Hide is the tenth episode of the seventh series of Doctor Who and sees the Doctor (Matt Smith) and Clara (Jenna Louse Coleman) travel to a haunted house to investigate a ghost presence. They meet Professor Alec Palmer(Dougray Scott) a ghost hunter and Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine) who is aiding in the search for the ghost. Although they may just be in search of each other (love wise) and need a little bit of help.
For the most part and particularly the first half the episode it goes well then slowly falls down towards the end. What the episode does well in the beginning isn’t really left to develop towards the end I thought. In the beginning we are introduced to the Professor Palmer character and his supposed love interest Emma Grayling. They have some chemistry but seem to be just lingering around each other with no one doing anything. We see some conversation between the doctor and Palmer about his past in the military (but this never shows). We see Clara talk to Grayling about feelings she’s noticed from Palmer towards her, but by episode’s end this goes no where as well.
The episode then slowly breaks apart after the establishment of the characters as the Doctor and Clara seem to just go off on their own and don’t really include Palmer or Grayling at all in their actions. Clara and the Doctor explore the house together and there are some good scenes between the two but I can’t help but notice in this episode the Doctor particularly seems to be getting annoying, or maybe Clara to the Doctor. There’s one point I saw where she was standing looking in one direction and he came up behind her and patted her on the head to get her attention, strange I thought. Later on the Doctor was rambling to himself and Clara made a comment saying “I’m not happy” and he didn’t really do much about it so I’m not sure what went on with the characters but neither looked like they were having fun.
Acting wise Clara and the Doctor were good, just their characters seemed a bit disjointed even Clara was mentioning annoyance with the TARDIS. Another observation is that she doesn’t have her place yet, and the TARDIS is so empty without even a place for her umbrella. Companions of the past seem to have always had their place, but Clara hasn’t yet. I think due to the mystery surrounding her character she’s not trusted but I’m not sure why. After all her appearances she is yet to do anything wrong to the Doctor, so why no trust? The TARDIS is all empty and there was the reference to the doctor being “cold” from Grayling and for Clara not to “trust him”. Interesting…
For the second half of the episode I believe it deteriorated plot wise for many reasons. It started off as being supernatural based with ghosts and the paranormal then moved to more of a science fiction lost in time theme. No ghost at all it seems, this is okay as it is a science fiction show, so should move in this direction. But the Doctor seems to just go on his own, he builds his space pocket device, he travels to different points in Earth history. He jumps into the pocket and rescues the lost traveller. But where was the inclusion of the set up characters? They just all stood around, Grayling seemed to just be inserted more like an object to help the Doctor while Clara just asked questions every now and again I guess to inform the audience what was going on. It was like the Doctor just solved everything on his own and there really was no mystery for him.
The ending and the monster; was what sent the episode from one on a slow decline to something borderline ridiculous. The idea that not only were the Professor and Grayling in need of love; but so was the monster who was lost in time and just seeking another monster to be its companion. Not to mention the added detail that the lost traveller was a great, great grand daughter of the Professor and Grayling. Even worse for the characterisation was that towards the end the Professor asked the Doctor what should he do? What do you mean? The Professor didn’t have that conversation about his love for Grayling, Clara told it to Grayling and they discussed it. Why did the Professor all of a sudden ask this? It seemed completely obvious at that point. Why did the monster have to be redeemed as something good as well? It made no sense and the monster wasn’t even that good special effects wise; it was terrible.
Overall this was a fun episode of Doctor who, it has some good moments in the beginning but loses its place towards the end. Hopefully next weeks episode proves to be better. It’s entertaining, but silly that’s all I can say about this episode.