Review: Doctor Who 1.11: The God Complex

"Gottle o' geer! Gottle o' geer!"

I really wasn't looking forward to this episode. While Toby Whithouse has never put a foot wrong in the writing department, the trailers made it look like a cheesy 80's style Monster-of-the-week episode, while didn't really enthuse me considering this series' track record with standalones. I was, fortunately, surprised. While the story began as a powerful standalone it morphed into a deep, involving arc episode that brought the companions' story full circle and took Moffat's arc in a direction that I loved while dealing for the first time on the show with issues like faith and dependance.
     The trio arrive in what appears to be an Eighties Hotel, one built on an alien world. They're met by three people in reception; Rita, a Muslim Nurse, Howie Spragg, a nerdy blogger conspiracy theorist (not liking the stereotype) and Gibbis (comedian David Walliams), an alien from the most invaded planet in the galaxy. The other member of their group, Joe, has been possessed by an entity that causes him to "worship him." The Hotel is a mind-bending labyrinth within which every room contains the greatest fear of one of the survivors, and soon after they face their fear they become posessed and killed by an alien Minotaur that stalks the hallways.
      The Doctor tries to encourage high spirits to get everyone through it, even talking to the Minotaur who reveals that he only kills on instinct and wants it to end. It's only when everyone except he, Gibbis and his companions are dead that he realises that the thing the creatures feasts on is not Fear but Faith. Rory and Gibbis have survived thus far because they have no faith to speak of; Rory has spent his entire life being let down by Amy and Gibbis comes from a society built around weaponsied cowardice. Only Amy is left, with her faith in the Doctor. They go to her Room and find her greatest fear is that The Doctor will abandon her - and to both save the day and save her, he reveals that he only invited her in because of his own vanity and that he isn't as reliable as she wants to believe. She has to stop waiting. It's revealed that the entire scenario was a hallucination inside a malfunctioning alien prison. Day saved, a melancholic Doctor sets Rory and Amy down on Earth with the house and car of their dreams. He explains to Amy that she's safe now, and that this is the only way it could end.

Gibbis takes mad Joe to safety.

    Despite the strength of the characters, the story doesn't really pick up until that powerful ending. Toby Whithouse is incredibly good at writing humanised characters, but here he seems to slink into sterotype. The gambler is greedy and mindless, the nerdy blogger is a conspiracy theorist petrified of girls (again, really not appreaciating the stereotype) and the Muslim girl believes that the hotel is Hell. Despite all of the characters being likeable, it ruined it for me that they were comparatively cutouts. The three who died because of their respective faiths should have been more easy to empathise with than they were here.
      Gibbis is at first the cringing Walliams stereotype, a character that could easily have walked out of a space-themed Little Britain. However, Walliams is good friends with Mr. Mark Gattis and shared his obsession with Doctor Who, which shows as the character becomes the most interesting of the guest cast through sheer philosophy. What at first feels like a comedy caricature soon turns into a sinister manipulative streak that compliments the story instead of leaving it, "that one with the guy from Little Britain."
       I've been thinking, and I'd love Toby Whithouse as the next showrunner. Not just because I happened to love his writing here, but also because he's shown with Being Human that he can handle a full series. The arc here was so much more powerful than Moffat's whirring revelatory fan-fests, and compared to the first half of the series, this and the previous episode have made me care about the Williams' so much more. I loathed it when Amy said, "I'm pregnant" in The Impossible Astronaught, because I knew that that would lead to the type of story telling the arc has provided with us up to this point - shock tactics. I don't want to be shocked; I want to be moved and this episode did it for me.

Inside The Doctor's Door...

     The God Complex is Toby Whithouses' finest work for the series to date, providing the perfect fusion between a fascinating standalone mystery and the powerful emotive arc that this series needs. Despite some characters that were unfortunately burdoned by stereotype, the episode took the arc and the Williams' storylines and brought them a mile ahead of the shock tactics used elsewhere in this series. Thanks, Whithouse. Thank you so much.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Gareth Roberts continues his Lodger storyline as we rejoin Craig as he battles the Cybermen!