13.19: The Haunting of Villa Diodati

In which Who gets romantic.

Broadcast: February 2020

Watched: July 2020

“Are you the guardian?” “No, sir, I am the valet.” 

Alternatively, “Save the poet, save the universe”: a Heroes reference, and how often do you spot one of those in the wild?

Finally, it feels like this show is firing on all cylinders. It’s not perfect. But there’s enough good stuff that – for the first time since, what, Demons? – I don’t feel like I’m damning with faint praise.

Anywhay, there’s loads of absolutely brilliant stuff. Using the quadrille to perform an infodump. All the creepy haunting stuff – disembodied hands, ghostly figures, people wandering round in circles (although lol at the bit where they all just leave the room, turn around off-camera and re-enter the same shot). I love the self-consciously silly way it leaves some stuff hanging and it turns out Graham can see ghosts after all.

Also, there’s stuff with actual bite! The impossible choice of saving Shelley or heeding Jack’s warning (thanks for the vagueness there mate, very helpful). The way Mary’s talk of the power of love does not, contra Closing Time, save the day because Ashad was a dick who joined the cybermen deliberately. 

Best of all – the way the Whitaker *finally* shows some fucking steel. “Cos sometimes this team structure isn’t flat. It’s mountainous, with me at the summit in the stratosphere, alone, left to choose.” Where the hell has *this* Doctor been?

Against that, two downsides.

1) The idea Percy Shelley (who’ll be dead in six years anyway) is worth more than A. N. Other life is probably intellectually defensible but also a bit sick? Not least since there are at least two people who do die in this story, and no one cares because they weren’t major characters. 

2) That might be the sort of bullshit that’s inevitable in Doctor Who. The idea that Mary Shelley got the idea for Frankenstein from meeting a cyerbman isn’t. That’s just bad. 

Anyway. This is the first of two seasons running in which Maxine Alderton does the best story of the year but doesn’t properly conclude it because the arc plot swoops in and gets in the way... Can we maybe get her back for the new RTD era, and find out what she can do if given a free hand?

Oh, and here are two entirely contradictory notes I made, which I present here in the name of completism:

1. “Thought at first two different stories jammed together, but actually plot logic click nicely.”

2. “The ghost story does feel slightly like a different one from the rampaging cyberman one – bit Stones of Blood.”

No idea.

Other things:

• “I don't think they’re really from the colonies.” “No, she is from somewhere much, much stranger.” “The north.”

• There’s some brilliant editing on the ending of the pre-credits: the moment the inhabitants of the villa open the door to find the regulars and they all scream.

• Both the casting, and the various exasperated expressions of the servants, really bring home the fact this is basically just a student piss up. The guy who plays Byron’s valet Fletcher might be the best thing in it.

• FINALLY Thasmin arrives, when Yaz just announces she’s in love with someone unobtainable. This definitely does not fit with the obvious hints of Ryasmin at the beginning of the series.

• The Doctor’s rage at the cybermen (“I will not lose anyone else to that. Do not follow me”) is another unusually strong moment from Jodie. Is this meant to be a callback to what happened to Bill?

• LOL at Byron being a coward. Also at Clare telling him to fuck off at the end.

• “Saving Shelley was step one.” “What’s step two?” “Fixing the mess I created in step one.”

• Oh well, I guess that's a whole chunk of Big Finish continuity ruined.