Doctor Who’s Forgotten Genius: Delia Derbyshire 1937 – 2001

Delia Derbyshire is most well-known, if she’s known at all, as the musician who transcribed Ron Grainer’s theme tune for the first Doctor Who into the electronic form we all remember. But she was also a pioneer in electronic music, producing effects on tape that weren’t replicated until synthesizers were invented.

Over the weekend, I’ve been blissfully wallowing in the 50th Anniversary programs, centred around The Day of the Doctor. It’s available on the BBC iPlayer for another 6 days. Just as interesting were a drama about the inception of Doctor Who in 1963, An Adventure in Space and Time, and a documentary about the Doctor Who phenomenon, Me, You and Doctor Who.

From the latter two I learned more about Delia Derbyshire, which prompted me to search out her other work. Here is her version of the theme tune. She was apparently much irked by later producers wanting to tweak it – she couldn’t understand why it should be changed on a whim.

Derbyshire should have had equal credit with Ron Grainer, who wanted it as well, but the BBC Radiophonic Workshop refused to credit the work of individual employees. This frustration was one of the reasons she left in 1973 after 11 years.

The soundtrack for a BBC documentary about the Tuareg people of N. Africa, Blue Veils & Golden Sands, is another example of her innovative genius. She used a bog-standard metal BBC lampshade to get the vibration effects, giving it a whack, then cutting off the first bit of the sound.

There was also some theatre work and a collaboration with David Vorhaus in a band called White Noise. In this 1969 track, Love Without Sounds, you can hear what an interesting singer she is.

Derbyshire left London in the early Seventies and gave up music, apart from a brief period in the Nineties. This is a BBC radio play about her life.

And here’s a Radio Scotland interview, in three parts, from 1997. She sounds so young.

Finally, here’s a clip from Me, You and Doctor Who, as well as some of her other music.

I’m very pleased that her work on the theme tune is at last recognized in the credits for The Day of The Doctor. Earlier recognition might have laid the foundation for a long and productive career.

Doctor Who: The Name of the Doctor (7.2.8)

BBC Doctor Who Website

The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave. It is discovered.

A stunning season finale that makes sense of this message, and explains the impossibility of Clara, wrapped up in a dark, complex, emotionally intelligent, and moving episode by Steven Moffat. It also features running glimpses of all the previous Doctors – William Hartnell in colour! – and some of their voices as part of the Doctor’s timeline. And if that’s not all you could wish for, it reveals another Doctor we’ve never seen before. This episode is about echoes in time, space, and the lives of these fascinating characters. Clara is the girl from Asylum of the Daleks, as we know when she tells Artie and Angie, “This time I will be souffle girl…a souffle is not a souffle, a souffle is the recipe.”

You know it’s going to get complicated when the opening scene is Gallifrey in the distant past, and William Hartnell’s Doctor is prevented from nicking a faulty Tardis by Clara. How did she get there? Well, it starts in 1893 London when Madame Vastra and Jenny receive the above message from a murderer. A dream conference call, with Trax, Clara, and River attending in spirit, literally in River’s case, is attacked by the white-faced,vampiric Whispermen, led by the Great Intelligence in the guise of Dr Simeon. They kill Jenny’s sleeping body, and take them to the Fields of Trenzalore, where Trax employs his medical skills to revive Jenny. River and Clara, lead the Doctor to them via a telepathic link with the Tardis.

Trenzalore is not a place the Tardis wishes to visit, since it’s a huge graveyard, site of the Doctor’s last battle and his final death. No wonder she refuses to land, and the Doctor has to make her fall to earth instead. Neither is the Doctor chuffed at the prospect – for a time traveller, it’s a place to be avoided at all costs – but he must rescue his friends.

Pursued by the Whispermen, they enter his tomb – the huge, grotesque ruin of the Tardis in the future – through a secret door in River’s gravestone. It has no business being there, but River knows about it, as she seems to know about so much. She prompts Clara with the information, apparently invisible to the Doctor, though he knows she’s there all along.

They’re re-united with Madame Vastra, Jenny, and Strax outside the control room of the Tardis/Tomb, where they are captured by the Great Intelligence. He wants to open the door, the key to which is the Doctor’s name, and he echoes Dorian the Blue Bloke when he asks, “Doctor Who? Doctor Who?” He tells his Whispermen to stop the hearts of the Doctor’s friends unless he gets an answer. River says the word that opens the door, but we don’t hear it.

