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Review of Doctor Who 8.09 ‘Flatline’ (spoilers)

TV SHOW: Doctor Who

SERIES/EPISODE: 8.09 – Flatline

WRITER/DIRECTOR: Jamie Mathieson/Douglas Mackinnon

PLOT:

When the TARDIS lands in modern day Bristol, Clara investigates the disappearances of a number of residents. And the Doctor has his own troubles, as the TARDIS begins to shrink at an alarming rate.

VERDICT:

The current series continues it’s strongest run of episodes I have personally seen, since David Tennant left the TARDIS at the start of 2010. ‘Flatline’ was scary, funny and full of the drama we have come to expect from the long running Science Fiction show.

Peter Capaldi has been on great form as the Twelfth Doctor this series and once again, this episode was no exception. He has been excellent at showing us his uncaring and cold side for most of this series (which I have felt has been a breath of fresh air for the show, having watched Matt Smith for the previous three series), but just like ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’, he brought the Doctor’s heroic side out again in this episode for a fist pumping speech to this week’s bad-guys (which is yet another sign at what a magnificent Doctor Capaldi is). And there was a sequence that I will always find funny, no matter how many times I see it, where the Doctor moves the TARDIS with his hand (Adams Family style as Clara puts it).

Jenna Coleman took centre stage once more for this episode (and I know there will be those that don’t like it, but considering how good of an actress Jenna is, then I have no problem with it.), with her having to become the Doctor and work to figure out a way to defeat the bad-guys and keep a community service team alive. And not only does Jenna Coleman pull this off, she does so to such a believable degree that you could see her becoming the Doctor at some point (which does appear to be hinted at during this season at points).

Now like I said earlier, the supporting cast is nothing special in this particular episode, as most of them die off very quickly (it was almost like that was the point for their characters, to be monster kill),. But we do get a good cameo from Samuel Anderson as Danny Pink, which helps build on the story-arc that has been going on since ’Kill the Moon’ with troubles that have damaged the friendship between the Doctor and Clara, and we get another appearance of the mysterious ’Missy’, played by Michelle Gomez, which too plays to move forward the overall story-arc of the current series (But I could not help but notice the Ipad product placement).

Now onto this week’s bad-guys, which the Doctor so rightfully named ’the Boneless’. They were a group of aliens from a ‘two dimensional universe’ who have come to experiment on three dimensional beings (which just happens to be here on Earth, we are lucky that way). And these guys were excellent, from the way their experiments were performed (one example was killing a Police Officer and showing her entire nervous system on a living room wall), to the quite chilling way they then mimicked us once they learnt how to occupy all three dimensions.

 

Review Overview

Overall episode

A near-perfect episode.

Overall this was a fantastic episode that was almost perfect, had it not been for the rather bland supporting cast.

User Rating: 4.7 ( 2 votes)
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