Doctor Who – Recap: Crooked Universe via Rickey.org
Credit: BBC
Recap video and review of Doctor Who – Series 7 Episode 9 – Hide:
Few genre shows on TV can do a ghost story as well as Doctor Who, even if the Who story in question isn’t technically a “ghost story” at all. “Hide” is like a gumbo of horror tales: it’s part ghost story, part monster mystery, part time travel mythos, tied together with a love story. Two of them, in fact. It’s an episode dripping with atmosphere, and I’m not entirely certain the episode would have worked nearly as well in any other setting but the one we’re given: a haunted mansion in the 1970s. It’s just modern enough to feel familiar, while distant enough to feel altogether foreign and new. The episode also helps to deepen the mystery of just who, or what, Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) is, as the TARDIS doesn’t seem to like Clara all that much, for reasons that remain unexplained. The Doctor (Matt Smith) doesn’t get any closer to solving the Clara quandary either, even after asking an empathic psychic named Emma (Call the Midwife‘s Jessica Raine) if she gets any strange readings from the “woman twice dead.” The Clara mystery isn’t really a huge plot point this week, although her apparent ability to pilot the big blue box feels like a hint to a larger revelation to come. Thankfully, while we wait that mystery out, “Hide” manages to maintain the tension, producing one of the better horror stories of the Moffat era.
Credit: Adrian Rogers/BBC
The Doctor and Clara arrive at a haunted mansion in the 1970s, where paranormal investigators Professor Alec Palmer and Emma Grayling are researching the existence of a mysterious presence in the house, which Alec has bought outright, as a means of continuing his research undisturbed. Alec assumes that The Doctor is a state official of some sort, here to aid in the investigation, though Emma warns Clara to beware of The Doctor, as she feels he has “a sliver of ice in his heart.” Emma, for her part, is the only person actually capable of making contact with this ghostly presence, as Alec’s camera is able to snap photos of the apparition, but not much else, as the image always develops with the ghost in the same position. The Doctor surmises that Emma is a “lantern” between two worlds: our universe and a pocket universe in which a time traveler named Hila Tacorian (Kemi-Bo Jacobs) has been trapped. It’s a deduction which The Doctor comes to after using the TARDIS to travel to different points in the life cycle of Earth to snap photographs of the “ghost”. A single minute for Hila in the pocket universe could be 100,000 years in ours, hence, The Doctor recognizes that Emma will have to use her psychic abilities to create a portal between worlds from which they can rescue Hila, before the pocket universe collapses. However, things are complicated by the presence of The Crooked Man, a horrifying monster that’s chasing Hila through the thickly-misted woods of the pocket universe. Worse still, for Emma, the process of creating the portal to the pocket universe proves to be physically excruciating. This means that time is of the essence, as The Doctor races through the portal to rescue Hila, and return before the universe collapses — all while avoiding The Crooked Man.
Credit: BBC
The first half of the episode is appropriately spooky. Though the mood is lightened somewhat by the obvious romance between Alec and Emma, along with the consistently lighthearted rapport between The Doctor and Clara, the episode utilizes effective horror tropes to create a sense of mood and atmosphere, from the use of shadow to create a feeling of foreboding, to the classic images of candles being blown out, gale force winds rapping against the window and blustering through the house, and the snowy image of a ghost in peril, shouting “Help me!” at the top of her lungs. This gives the episode a vibrant aesthetic that clashes fittingly with the unsettling, sinister vibe of the haunting itself. There’s also a strong emotional component to the first half, as Clara is reduced to tears at having seen the entire life cycle of Earth play out before her eyes, realizing that, to The Doctor, everyone in Earth is a ghost — his ability to travel through time means that every Earthling he’s met either hasn’t been born yet, or they’ve already died. Clara, of course, doesn’t realize that, in many ways, she very much is a ghost to The Doctor, as he’s watched her die twice already. However, he stops just short of telling her this, saying only that, to him, she’s “the only mystery worth solving.” Yet Clara still despairs of having learned that, eventually, “everything ends,” though Emma is on hand to provide the comforting observation that not all things end — love, for instance, still endures.
Credit: Adrian Rogers/BBC
This becomes important later, after the atmospheric first half of the episode transitions seamlessly into the more urgent, purposeful second half, as The Doctor mounts his rescue. He’s able to safely extract Hila from the pocket universe, only to wind up trapped there himself, along with The Crooked Man, the rare creature that actually scares The Doctor (and with good reason. I don’t even know how to describe the monster, other than to say he’s some weird cross between a spider, an orc and a tree). Emma is too weak and scared to open the portal again, but Alec commits his faith to her, basically telling Emma that she saved his life simply by being in it, and adding that he believes in her, and knows she has the strength to reopen the portal. Clara springs into action, once the portal is opened. She rushes to the TARDIS and pleads with the ship to let her in. A significant moment in the first half of the episode had Clara discovering that the TARDIS doesn’t like her, for reasons she doesn’t entirely understand. However, after interfacing with the TARDIS herself (which utilizes Clara’s own image to create a holographic likeness through which the ship can communicate), Clara and the ship seem to reach a sort of understanding. Clara pilots the TARDIS (or, the TARDIS pilots itself) directly to the pocket universe, where she is able to rescue The Doctor mere moments before Emma loses the strength to maintain the portal.
Credit: BBC
Credit: BBC
Yet, in what’s becoming something of a running theme in the Moffat era, not every monster is necessarily bad. The Crooked Man is no different, as we learn that the horrific monster isn’t as sinister as it seemed. It’s simply a lovelorn creature looking for his mate. After affirming that Hila is, in fact, the great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Alec and Emma, The Doctor realizes his error with The Crooked Man, and asks Emma for one last favor, to help him set things right by bringing The Crooked Man and his mate together. This allows the story to have a happier ending than it already had, though I’m not entirely certain it was necessary, as I thought the story was perfectly, satisfyingly concluded once the TARDIS dematerialized back in the 1970s. But then, recent Who often finds ways to fit a certain amount of sweetness in the conclusions of its one-off storylines, and this was no different. Then again, that’s not really a knock. Not many genre shows can successfully get away with that sort of ending, undercutting the previously tense hour with a conclusion that borders on the saccharine. Yet Doctor Who still manages to stick the landing on a routine basis.
Credit: Adrian Rogers/BBC
“Hide” is a uniformly strong hour of television, and I’m doubly excited for next week’s TARDIS-centric episode, as Doctor Who actively engages with the mysteries at the heart of series 7, in a huge way.