Doctor Who Series 9: Under the Lake (Review)

After the series opener, I thought this series would be Hell for me... WELL GUESS WHO JUST GOT PROVEN WRONG!

Just as soon I was ready to write this series off, something like this had to come along, didn't it? Something so... good...

Now, when it comes to genuine scares, Doctor Who's been severely lacking since, well, forever. It's a low budget family show, it can't go too far. I'd say the worst anything ever got for the entire Doctor Who Universe is the half converted man from Torchwood's 'Cyberwoman'. 'The Unquiet Dead', which admittedly still freaks me out, is the closest we've really gotten to real scares in my opinion. And then Whithouse comes along and somewhat succeeds. 


Now 'Under the Lake' isn't a horror movie. It's still a family show, but the brilliantly tense atmosphere makes up for the lack of genuine spookiness. It's a base-under-seige story, so of course everyone ever is gonna love it, and with the base-under-seige archetype comes a tense atmosphere from the enclosed space, a small cast and a villain which generally uses whatever the characters have against them. It's a simple formula and it works, especially for Doctor Who.

While we're on the subject of the characters, when was it the last time we had a cast of proper supporting characters? The closest we've gotten recently would probably have to be 'Last Christmas', but most of the cast there was criminally underused. Here, on the other hand, the characters are great.

Yeah they're not the most memorable, but they serve their purposes brilliantly. They each have defined characters which are consistant throughout. Woah, it's like the writers finally discovered how to write characters!

And while Pritchard is clearly there to be the 'boo hiss' character, I can still appreciate the middle finger to the money obsessed, selfish businessmen he is. 

I also found the dynamic between Cass and Lunn to be very entertaining. While it's not in the spotlight during the episode, you can tell that Cass really cares about Lunn, seeing as he's the only link she really has to the world outside of herself. Like when she wouldn't let him go inside the ship because she didn't feel it was safe, or trying to run too him when he was cornered by Spooky!Pritchard. It's a small thing, but it made me kinda happy.

The episode is also v v funny.

Also it's v v pretty.

 Also this shot made me laugh. 

The episode is also pretty original. Which is nice.

There is one problem though: the cliffhanger. It's so obvious and predictable that it worries me. But it also annoys me, as we know the Doctor isn't going to die. It's clear that he's in the stasis chamber thing. So can we stop with these shocks for the sake of shocks, which aren't even shocking?

Anyway, I've been far too positve in this review. Gonna go punch some old ladies.