Doctor Who: Thin Ice – What The Papers are saying (Updated: 30.04.17)
Deploy top hats, tail-coats and ye olde trappings. The Tardis landed in Regency London, where something was stirring beneath the frozen Thames and fun-seekers were mysteriously disappearing. Here’s all the talking points from episode three, titled “Thin Ice”…
Frost Fair elephant wasn’t fictional
An elephant walking across the frozen Thames. The stuff of fantasy, right? No, actually. Between 1400 and the removal of the medieval London Bridge in 1835, there were 24 winters when temperatures in London plummeted so severely that the Thames indeed froze solid.
During the period known as “the Little Ice Age”, the frozen-over river became a tourist attraction, with merchants setting up stalls on the ice, alongside dancing, nine-pin bowling and temporary pubs. The last Frost Fair was indeed in 1814, lasted four days – and yep, an elephant was led across the ice below Blackfriars Bridge as a stunt for delighted onlookers.
The period was enjoyably evoked here, with roast ox cheeks and all manner of other offal being eaten, while the carnival entertainment comprised wrestlers, sword swallowers, strongmen, tricksters and acrobats. Bill and the Doctor looked a treat in their finery and antique diving suits.
It’s just a shame we were a few decades too early for a cameo from the Paternoster Gang (crime-cracking team Madame Vastra, Jenny Flint and Drax). Although the Doctor did seem to be reading the children a story from 1845: The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb from Heinrich Hoffman’s Struwwelpeter. Anachronism or the beauty of time travel?
Bill continued to ask awkward questions
We noted last week how new companion Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) is acting as the voice of the people, asking all the questions that an inquisitive viewer might. She carried on doing so in her first historical adventure, quizzing the Doctor about the rules of time travel, how he deals with death and just why his magic wand is called a “sonic screwdriver”.
She added emotional depth, too – whether it was crying over little Spider getting gobbled up, grinning with glee when she first stepped onto the frozen Thames, urging the Doctor to save the creature’s life or enjoying the company of the urchin gang: “Get a load of you lot! Cute as!”
Bill’s also a sharp shot with a thrown lantern, which came in handy.
Overt politics spiced up the script
As might be expected from only the Doctor’s second black companion (after Freema Agyeman’s Martha Jones – we don’t count Noel Clarke’s Mickey Smith as full-time), Bill’s diversity is leading to some delicious dialogue. About to step out of the Tardis and back 200 years, she reminded the Doctor: “Hello? Melanin. It’s 1814. Slavery is still totally a thing.”
However, she was soon looking around the crowd and noting: “Regency England’s a bit more black than they show in the movies.” The Doctor fired straight back: “So was Jesus. History’s a whitewash.”
The Doctor picked up on the political mood. He socked villainous Lord Sutcliffe (Nicholas Burns, aka Nathan Barley himself) on the jaw when he was racist to Bill and told him: “Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value you place on one life.”
Despite his sneering absence of compassion, Sutcliffe soon got his comeuppance. After he was swallowed up by his own greed, the Doctor turned the steel magnate’s well-appointed pile into an orphanage. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Old-fashioned caper had a festive feel
Come on, admit it – you felt a tad Christmassy too. There was snow, merriment and Dickensian costume. When the rosy-cheeked urchins started tucking into their surprise feast, this episode felt fully festive. Just two weeks ago, The Doctor and Bill exchanged Christmas gifts in “The Pilot”. Christmas is coming once a fortnight in this series.
There was a giddy, nostalgic tone to this adventure, from its rollicking pace to old-school touches like our heroes being tied up back-to-back.
At one point, the Doctor told Bill: “It’s just time travel, don’t over-think it.” It’s as if showrunner Steven Moffat and his team have taken this advice to heart, set aside the clever-clogs plotting and restored the series to its factory settings as a family-friendly romp.
Another fudged ending and more shonky FX
Last week’s story, “Smile”, was let down by a rushed ending. The denouement here was almost as disappointing. Sutcliffe tried to blow up the ice for a reason that wasn’t entirely clear. When the creature swam off down the Thames to freedom, its strange scale and unconvincing appearance resembled a Fifties monster movie.
It was far more effective during the close-ups of open jaws or blinking eyes – or in those sinister Jaws-like shots from below the ice.
Tutor role suits Peter Capaldi
Bill is having a beneficial effect on the 12th Doctor (Peter Capaldi). Casting himself as her mentor is bringing out the best in him. He was twinkly and avuncular as he taught Bill to roll with the time-travel punches and wowed her with his impassioned speech. He still found time to hand out stolen pies, redistribute wealth and learn a coin-tossing trick.
