Doctor Who Series 7.9: Hide (SPOILERS)

[TimeLord]

A really good episode. Despite that awful ending.

I mean seriously? A scary, rarely seen monster with unknown intent and the entire enigma is ruined by the fact that it's a trying to get back to its one true love?
What. the. hell?
It ruined the all the suspense of the episode by using a giant ass pull to explain it all in the last literal minute. I mean come on! I have never been so disappointed by an episode of Doctor Who in my life. What the hell Moffat? At least the last couple of episodes where feeling won the day were not too bad, I enjoyed then in fact. But this nonsense?

What is the point of a scary episode if you are going to reveal that everything wasn't actually any threat to start with. No one would have died, no one was actually in any kind of danger. 'Blink' had the Angels as a legitimate threat. They were unknown, threatening, would kill you, we're trying to destroy the solar system (as an extension to feeding themselves on the TARDIS energy) and there was no guarantee that any of the characters would survive or not because they weren't the Doctor. And this turns out to be just a misunderstood monster looking to get back his girlfriend?!

The episode would have been fantastic if it had literally ended 60 seconds earlier

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Hit the nail right on the head there, although I don't think this was a fantastic episode even if they scrapped the ending. It just felt way too silly, and except for the last episode of part 1 every episode this season has been silly or just plain stupid. They showed the monster way too early (which was fine for Blink, because The Weeping Angels were actually shown as a legitimate threat) and focused way too much on the "ghost" that the monster didn't really have any legitimate threat because, as you said, the only ones who faced it were the Doctor, the other time traveller and Clara, and we all knew that they would survive. For an attempt at a really good horror episode they failed, and the ending crashed the whole episode into the ground.

 

[AngryBritishAce]

Yeah, I agree that the ending was TERRIBLE. Best episode of the series but the ending was more disappointing than the entirety of the "Rings of Akhenaten" episode.

What I liked about this episode was that it did well to explain everything while also keeping some essence of mystery about the creature (up until the end) and the pocket universe. The best episodes explain 90% of the events and leave out 10% for the audience to ponder. That's one reason I hated the second episode of this series, it did too little to explain what the sun-creature was and why it absorbed souls/ songs/ myths/ memories or what-ever it did.

I liked how they explained the "ghost" and how it was stuck in a pocket universe, the clues were there throughout the episode and it was satisfying to watch them all come together.

Doctor/ Clara moments were great, especially where they see the end of Earth and Clara talks about how, to the Doctor, we're all ghosts. Adds some perspective and something to ponder.

And the TARDIS' argument with Clara... brilliant.

 

[Alfador_VII]

I thought it was ok, but I think I'd have preferred it if Stephen Moffat had written it. Seems like his sort of story, but he's too busy running the show to write so many now :/

 

[FinalDream]

I quite liked it, ending and all, but it's really all about next weeks episode. I love Tardis centric episodes.

One of the negative things about the relaunched series is they don't have the airtime to spend that long in the Tardis anymore.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

A really good episode. Despite that awful ending.

I mean seriously? A scary, rarely seen monster with unknown intent and the entire enigma is ruined by the fact that it's a trying to get back to its one true love?
What. the. hell?
It ruined the all the suspense of the episode by using a giant ass pull to explain it all in the last literal minute. I mean come on! I have never been so disappointed by an episode of Doctor Who in my life. What the hell Moffat? At least the last couple of episodes where feeling won the day were not too bad, I enjoyed then in fact. But this nonsense?

What is the point of a scary episode if you are going to reveal that everything wasn't actually any threat to start with. No one would have died, no one was actually in any kind of danger. 'Blink' had the Angels as a legitimate threat. They were unknown, threatening, would kill you, we're trying to destroy the solar system (as an extension to feeding themselves on the TARDIS energy) and there was no guarantee that any of the characters would survive or not because they weren't the Doctor. And this turns out to be just a misunderstood monster looking to get back his girlfriend?!

The episode would have been fantastic if it had literally ended 60 seconds earlier

I actually liked the ending. Yes it was cheesy, but asking Moffat to not be cheesy when it comes to feelings is a lost cause. Other than that I thought it was the perfect bait n' switch. I absolutely didn't see it coming, but at the same time it all fit together really well. You see an episode of Dr. Who set in a big old mansion with people on a supposed 'Ghost' hunt, and you think you know what's coming... but hey, it turns out even skeletal tree-abominations from pocket dimensions are just looking to get busy sometimes.

This may sound like damning with faint praise, but as far as all the Moffat 'Love solves ALL THE PROBLEMS!' episodes go, I think this was actually the best one.

 

[Encurtidos]

A really good episode. Despite that awful ending.

I mean seriously? A scary, rarely seen monster with unknown intent and the entire enigma is ruined by the fact that it's a trying to get back to its one true love?
What. the. hell?
It ruined the all the suspense of the episode by using a giant ass pull to explain it all in the last literal minute. I mean come on! I have never been so disappointed by an episode of Doctor Who in my life. What the hell Moffat? At least the last couple of episodes where feeling won the day were not too bad, I enjoyed then in fact. But this nonsense?

