Holistic Review: Elements of a traditional fairytale combine with a Doctor Who approach to yield an episode that's emotional, richly themed, and the most imaginative of the season.
From the title and the trailer, I was expecting It Takes You Away to be a gripping horror-thriller episode in the same vein as It Follows. But ten minutes in, the entire episode changes tack, and what we get instead is a charming modern-day fairytale.
Because of that abrupt shift, it took me a long time — through the entirety of three viewings, in fact — to figure out the meaning of the title, which would have been a reference to the modus operandi of the beast outside Hanne's cottage, if it had indeed been the main threat... or, well, existed at all. But the more I think about it, the more I think that the title has beautiful depth, just like the episode itself. On a surface level, yes, it does still refer to the Solitract's attempts to lure humans into its realm, but I sense a deeper meaning too.
Because what It Takes You Away really wants to talk about is connection. Specifically, the emotional bonds between people, and how vitally important they are to our lives.
We see this theme reflected most strongly in the Solitract. Just from the Doctor's description of it as a being that's lethally incompatible with the entire universe, we infer that the Solitract's banishment must have felt very unjust. And, indeed, when we meet the creature itself, those same emotions do come through: all the Solitract ever wanted, like an eager puppy, was to interact with our universe. Instead, it was locked away in a cage in a sealed-up dark room, and never allowed to see people again. It's such a sad, tragic story, and amazingly — despite the fierce way it lures and tries to hang on to Erik and Graham ("like a trap", as Yaz observes), and the icy resolve with which it rapidly banishes those who attempt to undermine its budding relationships — it's not bitter, or angry. It's just desperately lonely. Even after all this time in solitary isolation, the only thing it craves is contact with the beings in our universe.
When Trine dies, Hanne and Erik both lose a crucial connection in their lives, which in turn sadly weakens the connection between the two of them. As we all know, everyone reacts to grief differently; some people cling on more tightly to those they love, and others withdraw. Clearly, Erik is of the latter type. Losing Trine makes him pull away from the world and, worse, he forces Hanne to disconnect too. Erik quits his job in Oslo, moves them out of their flat, and separates Hanne from all of her friends, whisking her off to a remote cabin in the north, where their only neighbors are bears and sheep. For some people, this life might be idyllic, but Erik seems to have chosen it because he felt tortured, unable to get over his wife's death and probably unable to stop thinking about it, and it's probably only worsened now that he has nobody but Hanne to talk to. Poor Hanne: in the throes of grief, deprived of her friends, with a distant and emotionally unavailable father, who then boards her up in the house and abandons her. One by one, her connections to the world all drop away, until, like the Solitract, she's left alone. At least, until the TARDIS crew turn up, bursting their way into the cottage and forcibly befriending her.
Erik remains deeply unconcerned about Hanne, blithely confident that she can take care of herself, all alone, in a boarded-up house with a deadly monster shrieking in the woods outside, as long as there's food in the freezer. The Solitract could hardly have zeroed in on a better target; Erik's blasé apathy is evidently right up its alley, given that his attitude is almost word-for-word the same as mirror-Grace's, when Graham expresses concern about Ryan's well-being. They can take care of themselves, say Erik and Grace; why should we bother? His treatment of Hanne is tantamount to emotional abuse. What would have happened if Hanne had injured herself? Or if she'd risked running away into the forest, or taking the boat, while she thought the creature was hibernating during the day? Or if Erik had stayed away too long, and she'd run out of food and starved to death? Is Hanne really so headstrong that he thought she would leave despite his explicit instructions unless he terrorized her into staying put? Maybe if he had just explained to her that he was going away for a few days and would be back soon, he could've avoided all this! The saddest fact is, Erik never reaches the point of voluntarily choosing Hanne over Trine, until the Doctor literally forces him to return to the cottage, and he realizes just how horribly he's neglected his child. The moment when he spots the Doctor's message on the wall, and it sinks in that everyone had taken over the responsibility of caring for his daughter, under the assumption that he was dead and gone forever, is truly powerful.
