Doctor Who - "The Bells of St. John" - Review

Steven Moffat sure does love intricate mysteries. Even with a more adventurous nature to “The Bells of St. John” and the Christmas special, the episodes (and this one in particular) couldn’t help but feel like Moffat was re-treading territory he’s mined for far too long.

Much of the Moffat era of Doctor Who has been good, but increasingly after the fifth season (my personal favorite) things seemed to get a little jumbled. The serialized plotting for the big mysteries revolving around River and Amy were a bit of a letdown as well as a mixed bag in how they were handled. 

Moffat is frequently better at beginnings, at making something seem like it will be really exciting and cool than actually paying it off down the line. This seems to be the case with Sherlock as well, which declined in quality in its second season when its ambitions couldn’t align with its execution. Moffat has a ton of wonderful ideas floating around that pretty head of his, but he doesn’t always know quite how to use them or when he’s put far too many into a given episode.  

I’m fond of Jenna-Louise Coleman’s performance as Clara. She has the right level of fun, cheeky enthusiasm to fit this series well. I also enjoy her chemistry with Matt Smith and how Clara matches the Doctor tit for tat in a way that it doesn't feel like a companion has in a long time. But I wish she were just another companion; someone who the Doctor saw something in, took along for the ride, and eventually demonstrated their full potential to. Not some mystery that will simmer and unravel for the remainder of this season. 

I don’t mind a long arc hinted at throughout a season, and I’ve liked a number of them in seasons past. But this doesn’t feel like territory the series wants to head down again. 

Otherwise this was a typical Doctor Who adventure. I was amused by the commentary on the Internet and technology’s hold over us (A CCTV critique in a series that’s technically a family show? Didn’t see that one coming), even if this wasn’t the best baddie of the week the show has produced. Of course there were a number of charming, cool little moments that this show nails like few shows do: The Twitter jokes, the bike going up the side of the building, Clara calling for tech support and unwittingly telephoning the TARDIS, the misdirect where we think the Doctor has directly confronted Miss Kizlet and it turns out it's actually one of the spoonhead robots. 

The episode also felt much less overstuffed than the Christmas special, which was a very good episode but one that had too much going on at any given moment. Though the business with the Doctor being a monk in exile is likely one plot strand too many, it’s nice to simply return to the universe of this show. 

Doctor Who, when it comes down to it, is for the most part merely a procedural. But it’s never a series that’s obsessed with just the investigation to discover the answer to the week’s problem. It’s a show that unlike CSI and Law and Order isn’t forced to use its procedural to one particular design. It can use its procedural to pay homage to a genre or take us to a historical event or whatever weird thing it has in mind for us any given week.  

Doctor Who is also a very "television-y" show that’s often indebted to a lot of tropes but it usually has plenty of fun using the fact it’s a television show to its advantage. We know that odds are the Doctor will save the day and it will be with the help of his companion. Though on occasion it goes very dark, there’s always this sense that they’ll fight another day! Which is a very clichéd notion, but one the show consistently earns. It earns this through very good characterization, a strong mythology that is a more often a boon then a crutch, and an unabashed love for humanity and the worlds it explores. 

Though I might have hoped for more from the return of the show, I can’t help but simply be happy it’s returned. There may be better shows than Doctor Who, but there are few that come as close to being as inexplicably addicting. 

Grade: B