Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror

“And here is the spoiler space for G+ because it picks a different paragraph for its preview”. It’d certainly be easier than thinking of something interesting to say to fill up the space 🙂

Lizard lady & friends! I like them. Like the way Madame Vastra is supposedly hiding, but really really couldn’t care less about being noticed. After all, who’s going to believe someone who says they saw a lizard lady? And the Sontaran is obviously going to be my sort of character – I was particularly amused by the bit where he’s saying what Jenny should be armed with if she’s going into Sweetville and then when asked why it’s a good idea he just says “well, in general”. Oh and getting all over-excited when he finally gets to shoot people.

From the trailer I’d expected this to be more of a Doctor-lite episode than it turned out to be. So I wasn’t at all expecting the blind girl’s monster to turn out to be the Doctor – J called it just before the reveal tho, so I guess if I’d not had my expectations set by the trailer then there were clues.

I’m not sure from this one if Clara remembers the events of the day that didn’t happen or not – she didn’t show much sign of it, but equally she & the Doctor seemed more at ease with each other than they had done up till now. Of course whether or not she remembers she’s definitely learnt this episode that she’s not unique – both in Madame Vastra & Jenny’s reaction & in the photo the kids have found from Victorian London (where she wasn’t).

The Fifth Doctor reference that I spotted was the one to Tegan (“trying to take an Australian back to Heathrow Airport”). Definitely seems like we’re walking our way through the Doctors in order … I hope the 7th Doctor references include Nitro 9 (Ace was definitely my favourite companion) 🙂 Thinking about it, having the Silurian woman in an episode where we’re looking for Fifth Doctor references is kinda appropriate – didn’t Adric die in the spaceship that’s the meteor that kills the dinosaurs? (And that happens in the Fifth Doctor’s time iirc.)

Best joke of the episode had to be satnav boy – went on just long enough and didn’t out stay its welcome. I also liked the fainting gentleman (and appreciated that this was the only true Victorian fainting we saw – the one woman who did so was faking it). And the morgue attendant, and all the different reactions to his declaiming of the name “The Crimson Horror”.

The plot itself was a bit “evil overlord Victorian variant” by the numbers – right down to explaining all her plans and previous evil schemes so that she could be foiled. But it did work, just about. I was thinking Bioshock references for the actual scheme, but I don’t think J agreed.

Only two episodes left in this half of the season. I wonder if we’re getting a proper finale, or if that’s saved for the special later this year?