I never know where the faces come from.
Doctor Who, Deep Breath
Unfortunately, they kicked off with another one of those episodes that just didn't seem to make any sense, and as such didn't give the new fellow a lot to work with. It may be that there was a sort of quiet assumption that the novelty of a new face would make up for that, with the debut of Mr. Capaldi filling in for any shortcomings in the story itself.
The funny thing is that if you ignore the plot, it's actually quite a good episode.* There's a lot of discussion about the process of regeneration, and what it would actually mean to repeatedly recreate yourself, century after century. During the now well-established post-regeneration mania, the new Doctor finds himself looking at his new face and wondering as to its origins - and quite validly so. The human face is very much the result of experience, and as such, the lined visage that he sees in the mirror puzzles him: as he says, "Who frowned with this face?"
The alien robot/android/cyborg villain, who has apparently been repairing and rebuilding himself for millennia, is well used as a comparative foil for this question during the climax:
Question: you take a broom. You replace the handle. And then later you replace the brush. And you do that over and over again. Is it still the same broom? Answer: no, of course it isn’t.
You have replaced every piece of yourself, mechanical and organic, time and time again. There’s not a trace of the original you left…you probably can’t even remember where you got that face from.There is an evocative moment where the Doctor holds a polished silver plate in front of the cyborg to illustrate his point, a plate which also reflects his own face - and the same question.
The obvious subtext here would be that Steven Moffat, who wrote the episode, is laying the groundwork for the new Doctor being exactly that, a new man - not the same broom, in other words. On the other hand, the episode ends with a poignant moment between the Doctor and Clara, where he desperately tries to convince her that he's the same person if only she would let herself see him as himself.
When you think about it, the same issues apply to Peter Capaldi. He's certainly going to give us a very different interpretation of the Doctor, and my initial impression is that it's going to be quite good, and, indeed, very different, I think he has enormous potential.
But I also think he's going to need to establish himself in the role - Capaldi's Doctor is likely to be less flamboyant and outgoing than his predecessors, and perhaps a bit edgier. As he says, "That's good, oooh...oooh... that's good... I'm Scottish... I'm Scottish...I am Scottish...I can complain about things, I can really complain about things now."
Finally, let's discuss the question of Missy, who appears at the end of the episode. The first episode of each season of Doctor Who always sets up the final episode, and it's quite likely that we will see this enigmatic character again. But who is she? I would dearly enjoy finding out that Missy is the new Master - if they're not going to give Helen Mirren a shot at the Doctor, it would at least be a step in the right direction to give the part of the Doctor's nemesis to a woman.
- Sid
* It is a sad comment that there have been many, many, many episodes of the rebooted Doctor Who that fit into exactly that category: quite good if you ignore the plot.