Capaldi was on funny form too, referring to the giant sub-aqua serpent as “Tiny. The Loch-less monster. The not-so-Little Mermaid” and unsuccessfully attempting to get down with the kids: “Hang tight. Laters! Awesome. Respect.” Dad, stop being so embarrassing.
First of two female writers this series
Doctor Who has often been criticised for a lack of females on its writing team – with some justification, since the show was written solely by men for seven years.
Two of this run’s 12 episodes – still a low ratio, admittedly, but better than it has been – are written by women. Playwright Rona Munro’s episode arrives in June but first came this story from Sarah Dollard, an Australian whose CV includes Merlin, Primeval, Being Human, The Game and The Halcyon.
Dollard’s Who debut was 2015’s spooky “Face the Raven” – aka the one where Clara Oswald was killed.
Mystery of the vault thickens
“Here’s your tea. I put a bit of coffee in it as well, just to give it some flavour.”
The Doctor’s underused valet Nardole (Matt Lucas), only sighted for mere minutes again this week, seems far more dedicated to guarding the mysterious vault than his boss. He once again chided the Doctor for “going off-world” and not “sticking to your oath”.
Whatever dangerous entity is locked inside the vault seems keen to get out, banging ominously on the doors. We assume this will be a series-long story arc. Although since next week’s episode is titled “Knock Knock”, perhaps not…
Haunted house horror next week
It’s back to the present-day next Saturday, with Bill moving into a creepy house-share – where a certain David Suchet is her mysterious landlord. Wonder if he’ll use his little grey cells? See you back here to discuss it, mon ami.
“A splendid production and a story with hidden depths”
★★★★★ I do love a Doctor Who story with hidden depths. Not one that simply runs from A to B or even zigzags and “timey-wimeys” between start and finish. But one that pauses to explore character and give our heroes a moral dimension. The writer Sarah Dollard accomplishes this beautifully in Thin Ice. She wipes away a dusting of frost to give us a window into the Doctor’s soul and examines his moral code; the ideals he aspires to and the crimes and misdemeanours he’s prepared to indulge.
It’s not so much that the Doctor blithely admits, “I’m a bit of a thief myself.” We’ve long known he stole the Tardis from the Time Lords. Here he steals from a pie maker; a crime that is only partly atoned for when he hands most of the pies to a band of child beggars. (In Les Misérables, set around the same time, Jean Valjean got five years in jail for stealing a loaf of bread.)
It’s more the Doctor’s behaviour when the little urchin, Spider, is sucked under the ice. His only concern is that he managed to prize his sonic screwdriver from the child’s grasp before he plunged to his death. While Bill is stunned by what she’s witnessed, the Time Lord simply caresses his tool in relief. Quite rightly Bill is appalled, and it compels her to start asking more searching questions. “If you care so much, tell me how many people you’ve seen die.” “I don’t know,” is his honest answer. “I care but I move on.”
As if that wasn’t enough to needle him, Bill follows it up with: “Have you ever killed anyone? There’s a look in your eyes sometimes that makes me wonder.” We know that the Doctor has killed. He’s been responsible for deaths many times. In his very first televised adventure William Hartnell’s Doctor was going to club to death a caveman. We also know that his chief aim is to preserve life, and that occasionally he faces terrible dilemmas. But it’s rare that a companion puts him on the spot. “There are situations where the options available are limited,” he dodges. “How many?” she persists. “Don’t tell me. You’ve moved on.”
This is great material and the actors knock it home perfectly – Pearl Mackie with lip-curled disgust and Peter Capaldi with a steady expression but eyes swivelling uneasily. The Doctor realises that Bill’s directness and empathy deserve honesty. “I am 2,000 years old and I have never had the time for the luxury of outrage.” That one little scene is worth rewatching. I have. Several times over. It’s superb.
Mackie has a deeply empathic presence and Capaldi is the best he’s ever been at the wit, fury and remoteness of the Time Lord. He’s like Tom Baker c1976. After all these years the Doctor remains unknowable, his actions unguessable. That’s why it’s effective when they’re in the parlour of Lord Sutcliffe. He cautions Bill to proceed with “diplomacy, tact, charm if necessary” when they meet the man who “uses human beings for raw material, who grinds up children for profit” – but then he lamps his lordship after his sexist, classist but mainly racist treatment of Bill.
