N120 Under the Lake

Another 2-parter in what is the season of 2-parters. Capaldi and Coleman arrive in an underwater nuclear facility in the near future haunted with ghosts. Hilarity (mainly provided by the Doctor’s awkwardness) ensues.

Sontarans:
—Similarly to the arcs of The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit and The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People, the production team was able to create the feeling of a whole complex with only a few rooms and a corridor.
—I enjoyed the cast for these two episodes. There is a dead military guy, double-crossing businessman, loving deaf leader that relies on generic crew person with no real personality, science guy, and definitely not Osgood.
—The scene with the cards reminds the audience that while strange things are afoot at the Nuclear K, people have still died and the crew have lost some very good friends.

Pigslaves:
—The Ghosts never really feel all that scary. They just kind of seem like slow-moving zombies that can walk through some of the walls but only sometimes.
—How come no one monitors who leaves and returns to the base? How can business guy leave the structure without anyone realizing? Also, why would he leave if we later find there is a remote control VR submarine?
—How did they get the ship and casket into the base? The only exit we see is human sized. Why would you have a door to carry in a whole ship?
—That has to be the singularly most boring spaceship I have seen since the featureless gray box ship from that one episode Futurama with the street racers.

RATING: 3.5 dead friends/family members/pets

Things I Liked

• The ghosts. My goodness. This is X Files levels of creepiness. The drowned guy in the cantina, the ghosts coming out of the floor, the bit when they were walking on the wall and ceiling (which made zero sense – but hey, it was freaky). By far the scariest undead in ‘Who since the Seventh Doctor battled zombie vikings in The Curse of Fenric.
• And, of course, *That* cliffhanger. Okay, I know I whinged at the fake exterminations of Clara and Missy but this was different dammit! It teases a catastrophe: What went wrong in the past? I must know!
• The bait-and-chase trap. A homage to Alien 3 perhaps? Does this mean Alien 3 is now officially good?
• The Doctor’s empathy cards. Another magic moment of Doctor-Clara chemistry. Screen shot of each card please.

Beefs:

• I’m assuming there is a bunch of stuff which will never be explained: why do the ghosts only come out when the base claims it is night-time? And why can they only move metal objects?
• Why did the crew abandon their dinner 8 hours prior to the Doctor and Clara’s arrival when they had known about the ghosts (and presumably found out about the Faraday Cage) three days earlier? They had a good 12 hours to finish their dinner and wash the dishes. No excuses people!

Summary: Doctor Who crossed with Event Horizon and The Abyss. A fantastic, terrifying tale.

Rating: 4.4/5 litres of febreeze required daily to cleanse the Faraday Cage of six rather sweaty people.