There’s no body inside, just a column of raw pulsing energy where the central column of the Tardis would be. Because time travel causes damage, this is “the scar tissue of my journey through the universe, my path through time and space.” It is the Doctor’s time stream, peopled by all his past and future regenerations, singing with their voices.

The supreme prize for the Great Intelligence, who walks into it so he can destroy the Doctor’s work and happiness. (Cue more Doctors). As Madame Vastra says, “Simeon is attacking his entire timeline. He’s dying all at once. Dear Goddess, the universe without the Doctor! There will be be consequences.” And there are: Jenny is once more dead, Strax has reverted to being her enemy, before dying himself, and the stars are going out in a nod to Arthur C. Clarke’s story, The Nine Billion Names of God.

Clara steps into the timeline to rescue the Doctor in all of time and space. This is where she becomes the impossible girl, fragmented into echoes of herself, each one unaware of her past lives. While Dr Simeon is destroyed by his experience within the time stream, Clara is left lost and alone when her job is done.

Time now for the Doctor to enter his own stream and call her back with the leaf that brought her parents together in her current existence. Clara and the Doctor are re-united, just in time for her to see a figure with his back turned to them, also the Doctor

Doctor: The name I chose is the Doctor. The name you choose, it’s like a promise you make. He’s the one who broke the promise. He is my secret.
His Secret: What I did, I did without choice, in the name of peace and sanity.
Doctor: But not in the name of the Doctor.

This opens up endless possibilities. Could he be from the Time War, when Gallifrey was destroyed along with the Daleks? Then he turns round, showing himself as a ravaged old man, and the legend unfurls, “Introducing John Hurt as the Doctor.”

Well wham, bang, thank you ma’am, the Moff knows how to end on a cliff-hanger.

I hope you don’t mind the plot summary. So much is happening that I needed to get the bare bones laid out to think about it properly. Part of the reason for writing these reviews is to get my own thoughts about the series in order. I loved the way it brought so many themes together.

I’m glad the relationship between the Doctor and River has been resolved. It was all a little unsatisfactory that she disappeared from the series after their marriage. The Doctor made a copy of her in the Library after her death, and didn’t say goodbye, because “he doesn’t like endings.” He admits he did not visit her because “I thought it would hurt me, and I was right.” River wanted a proper goodbye and she gets one here, along with a good snog, in the Doctor’s promise to “see you around, Professor River Song.” I don’t think her echo will fade away.

There were other touching moments between Madame Vastra and Jenny. Madame Vastra is distraught at Jenny’s two deaths. Her reply to Strax, when he heals her the first time, is telling.

Strax: The heart is a relatively simple thing.
Madame Vastra: I have not found it so.

As for Strax, I laughed out loud at his idea of a good weekend off – having a brawl in a Glasgow pub – and Madame Vastra’s thoughts on the matter: “I wish he’d never discovered that place.”

The Doctor and Clara are now bound by deep ties of gratitude. While she has saved his life in all of time and space, he has rescued her from fragmentation within the time stream. What’s next for them, and will Clara feel the same way about John Hurt if he shows up as the next Doctor?

It’s a long time to November 23rd.

This post has been powered by Irn-Bru, the beverage of champions. It gets you through.

Doctor Who: Nightmare in Silver (7.2.7)

BBC Doctor Who Website

The Doctor: Impossible girl. Mystery wrapped in an enigma, squeezed into a skirt that’s just a little too tight.

A family outing for Clara and her two charges, Artie and Angie, in this Neil Gaiman episode. Pity the greatest theme park in the universe is now abandoned, and the Cyberiad is using the place as a recruiting ground, after being almost wiped out in the last battle with the Empire. It’s almost a given that the Doctor never ends up in the place he intends to get to.

But the kids love it, especially the moon landing exhibit with the artificial gravity gizmo. Even the hard to please Angie grudgingly confesses that it’s all right. For a member of his school chess club, though, Artie really shouldn’t have fallen for the Fool’s Mate in his match against a supposedly defunct cyberman. Who is in fact operated by the AWOL Emperor, known as Porridge.

Chess is the metaphor in the battle against the cybermen, who can now run fast and upgrade themselves on the fly. Both players are the Doctor, part of him an upgraded Cyber Planner, held at bay only by the original Doctor’s threat to regenerate and destroy all the nasty implants. Great opportunity to show the Cyber Planner all the previous Doctors. Cyber Planner even tries to do impressions of Christopher Ecclestone and David Tennant. He has an engagingly quirky sense of humour, as you would expect from someone sharing the Doctor’s mind.

