(794) Hide

Hide is the shortest worded Doctor Who story ever. This is another of those stories that I have never really felt to warmly about in the past but having re-evaluated The Rings of Akhaten, it was perfectly plausible that my opinion would change for this story and to be honest I can say that things have changed in certain ways and largely its due to the performances which are all quite good.

This is the second story in a row that has a helpless feel to it and by that I mean that there is no way that help can save the day and its down to the Doctor to save the day but unlike Cold War, he does use the TARDIS quite a lot.

Dougary Scott guest stars in the episode as Alec Palmer. Perhaps his most famous role was in Mission Impossible 2. I think that his performance was the best of everyone and the strongest out of the supporting characters. Palmer is someone who has issues but Scott plays him as someone who feels that he can accomplish something in this massive house. Jessica Raine also appears in this episode, later in the year she would played Verity Lambert in the superb An Adventure in Space and Time. She does that wounded soul who can talk to others rather well but it’s a rather underwhelming character that only really shines when she has scenes with Scott. There is a nice bit where Emma Grayling is wearing something from Metablis III (although Smith does pronounce it wrong). I don’t think that it really adds anything to the story but it’s a nice bit of fun for the longtime fans.

When the Doctor goes into the pocket world then that is a great moment for Matt Smith who has been on fine form in this series. When he admits that he is frightened I found myself really impressed with his performance

I like how we don’t see much of the monster in the pocket world. When we get to see a good portion of it there still isn’t much seen which is sort of the best way. It’s not always necessary to see the monster but the thing that I liked most of all about the monster was that it turned out it was one of the good ones.

This was a good episode although on reflection I think that I enjoyed The Rings of Akhaten more. Just a little bit more but it was still an enjoyable episode that was quite cheap but still felt like a Doctor Who episode. There aren’t many more episode left in the Matt Smith era and its weird that just as he’s about to leave he really gets in his stride. The NEXT TIME trailer shows that things are going to get interesting cause its going to show the TARDIS in ways it hasn’t been seen since The Invasion of Time.