Doctor Who veteran Gareth Roberts returns to write for the new Doctor.

When it comes to episodes penned by Gareth Robots, I can never predict my reaction. Some, like have been genuinely great, others good, and the rest mediocre. So how did I find his latest episode? Rather unfortunately, it was very lacklustre.

The Caretaker sees the Doctor ‘infiltrate’ Coal Hill School to trap and destroy the Skovox Blitzer, an alien death machine that will kill all of humanity if left unchecked. But complications arise when he meets Clara’s boyfriend, the ex-soldier Danny Pink. How will the Doctor react, and will he be able to stop the Skovox Blitzer in time?

With a character introduced to the programme as the new love interest for Clara, it was inevitable that he and the Doctor eventually meet. This time, however, we already had a hint as to what the Doctor’s reaction would be. The boyfriend’s a soldier, and well, the Doctor isn’t particularly fond of soldiers. As such, I was expecting a somewhat antagonistic first meeting as the two sized each other up, followed by a series of verbal spars as they both trying and keep Clara’s attention – sort of like the Doctor’s and Robin Hood’s relationship in Robot of Sherwood. What we got, though, was much worse.

Right from the get go, the Doctor is rude to Danny, although at this stage, he doesn’t know anything about him at all apart from the fact that he teaches maths and was a soldier. Just this tiny amount of information alone gets on the Doctor’s nerves, as he somehow can’t comprehend the fact that a former soldier would teach anything other than Physical Education. (Fun fact, the Doctor’s good friend Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart actually taught mathematics after retiring from UNIT). He then resorts to calling Danny ‘PE’ for the rest of the episode. There’s no way to skirt around this: it’s bullying. By refusing to acknowledge what Danny actually teaches, the Doctor is continually putting him down, making him seem like a lesser human. Not to mention the references to Danny’s former career would no doubt have an enormous affect on the latter’s mental state. We’ve already seen that he suffers from PTSD to some extent; the Doctor’s actions would not help one bit.

The worst thing about the whole ordeal is that there’s no character justification for what the Doctor’s doing. Yes, he’s never been fond of soldiers, but that hasn’t stopped him from becoming good friends with some in the past. The aforementioned Brigadier, Captain Yates, Sergeant Benton, Ross from the 2008 Sontaran episodes, his ‘daughter’ Jenny, Martha Jones...all were soldiers, and the Doctor got on fabulously with them. So why then does he have a massive problem with Danny? It can’t be because he’s Clara’s boyfriend, at least, not at first. Remember, the Doctor’s vitriol starts before he learns of their relationship. Thus, the only explanation is narrative convenience. The plot needed the Doctor to behave appalling to Danny for no reason, and he does. It’s a real shame, because this one fact severely detracted from the rest of the episode.

That’s not to say the whole Danny/Doctor aspect is entirely bad. On the contrary, it actually lends itself very well to a couple of character interactions, particularly when Danny sneaks on board the TARDIS. There’s a poignant moment when Danny begins mocking the Doctor by pretending to be a soldier obeying orders before he quietly points out to Clara that the Doctor’s reaction to his mocking behaviour is what the Time Lord is really like. A similar moment happens towards the end, when Danny asks Clara to let him know if she’s ever pushed too far. It’s evident that he really cares for Clara, and that his experiences with the Doctor have made him worry about her safety even more. And who can blame him? It’s not like the Doctor gave a great first impression

To be honest, I thought Danny was the best of all three main characters this episode, as Clara’s behaviour was also deplorable in places too. Danny’s right to ask if she thinks he’s stupid, because sometimes I honestly think she does. Danny sees an alien disappear in the Time Vortex and she STILL tries to pass it off as something more unbelievable than what he just saw? Sounds like you think he’s stupid to me.

Aside from those few issues though, the rest of the episode was pretty solid. It was nice to see a return to Coal Hill School, last seen briefly in The Day of the Doctor, but last visited by the Doctor in 1988’s Remembrance of the Daleks, but it would have been even better if one of the Doctor’s old companions, Ian Chesterton, could have had a cameo. Hopefully that will happen in the near future. After all, the actor is still alive, and Ian is on the school’s Board of Governors.

Disappointingly, this episode joins the long list of those that feature subpar monsters. It displayed tremendous accuracy during its first ‘establish monster’s ability to kill’ scene, before missing everything of importance later on. The fact that it was touted as one of the ‘greatest killing machines ever created’ got on my nerves though – we’ve heard that before with the Daleks, the Raston Warrior Robot and a dozen other species; it’s getting tiresome. I will admit that it looked great though, and the VFX team should be very proud of their work. The method by which the Doctor initially planned to get rid of it was admittedly rather clever, but unfortunately his second method was a bit confusing, at least initially. It was rather difficult to make out what he was doing – helped in no small part by the iffy sound design which seems to be a major problem this series.

All in all, The Caretaker was a solid episode, let down by a rather serious flaw in characterisation. While it had some good character moments and great production design, the not-so-great aspects of the episode are a bit overwhelming.

6/10

PS: The short scene at the end was a great teaser for the series’ arc. Still got no real idea who or what Missy is!