DOCTOR WHO – Mr. Harvey Sees Crimson
Season 7, Episode 11 “The Crimson Horror”
When bodies turn up in the river, colored a most disturbing crimson, The Great Detective Madame Vastra and Co. are called in to investigate. What they find is impossible, and troubling, for it seems the Doctor has gotten there first, and may be in terrible danger…
There be SPOILERS ahead. Brace yourselves accordingly.
When Moffat & Company were talking about “The Bells Of St. John”, the first episode of this second half of the series, there were quite a few comments about it being something like a Bond movie. While I didn’t quite agree with that, it does seem like they managed to squeeze that into the season here, because, let’s be honest here, “The Crimson Horror” is Moonraker, isn’t it? The industrialist promising a safe place to weather a coming apocalypse, one they are planning on providing; the chosen few, with beauty and intelligence being the criteria for selection; the deadly virus that will cleanse the earth… yep. It’s Drax and Jaws all over again. That’s not actually a criticism though, as I actually enjoyed this riff on the story much more than the 1979 film… loved it as a kid, but sadly, Roger Moore’s part of the series has not aged well.
It also recalls – and really, this is something I don’t notice much about the New Series – the Tom Baker years, specifically episodes like “The Horror of Fang Rock” and “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”, most especially the latter. Possibly that’s because of the closeness in time between those episodes and Moonraker, and maybe there is something of the 70’s here, but also because of the Doctor and Companion in period costume bits of both stories, and the use of secondary heroes: Jago and Lightfoot in “Talons”, and Vastra, Jenny and Strax here. Just as Vasta & Co have been calling out for a spinoff, there was a brief time where the BBC considered doing the same for Jago and Lightfoot, something that would happen years later in the audio books. But I digress.
Since we have a lot of Vastra, Jenny and Strax, let’s start with our Victorian trio, shall we?
OK. I just have to say it. On one hand, it is somewhat believable that Vastra’s appearance is human enough to make the Victorian British tendency to ignore things they feel uncomfortable talking about, and that the public she interacts with thinks she’s simply, well, a deformed woman. On the other, her habit of casually talking about being a reptile from the dawn of time should cause a little bit more of a ripple, shouldn’t it? No matter, as it’s always great to have Neve McIntosh back on the show. Now if we could just have an episode where she has a role outside the makeup, that would be grand, as she’s certainly a good enough actress to play a separate part as well.
Her taking the case of Mr. Thursday (The much suffering Brenden Patricks, pulling double duty as brother Edmund as well) gives us that spinoff, at least for the first 15 minutes of the show, and for the first time, gives Catrin Stewarts’ Jenny a respectable amount of solo screen time. Sort of fitting that Jenny’s leathers bear more than a passing resemblance to Emma Peel’s, but more on that later. For now, it’s nice to see the human part of our trio get a chance to do some investigating and kick butt along the way. Nice also was her reaction to the Doctor’s unexpected kiss… she is, after all, a married woman.
As for our Sontaran Strax… sigh. OK, Strax is funny. His solution to every problem is a frontal assault, and his ability to figure out genders is hopeless, and Dan Starkey is always a joy to watch. But. Remember “A Good Man Goes To War”? Strax was pure Sontaran arrogance, promising death to all those around them, even while saving their lives while serving out his punishment from the Doctor as a medic. We even have that wonderful moment at the end, while his life slips away, where he tells Rory, “I’m a nurse.” There’s a hint of pride there, and sure, he’s a psychotic potato, but there is dignity there. Now? Not so much. So yeah, Strax is funny, but I’ll be honest, I miss the pre-death version more and more. Still, he does get the critical shot in at the end, so there’s that.
(Yea gods it’s worse than that… I forgot about the minisode “The Battle Of Demon’s Run – 2 Days Later”. If you haven’t seen it, it explains how Strax came to be in 1880’s London with Vastra and Jenny, but completely fails to explain his drop in intelligence. Here he is very much his “Good Man” self, and not the silly, yet loveable Strax of “The Snowmen” and beyond.)
It’s an interesting choice, giving a third of the episode to our trio before the Doctor appears, and for the most part it works really well. On first viewing I thought the rest of the time seemed rushed, and was thinking that this was another of this seasons “Well, we really need two episodes to do this story justice, but hey, let’s cram it into 45 minutes” stories, but on the 2nd and subsequent viewings, it really does flow pretty well and the timing is just about right. The one place it really doesn’t work is with Clara.
What, he asked, is going on with Clara? She’s barely in this episode, and that’s OK; we’ve had Companion Lite stories before, but folks, we’re running out of time. Word is that the mystery of Clara is explained in the season finale, and that’s only two episodes away, and both this and “Journey to the Center of the TARDIS” do very little to advance her character. She’s better here than last week, given a chance to do more than run and scream, but it isn’t until the final moments of the story that she really is anything more than Generic Companion. I’m really missing Clara from “The Bells of St. John” and “Hide”, let alone her other versions from earlier. Her bit with the kids at the end and the preview for “Nightmare in Silver” gives me a little hope, but at this point in Amy’s run with the Doctor, let alone Rose or Donna, we’d had a LOT more character development. Not a bash on Jenna-Louise Coleman by any means… it’s just that aside from the mystery of her previous selves and a quick wit, there isn’t much there for her to work with. Maybe once we get the big reveal. One can hope, as she really is a lot of fun, and her chemistry with Smith can be delightful when she’s given something to work with.
