Doctor Who - 7.7 - The Bells of Saint John Reviews

Rating		Votes
10	4%	4
9	11%	12
8	20%	22
7	36%	40
6	19%	21
5	9%	10
4	1%	1
3	0%	0
2	0%	0
1	0%	0
Average Rating 7.1
Votes 110

Synopsis

From wikipedia

The episode opens with a man on a computer screen describing how human souls are being uploaded to the internet when people use their computers to log into a certain Wi-Fi network. The man reveals he has been uploaded and is lost.

Following the events of the prequel, the Doctor has retreated to a monastery in Cumbria in the year 1207 to contemplate the mystery of Clara. The monks disturb him one day to tell him that "The bells of Saint John" are ringing. The Doctor requests a horse and rides it to a nearby cave where he has left his TARDIS. He is surprised to find the TARDIS exterior phone ringing, and answers it. On the other end is Clara, whom The Doctor initially doesn't recognize. She is calling for help with her computer, and The Doctor is about to hang up on her until she uses the phrase "Run you clever boy and remember" as a mnemonic for her password. The Doctor immediately sets off to meet her in person.

When he arrives, Clara refuses to let him in or talk to him. The Doctor decides to change out of his monk's clothing and when he returns he finds Clara unconscious and being "uploaded" via a mobile robotic server disguised as a young girl. The Doctor takes Clara's laptop and halts the upload, sending the uploaders a message that Clara is under his protection. The head of the uploaders, Miss Kizlet (Celia Imrie), informs her client that The Doctor has intervened as feared. Another mobile server, this time diguised as a man, is dispatched to Clara's house to retrieve her again. The Doctor and Clara are outside when the uploaders cause an airplane to begin descending directly at them. The Doctor and Clara board the TARDIS and land on the plane where The Doctor revives the crew and saves the plane from crashing.

The Doctor takes Clara via TARDIS to the next morning, and they go to a café to try and work out what's happening. Clara uses computer skills that she picked up from her uploading experience to track the uploaders back to their base at The Shard. The Doctor encounters people inside the café under the control of Miss Kizlet who distract him long enough for a server disguised as The Doctor to upload Clara completely. An angered Doctor sets out to The Shard on an anti-gravity motorbike and crashes it into Miss Kizlet's office. He demands that she release all the minds that have been uploaded, including Clara's but Miss Kizlet refuses. The Doctor then reveals that he is still back at the café and that she was actually talking to the server that he had hacked which he then uses to upload Miss Kizlet to the network. Trapped in the network, she orders her subordinates to release everyone and Clara is restored.

Miss Kizlet, now restored, contacts her client to report her failure to him. The client is shown to be the Great Intelligence, who orders her to reset all people working there, including herself, clearing their memories in the process. As UNIT storms in to shut them down, the uploaders all lose their memories. Miss Kizlet is reduced to the mentality of a small child. Meanwhile, The Doctor takes Clara home and offers her a chance to travel with him, which she rebuffs. She tells him to come back the next morning, as she may change her mind by then.

Has Prerequisite Story

14 out of 27 (51.9%) raters say this story requires a previous story.

Extended Ratings

Plot

6.7

(27)

Acting

7.7

(27)

Effects

7.6

(27)

Replay

7.1

(27)

11th Doctor

Clara Oswald

Great Intelligence

Great Old Ones

Cast

Matt Smith

Jenna-Louise Coleman

Celia Imrie

Robert Whitlock

Dan Li

Manpreet Bachu

Sean Knopp

James Greene

Geff Francis

Eve de Leon Allen

Kassius Carey Johnson

Danielle Eames

Fred Pearson

Jade Anouka

Olivia Hill

Isabella Blake-Thomas

Matthew Earley

Antony Edridge

Richard E. Grant

Director:

Colm McCarthy

Writer:

Steven Moffat

Reviews

My Rating/Review

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Doctor Who

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7.7 - The Bells of Saint John

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Yes

Reviewed By: MercuryReview Date: 2/14/19 11:46 am

1 out of 1 found this review helpful.

This episode has a number of striking similarities with the 10th Doctor story Partners in Crime: They both feature the Doctor starting out alone then meeting up with someone he recognises from a previous adventure who joins as his new companion. They both feature an alien power controlling a human organisation based from an office building with a strong female leader. They both feature humans being used unknowingly for the benefit of the alien power. They both feature an action scene with the Doctor on the side of the office building. It therefore comes across to me as a kind of remake. I find it rather lazy to copy and it is out of order to copy without admitting to it. However, the only way to make a remake a success is to change key aspects of it and make the remake better than the original. That is what this story achieves.

It is a very good adventure which does not have big flaws in logic or other annoying faults. It is fun, entertaining and well scripted. The aliens in Partners in Crime were the cute but rather silly and non threatening Adipose. Here we have the Great Intelligence, an enemy faced many many years before by the 2nd Doctor in the brilliant Season 5 of the Classic Series and who had returned in the previous episode, the Christmas Special The Snowmen. This creates an ongoing plot thread which links in to the story arc for Clara and leads on to the season finale. Having the Great Intelligence and the sinister robot servers is a much better threat than the Adipose were and makes for good scenes of danger and menace as well as the promise of more to come later in the series. The plot is not easy to get your head around but is perfectly within Doctor Who logic and is interesting and exciting enough to keep me absorbed right to the end. Although the defeat of the plot seems slightly anticlimactic in how it is achieved I liked that it is clear the plot was only a minor part of a greater threat and I loved way the brilliant Miss Kizlet, wonderfully played by Celia Imrie, and her workforce are released from control and are shown to return mentally to how they were before they came under the evil influence. It is actually very sad and affecting to see Miss Kizlet convincingly and hauntingly revealed as having been controlled since childhood. It was also great to have UNIT getting involved.

Production values, effects, acting and direction are all great and the dialogue is thoughtful, funny and smart. Jenna Louise Coleman is strong as new companion Clara and at this stage the mystery of her impossible existence is very intriguing.

I have to criticise Moffatt for lifting too many elements from an earlier story but other than that this is a mostly excellent story, not among the most amazing adventures but a high standard one which I rate as 9/10.

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7.7 - The Bells of Saint John

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Reviewed By: doctorwhomoffReview Date: 12/17/15 3:06 pm

0 out of 1 found this review helpful.

An excellent start to the second half of series 7

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7.7 - The Bells of Saint John

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Reviewed By: adamelijahReview Date: 4/27/15 2:06 am

0 out of 0 found this review helpful.

The story isn’t bad, but it’s not a great opening for the impossible girl arc. The plot was intriguing but had a bit of a throwaway ending the point of the plot wasn’t the real point of the episode but to introduce Clara as the new Companion.

There’s some nice flashy moments like the Doctor riding a motorcycle up the side of a building (sort of ), but it’s all Sound and Fury not really signifying anything.