Time for the Doctor to be a bank robber! Huh? The Doctor takes on a new job on this week’s Doctor Who episode, titled Time Heist. What did you think of it? Check out Violet and Josh’s thoughts along with Josh’s episode recap after the jump!
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Episode Recap of Doctor Who, Season 8 Episode 5: Time Heist
This episode of Doctor Who begins with the Doctor planning their next trip, but Clara has plans. She got a date with Dan, and as she is about to leave, the phone rings on the TARDIS. The Doctor says that no one but a strange woman in a shop has that number. Clara warns him to not answer the phone. Suddenly they wake up in a room, with a “memory worm” which deletes memories, and two other beings–a shapeshifter and an “augmented human”. There is a recording of all four agreeing to this memory wipe, for which of course they can’t remember.
Another recording comes up, and someone called the “Architect” tells them they are going to have to rob the most well guarded bank in the galaxy. The augmented human downloads the instructions provided by the Architect to his memory chip.
The person who runs the bank, Ms. Delphox, asks about the intruders, but the guard that found the 4 intruders touched the memory worm–and lost his memory.
The shapeshifter gets the group into the bank, where they conveniently see another “customer” being interrogated. A creature is a part of the interrogation, who apparently can read minds. He is called “the Teller.” The customer’s account and mind is deleted. This freaks out the group of bank robbers obviously.
The Doctor and company access the vault of the person the shapeshifter took the form of. They find a bomb in the vault. They look at the blue prints for the bank, to try to figure out where the bomb should be. They decide to use the bomb on the floor of the vault, and head into the bowels of the bank.
They find another case in the bottom of the bank, but the contents they can’t identify. They progress on, further into the bank, and the shapeshifter accuses the Doctor of knowing what the devices are. The Doctor does know what they are, but is keeping it a secret for now.
In the journey, they find the Teller, who is in “forced hibernation”. The Teller attempts to lock onto Clara’s thoughts. The Teller moves to the shapeshifter, debilitating her. The Doctor gives her one of the devices in the case they found earlier. She disappears, presumably killing her.
They find the vault, along with another case, which has a code inside. Meanwhile, Delphox has unleashed the Teller to find them. The Doctor and Clara run, separate ways to try to throw off the Teller. The augmented human attempts to break into the vault.
The Teller locks onto Clara, and paralyzes her. The augmented human tries to lure him away, and does so successfully. He uses one of the devices from the case, and vanishes/presumably dies as well.
The vault unfortunately did not open. Suddenly a solar storm begins interfering with the bank systems, and the storm causes the vault to open. The Doctor realizes that the person who sent them to rob the bank was from the future, knowing this solar storm would happen at this exact time.
The code leads to a specific box in the vault. Inside the vault are things people in the group wanted–a memory recovery device for the augmented human and a gene supressor so that shapeshifters can remain themselves when touching another.
The Doctor and Clara are captured. The guards are told to get rid of the two. Turns out the guards are the shapeshifter and augmented human, and that the devices were used to teleport to an escape ship. The Doctor gives the two their gifts.
The Doctor then decides to pay a visit to the owner of the bank. Turns out the owner has a clone doing her management. The Doctor has a thought, and demands silence. He gives his TARDIS phone number to the owner of the bank. The solar storm begins to tear apart the bank, and the owner flees.
The Doctor then decides its time for his memory to come back, and the only way is to face down the Teller.
Flashing back to the phone call in the beginning, we see that the owner as an old lady calls on her death bed, asking for a favor from the Doctor. The Doctor then sees that he is the Architect, and planted the cases. The teller then opens a vault, and inside the vault is his mate, in chains and sickly. The Doctor saves the two creatures, and they go off and live on a foresty planet.
The augmented human and shapeshifter say their goodbyes. Clara heads home, and heads out for her date.
Josh’s Thoughts: Doctor Who, Season 8 Episode 5: Time Heist
The second time around, I actually enjoyed this episode a lot more. There is a lot of fun stuff going on in this episode. Unfortunately, the twist was a little predictable though, as I figured the Architect was the Doctor for the very beginning. But the journey of the Doctor and Clara figuring out what was going on was interesting. It felt a lot like Memento, the movie starring Guy Pearce, or other movies I can’t think of the name of, where people’s memories are wiped, and it slowly begins coming back to them.
