This week saw the return
of the fierce, samurai sword wielding, Victorian, interspecies
lesbians that fight crime and it’s almost as awesome as you’d
imagine.
Back in 1893, Silurian
Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh) and her wife, Jenny (Catrin Stewart),
head north to investigate “The Crimson Horror” (with the help of
their Sontaran butler Strax – Dan Starkey). Once in Yorkshire Jenny
infiltrates the mysterious Sweetville community led by Mrs.
Gillyflower (Diana Rigg) who preaches about the coming apocalypse.
Jenny soon discovers the Doctor, chained up and bright red.
After a little bit of
sonicing The Doctor’s back and it turns out while heading to London
with Clara (no doubt to jog her memory) he got caught investigating
the mysterious Yorkshire plagues. After mysteriously surviving
rejection the Doctor was saved by Mrs. Gillyflower’s blind daughter
Ada (if being chained up and called monster can be called a rescue).
The Doctor (Matt Smith)
soon finds Clara (Jenna-Louise Coleman) and they continue their
investigation. Madame Vastra recognizes the venom that is causing the
deaths; it comes from a prehistoric red leech. Mrs. Gillyflower
reveals that her silent partner, Mr Sweet is actually the red leech
she’s keeping on her chest. Her plan is to launch a rocket with the
venom killing the world’s population and allowing her to repopulate
it with her perfect Adam-and-Eve’s. She also admits to
experimenting on her daughter causing her blindness.
Mrs. Gillyflower launches
the rocket my Jenny and Vastra reveal they have already removed the
poison. Strax shoots Mrs. Gillyflower and Ada (Racheal Stirling)
stabs the leech with her walking stick. The Doctor and Clara say
goodbye and the Doctor refuses to answer Jenny and Vastra’s
questions about Clara because he still doesn’t know the answer.
It’s complicated.
While
this episode was basically filler, it was a fun filler. Keeping the
Doctor out of the action for the first fifteen minutes cut back on
exposition increased the suspense and took advantage of the fantastic
guest characters. I could watch an entire series about Vastra, Jenny
and Strax they are that fantastic and because of their role in the
Christmas episode their inclusion actually furthers the series
mystery.
The mystery was complex
but logical enough to follow. It was a tad over the top at times but
that only added to the charm. Diana Rigg was perfect as the evil Mrs
Gillyflower and there were great one-liners, especially from Sontaran
butler Strax. Jenny stripping off her Victorian dress and kicking
some ass was fantastically fun, albeit a little cliché. Clara is
noticeably absent but I can’t say that harmed my enjoyment of the
episode.
All in all it was a fun
romp through Victorian Yorkshire and a nice break from the
wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey mystery of Clara Oswald. Next week’s Neil
Gaiman penned adventure features one of the Doctor’s biggest foes,
the Cybermen.
Review by Yvonne
Popplewell.
More of Yvonne’s work
can be found at her
blog.
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