Doctor Who: Season 9 Episode 3 Liveblog

Under the Lake

By the Tripwire LiveBlog Team

See: Chipmunky!

Last week our hero rescued everyone! Will the Yamaha SG Samurai be back? Will the Doctor rock out in an undersea base (that’s where he is, you know!)? Will the chipmunky ghosts glimpsed last week be scary? Is that why it’s on at 20.25 GMT? Did you know the Christian Post is a fount of information about things Doctory? Don’t click that link – it’ll be here when we’re finished!  Read on….

20.25

Peter Capaldi has told us personally – via the BBC website (but we know he’s talking to us) that this episode is about ghosts. Scooby-doo time! We’re at the Drum Undersea Mining Facility at Caithness (the SNP will have something to say about this), in 2119, where they have found a “craft of unknown origin”, and in ignorance of every SF and horror trope ever (ALIEN – I’m talking ALIEN!) they bring it aboard to squabble about who owns it. Uh-oh, this is beginning to look like a Quatermass and the Pit tribute…

Chipmunky ghost appears, engine comes on and the black crew member has lasted for even less time than usual in a horror film. Oh, sorry, he’s back. As a ghoooossst!

20.35

Three days later and the base is blackened and dank. Or jank. Cue the Doctor, and Clara. Canteen inspected by Straight Edge Goth Doctor who determines time by inspecting coffee. 7 hours since whatever happened. Now Chipmunk ghost and Black Crewman ghost turn up and inspect Doctor and Clara. And go away. Doctor is in the Spaceship.  “Did you want to show us this? It’s very nice.” Ghosts respond to being patronised with violence. Well, you would. Doctor and Clara run (spearguns are involved) and find remainder of crew. Who turn out to be from UNIT and are big fans of the Doc.

I am reminded one of Chipmunky guy’s  species was in the episode with the hotel ages ago. Don’t tell me, it’ll come to me. Evil representative of oil company is evil. Doctor disses him. Obvious Moffat is obvious.

A power cell is missing from spaceship. Evil oil company man comments it must be valuable… nothing good will come of this. Doctor gets sassy and states the ghosts are, well, ghosts. Actual dead people.  Awesome. The Doctor has cue cards for every occasion. In this case it’s for having got excited about dead people when one of them is a mate of the crew.

20.45

The Tardis is upset about the deaders. Doctor says it’s super unnatural for there to be ghosts. He is now lecturing Clara about how bad it is to like adventures. They have a brief, yet somehow tiresome, heart to heart. Petroleum man is babbling in an airlock while wearing half a diving suit. Ghosts pop up, briefly telegraph the fact that the deaf lady is going to be able to read the ghosts lips, then they drown petroleum man.

Generic crew members talk about stuff nobody cares about, evil oil guy floats past the window all dead and such. Surprise, he’s a ghost now! He tries to hit them with a 60s chair. Someone turns the daytime lights on and he vanishes.

20.50

The Doctor is being lectured in sign language by the base commander. She wants to save the crew, but the Doctor is being a dick. Turns out the ghosts have phoned a submarine to come and pick them up. The Doctor cancels it, because letting the ghosts get on a submarine would be bad.

There’s a lot of exposition about what is different between day mode and night mode in the base, it’s some generic technobabble. They’re going to trap the ghosts using this technobabble. Now everyone has to run around in the corridors to trap the ghosts. Like crystal maze, but without Richard O’Brien. There’s tension because it takes 28 button-presses to close a door. Now sign language interpreter guy is gonna get waxed up (or made out with?) by the evil specter of capitalism.

I could have been a contender….

20.55

Well, turns out the ghosty didn’t want to kill him, because otherwise nobody would be able to understand what the base commander is saying I guess. They trap the ghosts in the Faraday room thingy. The sonic sunglasses are a thing now…

Surprise, surprise the base commander lip reads what the ghosts are saying. It’s “darkness, sword, forsaken, temple.” Through some particularly tortured logic, the doctor figures out that these are coordinates. Turns out somebody is using the ghosts as signal boosters for this set of coordinates. Nobody knows why. It’s not really clear why a signal that someone wants to be heard is also killing people, but, whatever. The phrase “cleverer by osmosis” are used, expect it to become a meme for tiresome people.

Conveniently, the coordinates lead somewhere nearby, to a church in the flooded town. DUN DUN DUUUUUN!

What is happening to Clara’s nose?

21.05

They use some VR glasses and fancy control gloves to send out a submarine. Turns out what’s in the church is the missing cryo-pod from the ship. Is it the pilot inside, or something spoooooky? There’s more jabber over the symbols on the walls. Apparently they are the coordinates, and they’re something subconsciously catchy, so catchy you keep humming it… AFTER YOU DIE!

21.10 

Do the twist Doctor!

The base is flooding now, because somehow the ghosts have caused a reactor meltdown. (Note for TV writers – nuclear plants take A VERY LONG TIME to do this). I missed the exact cause while trying to figure out what the deal was with the symbols. Evil closing doors split the team up. Well, that’s a first. No, the Doctor can’t use the Tardis to save them because the tardis is afraid of ghosts. Yes, he can go back in time to try and stop the ghosts. He does so.

Clara talks about how the Doctor will fix everything and that that is how they roll, and it’ll all be fixed. Surprise, there’s a new ghost outside the window. It’s the Doctor!

OH NOOOOOOO!

…And we’re out!

OK – good, bad or indifferent? Leave us your comments below. Apologies for slow updating – technology has been a pain tonight, but we soldier on. Next week more ghosts, including the Doctor (who did not die…) . Toby Whithouse has a lot to answer for making this a two-parter….

Read other Doctor Who LiveBlogs here