I think we are starting to see the exhaustion set in for Clara though with the whole time travel thing. She wasn’t too excited to go on a trip with the Doctor, which is a little odd since no time would pass for the rest of the world (given the Doctor manages to get her back to the same time she left). But on the other hand I can see the personal toll it might have on someone who has to save the world for an inexplicable amount of time, then come home and go on a date. That could be a bit of an issue.
So far, I am warming up to Peter Capaldi pretty well though. I enjoy his delivery as the Doctor. In this episode, when he is trying to figure out the whole plan, and he is muttering to himself, he was entertaining to watch.
What I am still missing is the multi-episode arch! I thought it was developing with the mystery woman from “Heaven”, but she was strangely absent this episode. Hopefully she pops up more next episode.
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 8 Episode 5 of Doctor Who: Time Heist
This was a fun episode, probably my second favorite of the season, after Listen. However, knowing ahead of time that the title of the episode was Time Heist, I was expecting it to involve literally stealing a segment of time, so I was a little disappointed when it was clarified that this was a “time travel heist,” rather than merely a time heist. But I suppose the title Time Heist sounds catchier than Time Travel Heist, so I guess that’s how they ended up with that misleading title. Ah well, I’ll forgive them for that, because the caper that the Doctor and the others pulled off was actually quite entertaining to watch. Even though it was fairly obvious that the Doctor was the Architect the whole time. They did wait awhile to reveal this to the audience, though, even trying to throw us off when the Doctor has his epiphany that he has always known a certain thing about the Architect: that he hates the Architect. That didn’t fool me though, as it seemed entirely possible that he hates himself, especially after Into the Dalek when he realized how much hate was inside of him, and having the dalek call him a “good dalek.”
One thing I don’t like about some Doctor Who episodes is when they meet someone new, and all of a sudden they’re best buddies and hugging and stuff. Sometimes it feels natural, depending on the character and the situation, but other times it feels forced. Here, the close relationship between Psi (the augmented human) and Clara seemed really random and unwarranted. They’ve only just met, but he’s sacrificing himself for her, and then they seem to be best friends by the end.
Also, it was kind of odd how everyone on this mission has a “special power” (although the Doctor’s “power” of being in charge is a bit of a stretch), yet Clara has none. Wouldn’t the others, well the two newcomers, that is, wonder what’s the point of having her there?
Oh, one thing that I did like was how the Doctor told Clara to change her shoes. At the beginning, when it is pointed out that Clara is taller because she’s wearing heels, I thought to myself, “Hmm, yeah that’s probably not a good idea to be wearing heels if you’re going on an adventure with the Doctor. This is not going to go well…” But the Doctor wisely had her change them, which was a good thing, since they did quite a lot of running around. So yay for that.
Overall, I enjoyed this episode, because it was not only timey-wimey, but also ventured into a futuristic, off-planet world, and I love when that happens on Doctor Who (usually). I’m still enjoying Peter Capaldi’s performance as the Twelfth Doctor; however, I’m still getting used to the Twelfth Doctor himself. I’ve not quite embraced this Doctor yet, but I feel like I’m getting close to it.
So, that’s two episodes in a row that we haven’t heard from Missy, or any details about “The Promised Land.” Think we’re due for it next episode? It seems like we should be. It feels odd that this new character and idea would be introduced and then suddenly dropped without any mention in the middle of the season. We shall see!
Scenes from Doctor Who, Season 8 Episode 6: The Caretaker
Here are scenes from the next episode of Doctor Who, titled The Caretaker:
I did actually watch this episode of Doctor Who – not really with any high hopes – and honestly, I was disappointed. I used to be a big Doctor Who obsessie, but lately I think they’ve somehow managed to completely ruin the amazingness of it. Capaldi would have been a great doctor, I think, but it’s the writing that’s faulty. Still, I still have fond memories of what doctor who used to be like, so I’m not completely complaining..