"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Monday, August 21, 2017

Doctor Who: Series 6, Episode 12 – “Closing Time” (2011)



Since Buster Monday fell on Sunday this week to account for the 100-year anniversary of His Wedding Night, your regularly-scheduled Sunday Who Review is here a day late.

I’m an absolute sucker for stories that feature the Doctor’s version of mundane, everyday things, and in series 5, “The Lodger” gave us that in spades.  With Craig as the audience stand-in, we got the Doctor as our flatmate!  Cooking!  Playing football!  Showing up at the office!  The following season, “Closing Time” is less of an overall lark but plays with some of the same concepts at a time when the Doctor could really use it.  (A few setup spoilers for series 6.)

When the Doctor unexpectedly pops in on his old friend Craig, he’s just passing through.  Really, he is.  However, a series of odd power fluctuations and a rash of disappearances pique his curiosity, and even though he insists he’s “done saving them,” he just can’t help himself.  Soon, he and Craig (with Craig’s newborn baby in tow – Sophie’s away for the weekend, and Craig is struggling to cope on his own) are investigating a potential alien incursion that, delightfully, involves the Doctor going undercover as an employee in a department store.

Though the Doctor’s demeanor is cheerful when he arrives, he’s far from it.  In one of his more recent fits of guilt over people he’s failed to save, he’s parted with Amy and Rory for their own protection (we’re not quite sure how long ago at this point.)   Currently, he’s on the tail-end of his “farewell tour” before submitting to history and keeping his appointment to die at Lake Silencio.  So, the Doctor is alone, guilt-ridden, and gearing up to face his mortality.  Cheery, right? 

That’s why this story comes along at the right time.  While Craig obviously knows the Doctor is an alien and goes about the business of world-saving on the regular, he’s not really a full-fledged companion and doesn’t relate to the Doctor as such.  Instead, he can view the Doctor’s extraordinary life in fairly grounded terms, and he can be frank about things the Doctor is wrestling with.  Not all the time – he sometimes confuses the issue and equates the Doctor’s presence with the trouble he seems to find wherever he goes, which makes him snappish and causes him to blame the Doctor for bringing aliens to his doorstep.  Those are his lower moments, though.  When Craig is thinking more impartially, he’s able to get through to the Doctor and remind him of the force for good he is in the universe.  The Doctor is afraid that he’s a danger to others, but Craig gets what’s really going on:  the danger will be there with or without the Doctor, who’s in fact a person’s best chance of surviving it.  It’s a really nice friendship, fun but surprisingly warm.  Towards the end of the episode, the Doctor has a short, gorgeous speech about all his friends that’s just to die for.

In general, it’s an enjoyable episode with fast jokes, fun interactions, and good jokes.  Some of the humor is a bit belabored (I could do without the wink-wink jokes that one of the Doctor’s co-workers at the store thinks he and Craig are a couple, and a little of the Doctor “speaking baby” goes a long way,) and the alien plot feels a little slapped-together, but it’s still a great time.  It’s a story that lives and dies on its character interactions, and that’s always excellent.  Whether the Doctor and Craig are bickering, running around, freaking out, having a heart-to-heart, solving a mystery, protecting each other, fighting some aliens, vegging out, or taking care of a baby, they’re fantastic together.  The whole thing is kind of a funny, entertaining love letter to friendship, and that’s why I’ll always adore it.

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