Doctor Who: Face the Raven (9x10)

I'm annoyed. Not surprised, but annoyed. Siiiiiiggggghhhhhh.

Cons:

I'm not mad that Clara died. Honestly, I'm not. I mean it was pretty obvious it was coming, but still, I felt like it was an okay ending for her character. The companions have too high of a survival rate anyway. And nothing else would ever make Clara leave her adventurous life with the Doctor. Death was the only way. But here's the thing -  Clara's death was all about the Doctor. Did you notice that? In her final moments, she told the Doctor not to seek revenge. Okay, fine. But she didn't mention her students, or her family, or anything freakin' personal about herself. I think she may have mumbled Danny Pink's name once, vaguely, but for the most part these final touching scenes were all about Clara comforting the Doctor in her final moments. Seriously! It's not Jenna Coleman's fault, but Clara just sucks as a character. Her entire life and death revolve around the Doctor to the point that it's absurd. How is it that a character who actually has a canonical life outside of the Doctor (being a teacher) could fail to have any personality outside of him?

I'll praise the acting between Capaldi and Coleman later, but did anybody else feel like Clara's death was too drawn out and too melodramatic? Once we realize that she's going to die, there's still a good five minutes of dialogue, where they keep trying to bargain, and then Clara speechifies to the Doctor a lot, and then she finally dies in rather cheesy slow motion. Look, I'm really sad that Clara is dead. Honestly I am. But the more you point a big spotlight at it and say "look at this! It's sad! Cry, peasants, cry!" the less sad I'm going to be.

On top of that, Rigsy was dispensable as a character. I wasn't all that excited to see him again, since it wasn't like he had a lot of definable characteristics when we last saw him. And we didn't get any time to develop his character. It turns out that he was really just there as bait for the Doctor, which was lame.

This last con is sort of nebulous. It's just that the last time we saw Maisie Williams' character, I thought we explored the complexities of her unique situation. And then here I felt like she became pretty one-note. You could argue that it's because of the whole immortal life/mortal memory thing, which I do think is pretty cool. But for a character with a lot of interesting elements, I felt like she was underutilized here. Like Rigsy, she was really only there as a tool to catapult the Doctor into the mysterious two-part finale. It just sort of bugs me.

Pros:

This episode did have a pretty cool concept. I liked the idea of a street hidden in plain sight. You can only find it when you're not looking for it. It's like a whole street that's a Room of Requirement or something, only even more strangely hidden. Me, while underused in this episode, still had a few good moments as we learn about her desire to protect her people. She's a harsh ruler, killing anybody who breaks the peace in any way, but at the same time her motives are good.

The idea of the raven was also interesting. Basically, you get a tattoo that counts down to zero, and then the raven kills you. There are two ways to escape death - the person who made the contract (Me) can release you from it, or else you can pass it on to somebody else. Clara takes on Rigsy's sentence, trying to buy more time. In the end you realize that Me no longer has the power to invalidate the contract, because Clara cut her out of it by taking Rigsy's countdown. That was a lovely twist, and I liked the way that it released Me from some of the culpability. She really had no plans to hurt Rigsy or Clara at all, but things got out of her control.

This episode also introduces a nice little mystery. It looks like Me is answering to a mysterious force that has promised to keep Me's street safe if she delivers the Doctor. Who is doing this? Who wants the Doctor badly enough to go through all this trouble? I mean, the list is probably very long. I'm interested to get the answer.

Finally - despite feeling rather lackluster about Clara's death, and wishing that it could have been more masterfully handled, I do admit that the acting between Capaldi and Coleman was excellent. The Doctor was so distraught. But instead of falling into hysterical grief, he just shuts down, becoming something unlike himself. I loved the moment when he told Me to stay away from him. Clara made him promise not to pursue revenge, and she was doing that to save Me's life. That's pretty dark. The Doctor is not somebody you want to have as your enemy. (At the same time, and on a larger thematic note, it bothers me that the Doctor has fallen so much from being a healer. He's a warrior now, no matter what Clara tries to tell him. I really do want to go back to basics with his character).

So... RIP Clara Oswald. Jenna Coleman will be missed, because she was a lot of fun to watch. But her character? Ugh. Hopefully the Doctor's next companion can be somebody with more of a personality? Maybe not a conventionally attractive and young white female? Please? Pretty please? Sigh. I'm not holding my breath.

6.5/10