Under The Lake/Before The Flood (2015) Review

He's talking to meeeeeeeeee!!!

Under The Lake/Before The Flood is flawed, but entertaining experience and almost feels like someone slammed the RTD and Moffat eras together.

PLOT

Part 1(the RTD section): After discovering a mysterious spaceship, the inhabitants of an underwater base come under attack from the ghosts of their dead teammembers and it's up to the Doctor to figure out what's going on.

Part 2(the Moffat section): To figure out what's going on, the Doctor and two of the crew travel back in time to a fake Soviet town in Scotland, where a hulking alien named the Fisher King escapes from his ... erm... he escapes and starts plotting a plan to create ghosts that would repeat the sequence that doesn't need to be repeated since it's already transmitting to summon forth his armies that may or may not be composed of ghosts. Also, he's a robot fish. In a church.

ANALYSIS

The first part of the story is great, a callback to the Tennant era, which frequently had episodes featuring future human colonies or spaceships under attack(not to even mention the Troughton era). The characters are solid, the threat is good, the cliffhanger is phenomenal... and then the second half is just all over the place, unnecessarily complicated and timey-wimey. 

If Whithouse had just managed to restrain himself(or Moffat, since the two worked on the script together) and kept the story in the base, the tension could've built up more and the enemy could've been stronger. Also, it would've been nice to not act like the Doctor's this big protector of time, he's not. He's a meddler who knows exactly how to get it right. 

CHARACTERS

Ah, Clara from Series 8! I have missed you(not)! Back again with the uncompromising and selfish demands. She might just be my least favourite companion of all time. She just might.

I really enjoyed Cass's character in the first part. She was a deaf person, but it wasn't a big part of the story or anything. Just deaf. They didn't call any attention to it, didn't show it as a weakness or a superpower(well, a bit, but not much), she's just deaf and an interesting and relatable character to boot.
At least, until she went all whiny in the second half, throwing herself at Lunn and complaining about Clara. I mean, yeah, Clara sucks, but she hadn't done anything to her. Seriously, why can't anyone just trust anyone in this show?

Another really well done character was Bennett, a mild-mannered, but strong scientist, who questioned the Doctor's morals for actually legitimate reasons. I'm really glad he survived and was actually hoping he would end up as a companion. He could've been someone whom the Doctor could rely on and respect and actually learn from, as opposed to the wildly inappropriate Clara.

The Fisher King was only in the episode for about five minutes and I guess he was telepathic since the only thing he did was rattle off a lot of facts about the Doctor.

NOTES

*Why do all the fangirls die? First Osgood, then O'Donnell.

*Why do the ghosts not carry tools properly?

*O'Donnell's excuse for coming along, "I had to keep an eye on you." is ridiculous. Bennett didn't even want to go! You forced him. Seriously, did Moffat write the second episode?

*The reason why this review is so late is because I get the episodes exactly one week later. It's a pain, I tell you.

*Name-dropping Rose, Martha and Amy was one of the most gratuitous continuity references ever. I might have to make a whole new section in the reviews for those at some point.

*So, apparently the Doctor hasn't met "the Minister of War" yet. Sounds cool. 

*How does O'Donnell know about Harold Saxon? Shouldn't that be super classified? I get that she used to work with UNIT or something, but still, everyone forgot that except a few select people and she just happens to be privy to the information? Who is she to know all that stuff about the Doctor?

*One of the few saving graces of the second part was the whole Beethoven thing. I love fourth wall breaking. 

*The guitar rock theme is a big improvement. Why couldn't they just keep it, like when they jazzed up the RTD-era intro in Series 4?

*The underwater base was very reminiscent of the one from the Adventure Games, The Shadows Of Vashta Nerada(upcoming!).

CONCLUSION

Falls a bit flat at the end, but it was still a fun story.