Who Review: The God Complex

What’s with the whole “nightmare” theme going on with Who stories of late? Is it a new requirement of Doctor Who scriptwriters that they have sleepless nights or had troubled childhoods? It seems Toby Whithouse’s (School Reunion, and The Vampires of Venice) nightmares revolved around bad experiences at a Holiday Inn, or a Motel 6. Perhaps justified? In any case, this week’s episode ratcheted up the tension a bit, and gave us a couple of surprises. The first was, at least in my household, an unpopular death (for one of my children, that means it wasn’t Amy). This is not unusual for Who–getting you to like a character and then killing them off. Sad though it is, it does help to give the impression that no-one is safe, especially this close to the series finale.

The other surprise was the ending, though given we have to have some kind of resolution to the whole Doctor-getting-shot story arc, we know this isn’t the end, if you know what I mean, and if you’ve seen the episode, then you know. Sorry to be so cryptic, but I hate giving stuff away.

It does seem that this story’s purpose was to serve the ending, since it was necessary for there to be a breaking of reliances, if that doesn’t say too much. A line of Rory’s also, I think, helps to set up the ending: “I’d forgotten that not all victories are about saving the universe.”

The monster in this story was well realized, though the prosthetics team tend to do a pretty good job anyway. It’s certainly a marked improvement over the last time we saw this particular creature in the early 1970s–yet, even then it wasn’t bad for its time. A good Who story–not the best of the season (which for me, so far, has to be The Doctor’s Wife)–but good nevertheless.