“It’s not a ghost story, it’s a love story.”
That quote best summarises the latest episode of Doctor Who, Hide; it’s not about a ghost (well, it is, but it’s not), but it is about the power of love. Penned by Neil Cross, the man behind The Rings of Akhaten (and, of course, creator of Luther), the episode takes us to Caliburn House in 1974, where a professor and a psychic medium are tracking down a ghost...
From the promotional images and trailers, I had imagined Hide was going to be quite a creepy, haunt-y, ghost-y kind of story, but it didn’t yield quite the spook-factor I had anticipated. The episode was largely focussed on the relationship of Alec Palmer (Dougray Scott) and Emma Grayling (Jessica Raine) during their investigation at Caliburn House, whilst the ghost story (and its SciFi twist) felt more like a backdrop to the story than its driving force. That being so, the set of Caliburn house was marvellously designed, a perfect setting for a ghost hunt, and the array of 70’s paranormal equipment was a nice touch (and enough to make anyone want to tinker with the numerous bits of gadgetry) which all helped to create a proper haunted house atmosphere when the first ghostly happenings began.
Much like The Rings of Akhaten, I felt Hide had a lot of good ideas and plenty of potential, but alas the story fell somewhat short of what it could have achieved. That’s not to say it was poorly written, by any means - there are some great bits of dialogue throughout - but the story itself failed to captivate me. The ghost aspect itself never took on a more prominent or sinister form, and the monster of the episode turned out to be completely misunderstood in a twist reveal in the final two minutes (which, to be honest, felt completely redundant). And why was the episode called Hide? No-one hid anywhere at any time... There was no hiding in Hide!
“But Bron,” I hear you cry, “you can't be negative about Doctor Who! There must have been something good about it?!” And you’d be right, voices in my head. Although I didn't find the story particularly engaging, it was well-written nevertheless, and certain aspects did prove to be quite intriguing. Despite it's purported ghostliness, the primary force behind Hide is love. Or rather, the timeless power of love which can stretch across infinity. This is primarily touched on through Palmer and Grayling, with their feelings for each other being apparent but not being revealed to one another until towards the end of the episode. It is also their love that ultimately resolves the episode, as the ghost is actually their time-travelling great-great-great-great-great-grand-daughter trapped in a pocket Universe, and it's their bond that makes returning her to this Universe possible (and is quite likely to have lead them both to Caliburn House in the first place; when it comes to matters of the heart, it can often lead you to exactly where you need to be, even if you don't know it at the time).
The Doctor's reason for coming to this place at this time was to get Emma's feelings on Clara, to find out who – or what – she is (according to Miss Grayling, she's a girl... Pretty handy psychic work there, if you don't mind me sayin' so, ma'am!). Meanwhile, Clara seems to be getting some not-so-friendly signs, as she feels the TARDIS doesn't like her (and it locks her out, as it did in The Rings of Akhaten, too), and she's warned by Emma Grayling to be wary of the Doctor as “he has a sliver of ice in his heart.” I'm hoping this is foreshadowing the Doctor's darker aspects coming to the surface again, especially with the mirroring between the Doctor and Alec Palmer regarding the guilt over the lives of people lost.
There’s also a fair deal to explore with the TARDIS in this episode, too - perhaps quite fittingly, given the premise of next week’s episode Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS. For starters, there’s mention of the Eye of Harmony (last heard of in the 1994 movie starring Paul McGann, I believe), the artificial black hole created by the Time Lords to provide energy for their homeworld Gallifrey, and to power their time-travel technology. Unless it’s been moved, like the library’s swimming pool, then the Eye of Harmony sits at the heart of the TARDIS in the Cloister Room. There’s also the matter of the cloister bell (a.k.a. the Universal early-warning alarm) sounding when the Doctor is trapped in the pocket Universe. Although the TARDIS out-right refuses to grant Clara access (speaking to her via hologram), stating that taking the TARDIS into the pocket Universe to save the Doctor is an impossibility, it does eventually (albeit begrudgingly) let her in and flies itself into the pocket Universe. I suppose there again is the tale of love in this episode; quite fittingly, the heart of the TARDIS keeps the wormhole to the pocket Universe open, whilst the TARDIS risks itself – putting aside it's personal preferences – to save the Doctor. There is truly no greater love than that between a Time Lord and his time-travelling police box...
Hide once again brings the intrigue of the series plot-arc back to the forefront of our minds with the question of “who is Clara Oswald?” She’s an enigma to the Doctor (“You are the only mystery worth solving.”), and apparently the empathic psychic Emma Grayling can divine no more information other than “she’s a girl.” So who is Clara, the girl twice dead, who the Doctor has now met on three separate occasions in the past, present and future? My personal theory (among many, but this is my favourite); she’s a crack in the mirror, a split projection in time. In much the same way a broken mirror reflects and refracts an image, yet despite the fracture the image still remains whole, the same can be said for the concept that is Clara. Her very being could be fractured like that mirrored image, a crack in time causing separate reflections or embodiments of Clara to appear scattered across time and space.
Or, slightly stranger, she’s a reflection of the Doctor; a self-created illusion to prevent himself going mad from primal loneliness, an invention so he can save the girl twice dead as a way to repent for his guilt over the lives he could not save. She is his loneliness, his guilt, his sorrow, his regret manifest. She is the Doctor’s shadow.
I don’t know, but I do like a good mystery!
Overall, Hide was a good episode with some great ideas and concepts behind it, but sadly it didn’t quite captivate me as I had hoped it would. The story fell a bit short of what I felt it could have achieved, but it was well-written nonetheless, with some tantalising and thought-provoking pieces. All in all, it was a good episode, and maybe I’ve just been spoilt with the likes of Cold War!
Next week, we take a Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and Clara gets lost in the depths of the labyrinthine time-machine...
If you missed Hide due to being trapped in a pocket Universe, you can catch it on iPlayer here.
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