Sunday, November 9, 2014

Doctor Who-Dark Water

                         Following a call from Clara whose noticed sticky notes describing her recent adventures with the doctor all over the wall,her concerned phone call to Danny Pink is interrupted by a lady who claims she just ran over him in her car. After Pink's demise,Clara receives a call from the doctor asking after her. Once on board the TARDIS, she then uses a patch aboard of the doctors to induce him into a dream state where she threatens to throw all of his TARDIS keys into  an active volcano if he doesn't bring Danny back to her-rational being that she's seen him manipulate life and death.

                       Though decrying her behavior,the doctor agrees to have Clara connect with the TARDIS's telepathic circuit,as she did before,in order to connect herself stronger with Danny Pink's timeline-to which she is emotionally connected.  Once this is done,the TARDIS takes them to what appears to be a mausoleum filled with skeletal human remains suspended in a liquid medium. The doctor encounters a manual which projects a holographic ad for 3W,apparently some type of "humane" method of life after death. 


                 After encountering a woman who claims to be an android rep named Missy,the doctor and Clara are taken to her subordinate who claims that the name 3W refers to three words heard by the founder of the facility-who claims to have isolated the voices of the dead through white noise in the television from the dead saying "don't cremate me",indicating people still have feeling after death. This explains the name (3 words),yet the doctor is skeptical. 


                    Meanwhile Danny Pink has also arrived at 3W,and is receiving the same story-that he is dead and connected to his own deceased corpse. He is linked by means of a localized Wi-Fi to Clara,something that has apparently never happened at 3W HQ before,where she attempts to question him as to the truth of his identity. The doctor meanwhile goes to see Missy for more information about the facility itself and what she plans to do with the corpses.


                     All around Clara and the doctor,without them immediately noticing the transparent "dark water" with which they are all surrounded are receding to reveal the bodies of the doctors nemesis the Cybermen. After meeting with a boy he apparently killed in war,Danny Pink is then given the option to "delete" his emotions. When the doctor discovers this,Missy takes him to the center of London-where they've apparently already been. After his attempts to warn the population of their impending doom? Missy reveals her name as short for mistress because she can no longer go by her original name of The Master.


                       Aside from the reveal of this series' ongoing story arc character of Missy as being a new regeneration of The Master? This story has some similarities to the classic 1985 Colin Baker serial Revelation Of The Daleks in that it deals with the deceased being used as vessels by one of the doctor's foes. In this case,its the Cybermen rather than the Daleks. The element of people's irrational fear of death,and their inability to accept it as a part of their own existence,is added into this story as well.


                    As for Clara's behavior at the beginning of this episode? Speak of irrationality! While the trauma of a dead loved one can cause emotional instability? Clara's self centered behavior to the doctor,whose saved whole civilizations from utter destruction throughout time,removes a great deal of likability about the character-already suffering from a poorly realized attitude this series. That Clara would actually take away the doctor's means to be heroic only to satisfy her romantic needs. As for the story itself,there is of course more to tell.

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