Who Review: It Takes You Away

The TARDIS takes the Doctor and her companions to Norway where their curiosity is piqued by a house with a chimney and no smoke, but that is obviously occupied. Further, the house is boarded up, as if to protect the inhabitants from attack. A search of the house turns up its only occupant, a blind girl named Hanne whose father went missing a few days ago. Hanne and her father moved to the house not long after her mother died. She would look for him except for the creature she can hear roaming the woods outside. Hanne insists her father wouldn’t abandon her, but the TARDIS team are concerned he might be dead. When they come upon a mirror with no reflection, the Doctor begins to fear more the terrors inside the house than outside. Especially when it transpires the mirror is a portal to a deadly dimension…

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

As we come to the last few episodes of the season, we’re certainly seeing the scare factor increase. In this episode we have hidden frights, visible frights, and unexpected scares. There’s a monster in the woods, an unknown buffer dimension, flesh-eating moths, and the potential crumbling of reality by the convergence of two worlds that should never converge.

This is perhaps one of the more complex stories of the season. It starts off as a hunt for a missing father that quickly turns into a jaunt into what seems to be a parallel dimension. But this is not merely an alternate reality where the dead are now alive. This is the Anti-Zone, a buffer between two universes, our universe, and a universe that cannot co-exist with ours. The Doctor describes this universe as like a child with chicken pox. It wants to play with the other kids, but if it does it will infect them and make them sick. For its own good and the good of everyone else, it has to be kept away.

This universe has created a reality based on our universe. It traps people by making them think they are in another universe reunited with their missing or deceased loved ones. In reality, they are being forced to play with the kid with chicken pox. Only the results are not simply infection. The co-mingling of people from our universe and entities from the other could destroy them both.

The Doctor and Graham expose the true intentions of this other universe, but underneath is a message about friendship and self-sacrifice. And ultimately a lesson in dealing with loss. In the end, the Doctor offers to be the friend of this universe-entity, but to save them both, the universe-entity will have to let the Doctor go.

At times the messaging is a little strong. I’m thinking particularly of the Doctor’s speech to the entity-universe toward the end. But this season is skewing toward the younger viewers in the family which means the writers can’t be too subtle, so I can live with it.

Otherwise I think it’s a good story with some nasty moments the like of which I don’t recall seeing this season (e.g., someone being devoured by huge white flesh-eating moths). The reference to “reversing the polarity” was a nice nod to the Third Doctor, and plot-relevant, not merely gratuitous.

Hanne is played by Eleanor (“Ellie”) Wallwork, an eleven-year-old blind actress who does an outstanding job, especially given her limited on-screen acting credentials. It’s to the Who team’s credit that they cast a blind actress to play a blind girl. Some might dismiss this as another example of Who playing to the Politically Correct crowd. Maybe it is to some extent, but in this case why not? She’s certainly got the acting chops for the part, so why give it to a sighted actress?

I enjoyed this story. Good acting and good effects as usual. Also something different from previous weeks, which helps keeps the show fresh. Another Doctor Who episode that’s worth your time, I think.