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Quoted By:
HIDE
I heard in advance that this episode was supposed to be especially well-made. What I actually watched may have been *visually* well-made, but the usual disaster plot-wise, but instead of featuring a few huge gaping holes, it instead features many small ones, so this is going to be a long one.
The first thing we learn about the ghost, is that, quote: "She's so... ...dead." No, she's... ...not. Maybe it's an honest misinterpretation from the psychic, but this is never even apologized for or referred to again. It's a blatant lie to mislead the viewers, from out of nowhere.
The Doctor begins the episode by exposing a friendly former spy in front of a witness, with no other reason than to flaunt his knowledge, and you can tell that the writer was aware that exposing him as a traitor and a military intelligence target, would piss him off, yet somehow there is nothing wrong with our "hero" exposing someone with such a "villainous" job, possibly destroying the mans future military career.
I've generally had it up to here with the Doctor being awesome, having been everywhere, experienced everything, having done everything, having invented everything, knowing everything, and so on, and going about boasting about it all the time. There is nothing great about the human race, because all our accomplishments is just him. He's as inflated as a balloon at this point.
Then, for comic relief, the Doctor continues to be the anti-social and annoying five-year-old, by fiddling with equipment, because that's how he gets to know people that he wants to stay friends with. Later on he taps Clara hard on the fontanelle just to get her attention, which is one step more annoying than grabbing one of her breasts. He's like an autistic child.
He's shown a couple of photos that's blurred and disfigured beyond recognition, but in such a way that this can NOT be a normal human being. What sort of blur blackens out the eyes and mouth?
At this point the random scares start. These are scares like "man walking past a camera", "draft blowing out candles", "...but I'm not holding your hand!", "ghost writing on a wall", and they have no freaking relation to what is actually going on. This is the hallmark of POOR writing. The cold spot in the music room does actually have an explanation, though: It's a place where the border between the warm house and the cold forest is thin, and the Doctor uses this spot to create a wormhole later on.
We are shown what must be the actual "well" - the reason that the ghost is called "The Witch of the Well". This well is vertical, swirling, and has cracks in it, like a black mirror, but I guess ghosts in wells are scarier since The Ring. (The Doctor explains that it's a "reality well", but the first people who encountered it wouldn't know that.)
As pair number one gets to know pair number two, we learn that the spy and the companion has never "done it", and that it is "a very fine cause to defeat the enemy". Sometimes it doesn't hurt to specify "it" to be "dated" and "the enemy" to be the nazis of WWII. We also learn that the spy both has a guilty conscience, and has no regard for the demise of others. He has survivors guilt, but would also like to thank the ones he's killed for dying, instead of sparing them a thought.
So the Doctor gets some idea to "go always", from 6 billion years ago, to the end of the planet, expecting to find the ghost there, by just taking some pictures in the general area, using an old camera, without even bringing the psychic along, because apparently the ghost is infallibly photogenic in the entire area. ...and also across the entire lifespan of the planet, or else the Doctor wouldn't travel that far back or forward. I reckon that she would only be visible from the beginning of her journey (a few hundred years back), to the end of it (a few hundred years in the future), but apparently not.
The result is that we get clear, undistorted, unblurred pictures. ...somehow. If this was due to the Tardis, why not simply bring the blurry pictures, taken with the same camera, and run them through the Tardis's descrambler?
Anyway, they get her full name somehow, and learn that she's a time traveller - a HUMAN time traveller, we later learn. Suddenly Doctor Who isn't alone in the universe, and the Time Lords aren't that special anymore, with time travel being just some technological advances away for humans, and probably other races as well.
So the Doctor goes into the time pocket, and right away I'm noticing the flaw in his plan: How is he supposed to find a rope in a forest? Not very bright, is he?
The random scare tactics continue in the forest as well: We have "camera being the monster, but not really", "people being startled by eachother for no reason", "creature is right behind him, but not actually" and so on. They're more relevant now, but still plain stupid.
The Doctor enters the alternative mansion and locks the door with a... ...bicycle lock? Where did he get a modern bicycle lock from in this era? Does he always carry one around, just in case? The camera even zooms in on it, like: "Look! A bicycle lock! Clever, huh?!" Him using the bowtie at the next door is much better, though.
...but everything goes wrong, so we have to have this big emotional scene where people have to talk feelings. In this episode it actually fits, though.
Meanwhile Clara and the Tardis has a chat, and the Tardis gives a strict time limit for how long it can be in the pocket universe: "In four seconds I'd the stranded. I ten I'd be dead."
Clara doesn't listen because she's an idiot, so off they go anyway.
Meanwhile the Doctor FINALLY stops running, and asking the creature what the hell it wants. Finally he's doing what the Doctor is supposed to be doing: Asking questions and communicating, instead of taking things at face value. He still believes that this creature is a man-eating "boogieman", though, and for a creature that's only out to find its way home to its mate, it sure isn't bringing anything diplomatic to the conversation by laughing sadisticly all the time. The title "Hide" is explained here, to be a completely insignificant part of the story, so good job there.
