A Disruptive Influence – Review of Doctor Who The Caretaker

Under cover in school, wearing a brown instead of black coat, Peter Capaldi shines once again in an episode masquerading as a sitcom.

Another fun romp with many positive but I’m left feeling underwhelmed.

Review of Doctor Who The Caretaker

Funny – the scene where Clara confronts the Doctor in the staff room and he uses his broom to fend her off is hilarious. Capaldi and Coleman are excelling each week at the moment.

Exciting – when the Skovox Blitzer machine makes one of its explosive appearances. A well conceived alien spewing laser beams and death rays. But the Doctor defeats it easy – actually talking it to death.

Characters – we finally meet Courtney (a pupil mentioned in earlier episodes) who describes herself as a “Disruptive Influence”. She sees the stars in a gorgeous scene at the end but please, let’s not see her as a recurring character.

The aim of the episode to advance the relationship triangle between the Doctor, Clara and Danny Pink took up too much screen time. And whilst I am a fan of Capaldi’s more alien take on the Timelord’s personality, and I have enjoyed his grumpiness so far, he went to far this week in his “hatred” of soldiers.

Is Capaldi himself the “disruptive influence” here?

A watchable forty-five minutes but telling in that I have not gone back and watched it again. And I usually always do.

Now it’s your turn:

Do you agree with my review of Doctor Who The Caretaker? Do you like the new direction of the show? Is Capaldi too rude and grumpy? Let me know what you think.

One thought on “A Disruptive Influence – Review of Doctor Who The Caretaker

  1. As a big fan of Pink Floyd I loved the nod in their direction when The Doctor whistled a little of their biggest hit. Made the episode for me.
    Not a huge fan of the robot killing machine. It just seemed a little unwieldy with all those legs.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.