TV Review: DOCTOR WHO and PREY

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 12th December 2015.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

Doctor Who: Saturday, BBC One

Prey: Wednesday, STV

Paul Whitelaw

Farewell then, Clara Oswald, I'm sure I speak for many when I say you were definitely a companion in the hit sci-fi series Doctor Who. Please don't come back.

A fortnight after she was killed off, Clara returned in this year's series finale. Head writer Steven Moffat just couldn't let her lie, thus undoing the impact of her demise. But at least he only revived her to give her tangled story an absolutely final happy ending. Didn't he?

Having essentially become a surrogate Doctor after all that time spent with him, she whizzed off in her American diner-shaped TARDIS to have intergalactic adventures with a female companion of her own. In a bittersweet twist – one that explicitly mirrored/subverted the tragic demise of Donna Noble - the Doctor, after spending 5 billion hellish years trying to reverse Clara's death, had all his memories of her erased.

This, in its vaguely underwhelming way, was actually one of the nicest, most poetic send-offs a companion has ever had. It's just a shame it was wasted on Clara.

Had she been a more engaging character, her exit would've carried greater emotional weight. Instead it came across as merely clever. A neat conjuring trick. Moffat the technician. Unlike most previous companions, Clara was a bland non-event. Introduced as little more than a mysterious plot device during the Matt Smith era, she never developed a personality beyond Moffat's standard quipping, sassy auto-bot setting

I didn't dislike her. How could I? It was impossible to feel any strong emotions about such a thin, inoffensive character. She was pretty. Her clothes were nice. Clara Oswald, a life.

It wasn't Jenna Coleman's fault, she's a competent actress. But even the greatest board-treader would struggle with such an unfocused role. It didn't help that she was paired with Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi, two of the most magnetically charismatic actors to ever fill the Time Lord's boots. She didn't stand a chance.

So why did Moffat keep her around for so long? Possibly because he was determined to fix a character who simply didn't work. He wanted to make her seem important in the grand scheme of DW lore because he regretted having created such an insubstantial character. But she never came alive.

Still, at least we can look forward to a new companion next year, one who will hopefully prove worthy of Peter Capaldi's magnificent central performance. He commands the screen with total assurance.

The unevenness of the finale – which, though beautifully directed and full of interesting ideas, didn't quite cohere - was frustrating given that this series was one of the best in years.

Capaldi's electrifying anti-war speech from the Zygon adventure was the most powerfully direct political statement in DW history, while the extraordinary episode in which the Doctor found himself trapped within an hallucinatory Kafka-esque nightmare has rightly been hailed as an all-time classic.

It was a reminder that, when inspired, Moffat is one of DW's greatest ever writers. If, as rumoured, the next series is his last, I hope he exits on the high note he deserves.

Series one of Prey starred John Simm as man wrongly accused of a terrible crime. The loosely connected second series finds his old Life On Mars mucker Philip Glenister in a similar predicament. Last year, Ashes to Ashes' Keeley Hawes found herself wrongly accused and framed in Line Of Duty 2. Is that entire cast suffering from a paranoid persecution complex? Do they have something to tell us?

As a prison guard blackmailed into allowing a female inmate to escape, Glenister plays his standard role with practised hangdog aplomb. I'm a sucker for a Wrong Man scenario, and Prey riffs on the theme quite assuredly. It's a pot-boiler, but competently brewed.

However, the real star of this reasonably diverting thriller is Rosie Cavaliero as the engagingly cynical, humanely downbeat detective on his trail. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of this fine character actress in future.