Let’s get the joke out the way: I wish I flatlined before Clara came along. Conversely, I could swap that out for “I wish I flatlined before Chibnall wrapped his first series of Doctor Who.” The second, and only other episode from Jamie Mathieson for this series, “Flatline” is that one episode where the TARDIS is the size of the one on my desk. I wonder if there is a small angry Scottish man in there too? Nope, just some cards with the faces of a tin dog we don’t talk about and an aggressively charming Scottish man with an American accent, who we also don’t talk about anymore.

On paper, Mathieson’s episode is fantastically Doctor Who. 2D monsters who might not know they are harming others (we don’t know we can’t communicate) have been killing several people in Bristol. When the Doctor can’t fly his TARDIS proper for one episode, it causes dimensional issues everywhere and thus provides us fun comedic moments with a shrinking TARDIS. It is a very 70s, Tom Baker-era episode of Doctor Who, if Tom Baker’s Doctor Who wasn’t made on the budget of two shiny pennies, a square button, a bag of jelly babies, and the hope no one would one day convert the show to 4K blu-ray so we could see the monster from Transylvania is a bubble-wrapped Tim Curry.

In terms of Peter’s half of the script, it works out great for him as a bottle episode-like, not having to spend all his time in Bristol but instead being in the ever-shrinking TARDIS. In the literal sense it isn’t an entire bottle episode. There are few effects, a smaller scope, not many external castings, and so on. Though, it may have been more amicable to have that smaller scope, less extraneous production, and a tighter focus on something other than Clara playing the Doctor for a day out in not very Bristol, Bristol. For all I know, it could be a quarry in Wales with how broad it is. 

The trouble here is just how little I care for Clara as a character, and how little warmth or charm she has. I think with Rose it would be been a bit more charming, as she and 10 have a flirt-off. Martha would be as good of a Doctor as the Doctor himself. Amy, well the less we say, the better. “What about Donna?” Do not make me show you mid-00s The Catherine Tate Show, you will regret ever asking. My point is that Clara doesn’t have a personality. She doesn’t have a thing other than her and Peter’s vindictive hatred towards each other.

When you think of Clara and the Doctor’s relationship at this particular moment, it is dominated by passive-aggressive snides at each other. Not as old friends who have in-jokes or people who’ve had years of referencing minuscule comments made to each other, but a bitter married couple who would do better off getting a divorce. They are constantly poking and prodding each other into seeing who will splinter in two first and say something stupid. Which makes the fact the episode was actually sufficient, though stuck in back in time oddly enough, all the more frustrating.

As written on paper, any Doctor and companion pairing – though maybe not a Chibnall, 13, and Yaz, be realistic here – it’s a solid 6 or 7. You could set it anywhere, you could do practically anything with it, it’s a great model of an episode. Where it stutters is the fact the foremost memorable element of it is Peter sticking his hand out of the TARDIS and walking it as if he was Thing T. Thing. Maybe it is because I rewatched Kingsman after The King’s Men, and the only name in my head is Eggsy, but I can’t off the top of my head remember Joivan Wade’s character without looking it up. The closest I’ve got by way of clutching-at-straws here would be the GSY in Rigsy crossing over with Eggsy.

I know Christopher Fairbank’s Fenton goes about as far as Fairbank’s Broker went in Guardian’s of the Galaxy, which is to say nowhere. It is set up that there is a conflict and that generally, Fenton is a bit weird, yet the end “pay off” is his broad aloofness. At first, it is easy to assume it will be based on race and that as the leader of the council’s community service he has a chip on his shoulder. Then the hint drops that he’s just a bit weird, setting up for the “I’m the leader” switch. Personally, I’d have tied those threads together into something more satisfying than a temperate fart in the open air.

As I’ve expressed, it was a fine episode other than what can only be Steven Moffat’s influence to push Clara to the Moon (which is an egg, by the way!). Maybe it is my knowledge that she’s about to say that she, the Doctor, and Danny (two orphans) should kill a bunch of 7-year-olds so that they don’t have to grow up to be orphans. Or maybe it is the fact that until that point she has no character. I cannot stand the character, and having her in this role quite simply rubs me the wrong way. Already she was taking up the role Peter’s interpretation of the Doctor was leaving behind, but in that case, why didn’t we just get a new companion?

Again, Peter’s work is great when he is allowed to do it. That is, despite being a poor imitation of Tom Baker when he does the “and I name you…!” almost in the voice of Tom with, “If I touch these two wire together… the universe will implode.” It is a fine “I am The Doctor” speech, but ultimately (like the entire episode) it lacks something to make it pop. There is no character to cling onto, there is no special gimmick other than The Boneless (Yes, it’s that uncreative) and “Logopolis'” tiny TARDIS idea. “Flatline” was little more than a flatline pushing us further along the series arc, which at this point I don’t care about.

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Doctor Who "Flatline"

6

Score

6.0/10

Pros

• Tiny TARDIS.
• A fine "I am the Doctor" speech.

Cons

• Pushing Clara in such a role.
• An episode lacking something special.