I cheered and laughed when the Doctor snapped. I love that he defends his friend on impulse. So, it’s racism that hits the Time Lord’s moral outrage button. Theft is fine. Killing…? Mmm, depends. Child-grinding…? Let’s talk. But racism…? Verboten! Racism is unconscionable. But it tells us much about the BBC, television drama in general and our society’s moral compass when that one issue is The Final Straw.
Thin Ice doesn’t make a big deal about racism but it does deal with it. When the Tardis first arrives, Bill is impressed to find that “Regency London [is] a bit more black than they show in the movies”. OK, this is 2017 and BBC drama has an admirable policy to provide multi-ethnic casts, no matter what the setting or period. For years, Doctor Who has striven to observe this directive across all time and space. But for millennia, London, as everyone should realise, has been a melting pot of ethnic diversity.
Bill’s first concern that in Regency England “slavery is still totally a thing” is prescient, the key to the whole story. The captive elephant is emblematic of this, and bound in chains on the river bed is a monstrous serpent. It gobbles revellers and urchins who are drawn though the ice and it eventually excretes them as some kind of wonder-poo – fuel for the steel mills that burns a thousand times longer than coal. But its enslavers, especially Lord Sutcliffe, are the real monsters.
The dark face of Empire and the Industrial Revolution, Sutcliffe (Nicholas Burns, better known for comic roles in Nathan Barley and Benidorm) doesn’t have an ounce of compassion. His inhumanity is what finally compels the Doctor to take a moral stance: “Human progress isn’t measured by industry. It’s measured by the value you place on a life. An unimportant life. A life without privilege. The boy who died on the river. That boy’s value is your value. That’s what defines an age. That’s what defines a species.” Another fine speech given great weight by Peter Capaldi.
It’s poetic justice that Sutcliffe’s fate – plunging through the ice into the jaws of the serpent – is the one he had wished upon others. How apt that the Doctor uses the creature’s explosive faeces to detonate its shackles and set it free. As it splashes away down the Thames like a massive East End eel, magnificently realised but wisely never fully exposed, this “loch-less monster” becomes a mythological creature Doctor Who can claim for itself.
Matching Dollard’s script and the leads’ performances, this is a splendid production. Blackfriars Bridge, New Lime Wharf and the frozen Thames are studio-built sets, impressive in size, their limits blurred by mist. The effects of looking up through, and down through, the ice and the underwater, riverbed sequences are all terrific. If there’s any one failing, it’s that no one really looks cold enough.
It amuses me that Thin Ice is set in the same year and location as Taboo, BBC1’s filthy and rather more adult drama, which ended on Saturday nights a few weeks ago. Both are brilliant but could be happening in other universes entirely. In Thin Ice, the Londoners look remarkably clean (a smudge here and there), the violence is mild and the language is censored. As Bill says, “No sh…!”
This is a post-UK broadcast review of Doctor Who. River Song always warned the Doctor against spoilers, so be sure to watch the episode first. Doctor Who broadcasts on Saturdays at 7:20pm UK time on BBC One, and 9pm EDT on BBC America.
Thin Ice is a classic, thoroughly entertaining Doctor Who episode with a plot that finally breaks the ice on series 10 of the popular sci-fi show, while still having time to put kids (both on screen and the hide-behind-the-sofa variety) at the centre of the story.
There is more room for Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) to discover what the Doctor’s motivations are—alongside a good dash of Time Lord ethics: “if I don’t move on, more people die,” he says as a little boy disappears under the ice, never to be seen again. But when he’s challenged by Bill, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) says: “I’m 2,000 years old and I’ve never had the time for the luxury of outrage.”
I’ve always enjoyed a new companion being shown the ropes: The audience knows what to expect from the “bigger on the inside” line to the sidekick learning about how the Doctor so nonchalantly responds to death and destruction. But the process seems to deliberately be burning a little longer this time, clearly signalling to the audience that the introduction of Bill also represents the twelfth Doctor’s imminent farewell.
The first two episodes struggled to dance between the mostly-excellent teacher/student friendship and somewhat inconsistent sci-fi plot lines. Thin Ice, however, skates through with ease. Writer Sarah Dollard—whose debut episode, Face the Raven, “killed off” Clara last season—ably steers the whole thing through a (Moby Dick)ensian world.
Sword swallowers, a circus elephant, and cheeky, pick-pocketing kids who could easily be the distant cousins of Oliver Twist, all entertain the time-travelling duo as they amble along the frozen River Thames and gawp at the last great frost fair.
