Tonight was opening night for my show Xanadu, which (as you may recall from the fine, fine movie of the same name) is about an artist inspired to greatness by a muse with an Australian accent. It seems fitting that today's viewing of Doctor Who also featured a struggling artist in a significant role.

So let's talk about that.

Flatline

(TARDIS Data Core recap)

The gist of this story is that there is an invasion brewing from an alternate universe which only exists in two dimensions. They begin draining power from the TARDIS which causes its exterior dimensions to shrink, leaving the Doctor trapped inside while Clara is forced to be his eyes and ears. Along the way she learns a bit about what it means to be the Doctor, and the difficult choices he must make. By the climax of the story, the TARDIS has gone into siege mode and Clara is left on her own to meet the crisis while the two-dimensional invaders begin to expand and explore the third dimension. Fortunately, Clara does a Very Clever Thing and uses the invaders' energy against them, feeding it back into the TARDIS and freeing the Doctor to dispose of them once and for all.

This is a really nifty idea for a story, very well realized. It actually works significantly better than the previous one in terms of giving Clara an insight into the Doctor's actions and motivations. It also paints the Doctor in a much more flattering light than has generally been the case recently. He's still grumpy and standoffish, but not aggressively and irredeemably so.

Of course, it also ticks off the box for lighting the fuse on blowing up Clara and Danny's relationship. The confrontation hasn't happened yet, but by the midpoint of this story Danny knows very well that Clara has lied to him and is continuing to travel with the Doctor. Which, again, doesn't feel organic at all. It just feels like "this is the point in the season where their relationship has to fracture, so that Clara can be devastated in the penultimate episode".

But that is only a teeny, tiny part of the story that is easily ignored . On the whole it was quite good, and the so-called Boneless are a delightfully original and creepy idea for an antagonist.

The bad news: Herein ends the enjoyable portion of this season. I don't hate tomorrow's episode quite as much as Kill the Moon, but dang it if it doesn't try to compete. And then it's the season finale with (sigh) CyberBrig. Just shoot me now.

STATS:

Doctor(s): Twelfth
Companion(s): Clara Oswald, Danny Pink
Episode(s): Flatline
Steps Walked: 7,562 today, 3,395,410 total
Distance Walked: 4.02 miles today, 1,774.23 miles total
Push-ups Completed: 0 today, 6,579 total
Sit-ups Completed: 0 today, 929 total
Weight: 248.80 lbs (five day moving average), net change -58.50 lbs