Part of me wants to forgive him; after all, people would do almost anything just to glimpse their dead partner again, much less have the opportunity to reunite for the rest of their lives. But the fact remains that Hanne would have wanted to see her mum too, and Erik could have tried to make the trip to bring Hanne back to the mirror-house, or — if he judged that to be too great a risk — he could've just brought Hanne back with him the first time he returned, instead of boarding up the house and terrifying her into remaining inside while he was gone. Given how many alternatives there were to his selfish decision, it's really hard to argue that he had her best interests at heart.
Toward the story's end, the theme of connection surfaces again with Graham and Ryan. Graham, in particular, is strongly affected by the events of this story, as he comes face-to-face with a highly convincing replica of his late wife Grace. His reaction to her, in a wonderful performance by Bradley Walsh, is an emotional journey from angry denial to pained disbelief to irrepressible delight to stubborn reluctance. Seeing Grace again seems to unlock all the grief that he's been trying to bury, and once she finally convinces him that she's real, all that repressed sadness bubbles to the surface, intermingled with overwhelming joy which demonstrates just how deeply he's missed her. I hope this experience somehow gives him some closure, but after losing Grace for a second time, he mainly seems broken. Ryan quite sensitively notices this, and makes a genuine effort to lift Graham's spirits. Perhaps it's something about seeing such incontrovertible proof of how much Graham loved Grace too, or perhaps Ryan's simply softened toward him in the course of their shared travels, but he finally decides to claim Graham officially as family: "But at least we've got each other, right? Grandad?" I'm not sure anything could've cheered Graham up more effectively than realizing that Ryan genuinely does love him, and wants to claim a familial connection with him. Graham's spirits are immediately brightened, and he walks into the TARDIS a little more healed than he walked out of it.
By the end of the story, all the broken connections are at least a little bit repaired. The Solitract has briefly reconnected with our universe via the Doctor, Hanne and her dad have reconnected, and Graham and Ryan have really connected for the first time. So I think maybe that's what the title means: if this story is all about people who are searching for, or finding, or fixing, connections with other people, what is it that severs those connections? Rejection, grief, selfishness, anger. But the story's message is a positive one, that the truly valuable relationships can, and should, be repaired and strengthened.
Running alongside the story's main message is a sub-theme of loss, or — more accurately — the importance of coming to terms with that loss. It's surely no coincidence that all of the relationship issues in this story are a direct result of losing loved ones: Hanne and Erik deal with their grief for Trine, Graham (and to a lesser degree Ryan) continues to mourn Grace, and the Solitract longs for the universe it was forced to leave behind. The Doctor very nearly finds herself leaving our universe behind too, and remarks that what she'll miss the most are the people, her friends. With Graham and Erik, whose losses were recent, the Solitract is able to exploit their grief, presenting a wish-fulfillment scenario that all of us who have lost loved ones can surely relate to. The simulacra of Grace and Trine are a heart-wrenching paradox: though they're ultimately not real, as the Doctor and initially Graham suspect, they certainly feel like they could be. Trine even recognizes the impossibility of her existence, and you don't expect a fake person to be that self-aware. The fact that they can remember their own deaths likewise makes it more believable that these might really be the same women, resurrected. (How it's possible for them to recall these details, we're never told, though a memory transfer from the people who enter the Solitract realm would seem to make sense.) Especially after her conversation with Graham, it's hard to dismiss the possibility that this could actually be Grace's consciousness. And if it's that easy for us to buy into the lie, how much easier must it be for Erik and Graham, who desperately want them to be alive again? Losing someone, and wishing so deeply to be able to see them even one more time, is certainly a universal theme, and it tugs on the heartstrings here. And none of these characters — the Solitract, Erik, Hanne, or Graham — are able to heal until they've begun to move on from the loss that's defined them.
And the story weaves these messages into the trappings of a fairytale. These details are really subtle, to the point that I didn't even catch it until partway through my second viewing, but they give the whole story a cozily familiar, comfily frightening, delightfully entertaining vibe. The start of the story features an isolated cottage on the edge of a vast forest which is home to a dangerous beast, reminiscent of Little Red Riding Hood or Hansel and Gretel. Inside the cottage is a magic mirror straight out of Snow White or Through the Looking-Glass. The latter is an even better comparison in some ways, because on the other side of the mirror is a completely different realm (Jack and the Beanstalk, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz) which is home to a mischievous childlike magical entity (Rumplestiltskin, Peter Pan) that happens to take the shape of a talking frog (The Frog Prince). I mean, for goodness' sake, the Doctor even relates the backstory of the Solitract by telling Yaz one of her childhood bedtime stories. If these clues were a snake, they would've bitten me.
But more than anything, what impresses me is the sheer inventiveness of the plot. As Doctor Who stories go, it's most definitely high-concept, and it's chock-a-block with some of the most thought-provoking ideas that the series has presented. The idea of a universe that's anathema to our own is nothing new in and of itself — it's reminiscent of Omega's anti-matter universe, among others — but the anti-zones, and the Solitract, are such fresh and interesting science-fiction concepts. Anti-zones, bubbles that spring up around areas where the fabric of the universe is wearing dangerously thin, fit perfectly within Doctor Who mythos, which already features loads of hazardous, unstable weak points and rifts and cracks in time, and portals like the CVE to other universes. The idea that anti-zones might arise as a buffer zone between two completely incompatible universes, therefore, is a logical extrapolation, and not one that I think I've ever seen before. Equally new is the concept of a being that was one of the few fundamental forces present at the formation of the universe, yet was so incompatible with everything else that, in order for the universe to cohere, the interloper had to be expelled. It's such a novel idea that it's hard to even visualize, and better yet, it comes with built-in pathos. It's such a compelling tale, that the Solitract was desperate to be included, but because it prevented everything else in the universe from working — not because of anything it did, just because of who it was, which the Solitract couldn't help — it was forced into exile for the good of everyone else. Thanks to its tragic backstory, the Solitract is unexpectedly adorable, so eager for just a taste of friendship.
I'm really impressed with Ed Hime's script. Not only is it creative and multi-layered, it's skilfully written with efficient plot development and an intuitive understanding of naturalistic dialogue and setup. For example: in deep, meaningful stories like this, one of my biggest concerns is that sometimes the grand speeches fall disappointingly flat. In this story, there are so many places where critical discussions could have been handled badly, but they're always managed with sensitivity and authentic emotion. I'm thinking particularly of Graham's conversation with Grace, and his heart-to-heart with Ryan at the end. With Grace, he's able to share his adventures (including meeting Rosa Parks, which of course she would want to know about) and express his sense of loss, and I felt such an outpouring of happiness when he finally gave her a hug. Even if she wasn't real, he needed that moment, and so did I. At the end, when Ryan tries to comfort Graham, I was afraid that his pep talk was going to turn out to be one of those shallow clichéd bonding moments, especially when Ryan sighs, "I miss her too, all the time." (Ya think?) But then it takes the sweetest turn, and the two characters wind up bonded more tightly than ever. The dénouement is a great example of one of those powerfully-scripted moments in which unfolding events all of a sudden click into place, and you realize with a lurching heart what's about to happen, as — thanks to Yaz and Hanne's example — the Doctor realizes how to escape... but the only way for her to save Erik is to force the Solitract to reject him, by offering herself up in his place. (It's also an internally consistent point that even one person is enough to destabilize the Solitract plane, just as one Solitract destabilizes our universe.) The way that the story plays out makes perfect sense, and everything that the characters do feels true to who they are, because every character's actions are motivated by genuine and relatable emotions. It's a spectacular blend of sci-fi themes with character drama.
I was thrilled to learn that Hime had set the story in Norway. Another superb feature of season 11 has been just how global it is. Evidently we're past the days when all alien menaces attack London, and as much fun as that was, I'm revelling in our new expanded worldview. Best of all, there's absolutely no reason why this story has to be set in Norway — they could've located it in Sheffield with absolutely no changes (the "Land of Midnight Sun" poster in Erik's bedroom might even have made more sense) — so I love that it is. Just because. Situating the story in remote Scandinavia adds a dash of background color and multicultural interest to a story that's pretty fascinating already.
