So settle in, because Emily and I (Lorena) cover A LOT in this breakdown of ‘Deep Breath’… from how we like the new Doctor to predictions for the future, all the way to the Smiths and the Beatles! And not to worry, our spacecraft is not made of skin. We were able to get the parts.
Random Musings to Warm us up
Emily: Okay, a few quick musings… I love that Vastra says she hasn’t seen a T-rex, “Not since I was a little girl.” And while important, the T-rex was only on for like 5 minutes. That hallway proved to be more important and pivotal like we thought!
Lorena: Exactly! The hallway was the critical point of the central conflict, and the T-rex was the inciting incident!
Emily: I love strax hitting Clara in the head with the newspaper!
Lorena: Best physical comedy of the episode! But oy! That hurt!
Emily: HA!
Lorena: I loved the gorgeous dialogue that may or may not have been translation of the T-Rex: “I am alone. The world which shook at my feet and the trees and the sky have gone. And I am alone now. Alone. The wind, white snow and the word is grey. And I alone here. Can’t see me. Won’t see me. Can’t… see me.”
Emily: This was brilliant. the ambiguity of is it the T-rex (yes, i think so) but how it can apply to him as well and his own securities of being accepted as the Doctor by Clara and by us!
Lorena: I couldn’t notice a clear theme for the Doctor. Clara’s theme was definitely there in a few incarnations, and there was a theme when the Doctor was on screen, but it was consistent or growing towards the end. The episode seemed to be more about Clara, which is fine, and I think that her theme should have been the prominent one. So, I’m okay with it, but just curious to come to know the new doctor’s theme. Sidenote: There was totally some Twilight Zone musical bits happening in the Doctor’s first scene.
Emily: You are so good about hearing those things! I missed that completely!
Re-veiling or just Out of Character?
Emily: Vastra putting the veil back on? Did Clara really understand the regeneration? Why would she be seen as a stranger now?
Lorena: This part was weird. Really, what was the point here? Vastra seemed to be the one with the problem, not Clara. Was Vastra there when the Doctor aged hundreds of years and then died in front of her eyes to save two entire planets? NO. Sorry, Vastra, but I don’t think you get a vote in it! So, shove it, green one.
And btw, riling up a person “just to see what they’re like when angry” isn’t amusing, it’s abusive.
Emily: I did love Clara’s monologue here though! And I loved Jenny’s clapping and response!
Lorena: I did enjoy it, but why was it necessary? And another thing… when did Clara become a control freak egomaniac? Or boy crazy? Just an FYI, Steven: You haven’t actually developed Clara as a character well enough to make us laugh at that. There’s no context to make it funny. Or not funny. Or anything. It’s just a big blank WTF? moment that could have been avoided by giving Clara’s character a third dimension like 13 episodes ago. Also, Clara is always shown as being maternal and caring. In what way do those traits become “control freak”, “egomaniac” and “boy crazy”? Just because she flirts doesn’t make her Captain Jack Harkness!
Emily: ! Exactly – I never saw her as flirty or anything like that. When she and the Doctor discuss it in the restaurant I totally thought they were talking about the doctor, not her.
Always with the Victorian Era
Emily: Side note Jenna Coleman is made for Victorian era clothing!
Lorena: Yes, she is, but… side note: I’m kind of tired of Victorian era episodes. I am not really into steampunk, though I get the allure, and I’m just at a point of “meh” with this whole Victorian era recurrence.
Emily: I get that. but I think if the show were based in the US we’d get Revolutionary War and Civil War over and over… it’s British, it’s who they are, keep calm and all that. Go to Egypt, go to India, though not favorable, the British Empire did reach far. What about getting the doctor to land on the Falkland Islands… I don’t know would that incite riots?
Lorena: It’s kind of like how often WWII was cropping up in episodes. Why can’t we have more than just a few points in history we keep coming back to? We never go to the same spot in the future twice (okay, except New New York, which was admittedly silly, too! The storylines could’ve been on any planet/location; I’ll forgive Satellite 5 since it was at distinct points in its history). Why go twice in the past? It’s not like WWII and Victorian era are the only times when random things happened! I’d love to go to 1980s Manchester, for instance. An episode set at the Haçienda would be the Best.Thing.Ever. They could call it “Work for Idle Hands” and have there be random disappearances that everyone thinks are drug-related, but are actually the Rani kidnapping club goers for her experiments!
Emily: HA! What about the height of the Beatles? The Rani seems very go-go dancer!
Lorena: She absolutely does! They could even reuse some of her costumes for this Beatles storyline. Sure they’re a wee too 80s, but she’s a Time Lady, she can be eccentric and futuristic for the time!
Mirror, Mirror On the Wall
Emily: You know I love fires of Pompeii and when he talks about having seen the face before? Why did I chose this face? What am I trying to tell myself” Like I’m making a point what can’t I tell myself This whole little bit of foreshadowing is exciting to me! I feel this is the family he saved from a fixed point in time at Donna’s urging. There is something here I feel it!
Lorena: !!! I feel your feels !!! I have no extra inputs, but it’s exciting. Will add here about the mirrors… There were three incidences of mirrors in the episode, and your comment the other day about that being your ‘I am the Doctor moment’ seems quite accurate!
