Doctor Who: S07PT2E04 - Hide.

Although the second half of the season hardly started with a bang, after raving reviews and a credit to a man I greatly admire, I found Cold War to be the weakest episode of the season so far. Will Hide be a return to form or another dud? Let's find out...

Set in the 70s, Hide is the story of a WW2 Vet and a psychic as they stalk a creepy house in search of a famous ghost. However with the appearance of Clara and The Doctor, we all know more is going on than it seems...

My final reaction to Hide was ultimately one of disappointment. In a similar fashion to how I felt about the Evil Dead remake, it wasn't really because the episode was bad, it was just because the setup was far more more interesting than the payoff. The first quarter of the episode (and the strongest part) basically takes a quite retro, cliched and generic ghost story and then throws the Doctor into the middle of it for fantastic effect.

This works so well because the Doctor couldn't seem anymore out of place than he does here in this slow, atmospheric, brooding ghost story and the fact they are two polar opposites means that they play off of one another wonderfully. If they had kept the focus playful, taking classic aspects of the ghost story genre and letting the Doctor flip it on its head, this could have been the perfect episode. Sadly by the mid-point, the episode couldn't have veered any further away from that wonderful and intriguing beginning.

When the focus was entirely on the ghost story, the pacing worked very well as it steadily rose the tension in a believable fashion to have the right effect. They also did this without skimping on the exposition and explanations. However as the focus and narrative shifted and changed to a story of a time travel experiment gone wrong, the pacing falls apart. The twist was surprising and clever enough to hold my interest at first, especially since there was enough time left on the clock to wrap itself up, answer some of my own questions and make it all fit and work but pretty much none of those answers or fixes ever come.

We never once question whether Grayling's psychic powers are real, there is absolutely no exploration of who our time traveller really was or what happened to her to send her to the pocket dimension and I have absolutely no idea who or what the aliens were and how one of them ended up in the pocket dimension with her either. And my God don't get me started on that awful, tacked on and rushed feeling second twist that turns up in the last few moments of the episode. I wish they didn't bother to include that at all. I think I might just pretend the episode ended before that crap happened.

Between Cold War and Hide it appears that Clara and The Doctor have become quite comfortable around one another. As much as I hate the romance aspect (yes I brought it up again) they do have great chemistry together and a strong dynamic. They both carry this humorous self-awareness to the silliness of their stories but Clara is the grounded one and the Doctor is the one...running around the room waving his sonic screwdriver in peoples faces. Plus Clara is just fucking adorable, how could you not like someone this likable?

I like Clara for a lot of reasons, actually. I like how she is lovely, charming, cute, fun and funny but the writers are also mirroring this with one of the darkest journeys for a companion in recent memory. Even aside from the fact that the Doctor has so far made her give up her most important possession, almost got her killed by an alien/nuclear explosion and then took her to the middle of a seemingly haunted house, she has also had to explore the dark side of travelling with the Doctor as well.

The Doctor is as fun as ever but Clara's journey and the realisations she has been making through each episode are really starting to paint time travel in a much darker light than it originally seemed. At times the Doctor is starting to feel less like an emo wizard and more like Willy Wonka charming people into his domain so he can murder them with their desires. His lack of a reaction to a dead, empty Earth, is more chilling than any of the goings on in the haunted house. Some may complain that this drains the fun but I personally like the added depth and deeper questions.

Character dynamics are frankly stellar throughout. Professor Palmer and his psychic assistant play out a lot like a second version of the Doctor and his assistant, only they are hunting a ghost and not flying around through space and time. Parallels are drawn throughout the episode and Hide uses Palmer and his assistant in a subtle way of exploring the Doctor and Clara. I liked that, it was clever.

Hide also provides some stunning visuals. In the same episode the Doctor travels through the very life of our planet and travels to a pocket dimension, all are stunning and fully realised, even the haunted house itself looks wonderful. Cinematic, almost. That isn't even mentioning the wonderful way the monster is shot and the beautifully terrifying atmosphere. It's amazing you can have these beautiful sequences, when just last week about the only special effect we got was a pair of rubber hands and the only set we got was a submarine corridor.

My most major complaint with the episode was the romance aspect. Here I go again. Since the characters of Palmer and Grayling largely exist to be mirrors of the Doctor and Clara for us to play with and explore, their romance feels forced and unnatural. We all know why it is there, but there isn't really enough time to establish and explore it in a way that makes the romance feel believable. Don't turn your ghost story which is in fact a story of time travel into a romance. I felt this utterly unnecessary. If the first twist made the episode sour slightly, those final moments made it all feel frankly rotten. That isn't even mentioning that all the themes of romance and love seems to be intended to draw parallels and our focus onto the dynamic between Clara and The Doctor. Stop that!

Oh Cross, what happened? Hide wasn't bad, it was actually quite good, it just wasn't as good as it could have been for me. It certainly wasn't as bad as last weeks and was certainly better than the opening episode but honestly despite the thrashing it has taken, Rings has been my favourite episode by far. Although, you have to love references to continuity and Classic Who (minus a mispronunciation of an integral planet) in this episode, especially when most of them were aimed at my favourite Doctor, Three.

Pros;

• The setup was certainly strong.
• I loved the way Hide used the Doctor for the first quarter or so of the episode.
• The twist wasn't actually that bad. The first one, anyway.
• Clara.
• I liked the way they used Palmer and Grayling.
• It looks amazing.

Cons;

• They could have done so much more with the setup, if the first twist was unnecessary that third one was just bullshit.
• Bad pacing.
• So many loose ends and questions still unanswered by the end.
• Stop with all the romance shit, fuck!

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate, 'Hide'?