Fear Her

Another episode from the end of this second season that my recollection of was that it wasn't very good. As with the previous episode, it's not a complete write off - but it's certainly a bit dull and confused and has a couple of questionable moments.

Landing on a street in East London, on the day of the opening of the 2012 Olympic Games, The Doctor (David Tennant) and Rose (Billie Piper) discover that children have been going missing from this street and a residual energy is tangible in the air. Quickly identifying that the culprit is a young girl called Chloe (Abisola Agbaje) the pair attempt to talk to her mother Trish (Nina Sosanya) who is palpable scared of her daughter and looking desperately for help.

It's just a weird episode to come back to all around. 2012 was in the future when the episode was produced, but now sits firmly in our rear view mirror, so it's an odd historical view of the future that doesn't quite sit right. It doesn't help that I also don't equate the cul-de-sac that the episode takes on as being recognisable as anywhere in East London - certainly not anywhere around the Olympic Stadium. The finale, with the Doctor lighting the Olympic flame is a really cheesy moment too.

But you could forgive the minor quibbles if it was a good story - and "Fear her" isn't. It's a mishmash of ideas but not fully formed ones. Capturing the other kids using drawings is an interesting concept, but remains under explored and under shown. If we saw more of the captured characters as animation, rather than just static drawings it might have helped sell the idea - maybe that was one of the aspects that the budget didn't allow. The "dad" aspect of the storyline doesn't really make sense either and again betrays the budget and time constraints at the end when he's not shown.

"Fear her" takes the prize from "Love and Monsters" as the worst episode of Nu-Who so far.