Doctor Who: It Takes You Away

So... that was pretty weird, right? I'd seen this episode described as "the trippiest Doctor Who episode we've seen in years," and that about sums it up. It was so trippy in fact, that I'm not even sure how I feel about it. Here are some brief thoughts...

1. It takes place in Norway, in the present day. This is a nice change as usually present-day stories happen in London, and (in keeping with the quirkiness that'll soon be apparent in this episode) it gives a chance for the Doctor to offhandedly mention a sheep uprising. Can they maybe adapt that story in the future?

2. I can't help but feel that this story was initially inspired by The Ritual (the setting, the monster) and The Village (the lack of a monster, the weird twist), at least until the writer abruptly delved into parallel worlds and conscious universes.

3. So we can all agree Erik was a terrible father, right? Leaving your blind daughter alone for four days with a sound-system rigged up to keep her in the house by making her believe there's a monster in the forest? Why on earth didn't this episode end with the Doctor calling child services?

4. There were a few character beats that worked well, such as Yaz's police training allowing her to communicate better with Hanne, and Ryan automatically believing that her father must have run off and abandoned her (because this is exactly what his father did). Of course, it doesn't make much sense that it was then Ryan who stayed with Hanne and Yaz who went with the Doctor through the mirror, but of course only one of them needed to learn an important life-lesson.

Though in saying that, they were a bit hard on Ryan considering he was right about Erik abandoning his daughter.  

5. It appeared that they really did cast a blind girl to play Hanne, which made all the difference in feeling her plight. And it was cool how the Doctor sought to trick her by telling her she's drawing a map on the wall, only to instead write a secret message to Ryan that she didn't want Hanne to see – but of course, Hanne knows the difference between the sound of chalk drawing a map and writing out words.

6. So a magic mirror leads to what the Doctor called an "antizone", which acts as a buffer to protect our universe from the Solitract, a sentient universe that had to be removed from ours because was made of matter that was the antithesis of our own. Wow, okay. Let's... go with that then.

(Though I liked how the Doctor framed the whole idea as a bedtime story told to her by one of her many grandmothers, and Yaz's incredulity that that's what passes for a Time Lord fairy tale for children).

7. The antizone stuff, complete with an alien called Ribbons and a flight of flesh-eating moths that are attracted to a red lamp that hovers around like a helium-filled balloon was the strangest part of an already-strange episode. It felt a bit like filler, though I suppose it added an extra bit of danger and action that would have been missing otherwise.

8. And then we reach the mirror-universe, which of course contains the Final Temptations: for Erik it's his deceased wife, and for Graham it's Grace, both of whom seemingly know everything that their living counterparts did.

I'll admit I wasn't sure where they were going with all of this, but it turns out that the Solitract is simply lonely and desperate to lure in company, despite the danger it poses to the universe by doing so.

That being its impetus, it's easy enough for the Doctor to convince Erik and Graham of their loved ones' falsity when they're both given the chance to measure up Grace's/Trine's responses in regards to Hanne and Ryan. (Graham knows Grace would prioritize Ryan, and the Solitract choses the offered knowledge of the Doctor over Erik's presence).

There's a real poignancy in all this, but it was somewhat obscured by the utter bizarreness of everything else, culminating in the Solitract appearing as a small talking frog. (Have I mentioned that this episode is really weird?)

9. Ryan finally calls Graham "granddad", but... I don't know, it didn't have the emotional resonance it should have, simply because we still don't have a solid grip on these characters or their relationships. Ah well.

10. This felt a lot longer than other episodes, or perhaps that was simply because I watched it directly after The Witchfinders.

So um... yeah. The thing about weird things is that you never quite know what to say about them. This is one such case.