On Season 8 Episode 9 of Doctor Who, the TARDIS gets even smaller on the outside, while Clara seems to take on the role of the Doctor. Check out our recap for this episode, titled Flatlines, while Josh and Violet both provide thoughts at the end!
Don’t need the Doctor Who episode recap for Flatline? Click here to jump directly to Violet’s thoughts on the episode!
To see Josh’s thoughts on this week’s Doctor Who episode, Flatline, click here to get directly there!
Episode Recap of Doctor Who Episode 9: Flatline
So on this episode of Doctor Who, we have a lot of “peculiar” things going on. The episode opens to a man on the phone freaking out, saying that “they are all around”, whoever “they” may be. He is suddenly taken it seems, and we see that he seems to have been two dimensionalized, and spread onto a wall like a painting.
After the intro, Clara decides it is time to head home. The Doctor heads to drop her off, but something is “ishy” about the TARDIS readings he says. Then Clara looks at the door, which seems to have shrank. he looks outside, and apparently the TARDIS is now even smaller on the outside…
He squirms out along with Clara, and they begin investigating. The Doctor seems excited yet concerned at the same time. The Doctor messes around in the TARDIS a little more, and… the TARDIS shrinks further.
Then, meeting the “companion of the day”, a graffiti artist seems to be being told to clean up some of his artwork by an overbearing man not too happy with his job it would seem. Clara bumps into him, and the graffiti kid explains that a bunch of people have disappeared. Clara heads back to the TARDIS, which is now pocket-sized. The Doctor seems a little more concerned now, than excited. He seems trapped in the TARDIS until he figures out what is going on. The best solution the Doctor has? For Clara to pick him and the TARDIS up, and have her investigate with the sonic screwdriver, which he passes through the tiny door. He also gives her a device that allows him to see and hear what she does.
Clara has a little fun, calling herself the Doctor with her new friend, Rigsy, the graffiti artist. Rigsy shows Clara one of the disappeared person’s house. Inside the TARDIS, there is something draining the power in the house, so the Doctor has Clara take the TARDIS outside.
So the next idea the Doctor has, is handing Clara a sledgehammer through the TARDIS, and looking for the disappeared people in the walls. Meanwhile, we see the walls move near a cop that let them into another missing person’s house. We then see the woman cop sucked into the floor, flattened.
The Doctor then begins to put things together, and the Doctor thinks that whatever is doing this, is experimenting on the people that go missing. Clara and Rigsy are trapped in a room, and the Doctor warns them to avoid coming in contact with the creature in the walls/floors/ceiling. As Clara tries to avoid trouble, she gets a call from Dan, and in an effort to not alarm him, tries to remain calm while freaking out at the same time.
Then the Doctor comes up with an answer–the creatures are from a two dimensional universe.
Rigsy then gets upset with his superior who was having the mural painted over. The Doctor realizes that the mural is actually the disappeared people’s bodies, stuck in the walls. Clara’s group seems to grow, now containing the workers who were watching the community service people painting the walls.
The Doctor’s next idea is to figure out how to talk to these creatures, to see if they are intentionally hurting humans or if it is an accident. Using a siren, he tries to communicate. The creatures are saying the jacket numbers of the employees, and the next one is taken–number 22…
Clara winds up running into a dead end, within a train tunnel. The Doctor comes up with a device that can 3 dimensionalize objects, but it doesn’t seem to work. Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor is having some weird readings, and outside another person is taken. Then, creepy “zombie” like images begin coming for Clara. “2DIS” does finally work, and allows the group to escape briefly. As they flee, Clara drops the TARDIS down a shaft, and as luck would have it, he is on train tracks with a train coming. He manages to use his hand to move the tiny TARDIS, (think Addam’s Family The Thing-like), but it tilts and falls back on to the tracks. He gets stuck inside the TARDIS from lack of power.
Meanwhile, Clara comes up with a plan, and stops an oncoming training. She decides the best course of action is to ramp some tunnel blockage. Rigsy decides to take it upon himself to ram it, sacrificing himself. Clara jumps aboard though, and gets him off the train before it crashes. Clara finds the TARDIS which has changed shape. She picks it up, then has to flee more zombie-like creatures.
