Who Review: Fear Her

So first The Idiot's Lantern, now Fear Her... who on the writing team had such terrible terrible daddy issues?

We open with a shot of Glorious Suburban London, 2012, and quickly discover that Gasp and Alarm, there is a missing child. A woman walks around, confused, and the music just goes on. It's like Murray Gold was payed by the minute.

A kid disappears, and we discover that Gasp and Alarm, there's a little girl drawing that kid, and Gasp and Alarm, that drawing comes to life. Ceci n'est pas un kid. Anyway, there's some atrocious stalling for time as the Doctor re-orients the TARDIS so he can get out. Guys, if nobody thought to use that gimmick in any of the previous 27 seasons, it's probably a bad idea.

The Doctor's off in his own world, ignoring children in danger. Wow, Eleven actually is really different from Ten.

So I'm four minutes in and I'm trying to understand why the music's aping the music from the 80s. It's not synthesized, but it's just cheery and annoying.

A car stops. This has been happening all week. Just like the kids disappearing.

And then in the middle of a squabble, David Tennant does something that finally makes me like him. In this, one of the worst episodes of Nu Who, he tells a bunch of whiners to shut up. Yay!

So then we learn that girl's name is Chloe, and that her mother can't control her at all. Also, Chloe's actress, um, simply can't act. I don't really like child actors in general, and this one's just annoying.

Now, why all the nonsense about the Olympics? This was 6 years away when this episode came out. Were they trying to trick us into thinking the Olympic torch would be the torch in Torchwood? I kind of doubt it.

Rose finds a cat. The Doctor says he's not a cat person, making me want to go watch Survival instead. It's the same setup, people disappearing in the middle of the suburbs, only better.

Then the cat disappears. Aaaaaaaaaand the epic tilt-a-cam is back, as Rose walks down another street. Minus five billion points just for that. And then the worst special effect in Nu Who's history attacks Rose. The Doctor disables it with his magic screwdriver, and determines that it is a scribble creature.

Then Rose decides she saw a creepy girl. Yeah, and I saw a girl who's morphed from Billie the Dalek Slayer into Sherlock Holmes with the biggest crush ever. Sherlock Rose sneaks upstairs in the girl's house and investigates. Woo-hoo, Rose doing something other than cling! Unfortunately, she gets freaked by a scary closet and knocks some pencils over. Just when I was congratulating her, she had to go and do something clumsy. Typical Season 2. Then she finds a drawing of Satan in the closet.

Meanwhile, the Doctor meets Chloe, who blows him off. He gives her the Vulcan salute because hey, why not? Rose screams, and Chloe reveals that she drew her dad in the closet, and then her mom goes all stupid. Because this is one of the last gasps of Billie the Dalek Slayer, and as everyone knows, adults are always useless. Rusty hates moms and somebody has daddy issues.

Okay, so let's see. She's got a useless mom and a dead father. There's room for a "Rose, this could have been you" story here, but ha ha not a chance in this season.

Turns out Chloe's posessed by an alien who's even more annoyingly childish than she is. It's an empathic being that needs to be with its brethren. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaw kiddie needs friends. Apparently the moody bratty aliens can't navigate, because they let themselves get hit by a solar flare, and one of them crashed on earth and posessed Chloe.

Satan starts breaking through the closet, but the Doctor gets Chloe's mother to sing to her and make the nightmares go away. And with that we're halfway through the episode, with really nothing to do except make the alien leave Chloe before her nightmares unleash Satan or she draws all the kids.

But ha ha, Chloe saw footage of the Olympic ceremony, so she decides it's time to add to her drawings. But first, she's got to attack the Doctor. Meanwhile, the Doctor casually mentions that he was a dad once, making Rose go catatonic. For a moment anyway. And then the Doctor and the TARDIS disappear. Rose tells the useless mother not to let Chloe out of her sight - thus proving once and for all that Rose is only marginally more intelligent than half a pancake - and then goes outside. She meets the street paver guy who helped push a car in an earlier scene. He says there's a lump in the road, but Rose ignores him because she's looking for a crashed spaceship. You know, a tiny little thing that could make a lump in a road. I guess it's an easy oversight to make if you're only marginally more intelligent than half a pancake. And then the guy starts whining again.

But Rose manages to find the spaceship.

Meanwhile, mommy has left Chloe alone, because she's so damn responsible. And guess what? The crowd at the olypic stadium is gone. And we listen to the TV commentator underact. And then we watch Chloe overact. And then we listen to Satan threaten a bit from the locker.

And then there's a gobsmacking coincidence. The Doctor draws a torch on his piece of paper, probably with the magic screwdriver. And the TV shows the olympic torch. You know, because pancake-brain wouldn't have worked it out otherwise. And Rose tells the ship to feel the love, because when I see the olympic torch I think of love.

But whatever, the alien realizes it can go home and so abandons its human host without a second thought. No, nuking the selfish little brat would never be an option. I swear, after this episode and the one before it, I'm going into the season finale thinking "Go team Torchwood."

And somehow the alien leaving makes all the drawings come to life, not just the ones that were real people trapped in there. Rose, despite being only marginally more intelligent than half a pancake, realizes this too. And she gives Chloe the whatever it is, love, courage, whatever, that they need to defeat the thing that shouldn't even have existed in the first place. The Doctor carries the olympic torch, and the episode ends, but not before Rose goes catatonic again, wondering "who's going to hold [the Doctor's] hand now." Aaaaaaaaaaaaand then they close it out with some foreshadowing.

Gah. Well, this isn't as bad as "Love and Monsters" because at least this one has the Doctor in it, even if he's generally acting only marginally more mature than the childish alien brats. 2 out of 10.