Because It Takes You Away is scripted with so many red herrings and surprise discoveries, it feels very unpredictable. For example, when we first see the magic mirror, and all we know is that a monster has apparently taken Hanne's dad, I thought maybe it was using the mirror to get into the house. Then, of course, in one of the story's biggest twists, we find out there's no monster at all! Though I have to confess that this particular surprise slightly backfired for me, at least until I got used to the story's new direction. The start of the episode, which appears to be about a dreadful creature in the woods menacing and spiriting away the inhabitants of an isolated cottage, is fantastically tense. The reveal of the wire, therefore, took me completely by surprise and upended my expectations about the entire story. In some ways that was thrilling, but I must admit that, for the first three viewings, I was pretty disappointed that the monster in the forest turned out to be absolutely nothing. Especially because this turns out to be the one and only thread of the plot that has potentially significant plot holes:
Happily, It Takes You Away tries to make amends — or should I say, repair our relationship — for yanking away my scary monster by offering up not one foe but two in the anti-zone.
The flesh moths initially seem like a tame substitute for the forest creature, far too cute to be frightened of, and distinctly earthly rather than alien. And we never really see them devour anything; even the rat that Ribbons throws out as a lure is shrouded in fog as the moth apparently chows down. But the idea of flesh-eating moths is certainly cool, and the whole thing clicks once we witness swarms of voracious moths pursuing people. The moment that really sells their menace is when one swarm — having apparently managed to kill Ribbons in, at most, 14 seconds — flies away before finishing their meal, and we see one straggler moth crawl out of Ribbons' eye socket!!! Eeyurgh. Now I do not want to snuggle them. From that point onward, once we understand what they can do, their menace is much more believable. When a flesh moth lands on Ryan's lantern as he and Hanne argue, oblivious to the danger, the tension ratchets upward. Until their appearance, the atmosphere had been slowly shifting from tension and frights into wonder and mystery, but the flesh moths definitely reinject some horror into the story.
Our lesser villain — "lesser" only because he's willing to play nice in order to get what he wants — is the enigmatic Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs (Kevin Eldon). He's a fascinating character, mainly due to Eldon's compelling performance. Eldon positively inhabits Ribbons, giving him subtle alien mannerisms (like his posture as he tries not to make a noise that might attract the flesh moths), and a wonderful husky, breathy way of speaking. Among my favorites of his many delightful line readings: "Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmadam, my name is Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs. I so want your tubular. Such a shiny tubular.", "You find when I take you. But only with payment. Tubular please? Now.", "Anything can be distracted with a little bit of food." (which sounds menacing even though I have no idea why it would be!), "I can show you, but such delicious showing costs more.", and "No! Dark is worse!"
The one point where the sci-fi plot stumbles, though, is in explaining Ribbons' origins. The Doctor presses him enough to learn that he's always lived in the anti-zone, but that still doesn't explain how he arrived in the first place. One would assume that the anti-zone is only as old as the Solitract's incursions into our universe, which have apparently only been happening for roughly a week, unless it latched onto the bedroom mirror while the house was abandoned for decades, and has been waiting for a "victim" ever since. Ribbons is at least that old too, so it does seem reasonable to assume that the anti-zone has been around for that long, unless time moves differently in the anti-zone, but we have no evidence of that. (Is it possible that the Solitract's first attempt to establish a bridgehead was in Ribbons' part of the universe? And for some reason he or his parents set up shop in the anti-zone instead of the Solitract realm, so the Solitract tried again in Norway?)
Even in a season of well-above-average stories, this is the kind of strong conceptual episode that Jodie Whittaker has been needing all along; in fact, I almost wish it had come in the first half of the season, to silence all the naysayers who felt (somewhat justifiably) that her Doctor has been scripted as too fallible and ineffective, which unintentionally implies that she's not as capable as previous incarnations because she's a woman. Well, It Takes You Away should silence that objection. In this story, the thirteenth Doctor is allowed to be commanding in a way that we haven't really seen yet, like when she coolly takes control of negotiations with Ribbons, or defiantly confronts the Solitract. Because the script presents the Doctor with a mystery that only she can solve — an alien from the dawn of time, so ancient and powerful that it's passed into Gallifreyan mythology — literally nobody else is as qualified to sort everything out as she is, and as such, she runs rings around all the other characters (with a few helpful, and welcome, assists from Yaz) as she works out what's going on. I adore watching the Doctor puzzle out this problem aloud. (Though I have to admit that, first, she's a bit slow to realize that the mirror-world is dangerous, which seems obvious the moment we realize that they've arrived in another realm on the opposite side of the anti-zone; else why would it exist? And second, her very first guess as to the mirror-world's origins is far-fetched yet utterly correct, when simpler alternatives like the Toymaker or even the Land of Fiction might have warranted consideration before making such a leap.) It's also very worth noting her reaction to Ribbons: armed with a knife, he immediately implies that he's considering butchering and eating them all, but the Doctor doesn't even flinch. She just continues to treat him like anybody else, moves toward him rather than away, oh and by the way can we have your lamp. It's brilliant, rather on par with Sylvester McCoy strolling coolly away from an exploding tent.
