(806) The Caretaker

If you use the numbering system that I have used in this marathon, then this story is the 250^th story of Doctor Who. The Caretaker is the midway point of the series and one that takes place at Coal Hill School. It’s nice having Coal Hill School feature in the show because after only having two appearances in the first 50 years, it seems to be featuring in the show more and more. Despite the positives of this story being co-written by Steven Moffat and Gareth Roberts there are things that I don’t like about this story. Sadly the biggest problem is that Danny Pink makes a return and I say sadly because this is where he well and truly becomes Mr Grump. He seems to develop a jealousy of the Doctor. There is a bit where he pulls one of the mine things that the Doctor has placed around the school and I think that anyone in their right mind wouldn’t touch them. When the Doctor gives him a ticking off I wanted the Doctor give him more than that. Pink has just turned into a whiney git all of a sudden.

The pre-title scene ends with the Doctor introducing himself as a caretaker so this is another. Most of the pre-title scene is filled with the Doctor and Clara going on many adventures and then Clara having to pick up her normal life with Danny. To be honest if I were Clara and I had the choice of travelling with the Doctor or spending time watching Coronation Street with Private Grumpy then it’s a no brainer really.  

This being a Gareth Roberts story there is more than an average amount of humour and one of the running gags is that the Doctor thinks that Danny Pink is a PE teacher and can’t retain the information in his head that he is in fact a maths teacher. There are plenty of good lines for the Doctor and like the previous story I cant figure out which lines are from Moffat and which ones are from Roberts. Also like the previous story I cant quite understand why it took two people to write this story.

Danny isn’t the only annoying person in this episode. The other is Courtney who is an annoying kid. She hangs around and is just an annoying person to have around. Maybe she is a relative of Danny’s. Speaking of Danny he really becomes an annoying arsehole because he gets really snotty when he is in the TARDIS thinking the Doctor is really pompous. Whenever the Doctor gets to be horrible to Danny I become a happy man. What can’t Danny be like Rory? Just a little bit. The worse crime that Danny commits in this story is by trying to turn Clara against the Doctor just because the Doctor seems like people Danny encountered in the army.

The monster threat of the story is in the form of the Skovox Blitzer which has become stranded on Earth and views everyone as a threat. The Doctor just wants to get it on Earth but he keeps getting distracted and stopped by humans. I could feel and understand the Doctor’s frustration because it just seemed to be either Danny or Courtney.

The final scene sees the police officer from earlier in the episode talking to Chris Addison (someone else from The Thick of It) who plays a character called Seb. He is someone who is working for Missy. Michelle Gomez makes a great cameo appearance in the episode. All she does is walk one way, look at Seb and then walk another way. This is something that exists purely to remind us about the story arc and also introduce Chris Addison into the arc. Seb uses several names to describe to the police officer where they are he uses names like the Promised Land, Nether sphere and Heaven.

When you take Danny and Courtney out of this story then I quite enjoyed this story. I thought that the monster threat was quite good and there was some good dialogue from whoever wrote the story. This time next week I will have finished this marathon and the ending is getting closer and closer which means I need to start think about what I am going to do with my evenings and days off.