For the spoiler-free section, I'll summarize my feelings by saying that I liked but didn't love "The Bells of St. John." It was a pleasant enough episode, and officially introduced the new companion to the show as well as what appears to be a recurring villain. So it is, by pretty much any standard, an important episode. And yet it didn't grab me the way the very best episodes of Who can. I was never thrilled, amazed, terrified, or moved. Instead, I would say I was curious, interested, and ultimately, amused.
Find out more after the poster in the SPOILER section.
Check your wifi for danger, there's SPOILERS here!
So, the second half of Season Seven is upon us. Which is bullshit right there. There's a new companion, a new opening credit sequence, and a new TARDIS interior. Most of the old storylines have been closed off, and everything is shiny and new again. Which means that this really should be Season Eight, right? Nope, the BBC in their infinite wisdom have decided that rather than have Season Seven in 2012 and Season Eight in 2013, they were instead going to split Season Seven into the second half of 2012 and the first half of 2013.
"But wait," you might say, "isn't 2013 the fiftieth anniversary of Doctor Who?" Why yes, yes it is. And to celebrate half a century, we're going to get half a season, a fiftieth anniversary special, and a Christmas special in December. I'd go into why, but John Seavy already did it better than I could over at his blog, Fraggmented. Go check it out over there if you want the depressing breakdown.
With that little bit of angry bile out of the way, I suppose it isn't kosher to penalize this episode for the folly of its institutional masters. So how was "The Bells of St. John", anyway? Well as indicated above, I liked this episode. It was almost a regeneration episode without an actual regeneration, as the Doctor learns how to be the Doctor again. Throw in a new companion with a mystery behind her, corporate evil British Style, and an old enemy who dates back to 1967 and isn't the Daleks or Cybermen, and you have the makings of a great episode.
But somehow "The Bells of St. John" never makes it to great. Having given the episode some thought, I've come to the conclusion that for all the potentially great elements included in this episode, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. The reason, alas, is pacing. There's too much going on in this episode, and nothing has time to breathe. The scenes with the Doctor meeting this era's Clara are fun, but there's not enough time for it to be really satisfying, because the main plot of the Evil Corporation intrudes almost immediately. But the resolution to that plot line is rushed and anticlimactic because they've got to have the Doctor recruiting Clara scene at the very end. And so on, and so forth. "The Bells of St. John" could have been a masterful two parter. Instead, its a rushed single episode.
Which brings us back to the BBC complaints I made above. You see, Stephen Moffat only has eight episodes in this truncated mini-season to do what normally he'd have fourteen to work with in a rational universe. No wonder the man says that (beware long term spoilers on the following link) "I'm nearer to the end than the beginning" of his time as showrunner for Doctor Who. Who wouldn't be frustrated when your bosses don't appreciate the value of what you're bringing them?
Even with all that, there was a lot to like. The Great Intelligence is a much better villain in the Internet Age than he ever was controlling Yeti robots in the 1930s. Playing on the fears we have of a powerful technology like wifi that has gone from non-existent to ubiquitous in only a handful of years is a smart move. I also doubt that this is the last we've seen of the GI this season.
The mystery of Clara deepens, as we see that modern Clara has inherited the governess role of her deceased predecessor from "The Snowmen" and acquires the computer skills that are the hallmark of her equally deceased future descendant from "The Asylum of the Daleks". It's too early to make much in the way of useful speculation, but so far she seems to be some kind of Eternal Woman, reborn over and over again, but keeping the skills and personalities of her earlier incarnations. Either that, or maybe she's a trap placed by the Silence to snare the Doctor. After all, Clara got the number for the TARDIS from some woman she met in a cafe. The obvious person for that to be is River Song, of course, but it could equally have been Madame Kovarion. After all, since nothing in the composite timeline of "The Wedding of River Song" stuck, Madame Kovarion's death at the hands of Amy was written out as well.
Speaking of Clara, she's cute. Spunky, even. She stands up to the Doctor and refuses to be swept off her feet the way Amy was. She doesn't hold him in awe, and seems more likely to be a real partner the way Romana used to be, rather than a helper or student the way most companions end up. And hell, if she really is some kind of long form time traveler herself, she has a right to be the Doctor's equal. This is a take on the Doctor-Companion relationship that hasn't been around in decades, and if that's where they're going with it, I'll be well pleased.
For all that it didn't resolve as well as I would have preferred, I still enjoyed aspects of the Evil Corporation plot. The line about "Wait, he's going on holiday soon. Kill him when he gets back. No reason to be unreasonable about it." was pretty funny, and using computers to "hack" people and adjust their personalities was well handled.
Overall, I end this review pretty much where I began it. This was a good episode of Doctor Who. I enjoyed it and it's well worth watching. Indeed, as an introductory episode it's pretty much mandatory since it introduces both the Companion and the Big Bad for the season. If you haven't seen it yet, get to it. It'll be easy to find online if you're naughty, or on BBC America if you've got cable and can tolerate the commercials.
I just wish they'd had the time to make "The Bells of St. John" as great as it deserved to be.
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