The Doctor figures out that it wants back, but then asks it to chase him for no reason. Then the monster knocks him to the ground, again for no freaking reason. ...and then the Tardis enters. It pushes the creature away, and then the Doctor grabs it, somehow, without tearing his arms from their sockets, and all this in a whooping four seconds! Just four seconds!
Well, actually it was more like EIGHTEEN seconds, but who's counting? Maybe the Tardis was all spinning so fast that it somehow doesn't count, right? Maybe it doesn't count unless it actually lands on solid ground? ...or maybe eighteen seconds just doesn't sound dramatic enough.
Meanwhile the psychic sounds like she's giving birth, and then everything is fine again.
Then the Doctor says that he's slow. He explains it like it's a trait of his 11th incarnation: "I am slow - I'm notorious for it. That's always been my problem, but I get there in the end." So the 11th is now officially the STUPID Doctor.
Well, he MUST be, because he suddenly concludes that as there are TWO monsters, they must all love eachother very much, for no reason other than that the monster didn't want to kill him. The clues were that Clara wasn't happy, and handholding, and we're somehow meant to facepalm at that and feel stupid for not noticing something "so obvious". Everything needs to shag everything - the most fundamental law of the universe.
...but this wasn't the meltdown of this episode. No, the meltdown is what happens exactly at the very end:
We see six seconds more of the Tardis this time, and the Doctor telling the creature to get ready to jump.
Here's a freaking thought: The Doctor used a rope to get there, and time moves really slowly over there. They have plenty of time, so why don't they just go to the store and buy two REALLY long ropes, and then HAUL themselves BACK through the entrance?
...but no: Instead the plan is this: Clara, who can barely pilot the Tardis, will pilot the Tardis. She will pick up TWO passengers this time, again in just four seconds, so I guess that she will just get one shot before she has to go back again. She will do this without crashing, even though she is spinning wildly out of control. Each passanger - one of who is just revealing that he can stand upright and maybe understand english - will jump at the wildly spinning Tardis as it comes flying. They will not get pummeled and killed by the Tardis. They will hit the Tardis, and they will grab hold of the Tardis. They will keep their hold of the Tardis, no matter what centrifugal forces are at work. Doing so, they will piggyback back across time, again with Clara as the pilot.
...or as Clara puts it: "Whoohoo!"
I heard in advance that this episode was supposed to be especially well-made. What I actually watched may have been *visually* well-made, but the usual disaster plot-wise, but instead of featuring a few huge gaping holes, it instead features many small ones, so this is going to be a long one.
The first thing we learn about the ghost, is that, quote: "She's so... ...dead." No, she's... ...not. Maybe it's an honest misinterpretation from the psychic, but this is never even apologized for or referred to again. It's a blatant lie to mislead the viewers, from out of nowhere.
The Doctor begins the episode by exposing a friendly former spy in front of a witness, with no other reason than to flaunt his knowledge, and you can tell that the writer was aware that exposing him as a traitor and a military intelligence target, would piss him off, yet somehow there is nothing wrong with our "hero" exposing someone with such a "villainous" job, possibly destroying the mans future military career.
I've generally had it up to here with the Doctor being awesome, having been everywhere, experienced everything, having done everything, having invented everything, knowing everything, and so on, and going about boasting about it all the time. There is nothing great about the human race, because all our accomplishments is just him. He's as inflated as a balloon at this point.
Then, for comic relief, the Doctor continues to be the anti-social and annoying five-year-old, by fiddling with equipment, because that's how he gets to know people that he wants to stay friends with. Later on he taps Clara hard on the fontanelle just to get her attention, which is one step more annoying than grabbing one of her breasts. He's like an autistic child.
He's shown a couple of photos that's blurred and disfigured beyond recognition, but in such a way that this can NOT be a normal human being. What sort of blur blackens out the eyes and mouth?
At this point the random scares start. These are scares like "man walking past a camera", "draft blowing out candles", "...but I'm not holding your hand!", "ghost writing on a wall", and they have no freaking relation to what is actually going on. This is the hallmark of POOR writing. The cold spot in the music room does actually have an explanation, though: It's a place where the border between the warm house and the cold forest is thin, and the Doctor uses this spot to create a wormhole later on.
We are shown what must be the actual "well" - the reason that the ghost is called "The Witch of the Well". This well is vertical, swirling, and has cracks in it, like a black mirror, but I guess ghosts in wells are scarier since The Ring. (The Doctor explains that it's a "reality well", but the first people who encountered it wouldn't know that.)
As pair number one gets to know pair number two, we learn that the spy and the companion has never "done it", and that it is "a very fine cause to defeat the enemy". Sometimes it doesn't hurt to specify "it" to be "dated" and "the enemy" to be the nazis of WWII. We also learn that the spy both has a guilty conscience, and has no regard for the demise of others. He has survivors guilt, but would also like to thank the ones he's killed for dying, instead of sparing them a thought.