While the Doctor is making the moves in the meta-game, the pieces are represented by Clara’s rag-tag punishment detail of Imperial troops, and an army of bright, fast, shiny cybermen. They’ve been kidnapping visitors to Webley’s World of Wonders and upgrading them, which has led to its demise as a wonderful place for a family holiday.

The end game is never in doubt. Clara’s army – she took to the whole commanding thing like a duck to water – is picked off one by one. Which is a shame because I was much taken by this bunch of misfits. The Doctor gives up his Queen to release Artie and Angie from cyber control. Then he bluffs Cyber Planner into using up all his computer processing resources to work out why it’s mate in three, thus halting the cyber army in its tracks. I seem to recall a Star Trek episode where Captain Kirk does the same thing to a defenceless computer.

All this leaves the Doctor free to zap himself with a hand pulser and knock the Cyber Planner out of his head. But the final mate takes Angie’s realisation that Porridge is in fact the Emperor, with the necessary code to destroy the planet. So they transmat up to his ship, the planet implodes, and the obligatory bit of cyber tech is left behind to ensure the survival of the cybermen for future episodes.

I like these upgraded silver machines. Just as zombies got a needed shot in the arm with 28 Days Later, and daleks learned to fly, so cybermen are now faster and meaner. I think there was even an implied reference to daleks in the episode.

Beautifully written, as you would expect from Neil Gaiman, and chockfull of character. The setting is perfect, redolent of abandoned amusement parks, with a dash of Victoriana in Webley and his eclectic collection of unrelated wonders. Porridge is a brilliantly complex character. He wears the depth of what you don’t know about him on his face, so it becomes entirely possible that he’s an Emperor on the run from the loneliness of power. And It’s great to see Artie and and Angie getting involved, just as Rose’s family and boyfriend were. I think this is indicative of the Doctor’s connection to Clara.

Which proceeds by leaps and bounds. There may be some truth under cover of Cyber Planner’s insincere blandishments. They do share the same mind.

Clara, I suppose I’m the only one who knows how I feel about you right now. How funny you are, so funny and pretty. And the truth is I’m starting to like you in a way that is more than just…

At which point Clara slaps him, as the Doctor hoped, on the the grounds that even if he did feel that way he’d never say it. As a test to see if he really is the Doctor, there’s this later exchange.

Clara: Do you think I’m pretty?
Doctor: No, you’re too short and bossy, and your nose is all funny.

Fair enough, but the Doctor is perhaps too eager to be involved in the resolution of the Emperor’s touching marriage proposal to Clara, as if he might have an interest. And right at the end, when Clara automatically assumes he’ll be there next Wednesday, the Doctor says this to himself. He’s a little shocked at the thought.

Impossible girl. Mystery wrapped in an enigma, squeezed into a skirt that’s just a little too tight.

I’m completely hooked on this story arc of finding out who Clara is, and discovering the nature of their relationship. Looking forward to the big revelation next week, something to do with the Doctor’s real name (which must never be spoken or Silence will fall). I imagine we’ll learn a lot more about Clara as well.

Doctor Who: The Crimson Horror (7.2.6)

BBC Doctor Who Site

Mrs Gillyflower: Join us in this shining city on the ‘ill!

There’s trouble ‘t mill in this splendid romp, written by that aficionado of cinematic horror, Mark Gatiss. Tough as old boots, Mrs Gillyflower is played by Diana Rigg, clearly loving the role of this completely over the top villain. In a stroke of genius her long-suffering daughter, Ada, is played by her own own daughter, Rachael Stirling. In addition, three of of my favourite characters show up to help the Doctor out of his pickle – Madame Vastra and her partner, Jenny, and the still bloodthirsty but well-trained Sontaran warrior, Strax. (“You’re over-excited. Have you been eating those jelly sherbert fancies again?”)

The episode is full of the sort of theatrical northernness you might find in the Fosdyke Saga, mated with cliches from cinematic horror movies, and tempered by a Whovian sensibility. I particularly enjoyed Mrs Gillyflower’s organ, which revolves to reveal the launch panel for her rocket. Touch of the Dr.Phibes there, which would have been even more perfect if Mrs Gillyflower had played something. And special mention for the engaging Thomas Thomas, who gives such perfect directions to Strax, just as he’s about to shoot his fourth horse in a week.

