Hello and welcome to another Doctor Who review, where today we are going to be taking a look at this week's episode written by Charlene James and Chris Chibnall which is called 'Can You Hear Me?' an episode which sets out to entice its audience with the threat of their own nightmares.
The concept of this episode sounded good from what it said in the synopsis, however, actually watching it there seemed to be a lack of tension throughout, there were no jumpy moments, nothing striking or bold about this episode to make it stand out.
My general opinion of Can You Hear Me having watched it is as a story it failed to get off the grounds with me. The pacing of it was quite slow, it lacked excitement and the worst part about it for me was that it was a bit dull.
I was sitting and watching it with this desire for something exciting to happen, but the moment never came, and there are still issues with exposition in the doctor being the character in the drivers seat having to explain what's going on to the companions i.e the viewer in order for us to understand what is going on.
There were character development pathways which didn't really go anywhere or didn't seem to make much sense. In the scenes were we are exploring characters dreams, apart from Graham's where is the follow up to this? I just didn't get it, particularly Yaz's scene with the police woman, It didn't seem to make much sense to me from my point of view as the viewer watching it.
Putting my feelings of horsham aside, I will mention the things I did like about the episode, because I don't watch Doctor Who to pick out faults and criticise it. I go into an episode of Doctor Who wanting to love everything about it and everyone in it.
I enjoyed the moments that allowed each TARDIS crew member to go off and do their own thing, in the scenes where the Doctor arrives in Syria and she's talking like her companions are with her and they're not and she realises she's talking to herself are really nice comedy moments.
Ian Geldar was good in the role of Zellin. He portrays an unapologetic, moustache twitching villain reminiscent to a villain of the Tom Baker era. He's certainly quick to name drop some classic villains from the classic series such as the Celestial Toymaker and The Black Guardian. I thought the fingers detaching from his hand was quite creepy and worked very effectively.
All in all, I just think there is nothing much exciting or dramatic about this episode to make it stand up well as being a tenable competitor with the rest of the series, probably the weakest one so far.
The ending felt rushed yet again, the whole thing felt rushed in telling what basically was a fairly straightforward story. Slow and just unforgivably dull. 6/10.
