look at, and not take the time to linger and explore. The Library. Wow, that is very, very cool, and we need to spend time in there. The Encyclopedia Gallifreya? History in a bottle, complete with audio clips from “The End Of Time”? Very cool. (We also get audio clips from An Unearthly Child, Colony in Space, The Robots of Death, “Rose”, “The Beast Below”, “Smith and Jones”, and “The Doctor’s Wife”.) A trip to the TARDIS’ Architectural Reconfiguration System, home of “Bespoke Engineering” and the TARDIS’ genetic material gives us a very interesting look at the core of our ship’s biology, in a piece of quite lovely production design. And then we have the Eye Of Harmony.

Oh The Eye Of Harmony. This is a surprisingly contentious subject actually. In the Original Series, the Eye Of Harmony made its first appearance in “The Deadly Assassin”, where it was revealed that it was not only hidden beneath the Time Lord Capitol, but also was the source of all their power, and the source, in fact, of the TARDIS’ power. In the McGann TV movie, it appeared that the Eye was either located in the TARDIS, or it was a copy… it really wasn’t made clear. With the new series, and the destruction of Gallifrey, it wasn’t entirely clear what the status was, because clearly if Gallifrey was gone, the Eye beneath the Citadel was too, and the TARDIS was running off something, yes? Well, now we know. At the heart of our ship, there is an “exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole […] suspended in a permanent state of decay.” Pretty cool.

As for our Doctor and Clara, given what they have to work with here, well, at least Matt Smith is really good. Jenna-Louise Coleman really doesn’t have a lot to do here, aside from running and screaming, which is something of a call back to the Original Series one supposes, but Smith gets some good moments. His “never get on a spaceship with a madman” for one, and finally, the explosion of frustration and fear that we have to know that he feels about Clara. OF course that, and Clara’s knowledge of his real name are wiped out by the “Big Friendly Button”, so it’s a mixed bag. One must also note his tearing up at his helplessness when he realizes that the TARDIS is about to die, in our other great effects shot, when we see the remains of the Engine Room.

So yeah… frustrating. Great production design and lovely looks at our infinitely huge TARDIS, dragged down by a bad story, a fairly silly reset, and monsters that don’t make any sense. After “Hide”, it’s especially disappointing, but next up we have Martin Gatiss’ “The Crimson Horror”, and Gatiss’ track record is pretty good. Here’s hoping, since it sees the return of Vastra, Jenny and Strax, and stars the wonderful Diana Rigg. Yes, that would be Emma Peel of Avengers fame. You know, the “other” Avengers? You do know what I’m talking about right, ’cause if you don’t, well, you really, really should, cause Patrick Macnee’s Steed and Rigg’s Peel were fantastic together.

Be seeing you.

>>>>

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