We don’t see the Doctor or Clara until well into the episode, except in the last image captured in a dead man’s eyes – a dead, red man, seeing a red Doctor. Madame Vastra and Jenny travel to 1893 Yorkshire, where Jenny infiltrates Mrs Gillyflower’s chilling cult of moral purity. Only the most perfect survive being dipped into a vat of red Jurassic leech venom. These lucky, petrified people get to live under glass domes in perfect little houses in Sweetville, Victorian values at their most explicit. Clara makes the grade, while the Doctor’s rejected, but doesn’t die like all the other rejects who get dumped in the canal. Blind, scarred Ada takes a fancy to him and locks up her “monster” in a cell.

Until he’s rescued by Jenny, and they rescue Clara, and the whole gang takes on the  evil Mrs Gillyflower and her “silent partner,” Mr Sweet. As well as being the modified descendant of Jurassic leeches, Mr Sweet has thriven on the polluted waters of the canal. Together, he and Mrs Gillyflower are producing industrial quantities of his red venom to purify the world.

Unmasked by the Doctor and his companions, Mrs Gillyflower tries to spread her red venom around the world, in the the form of a rocket (what else) hidden in a factory chimney. Foiled by Clara’s chair-in-the-control-panel ploy, she takes Ada hostage and triggers the secondary firing mechanism in the chimney. Too late! Madame Vastra and Jenny have the vat of red venom that’s the rocket’s payload. Strax shoots the pistol from her hand, she falls to her death, and Mr Sweet crawls off but can’t escape getting pulverized by an irate Ada. Huzzah!

Lots of questions from Madame Vastra and Jenny about Clara. The Doctor appears to be sticking to his conclusion from last week, that Clara is just Clara. But Madame Vastra is having none of it: “I was right then. You and Clara have unfinished business.” If that weren’t enough, there’s the photo of Clara in Victorian London (not Yorkshire), which is among the photos her charges have discovered on the internet. Come to think of it, the Doctor was extremely keen to get Clara to 1893 London, but by then she’d had enough of Victorian values. In any case, now the kids know their nanny’s a time traveller, they want a go in the time machine as well.

Perhaps this was the perfect episode, I don’t know. But aye, it were reet grand.

A History Maker

James Hogg Statue and St Mary’s Loch, Scottish Borders

A History Maker, by Alasdair Gray (Canongate, 1994)

This is a Scottish science fiction novel about a flawed utopia and a misfit who unwittingly brings about necessary change.  As the title suggests, it’s also about the role history plays in how we think about the present, particularly the tendency to think in terms of historical epochs.  And about how disastrously wrong we can be.  You might remember Francis Fukuyama and all that nonsense about The End of History when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989.

Gray opens with a quote that sets the tone for the whole novel:

Economics: Old Greek word for the art of keeping a home weatherproof and supplied with what the householders need.  In historical times this word was used by British governments and their advisers to mean political housekeeping – the art of keeping their bankers, brokers and rich supporters well supplied with money, often by impoverishing other householders.  They used the Greek instead of the English word because it mystified folk who had not been taught at wealthy schools.  The rhetoric of plutocratic governors needed economics as the sermons of religious governments needed the Will of God.  (From The Intelligence Archive of Historical Jargon.)

Alasdair Gray

Spot on.  Can’t say fairer than that.  Set in the early 23rd century, the world has changed beyond recognition.  Biogeneticists have created powerplants that tower into the sky, their roots tapping into geothermal energy, to provide households with all their food and everything but the bulkiest of household goods.  They even extrude the living quarters where extended families raise their children communally and monogamy is a thing of the past.

As a result, there is now a domestic economy with no need for money or government, and people no longer have to live in cities.  Women are literally instrumental in supplying the necessities of life, through their ability to play them into existence on the keyboard of the powerplant. It’s an intuitive art akin to music, though Gray doesn’t say why men could not do the same.

Men no longer have any crucial role to play in their communities, apart from those who leave Earth for the Moon and Solar System to prepare those places for human expansion, or go into science and the entertainment industry.  Their new role is to become warriors in televised battles, based on a region’s history.  The battles are real, brutal, lethal, and while medical science can regrow hacked-off limbs, people still die.  It’s all strictly regulated by a future version of the Geneva Convention to ensure that the domestic economy is not harmed.  Young girls stick posters of their favourite warriors on their walls and, since a warrior’s function between battles is to maintain the population, have a good prospect of bearing their children.

Not everyone is happy.  Wat Dryhope is a misfit – he’s been to the Moon and returned because he can’t bear the loss of Earth and the past it represents.  As a warrior, he’s still discontent because there are no real consequences (apart from his death) of the battles fought for television audiences.  At heart, he wants monogamy and something to fight for that really matters.

