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Ten Thoughts About Doctor Who: The God Complex

Published Sat, 17 Sep 2011 17:08:53 -0500

Last updated Sun, 18 Sep 2011 07:41:23 -0500

1. A Period Piece

A hotel from the nineteen eighties… recreated somewhere and somewhen. Yes folks, it's another interstellar epic done on the cheap. Either they are really saving up for Emperor Churchill on his mammoth. But you know I find the swankiest of hotels on the creepy side, as everyone from Agatha Christie to Hitchcock knows well.Talking of Christie…

2. Ten Little Nimons

Because, yes, the corridors of a hotel, especially a hotel that switched them around all, make for a great maze to drop a Greek myth into. Along with reference to the last time they did this plot back in the seventies as well.

3. Oh So He Eats Apples Now.

This couldn't be a sign that this isn't the Doctor we knew of loved is it? We know that the newly not-quite-baked Doctor didn't like apples back in The Eleventh Hour in quite a violent way. Or it a sign that something is wrong and something has changed…

4. Plymouth

This man was afraid of… Plymouth. I've got to say, as coastal towns go, I get where he's at. Brrrr.

5. I'm An Alien

David Walliams is another Doctor Who fan of old. He wrote and starred in some wonderful parody sketches with Mark Gatiss not too long ago. And his character eats goldfishes too.Well, with his charity swim along the length of the Thames last week, I'm not surprised. But the line about a society that always surrenders, incorporating at least one gag about the French – and yet survives so long, fits into the glorification of cowardice that the Doctor has, on occasion, celebrated. It's so rare.

6. The Solving Of The Rubik's Cube

It's never made clear at any point which is more important to the Doctor. Solving the mystery of the place they are trapped, or solving the puzzle he picks up in the hotel's reception. Although knowing the Doctor he probably just peeled all the stickers off and put them back on. That is kind of his way.

Last week he played as a God, this week he played against a God. And then became Amy's God. Did seem to give him a new perspective. Talking of which…

7. Who Is In The Doctor's Room?

Room number eleven. Doctor number eleven. "Who else." There's only one person the Doctor could be afraid of and he's looking right at him. Could that also be the answer the the question? "Doctor Who?" – "Who Else?" or will it remain unanswered as the very universe forgets him…

Either way if you are looking for your "double" reference this week, I think you just found it.

8. Separation Anxiety

As well as doubles, transformation and too many people knowing who the Doctor is, another repeated theme in the series has been separation from the Doctor and those who he wishes to save. And so it is here, the hotel keeping people apart and the Doctor unable to save them. It's a tragic distance, again communicated through the cold, distancing medium of electronic communication.

+9. It's Just Beautiful

As minotaurs go, this is a rather pretty one. Certainly a lot better than…

… yes, exactly.

And is that another eighties reference? It is all a bit Tron… and also slightly reminiscent of the proto-TARDIS in The Lodger. Back to that in a minute.

10. A Man Man And A Mad Woman In A Blue Box

Nice new car, nice new house – blue of course, but hang on what happened to their old house? The one in Leadworth they travelled to America from? That looked okay…