It’s not just the TARDIS that, to Bill, looks a little out of place in this 200-year-old scene, though. Incongruous green lights darting beneath the ice catch her attention, too.
The glow worm-style fish react to the sound of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver (NB: this is a far superior tool to sonic sunglasses, which thankfully have so far made only a minor appearance in this year’s series—here’s hoping it stays that way!). The fish circle around whomever the unfortunate soul is who happens to be isolated alone on the ice, and then suck the victim below the surface where a salivating and imprisoned Tiny the serpent waits to be fed.
And while the first episode of Doctor Who lazily used a well-worn trope for Heather, it’s good to see that the “black guy gets it first!” plot device has no truck here in another instalment where, pleasingly, the cast isn’t made up of a bunch of white dudes.
The episode tackles racism head on—”slavery is still totally a thing,” says Bill, as she exits the TARDIS and surveys the icy landscape in 1814, the year of the freakish London Beer Flood. A little later she says to the Doctor that Regency England is “a bit more black than they show on the movies.” He responds: “So was Jesus. History’s a whitewash.”
Two slimy serpents feature in Thin Ice: the one snaking beneath the Thames and the other, steel baron Lord Sutcliffe (Nicholas Burns), who is living on dry land, feeding kids to the beast below, and milking Tiny’s poop for profit. The serpent monster produces fuel powerful enough for interstellar travel, the Doctor says. “Shhhhhit,” indeed, Bill!
Gone fishing
Capaldi turns in another fine performance in this episode, and it will be a shame to see his Doctor regenerate into a different actor. His monologue about humanity is kick-ass and comes after the diplomacy charm offensive with the racist Sutcliffe fails.
“Human progress isn’t measured by industry, it’s measured by the value you place on a life, an unimportant life, a life without privilege. The boy who died on the river, that boy’s value is your value, that’s what defines an age, that’s what defines a species,” the Doctor says.
Thin Ice works so well by weaving between different worlds, giving the audience a dual meaning about slavery and freedom. The Doctor sagely tells Bill it’s irrelevant whether the serpent is alien or terrestrial. Tiny, Bill realises, should be set free from its chains. And the result is both powerful and touching.
But what about the Doctor’s old foes, the reptilian Ice Warriors? Were they also lurking underneath the Thames? Or could they be the ones that are noisily banging behind the door of the mysterious vault, which an increasingly irritated and neglected Nardole (Matt Lucas) is guarding?
Bonus round: Will we see Peregrine Sutcliffe again? And who the hell is Pete?
Right, where were we? Oh, that’s right! Elephant on the Thames…
Last week we went to the future, so of course this week we popped back to the past.
The third episode of Doctor Who Series 10 sees the TARDIS divert our adventurers to Regency London.
The Thames has frozen over, so naturally a fair ensues.
And, of course, there’s a big scary monster under the ice with a taste for humans. Otherwise, this would just be a period costume drama about people who nick pies.
So, if you haven’t watched Thin Ice yet, stop reading now.
Spoilers lurk below…
There’s actually a lot to love in Thin Ice.
Firstly, any time Doctor Who dips a toe into period drama it really goes for it.
It delivers a grand scale for the Frost Fair, with an army of extras, wonderful costumes and sets filled with small touches that all come together to create a visually engaging 45 minutes.
The main plot stays within familiar ground but not in a detrimental way. A mysterious creature under the ice is killing off unsuspecting Londoners. Our heroes investigate with the help of some adorable scamps, only to find out the creature is a prisoner of a villainous business man. The beast is freed, people are saved and back in time for tea. Sci-fi goodness.
And of course, some great comedy moments. Pete and the butterfly, a top hat full of stolen pies and the return of Dr Disco.
But Thin Ice wins out with great subplots, by steering into the wave of difficult themes and some superb acting from our leads and guest stars.
There’s some cracking performances turned in by the children of the episode. Kitty, played by Asiatu Koroma, and her band of orphans are endearing from the very start and you actually share The Doctor’s care about their safety.
The viewer doesn’t really care about the extra playing ‘Drunk Man #1’ being killed off, but I was genuinely a little shocked when Spider The Lovable Orphan was swallowed into the ice. You really thought he was going to be saved, even when The Doctor stated there’s nothing to be done. I mean, Doctor Who won’t kill a kid in prime time would they..? Oh, yes. Yes, they did.
That will teach people not to nick sonic screwdrivers.
Death is everywhere in Doctor Who and it seems it’s getting harder to gloss over it so quickly.