I said this is Scottish science fiction, and it is deeply rooted in that country’s history, but it’s also set in a very specific place – St Mary’s Loch in the Scottish Borders.  So the historically appropriate form of warfare is a recreation of the battles between the Borders and Northumbria that occurred for centuries during the Middle Ages and beyond.  There’s also a touch of the football teams about them in the way they’re presented on television – Borders United v. Northumbria United.

Dryhope Tower, where Wat’s mum lives

Wat Dryhope is the catalyst for change in this very civilized, but somewhat smug, matriarchy.  He pulls off an audacious, only just within the rules, draw for Clan Ettrick against overwhelming odds, becoming a world-wide celebrity.  Unknown to him, a few other misfits in the entertainment industry are pumping up the publicity to destabilize society.  It begins to work as pressure builds for bigger and better battles, creating a new appetite for militarism.  And there’s worse to come – he’s about to meet the love of his life.

I’ll not say more.  This is a stunning, complex novel, with roots deep in Scottish history and culture.  The story is told by the characters, first Wat’s mother, representing the matriarchy, and then Wat’s account of the 7 days encompassed by the novel.  At the end, she adds a section called Notes & Glossary Explaining the Obscurities, an essential coda to the story.  And there are some splendid illustrations and maps by the author, which work together with the text to bring out the ethos of this society.

I can’t recommend A History Maker too highly.

St Mary’s Loch

Doctor Who: Cold War (7.2.3)

BBC Doctor Who Site

Viva Las Vegas!

Hair, shoulder pads, nukes. It’s the Eighties. Everything’s bigger.

This episode, written by Mark Gatiss, combines elements of Das Boot, Alien, The Thing, and probably other films I don’t know about, into a gripping cold war thriller. The setting is claustrophobic, a Soviet nuclear sub under the Arctic ice in 1983, during the height of the Cold War. The Doctor and Clara burst out of the Tardis expecting Las Vegas, only to find themselves in the sub’s control room, disrupting a training exercise in pushing the button for WWIII.

The Russians are understandably peeved at the interruption, particularly the gung-ho second-in-command, whose name I didn’t get. I have a thing about Russian names, my brain won’t process them properly. Never mind. He shall be known as General Ripper, from Dr. Strangelove. The Doctor and Clara are suspected of being spies, and it doesn’t help that the Tardis swans off on its own, leaving them in a dire situation. It gets worse. The sub hits a submerged reef and plunges out of control until fetched up by another reef. Then there’s the specimen the civilian professor on board has discovered trapped in ice, while searching for oil. A crewman, for inexplicable reasons, decides to melt the ice it’s encased in before they get back to Moscow. Revealing a thoroughly pissed-off ice warrior. And not just any ice warrior – this one is Grand Marshal Skaldak, a proud leader and a hero to his people. You insult him at your peril, because he will take out your entire planet to avenge the dishonour.

You could also apologise nicely and hope he’ll forgive you, but that’s no longer an option when General Ripper attacks him from behind with a cattle prod. They have to chain Skaldak up for everyone’s safety.

The rest of the episode is taken up with how Skaldak gets free and tries to launch a missile to start WWIII, because he thinks his brother ice warriors aren’t coming for him and he has nothing to lose. Being frozen for 5,000 years, he knows his daughter is “dust” and mourns her. General Ripper is also keen to start WWIII, offering to collaborate with Skaldak, who gets all the information he can out of Ripper and then kills him. As he does to another crewman to find out what his enemy is made of. Literally.

But he loves his daughter and can feel some empathy for these humans. Once again, it’s Clara who reaches out to the threat and neutralises it. She reminds Skaldak of what it is to lose someone you love (multiplied by billions where the Earth is concerned), and he disarms the weapon before flying off with his rediscovered brothers. True, the Doctor is prepared to destroy the sub and Skaldak’s ship in the Arctic version of a Mexican stand-off, but it’s hard to say which has the most weight in affecting Skaldak’s decision.

I like it that Clara is an equal in these adventures: “Saved the world then. That’s what we do.” This after a spontaneous hug with a slightly embarrassed aftermath. Clara is actively trying to live up to what she imagines as the Doctor’s expectations, seeking his explicit approval. And he trusts her to negotiate with Skaldak.

