Doctor Who Review: Doctor Who Fifth Episode: ‘Oxygen’
In the haunting episode ‘Oxygen’ that tapped into everyone’s fear — the fear of suffocating — this week we followed Bill, Nardole, and the Doctor into outer space, following a distress call.
Review
In what began with the Doctor quoting Star Trek, which I warned them not to do (Space…the final frontier…but final because it wants to kill us!) gave the episode off to a weird, yet quirky, start. We find the Doctor giving a lesson on everything that happens to the body as it’s stuck in space. Truly, an uplifting way to start the episode. But because the Doctor is the Doctor, it oddly fits.
We continue on to see Nardole giving the Doctor a talking-to in the TARDIS about…guess what. The Vault. In this scene, we’re subtly reminded of Rule #1.
The Doctor Lies.
So when the Doctor says the TARDIS doesn’t work if you take out the fluid, don’t trust the Doctor. I guess the memo was never passed around. Off into space, following a distress call to a space station. One of the most classic space stories in history.
Perhaps it’s because it’s one of the most classic space stories in history that the storyline itself doesn’t really stick out. There are a few moments that are funny, meaningful, and important, but the actual idea got stuck in the background.
The trio comes to the space station and lands the TARDIS like always. Little do they know, the air control is strictly monitored, as a company owns it, and wants to make money off of…life. They end up using the air-for-pay space suits — 3000 breaths only.
However, that’s too easy. The ones they’re using are in maintenance, causing Bill’s to not work correctly — locking up, losing control, and, the kicker, taking off her helmet.
BBC/BBC Worldwide – Photographer: Simon Ridgway
Bill and the Doctor are Back!
In this episode, we see that friendship between twelve and Bill come out of the woodwork again. As only the Doctor would, he sacrifices himself for her, giving up his space helmet as hers refuses to come on. While we see Bill “die”, we really should be worried about the Doctor. what are the repercussions of what he was about to do? Because this time, it really is dangerous.
Even though any reincarnation of the Doctor would have done the same for any of his companions, we don’t see this of twelve very often. Twelve is the one to be sarcastic and witty and running the show. He saved his friend. To me, and I believe to most people, it’s one of the most human things this Doctor’s done.
However, doing a human thing, came at a human cost.
While in most episodes I’ve talked about Mackie’s acting, I thought this episode let Capaldi shine in a way we haven’t seen before. In one of his most human moments, doing something for one of the most human consequences, he still does it, despite the risk. He plays throughout this episode in a light hearted manner most of the time, but serious when he needs to be. This episode brought out the perfect balance between personalities.
Credit: BBC
And this is where the storyline got lost.
It didn’t really get lost, but we definitely didn’t care necessarily about how the Doctor, Nardole, and Bill were gonna get out of the scenario. We mostly cared how everything was going to get fixed.
The Doctor was blind.
There have only been a couple times in NewWho where the Doctor has gotten hurt without regenerating. With rumors that he regenerates before the final episode, was this it? We knew everyone was going to be saved, the Doctor had a plan. I was waiting for what happened after.
The Doctor did have a plan in which he essentially “killed” Bill, without “killing Bill”, which saved everything. There was a beautiful scene where the corpses on the ship gave the oxygen they obviously weren’t using to the people alive, allowing everyone to live until they could get back to the TARDIS.
But my mind was on one thing the whole time. How was the Doctor going to see again? Did he need to use regeneration energy?
Back on the TARDIS…safe and sound…
Luckily, Nardole was able to fix the Doctor’s eyesight, safe and sound, without regeneration. Yay!
Rule #1: The Doctor lies.
As Nardole is chastising the Doctor for letting whoever is in the vault know that they had left them alone, and that they could have possibly known he was alive: we make a shocking discovery.
"NARDOLE: Look at me, Doctor!DOCTOR: I can’t! I’m still blind."
And we all silently cursed Moffat in our heads.
(C) BBC/BBC Worldwide – Photographer: Des Willie
Last Thoughts
- Nardole was either going to be good or annoying, but Matt Lucas proved he can survive in any environment. With jokes about dating an android, to being genuinely worried about the Doctor, it was great to see him outside of his normal place in the episodes. I hope that with the Doctor’s issue now, we see a bit more of him until he decides to fix it.
- There was a perfect and wonderful call to prejudice in this episode, if only because of the irony. Bill was shocked by someone who was bright blue, and “Blue Peter” says “Oh, one of them.” Wanting to show him that Bill, of course, knew what Peter must go through, said she understood and did not get a positive answer back. Nardole, horribly — but laughably — tried to chime in with “some of my friends are blue-ish!” It was a colossal mess that only could happen on Doctor Who.
- There was a lesson to be learned about capitalism on this episode and how everything is being paid for…I think. Twelve’s episodes tend to have small lessons in them like that. Once again, I wish the lesson hadn’t been drowned out by the viewer’s reaction of wanting to know what was going to happen to the Doctor.
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