Archive of Our Own

In which the Doctor goes back in time to save the day, the world, and Clara. And, Toby Whithouse riffs off Robert Heinlein.

In fact, the episode opens with a riff - both guitar and verbal - on the nature of time-travel, the multiverse, and Ludwig Van Beethoven. The Doctor even tells us to Google the bootstrap paradox . Who came first? The Doctor or the composer? Beethoven's Fifth? Or Beethoven himself? Simply put, a causal time loop or Bootstrap Paradox is when "the independent origin of the events that caused each other cannot be determined, they simply exist by themselves". (quote via wiki) Before the Flood builds itself around such a framework.

At the end of the previous episode, O'Donnell, Bennett, and the Doctor travel back in time. They arrive in a re-creation of a Russian village, right out of the cold war - situated in a valley in Scotland, in the 1980's. Cultbox suggests Whithouse was inspired to set the scene here thanks to his recent BBC Two Drama The Game which itself was inspired by Le Carre's novels and the 1970's BBC's masterpiece Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, starring Alec Guinness as George Smiley. As a setting, I'd say it owes more to Travolta's The Experts (inverted) than to Le Carre, but it does indeed create mood.

Russian memorabilia from the cold war invokes a palpable sense of danger, given the premise of a nuclear deterrent. And, the arms race was at its height in the 1980's; at which time most of this episode is set. Such danger is later personified by the arrival of the Fisher King, who literally looms large over the Doctor, reminding us there's more than one alien species out there in the Whoniverse all about enslavement, control, and the harvesting of other planets' natural resources. His desire to drain the oceans and turn the world into a barren wasteland is, undoubtedly, a nod to what could have occurred if the cold war had ever turned hot. Predominantly though, Whithouse's Fisher King is a catalysing nightmare. Apt because I can't help thinking Toby Whithouse is nodding to H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu in his creation of this giant, deadly, alien. Or, maybe the special effects team Milk VFX are.

In The Call of Cthulhu he is described as "an ancient entity of immense power that manipulates the minds of human beings" and "[…octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature [...] A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings.[1] This Fisher King does indeed get into the minds of human beings, right before he kills them.

In my opinion, it was somewhat unfortunate Toby Whithouse chose to name his alien villain so, given the links to Arthurian mythology. Originally the Fisher King appeared as a character in Chrétien de Troyes's 12th century French romance Perceval, le Conte du Graal, the Story of the Grail. Keeper of the Holy Grail, the Fisher King is wounded, (lamed or impotent) his suffering extending to his lands which lie barren. Following de Troyens, Robert de Boron merged the holy grail myth with elements of Christianity (in his poem Joseph d'Arimathie ) and named his Fisher King Bron. Given the wound on the Fisher King's leg, his name and the fact the grail is a cup, bowl, or chalice with restorative powers, direct links (in the poetical works) can be drawn to earlier Welsh mythology and the legend of Brân the Blessed (from the Mabinogion; in the Second Branch.) He was a giant and king of Britain who had a magic cauldron which raised the dead - albeit imperfectly - in that they couldn't speak once raised.

This, of course, is in keeping with the silent ghosts in this episode mouthing the words of the Fisher King's call. Interestingly, according to legend, Brân initially survives his own death as a giant speaking head, later silenced and buried on the White Hill (possibly on the site of the White Tower at the Tower of London) facing France. It was said his buried head could magically war off invasion. The parallels between myth and Whoniverse canon amuse, given Captain Jack Harkness may or may not have ended up as the Face of Boe and that one of his roles was to ward off invasion from the rift in Cardiff. But I digress... Toby Whithouse has created a nightmare version of the Fisher King, and the nod to H.P. Lovecraft is unmistakable.

The horror in this episode is two-fold though, brought forth by the call of the monster-alien of the week, but also by the reality of travelling with the Doctor himself.

Ghosts roam through the base chasing the survivors, wanting to capture and kill in order to strengthen the beacon their harvested life-force creates. A beacon which is a call to an invading armada. The stalking of the living, by the dead, is dramatised brilliantly as Cass is stalked by Moran, axe in hand. She can't hear the axe-head dragging across the metal-decked floor but, we (the viewer) can. It's a brilliant use of sound - juxtaposed with the lack of sound - Cass's deafness being brilliantly used to increase tension.

Travelling with the Doctor is dangerous. Fannish viewers are reminded of this with regularity; whilst Steven Moffat helms the production. In fact, it can be said he takes delight in killing characters personifying admirers (aka fans) of the Doctor. The most obvious example is Osgood, who died at Missy's hand. Like O'Donnell, Osgood worked for UNIT. And like O'Donnell, she was thrilled to meet the Doctor. Worse, it's implied Osgood's quick-wits caught the Doctor's attention and that she could have been a companion. Instead she was vaporised. O'Donnell's glee at meeting and travelling with the Doctor (jumping up and down, clutching at Bennett's lapels, chanting that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside) utterly charmed. And, made her death seem all that more pointless. Of interest, given the line delivery and acting, was the way the Doctor/Peter Capaldi looked at her when the Doctor realised how much of his recent history O'Donnell actually knew about.