There are the usual grace notes in this as in most Moffat episodes. Great supporting characters, with the professor standing out as an Eighties pop music-loving, avuncular figure, who takes an interest in Clara and worries about her feeling unhappy after seeing the crewman’s body. I enjoyed the way he wanted her sing Hungry Like A Wolf, by Duran Duran, and she was too embarrassed to do it. Except at the end when everything depended on Skaldak changing his mind. I had to google it, but the song adds something to my appreciation of him.

Skaldak is a superb character. Not a villain or a monster, but a lost, proud, lonely ice warrior, stressed beyond measure and forced to the greatest dishonour of all, being seen without his armour. This is where the new series is so much better than the episodes from the last century. Aliens get some respect as characters and some money spent on their portrayal. With his armour, Skaldak is troubling enough. Out of it, he becomes downright scary. First we see the hand, with its long, scaly, probing fingers, then the glowing eyes in shadow and a suggestion of mouth. Finally, in response to the Doctor’s taunt, “Look into my eyes, Skaldak, face to face,” we see the whole head. But he’s also allowed to be more than his features suggest.

I have a couple of niggles. Clara’s accent seems be wandering between northern and RP. I hope she settles on one or the other. Then there’s the Doctor’s pronouncement that “History’s in flux. It can be changed, rewritten.” Pompeii? Why couldn’t the Doctor get more people out, as Donna wanted, when Vesuvius erupted?

Beyond that, I think this episode is superb, one of the high points of the season. Perfect ending, too, with Clara making the Doctor admit that his tinkering with the Hazard Avoidance Detection System has sent the Tardis to the South Pole. Never mind, the sub will give them a lift.

Doctor Who: The Rings of Akhaten (7.2.2)

BBC Doctor Who Site

This episode by Neil Cross is a welcome change from the enjoyable, but bloated, The Bells of Saint John. A proper alien location and much more focused. Touch of the Bondian theme in the business with the moped that nicely mocked the grandiosity of the previous episode. I’ll be looking out for a motorcycle/moped motif in the next one. Enjoyed the market, which is fast challenging the ubiquitous quarry in the classic series for favourite location, and loved the chocolate box selection of brilliant, unique aliens. As a nod to the 50th anniversary year, the Doctor reveals that he once visited the Seven Planets with his granddaughter. So that would be the original William Hartnell Doctor, with Susan.

This week we got a closer look at Clara’s past, with the Doctor becoming even more stalkerish, and investigating Clara’s parents in an attempt to solve the mystery of her apparent regeneration. The leaf on the first page of her book, 101 Places to See, is explained as the leaf that blew across her future dad’s face and almost got him run over in 1981, only to be saved by Clara’s future mum. Lovely scene, that. But the Doctor is no closer to solving the mystery – “She’s not possible” – and Clara explicitly warns him off: “I’m not a bargain basement stand-in for someone else. I’m not going to compete with a ghost.”

The Rings of Akhaten is all about stories and memories, which the Doctor equates with the souls the Old God wants to eat. One of best monsters yet, a stellar vampire feeding off the lives of those on the Seven Planets, who have evolved a religion where it’s sung to sleep by the choristers and the Queen of Years. To make Mary a child, lost and afraid like Clara was at Blackpool, comforted by Clara as an adult as she was by her mum, ties their stories together in a very satisfying way. Even the local currency is psychometric, any object of emotional significance that’s laden with stories.

But stories are more than about what’s actually happened, they’re also about what might have happened. As the Doctor says, “There’s an awful lot of one and an infinity of the other. And infinity’s too much.” This is what destroys the Old God. Clara, never one to walk away, goes to the Doctor’s rescue after the Old God drains him dry of his Time Lord memories. Her weapon is the leaf that brought her parents together, which also contains the life that might have been if her mum hadn’t died. Clara’s infinite yearnings are there, so many they can buy salvation from the monster who’s been holding the population in fear for millennia. A thoroughly satisfying way of defeating the Old God, much more so than anything the Doctor could have done with a sonic screwdriver or a spot of timey-wimey jiggery-pokery.

This episode is saying something interesting and paradoxical about religion. On the one hand, the Old God is a “parasite,” compelling worship in case it should wake and drink their souls. Yet the religion that evolves around it is extremely beautiful. The music is glorious, and the feeling in the arena one of awe and wonder. I think Moffat and Neil Cross want us to recognise the cognitive dissonance and think on.

There’s also an echo of the Great Intelligence from last week’s episode, a being who craves minds stuffed with stories, its food source being the social media. While the Great Intelligence is also a vampire, the festivals of offering it feeds on are rather more tawdry.

This is grown-up writing. I want to see more of Neil Cross’ work.