It's not easy being one of the saviors of the universe
Especially when you're essentially living a double life. That is what Clara is beginning to realize after she started dating Danny Pink. There's life with The Doctor, which means crazy time traveling and universe saving. Then there's reality. A life that Clara didn't seem to care too much before meeting Danny. And in this episode, Clara's two lives head to a collision course as The Doctor becomes the temporary caretaker of Coal Hill School. The school that Clara and Danny Pink work at.
It was bound to happen eventually. Especially given all the hints that the audience was given about how this confrontation would go down. And it also really becomes clear how much of life with The Doctor is interfering with her chance to have a normal one. One would think it is odd that she didn't feel this way in the previous series. But then again, as I stated above, that was before she met Danny. No, before Danny, Clara was never concerned about her real personal life. Part of that was due to her crush on Matt Smith's Doctor. While as much as she wants to deny that she did not view him in a romantic way, The Time of the Doctor Christmas Special pretty much revealed that she does secretly want him. But given that The Doctor looks like her father, or grandfather, her sights have been set on more human connection. And that human connection starts to show her how crazy her life is.
It shows from Clara's reaction to the Doctor's appearance as the new caretaker of the school. She never had to worry about her personal life colliding with her "hobby" until this moment. And in this moment that is when she really starts to try to control the situation. She doesn't want her lives to collide. She wants them separate. And also, Clara knows that if The Doctor is at the school, something horrible is going to happen. Meaning that her two separate lives will get really mixed up.
The reason for The Doctor's appearance at the legendary Coal Hill School, a staple in Doctor Who Lore, is because there is an automaton that could destroy the entire planet living nearby. If people had thought that The Doctor has lost his wacky nature, he hasn't. This episode still contains Capaldi's dry and sarcastic delivery that makes him the Capaldi Doctor, but he is definitely doing things that The Doctor is known to do: failing to blend in. Especially when he tries to blend in as the school's new caretaker. It is probably the most comedic take that Capaldi has done, and the comedy is extremely sarcastic yet lovable. It is at this point that I think it is no longer appropriate to call him The Dark Doctor anymore. Sure there is a moment when he exclaims to Danny, "I'm not using Clara as a decay, I'm using her like a decoy," which is still pretty dark, but not as dark as we've seen him in the first two episodes of his run.
Speaking of Danny, this episode is after all dedicated to that fateful confrontation between him and The Doctor. The build up was nice, with The Doctor posing as The Caretaker continuously insisting that Danny is a P.E. teacher because in his mind soldiers can't be math teachers. It automatically sells the audience what he thinks of Danny, and just exactly how these two are going to get along. I'm not going to leave it a mystery if they both discover who the other is because that is the point of this episode. And it is handled really well. It was a confrontation and revelation filled with a lot of ferocity as well as the need to be the alpha male. It is an interplay viewers will have previously seen between Matt Smith's Doctor and Rory, except while Danny is more of an alpha male than Rory and Capaldi's Doctor is pretty much a more convincing alpha male than Matt Smith. This interplay happens in front of Clara, who still continues to try and keep her two worlds separate, but it is too late. The animosity between The Doctor and Danny was handled at the right level where it didn't become too annoying.
This episode really puts a mirror in front of Clara when Danny asks her, who is she? It is a question that she thought she knew the answer to, but with the universal revelation given to Danny, the answer is no longer simple. But when she does come to the answer, it once again adds to her character in ways that she is not even aware.
In short, it was a fun episode. A good confrontation. And good development for Clara.
SCORE: 8/10 - Another whimsical episode that adds to Clara's character development
STATUS: Continue to Watch - I don't think Danny is going to be a traveling companion
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