- First time: “Don’t look that mirror, it’s furious” he says about the mirror in the bedroom, which isn’t shown.
- Second time: With homeless man in the alley when he says, “Do you ever look in the mirror and think you’ve seen that face before?” The reflection shown here is distant and distorted.
- Third time: He’s showing the not-a-cyborg leader in a silver serving platter that he’s more human than machine (snickers) and sees himself in the reflection very clearly, even reacts to himself after saying, “You probably can’t even remember where you got that face from!”
Emily: This is so deep and exciting… he grows to accept the man that he is! I also love: Attack eyebrows.. Open bottles with these!
Lorena: YES! Can we just call Peter the ‘Bottle Opener’?!
Emily: YES
Okay Missy, aka The Ending
Lorena: So, I read a comment somewhere that Missy at the ending part might be the Rani. I looked into her character more, and I THINK IT IS LEGIT!
Emily: Read what it says about tyrannosaurus embryos and it was a female trex! And then she wanted to experiment on humans by extracting chemicals and stuff. Just like what half droid was doing! I love this theory! Her ultimate fate is unknown! Gah! We can’t have the Master return, he wouldn’t regenerate and John Sims is now on Intruders after Doctor Who!
Lorena: OMG everything is pointing to the Rani!!!! The T-Rex being female and even the reference to Heaven! It MUST BE HER! If it’s not her, I will have disappointment. Even the Industrial era is part of her plot! It’s so the Rani in so many ways. I cannot. God, I need to go watch all Rani episodes stat.
Emily: YES, I’m going to find them and watch them this weekend I need to know who she is!
No Clara, No Cry
Emily: We know Jenna is leaving at Christmas. I really hope she doesn’t die or it be heartbreaking. I hope it’s more like Martha where she just moves on with her life.
Lorena: I don’t think they could have her die, given her history of randomly dying as a thing. It would feel almost like it wasn’t real?
Emily: So true! I just didn’t want it to be heartbreaking. The Snowmen death was heart breaking. I can’t handle Christmas episodes that make me cry!
Lorena: Isn’t that the goal of the Christmas episodes? 🙂
Structural Changes and Pesky Daleks
Emily: I don’t know that I like the doctor leaving for long crazy stretches of time and then popping back the way he did with Amy and Rory and even with Clara before. Donna, Rose, Martha they were always with him. I like that bit.
Lorena: I really liked how they did that with Amy and Rory, because in The God Complex Amy decides to be Amy Williams, not Amy Pond. Which is basically her choosing her life with Rory and that she is ready for that life to begin for real. I liked that they transitioned it into the final episodes as almost an “in and out” feeling. Like randomly they’d go traveling if the Doctor thought they’d be into something (like the Dinosaurs on a Spaceship episode). For me this was a fun way to show that the Doctor can let people be on their own, but still see them (unlike with Sarah Jane). Even Martha, who had to stay with her family after all of that, made a point to keep the phone as a way to reach him and then went ahead and gave him a call for the Poison Sky. That said, it can only work in that situation, where we know the person already. And this is a new Doctor with new needs! Clearly Twelve is a little more insecure about things and a little more subdued.
Emily: So one other thing that is up and coming. The daleks are back we knew they would be, you can’t have doctor who without them BUT 2 things. 1) Didn’t Clara clever impossible girl that she was, wipe all memory of the doctor from them? When she was soufflé girl? 2) Didn’t something about the “moment” from the 50th anniversary when he didn’t use it, mean he didn’t kill all the daleks ever? I need to rewatch. CLEARLY I MUST REWATCH! too much tv!
Lorena: You do need to rewatch! This is all addressed in the Day of the Doctor and the Night of the Doctor (regeneration episode). 1. Basically the head of the Papal Mainframe is turned into a Dalek, but they read her mind first and collect all the data about the Doctor. They retrieve most of what had been erased from them by Soufflé Girl. 2. Yes, but then they ended up killing themselves as they were already firing towards Gallifrey before it disappeared, they’d then be firing on one another. What isn’t really explained is how Gallifrey defeats the Daleks still on their planet when they are put into the bubble universe. But somewhere out there, there are Daleks!
Overall Rating? Liked It, Didn’t Love It
Emily: Over all I liked the episode. Not in love, it may grow on me as PC does.
Lorena: Yes, me too. I liked the episode well enough and liked Peter quite a bit, but I didn’t love it. I wanted to have that moment where Peter clearly expressed “I am the Doctor” to himself and the audience, but Steven didn’t give us that. As I spend more time with it, I feel like Peter’s Doctor isn’t that swashbuckling madness of Smith and Tennant, and I am fine with that. Pleased with it even.
Emily: PC is the doctor, I love that there are a few “you don’t get a vote in that” moments.
Lorena: I feel like he’s the Doctor, though a different one than the last two. I’m digging his vulnerabilities though. Really digging that! The line where he tells Clara he’s not her boyfriend and she is all, “Never said you were” and then he says, “I never said it was your mistake.” So good! Especially after their egomaniac showdown in the restaurant booth. Who said they weren’t gonna flirt? There’s no sexual tension implied, but my god, the teasing bit of the flirt is still there! #love
Emily: Indeed #love!
What did you guys think? Was something missing? Was it all there? How do you feel about Peter Capaldi? What about the phone call?