It can be said the Doctor (from his Nu-Who days when Russell T Davis was at the helm) has hidden the darker facets of his character from most, if not all, of his companions. Hidden not just his experiences as The War Doctor. It's also plausible to suggest he prefers a companion who isn't jaded; because only then can they see wonder rather than horror in the universe. If the companion is the way a viewer enters the show (and relates to the Doctor) writers, producers and older viewers have always got to remember the children watching. And they usually see the world, or universe, through innocent eyes and so see wonder. Travelling with the Doctor is miraculous. It is also, frequently, dangerous and possibly damaging.

Clara persuading Lunn to leave the safety of the Faraday cage, (to venture out into the main body of the station and retrieve her phone, so they can contact the Doctor) mirrors the scene in Jamie Mathiesan's Mummy on the Orient Express when Clara (once again on the phone to the Doctor) has to persuade Maisie Pitt to leave the safety of the box car. We're thus reminded companions are altered by their travels. Cass questions Clara's actions, for all that Cass is a member of the military and would have had a clear idea of the alien armagedon to be visited upon earth, if the call of the Fisher King wasn't stopped. Cass questions because she has feelings for Lunn (so is unwilling to place him in such danger) but also because the viewer might. It's a direct inverse of the Doctor's later conversation with Clara, and his explanation of his actions according to the bootstrap paradox.

The Doctor subverting the call (and his own possible death) by sending a holographic ghost forward through time, space and a flooded valley, was suggested to me in reply to my previous review. I'd missed the possibility inherent at the tail-end of the previous episode. But I was watching this one with that possibility in mind. Could the Doctor alter the 'message' his avatar repeated because it wasn't a ghost? Or because, as a Time Lord, he could subvert the message being imprinted upon his neural synapses? Either, or both reading's are possible.

The Fisher King was felled by his own hubris when facing the Doctor. He looms large, reminding us that the Time Lords were once a peaceful race who become warlike and who - it is implied - surpassed other warlike races in their ferocity and deadliness. In subverting the call, the Doctor conquers his enemy. Brain, and a well placed power cell set to overload, over alien brawn.

Woven through the episode is the horror implicit in the brevity of human life. O'DOnnell dies suddenly, a soldier, in a war zone far from home. She leaves Bennet to stand as a mirror to Clara in her loss of Danny, but Whithouse also mirrors each couple in another way. O'Donnell and Bennett's unspoken love leads to Lunn's declaration. He and Cass, it is implied, will have their happily ever after. But both couples also mirror Clara and the Doctor.

For all that she appears self sufficient - racing head into danger and adventures unknown - when faced with the possibility of the Doctor's death and regeneration (for the Doctor does mutter it would be the end of this life of his and, interestingly, also mutters that he's still unsure as to how this regeneration worked out) we see how much of a facade her bravado has been and how she's compensating for the losses in her life. Clara literally pleads with the Doctor not to leave her, as her mother and Danny both did:

"Clara: You do not leave me. Die with whoever comes after me. You owe me. You've made yourself essential to me...][... I don't care about your rules or your bloody survivor's guilt. If you love me in any way, you'll come back."

Given O'Donnell's death in this episode - the Doctor's belief that Clara had died on Skaro, and Missy trying to entice the Doctor to inadvertently take Clara's life - I'll be surprised if Jenna Coleman departs this series, leaving Clara alive and well. I liked the fact that Clara Oswald walked away from the Doctor, and the TARDIS, in the middle of a normal day, along a normal high street, at the end of the previous series. I liked the resonance with one Sarah Jane Smith who was marked by her adventures with the Doctor, but who also survived and thrived. Rose lived; in an alternate universe. So too the Ponds, stranded in time. Clara's fate seems darker to me, akin to Donna's.

Whithouse's two part episodes, Under the Lake and Before the Flood are action-packed, horror-lite, and genuinely creepy in places. This is predominantly thanks to plot and pacing but, also the use of lighting and, above all, sound. Technical work and direction (thank you Daniel O'Hara) on this episode was fantastic. Both episodes were gripping, though I do feel Under the Lake was stronger than its conclusion. Both episodes are an apt nod to the horror genre and, as a subset to that, to the vampire genre. After all, the hibernation chamber is a double-doored rectangular box. It's white, not blue, and travels in time by taking the scenic (or rather torturously slow) route but the mirroring is blatant. And so one rockstar doctor, wakes from his decades long sleep undead/undying in Ray Bans, calling to mind both the vampire Lestat (in Queen of the Dammed) and Jarmusch's Adam in Only lovers Left Alive.

At the end of the episode the tag neatly ties up events, leading us back to the teaser opening and the causal time loop:

The Doctor: I programmed my ghost to say them because that's what my ghost had said. And the only reason I created my ghost-hologram in the first place was because I saw it here. I was reverse engineering the narrative.

It's neat and a solid ending to a solid two-part adventure but, it's irrefutable that the first part was stronger of the two.