Clara’s next plan is to try to energize the TARDIS, so it is unlocked. She has Rigsy paint a fake door, places the TARDIS on the other side of the “door”, and waits for the creatures to try to make it 3 dimensional. This causes the TARDIS to receive the energy used, recharging it. The TARDIS snaps back into action, and the Doctor eradicates the zombie-like creatures.
And thus the world is saved, and everyone is dropped off where they belong. Clara and the Doctor have a quick exchange about her being a good Doctor, but most importantly in the final scenes, the woman from “Paradise” is back, and seems set on taking Clara next.
Josh’s Thoughts: Doctor Who, Season 8 Episode 9: Flatline
This was an odd episode, but an interesting premise. I wonder if a two dimensional universe could exist? It sure would be an interesting universe to observe, but now, from this episode, I wonder if we want visitors from such a place!
This episode seemed about role reversals for the Doctor and Clara though. Clara seemed to be forced to take the leadership role to a certain extent, while the Doctor seemed stuck watching, chiming in the best he could.
Another interesting theme this episode is the “what can I tell my boyfriend about the Doctor and our adventures” . Before with Rory and Amy, there didn’t seem to be such a weird necessity to keep stuff secret. Rory was always a little more concerned about their adventures, but Amy wasn’t afraid to tell him about what was going on. I find it strange that Clara feels the need to keep it secret from Dan. I am kind of hoping that Dan gets in on the adventures, and possibly has a change of heart on the whole traveling thing.
One weird thing I thought of with Dan and Clara though–if Clara is so concerned about Dan’s knowledge of the adventures, she could simply not tell him anything. As long as the Doctor is relatively accurate with when she is dropped back off at her time/place, Dan would never know. I guess it would be exhausting for Clara to try to keep both worlds separate, but it sort of seems that way now.
But I wonder if we will be seeing more of the Paradise woman now. She seems to have put her target on Clara, so I wonder if that is what is happening next episode. I guess we shall see this week!
Violet’s Thoughts on Season 8 Episode 9 of Doctor Who: Flatline
This was another good episode that I liked, but again, did not love. It was interesting, and the effects of 2D versus 3D were pretty well done, I thought. Occasionally they looked a little cheesy, but overall, the effects looked quite good. It was also funny to see Clara take over as the Doctor, and to see the Doctor’s reaction to what she was doing and saying!
This episode, the Doctor figured out that Clara was lying to him about Danny. I am wondering if she also lied about the fact that Danny was the one who was not okay with her traveling with the Doctor, and that she in fact was the one who decided to stop. Before, Danny had seemed fine with it, as long as he didn’t push her too far. Though if that’s true, I don’t know why she would go through all the trouble to keep it from Danny the fact that she had decided to keep traveling with the Doctor. Maybe she just didn’t want to admit that she was wrong? Also, why did she find it necessary to answer the phone when she and Rigsy were trying to fight for their lives against the 2D creatures?? Shouldn’t she have just let it go to voicemail? Anyway, I’m pretty sure from that call, Danny can figure out that Clara’s been lying to him about the Doctor. I don’t think he’ll be so mad about her continuing to travel with him as much as he will be about the fact that she lied to him about it. I think it’s about time we got an episode that focuses more on Clara and Danny’s relationship and gets everything out in the open.
At the end, we get a glimpse of Missy, who says “My Clara, I have chosen well.” What does that even mean?? Chosen for what? I’m really not liking how we’re getting these tiny bits and pieces of this overarching storyline, and that it seems like we’re not going to really delve into this until probably the last episode.
So far, this season of Doctor Who hasn’t been all that great to me. I don’t think there have been any episodes that I absolutely loved. Maybe it’s because I’m still getting used to the new Doctor, though I feel like I have accepted him as of a couple episodes ago. I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel like a very strong season thus far. I hope these last few episodes will step it up.
Scenes from Doctor Who, Episode 10, In the Forest of the Night
Here are scenes from next week’s Doctor Who episode titled In the Forest of the Night:
