Thin Ice (episode three, latest season) was one of the best episodes that I have seen recently partly because the story was actually coherent even if, as a a friend remarked, Doctor Who episodes are so brief these days that it feels like you are watching the notes for a story rather than the story itself.
Thin Ice was set in 19th century London during a Frost Fair on the river Thames. The river would infrequently freeze over during what has been described as a mini ice age, although the frozen Thames was partly the result of the arches of the old London Bridge damming any ice and stemming the tidal flow of the river. See, Doctor Who historical adventures can still prove educational except that here the frost fairs are explained by a big energy converting fish chained underwater by the Sutcliffe family. Don't go with this explanation in your school essays kids!
The period was nicely evoked while challenging audience expectations of the past. I raised an eyebrow at the prevalence of Black characters, but that, it turns out, was my ignorance. If memory cheats, the memory of History deliberately over looks (a 1769 magazine estimated that there were 20,000 'Negroe' (sic)servants in London. So Bill fitted right in. Except when she failed to know her place and the Doctor felt the need to punch out Lord Sutcliffe in a rabble rousing blow for anti-racism. The sentiments were anachronistic, and, as historians would note 'Whigish' but The TARDIS ,The Doctor and chums are built for the pleasures of anachronism.
There were also echoes of fictional London. A gang of pick pockets(brought to life by an excellent child cast) worked the crowd and hats off to the writer for not over playing the parallels to Fagin's gang of child thieves in Oliver Twist . I have a feeling that the monstrous fish was supposed demolish London Bridge as it fled the scene (which would itself have ended the frost fairs) but the CGI was, to put it politely, indistinct at that point.
Sarah Dollard's script back grounded a lot of the plot mechanics so we are told a lot about the scenario but she avoided the info dumping that spoiled 'Smile'. The fish's poo turned out to be amazing fuel for the furnaces of the Sutlicife family's factories and mills, blah, blah, blah.
Instead a lot of time and space was given to developing the Doctor and Bill's relationship through Bill coming to terms with mortality, again unlike 'Smile' in which the characters mostly exchanged quips. It is sad news that actress Pearl Mackie is leaving the season at the end (will Bill die?). She is a real asset to the show and her character has left her awkward origin story well behind to strike up a relationship with the Doctor that can be, by turns, fun and deep.
The story didn't deliver the creepy unease that Moffat manages although there were scenes that should have delivered that even for adults like me: the huge human eye of the monster and the children being sucked beneath the ice by matter transporting parasitic fish which announced their presence with green bio luminescence. But I value a clear plot with scene to scene continuity more than flashy dialogue, scare moments and great imagery that makes not one jot of sense.
Thin Ice delivered a well crafted tale that had plenty for fans. For some it is a special thrill to see the Doctor & Co. adopting clothing contemporaneous with the period the TARDIS visits. For the mind rather than the eye, there were themes and sub texts (parallels between the enslaved fish and slavery ran just beneath the surface) and nods to the more superficial pleasures of the season arc.
What or who is locked up in time vault? Some guess The Master, some Missy and some the first incarnation of The Doctor (played by David Bradly) who is due to come back in the season finale and Crimbo special.
After three enjoyable stories, I actually seem to care about the answer.
PS.Having read other reviews here, I want to directly address the bonkers claims that the BBC was pursuing a left wing agenda by including a Black cast and that had they wished to do a story with Black characters they should set it it in Africa! (I visibly paled with shock on reading that). Where the script was a little crass, was in calling History 'a Whitewash'. This drastically simplified debates around History as too often the story of Great White Men.
What is the case is that London has been an ethnically diverse melting pot for hundreds of years and this diversity does not usually get reflected in representations of the past on mainstream TV or the popular imagination. A real eye-opener for me was 'The Jewel House', Deborah E Harkness's account of Elizabethan London that points to the contribution immigrants to London made to science through the development of crafts and technology.
