{"id":2170,"date":"2018-11-01T16:39:15","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T16:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2170"},"modified":"2018-11-01T16:39:15","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T16:39:15","slug":"so-what-did-i-think-about-arachnids-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2018\/11\/01\/so-what-did-i-think-about-arachnids-in-the-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"So\u2026 what did I think about Arachnids in the UK?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Okay\u2026 so\u2026 that was\u2026 better. It certainly felt more like Doctor Who anyway.<\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t we start with the good stuff?<\/p>\n

The regular cast, although still thinly-drawn, are beginning to emerge slowly. This should have been Yas\u2019s episode, but in fact she\u2019s rather overshadowed by the enormous number of guest cast, and Ryan\u2019s dyspraxia wasn\u2019t mentioned, reducing him from Teen-with-Dyspraxia to just Teen. (We know he\u2019s a teenager because he listens to something called \u201cStormzy\u201d.) But Mandip Gill does much with little and Bradley Walsh continues to impress.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s actual jeopardy and adventure! Giant (very, very well-realised) spiders come smashing through bathtubs and legit mandible a guy to death. There\u2019s an American tycoon whose resemblance to Trump, while painstakingly obvious, isn\u2019t too cartoony \u2013 certainly no clumsier than Henry van Statten and played by a more famous, charismatic and skilled actor.<\/p>\n

We also get a Doctor who begins, in flickers and starts, to sound and behave like the Doctor. Trying to talk to the spider in the neighbour\u2019s flat, figuring out where the epicentre of the spider activity is, and thinking Robertson might be Ed Sheeran all really worked.<\/p>\n

And the science-fiction adventure plot largely worked. A proper threat. A reason for people to be in danger. Something resembling a resolution. And some amazing visuals, not just the underground spider breeding lair, but also the TARDIS in the vortex at the beginning.<\/p>\n

There are some negatives, however. The supporting cast was hugely over-stuffed. Did we really need a fired mum, a spider expert, a whistle-blower and a sacrificial bodyguard as well as the family members who get left behind in the flat? Surely some of those could have been collapsed into one, given we have a regular cast of four to service every week?<\/p>\n

And Graham\u2019s scene mourning poor old Grace is lovely \u2013 but it gives me the queasy sense that this version of Doctor Who divides people into two groups: those whose deaths actually matter, who will be mourned, whose passing leaves a void where they once were; and people who get bumped off in the course of a rollicking adventure to make it seem scarier, and who never get referred to ever again. Now, Doctor Who has always cared more about some lives than others, but it\u2019s rarely been this blatant, partly because we\u2019ve never spent much time in the company of grief before. Almost as if it doesn\u2019t really work in the context of a science-fantasy show for all the family.<\/p>\n

Then, there\u2019s the resolution. Firstly, simply luring the spiders to Chekhov\u2019s Panic Room (it would have been much nicer to have had the Doctor guess that Robertson had a panic room, because he\u2019s the type; avoiding deus ex machina endings only works when you are also careful to conceal the set-ups) and leaving them to die slowly is a pretty limp ending, coming at no cost to anyone, whether real or potential. But, this stupid business of \u201cguns are bad, but killing is fine\u201d won\u2019t go away. Robertson shoots a slowly-suffocating spider through the head, claiming it was a mercy killing. You know what? I\u2019m with Robertson. Assuming the spider can register pain and fear, I don\u2019t think it much cares that gun control is hot political topic on another continent, 3000 miles away. Given the choice between a slow agonising death and a bullet to the brain, I think it would pick the bullet.<\/p>\n

More to the point, is letting these creatures slowly suffocate or starve the best she can do? Isn’t there another planet they can be taken to? A way to curb their murderous instincts? Anything but this cheerful horror-show.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s look at our Chibnall Check List.<\/p>\n

No real sense of jeopardy or threat? This was a really exciting episode with good suspense and adventure sequences.<\/p>\n

Whole team trails behind the Doctor who does almost all the plot heavy-lifting? Kinda. There are some good character moments in the first half, but the resolution only actually requires Robertson to have a panic room, and someone to vibrate something. Everyone else just stands around and watches. That said, the opening scene in the hotel is good, Shobna Gulati does excellent work and so does Tanya Fear.<\/p>\n

Long conversation with bizarrely impotent villain? The spiders (thankfully) can\u2019t talk, and the conversations with Robertson are fairly good.<\/p>\n

The threat just vanishes at the 42 minute mark? Check.<\/p>\n

The Doctor professes not to use guns, but the enemy is dispatched with lethal force in any event? Check.<\/p>\n

So, we\u2019re heading in the right direction \u2013 at last \u2013 and I had a lot of fun watching the first 35 minutes, and even quite liked the very end, in which our trio make the positive choice to travel with the Doctor. I just get the weird sensation that this version of the show might not be for me anymore. A feeling I\u2019ve genuinely never had before.<\/p>\n

Anyway, for what they\u2019re worth, four stars.<\/p>\n\"4\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay\u2026 so\u2026 that was\u2026 better. It certainly felt more like Doctor Who anyway. Why don\u2019t we start with the good stuff? The regular cast, although still thinly-drawn, are beginning to emerge slowly. This should have been Yas\u2019s episode, but in fact she\u2019s rather overshadowed by the enormous number of guest cast, and Ryan\u2019s dyspraxia wasn\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[18,19,520],"class_list":["post-2170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","tag-doctor-who","tag-reviews","tag-series-11"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-z0","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2174,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions\/2174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}