TV Review: Doctor Who Series Nine Episode Four "Before The Flood"

"Who Composed Beethoven's 5th?"

Beginning this week's latest episode of The Doctor's travels in time and space was an unusual change of atmosphere with the fourth wall being well and truly broken by Mr. Capaldi in a vein that heavily reminded me of John Normington in The Caves of Androzani when, after misunderstanding the script and stage direction, directly addresses the viewer with his lines, much to the enjoyment of both the producers and die-hard Doctor Who fans across the globe who all agree in coherence that Peter Davison's farewell was rather splendid indeed, with that scene in particular being one to remember. Although "Before The Flood" is not entirely in the league of classics that include "The Caves of Androzani", the concluding part of Toby Whithouse's two-parter definitely attempted to stir the brain-cells with more mind-bending timey-wimey action, a frightening, if underused, monster-of-the-week, and a final moment to ponder upon cemented around the confounding notion of The Bootstrap Paradox, a theory in which the fourth wall was shattered down and explained to the audience by the guitar-wielding Twelfth Doctor of whom we all are beginning to cherish and love.

If last week's episode upped the ante on the scares and solidified a focus on character development, aiming towards more of a direction of horror, then "Before The Flood" chose to replace such with full-out monster mayhem; think Aliens rather that Alien, with The Fisher King being a ominous presence from start to finish, who although seemed way too much of a physical threat for The Doctor and co, was defeated in roundabout fashion, linking back to one of the questions that was being asked right from the start of Whithouse's two parter; what or who is in the stasis chamber? Surprisingly, all of the remaining questions that were left hanging at the conclusion of "Under The Lake" were all dealt with in a satisfactory fashion, particularly the origin of The Doctor's ghost form and the real point of the creepy apparitions in the first place. Where the episode ultimately succeeded however, was the way in which the origin of the Bootstrap Paradox, in which the legend of Beethoven was well and truly questioned, fashionably attempted to cover all the holes opened wide by the timey-wimey nature of Whithouse's script, emphasised by the final shrug and smirk of the Doctor, who, like us, must have been pondering on whether his meddles in time and space actually do make sense after all.

Overall Score: 8/10