There are complex issues around recovering lives that have been hidden from history e.g. the lives of the working class, people of colour and women. But the ethnic diversity of London, now and in the past, is not an agenda. It is reality. Live with it.
Thin Ice was set in 19th century London during a Frost Fair on the river Thames. The river would infrequently freeze over during what has been described as a mini ice age, although the frozen Thames was partly the result of the arches of the old London Bridge damming any ice and stemming the tidal flow of the river. See, Doctor Who historical adventures can still prove educational except that here the frost fairs are explained by a big energy converting fish chained underwater by the Sutcliffe family. Don't go with this explanation in your school essays kids!
The period was nicely evoked while challenging audience expectations of the past. I raised an eyebrow at the prevalence of Black characters, but that, it turns out, was my ignorance. If memory cheats, the memory of History deliberately over looks (a 1769 magazine estimated that there were 20,000 'Negroe' (sic)servants in London. So Bill fitted right in. Except when she failed to know her place and the Doctor felt the need to punch out Lord Sutcliffe in a rabble rousing blow for anti-racism. The sentiments were anachronistic, and, as historians would note 'Whigish' but The TARDIS ,The Doctor and chums are built for the pleasures of anachronism.
There were also echoes of fictional London. A gang of pick pockets(brought to life by an excellent child cast) worked the crowd and hats off to the writer for not over playing the parallels to Fagin's gang of child thieves in Oliver Twist . I have a feeling that the monstrous fish was supposed demolish London Bridge as it fled the scene (which would itself have ended the frost fairs) but the CGI was, to put it politely, indistinct at that point.
Sarah Dollard's script back grounded a lot of the plot mechanics so we are told a lot about the scenario but she avoided the info dumping that spoiled 'Smile'. The fish's poo turned out to be amazing fuel for the furnaces of the Sutlicife family's factories and mills, blah, blah, blah.
Instead a lot of time and space was given to developing the Doctor and Bill's relationship through Bill coming to terms with mortality, again unlike 'Smile' in which the characters mostly exchanged quips. It is sad news that actress Pearl Mackie is leaving the season at the end (will Bill die?). She is a real asset to the show and her character has left her awkward origin story well behind to strike up a relationship with the Doctor that can be, by turns, fun and deep.
The story didn't deliver the creepy unease that Moffat manages although there were scenes that should have delivered that even for adults like me: the huge human eye of the monster and the children being sucked beneath the ice by matter transporting parasitic fish which announced their presence with green bio luminescence. But I value a clear plot with scene to scene continuity more than flashy dialogue, scare moments and great imagery that makes not one jot of sense.
Thin Ice delivered a well crafted tale that had plenty for fans. For some it is a special thrill to see the Doctor & Co. adopting clothing contemporaneous with the period the TARDIS visits. For the mind rather than the eye, there were themes and sub texts (parallels between the enslaved fish and slavery ran just beneath the surface) and nods to the more superficial pleasures of the season arc.
What or who is locked up in time vault? Some guess The Master, some Missy and some the first incarnation of The Doctor (played by David Bradly) who is due to come back in the season finale and Crimbo special.
After three enjoyable stories, I actually seem to care about the answer.
PS.Having read other reviews here, I want to directly address the bonkers claims that the BBC was pursuing a left wing agenda by including a Black cast and that had they wished to do a story with Black characters they should set it it in Africa! (I visibly paled with shock on reading that). Where the script was a little crass, was in calling History 'a Whitewash'. This drastically simplified debates around History as too often the story of Great White Men.
What is the case is that London has been an ethnically diverse melting pot for hundreds of years and this diversity does not usually get reflected in representations of the past on mainstream TV or the popular imagination. A real eye-opener for me was 'The Jewel House', Deborah E Harkness's account of Elizabethan London that points to the contribution immigrants to London made to science through the development of crafts and technology.
There are complex issues around recovering lives that have been hidden from history e.g. the lives of the working class, people of colour and women. But the ethnic diversity of London, now and in the past, is not an agenda. It is reality. Live with it.