The scene of the episode has to be Bill’s discovery that The Doctor is steeped in death, albeit for the very best of reasons. Thin Ice serves up a morality play for both the audience and Bill – that this time travelling alien is doing the best he can but people do die and The Doctor has to move on.
It’s a recurring theme in the show that gets addressed in different ways and here we get echoes of Matt Smith and David Tennant’s dungeon scene from The Day Of The Doctor.
Pearl Mackie turns in a great performance, conveying Bill’s struggle and contempt at the idea her friendly tutor can be quite so casual about death.
The cleverness of the episode, is bringing Bill more in line with his morality towards the end. He lets her make the crucial decision about releasing the creature’s chains almost as a test. People could have died.
It was also good to see Doctor Who deal with historic race issues for a change. When The Doctor and Martha travelled back in time, any questions about how black people were treated historically were skipped over or trivialised.
Thin Ice puts the uncomfortable truth front and centre more than once.
This Doctor is visibly uncomfortable with the issue of black slavery, calls whitewashing of history out for what it is and for good measure punches a racist in the face. No subtle, but it is effective and great that this theme didn’t become the elephant in the room.
And then we’re back home for some serious telling off from Nardole and another round of ‘Vault Teasing’. Yes, we get it. The Vault will be important later, but do we need a cryptic mini scene every week?
And what if… what if there really WAS a Pete who stepped on a butterfly and was wiped from existence? That’s just the sort of thing Steven Moffat would do.
Overall, Thin Ice is a satisfying episode that isn’t afraid to get serious at times. What could have easily been yet another trip to Ye Olde London is saved by serving up layers and depth. Bill continues to go from strength to strength, as a companion who calls The Doctor out when he needs it.
‘Doctor Who’ showrunner Steven Moffat has confirmed that the show will tackle issues of whitewashing and race in the next episode of the series.
The Doctor and new companion Bill landed in 1800s London at the end of last week’s instalment, with this weekend’s follow-up picking up right where they left off.
But while usual portrayals of Britain during that era aren’t always the most racially diverse, Steven Moffat has revealed he’ll be seizing the opportunity to make a point about race.
He told TV Guide: “History is always whitewashed How do we manage to have a diverse cast despite that?
“The way that we did it was… [to just] say that you will see people of different colours there. In fact, there were. People all didn’t arrive in the twinkle of an eye. It is bending history slightly, but in a progressive and useful way.
“Also, it wouldn’t be a pleasant place for [Bill] in several respects. Taking that on is just respectful of the audience really.”
Steven added: “[The episode is] a chance to… I’m always reluctant to sound so pious and so do-gooding and all of that. It’s useful that these things are talked about. The evil in ‘Doctor Who’ can sometimes be the evil in our real world, too.”
The current series of the BBC sci-fi saga has already won praise for its inclusivity, thanks to the arrival of the first ever gay assistant, played by Pearl Mackie.
But while the character has already been a hit with viewers, they probably shouldn’t get too used to her, as it’s been claimed she’s leaving at the end of the current series, along with current Time Lord Peter Capaldi.
‘Doctor Who’ continues on Saturday at 7.20pm on BBC One.
Doctor Who hasn’t been this fun in ages—or this serious.
After a pair of introductory episodes that established a promising new TARDIS team amid only so-so adventures, the Doctor and Bill finally get a story and a script worthy of them with Sarah Dollard’s brilliant “Thin Ice.” There’s much to celebrate about this episode, but more than anything else is just how much watching it made me smile. Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie are a brilliant comedic double act, with the Doctor especially getting a ton of great lines. Their early exchange about the temporally deleted companion Pete has fun with what could otherwise be standard companion questions about the perils of time travel. The Doctor gets in another round of protestations about how the sonic screwdriver is totally sonic and totally a screwdriver, seriously. His ongoing obsession with working out the coin trick is enough to distract him from the business at hand, while he’s his usual ingenious self getting the foreman of the workhouse to reveal everything under the guise of protecting secrets. There’s a long wind-up when the Doctor tells Bill that he must do all the talking with Lord Sutcliffe, as this delicate situation calls for diplomacy, but the punchline of him immediately punching the odious noble is all worth it.
