Doctor Who - The Caretaker

There's a hilarious caption for this, I'm sure of it...

"Yes, John Smith's the name, but here's the thing. Most people just call me the Doctor."

Clara is (more or less) happily living two lives. In one, she is the Doctor's companion in his travels through time and space; in the other, she is a regular English teacher at Coal Hill School and dating Danny Pink, maths teacher and sensitive ex-soldier. She is very keen to keep these two lives separate, but they are about to collide as the Doctor goes undercover as the temporary caretaker at Coal Hill.

The Good

• Once again, there is some good badinage between the Doctor and Clara.
• Samuel Anderson as Danny Pink maintains a stalwart dignity throughout the proceedings which is necessary to keep the concept from exploding all over the shop.
• Pink also holds his own against the Doctor and establishes a clear and distinct relationship (there are some echoes of Nine and Mickey, but only echoes).
• The Doctor and Clara work the TARDIS doors by snapping fingers. somehow I like that better as a thing that the TARDIS does when she likes someone, rather than that the Doctor does because awesome.
• What causes problems for the Doctor is not Danny being stupid, but being intelligent and inquisitive.
• The Doctor's final solution to the Skovox is nicely Doctorish.

The Bad

• The Skovox Blitzer was a less than inspiring monster of the week; a sort of quadrupedal Dalek with even less conversation. Given the similarities in concept, I'm slightly disappointed that they didn't go for a Raston warrior robot (because I'm a huge nerd.)
• In a similar huge nerd vein, I was sad not to see a name drop for the head of governors pulling strings to get the Doctor into Coal Hill (said head of governors being established in The Day of the Doctor to be former Coal Hill science teacher Ian Chesterton.)
• Clara apparently takes as long to get to the store cupboard from the corridor as the Doctor does to get to the Blitzer's hidey-hole and Danny does to find and remove one of the time mines.
• Danny Pink's gymnastic prowess is bizarre. He didn't learn that in the army, lending credence to the Doctor's claim that he is really a PE teacher! Alternatively, maybe he took the silver in the same year Rose Tyler got bronze.

The Ugly

• The Doctor's attack on Danny is pretty much beyond the pale; outright nasty in the most childish way. The fact that it's the posh white lead denigrating the 'obvious' inferiority of the black supporting character dating his 'space daughter' makes this either slightly clueless or incredibly brave.
• Clara's 'surprise play' excuse is cringingly weak.

Theorising

• Apparently Missie is now delegating the reception of the Doctor-proximate dead to underlings and claiming to be God, unless there's another one out there. Is this a progression, or was the policeman just not close enough to being the Doctor's actual fault for a personal welcome?
• If the Blitzer is drawn to Artron energy, is it a relict of the Time War?

Top Quotes

• The Doctor: Why have you got two jackets? Is one of them faulty?
• The Doctor: Human beings have incredibly short life spans. Frankly, you should all be in a constant state of panic.
• Doctor: Oh, genius. That is really, really brilliant reasoning. How can you think that I’m her dad when we both look exactly the same age.
  Clara: We do not look the same age.
  Doctor: I was being kind.
• Danny: It’s funny. You only really know what someone thinks of you when you know what lies they’ve told you. You say you’ve seen wonders; you’ve seen amazing things and you’ve kept them from me. So, what do you think of me, Clara?
• Danny: One thing, Clara, I'm a soldier. Guilty as charged. You see him? He's an officer!
  The Doctor: I am not an officer!
  Danny: I'm the one who carries you out of the fire, he's the one who lights it.

The Twelfth Doctor
Going back to school seems to be bringing out the most childish aspects of the Twelfth Doctor. It's always been there, but in his confrontations with Danny it's front and centre, and the Doctor isn't very likable for it. It's a step beyond Nine putting down of Mickey, both in terms of viciousness and lack of justness. It seems that even when I'm impressed by Capaldi's performance and the commitment to the less palatable sides of the Doctor's personality, I'm not necessarily liking this Doctor. I may be starting to get him however.

The Verdict
The Twelfth Doctor is coming into focus now; it's not always a pretty picture, but we can see what it is. The doctor is a recurrent, rather than a constant, presence in Clara's life, using his currently good control of the TARDIS to drop in and out of her life to take her on adventures of one sort or another. This is an idea first really explored in the second season of the Eleventh Doctor's run, with his occasional visits to the Ponds, and it can be seen as a conscious attempt by the Doctor to be a less total influence on his Companions, allowing them a 'real life' concurrent with their travels in the TARDIS, to prepare them for normality after he moves on and they... well, in the only recorded case to date, when they wind up living out their lives in their own past and sending coded messages via pulp novel.

The dominant features of this week's episode are that 'Ozzie and the Squaddie' are terrible teachers (in real life, because it's funnier that way; I think they're supposed to be good in universe), and that despite his protests the Doctor really is Clara's space dad, at least in his own mind. If nothing else, the fact that he doesn't fancy her, but thinks she'd be best off with someone who reminds him of himself when he was younger, clinches it*. The Blitzer was kind of an afterthought; as if the episode was planned out and then someone asked 'so what is this alien threat again'?

'The Caretaker' is a solid, yet unremarkable, monster-of-the-week story, coupled with some character work. In the latter regard it scores in my book for giving some focus to the Doctor's sudden dislike of soldiers. More and more through his lives he has become 'the officer', and a soldier's ability to recognise that is not something that he wants in the TARIS.

6/10

* For the record, I don't think my daughter should ever date anyone who reminds me of me when I was younger, because I was insufferable.