Doctor Who in Review: The Caretaker

WARNING: SPOILERS

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Now that that's out of the way...

We've got another strong episode for series 8! I think I'd rank it as my second favorite, just after "Listen," so far. The slower pace in the past 6 episodes this series has been a breath of fresh air. We've had more character development for Clara in any one of the past 6 episodes than we had in all of the second half of 7. This episode finally brought the inevitable Doctor/Danny confrontation we've been waiting for--and it paid off. The chemistry between the two was frightening and wonderful.

A basic synopsis of 'The Caretaker" is that the Doctor disguises himself as the janitor of Clara's school. He busies himself setting up a trap to capture and remove a killer robot lurking in the area, but Danny accidentally ruins the trap, and stumbles into Clara's alternate life as the Doctor's time traveling companion.

The killer robot from... somewhere.

So as I mentioned, there was a killer robot--that's just about the extent of the details we got revolving around it. No idea where it came from, why it's there, or anything beyond the fact that it's dangerous and needs to be removed. It didn't any development. Sort of a standard "monster of the week" without any depth. It didn't need any, though. The episode wasn't about the killer robot. This was a character-driven episode, centered on the Doctor and Danny finally meeting. The robot served the same role as the alien chicken thing in "Vincent and the doctor." It's a reason for the Doctor to be there, but it's not the source of the drama in the episode. The characters are.

The Doctor vs Danny!

We finally got the long-awaited confrontation between the Doctor and Danny Pink. And it goes just about as smoothly as has been hinted at all season. The Doctor, as expected, fixated on the fact that Danny had been a soldier. Tensions rise, and arguments ensue. The strongest scene in the episode had to have been the scene in the TARDIS with Clara, Danny, and the Doctor. Loads of tension and raw emotion in that scene. Danny isn't a Rory or a mickey. He's his own character--this scene solidified that fact for me.

As soon as he fixated on the title of "time lord" you could just feel the emotion in the room about to hit critical mass. Danny and the Doctor's views had to clash--they both have completely opposite views of the military, while being completely stubborn about them. The Doctor views soldiers as problematic because they simply follow orders. Danny views officers in a negative light because they're the ones who give the orders.

Danny: "One thing, Clara. I'm a soldier, guilty as charged. You see him? He's an officer." Doctor: "I am not an officer!" Danny: "I'm the one who carries you out of the fire--he's the one who lights it."

By equating the Doctor with those who give the orders, the authority figures Danny specifically hates, he sets himself up as diametrically opposed to the Doctor. Obviously there are loads of nuance between the characters, and they might realize that one day, but this confrontation was the inevitable and necessary beginning to their relationship.

Honestly, my favorite reveal in all of the Doctor/Danny tension is that the core of the Doctor's anger is that he's worried Danny isn't good enough for Clara. This episode, at least for me, marks that final transition from the flirty relationship between 11 and Clara to the more fatherly dynamic between 12 and Clara.

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ... foreshadowing!

This episode laid out some heavy foreshadowing. Near the end, when Danny and Clara are on their couch, relaxing after a long day of saving the world, Danny says, "If he ever pushes you too far, I want you to tell me because I know what that's like. You'll tell me if that happens, yeah?" This isn't a simple moment to remain forever unfulfilled. This seems to be setting up something big. The Doctor is going to push Clara too far, do something that she just can't stomach. Maybe next episode. Maybe in the next couple. But it does seem like it will happen this season, and without Danny present (if he's there to witness it, then Clara won't need to tell him, will she?). The Nethersphere

The new scene in "the promised land" at the end certainly complicates existing theories on who Missy is. Up until now, I was quite fond of the idea that Missy was collecting people who the Doctor had in some way convinced to die. But the Doctor never interacted with the policeman. Sure, there can be some stretch of an argument that the policeman died indirectly because of the Doctor's presence (the killer robot was drawn to the area by the TARDIS's neutron emissions or whatever. I don't think it really fits into that idea anymore, though.

And now we've seen a new character in this afterlife, some kind of employee of Missy's. This is speaking to a much greater infrastructure of whatever this "promised land" is. I'm really curious about this season arc--and I'm fine still having no idea. If this manages to come together well, it could be one of my favorite arcs of all of new Who. It's comfortably somewhere between the subtle simplicity of a repeated phrase (Badwolf in series 1) and the intense focus on River/Kovarian stuff in series 6. This arc in 8 has the potential to be really fantastic or a huge letdown. I'm hoping for the former, but ready for the latter if need be.