Fear Her

Dear Gary—

Fear Her: been there, done that. The TARDIS lands in a London neighborhood during a moment of national significance that is being broadcast throughout the world and people are mysteriously disappearing off of the street. The Doctor and Rose are led in their investigations to a family unit with a domineering father. If this sounds familiar it is because it was just done a few short stories ago in The Idiot’s Lantern. Fear Her is a modernization and reworking to slightly more appealing effect.

Swap out the 1953 Coronation for the 2012 Olympics; swap out the Wire for the Isolus; swap out faces flickering on TV screens for people captured in drawings; swap out Eddie for the monster in the wardrobe; swap out Rose falling victim for the Doctor. Add a dash of compassion and sift through a filter of optimism. Voila—The Idiot’s Lantern becomes Fear Her.

Neither one is much good.

At least the Doctor and Rose are not quite as obnoxious in Fear Her. In fact they work rather well together and there are some genuinely warm and humorous bits, which puts Fear Her a leg up on The Idiot’s Lantern. I also like that the two are not totally in lock step in this episode. The Doctor treats the Isolus as a scared child. Rose, on the other hand, sees it as a brat throwing a temper tantrum. Both legitimate views. Approaching the problem with different perspectives, the Doctor and Rose click as a team, each bringing their unique strengths into play rather than feeding into each other’s weaknesses as they so often do.

 In fact this is a very strong story for Rose. I almost like her, and that also tips the scales in favor of Fear Her.

Rose is immediately drawn to the missing children posters and forgets all about the Olympics; this is no longer a fun outing; although the Doctor’s “fingers on lips” moment manages to keep the fun in the proceedings. The two begin their investigation (and I have to say that it is maddening how indifferent and/or incompetent local authorities are in the Doctor Who world). Rose looks to the human element, wondering how anyone can do such a thing, while the Doctor looks to the alien (“What makes you think it’s a person?”). Now Rose’s take on this is the most logical (and the scarier), but it is the Doctor’s that proves correct (and how maddening that it always is in the Doctor Who world; not since the William Hartnell years has the non-alien option been seriously and consistently considered).

Rose’s human outlook leads her to the child Chloe; the Doctor’s alien outlook leads him to the Isolus within.

The Isolus is an intriguing concept but it is all talk. The scene where the Doctor taps into the possessed Chloe is well done, and the brief glimpse we have of the alien form is beautiful in its realization, but we never fully see the Isolus in action. What we do see is a possessed child drawing pictures. It could be anything controlling her actions. And while the thought of a lonely Isolus separated from her billions of brothers and sisters for an eternity is poignant, Rose’s assessment, “I know what kids can be like—right little terrors,” seems more accurate in light of the pain and suffering caused by this secluded alien snatching people and trapping them on scraps of paper hung on Chloe’s bedroom wall.

The idea, however, leads to some revealing moments between the Doctor and Rose. “I was a dad once,” the Doctor says, shocking Rose to the core, although hardly news to long time fans. And then there is this reflection on the part of the Doctor: “Fear, loneliness; they’re the big ones, Rose. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. We’re not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy. There’s a lot of things you need to get across this universe. Warp drive, wormhole refractors. You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold.”

There is that filter of compassion that differentiates Fear Her from The Idiot’s Lantern. The Doctor has empathy for the isolated Isolus and works towards a compassionate resolution. Unfortunately for him the Isolus reacts like a spoiled brat and snatches him into her crayon world. This leaves Rose to work out the solution.

Rose rises to the occasion. Realizing that sending the little monster to her room, giving her a time out, or scolding her are never going to work, and not even reason will do the trick, Rose instead turns to her own brain power. Putting all the puzzle pieces together—the missing stadium full of people, the Olympic torch, the energy drains on the newly patched street, the hot fresh tar in the pothole—Rose finds the lost Isolus pod and sends it on its way thus restoring the captured citizens for a happily ever after ending.

Along the way there are some really excellent elements to this story, and I am finding, Gary, that I actually like it much more than I originally credited. And I think it is the puzzle that does it. It is well crafted, setting out all the pieces slowly and subtly and then bringing them all together. But what makes it really mesh is the character of Kel. He adds the commentary of the ordinary man brilliantly, giving the episode a much needed dose of humanity.

The other characters don’t do it. The neighbors are all cutouts, afraid and irate as the script dictates but doing nothing in the way of locating their abducted children. They scurry back into their homes when no longer needed for exposition. Abisola Agbaje and Nina Sosanya as Chloe and Trish are good in their parts, but the mother/daughter dynamic is not convincing. Trish is especially useless. She is running scared throughout but doesn’t know why. She never takes responsibility for her daughter; never attempts to comfort, discipline, or even talk to her. Rose offers the deepest insight on this: “But maybe that’s why Chloe feels so alone. Because she has all these terrible dreams about her dad, but she can’t talk to you about them.”

The back-story of the dad provides the only warmth to the relationship but also the most disturbing aspects of it. Trish admits that Chloe bore the brunt of his abuse when he was alive; given Trish’s hands off approach to raising her daughter, I can only assume that she stood back and allowed the abuse. Singing the Kookaburra song together to defeat the drawing monster is a touching moment, but that only highlights Trish’s close-your-eyes-and-wish-it-away style of parenting.

Kel, on the other hand, takes genuine pride in his work, lovingly admiring his patched pothole like a proud papa, then acting with outrage as Rose raises an axe to his handiwork. But while Trish always stays in the background with a mixture of fear, confusion, and futility, Kel follows after Rose with curiosity. As a stranger on the street, he has observed the odd occurrences and taken note of the two new outsiders. He doesn’t quite understand what Rose is saying or doing, but he has the intelligence to know it is of significance. “You did it,” he exclaims when Rose successfully launches the pod; and then, “What was it you did?”

Because Kel takes an interest, I take an interest. Because Kel gets excited, I get excited. Because Kel rejoices, I rejoice. Kel gives voice to the common person observing from the sideline and getting caught up in the emotion.

Without Kel the sheer hokiness of that ending would be unbearable. The Olympic torch bearer collapses and the TV announcer wonders, “Does this mean that the Olympic dream is dead?” Then the Doctor swoops in to pick up the torch while the announcer gushes that it is more than a flame, “it’s hope and it’s courage and it’s love.” This is the most manufactured bit of sentimental nonsense and is a bit of an insult to the thousands of athletes (one of whom may very well be the torch bearer at some future date), hundreds of countries, and millions of viewers, all of whom are swelling with that Olympic spirit that apparently is so fragile as to be extinguished by an accidental fall. And I might add that not one expression of concern is given to that poor fellow on the ground.

It all comes to an end with a celebration in the street, much like the ending of The Idiot’s Lantern. In both, too, the father has been sent packing, although in this one Rose does not send the child running after him. And then we have the Doctor’s ominous prediction: “A storm’s coming.”

A storm is coming, Gary, and I’m looking forward . . .