Doctor who: The bells of Saint John is the seventh episode of the seventh season. It continues to introduce the new companion Clara Oswin Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman) and the Doctor (Matt Smith). It is about people hacking people using wi-fi connections then zapping their souls into the cloud, killing them in the process. Well not the soul, it’s in the computer. Basically your soul gets uploaded from your body into a cloud computer where it’s stored.
The Doctor must find a way to defeat the corporation doing the hacking headed by Miss Kizlet (Celia Imrie). In doing so the Doctor must also save Clara from the evil soul stealing wi-fi company. While the company does hack Clara, in the beginning the Doctor saves her (that’s not the ending, it happens in the beginning of the episode) and that’s how it seems she gets her hacking skills shown in the earlier Dalek episode. But whether or not that’s the same Clara is a mystery to me at this time. I’m not sure if they are linked as the same person or not, or in some way.
What I did notice about this episode is that it’s very far fetched and not very scientific like I like Doctor who to be. In classic Doctor who there was always some science behind what was happening. In this episode it deals with souls being captured and people being hacked into a computer. Somehow in viewing it, I didn’t really believe it could happen. If you remember back a few seasons ago to say the Cybermen episodes the Cybermen at least put a headset on people’s heads to try hack into them as they were connected. It seemed a little bit beyond belief for me that a person, who’s not even digital could be hacked by a laptop computer. It was borderline magic.
Apart from the plot I thought the dynamics between the Doctor and the new companion Clara were very good as seen in the previous episodes. I think they have a good chemistry together and Jenna-Louise Coleman is very well cast in her role as companion. Her character is interesting, energetic and mysterious enough to keep watching. While the Doctor is brilliant, funny and timely with his manner. The two work well together and have really renewed the series, hopefully this continues.
There was also one more thing I noticed that I thought was strange. When this Clara walks into the TARDIS she says “It’s bigger on the inside”, Clara is supposed to say “it’s smaller on the outside” but in this one she says it’s “bigger on the inside” like the other companions do, it was her thing to say “it’s smaller of the outside”. I thought it was established as part of her character in the Snowmen episode that she is someone who thinks differently (thinking outside the box), but in this episode she didn’t do it. I thought it was strange. Why is she different? Why did she change her catchphrase?
This episode was good, but I didn’t think it was great the villains mystery and defeat seemed all to quick. I thought they never really held much of a threat for the Doctor and seemed easily bested in the end, I won’t spoil how. I know every villain is defeated in the end of every episode of Doctor who, but in this one it seemed all to brief and the threat of the villains seemed lacking. Overall it was good but missed out on being truly memorable by being slightly unbelievable in its plot and over far to quick. It was entertaining though and had some lol moments, but that’s all you get with this episode.
