Who Review: The Bells of Saint John

Part two of Doctor Who, Series 7, the 50th anniversary year, kicked off with a tale of Wi-Fi paranoia. The world is connected by invisible lines of data traveling from computers, smart phones, cameras, and all sorts of devices to and from servers across the world. What if a malevolent power could infiltrate those data streams and use it to capture human minds, uploading people into a cloud from which it can feed? That’s the crisis facing the world when the Doctor is awoken by the Bells of Saint John, alerting him to the location of Clara Oswald. But finding her means having to save the world, too.

SPOILER ALERT!! My comments may (and likely will) contain spoilers for those that haven’t seen the episode. If you want to stay spoiler-free, please watch the story before you continue reading!

It seems that after the events of “The Snowmen,” the Doctor has joined a thirteenth century monastery, secluded, trying to figure out where the mysterious Clara–the girl who died twice–might be. The “Bells of Saint John” that alert him is, in fact, the ringing of the TARDIS telephone (“Saint John” being a reference to the “Saint John’s Ambulance” badge on the front). That telephone is not supposed to work, and on the other end of the line is Clara, thinking she’s calling tech support because she’s lost internet connectivity. This brings the Doctor back (or forward) to 21st century London, where he connects (or re-connects) with Clara.

Overall, I enjoyed the episode. Yes, the idea that human minds can be beamed across Wi-Fi is a bit of a stretch, but let’s face it–the main story here is Clara. The anti-gravity motorcycle ride up the building was also, perhaps, a bit too much, but, again, all good Doctor Who fun.

I thought the story was a good introduction to 21st century Clara. She has that feisty independence that seems to be a requirement for Doctor Who female companions these days, but she’s not as sassy as Amy was–which I like. I also like that Clara’s not trying to upstage the Doctor, which I felt happened too often with Amy. I wasn’t a big fan of Amy Pond (if you can’t tell), and I think Clara is a marked improvement.

I probably missed a ton of things, but I don’t know that this episode gave many clues to the Clara mystery, other than establishing a connection with the Claras we’ve already met (RYCBAR as the household Wi-Fi password–“Run You Clever Boy and Remember,” a combination of phrases used by future Clara and Victorian Clara). I think there’s some laying of clues that will come to fruition later. The Great Intelligence makes a return appearance, showing he/it survived “The Snowmen,” and seemingly survived this encounter with the Doctor. He may well be prove to be an important part of this season–and possibly has something to do with the Clara mystery? And I’m still convinced that the bow tie the Doctor uses is either one of the Second Doctor’s bow ties, or one very much like it. Compare pictures and you’ll see what I mean!

As I said, it was a fun episode, not the greatest, but certainly not the worst. I like Clara, and there’s a good chemistry between her and the Doctor. Being the 50th anniversary year, I expect the truth behind Clara to be something big and special.

If you saw this episode, please share your thoughts: the comments are open for as-spoilery-as-you-want discussion (though I encourage you to restrict your comments to this particular episode–I’ll be reviewing the others over the coming days)!