Review

In 19th Century Yorkshire Mrs Gillyflower is creating a paradise in her apparently idyllic garden City, only the beautiful people should apply for admission however. With dead bodies showing up in the local river, strangely coloured red, something definitely odd is going down in Yorkshire. The brother of one of the victims seeks help from Madame Vastra, who with her companions Jenny and Strax are soon on their way to the centre of the problem.

Jenny infiltrates Mrs Gillyflower's brave new world where she discovers the Doctor and Clara in jeopardy. The Doctor revives, with the help of his sonic screwdriver in some unexplained fashion, and soon the Who gang are getting to the root of the problem. An ancient danger is emerging from the shadows and if it's not stopped in time there are going to be even less Yorkshiremen in the English cricket team!

Guess there's some weird plan afoot amongst the BBC hierarchy to have yet another Doctor Who spin off featuring the crime busting skills of Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax. Which while in this Author's opinion is one of the worse decisions of an increasingly deluded brains trust does give The Crimson Horror a sort of different perspective. Given recent episodes have been subpar the current season definitely needed some sort of pick me up. In this regard Mark Gatiss' script does work in some regards but in others continues this latest uneven season's trend to muddy the waters. The move to conquer the North American market has been a disaster for the franchise, eventually the full fallout will come home to roast mixed metaphorically speaking. When you are left trying to sift through the ashes of an episode like The Crimson Horror in order to have something good to say then you realise the split season is the least of Who's problems circa 2013.

The guiding light of the episode would appear to have been to play it for laughs. And my didn't we simply crack up when Strax shot the gun from out of Mrs Gillyflower's hand causing her to fall three or four stories to her death. Those whacky Team Who guys, what will they get up to next. While there is some humour working in the episode, the repeated fainted of some dude when confronted with example of the alienness of things, there were a lot of other supposedly funny bits that fell flat on their arse as we were left at best groaning. The Doctor's sonic screwdriver coming to attention during Jenny's The Avengers reference being a particularly face palming moment. Overall Gatiss lacks the ability to really deliver on the laughs and I was as best wearily amused by some aspects of the approach but at other stages was wondering if I wouldn't be better off colour coordinating my sock draw. Comedy can be a particularly hard genre to get right without leaving yourself with cream pie on your face as the clown car doors won't open, Gatiss was back in the kitchen creating more cream pies as the episode lurched from one unfunny scene to the next.

Season seven really does need an episode to pull the franchise around, it keeps getting worse

I did however quite enjoy the montage used to bring the audience up to speed with what happened to the Doctor and Clara, who were apparently on their way to London but got sidetracked somehow byt the events in Yorkshire. It's a series of sepia photographs, very authentic looking period photography, and some moving pictures. Effective, rocked the house down, and would have been so much better if not used previously in movies like It. I was definitely glad of the inclusion as it moved the plot along in rapid fashion without getting bogged down in story telling that no one is entirely interested in.

There were of course a couple of other aspects to the episode that I quite enjoyed. Ada was good value, great make-up there, and her "monster" interludes were definitely effective. I was also rocking out to Clara arriving home and her two wards joining the dots and demanding to be taken on her next time travelling adventure. Outstanding!!! People do notice things out of the ordinary, let's hope we don't go anywhere near extra companions however.

Overall the episode ranged from entertaining in parts to actually painful to watch. I really hope they don't go with that spin off idea as after a few trial runs in regular Doctor Who it's already wearing incredibly thin. The antagonist in The Crimson Horror reminded me of Emma Thompson in those Nanny McPhee movies, that's not a good thing - no offense to Em, and barely scrapped the surface of being a pantomime villain. The less said about Mr Sweet the better, Doctor Who really hasn't progressed much beyond the dodgy creature props of a by-gone era. Besides a touch of the steampunk in places I was more or less totally unimpressed with where this episode sought to go. We're apparently already scrapping the bottom of the barrel and there are two further episodes in the season.

For those after references to classic Who I've flagged it away as being so overtly geeky and nerdish that it's bordering on Trekkie insanity. If Clara squeaks one out someone will no doubt say it's a reference to a clanger dropped by Sarah Jane in Planet of the Spiders, or some such nonsense. Yes there is referencing going down, and yes Whovian fanatics are making the sort of insane comparisons that previous made you wonder at the mental challenges the ""Twilight Moms" must face on a daily basis. You know like putting their shoes on the right feet in the morning. Not everything is a reference regardless of how you spin it, let a few things pass back to the keeper would be my advice.

The Crimson Horror saw a further drop in audience in the United Kingdom to 6.47 million viewers. While that is still a great figure it shows steady erosion this year of traditional viewers as the asinine plots, split season, and North American sensibilities that are starting to pervade the show are working against traditional market support. As stated previously I'm no longer in the "must view when broadcast" camp and am finding a number of other people who viewed the show on a weekly basis have now given it away and are not likely to return any time soon.

I'm really hoping this season can't get any worse, but have grave fears that we haven't seen the nadir yet. Every franchise has a used by date and I think we are finally seeing the long running Doctor Who reaching that date in leaps and bounds. While Neo Who has produced some excellent seasons the last couple haven't been amongst them. Hate to say it but no recommendation on The Crimson Horror, this really is second rate story telling.

A couple of emails to reply to and we'll call this one a wrap:

Joe from somewhere in deepest darkest Iowa was wondering why I'm apparently putting blame on the demise of Doctor Who on the U.S of A. Dude I'm not blaming Yanks for the show's lack lustre last couple of seasons, I'm blaming the BBC that took a prized franchise and have tried to tone it down to perceived U.S acceptable content. It never ever works, but this isn't the result of U.S involvement the blame sits squarely at the feet of the British Producers who clearly don't watch more cutting edge North American television fare. As you may have noted we're big fans of some of the U.S franchises.

Tony, apparently a regularly reader from Tasmania was enquiring about coverage of classic Who. It's a coming mate, once we get through the shenanigans in the current season we'll revisit some of the classic episodes and plot arcs. There was Who prior to 2005, we're going back in time in due course to see how it all began.

ScaryMinds Rates this episode as ...