So the Doctor gets some idea to "go always", from 6 billion years ago, to the end of the planet, expecting to find the ghost there, by just taking some pictures in the general area, using an old camera, without even bringing the psychic along, because apparently the ghost is infallibly photogenic in the entire area. ...and also across the entire lifespan of the planet, or else the Doctor wouldn't travel that far back or forward. I reckon that she would only be visible from the beginning of her journey (a few hundred years back), to the end of it (a few hundred years in the future), but apparently not.
The result is that we get clear, undistorted, unblurred pictures. ...somehow. If this was due to the Tardis, why not simply bring the blurry pictures, taken with the same camera, and run them through the Tardis's descrambler?
Anyway, they get her full name somehow, and learn that she's a time traveller - a HUMAN time traveller, we later learn. Suddenly Doctor Who isn't alone in the universe, and the Time Lords aren't that special anymore, with time travel being just some technological advances away for humans, and probably other races as well.
So the Doctor goes into the time pocket, and right away I'm noticing the flaw in his plan: How is he supposed to find a rope in a forest? Not very bright, is he?
The random scare tactics continue in the forest as well: We have "camera being the monster, but not really", "people being startled by eachother for no reason", "creature is right behind him, but not actually" and so on. They're more relevant now, but still plain stupid.
The Doctor enters the alternative mansion and locks the door with a... ...bicycle lock? Where did he get a modern bicycle lock from in this era? Does he always carry one around, just in case? The camera even zooms in on it, like: "Look! A bicycle lock! Clever, huh?!" Him using the bowtie at the next door is much better, though.
...but everything goes wrong, so we have to have this big emotional scene where people have to talk feelings. In this episode it actually fits, though.
Meanwhile Clara and the Tardis has a chat, and the Tardis gives a strict time limit for how long it can be in the pocket universe: "In four seconds I'd the stranded. I ten I'd be dead."
Clara doesn't listen because she's an idiot, so off they go anyway.
Meanwhile the Doctor FINALLY stops running, and asking the creature what the hell it wants. Finally he's doing what the Doctor is supposed to be doing: Asking questions and communicating, instead of taking things at face value. He still believes that this creature is a man-eating "boogieman", though, and for a creature that's only out to find its way home to its mate, it sure isn't bringing anything diplomatic to the conversation by laughing sadisticly all the time. The title "Hide" is explained here, to be a completely insignificant part of the story, so good job there.
The Doctor figures out that it wants back, but then asks it to chase him for no reason. Then the monster knocks him to the ground, again for no freaking reason. ...and then the Tardis enters. It pushes the creature away, and then the Doctor grabs it, somehow, without tearing his arms from their sockets, and all this in a whooping four seconds! Just four seconds!
Well, actually it was more like EIGHTEEN seconds, but who's counting? Maybe the Tardis was all spinning so fast that it somehow doesn't count, right? Maybe it doesn't count unless it actually lands on solid ground? ...or maybe eighteen seconds just doesn't sound dramatic enough.
Meanwhile the psychic sounds like she's giving birth, and then everything is fine again.
Then the Doctor says that he's slow. He explains it like it's a trait of his 11th incarnation: "I am slow - I'm notorious for it. That's always been my problem, but I get there in the end." So the 11th is now officially the STUPID Doctor.
Well, he MUST be, because he suddenly concludes that as there are TWO monsters, they must all love eachother very much, for no reason other than that the monster didn't want to kill him. The clues were that Clara wasn't happy, and handholding, and we're somehow meant to facepalm at that and feel stupid for not noticing something "so obvious". Everything needs to shag everything - the most fundamental law of the universe.
...but this wasn't the meltdown of this episode. No, the meltdown is what happens exactly at the very end:
We see six seconds more of the Tardis this time, and the Doctor telling the creature to get ready to jump.
Here's a freaking thought: The Doctor used a rope to get there, and time moves really slowly over there. They have plenty of time, so why don't they just go to the store and buy two REALLY long ropes, and then HAUL themselves BACK through the entrance?
...but no: Instead the plan is this: Clara, who can barely pilot the Tardis, will pilot the Tardis. She will pick up TWO passengers this time, again in just four seconds, so I guess that she will just get one shot before she has to go back again. She will do this without crashing, even though she is spinning wildly out of control. Each passanger - one of who is just revealing that he can stand upright and maybe understand english - will jump at the wildly spinning Tardis as it comes flying. They will not get pummeled and killed by the Tardis. They will hit the Tardis, and they will grab hold of the Tardis. They will keep their hold of the Tardis, no matter what centrifugal forces are at work. Doing so, they will piggyback back across time, again with Clara as the pilot.
...or as Clara puts it: "Whoohoo!"
