Closing Time

Dear Gary—

“I’ve been knocking about on my own for a bit. Bit of a farewell tour. One last thing, popping in to see you.”

Closing Time is exactly that—the Doctor popping in to see Craig in this penultimate episode prior to the big bang farewell of the season. It is the popping in aspects of the story that shine. Since events of The Lodger Craig and Sophie have moved. (Doctor: “Oh, you’ve redecorated; I don’t like it.” Craig: “It’s a different house. We moved.”) And they have had a baby named Alfie. (“Yes, he likes that, Alfie, though personally he prefers to be called Stormageddon.”) Craig, however, is the same; as personable as ever; and he and the Doctor still make comedy gold.

The Cybermen put in an appearance in the story, but they are more or less incidental. Their Cybermats hold greater threat than the depleted men of steel. However they do provide the monster of the week for the tale and give an excuse for the Doctor to stick around. He is hesitant to do so at first. This 200-years-older-than-last-we-saw-him Doctor has apparently grown tired of saving the day. He is lonely and exhausted and has only one day left to live. All he wants is to get into the TARDIS and leave. However once he makes the decision to stay he is all in; this is what he does; weariness gives way to enthusiasm.

The toy department of a store is the perfect place for the Doctor as he investigates with childlike delight the mysterious happenings in Craig’s neighborhood. The strange disappearances, the power fluctuations, and the “patina of teleport energy” pique the Doctor’s interest. “And then there’s that silver rat thing.” That really gets the Doctor excited.

The Doctor has been so weighed down lately with the responsibilities of being The Doctor; it is nice to see a return to the pure joy of being the Doctor. There is a brief moment when he warns off Craig, but Craig will have none of it. “I know where it’s safe for me and Alfie,” he tells the Doctor, “and that’s right next to you.” He really doesn’t have much reference to base this claim on, and he is taking a huge risk with the life of his son, but I’ll allow it. Together the three of them make a great team.

The Doctor has another pang of angst when he spies Amy and Rory, who conveniently and coincidentally just happen to be wandering through the store. This is such an obviously contrived scene that it takes away from the emotional impact it intends; and all I can wonder is when and how exactly did Amy become this minor perfume-hawking celebrity? Did we know this about her? Did the Doctor know this about her? I find it odd that the subject of her stardom has never arisen before. The point in time that our present adventure is taking place is the day before the events in The Impossible Astronaut; nothing from this season has yet occurred for her. Her star must have risen in lightening speed, sandwiched in with TARDIS adventures during the months between her wedding (June of 2010) at the end of last season and the Doctor’s death (April of 2011) at the beginning of this season.  And then I have to wonder how it is that Amy and Rory were stumped by the word petrichor in The Doctor’s Wife, which takes place chronologically after this story, when Amy’s perfume is called Petrichor.

However I will put that aside to enjoy the Doctor and Craig taking care of a baby while hunting Cybermen.  The shushing bit is hilarious and the Doctor translating Alfie for Craig (“I speak baby”) is amusing. The running joke of the Doctor and Craig being mistaken as a couple is funny at first but soon gets old and leads to one of those lines of script that stand out for me as being forced. Val asks Craig if they are married, to which Craig replies (thinking of Sophie), “No. We talked about it, but it’s just a piece of paper, isn’t it?” Now this is not Craig speaking. Not the Craig from The Lodger who was so desperately in love with Sophie and who’s love caused the alien spaceship to implode. That Craig would drag Sophie off to the nearest register office and tie her up with that piece of paper so fast she wouldn’t have time to think about it. Here a disappointed Craig is most probably echoing Sophie’s laissez faire philosophy on marriage, but even so the line exists simply to milk the gay gag when it has already been done to death. I will also put that aside, though, and instead enjoy the sight of Craig trying to question the staff and ending up knocking over a rack of ladies under garments.

 Ultimately the Doctor and Craig show is all about Craig learning to have confidence in himself, first and foremost as a father. Unfortunately it is marred by the over-the-top, sappy, love not only conquers all but blows up all solution to the Cybermen. Craig is being converted, his emotions are completely eradicated, but Alfie cries and the system is rebooted. It is just so conveniently easy when it needs to be; when the Cybermen are there not to be Cybermen but merely to provide the requisite amount of danger for the theme to be reinforced. No explanations; just: “I blew them up with love.” Even the Doctor can’t begin to explain it and acknowledges that it is “grossly sentimental and over simplistic.” Going forward, I suppose, the Doctor will know how to combat the Cyber conversion process—think of your loved ones (similar to Amy‘s solution to the Bracewell bomb in Victory of the Daleks). Then again, I’m sure it will be forgotten the next time the Cybermen appear—just like the gold defense has long been abandoned.

Craig and Alfie are safe and closer than ever at the conclusion of the adventure as Sophie returns home. Hopefully this new, self-assured Craig will now work up the courage to tell Sophie what he really thinks about family and marriage.

Another fun, lightweight, mostly standalone episode.

And then we have the arc tacked on, bridging us over to the finale.

It is an extremely poor segue. There is no reason in the world that the three children would take such fascinating note of the Doctor; no reason for them to stop their play; no reason for them to remember the moment; no reason for anyone to track them down to take statements. None. But there you have it. River is reading the witness reports of this mundane non-event as Eye Patch Lady (can’t quite bring myself to call her Kovarian) and a couple of Silents approach armed with a NASA spacesuit.

“You never really escaped us, Melody Pond,” EPL (Aka K) tells her. “We were always coming for you.”

Why? Will someone please tell me why? Why does it have to be River who kills the Doctor? Why did she need to be brainwashed if the suit will make her do it against her will? Why, in heaven’s name, why a spacesuit? Why a NASA spacesuit? Why?

Tick tock goes the clock, Gary . . . but nobody can answer why.