‘Hide’. My vague recollection is that one-word titles are often ‘small’ episodes but among the best. Blink. Listen. Midnight. Umm, Rose. Dalek. Gridlock. 42 – well, there’s always an exception. Flatline. Smile – maybe. Oxygen. Extremis. (Rosa Kerblam Resolution Spyfall Praxeus – obviously the rule fails with Chibnall).
Anyway, back to Hide – this is all good spooky stuff.
“Doctor?” “Yes?” “I may be a teeny, tiny bit terrified.” “Yes?” “But I’m still a grown-up.” “Mainly, yes, and?” “There’s no need to actually hold my hand.” “Clara.” “Yeah?” “I’m not holding your hand.” Classic. An oldie but a goodie, works every time.
The romance between Emma and Palmer (who doesn’t want to admit it) is nicely handled.
Is the orange space suit the Doc uses on primordial Earth, and old dead Earth, the same one he got (as Ten) in The Satan Pit? It has a remarkably long life. (In terms of episodes, not just in terms of time travel). But that excursion prompts Clara to feel the awful existential vastness of time. “One minute you’re in 1974 looking for ghosts, but all you have to do is open your eyes and talk to whoever’s standing there. To you, I haven’t been born yet, and to you I’ve been dead one hundred billion years. But here we are, talking. So I am a ghost. To you, I’m a ghost. We’re all ghosts to you.” To which all the Doc can say is, “You are the only mystery worth solving.”
The bubble universe floating in space is vertiginously scary, and beautifully done. As is the spookiness of the forest. And then the Doctor loses the place where he left the rope.
So I think I understand it this time round – Emma is creating a virtual copy of Palmer’s house in the bubble universe to guide the Doctor and Hila ‘home’.
The monster makers have excelled themselves with the misshapen creature in the forest.
Love how the Tardis interface chooses Clara as ‘the person Clara most esteems’. As Clara says, “You cow!”
And the reason the Doc came to Palmer’s house was – to ask Emma, as an empath, what nature of girl Clara is. Answer: Quite ordinary.
And I like the coda, that the ugly monster we saw glimpses of – was two, one in the house and one needing a lift. And, it gives a meaning to that stock hand-holding sequence.
So we don’t find out where the Doctor (presumably) takes Hila – one assumes the paradoxes would be too great if she stayed with her great-ancestors. But I guess we don’t really need to know.
I really like this episode.
Dentarthurdent 1 year, 1 month ago.
