Doctor Who has explored several genres before, but never really done a crime caper. It's good to finally see one come about. We have the usual "nice" criminals in the form of augmented criminal Psi and the meta human Saibra, joining up with the Doctor and Clara to rob the Bank of Karabraxos. We have the evil authority figures in the form of Karabraxos and Miss Delphox. Security takes place in the form of the Teller, the telepathic creature that feeds off greed.
It is disappointing that the bank itself turns out to be quite easy for the heroes to penetrate. There are large air ducts scattered about the place for the Doctor and the team to hide in. Also, the constant monitoring systems that the heroes were briefed on do not appear and the breath test system was not used.
Eventually, our heroes make it to the vault and discover that Karabraxos
looks the same as Miss Delphox. The latter was a clone all along. It's hard to care about this new character.
Nevertheless this episode is quite fun. It's refreshing to have an adventure that draws on Heist films and Cyberpunk rather than the clichéd Victorian horror that the Moffat era seems to have moved towards recently.
When I first saw the Teller, back in the World Cup Trailer, I thought it looked more innocent than malevolent. This was born out in the episode itself.
It feels like stating the obvious when I say that Peter Capaldi was great in this episode. There is less of a controversial streak this week, the closest thing to that being his apparent dismissal of Saibra's death.
As with the Robin Hood episode, this is a fairly lightweight story. However, as a fan of Cyberpunk and weird sci-fi aliens, this episode was more enjoyable for me than the former.
8/10
Next: Peter Capaldi's Doctor gets his own equivalent of "The Lodger".
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