First, let’s catch up on where we ended with last week’s episode, “Under the Lake”: Clara was trapped underwater in the mining base known as “The Drum” with Cass and her sign-language interpreter Lunn, while the Doctor traveled back in time with Bennett and O’Donnell to uncover the mystery of the odd alien spaceship and the markings it contains. The Doctor then returns to Clara from inside of the pod, and explains that his “ghost” was never a ghost but a hologram that was turned on when the doctor connected with the wifi of the base.
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A Doctor Who set wouldn’t be complete without a few of the show’s legendary villains -the Daleks are here, as well as the terrifying Weeping Angels. It’s an unusual scene, but it works as an interesting way to explain a bootstrap paradox without awkwardly inserting it into the episode’s dialogue. It’s the height of the Cold War, you see, and the village was used to train soldiers for an invasion on Soviet soil. The Doctor realizes the ship is actually a hearse before being interrupted by the ship’s undertaker, the future ghost Prentis (Paul Kaye). It’s the top hat-wearing ghost from back at the base, only clearly still alive at this point.
Prentis informs the Doctor that he came to this barren planet to bury the Fisher King, a conqueror of his home planet Tivoli. The Doctor demands to know how he’s turning people into ghosts and for what objective, but Prentis has no idea what he’s talking about.
With the love of her life dead and most of her time spent with the Doctor, what’s left for Clara? While the major theme in Season 8 was whether or not the Doctor is a good man, Season 9 finds the Time Lord obsessed with making sure Clara is safe, regardless of the consequences.
Clara could die in the line of duty as a companion. He tells her that he can not change the future, and he’s already dead there. Hiding in the shadows, the Fisher King’s character design initially seems mysterious and creepy but it gets less impressive the more we see of it when it becomes obvious it’s a guy knocking about in a suit. Clara is not letting the Doctor give in to his “bloody survivor’s guilt” on her watch.
After the intro, we find The Doctor, O’Donnell and Bennet in Scotland 1890, where the ship originally crashed in the town. Losing ground, O’Donnell suggests splitting up and runs in a separate direction. Unfortunately, O’Donnell is killed trying to hide from it. A lot of timey wimey wibbly wobbliness ensues especially when Bennett wants to save the still living O’Donnell which the Doctor forbids. They find her only moments before she dies.
“Doctor Who” fans know Jenna Coleman is leaving the series, meaning the end of Clara Oswald’s adventures with the Doctor (Peter Capaldi). The Doctor’s ghost changes what he is saying to “the chamber will be opened tonight” and The Doctor tells Clara to keep her phone by her side because he needs to know everything the ghost does, and that he will come back for her.
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Simon Ridgway/BBC Worldwide Bennett confronts the Doctor about the loss of O’Donnell. Locked in the Faraday Cage with Cass and Lunn, she watches as O’Donnell’s ghost makes a grand entrance and then carries away the cell phone. Lunn agrees to go try and retrieve it, much to Cass’s dismay.
