Doctor Who: Dark Water; Downton Abbey review – death is knocking

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/nov/03/doctor-who-dark-water-downton-abbey-review

Version 0 of 1.

The last words a living Danny Pink ever hears aren’t bad ones, as last words go. “I’ll never say those words again, not to anybody else, those words from me are yours now,” Clara tells him down the phone. Which words? “I love you”, those ones. Then, sadly, Danny is tragically run over and killed.

On the plus side (apart from the fact that Clara is single again), death – in Doctor Who (BBC1, Saturday) – at least, is not the end. And this gives Steven Moffat, who wrote this darkly engrossing series finale (second part next week), an opportunity to explore the afterlife.

So what it’s like – heaven, the promised land, the nethersphere? Initially, like the key to the Tardis (silver Yale-style, undistinguished), disappointing. An anonymous neat grey office, with a lot of admin to be taken care of, forms to fill in, by a fastidious man called Seb, Moffat’s version of Charon. Or St Peter. Seb is played by Chris Addison – never mind the army of Cyborgs marching out of St Paul’s, it’s former pals from The Thick of It who are taking over.

It – the nethersphere – improves out of the window, a perpetual city of perpetual night, a view quite literally to die for. It’s not all good over there, though – people would be a lot more scared of dying if they knew what it was really like. Nor is it a good advertisement for leaving your body to science (that’s what those screams are) or for cremation. I imagine a number of wills were changed over the weekend, and donor cards ripped up.

Clara and the Doctor show up in a kind of mausoleum full of fishtanks. No fish, but human skeletons, and the liquid is the Dark Water of the episode’s title, through which only organic matter can be seen (oh, go on Clara, quick dip?). The place is a kind of amalgamation of two adjacent London tourist attractions at County Hall: the London Aquarium and the London Dungeon. Perhaps Moffat was on the South Bank on a busy Saturday, as I was recently, and decided this was as close to hell as it’s possible to get.

Oh, and there’s a hint of the Apple Store (also hellish on a Saturday) in Danny’s part of the afterlife. Not only are there iPads on the other side, and Wi-Fi, but, as Seb proudly says: “We have Steve Jobs.” Plus, there’s the opportunity to meet people you have wronged – killed, for example (as Danny did when he was a soldier) – to apologise, perhaps. There’s something of a 12-step programme to it all too, SA, Stiffs Anonymous.

Here’s Missy, Michelle Gomez, ACTING in capitals, villain, sexual predator, much as she was in Green Wing. Who is she really, though? Well, you’ll know by now, but that part has been cut out of my review copy, I’m still in the dark. Cyborg? Dalek? River Song Mary Poppins, the femme fatale version? Or, given the trend, maybe someone else from The Thick of It, the Rt Hon Nicola Murray MP perhaps? A mention of the Doctor’s swearing, and his internalised anger, is a nod to Malcolm Tucker, no?

I’ve been enjoying Peter’s Capaldi as the Doctor. More alien, more rock’n’roll, less boyband than the last two. And he’s brought a touch of menace and darkness to the show (this episode being a fine example) that I also approve of. I suspect my approval may mean he gets the opposite from the kids. Yeah, well, so what, it’s not your show any more. Love you, now go to bed.

Death is knocking on the door of Downton Abbey (ITV, Sunday), too. Bates? Hanged by the neck, at last? No such luck, I’m afraid. No, Isis – or is she Isil now? – the yellow labrador, who was looking listless last week, has cancer. Lord Grantham is devastated (posh people care more about their dogs than their children). I’m quite sad, too, to be honest; she’s pretty much the only likeable character. And having seen what awaits is no comfort, assuming dogs, too, are pickled for eternity in Dark Water. Wi-Fi is no consolation for a labrador.

Can it really be because of the unfortunate associations of her name, though, written out because there’s no place for a caliphate hound on Sunday night family television? Nah, I reckon it’s because, like the others who’ve departed or who are going (Tom, too, by the looks of things, to America), she can sniff a sinking ship. Or at least a ship that has lost its rudder. And she wants outta there.