This story leverages so many different facets of the thirteenth Doctor's personality. In a story featuring an unfathomably old and incomprehensibly alien being, who lives on a magical plane of existence perpendicular to our own, the thirteenth Doctor's shining sense of wonder suits very well. In this regard, Whittaker's performance is especially delightful as the Doctor and the Solitract get to know one another. Of course the episode also shows off the Doctor's keen intelligence. Not only does she figure out the workings of the mirror-portal and the existence of the Solitract, she also shrewdly observes that Erik is trying to conceal the existence of someone else living with him. Her considerate side comes out as she pretends to draw a map on the wall ("This is a map of the house with its most vulnerable points," she lies), while secretly writing a message to her friends, because she wants to spare Hanne the pain of hearing that the Doctor plans to proceed under the assumption that Erik is dead. Likewise, she handles the Solitract with such gentleness, caring, and empathy, and sincere declarations of friendship, at least once she realizes what the Solitract wants. Their relationship is just so sweet. (Though, to balance out her tender side, Doctor Blunt also makes a reappearance, as she indelicately inquires, "Are you blind, Hanne?") Lovely delivery of "Shall we take a walk?", "I'm okay!", her performance as the Doctor tries to remember the facts of the Solitract story, "I'm genuinely terrified.", and "Right, me and a conscious universe masquerading as a frog, BFFs." (But did anyone else notice that she went extra-Huddersfield on "Why has the Solitract copied your world, including Grace and Trine?")
In addition to its fantastic characterization of the Doctor, It Takes You Away handles the three companions probably better than any other story this season, by giving them far better characterization within just the first 8 minutes than they've gotten in any other episode. Not only do they each get wonderful moments of character development, which reinforces what we knew about them as well as providing new information, but the script divides out the action fairly equally between them all, because it has a clear plan for how they're each going to contribute to the story.
Yaz is the one who most efficiently wins over Hanne, by scolding Ryan for his rudeness toward her, and bonding with Hanne over her T-shirt. She's wonderful at relating to the teenager, and, as I suspected (but am exceedingly grateful to have confirmed), this interpersonal skill is at least partly a result of her police training in how to handle scared children. Likewise, when Ribbons threatens Graham, Yaz tries to de-escalate the situation. Her bravery is again a hallmark of her character, as she immediately volunteers to accompany the Doctor through the mirror. The story also helps to flesh out her relationship with Graham and particularly the Doctor, with whom she hasn't shared as much one-on-one time. Toward the end of the story, she even becomes a sounding board for the Doctor, as the two of them try to puzzle out where they are, and why the mirror realm exists. I will say that again this week, I was starting to feel like Gill's acting wasn't quite up to the level of the others (on lines like "When you say 'a portal'..." and her line about following Ribbons the nutter), but all those worries vanished during her scenes with the Doctor. Gill and Whittaker have such an easy chemistry together, and as the Doctor explains her theory about the Solitract, Yaz impresses by not only following along, but contributing to the discussion and asking intelligent questions. Among my favorite of her deliveries: "Normal for Norway, maybe.", "You have to reinforce whatever it is that makes them feel safe.", the wonder in her voice on "This is a separate exiled universe that is also a consciousness?", and "Nice work, Doctor!" Bonus points to Mandip Gill for being the only member of the cast who makes a real effort to consistently pronounce all of the Norwegian names correctly. One of her best moments is when she faces down mirror-Grace, and — bearing in mind that I usually abhor Gordon-Ramsay-style hyperbole — delivers a perfect takedown: "Don't take advantage of him. You're not Grace. The real Grace was a beautiful smiling superstar, and you know what she was, above all else? She was brave. And she'd be leading the charge through that mirror."
