“Clara, I want to talk to my ghost self.”

© BBC

Written by Jeff Zyra.

The problem with two-part stories in the new version of Doctor Who, is that the second part for the most part has been disappointing or at the very least pretty mediocre and has not delivered on the excitement from the first-part that got you all jazzed up for the conclusion.  So far in the Capaldi era the two-parters have been mixed with the mediocre ‘Dark Water’ / ‘Death in Heaven’ to the very well done ‘The Magician’s Apprentice’ / ‘The Witch’s Familiar’.  ‘Before the Flood’ has the hard task of following the really good ‘Under the Lake’ and despite not being quite as good as its lead up episode, it wasn’t bad at all and was pretty entertaining.

‘Before the Flood’ starts off with one of the more confusing segments to start an episode.  At first I was what the hell does this have to do with anything and who cares about Beethoven and that stupid guitar?   I just did not care and wanted to know more about the ghost Doctor and what would happen to Clara and the others in the sea’s base.  Well that scene in a clever but annoyingly confusing way explained how The Doctor escaped from the Fisher King – but did we really need that explanation at the beginning?  Maybe, but the explanation went by so fast that I had to watch it again.  It made sense the second time around but at first watch it was confusing.

I really enjoyed ‘Before the Flood’ but did not think it was as good as ‘Under the Lake’ which was scary and had a lot of tension that was missing from ‘Before the Flood’ which was not all that scary and was turned into a time travel story.  Yes the scene with Cass walking in the corridors was a tad scary but you had a feeling that she would figure out that a ghost was behind her.  That scene reminded me a bit of Daredevil when he used his powers to sense that someone was there.

Clara is starting to act too much like The Doctor and it is getting annoying!  I mean when she forced Moran out to get the cell phone back from the ghosts because he wasn’t infected was a good idea but who is she to order him to get it?  Yes he went because he knew it was the right thing but I did love how Cass called Clara out on that.  Something she needed as it almost ended up getting them all killed.