11.42: The Crimson Horror

In which hiding in a cupboard solves everything.

Broadcast: May 2013

Watched: January 2022

“You know what these are? The wrong hands!”

I’ve always thought this was a step up for Gatiss, but on this watch I’m not so sure. The fact that it works is *all* in the production and performances. Diana Rigg and the hilariously OTT mortuary assistant between them sort of set the tone in the pre-credits. Then we get the joyously ridiculous design touches (the empty factory with giant megaphones, the creepy frozen people under bell jars, the unconscious people in long underwear being dunked in giant, Beano-style vats of red preservative), and the lovely, sepia-tinged old time-y flashback. 

It’s great. I’m just not sure it’s Gatiss’ doing. In fact, the script is a mess – the protagonist switches from Jenny to the Doctor around a third of the way in (the Crimson Doctor appears at minute 14, and he’s back to normal at 17). There’s no real mystery about who Ada’s monster is, there’s only one possible answer; the one joke in the script I noticed is the Thomas Thomas one. Which isn’t actually funny. 

It is, to put it charitably, unclear why going into a cupboard for a moment brings the Doctor back to normal, or why the experiments on Ada gave her scarring round the eyes, an effect nobody else experiences, but those things are sort of okay because it’s that sort of a story. Less forgivable is, we’re meant to find Ada sympathetic because she’s lonely and her mother treats her like shit, but she’s entirely fine with the plan until she’s not included in it, and also she *keeps a strange man locked up as a pet*.

The final twist, that Mr Sweet is some kind of prehistoric worm, is also a bit odd. Why exactly does Mrs Gillyflower think it’s her partner rather than a parasite?

But, it’s going for silly fun, and it manages silly fun, and both Rigg and Stirling are brilliant in it, and Smith does a bad Yorkshire accent, and Strax shouts at a horse. It’s sort of what season 17 would be if it weren’t shit, I suppose.

Other thoughts:

• I thought maybe 1893 was a bit late for this kind of model industrial development – Saltaire was the 1850s – but it turns out Bourneville dates from exactly 1893, so shows what I know.

• The guy who keeps fainting is called Mr Thursday. Is this a G. K. Chesterton reference? Love Strax fanning him with a lace fan.

• Weirdly what I thought of as the body of the plot sort of wraps up at minute 27 when the team is all together, and the rest is all denouement? But I think this is on me rather than Gatiss. 

• Abigail’s teeth are admirably gross. The Doctor kissing Jenny is the wrong kind of gross – not sure if that’s Gatiss acting up or Matt Smith. The Jenny-in-leather fight scene also feels a bit gratuitous. 

• Some other bits where I’m not entirely sure the tone is quite right: the line, “Strax! You’re overexcited. Have you been eating Miss Jenny’s sherbet fancies again?” and the look Jenny gives him when it’s spoken; the Doctor’s wince when Mrs Gillyflower falls to her death; Ada beating the leech to death. 

• Some references: for the second time in season 7 (which is two different seasons), something from Silurian Earth comes back to haunt us, which is odd. Also, Tegan reference! “Brave heart, Clara.” 

• The TARDIS dematerialising on the Maitlands’ security camera screen is lovely.

• Why do the photos of Clara and the Doctor in 1974 look photoshopped when they could have just taken photographs? Also, lol that the TARDIS misses Victorian London entirely so Clara can be confused by picture of other Clara, even though the obvious explanation is “you haven't done that trip yet”.