Ryan gets a lovely character arc with Hanne. The two of them start off on very much the wrong foot, when Ryan matter-of-factly suggests that Hanne's dad has run out on her. "How do you know your dad didn't just pack up and go?" isn't the sort of thing that most people would say to a kid, but we're swiftly reminded — though the script never explicitly points it out — that Ryan's pessimism is a direct result of his abandonment by his own father. To him, the idea is no big deal, but Hanne is so offended that she takes an immediate dislike to him. (Amazingly, and distressingly, it later turns out that he was basically right.) We also learn that Ryan doesn't have a lot of confidence dealing with kids, so the deck is particularly stacked against him when the Doctor assigns him to buddy up with Hanne, to their mutual discontent. (Ryan, hilariously, is the first to huff but also the first to get offended when Hanne returns the sentiment.) And it's true, he doesn't seem that great with kids: he patronizes Hanne (even while he tries to treat her like an adult), and he manhandles her and locks her out of her dad's bedroom (which is completely in her best interest, but she is far from amused). It's difficult to say what exactly turns their relationship around, but he becomes very protective of her in the anti-zone, even nearly sacrificing himself to ensure that she makes it through safely. By the end of the story, they've developed a connection based on mutual respect, and Hanne even gives him a tight hug before they leave. Great delivery by Cole of "Should've just got wifi."
Graham gets to be the comic relief as they explore the house and the anti-zone, and as always, Walsh makes it seem effortless. I adored the detail that Graham, whose hangry nature has already made itself known in Rosa, has taken to making himself a cheese-and-pickle sandwich every time they leave the TARDIS, just to be safe. ("Yeah, well, I've learned the hard way, en't I? I mean, we can go a long time without eating, and I get a bit cranky with the old low blood sugar level. Now, I always come prepared!") Not only is this totally in-character, it's also a brilliant idea that I'm shocked no companion has ever before considered. But the story doesn't shoehorn him into the "funny" box: it lavishes attention on his deeper emotions, too. In fact, the moment Grace turns up, the story practically begins to pivot around him. Graham has alluded to his grief about Grace's death on several occasions, including at the story's beginning when he mentions their desire to visit Norway together, but often in the context of wanting to escape his emotions. In this story, he truly opens up about his feelings, and how Grace's death has affected him. The Doctor reveals her own insight into his character, which we didn't know although it makes complete sense: "I know deep down you still blame yourself for what happened to Grace. It was not your fault!" But as badly as he wants Grace to be real, I'm glad that when she dismisses the idea of rescuing Ryan (twice!), that finally helps Graham to realize that she's not really his Grace. Yet again, Walsh knocks his scenes out of the park. Witness the look of pain on Graham's face as he's confronted with an apparition of his dead wife, unsure whether to believe her or not. Great delivery of "So close. You were so close.", and "You're a fake. I wish you weren't, but you are."
