Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 10: Face the Raven
The Doctor and Clara, with help from their friend Rigsy, find themselves in a magical alien world hidden on a street in the heart of London.
Before I begin this review, I should warn you it is one of the saddest, emotionally developed episodes that I've ever watched and I should caution you if you haven't yet seen it just how upsetting the ending is.
So the episode begins with the doctor and clara being presented with a problem, their friend Rigsy calls them because Clara gave him the doctor's number for emergencies and he has this strange tattoo on the back of his neck which is counting down. Interested in the mystery behind this, the doctor and clara decide to investigate this matter further. The only problem is Rigsy can't remember much about what happened or how he got the tattoo.
Using the TARDIS's navigation systems the Doctor manages to track it down to finding something called 'trap streets' which are streets that you never notice, something that escape the corner of your eye. once they find the mystery street is when the plot really gets in gear and things start to make much more sense, so if you're left in the dark and are totally lost at the beginning, in the middle of the story things are explained and make much more sense.
The actual design of the street is wonderful, it reminded me a bit of diagon ally, there is something magical about the street in terms of the way the lighting was done that made it look a bit like Harry Potter. I don't know if it was the intention of the director to make it want to look like that. the problem with it really is whither this was intended or not is that the trap street is always going to be compared to diagon ally because that's what it looks like. This was a very bleak setting, not much colour in this episode at all, just very dim and bleak and quite plain which all helps to entice the mood better.
Maisie Williams is back in this one. I feel that the more times we see her, the more we learn about how her character has developed and its like she has developed in certain stages over a long period of time. It relates back to my previous comment in my review of The Girl who Died, it is the result of a consequence of the doctor causing a problem by solving a problem. I think that her role in the story is to remind us of that, and that reflects in the doctor's character.
Maisie Williams is back in this one. I feel that the more times we see her, the more we learn about how her character has developed and its like she has developed in certain stages over a long period of time. It relates back to my previous comment in my review of The Girl who Died, it is the result of a consequence of the doctor causing a problem by solving a problem. I think that her role in the story is to remind us of that, and that reflects in the doctor's character.
I felt the actual concept behind the raven and the raven's involvement in the story was really compelling and obviously key to the plot, with it being 'raven' was in the title.
The whole point of this really was purely centred around just for Clara's
departure. As brilliant of a departure as it was, and it was it did create a massive impact on the way I viewed the whole episode, it was sad. It was incredibly sad. Clara basically decided upon herself having learnt you can swap what Rigsy had onto her, that they'd be able to develop a strategy to buy them more time, actually blew up in her face and meant that she was the one who was going to die. She did what she felt the doctor would do. It's one of those things in which you just go 'ah oh!' alarm bells were ringing as something doesn't sit right here. It was just that moment where Clara got the realisation as to what she had done and was like 'ok, I got myself into this, I can't escape it so I'm just going to face this head on and be brave even though I'm terrified at the same time' Jenna's goodbye scene was very touching and brilliantly sentimentally pitched. I didn't want her to go. Jenna gave the best performance she's ever given as Clara in that final scene, and Capaldi supported her through that.
It is a bit of shame however, given the fantastic premise that the episode had and you really could have had another story within that to make good use of it, other than just for getting rid of Clara. Also, it was nice to see Rigsy again, but again I felt he only featured as someone to carry the departure forward and so he wasn't as strong here as we was in 'Flatline' last year. Basically, a good episode but it was severely lacking in plot.
I really liked this one, so I'm going to give this an 8/10!
NEXT WEEK's episode has only got The Doctor in it apparently, so we shall see how well that stands up.
