Doctor Who 11.08

When they say things like "this was a game of two halves", this is an exemplar story, right?

We start with a standard witch story. Someone gets accused of being a witch, no nice way of getting out of it, and someone with power is pulling all the strings. This has the proper set of looking at how hysteria can drive people to turning against one another and so forth.

But then the aliens are inserted into the story, and hoo boy, do they have no place here. A bunch of alien prisoners are released and... are in no way related to witch-ness of the time. Wat? I'm sure someone should have worked in some parallels here. But no, they really are unrelated events, despite what the Doctor says, and that it took this long for the alien creatures to do anything is purely coincidence. (Which, it must be admitted, a lot of Doctor Who stories rely on, so I'll let the timing pass.)

Even then, this could have been saved. King James is more camp than a field of boy scouts, but he's has dark moments. The Doctor being accused of being a witch is obvious, and we should be surprised it took that long (and I do like how the companions are like "The Doctor wouldn't let that happen... which means-"). But... how does no-one comment on their clothes? That strange material? Speaking complete garbage? They all should have been dunked from the beginning!

But then we hit the last ten minutes, and the whole episode goes completely to pot. The need for aliens overrides everything, and the need for an answer and explanation. While the mud was wanting to infect the Doctor before, now that everyone is knocked out, let's not bother. And we also better hope no-one else decides to deal with that tree stump, or otherwise mine or crack into that hill...

There is potential to this episode, but then it goes all sci-fi, and sigh.

Next time: Is is a creepy cabin story? Or is it going to complete wash out any real sense of story?

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