Hanne (Ellie Wallwork) is a deeply sympathetic character, stranded on her own for days at such a young age, and clearly terrified yet trying to soldier on bravely. When we first learned that Hanne was blind, I suspected that this story might have parallels with the Audrey Hepburn film Wait Until Dark, in which a newly-blind woman, home alone, is unaware that two criminals are hiding in her apartment, trying to find a doll full of smuggled goods that was planted on her husband. (I watched it with my friends Nancy and Sander, and... you know that moment in It Takes You Away when Erik screams, and that makes the Doctor scream too? Yeah, that was us: there's a moment in the film that made Nancy scream, and Sander and I were already so tense that it set us off immediately. If you've seen it, you know the bit I'm talking about!) Thanks to the lack of monster, that never quite happens; the only comparable moment is Hanne's solo adventure in the anti-zone, but nothing bad even threatens her until after Ryan shows up. Unfortunately, that means she relies on Ryan to protect her, rather than having that agency herself (as Cass did, in Before the Flood), and in general the episode portrays her as helpless against the anti-zone's threats. Fortunately, she does get some proactive moments: she's clearly a brave young woman who doesn't hesitate to do what needs to be done, and she certainly fights back when Ryan pockets the bedroom key, plotting a way to surprise him by slamming the door in his face, then stealing the key off his unconscious body and escaping. Interestingly, Hanne can somehow sense the Solitract energy from the duplicates, which proves to be an invaluable ability. The implication is that her lack of sight has somehow enhanced her sensitivity to, well, incompatible dimensions. (They say that happens all the time.) For similar reasons, when the Doctor draws her "map" on the wall, I was initially very suspicious that Hanne would really believe her story — a map, with long straight lines, would sound very different being drawn than a message in English — so I was really pleased when, sure enough, Hanne tested Ryan about it. I'm beyond thrilled that Doctor Who continues its trend of positive representation by casting a blind actress in the role, especially after last year's plot arc of the Doctor being temporarily blinded. I was shocked to find out that Wallwork is an English actress, because she absolutely nails Hanne's Norwegian accent. That might account for why I sometimes felt her reactions were a little flat... it fits with my theory that many actors get so lost in maintaining an accent that they forget to emote, but the moment they switch back to their native accent, they're brilliant. (My most recent example of this phenomenon is Maisie Richardson-Sellers from Legends of Tomorrow, who sails coolly through the show in an American accent until she suddenly gets to unleash as the British-accented Dread Pirate Jiwe.) But she's especially good when the character gets fiery (as on "I don't need you to feel sorry for me!") or emotional ("It's not cool, you lying to me about what she wrote on the wall." and "Ryan, you're lying to me.").
Erik (Christian Rubeck) is, admittedly, a fairly bland character. His only plot function is to be so overwhelmingly besotted with Trine that he completely ignores his still-living daughter, and, at the story's end, to regret having been such a thoughtless selfish jerk of a dad. So Rubeck isn't really given a lot to play with, nor is his character particularly instrumental to the plot, aside from being the one who put himself in a situation from which everyone else needs to rescue him. But I love that Erik's Slayer T-shirt is mirrored in the Solitract realm, but the right-way around in our universe.
Trine (Lisa Stokke) is a much more sympathetic figure, clearly delighted to be reunited with Erik even though she herself knows that she can't possibly be real. It's strong evidence that even though these characters are powered by, and thus beholden to, the Solitract, they don't realize it until the Solitract forces them to behave counter to their nature. Loved Stokke's delivery of "Don't you want to see your friend?" and especially "I know. But we are, aren't we?"
And, oh, it's so lovely to see Sharon D Clarke again. Even though this isn't really Grace, I relish every second that we get to enjoy Clarke's performance. The story of the two frog necklaces she received for Christmas is not only really sweet, but it sheds yet another bit of light on Graham and Ryan's relationship. How I've missed her! Love her delivery of "'Cause I like frogs." Speaking of which, her voice is adorable coming out of a tiny amphibian: "This frog is a form that delights me!" and "Friends!"
Akinola's score feels perfectly suited to this episode. Even though there weren't a lot of moments that stood out, I really enjoyed it, especially the score as the Doctor and Yaz puzzle out the Solitract, as the Doctor convinces it to banish Erik, the achingly sweet music as the Doctor says goodbye to the Solitract, and the dramatic way the music stops the moment the Doctor shatters the portal.
Effects this week are minimalistic and mostly practical (which I like), but I was particularly impressed with the Doctor pushing her way through the mirror, the lovely effect of mirror-Grace dissipating, and the Doctor's arms phasing in and out of the Solitract plane. (Gotta say, though, I'm not so sure about the animatronic frog.)
With most scenes filmed in and around the Norwegian house, and only a small number of cave-like anti-zone sets, It Takes You Away is very nearly a bottle story, though it doesn't look cheap. The fog-shrouded anti-zone sets are claustrophobic and atmospheric, whereas the Solitract's bright-white realm is minimalist but elegant.