What is the point of a scary episode if you are going to reveal that everything wasn't actually any threat to start with. No one would have died, no one was actually in any kind of danger. 'Blink' had the Angels as a legitimate threat. They were unknown, threatening, would kill you, we're trying to destroy the solar system (as an extension to feeding themselves on the TARDIS energy) and there was no guarantee that any of the characters would survive or not because they weren't the Doctor. And this turns out to be just a misunderstood monster looking to get back his girlfriend?!

The episode would have been fantastic if it had literally ended 60 seconds earlier

I actually liked the ending. Yes it was cheesy, but asking Moffat to not be cheesy when it comes to feelings is a lost cause. Other than that I thought it was the perfect bait n' switch. I absolutely didn't see it coming, but at the same time it all fit together really well. You see an episode of Dr. Who set in a big old mansion with people on a supposed 'Ghost' hunt, and you think you know what's coming... but hey, it turns out even skeletal tree-abominations from pocket dimensions are just looking to get busy sometimes.

This may sound like damning with faint praise, but as far as all the Moffat 'Love solves ALL THE PROBLEMS!' episodes go, I think this was actually the best one.

I thought the episode was good, even though they had to include love in it again, ugh! However, the Doctor solved the mystery, not Clara (finally), and he solved it using technology and the phsycic not love. I am getting tired of the "human emotions solve all problems", very relieved when it was actually fully explained.

On another note, next weeks episode looks brilliant! I love TARDIS episodes.

 

[Rylot]

I've got to be honest, I'm a little worried about next weeks episode. I'm worried Moffat will retcon how the TARDIS works and disregard cannon. Hopefully I'm wrong but I've not been too terribly impressed with this run.

 

[Ldude893]

Good episode. Not too scary for me, for some reason. I guess it's because there's a bit too much light in that forest alternate dimension for me to find it creepy. The ending was okay for me; didn't bother me that much.

I'm still sticking with the theory that Clara is actually a manifestation of Susan Foreman. It might be contradicted, but one could hope.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Metebelis is not pronounced that way. Stop sticking old Who elements if you are going to get them wrong.

Otherwise, meh. Some good bits, but mostly meh, especially the ending. Which contradicted the good bits anyway.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Oh my god, personally I thought it was aweful. Mixing a 70's feel with a tone from Supernatural, and then some parallel universe malarkey (I.E. being pulled from writer's arse) and doing none of them particularly well. Also annoying me is Clara- lots of the other (successful) companions have been such as they have been the ying to the Doctor's yang. Dissonant to him so that the conflict caused was an interesting substory. Their relationship is just uninteresting.
And why is the ending ALWAYS happy? I used to think it was because it was being aimed at children, but even some children's TV or films have darker sides, this is just rainbow and flowers-style happy. Not interesting when I know the stakes are nil.
And what the hell was that love story shoved into the end? The time traveller is in love with the creature from Silent Hill... huh?
If I was in the creature creation team I'd be pissed by now.
3/10 from me.
EDIT: Oh, and why in this new series does the Doctor feel the best way to beat the monster would be to deconstruct it? 'You're just trying to scare me' as opposed to locking him the hell in the parallel place and getting the f*** out of there. It's not even well written, especially since this is about the third time it's happened thus far.

 

[Sir Shockwave]

This episode reminded me so much of a Big Finish Audio...and not one of the good ones.

It starts out with nice atmosphere, but it can't keep the momentum and it slowly falls apart in the most catastrophic way possible. That one sentence pretty much covers how the narrative and the twists unfold for both of them.

But yeah. Methinks at this rate, this and the Ice Warriors episode are going to be the best we're gonna get from this season.

 

[dvd_72]

Oh my god, personally I thought it was aweful. Mixing a 70's feel with a tone from Supernatural, and then some parallel universe malarkey (I.E. being pulled from writer's arse) and doing none of them particularly well. Also annoying me is Clara- lots of the other (successful) companions have been such as they have been the ying to the Doctor's yang. Dissonant to him so that the conflict caused was an interesting substory. Their relationship is just uninteresting.
And why is the ending ALWAYS happy? I used to think it was because it was being aimed at children, but even some children's TV or films have darker sides, this is just rainbow and flowers-style happy. Not interesting when I know the stakes are nil.
And what the hell was that love story shoved into the end? The time traveller is in love with the creature from Silent Hill... huh?
If I was in the creature creation team I'd be pissed by now.
3/10 from me.
EDIT: Oh, and why in this new series does the Doctor feel the best way to beat the monster would be to deconstruct it? 'You're just trying to scare me' as opposed to locking him the hell in the parallel place and getting the f*** out of there. It's not even well written, especially since this is about the third time it's happened thus far.

