Think I’d better mention that I don’t like spiders.
They have the effect of creeping me out. Too many legs, eyes and fangs. Don’t forget the fangs. Then there’s the webs wrapping you up, covering you, suffocating you. Being mummified alive. Trapped in tomb no bigger than yourself, screaming silently as you slowly die…
Anyway Arachnids in the UK was meant to be a horror story. Back in the day Doctor Who was legendary for scaring people, the joke being the viewers often hid behind the sofa to het away from the terrifying things they had to see. Horror has been a staple of Doctor Who since it’s inception and it’s always been that The Doctor taught children it was alright to be scared. That fear was good and bravery wasn’t the absence of fear, but doing what had to be done despite it.
It was one of the best lines in the Curse of the Fatal Death (a comic relief skit on Doctor Who from the 90’s) when the Doctor was thought dead that summed it up wonderfully:- “…It will never be safe to be scared again.”
This is why we needed a horror story, specially around halloween. We needed to be scared. To be terrified. To be brave. So, were we?
Kind of, yes.
I would actually describe Arachnids in the UK as a tribute to shlock horror movies. There’s a whole sub-genre of horror films that feature some aspect of nature grow wildly out of control. Films like Night of the Lepus. Usually these films feature morally questionable experiments going awry or Nature fighting back against mankind’s often selfish actions.
In this episode we got a morality tale about (wo)man’s science messing with nature and things it shouldn’t trifle with. How the quick solution isn’t always, or ever, the best one. We also got to see the real monster, as always, is the worse excesses of humanity. Which all worked in a way and all straight from classic monster horror movies.
We also got some nice character development with the companions. A bit more development with this version of the Doctor (we find she’s exceptionally bad in social situations) and we got to meet Yaz’s family.
So a fairly well packed episode on the surface, but, unlike the hotel, when you dig deeper there’s very little there. There’s no moral conundrum, no greater meaning and no cliffhanger ending, or showing the repercussions for any and all involved.
The worse thing, however, is that the Doctor doesn’t really do anything. Does she stop the experiments being done on the spiders? Telling the Scientist that it’s a really bad idea and she should be using her knowledge for a better purpose? Nope. We don’t even get a pat, “I know better now, some things are not meant to be toyed with.” from them. The Third Doctor, while preachy at times, was a master of this sort of thing. And as for the other scientist, the dead one, did anyone call the authorities? What about the Giant Spiders trapped in the panic room? What’s going to happen with them? Did they get all the Spiders? Or whatever else could be in that abandoned mine? or the 24 other luxury hotels around the world built in similar places? What about the hotel mogul? Building a hotel on unstable and potentially lethal ground, are you kidding me? Will it ever come out what he’s done? Will he become president in the future despite this?
These are all things past Doctors would have mentioned, looking beyond the obvious and have something in place. Hell, Yaz is still a police officer. She’s got witnesses, evidence and who knows what else. Does she arrest the Mogul? Nope, he just walks off and she doesn’t even try to stop him. The Doctor didn’t even suggest doing anything. He’s ultimately responsible for the illegal dumping of toxic waste, endangering lives and creating an ecological disaster that could have massive repercussions. We are talking about serious crimes and they’re not even mentioned, let alone addressed.
There are lots and lots of lose plot threads in this episode. Now that often happens, I’m not going to pretend that doesn’t happen. Lots of times in Moffat’s run there were ideas that went nowhere and unanswered questions, but they were often deliberately left open. Or answered some time later with an offhand remark meant as a joke. That doesn’t mean it didn’t annoy me at the time, but for some reason this episode raised so many more and at no point did the Doctor do anything about them. We don’t need all of them answered but some, please. Giant Spiders were created. People died. You can’t just do that and then not look at the repercussions!
A classic Doctor would have used this sort of thing as a chance to show off their superior knowledge and teach an important lesson at the same time. Maybe Whittaker’s Doctor is different, but it just feel out of place to rase such important and moral questions and then not do anything with them.
COME ON! The show is about the Doctor, can she do something! By this time in Smith’s run we’d gone up against Daleks, Prisoner Zero, set a space whale free and tangled with the Weeping Angels! Tennent had battled Alien invaders, plague zombies, werewolves and met up with Sarah Jane again! As for Capaldi… Patchwork Clockwork robots, Daleks (again) and teamed up wth Robin Hood against the Sheriff of Nottingham!
In comparison Whittaker is sleepwalking through her first few episodes. The big one was last weeks Rosa and that was seriously flawed. We need a pulse pounding horror / action / sci-fi epic! Something with some meat on it’s bones, not an anaemic paint by numbers plot that just seems to be going through the motions. Where’s the wonder? The thrill? It all just seems to fizzle out by the end of each episode.
We’ve had some awesome shots, some great visuals, no doubt, but thats production values and not storytelling. We have gotten some hints of something bigger on the horizon though. The Timeless Child and the Senza have been brought up. As ineffective as they’ve been so far perhaps we might get something out of ol’ Toothface that’s interesting.
Otherwise, well I used to look forward to Doctor Who with baited breath. Be there for the broadcast and would move heaven and earth to do so. Then watch the episode a couple of times on catchup immediately afterwards. Now? I’m thinking I might just catch it on demand later.
After next weeks episode we’ll be half way through the season! With only 10 episodes it is the shortest since the 2005 relaunch. Let’s hope the second half of the season picks up or I might do the unthinkable. Just not bother with the next season until the DVD boxset.
6 out of 13
Giant monster movie. Nothing we haven’t seen before.
(Classic Doctor Who reference, I couldn’t “spin” into the review. Planet of the Spiders.)
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