Review: Doctor Who - Mummy on the Orient Express

Doctor Who

Mummy on the Orient Express

A murder, a train, and the Doctor, all in one place. This episode finds our heroes on their last hurrah together, as Clara had decided previously that she couldn't keep traveling withe the Doctor. It was strain on her and a strain on her relationships on Earth. Their last hurrah, however, would prove to bring them back together.

An ancient curse is running rampant on the Orient Express in space. A confined little setting that allows, what looks like, folks from the 1920s to witness bizarre events that lead to the deaths of a few passengers. A curse known as the Foretold, a mummy that only appears to its victims and kills in 66 seconds. It's a fun little curse, but we don't get much explanation about the curse and the wrapped cadaver's motivation. I quite enjoyed the idea of a fear that only you can see that is truly real. What do you do with your last 66 seconds? Does it really matter how you behave when you know your in danger? 

Clara ends up trapped most of this episode away from the Doctor, perhaps allowing her to reflect on her travels and how much she really enjoys them, even though she's in danger much of the time. 

The theme of soldiers comes back up again as we find out a little bit of information about the Foretold's origins and the train conductor. Both soldiers of some kind. The Doctor sure has been running into a lot of them this season! Is that important? Yes. Yes it is.

Even though things work out just fine, the Foretold disappears (ending a 5000 year old fairy tale) and the artificial intelligence known as GUS, who is the mastermind with vague motivation behind the Foretold and the voice of the train itself, is destroyed, many things remain unanswered. Who is GUS? What did the Foretold really want? Why 66 seconds? 

In the end, Clara decides to continue traveling with the Doctor. And who wouldn't?

Final Thoughts:

It was a fun episode with a great setting and an interesting challenge to overcome. I find that this Doctor is all about slightly morbid Curiosity as a theme (the insides of a Dalek, the creatures that live in the dark, etc), whereas the Eleventh Doctor was mostly about Hope. Let's see where this curiosity takes us!