Speaking of Mr. Smith, whoever made the decision to give the Doctor a much expanded wardrobe needs a raise, because we have, I think, the 3rd variation on his look this season, and it’s playing very well. From the purple frock coat to this week’s plaid and bowler, we’re getting lots of Original Series vibe and that is just fine by me. It also ages Smith nicely, adding to the melancholy of the character, which is welcome… Smith has had his moments where the Doctor’s age has come through in his last two seasons, but since losing Amy and Rory it’s been even more evident, and his rather boyish look seemed out of place for that. Considering how much what the Doctor wears throughout his incarnations has been a character in its own right, this new look is one that is really working for me.
Smith gets a lot to play with here, first as the “Monster” with his stiff movements and makeup. While pretty much everyone I know was sure that the Monster was the Doctor right away, it was still an effective reveal with our Time Lord drenched in scarlet. I was a little surprised by the touching and kissing this episode though, as the Doctor seemed a bit more affectionate than usual, but it wasn’t that odd ultimately, although again, with Clara not having the development I think she should have by this point, his physical familiarity with her seems… unearned? Maybe. Anyway, Smith’s Doctor continues to be one I’m enjoying.
And then there’s Dame Diana Rigg and Rachael Stirling, our mother and daughter duo of guest stars. Rigg, of course, is famous for portraying Emma Peel in The Avengers, the classic British TV series, as well as being, ever so briefly, the wife of James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and it’s an absolute delight to see her here. Her daughter is also a highly regarded actress, but while they have acted in the same production, in NBC’s In The Beginning, they’ve never actually acted together. Writer Mark Gatiss wrote their parts specifically for them, and the two of them actually playing mother and daughter adds a nice touch to their performances. Rigg, of course, plays our villain, and like I said, since this is essentially an 19th century Moonraker, she’s basically playing a Bond villain in crinoline. From her plan to destroy the world and repopulate it with her chosen few, to her experimenting on her daughter, she’s obviously crazy, but since this is Who, there is, of course, that monstrous ally Mr. Sweet in symbiotic alliance with her to give it that more than madness spin. Rigg is excellent here, alternately chewing the scenery in the best possible way and being coolly malevolent, and she gets to deliver the best line of the show:
The Doctor: “Mrs. Gillyflower, you have no idea what you’re dealing with. In the wrong hands that venom could wipe out all life on this planet.”
Mrs. Gillyflower: “Do you know what these are? The wrong hands!”
Oh, the look on her face. Priceless. Excellent, excellent work, Dame Diana Rigg.
Rachael Stirling also shines, as blind daughter Ada, an unfortunate young woman who serves mostly as a prop for her mother’s recruitment drives, but also as the body disposal squad. It’s there that she finds a red-hued Doctor, who survived the poison by dint of being not-at-all human, and sensing a kindred spirit, proceeds to keep him as her own. That this entails chaining him up in the attic shows that Ada isn’t the most stable of creatures, but she’ll have a nice arc by the end of the episode, going from abused and soon to be abandoned child to vengeful monster killer, with a rather well done scene in the middle, where the Doctor gently guides her to the realization that nothing she is or has done is responsible for how her mother has treated her. She also gets to tell her mother that she will never forgive her and cane to a pulp Mr. Sweet, but gets left to clean up the whole thing in the end, which will, I’m sure, be quite the project.
Now, there are a few rough spots to discuss, like how Mrs. Gillyflower and Mr. Sweet came together and how the plan came to be. It’s not critical to the story, but its absence is noticeable. Also unexplained is how blind Ada, surrounded by the perfect specimens of the future is the only one disposing of the bodies which, while it saves the Doctor, doesn’t make a lot of sense. Then there’s the poor young lady at the beginning of the episode, referred to only as “A young woman working under cover”, who is clearly killed and then forgotten, even though she is working with Thursday’s brother. And then there’s the humor…
OK, Strax’s bit with the horse? Funny. Strax’s bit with Thomas Thomas? Groan. If you didn’t get the bit, TomTom is a fairly widespread, especially in Europe, navigation system, and here, I suppose, we’re seeing the beginnings of it. Except… TomTom is a Dutch company, and besides that, it’s clearly a joke for the sake of a joke, and it completely doesn’t fit 1893 Yorkshire, and that’s saying a lot, considering we’ve got a killer potato and a lizard lady strolling about. And repeated viewings don’t help the inappropriate kiss the Doctor lays on Jenny, which is played for laughs, although she does get that good slap in. A bit that does work is also a lovely continuity bit, with the Doctor referencing both the Original Series tendency for the TARDIS to have steering issues and a previous Companion by telling Clara he “Once spent a hell of a long time trying to get a gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport” and then, with a scream echoing through the air, saying “Brave heart, Clara”, in an obvious reference to 5th Doctor Companion Tegan Jovanka.
So there it is! Good production design and a nice steampunk vibe round out “The Crimson Horror”, and we certainly have taken a step up from last week, thank goodness. Ahead we have Neil Gaiman’s “Nightmare in Silver”, an episode I’ve been looking forward to greatly, as a) I loved “The Doctor’s Wife”, and b) the official return of the Mondas Cybermen! And then… “The Name of the Doctor”, and promised revelations galore. This season has been really erratic, and hopefully this “no two-parter” experiment is over, but if these last two episodes are solid, then I might just be able to make it to November and the 50th Anniversary Special.
Here’s hoping!
