The Caretaker

Dear Gary—

This is it; this is the beginning of the end. That’s a lot to put on one episode, especially an episode that isn’t all that bad; in fact an episode that I really rather enjoy. Yet The Caretaker epitomizes what is wrong with New Who. Doctor Who is no longer Doctor Who; it is Doctor Who’s Companions and How the TARDIS Affects Everyday Life. This has been a primary focus since Rose with most every companion excepting Donna. Variations on the same theme, as if the show is trying to get it right, and with each new companion it declares a do-over. As such it has become a little show; insular and small; circling back over and over, forever in on itself until its inevitable point of collapse.

The Caretaker is about Clara; it is about Clara’s TARDIS life interfering with her earthly life; it is about her torn loyalties between the Doctor and Danny. Clara has always been an ill-conceived character with little definition or consistency. The Caretaker attempts to legitimize and clarify Clara. In the process, however, it takes one huge magnifying glass to Clara’s flaws. It is the weakness of Clara combined with the tedium of New Who’s repetitious focal point that has finally driven Doctor Who to this epicenter of doom.

 Clara is trying to establish herself on Earth. She has an actual job in an actual school, the Coal Hill School no less, although she is no Barbara Wright. And she is taking a stab at an actual romance. However she is no good at either. She is an indifferent teacher and a duplicitous girlfriend. The fix she finds herself in is of her own making in this ‘I Love Clara’ episode. (I can almost hear the Doctor exclaiming, ‘Clara, you have some splainin to do!’)

Jenna Coleman and Peter Capaldi play their sitcom roles beautifully, and if this were a standalone, one-off episode it would be fine. But it’s not. It is crafted wholly and solely in service to the season arc. And unfortunately the secrets and lies that are played to comic effect here are firmly entrenched in Clara’s persona and will only lead to death and destruction as this Poor Danny Pink season unfolds.

Poor Danny Pink is where everything goes wrong in this story. He is treated unfairly from start to finish by both the Doctor and Clara, and it is all in service to his sacrificial lamb raison d’etre. As a result both the Doctor and Clara come off badly and I have a hard time liking either despite the deft comedy.

Since his twelfth incarnation the Doctor has exhibited a blind and unreasoning hatred of soldiers. New Who has taken an inconsistent and hypocritical stance towards guns and the military from the beginning, but this entrenched prejudice is still somewhat out of the blue (not to mention his inexplicable bias against PE teachers). Concentrated on Poor Danny Pink, it turns downright ugly. Oh it’s funny enough, the Doctor’s thick-headed insistence that the former soldier can’t be a maths teacher, even if it is done to death. And the Doctor’s mistaken and egotistical assumption that the Eleventh Doctor look-alike Adrian is Clara’s beau is mildly entertaining while at the same time off-putting. And then it totally derails with, “You’ve made a boyfriend error,” followed by, “You haven’t explained him to me.” What business is it of the Doctor who Clara’s boyfriend is? What right has he to interfere in her personal life? And since when has he become so controlling? These are some classic warning signs and Clara should head for the hills.

However it is Danny who should really be packing his bags. He knows it too. “It’s funny,” he tells her, “you only really know what someone thinks of you when you know what lies they’ve told you.”  And then his question, “So what do you think of me, Clara?” He knows the answer: very little. She lies and lies again; even when caught in her lies she continues to deceive. “It’s a play” indeed. Quite hilarious for the audience; quite insulting to Poor Danny Pink. Yet he sticks around. He says he wants to know her—to know what she is like with the Doctor. So what does she do? She gives him the Doctor’s invisibility ring so they can go and fool the Doctor for a change. She just is not capable of playing it straight with anyone.

As the two of them stand facing the window while they try to hold a meaningful conversation I get bored and distracted. It is a powerful scene, well acted and well directed. It delves into significant issues about relationships and explores the innermost workings of Clara and Danny. But I don’t care about these two as a couple. I know they are wrong for each other and that there is no true understanding or respect between them. This serious tone is jarring against the rom-com first half of the tale and my thoughts drift to the foreseeable Poor Danny Pink arc and away from the story at hand.

The story at hand, by the way, includes a striking but expendable new alien, the Skovox Blitzer. Its purpose and presence only tenuously explained, it provides the necessary action and drama for our three principals to work through their various relationship problems. In the end it is left to float ineffectually through space with no mention of its home planet or the rest of its deadly kin. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with seasonal arcs. Everything is sacrificed for the overreaching storyline. Aliens and planets and characters and personality traits are created by the author for the sole purpose of advancing the arc with little or no effort put into explaining or exploring them.

Thus, The Caretaker starts with several vignettes of adventures that the Doctor and Clara experience. They are all rather wonderful and enjoyable and would make great episodes if fleshed out. But they aren’t important to the program. Their only reason for being is to highlight the hectic and harried life that Clara is leading.

Clara is the embodiment of this approach. She was created to carry one arc and has stuck around and now a new arc is being constructed around her. There is no true core to Clara’s makeup—she is being made up as the series progresses to fit the arc and has no clarity or consistency. The show and the Doctor are both dangerously flirting with this predicament as well.

Tacked on to the story is the introduction of ‘disruptive influence’ Courtney. In stark contrast to the preposterous lengths Clara goes to in order to keep the truth from Poor Danny Pink is the laissez faire attitude the Doctor takes towards allowing Courtney into the TARDIS. It is annoying and simply an excuse to set up the following episode.

Also tacked on is the Missy/Paradise arc with the throw-away character of CSO Matthew dying and finding himself in white corridor limbo with newly concocted Seb. I’m not even going to go into that one.

I’m going to do some tacking on myself, Gary, and ponder on Clara’s mention of Boggons and can only wonder if these are somehow related to Blorgons.

Overall I enjoy this episode if viewed simply in and of itself. But it can’t be viewed simply in and of itself and that is its main problem. I hope, Gary, that somewhere out there you are having your own adventures with Boggons and Buddy Holly and have no time for these increasingly inane and forced plot arcs.