Doctor Who: It Takes You Away (2018) - Review
So, 'It Takes You Away' starts off with Team TARDIS trying to help a little girl whose father has gone missing and is surrounded by some kind of sinister creature. It turns out that a mirror in the house is a gateway to an Anti-Zone, which is a pathway to a mirror universe. Ryan discovers that there is no sinister creature around the house, and that the girl's father has been keeping her trapped, while the Doctor, Yaz and Graham journey through the Anti-Zone, meeting a sinister guide Ribbons and encountering deadly flesh-eating moths. Arriving in the mirror universe, the Doctor and everyone else realise that inside, their loved ones have been resurrected. The girl's father Erik has been lured by his dead wife, while Graham is gradually lured by Grace. The Doctor realises that this mirror universe is in fact the Solitract - a whole Universe separated from our universe to maintain balance. If it enters our Universe, the Solitract will destroy our Universe, but as it turns out, they can't stay in the Solitract Universe because it will gradually implode on itself. Oh, and then the Solitract re-forms into a frog with Grace's voice and becomes BFFs with the Doctor. Is it me or does 'It Takes You Away' have waaaaaaay too much going on for one, fifty-minute episode?
The episode starts off as a claustrophobic horror, and then turns into a fantasy, and then into a sci-fi story about a conscious universe - something I wouldn't necessarily mind if writer Ed Hime managed to maintain a consistent tone. The script jumps from bleak Nordic horror to weird and wonderful fantasy with little in the way of transition, subverting your expectations but creating a strange tonal clash that the episode never really recovers from. 'It Takes You Away' sets up the idea that the girl's father Erik might have abandoned her to fight the monster alone, but about forty-odd minutes later has the Doctor chatting to a talking frog that controls an entire universe. Had the episode started with a more fantastical tone, such a shift wouldn't seem so bizarre, but it just feels a bit inconsistent. Not to mention that the episode also throws in a whole arc for Graham and Grace that feels underdeveloped by the end. Oh, and the antagonist is a whole Universe - a fascinating concept that goes nowhere because this had to be one, fifty-minute episode that wraps itself up in a nice little bow.
By the end, I just felt that the story didn't manage to go very far. I loved its concepts, but the execution didn't quite work for me. Given that a brand-new monster was cut entirely from the episode, I wouldn't be surprised if 'It Takes Away' was hacked to death during the script editing and post-production phases, because it never managed to really slow down and let the drama unfold, let alone the actual conflict itself. I would've been quite happy if this was Part One of a two-part finale, but alas that's really not the case. In fact, I thought that was what was going to happen, given how much the episode had on its plate. I was very surprised how easy the eventual resolution was, but it made the episode feel a bit lackluster. Again, I liked what the episode was going for, but I don't think it really pushed its concepts far enough in fifty minutes.
It's also a bit strange to think that we're fast approaching the series finale, and I don't feel any kind of momentum towards it. I'm intrigued to see where it all goes, but I don't think that Chris Chibnall has really structured this series properly. At the end of the penultimate episode I feel that we're around the half-way mark, which could very well be intentional, but as it is, it just feels a bit odd. Who is that mysterious voice in the trailer? Will Graham die? I mean, Ryan did finally call him "Grandad". I guess we'll have to wait and see this Sunday...
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