Work Text:
Listen is an example of an episode which takes advantage of time travel as a narrative device, and uses it brilliantly. Time Heist, in direct contrast, is not. Steven Thompson may be a good playwright (haven't seen his work on stage and so can't comment) but he's got a very weak handle on sci-fi fantasy. How do I know? Ah well, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and Curse of the Black Spot. His modus operandi seems to be reworking slices of Hollywood Film and television, which he's done here, but with only moderate success.
Am I disappointed in the episode?
Yes.
It was bland. All the ingredients for something fantastic were there, but this was not it. The setup is brilliant, I have to give Thompson and Moffat that. But it was all downhill from that point forth. What was mined to make an episode?
Time Heist is Doctor Who dressed up as the original Sixties IM force which - for those of us who only really learnt about Mission Impossible when Tom Cruise rock-climbed under the direction of John Woo - apparently had a team line-up as follows:
Cinnamon Carter: A top fashion model and actress.
Barnard "Barney" Collier: A mechanical and electronics genius and owner of Collier Electronics.
William "Willy" Armitage: A world record-holding weight lifter.
Rollin Hand: A noted actor, makeup artist, escape artist, magician and "master of disguise" (Thank you Wikipedia)
Here we have Clara, in lieu of the top fashion model (Oh, how perfect if it had been Amy instead) Saibra as the pinnacle of "mistress of disguise" and the augmented cyber-hacker, PSI, whose character nods to Collier while being cut from the same template which once gave us Captain Jack Harkness. Steven Moffat (via Thompson?) revisits the idea of memory deletion. Just like Jack Harkness, Psi's family and friends, trauma and joys are all forgotten. Johnathon Bailey plays a sympathetic character and, minus the flirting and overt sexual play towards everyone in sight, he may not remind a viewer of Harkness at first glance but his self-sacrificial bent is very similar. The fact that he puts himself into what he thinks of as mortal danger, to save Clara? That is pure Jack.
The Doctor?
Well, he's the voice on the tape IM leaves for its operatives at the top of each episode: "Your mission, should you decide to accept it…][…As always, should you or any of your I.M. Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions." When did I first get a really strong sense that we were watching a pastiche of Mission Impossible? When the Doctor and his three companions walked into bank's ante-chamber and the doors closed behind them. Maybe it was the camera filming them from the side, walking in together. Maybe it was the wall of safe deposit boxes ahead of the heist crew. Or, possibly, it was when the Doctor suddenly discovered a gravitational shift bomb and the floor of the room disappeared, revealling access ducts and pipework, leading down to the vault floor. Plus, those metallic cases containing clues and tools for the heist? Pure Mission Impossible, circa Tom Cruise.
There's more than one piece of popular culture mined for plot here, though. Almost as much is garnered from Star Trek Next Generation as from Mission Impossible. The fate of the Teller? It's straight from "Encounter at Farpoint" in which the new Enterprise crew discover an alien being used to synthesise matter (and create the aforementioned Farpoint station) while its mate desperately tries to free it from captivity. Given the almost Minotuar like appearance of the Teller, I really wanted symbolism leading back to Ariadne and labyrinths. But, neither the bank nor the plot were properly labyrinthine.
As a catalyst for action the jump cut from the Doctor answering the Tardis phone to suddenly appearing in a different place (with Clara) neither one recalling how they came to be there, worked very well. The ensuing chase through the banks' innards was less successful. Pacing felt off. Tension? I didn't feel it ratcheting up, even as characters were sacrificed. And an overt sense of VR and gaming, pervading both plot and the world creation, somehow lessened the sense of jeopardy. Above all the emotional tone was, in my opinion, totally off.
When Saibra clutches a 'shredder' which she thinks will immolate her, and so save her from being brain-souped by the teller, the Doctor is frantic and apologetic. He is horrified, but somehow Capaldi's delivery didn't work for me. Could I argue that the Doctor remembered earlier than everyone else? And so knew that the shredder was actually a teleport remote control? Given the Doctor's later scene with the Teller, I regret to say not.
Peter Capaldi failed to sell the plot to me. He was awkward. And, for the first time, I missed Eleven.
Matt Smith would have played this episode with a vulnerability and gentleness, especially opposite the imprisoned Teller. Capaldi's Twelve is more clinical in approach and demeanour, which feels like a flawed choice for this script. Thus, the magnitude of Karabraxus crime, and the tragedy Tellers' captivity, doesn't come across as well as it might otherwise have done. And, Jenna Coleman, the heart of last week's episode, is also sidelined. Demoted to damsel in distress she too fails to give the Time Heist the emotive heart I felt it needed.
And then, there are the other things which didn't work for me.
Ms. Karabraxus revealed as both the owner of the Bank and head of security (and probably all other tiers of management) via the power of expendable clone-selves as security is a great idea, no doubt inspired by the gangers, last seen in Eleven's run. It's also a wasted idea, given that it's hand waved away in terms of agency, or complexity. That Karabraxus should be haunted by her actions (at the end of her life) and seek to make amends works as a plot arc, but I do wonder at her deathbed remorse. This is, after all, a woman who imprisoned the last two sentient beings of their kind, keeping one in a dark, dank, medieval cell.
I didn't dislike Keeley Hawkes portrayal, though I'm more than a little ambivalent, generally, about her acting skills. Undoubtedly she was great in Ashes to Ashes but I found her truly mediocre in both Upstairs, Downstairs. and Rocket to the Moon) Here, I was left with a sense of a character who is all caricature, nails, hair and heels. But, it's great characterisation that Ms.Karabraxus leaves her private vault clutching all the treasure she can carry - golden eggs calling to mind both Faberge, geese, and dragons.
If the episode is a commentary on banks, bankers and the accumulation of wealth for it's own sake - as the Telegraph review suggests, and which which to some degree it is - then it's a commentary drawn with very wide brush strokes. Younger viewers still see the world in shades of black and white. Good or Bad. So guilt is a straightforward thing, for a child viewer. As an adult, the writer, (and the Doctor) would of course be aware that guilt is a complex, multi-faceted, nebulous emotion. And from such a perspective I wonder if the Teller could sense guilt in detail? Would one feel guilty about robbing a bank before succeeding? I assume at start of the heist it's all adrenaline and fear. But Time Heist is aimed at children. Children who probably feel guilty, if they have been naughty.
I guessed the Doctor was the 'Architect' of the scheme in the moment he went on about how much he hated the man. Something about the way Capaldi played the line just made it obvious. Other things were less so. I don't question how the Doctor could psychically link with the Teller, but wonder how he could fish out the information he'd deliberately forgotten from within Tellers' mind. The teller is a sentient, biological creature, not a hard drive! I also wonder at Saibra's belief that no one would trust a person who looked back at them with their own reflection, and through their own eyes. Given Moffat's love of mirroring, this just rang false for me.
One message being hammered home here is that the rich and powerful are devoid of morals, and are evil. Another is that Doctor is a good man. When the plot-twist comes, it's revealed he picked his team because he can save them too (returning Psi's memories, freeing Saibra from her own personal prison) - and be hugged in return. I'm joking on the last point, though a case can be made for a drinking game. When would you take a drink? When awkward hugs land on this awkward Doctor.
Time Heist is littered with cliche. Where it works, it does so because they're true to life. Where it fails it does so because the writing is weak.
Not one I'd re-watch.