Throughout, “Thin Ice” is effortlessly fun in a way the show hasn’t been in a long time. And, in fairness, the show hasn’t necessarily been going for fun recently, with season nine in particular drawing power from the more complex, serious stories the show could tell with a (by new series standards) long-tenured Doctor and companion pairing. But an episode like this illuminates why self-conscious “romps” like, say, “The Return Of Doctor Mysterio” rarely work. Doctor Who can’t be all sugar rush, as that gets wearing after a while, and it cuts against one of the show’s core strengths: Its ability to change tones on a dime. And my goodness, is there some tonal whiplash in “Thin Ice.” Remember the bit where the Doctor is defending the honor of his stolen sonic screwdriver? Yeah, that’s followed a couple minutes later by the gruesome death of a little boy, which the Doctor himself seemingly ignores in favor of retrieving his screwdriver.
Such sudden shifts between light and dark could undermine both aspects of the episode, but Dollard’s script is nimble enough to make keeping the audience off-balance into an asset. That can only work if the actors are confident enough in their performances to serve as an anchor for the various tones, and Capaldi and Mackie prove up to the challenge. Capaldi is the subtlest performer of the four new series Doctors. His gift for underplaying moments eases the transition between moments of comedy and drama because he never goes too far in either direction, so it’s no great challenge to accept his acting choices as those of a single, coherent character. Even when called upon to make his big Doctor speech about human equality, he goes small. Capaldi can chew the scenery with the best of them when it’s called for—his speech about war in “The Zygon Inversion” is that defined, and it might be my favorite Doctor monologue in all Doctor Who—but he plays that moment with a quiet sadness that he should even need to explain this, along with a resolute certainty that he must. When season eight presented this incarnation as a stripped-down, back-to-basics version of the Doctor, it still felt like an affectation of its own, with whimsical quirk traded in for a performative aloofness. Here though? Capaldi just is the Doctor, and it’s brilliant.
Mackie too shines in what proves to be a showcase for Bill. Her comic timing is a good match for Capaldi, bringing out Bill’s sense of humor without it feeling like she’s an actor trading wisecracks. This episode is also the first instance where Mackie is called upon to play the hallmark scene for any new series companion: the scene in which she assures a scared child that all is going to be okay. In a nice little twist on this standard scene, the girl appears unconvinced by Bill’s promises, asking what she contributes to the operation. Bill is still learning what it means to be a companion, with the Doctor explicitly still positioning himself as tutor, but both Dollard’s script and Mackie’s performance present Bill as someone whose mistakes are those of inexperience, not naivete or foolishness. What is perhaps Mackie’s foremost task is a quietly difficult one: Play Bill as a real, average person reacting to the alternately fantastical and traumatic events unfolding around her. As Bill herself points out, it was possible for her to exist at a certain detached remove in “Smile,” given the deaths didn’t happen in front of her (or, in the climax, happened too fast for her to process) and perhaps the generally futuristic setting. No such distance is possible in “Thin Ice,” as she witnesses firsthand the death of a little boy.
Perhaps my droningly encyclopedic knowledge (more on that in a second) is failing me here, but I can’t think of a previous story devoting so much time to a companion processing the first death they witness. The episode is in a tricky spot, as Bill’s reactions are the normal, healthy ones under any other circumstance, but her grief and outrage are poor fits for the Doctor Who universe. The episode first has the Doctor be right in the wrong way, with him coldly informing Bill that her reactions are neither logical nor practical, but eventually Bill and the audience both learn that of course the Doctor has time for nothing but outrage, whatever he might claim. Bill’s anger with the horrors unfolding around her and frustration with the Doctor are important character beats, but the episode can’t afford to get bogged down in just these feelings. Mackie conveys a great deal, with shades of defiance and begrudging understanding, when she tells one of the urchins that she has moved on and is working with the Doctor again.
“Thin Ice” doesn’t shy away from how racism would necessarily inform the travels of a companion of color in the Regency era. The episode follows the precedent set by previous new series stories with a double-barreled approach: The casting is diverse in a way that might more accurately reflect 2017 than 1814, but the episode doesn’t pretend the period was some post-racial utopia. This is the best of both worlds: Nobody is erased, but the episode doesn’t let the time period off the hook for its bigotries. Now, one can go too far in assessing a show based on how well it accords with a particular sociopolitical project, even if it’s one I’m hardly alone in seeing as a moral imperative. After all, if I judged shows purely on how well they accorded with my worldview, the only television a whinging lefty like me could ever watch is Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle. But “Thin Ice” is an episode with words like “privilege” and “whitewash” in its vocabulary, so it’s justified to consider how well the story grapples with these issues. There’s a stylistic choice or two that sit wrong: I could do without Bill gazing approvingly on the Doctor after his big speech, which I suppose more generally fits into the unexplored question of to what extent it matters that the Doctor—and this Doctor more than some, especially in that getup—looks like the embodiment of the very imperialism that produced an odious creature like Lord Sutcliffe. But an episode as great as this can be forgiven an occasional misstep, especially when its larger points are so sound.