I think you misunderstood the last bit. There are 2 of the skeleton-pocket-universe-monster-things that are in love, not that the monster is in love with the time traveler.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I agree with TimeLord, once again a little too touchy feely, esp. the end with the monster girlfriend thing. Otherwise a good episode. It seems to me that the Doctor is back to in form again (except for the touchy feely stuff).
One thing that's been bugging me since the last episode though, isn't landing in 1983 and 1974 going back on his own timeline? ...sorta

 

[BrotherRool]

I love the episode and I actually like the goofy resolution, I think thats a really fun thing to do to all that build and then just spin it all around and change tack. Particularly with the fast pace of the switch over.

I really like it.


The only thing that bothers me, is I still don't like the Clara/Doctor romance and the subtext kept being all over it which ruined the simple fun of such an absurd ending as that

isn't landing in 1983 and 1974 going back on his own timeline? ...sorta

I think you have to be interacting from actions in your timeline for it to count. It's like the relativity idea of lightcones, if things can't affect each other from where they are, the time of those two places is basically completely seperate

 

[Thaluikhain]

One thing that's been bugging me since the last episode though, isn't landing in 1983 and 1974 going back on his own timeline? ...sorta

Yeah, I was thinking that, this week you could have UNIT and the 3rd doctor visit the house.

Last week...well, if he'd waited till January of 1984, he could have watched Doctor Who on TV, and seen ancient lizard people awakened from hibernation trying to turn a cold war hot by launching missiles from an undersea missile base they'd taken over. Huh.

 

[Stryc9]

Metebelis is not pronounced that way. Stop sticking old Who elements if you are going to get them wrong.

Otherwise, meh. Some good bits, but mostly meh, especially the ending. Which contradicted the good bits anyway.

That and I was REALLY hoping they'd still have the same prop from "Planet of the Spiders" and whatever the other story before that was. Not complaining about that but it would have been really cool if they did.

This episode was pretty all right. I kind of shook my head at the ending a bit because they love story thing looked like it was shoehorned in because someone on staff said every episode has to have some sort of feelings thing going on in it or else.

Doctor/ Clara moments were great, especially where they see the end of Earth and Clara talks about how, to the Doctor, we're all ghosts. Adds some perspective and something to ponder.

Reminded me a bit of "The End of the World" where The Doctor takes Rose to watch the Earth destroyed. There's a bit where Rose starts thinking about how her and everyone she knows is all dead down there and then she calls her Mom and everything's alright.

I wonder why The Doctor is obsessed with finding some sort of mystery about Clara when he's met people that look exactly like other people he's met in the past before and it didn't bother him that much. Remember when he saw Gwen from Torchwood for the first time (Journey's End) and he remarked to Rose that she looked exactly like that maid they met in the 1800's (The Unquiet Dead)? All he did was rattle off some Whoisms about genetics repeating themselves and leave it at that. Seems like that should be a good enough answer to explain Clara too.

If there's anything that really bothers me about the current state of Doctor Who it's that the companions have become these mysteries that The Doctor has to solve instead of people that are just along for the ride because he needs company. The companion is supposed to be the person that viewers relate to, lately they've just become this thing used to string together some sort of overall plot that ends with the universe trying to do something to The Doctor.

 

[JoJo]

Reminded me a bit of "The End of the World" where The Doctor takes Rose to watch the Earth destroyed. There's a bit where Rose starts thinking about how her and everyone she knows is all dead down there and then she calls her Mom and everything's alright.

I wonder why The Doctor is obsessed with finding some sort of mystery about Clara when he's met people that look exactly like other people he's met in the past before and it didn't bother him that much. Remember when he saw Gwen from Torchwood for the first time (Journey's End) and he remarked to Rose that she looked exactly like that maid they met in the 1800's (The Unquiet Dead)? All he did was rattle off some Whoisms about genetics repeating themselves and leave it at that. Seems like that should be a good enough answer to explain Clara too.

If there's anything that really bothers me about the current state of Doctor Who it's that the companions have become these mysteries that The Doctor has to solve instead of people that are just along for the ride because he needs company. The companion is supposed to be the person that viewers relate to, lately they've just become this thing used to string together some sort of overall plot that ends with the universe trying to do something to The Doctor.

The three Clara's don't just look the same though, they have exactly the same first, last and middle name, say the same lines at some points, lived similar lives (for example, being a governess in both Victorian times and today) etc. There's clearly more than just appearance linking them, unless it's a hell of a coincidence, which I suppose would be a funny twist.

 

[Stryc9]

Snip

The three Clara's don't just look the same though, they have exactly the same first, last and middle name, say the same lines at some points, lived similar lives (for example, being a governess in both Victorian times and today) etc. There's clearly more than just appearance linking them, unless it's a hell of a coincidence, which I suppose would be a funny twist.

It could be argued that there's not that much of a difference between Gwenyth and Gwen either though and they both shared the Cooper last name which is how The Doctor made the leap that they were related. It's true that one was a maid and the other a policewoman who joined Torchwood, and in joining Torchwood eventually crossed paths with The Doctor again but again, you didn't see him obsessing over her the way he is now with Clara.

 

[gxs]

Snip

It could be argued that there's not that much of a difference between Gwenyth and Gwen either though and they both shared the Cooper last name which is how The Doctor made the leap that they were related.

But Clara also uses exactly the same line in all reincarnations.