The 5 Greatest Weaknesses of Series 8 (Part 2)
Guest contributor Harpal Khambay looks at the strengths & weaknesses of Series 8, concluding with weaknesses.
5. Too much of Clara’s personal life
I understand that Clara was number three in my ‘Strengths of Series 8 list’ because of her fantastic character development, but I do feel a weakness of Series 8 was that there was too much emphasis on her home life. In some episodes it was okay as they only carried references to her life as an English teacher. However, when we got to ‘The Caretaker,’ I felt that Clara’s personal life took over the plot, making the story with the Skovox Blitzer an afterthought. I understand that the point of the episode was to show how Clara was coping with her two lives, but I felt that this focus could’ve been reduced to let the Skovox Blitzer get a bit of a look in. ‘The Caretaker’ could have really been a great adventure with emotions and a terrifying monster, but because of Clara and Danny’s relationship, which dominated the episode, our ‘monster of the week’ only got a few minutes of screen time.
4. Pacing Issues
I feel that a key weakness of Series 8 was the pacing of some episodes. In particular, ‘Mummy on the Orient Express’ and ‘Flatline.’ Both of these episodes were fantastic viewing and very enjoyable, however both started a bit too slowly, and both ended far too quickly. The endings of both episodes were far too rushed and lacked a detailed explanation, damaging the episode slightly. This point links in with my previous one about some of the writing of the episodes in the series. Other episodes that I feel that didn’t have the best pacing include ‘In the Forest of the Night,’ ‘The Caretaker,’ and ‘Death in Heaven.’ I believe that if an episode has odd pacing, it can damage the whole story, as 45-minutes worth of the episodes’ storyline abruptly ends within thirty seconds or less.
3. Hangovers from the Matt Smith Era
In my previous article I noted that the new dark tone of Series 8 was a fantastic move, but with a couple of episodes of the series I felt that the show was making a bit of an unwelcome U-turn. ‘Robot of Sherwood’ probably would’ve been a more enjoyable episode if the more whimsical Matt Smith was the Doctor at the helm, but instead they chose to strip away the darkness of the series they had built up, and throw in a fun-filled, clichéd romp instead. As you can guess, I disliked the episode, as the darker theme had suddenly vanished and it seemed like the Smith era was making a come back, only with an out-of-place Doctor. I also believe ‘In the Forest of the Night’ fits into this category. It was unnecessary to put episodes like these into Capaldi’s first series, when his Doctor was supposed to be darker and a ‘snarling beast.’ I would not have minded so much if they were featured in Series 9 and used to explore a different side to this Doctor as contrast, but I felt it was too soon for ‘fun’ episodes to be featured so early on in Capaldi’s dark tenure.
2. Not Enough Actual Villains/Monsters
Looking at Series 8, I can count seven actual villains who battled against the Doctor and were villains of their own volition in this Series. I counted the Half Faced Man, the Daleks, the Sheriff, the Skovox, the Boneless, Cybermen and the Master. Monsters such as the Teller and the Mummy were only villains by circumstance.
I also felt that only the Daleks, Boneless and the Master were worthy adversaries to the Doctor. They acted as an evil threat who played a large part in the plot and did a lot of evil things, such as killing and the like. I mentioned in my previous article that the dark tone of Series 8 was a great success, and I felt that this theme came about about without the villains, but more with the setting of each episode and the writing. In some episodes, the villains and adversaries were not very active and did not contribute much to the plot.
I even thought that some villains who had been strong in the past were represented badly, such as the Cybermen. The Cybermen did not kill anybody in ‘Death and Heaven’ and did not do anything during the episode after their creation.
1. Some of the Writing
To put it simply, I feel some of the episodes in Series 8 were not of the usual high standards Doctor Who episodes usually offer. Let’s start with ‘Deep Breath.’ Don’t get me wrong, I loved this episode, but I felt that actual plot, concerning the Half Faced Man, was a bit lacking. We knew he was making himself human, and I felt that this was part of the build-up to a big masterplan, but it ended up a bit anticlimactic.
Next, ‘Robot of Sherwood.’ As mentioned before, I felt that this script was out of place in this particular series and clichéd, making Robin and even the Doctor very annoying characters. The Robot Knights died very quickly, did not have much to do with the plot, and this made for boring viewing.
Next is ‘Listen,’ an episode which I do like, but the bulk of the episode did not move or develop, and ended up quite repetitive. The Skovox Blitzer was wasted in ‘The Caretaker’ due to poor writing, and ‘In the Forest of the Night’ was a badly executed, if beautiful idea. For thirty minutes of episode 10, we were still asking what exactly was going on, and the whole episode ended up being a waste of time as satisfactory answers did not come quick enough. Finally, ‘Death in Heaven’ wasn’t as good as I thought it would be, as I felt Missy’s plan was flawed, the Cybermen didn’t do much, and UNIT changed the word ‘unified’ in their name to ‘useless.’
