New Who Review #112

Mummy on the Orient Express

This story was fun. It's another myths & Legends type story and we know how much I love those and this time it's the foretold. The idea of a creature having a very specific time (66 seconds) to kill you works so well with doctor who. This is the doctor & Clara's "Final" adventure together but we do find out it actually isn't. Perkins was a great character that I wish stayed on as a companion. Clara lied to Danny this time which will be picked up at another time. Having ai be the true villain was very eh but it's 2014 so I'll let it slide. 10/10

Jamie Mathieson needs to come back to Doctor Who, I don’t care if it’s with Russell T. Davies in the show, or Big Finish or even the novels, but this guy needs to come back and write more Doctor Who stories. His very small collection of episodes have been the most refreshing and enjoyable episodes of Modern Who in the last decade! His one and only dud being The Girl Who Died, which was co-written with Steven Moffat so I can take a shrewd guess who the blame lies more with. After slogging through a series that initially promised to be “the biggest departure since Series 1” only to give us the same old sh*t, we finally got something that delivers on that promise with Mummy on the Orient Express (in the second half of Series 8 by the way). It sees the Doctor and Clara onboard a spaceship that resembles an old English steam train called the Orient Express. But something else has arrived as one by one the passengers and crew are being picked off by a figure that looks like a mummy. The creature can only be seen by its victims and according to legend, those who see it have only 66 seconds left to live.

Now there is some call-back to the previous episode with the Doctor and Clara going through a dramatic falling out. Unfortunately said episode was the utterly terrible Kill the Moon, so if you want the context just watch the last five minutes of it and forget the rest, no seriously, forget Kill the Moon!!! Aside from that, I have no issues whatsoever with Mummy on the Orient Express. It’s one of my absolute favourite episodes of Modern Who, top 10 easily! Capaldi is on top form in an episode that really plays into his strengths as he works tirelessly to figure out what this mummy is, why and how it kills people and ultimately how to stop it before it kills everyone aboard. But his manner in how he focuses on studying the monster as it picks off people one at a time come off somewhat callous as he allows no time for grieving. Which leads to a brilliant ending where after figuring out the nature of the mummy and the one phrase that’s believed to be able to stop the mummy in its tracks, he opens up to Clara about how he didn’t know if he could save everyone on the train and that his only option was to keep thinking on his feet until he defeated the creature. This is my favourite moment from the Twelfth Doctor and really demonstrates how I feel the Doctor should be portrayed. Modern Who has an unfortunate tendency to hype up the Doctor as this all-knowing, all-perfect being who can simply wave a sonic screwdriver, spout some gibberish and make the monsters go away. But Mummy on the Orient Express instead tells us that the Doctor isn’t all-knowing, he’s not perfect, he’s just someone who’s really good at thinking on his feet in dangerous situations.

I don’t really want to give away anything for those who haven’t seen it, I know that a lot of people who tuned out of the Capaldi era never made it this far (which just goes to show how full of sh*t that mission statement for Series 8 was). If you’ve not seen this episode, it’s well worth your time, easily one of Modern Who’s best.

Start the clock. 

Experimentation is the heart of Doctor Who, but the lungs or some other important organ would have to be the ideas.

This is a traditional formula made fresh and exciting with audacity and confidence. It knows it's ideas are excellent and lets the insanity of what it's doing distract from it's technical efficiency. You aren't thinking this isn't going to actually be good, you're distracted by the pulp, the presentation. The show knows exactly what it is doing here though, and this is a plain showcase for Capaldi and Coleman at the top of their game.

Feels like the kind of episode that would benefit from a Target Novelization, but I'm obsessed with what we have anyway.

I love the 1920s-inspired setting of this story, transported into space, it is a wonderful visual. The entire events of the episode unfolding on a train, with a limited number of people aboard, draws brilliantly from Murder on the Orient Express and space travel adds a distinctly sci-fi twist.

Frank Skinner is an excellent addition to the guest cast, and the Mummy is one of the most frightening creatures ever seen in Doctor Who. It’s a huge success, both in terms of its design and the visceral tension it generates.

I could have done with about half as much of the tension between Clara and the Doctor. Capaldi’s Doctor is already dark and complex enough without creating needless barriers to his likability.

That said, this is undoubtedly a strong debut story from Jamie Mathieson. Memorable, innovative, and iconic. Even if the ending wraps up a bit too conveniently, the story’s overall quality and distinctiveness more than make up for it.

I know it sounds crazy, but this is my comfort episode of Doctor Who. I could watch it a billion times and it would never get old.

It distilled everything I love about Doctor Who: first off it's an awesome genre mash-up between history, classic literature, and sci-fi. It's a dark, dramatic story with Peter Capaldi at his acerbic best. The relationship between him and Clara is taken almost to its limit. The denouement is heart-pounding and thrilling, and there are twists throughout.

If somebody asks me what I love about Doctor Who, I'd show them Mummy on the Orient Express.