Do you have any idea where those planets might be?
You get me an A-Z of the universe, and I’ll be able to stick my finger straight… no. I’ve got no idea.
The twelfth season of Doctor Who at least has a little more ambition than the eleventh.
In some ways, Can You Hear Me? feels like a companion piece to Praxeus. Both episodes adhere to a relatively similar structure, albeit applied in a slightly different way. Both Can You Hear Me? and Praxeus cannily split up the TARDIS crew for the first half of the episode, hopping between a series of seemingly disconnected narratives that eventually intertwine in the second half. Praxeus did this with a global adventure, scattering the characters across the planet. Can You Hear Me? attempts to do it with time and space, a story stretching from ancient Aleppo into the deepest void.
“It’s all gone a bit Colin Baker here, right?”
It’s notable that this is a mirror of the approach that Chris Chibnall took to the plotting of Spyfall, Part I and Spyfall, Part II. Spyfall, Part I was a global adventure that sent the crew across the world. Spyfall, Part II then attempted to shake things up by having the Doctor journey through time. It’s an interesting approach to narrative, albeit one that fits with the Chibnall era’s larger approach to plotting. The Chibnall era often plots episodes like old four- or six-parters, offering setting, plotting and cast shifts with each act that often seems to compress the narrative into forty-five minutes.
Can You Hear Me? grapples with big ideas. It has a fairly consistent set of internal themes. Like Orphan 55 or Nikolai Tesla’s Night of Terror, it is at least “about” something in a way that too few of the surrounding episodes are willing to be. The episode is also willing to go large in terms of scope, to tackle the sort of scale and spectacle that is often missing from surrounding episodes. All of this is very good. However, there’s also a certain lifelessness to all of this, a sense that the show has so much ground to cover that it is more exposition than story.
Eye see!
On paper, there is a lot to like about Can You Hear Me? This is an episode that includes actual character development for the supporting cast, especially the perennially under-served Yaz. It allows the regular cast to drop back into their everyday lives, which helps provide a sense of context for them. More than that, it is an episode that broaches important questions for these characters, particularly concerning their long-term plans to stay with the Doctor. It features monsters that work on a thematic level. It also offers a strong and important message to young viewers at home.
However, it also feels more like a checklist than an actual episode. It is a collection of interesting elements arranged like a bullet point list, bouncing from one idea to the next without any real sense of flow guiding it. Can You Hear Me? often feels like a rough draft of a much stronger episode.
Fingers in the air.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Television | Tagged: can you hear me?, charlene james, doctor who, fingers | 1 Comment »
the m0vie blog 