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Doctor Who #805 - Time Heist

4

The Doctor is teamed up with a couple unfamiliar faces and they have to break into the most secure bank in the universe.

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Warning: There are spoilers in the recap. Tons of them.

Clara is about to do out on a date but the phone on the TARDIS rings. The Doctor answers it and Clara and the Doctor wake up somewhere, with two other people. Then a voice memos plays with their voices saying they agreed to a memory wipe. They have to rob the most secure bank in the galaxy. They don't know why they are doing this nor where the TARDIS is.

Very quickly into the adventure, one of the group wants out after they realize they have to blow up the floor. The Doctor convinces them to stay saying whatever was offered to them originally was something they desperately wanted. We find that the reason they wiped their memory was to get rid of any guilt, which will alert the Teller.

The three get stuck in the tunnels and the augmented human guy sacrifices himself to save Clara from the teller. As a solar storm hits the planet, the Doctor comes to realize that the group has been sent back in time to make this heist, the one moment when the bank is vulnerable.

Clara and the Doctor enter the vault and use the instructions from the Architect, the mysterious person who put this whole plan together, to find the box they need. They get caught by the Teller and two guards are told to kill them. However, after the woman leaves, they find their two friends, who they thought were dead were the guards.

The four head to a private vault where the Doctor and Clara's prize waits. They find the woman who runs Karabraxos is a clone. The Doctor gives the lady in charge his TARDIS phone number because she's going to call him in the future. The teller comes down and scans his memories. The Doctor realizes that he set the whole heist up in order to save the Teller who is the past of its species and another Teller hidden away in the private vault.

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The Teller is a pretty cool creature. It scans your brains and can sense guilt. The creature looks incredibly cool and it's brain wiping powers make is a very scary force. It's nice to see a different looking alien creature in this series, especially one who is very quiet an menacing and isn't actually a bad guy. The character has a tinge of sadness in it which makes a lot more sense when you find out it's basically a slave, which is also pretty apparent by the way it is dressed.

Early on in the episode, before the heist begins, the Doctor is hanging out with Clara at her place and is completely confused why she is dressed up and wearing make-up. I like the idea the Doctor doesn't understand human courtship. I love the fact that heels confuse him and he thinks Clara has to reach something taller. It's a cute way to open up the story.

Overall, the story is a ton of fun and it's actually a pretty cool heist story, with a few glaring problems. For me, I called who the "architect" was as soon as that character was revealed. It was ridiculously obvious. This goes back to the idea that at times, when Moffat writes an episode, he has the tendency to treat the viewers like their idiots. While "Listen" was great overall as an episode and played well to the audience, "Time Heist" feels like it's trying to be a mystery that is not as all mysterious. In addition, about halfway through this episode, it felt like I was watching an updated version of Wizard of Oz, which wasn't terrible, but it did irk me.

"Time Heist" is a pretty great episode. It's fun and the focus is much more on The Doctor rather than the companion which will make lots of fans happy. It's nice to see this show on another planet with alien creatures rather than having yet another adventure take place on Earth. Overall, I was really pleased with this episode and the series, as a whole, has been pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.