Jamie Childs' direction is excellent. My favorite individual shot was the gorgeous opening vista of the TARDIS in a fern-carpeted forest, with a fjord winding away in the distance. But in terms of storytelling, two shots stand out. First, when Graham sighs, "So close. You were so close.", the camera initially cuts to the Doctor's reaction, as if he were talking to her; it's not until he continues the sentence that we learn for sure that he was addressing Grace. It's a nice way to heighten the tension of the moment. Second, I was gobsmacked by how much information Childs conveys in the completely visual sequence of Graham absorbed in his own gloomy thoughts, Ryan processing Graham's pain, and Erik spotting the message that the Doctor wrote on the wall, and realizing just how much pain he's caused Hanne (as the Doctor stares at him reprovingly).
Minor points:
Doctor: "Norway. Definitely Norway. One of the frilly bits on the top."
Graham: "Always fancied the idea of Norway. What bit's this?"
Doctor: "Don't know."
She picks something up off the ground and crunches on it.
Doctor: "But twenty-five miles away, there's an alpaca farm." (munches further) "And gift shop!" (chews thoughtfully) "With a very low TripAdvisor rating. Soil?"
She offers it round.
Ryan: "He's got a shedload of them in the... shed!"
Ryan: "We'd know if we were vampires, right?"
Graham: "Hey, Doc, do you think it's safe?"
Doctor: "I doubt it! It's a juddering dimensional portal in a mirror in a Norwegian bedroom!"
Doctor: "Have you seen either a very loud creature heading that way, or a Norwegian human possibly heading the other way? Name of Erik. The human."
Ribbons: "Bird is lunch, maybe codger is tea."
Graham: "Who are you calling a codger? It's you who stinks of your own wee."
Ribbons: (menacingly) "That's not my wee."
Doctor: "Let him go. 'Cause you do not want those words to be your last ones."
Ribbons: "Oh, no horns, one mouth, so ugly. Like you."
Yaz: "For all we know, he took Erik, and now you want us to follow that nutter into the dark!"
Doctor: "No, I want you to follow this nutter into the dark."
Doctor: "There's three of us, and only one of him. Not counting the rats."
Doctor: "I've told you about the Solitract, right?"
Yaz: "Literally never heard the word before."
Doctor: "That's what Granny Five said. A conscious universe. She also said that Granny Two was a secret agent for the Zygons, but she seems bang-on with this one!"
Graham: "I've been to an alien planet, Grace. Me. And I, and I've met Rosa Parks!"
Grace: "Rosa Parks?!"
Graham: "I know!"
Grace: "Sounds like you're doing fine without me."
Graham: "I'm lost, Grace. I miss you."
Graham: "I miss you so much, Grace."
Doctor: (running up) "Graham, we're off. Now."
Doctor: "I can't force it with the sonic like before, because it's clever, and it's adapting."
Yaz: "What if you do something it hasn't dealt with before? Like, reverse the polarity or something."
Doctor: "Yasmin Khan! You speak my language."
Erik: "I wouldn't ask you to stay if it wasn't safe."
Hanne: (sadly) "You would, Dad. You're not well. You haven't been since Mum died."
Doctor: "No, of course you can't. Fine. Congratulations: Erik wants you. Just one thing. This world is falling apart. I reckon you can only keep one of us. You sure he's your best option? 'Cause the Solitract doesn't want a husband. You want a whole universe, someone who has seen it all, and that's me. I've lived longer, seen more, loved more, and lost more. I can share it all with you. Anything you wanna know about what you never had. 'Cause he's an idiot with a daughter who needs him, so let him go, and I will give you everything."
Trine looks very tempted.
Erik: "You're not Trine."
Doctor: "Finally, Erik."
Doctor: "This is — you are — the maddest, most beautiful thing I've ever experienced, and I haven't even scratched the surface. I wish I could stay."
Solitract: "I miss you. I miss it all, so much."
Doctor: "I see the sheep have moved on. Probably off plotting. Come on!"
For sheer inventiveness, this episode is a cut above the rest. I'm hesitant to use the words "instant modern classic", but I have a feeling that may be exactly what we've got here: it's that well-scripted, that imaginative, that thought-provoking, that emotional. With its themes of grief and loss, longing and belonging, it tells a sweet and poignant story, enlivened with plenty of frights and laughs. Very impressive.