WARNING: The following contains spoilers for the Doctor Who episode, “Deep Breath”.
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Doctor Who Logo Wikimedia |
Instead of a straight-up review,
let’s talk about past Doctor Who
episodes that were similar or linked to the season 8 premiere, “Deep Breath”. There were three episodes in particular from
David Tennant’s run as the Tenth Doctor, which related to Peter Capaldi’s debut
episode as the Twelfth Doctor. Those episodes were “Girl in the Fireplace”
(2.04), “Blink” (3.10), and “Fires of Pompeii” (4.02).
The Doctor mentioned the
similarities to “Girl in the Fireplace” during the episode. The Doctor
realizes the spaceship in “Deep Breath” was the sister ship to the Madame Du Pompadour,
which was featured in “Girl in the Fireplace”. Both episodes featured robots that
killed humans for body parts to repair their ships. Throughout “Deep Breath,” the Doctor kept saying that he had seen this before. It wasn’t until the
end of the episode when the Doctor saw the ship's name the Marie Antoinette that
he pieced together the two occurrences. This bothered me because in “Girl in
the Fireplace,” the Doctor never found out the name of the ship, or why the
robots wanted Madame du Pompadour. Once the TARDIS leaves, with the Doctor,
Rose and Mickey, the shot zooms out to show the name of the ship.
While “Blink” wasn't mentioned in
the episode and the villains weren’t the same creatures, the overall concept
of the episode was similar. In “Blink,” the motto was ‘Don’t blink. Blink and you’re
dead.’ The episode featured the weeping
angels for the main antagonist. In “Deep Breath,” the motto seemed to be ‘Don’t
breath. Breath and you’re dead.’ The robots which were trying to kill the Doctor and
his companions would only know someone was there if they were breathing. While
I overall liked “Deep Breath,” the similarities with “Blink” made the episode feel
a little like a repeat.
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Weeping Angel by by williamsbd Wikimedia |
Finally, the references to “Fires
of Pompeii” focused around Capaldi’s face, as he played a character that the
Tenth Doctor saves in that episode. There were a few times in “Deep Breath”
that Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor mentioned his face. The most notable was when he
was in an alley with a homeless man, looking into a mirror. Capaldi kept saying
things like “I’ve seen this face before” and “I am trying to remind myself of something”
but he never connected Caecilius, man he saved in Pompeii all those centuries
ago, with the face. Since so much of the information given about Capaldi’s
Doctor says he will be darker than the previous incarnations, I hope that they
explain the similar face to the Doctor reminding himself to help people and to be compassionate,
as he was when he saved Caecilius and his family.
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Peter Capaldi by Stuart Crawford Wikimedia |
As I said, I enjoyed this episode very
much and I'm am so glad that Doctor Who is back for a new season. I’m excited
to see what Peter Capaldi does with the role. So far, I think he’s a great
Doctor. My post for the second episode, “Into the Dalek” will be up soon.
If I had a clever sign off line, I’d
insert that here. Thanks for dropping by!
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