(712) Tooth and Claw

After being slightly disappointed with the previous episode back in 2006, I was relieved that this episode was as good as it turned out to be. Normally the idea of werewolf’s in Doctor Who would be something that would bore me to tears but for some reason this story worked really well. This episode starts the Torchwood arc off properly. The pre-title scene is one of the strongest that there has been since the show returned. The acrobatic monks sold this episode for me. It’s not the sort of thing that is seen in Doctor Who very often and yet I was just wowed by it. It’s not the only thing that I didn’t think I would see in Doctor Who and that is Ian Drury’s Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick playing loud and proud. This story starts off in the usual manner with the Doctor and Rose pretending to be other people but the Doctor pretending to be Jamie McCrimmon and Rose his timorous beastie.

One of the many successes that the story achieves is what it does with Queen Victoria. We see someone who is still suffering from the loss of her husband but has to maintain her composure of being head of state. It’s a very good performance from Pauline Collins who was in Doctor Who way back in 1967 in the Faceless Ones. Another of the successes is the werewolf design. A lot of time and effort went into the design and it’s a credit to The Mill (who do all the effects for the show) that it still stands up nearly a decade later. The whole look of the episode is beautiful and I could happily watch this episode again and again.

The pacing of this story is something that is pretty constant for most of the episode. Once the Doctor and Rose have got themselves well into story the pacing is nonstop and this term wouldn’t have been used during the classic era.

I like the bit where the Queen is implied to a werewolf and that the current Queen would also a werewolf. The final few minutes see the Doctor and Rose knighted by the Queen and banished from this world. The Queen’s final scene sees her create the Torchwood Institute. It’s a great end to the episode and after the light-hearted tone of New Earth, its nice that a more serious tone was bought back to the series.

This story is still just as wonderful as I thought back in 2006. It has pretty much everything that I could want from a Doctor Who story and it is definelty one of the strongest stories since the show returned and the best story of the Tenant era. It was well written by RTD and directed with energy by Euros Lyn. The next episode is one that I have been looking forward to for quite a while as it marks the return of a familiar face and a less interesting one.