Doctor Who: Boom (14x03)

I regret to inform you that this was a very good episode of Doctor Who. Fucking Moffat, knock it off with being an occasionally very good writer. I hate this dude.

Cons:

I thought the romance arc between Mundy and the random dude whose name I can't remember was probably the least memorable part of the episode? It just felt a little flat and proscribed, and it fell into some cliche writing tropes. Why is it always that an oblivious woman is being pined after by her long-suffering martyr of a best friend? It's giving Rory and Amy, it's giving... Joss Whedon. I don't know. I didn't hate this, but it didn't add a ton to the story, it almost felt like more of a distraction to the core relationships that we should have been focusing on.

This was the most I've enjoyed Ruby and the Doctor's relationship on the show yet, but there was this one moment that I had a problem with in the writing. The Doctor is calling out to a dying Ruby and basically says "I need to talk out loud in order to think, and you're the only person I can talk to." I think I get what the goal was here, but it read a little strange to me. Because the point of the Doctor is kind of that he can make friends with most people, isn't it? He finds the connection, and the adventurous spirit, and the bravery, in all sorts of people he comes across. We even see him forming connections with the other people he's meeting in this very episode. So I do wish the sentiment had been adjusted just slightly. Ruby shouldn't be valued and loved simply because she is uniquely able to provide the Doctor with companionship. You know?

I thought the resolution felt a little rushed, with the father's love saving the day. Very sweet or what have you, but I could have used a bit more build-up to it? As is Moffat's MO both as a writer and as a show-runner, he's always better at the setup than he is at the payoff.

Pros:

I think when Doctor Who is at its very best, it takes a simple concept, a small group of people, and it plays out the complications of the scenario over the course of the hour. This was an episode with a small core cast, basically only one setting with just a few cut-aways to the camp where the soldiers were staying, and there's a pretty simple problem to solve: the Doctor is standing on a landmine. If it goes off, because of his special Time Lord-y-ness, he could blow up half the planet they're on. So the stakes are higher than simply the Doctor's life, and they're on a timer.

And from there it's really just a lot of intense stakes-raising, alarming moments of tension as the Doctor tries to keep his emotional reaction to a minimum so as not to trip the sensor. I loved the scene when the Doctor is begging Ruby to back away and she's insisting on staying close to help. Great relationship building, great classic rapport between the Doctor and his companion. She's brave, he's worried about her, but together they thwart catastrophe.

As is often true with this show, and with sci-fi more in general, this episode has some not so subtle political messages baked into it. I think it was brilliantly and disturbingly done, showing us first the soldiers and the way their lives hang in a delicate balance, then starting to learn about the for-profit model of this weapons manufacture, and then the gradual and chilling revelation that these people are not at war with anyone at all. It's an empty planet, and they're fighting nothing, letting themselves be killed for the benefit of a corporation running on auto-pilot designed to maximize profits. Yeesh. That's a thought, isn't it.

There's also the lovely detail that all of the soldiers are part of the church. Ruby talks about how strange this is, and the Doctor points out that the military and the church are usually hand in hand, and that her current reality is really just a blip in the pattern.

The gasp-out-loud moment of this episode is of course when Ruby gets shot. I love the way the scenario is set up here, where Ruby is going to shoot Mundy with her consent, in order to draw the ambulance's attention away from the Doctor, but Mundy's love interest dude sees Ruby pointing a gun at her and misinterprets. And then the Doctor, forced for the sake of this whole planet to stay frozen in place and just watch it happen... great face acting from Gatwa here as he reacts with horror while simultaneously trying to tamp down on his reaction.

This was a good episode, with a lot of good moments. I think tamping down into a more tragic story allowed for the Doctor and Ruby to have some exchanges that didn't feel so... manic, the way the first two episodes were? And that was a big help to make them feel like they have a more grounded relationship. Ruby begging to know her next of kin in the final moments of her life is going to haunt me, that was so tragic! And while maybe a little bit trite, the father's love saving the day thing did still work okay for me, all things told.

I'm hoping we can get some motion on the Ruby mystery in the coming weeks, and hopefully preserve a bit more of the naturalistic bond between our main characters as we move forward.

8.5/10