Face The Raven (2015) Review

"To be or not to be..."

Face The Raven had some genuinely terrific ideas, but is let down by the sheer awfulness of how Clara's death was handled.

PLOT

Rigsy(that dude from Flatline) calls the Doctor and Clara to help when he finds a tattoo on him that's counting down. Following a series of clues, the trio discover a hidden street in London where Rigsy is declared a murderer. Hoping to save his life, Clara finally outwits herself...

ANALYSIS

Really? This is the end of the most important companion ever? The one who met every Doctor and nonsensically knows everything about him? The one who saved Gallifrey and made the Doctor pick the right TARDIS? A raven kills her. Yeah. Watch me tremble.

People usually love to cite Last Christmas as the episode she should've gone out on, but I disagree. It was a nice scene, no doubt, but the real ending to her character came in Death In Heaven, where she and the Doctor parted ways, lying to each other. That ending actually paid off the increasingly fractured relationship they had in a wonderful twist we hadn't seen before. 

But this... this is easily the crappiest companion departure in Doctor Who history. Forget about Dodo, at least she left with some manner of dignity. Clara gets axed by a bloody bird. As a minor plot point leading into the next episode. And she doesn't even have the decency to leave and be done with it, no, no, she has to carefully dictate the Doctor's character development from this episode forwards. I'm sorry, but that offends me. This episode insulted me. 

Do you remember when Donna lost her memory and Wilf went "now, Doctor, I know she's dead and all, but make sure you behave, alright?" 
Or when Amy got stuck in the 1930s or whenever and wrote an essay on how the Doctor is now supposed to get over it? 

Yes, the Doctor has to get over it and move on, sure. But after 50 fricking years of Doctor Who and 10 fricking years of having it back again, WE KNOW HOW THIS WORKS. And to those who don't, figure it the frick out. That's your job as an audience. 

Even worse, now that the Doctor is contractually obligated to get over his emotional problems instead of, you know, actually working them out, we have been robbed of Peter Capaldi's potential performances. Imagine the ending of The Zygon Inversion if the Doctor had just managed to wish the Zygons away to another planet. Sure, it's cosy, but it is not why we watch this show. We watch it for the painful bits, those moments where we don't really know what's going to happen next. The cliffhangers, if you will.

As much as I hate her, Clara Oswald has been the glue of the show for three years now and had she been properly ripped out of the show, Doctor Who could've gone properly scary. There's no telling what happens now. But instead, they make the death as fluffy as possible and completely ensure that the show remains the same as it's been, just without Jenna Coleman(and even that's up for grabs).

So yeah... it took Moffat two episodes to get on my most hated list again. And from what I've heard, next episode he's rewriting Gallifreyan lore again. Oh goody.

CHARACTERS

Whether or not she appears in the finale, this is the last regular appereance of Jenna Coleman as Clara on the show. What do I think? Well, to be perfectly honest, I think she was a little miscast. Jenna's a terrific actress and person, but there's a reason why I always saw her as a villain and that's because she always acted kind of like it. When I saw her play Bonnie in The Zygon Inversion, I thought it was perfect. So I think that she's a great actress overall, but just her overall personality was more Master than companion. I dunno, that's just my theory.
I liked her best in Series 7, when she was still wide-eyed and found the Doctor mysterious. The know-it-all gimmick was absolutely dreadful. They toned it down a bit in Series 9 so it was tolerable, but she's never going on my top 10 companions list, sorry. 
Still, I can't say I'm not happy she got her chance to be in the show, it's just that... there's always somebody who doesn't work out entirely and for me, that person was her.

I'm not sure what the significance is, but the Doctor's gone back to his more serious Series 8 look. Would've made more sense had he done it after losing Clara, not before. The velvet is nice, but the lighting really doesn't do much for it. Also, Capaldi's acting in this episode kind of confuses me. Was he told to tone down the grief? It looked like he was really sad, but never really went anywhere with it. 

Ashildr is the spore of Satan. I hope we never see her again. Seriously, after everything the Doctor did to her in both of the previous episodes she's been in, she has the nerve to trade him for some extra security?

Rigsy is actually really cool. He's moved on and got herself a daughter(lending to a really cute scene where the Doctor meets "the new human") and a wife. I wouldn't mind seeing more of him. He and his family could be good companions.

What the heck was up with that doctor guy who said "why don't they ever face the raven?" Because they don't want to die, you idiot. Yeah, it belongs in the notes section, but what else am I going to say about this character?

NOTES

*Why would a Cyberman hide out in a London street peacefully?

*Hey, it's the Ood again. DO SOMETHING WITH THEM. Or are they the "where's Wally?" of the Doctor Who universe now?

*The music was oddly ahead in the intro this episode.

*Did nobody notice the TARDIS floating over London?

*Why do the quantum whatevers look like ravens?

*I love how the Doctor automatically assumes(according to the telepathic field) that the secret street looks like Victorian London. Because it's always Victorian London.

*If Ashildr lived in the 21st century, then there's no way she didn't catch herself a little midget and called her... Mini-Me. 

*I get why UNIT would be interested in the secret streets(are there others? Who's in charge of them?), but what would make the Zygons care?

*Why does Ashildr even help them anyway? If she's forgotten the Doctor is a good guy, how does she remember what he taught her?

*If Ashildr's memory sucks so bad, how come Jack's is perfect?

*What is Jack even doing nowadays? Getting his head chopped off and put into a jar?

*Aren't there still billions of Clara-clones scattered throughout the universe? Given how often the Doctor goes to Earth, it's kind of ludicrous to think he hasn't or won't run into another one.

*Didn't Capaldi say the costume was a one-off? He's still wearing it. Or did he mean continuity-wise(like, when he gets back to the TARDIS, he'll take it off and never use it again)??

*Speaking of the TARDIS, I miss having it communicate with the Doctor. Like, in all the previous seasons, there was always an episode where they had the TARDIS do something sentient. I don't think we've had that at all since the "TARDIS hates Clara" subplot.

BEST QUOTE

"You'll find that it's a very small universe when I'm angry with you."

CONCLUSION

I'm tired.