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| The Doctor and Rose, punchably smug. |
THE PLOT
The Doctor takes Rose just a few years into her future - to the 2012 Olympic Games, in London. They are walking through a residential neighborhood when Rose notices posters of missing children. The Doctor senses residual energy from the children's disappearance and realizes that this is no simple kidnapping. These kids were snatched out of time and space entirely.
Their attention is drawn to the home of Trish Webber (Nina Sosanya), whose daughter Chloe (Abisola Agbaje) has been withdrawn and isolated since her father's death. Chloe stays in her room all day, drawing pictures and refusing to talk to anyone. When the Doctor pushes his way in, he determines that she is acting as host to an alien parasite - an Isolus, a life form that has befriended Chloe because it shares her feelings of loneliness after being isolated from its own family. Now whenever Chloe draws a picture of somebody, the Isolus takes them, building a new family for itself.
The Doctor resolves to send the alien back to its home, which will help it, Chloe, and the people it has snatched all in one go. But the Isolus and Chloe are one step ahead of him. The girl draws one more picture - and when Rose turns around, the Doctor has vanished!
CHARACTERS
The Doctor: Relates to the Isolus' loneliness in a way Rose cannot, and refuses to outright condemn it even as he works to repair the damage it has done. He lets slip that he was a parent once - something that clearly takes Rose by surprise. These are a couple nice character beats in an episode that otherwise overwrites his smug and manic tendencies. It's likely no coincidence that these bits are very well-played by David Tennant, who otherwise seems to be mostly on autopilot.
Rose: Delighted at a trip to the 2012 London Olympics. Even in the midst of an enthused babble by the Doctor, though, she can't help but notice the missing child posters. She directs his attention to them, all but saying that this is a mystery they need to solve. She is also the one who notices Chloe, whose "own mum seemed scared of her." Without the Doctor, Rose is the one who saves the day, quickly putting together the pieces of what the Isolus needs and using the Olympics to set things right... in a nauseatingly bad scene that kicks off several worse scenes, but that's a whole other matter.
THOUGHTS
Near the start of the episode, there's a quite clever gag that sees the TARDIS materializing in a narrow space the wrong way around, so that the Doctor can't leave until he shifts its position. It's quick and it's funny - made more so by David Tennant's perfectly judged facial expression when the Doctor reacts to the problem.
I'm leading with that because I think it's good to start a review with some praise - And I just don't have much praise to give to Fear Her. The episode was made quickly and cheaply after Stephen Fry's long-gestating story finally fell through. While City of Death was famously cobbled together by Graham Williams and Douglas Adams over a weekend, that frenzy of creative brilliance was the exception. More often, when an episode is thrown together at the last minute, you're going to end up with something... Well, something a lot like Fear Her.
As the synopsis probably shows, writer Matthew Graham (of Life on Mars fame) has the sketch of a good Doctor Who story. He also makes a stab at unifying the characters and plot thematically. The Isolus, Chloe, and the Doctor are all isolated characters, and the Isolus' feelings of isolation are what drive the plot. With more time, I suspect the themes and story could have been made to work together quite nicely.
But with no time, there was apparently no chance to separate text and subtext. There's no subtlety here at all. The themes are directly expressed through dialogue, which results in some awkwardly stilted exchanges among the characters and an over-the-top hilarious news broadcast at the end. There was also apparently not enough time to convincingly work out plot complications. As a result, only a few minutes after Rose specifically tells Trish not to leave Chloe alone, Trish does so for no compelling reason - Which basically puts her in the "too stupid to live" category. Basically, the whole thing plays like a first draft, with no time for the writer to work out how to layer subtext and work out plot hurdles before the film dates.
I will say that for its first first 30 minutes, Fear Her is poor but tolerable. The final ten minutes, however, see the episode go for broke, making the situation as big as possible. At this point, what had been merely bad becomes so astonishingly inept. Be it the television announcer's verbal orgasms over how the Olympic torch now stands for hope and love and rainbows and puppies, or the way in which a monster is chased away by two guest characters singing a song while huddling in fear, or the Doctor's final bit of grandstanding... Absolutely everything in this final segment is so brazenly overwrought that it becomes hilarious.
While this is easily the worst episode of the new series' first two seasons, it does just barely avoid bottom marks thanks to two or three decent moments for the Doctor and the unintentional comedy value of the final stretch. Still very poor, though.
Overall Rating: 2/10.
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