For a longtime, droningly encyclopedic fan like myself—and, you know, a decent chunk of hardcore Doctor Who fans—it’s probably not hard to see the genetic material of earlier episodes in “Thin Ice.” There’s the frosty 19th century historical setting of “The Unquiet Dead.” The street urchins can’t help but recall Nancy and her little gang in “The Empty Child”/“The Doctor Dances,” though their encounters with a massive but benevolent chained beast is more “The Beast Below.” Bill’s concerns about racism recall Martha’s in “The Shakespeare Code,” while the encounters with Lord Sutcliffe are more like what nearly unavoidable factor when Martha experienced in “Human Nature”/“The Family Of Blood.” The Doctor’s insistence that Bill tell him how to proceed is reminiscent of the similar pressure he put on the humans in “Kill The Moon,” while Bill’s questioning of the Doctor’s nature has distant echoes of aspects of “The Fires Of Pompeii,” another historical story early in a companion’s run. Even Dollard herself seems to have established a particular sub-genre in which she excels, as the colorful menagerie of this forgotten corner of London is not unlike the alien trap street in her previous effort, “Face The Raven.”
Does all that make “Thin Ice” derivative? Not at all: It just makes it an episode of a show that has run for 10 seasons, to say nothing of the 26 classic seasons atop which the new series sits. It’s to be expected that stories made more than a decade into a show’s run will echo and rhyme with previous entries, and the question then is how well-executed the story is and to what extent it can find ways to subvert the formula. “Thin Ice” does some of the latter, with both Bill’s assurance to the girl and the Doctor’s big speech failing to have the expected effect. But more generally, “Thin Ice” is just Doctor Who getting out of its own head and cracking out a great episode, one that is alternately funny, adventurous, insightful, and dramatic. Bill Anderson’s direction (and, thankfully, Murray Gold’s score) is solid and unobtrusive in support of the episode’s superlative aspects, Dollard’s script and Capaldi and Mackie’s performances. More than anything else, this episode is just fun, and that’s as good an indicator as any of Doctor Who at its best.
Stray observations
- For those who want still more Doctor Who discussion, I wanted to let you all know that the podcast Debating Doctor Who is back after a lengthy hiatus (and a shocking and truly heartening number of calls for it to continue). My old cohost Caroline Siede has moved on, but in her stead is fellow A.V. Club contributor and generally brilliant person Allison Shoemaker. Give us a listen, if you fancy.
- If you’re keeping score at home, I’ve now given full marks to both of Sarah Dollard’s episodes. I know not everyone was as into “Face The Raven” as I was, but damn: Dollard is really, really good at writing Doctor Who episodes. Here’s hoping she proves a mainstay of Chris Chibnall’s tenure, as she may have surpassed “Mummy On The Orient Express” and “Flatline” writer Jamie Mathieson as the breakout writer of the Capaldi era.
- So, there’s officially something alive (or very much like it) in the Vault. Curiouser and curiouser. I do appreciate that Nardole’s reaction to it is only mostly played for laughs. He’s afraid, but he’s not totally useless before this likely fearsome threat.
- Yep, that’s right, I dropped my first “A” of the season! Every year, I promise myself I’ll be more cautious and thoughtful and recalibrate my expectations, and then I turn around and bust out the best possible (though not perfect, it should be said) score at the drop of a hat. All of which is to say: Yes, I’m aware of what some of you nice people say about me. I’m at peace with it.
The Nerdist
DOCTOR WHO’S ‘THIN ICE’ MIXES MODERN ISSUES WITH GIANT FISH (REVIEW)
The following review is full of SPOILERS. We feel we need to discuss Doctor Who as thoroughly as possible, and cannot do so without getting all up in it. So, please, go watch the episode, and then return!
I’m a bit of a broken record about this, but the best science fiction can reflect the current, modern world under the guise of being a distant future society or another planet. Doctor Who has been doing allegorical for almost 55 years, and it’s gotten to tackle everything from fascism to the terrorism to (whether the writer meant it or not) the abortion debate. But in all of those cases, the issues were veiled; in Sarah Dollard’s “Thin Ice,” despite a historical setting and sci-fi monster movie premise, the issues are front and center, and I couldn’t love it more.
