I think you can call me as biased as you like. I don’t like Garth Roberts, I really don’t like James Corden, I have a TARDIS on my desk, and generally, when talking about Doctor Who, I can be a bit left field. It also might not help that I think the Cybermen aren’t the best-used villains in Doctor Who either. So when Lynda Baron shows up as the kindly old woman that assumes Craig and the Doctor are gay, it might surprise you that after that, I was fine with the episode. Who knew? All you need is the gays and metal men, and I’m in.

Ok, I can’t just let the review end there, sadly, but for once (I don’t count “Planet of the Dead“) I didn’t hate a Gareth Roberts episode, or even something with James Corden for that matter. That said, I don’t love it either, and I don’t think it is one of the all-time great episodes. It’s just another example of an episode that’s fine with a guest star or two. They didn’t enhance it, they didn’t make it more special than any other episode, it was just there. In fact, I think what stole the show this time around were Lynda Baron (Val) and Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All, or you know, Alfie the baby.

While I hold the guest stars up to high standards, as you should with any review, the monsters/villains need that too. The trouble is, I’ve never liked the Cybermen. They are just big stompy men with very little to put someone in danger. By the time Clara is meant to feel bad for her boyfriend becoming one, I just don’t care. Though I am getting ahead of myself a little, they don’t have as much impact as the show likes to pretend there is now. It is striking the same chord I struck last time, they are overexposed, they need to go away for a bit and not be in a leading story for a long while.

See, this is where I think I say the episode might be a bit too busy, or at least it is trying to add a villain to an episode that might not have needed it. You see, this is the episode before “The Impossible Astronaut.” Ok chronologically not, and I’ve just broken my editor’s head. This is the old Doctor that gets shot and killed by River, not that one that went for a straw that adds extra fizz… which is that one, but when he went to get the straw he was 909-years old. He is now about 1,003-years-old, picking up a stetson and some blue envelopes. The problem is, without the Cybermen or something else you are just left with time being the villain and that doesn’t make for a very interesting episode.

So here we are with a not all that great episode of Doctor Who. One that pulls us back to the start of the series, and I didn’t like it or hate it all that much. It is the loop you make while tying a knot, to use a metaphor, wrapping up a cycle to head in the big climactic finale. Though I am, and I openly admit this, not a fan of James Corden in the slightest. However, the fact he spends most of the episode with Stormageddon makes me not mind him as much. I would have liked a bit more Daisy Haggard though. I think she just didn’t get enough space to breath last time out, and she’s not really around this time at all.

All that said, I’m not going to say an episode with Lynda Baron was a bad one, I think that woman is a saint. There are two age groups that know of that woman well. I oddly fall in line with neither of them but know of her just the same; fans of Roy Clarke and Ronnie Barker’s Open All Hours, and the kids show Come Outside. In the former, she was a chesty nurse named Gladys Emmanuel, and in the latter, she was just a lovely older woman teaching young kids about anything and everything.

Every time I think of Come Outside it feels like a nice hug. It is a really pleasant and warm feeling; Then I watch Open All Hours, and she’s got her breasts under her chin in a tiny frock while hanging out a window and Ronnie Barker is stuttering come-ons to her. My point is that it is not a bad episode and I was at least engaged in it, but it wasn’t an instant classic of an episode either. Other than that, I do quite enjoy the reference back to Patrick Troughton’s “oh, you’ve redecorated! I don’t like it” comment. Oh, and River was in this one, and Rory, Amy, and everyone I do like to counteract the one I don’t.

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Doctor Who "Closing Time"

6.5

Score

6.5/10

Pros

• Lynda Baron is always so lovely.
• "oh, you've redecorated! I don't like it."
• Corden as the strung out dad to Smith's wonky Doctor works better.
• Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All and his peasants.

Cons

• The Cybermen are just used too much.
• It feels like an episode of two hearts: trying to wrap up while doing its own thing.