Dollard was a new writer on Series 9 where she did a bang-up job writing Clara Oswald’s ostensible exit in “Face the Raven,” which had some lovely moments between the characters and a tragic ending people talked about for forever. With “Thin Ice,” though, we get the sense that she’s been able to explore the topics that are important to her, worth talking about, and don’t pull any punches. From the tackling of racism and classism to the moral dilemma of the Doctor being surrounded by death at all times and even being complicit, it’s all right there, and it’s refreshing.
To start with the latter issue first, each new companion since the reboot has had to have that moment where they realize that the Doctor is good and tries to help people, but also can’t save everyone, and has even had to kill a few people along the way. “The Fires of Pompeii” did this beautifully, as did “The Day of the Doctor,” but none have done it with such beautiful simplicity as “Thin Ice.” There are essentially two conversations: one where the Doctor says he doesn’t have time to be affected by every death, and another where he asserts he’s absolutely affected by every life. Simple, and to the point.
Dollard’s dialogue throughout the episode is stellar (Bill saying she’s low key in love with the TARDIS, and the Doctor saying he is too, is a particular favorite), but the first conversation, following the death of the child (the CHILD!!!) is the pinnacle. “If I don’t move on, more people will die,” says the Doctor. That’s true, but how callous must that sound to Bill? “I’m 2000 years old and I have never had time for the luxury of outrage,” he then says, which is a patent lie, but Bill doesn’t know that. The truth of the matter is, he’s just seen a kid die, and while “Into the Dalek” Twelfth Doctor might not have cared, “Thin Ice” Doctor has grown to care too much, but has to pretend he doesn’t in order to get through life.
As for the other, perhaps more pressing and controversial theme of the episode, “Thin Ice” deals with racism in all its ugliness in a way the show hasn’t really before. In actuality, going back in Earth’s history as often as the Doctor does, he’d run into a lot more of it than has been shown. It’s either not been addressed, or–as in “The Shakespeare Code” when Martha Jones has the incredibly valid concern that she’s a black woman wearing period inappropriate clothing in the 16th Century–the Doctor merely says for her to “just walk around like you own the place; it works for me.” Funny joke, but not a thing that’s actually helpful.
In this episode, however, upon landing in London in 1814, Bill’s first response is to be concerned about the color of her skin in a time when slavery is still a thing. The Doctor resignedly says “yes, it is,” and tells her to go put on a dress to explore the last great frost fair (which was a real thing, folks). She then remarks on how there are a lot more people of color than she expected, to which the Doctor says “History’s a whitewash,” which of COURSE it is/was. Another thing that never gets addressed. The whole episode is about how history tends to forget things, even monsters trapped under the River Thames.
All of this is context, but once we meet the villain, it becomes much more immediate. In an episode about a giant underwater fish that uses smaller fish to find and suck people under the ice for it to eat, the actual villain turns out to be nothing more than a simple, hateful, aristocratic racist. In 1814, this wasn’t so uncommon, but the Doctor cannot stand for him speaking to Bill the way he does. And not only this, but the man, Sutcliffe, uses the giant fish’s waste from eating people (poor people and children, mind) for energy cubes that will burn hotter and longer than coal. “Doesn’t that save lives?” he callously asks.
Sutcliffe represents the classist disdain for those lesser than him, not to mention his horrific beliefs on race. The Doctor, in his beautifully delivered speech about decency and worth of every individual, mentions “the accident of birth”: being born into wealth and privilege as the defining factor that makes Sutcliffe better than the urchins he subjects to aquatic fishy death. If one life matters, then they all do. Dollard, without putting too fine a point on it (but finer than most) has embodied the intolerant and the hatefully wealthy in a villain just about all of us can be a-okay with getting his comeuppance.
“Thin Ice” is such a good episode. You’ll notice that I hardly mentioned the fish plot, and that’s because it’s about so much more than that. This is an episode with a clear point of view that cannot be misread, and I love it for that. Both Peter Capaldi and Pearl Mackie are masterful, the setting is properly gloomy, and the resolution is incredibly fulfilling.
Oh, I guess we ought to talk about that tag with Nardole and the knocking in the vault. I’m guessing it’s the John Simm Master, a future version of the Doctor, or a third unrelated thing. Thoughts?
Next week, we get an episode I’m very excited about (which is all of them, I grant you). “Knock Knock” by Mike Bartlett looks to be a good ol’ haunted house story, with David Suchet–Hercule Poirot himself!
Let me know your thoughts about this episode–and any episode, really–in the comments below!