Previously: A blow-job giving paving stone and I’m sure some other stuff.
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Fear Her
Marines: We start with bright blue sky, cheery music, a banner proclaiming the 2012 London Olympics and even some houses with little Union flags in the windows. It reminds me of when Kirsti was last in the US and astounded by the number of flags we fly. #Merica
K: TRUE. Y’all need to back off on the flags. It’s RIDICULOUS. I have yet to see any private residence in Australia flying the Australian flag. Wait. Maybe the posh place with a freaking turret near my cousin’s old high school that usually flies a pirate flag puts up the Australian flag for Australia Day? IDK IDK. Long comment short: excessive amounts of patriotism (which is to say ANY amount of patriotism) freak me out.
Mari:
Anyhow, things quickly get less cheery as we pass a missing flyer for a little girl named Jane McKillen. Then we get a shot of someone looking out a window, but all we see is their hand pressed against the pane. Back outside, an old lady walks around and the Zoomy Cameraman spins around her so we know she’s kind of lost and disoriented. A nice neighbor sees her and asks Maeve if she’s okay. (K: I flail a little because Nice Neighbour (yes, I added a U. Accept our ways, America) is Annie from Love Actually.) Maeve is definitely not okay because she feels something coming. She starts yelling at the children across the street to get inside and Nice Neighbor uses that as her cue to hurry back inside.
Upstairs, we now see that it’s a little girl standing and looking out the window. She’s singing track one from the super popular CD, “Creepy Little Kid Songs, Vol. 1.”
K: Meanwhile, the Australian is busy going “Wait, they sing Kookaburra in England? That makes no sense because there aren’t any bloody kookaburras. And she’s got the tune ever so slightly wrong. Make it stooooooooop.” Followed by a side of “I wonder if they sing the electric wire version in England as well…”
Mari: True life: I had to Google a kookaburra.
Anyway, the little girl sits down to start drawing as she keeps singing. Outside, Maeve is still trying to get the boys playing soccer inside. Their father insists that they are safe, but Maeve knows better. She probably can hear the creepy singing. Back upstairs, the girl is super-fast drawing a picture of one of the kids playing outside, the one wearing a Union Flag shirt. And back out there, the dad is dragging Maeve away. By the time he turns back around, Union Flag Shirt Kid has disappeared. And finally upstairs again, the picture Creepy Singing Girl drew becomes animated and the kid in the drawing screams silently.
It’s been a while, so here’s a reminder that this theme song makes me incredibly happy.
After the credits, the TARDIS lands in a narrow space between two gates. The Doctor opens the door, only to find that he’s parked door-facing-in, so that when he opens it, he’s face to face with gate. He gives a defeated kind of, “ah.” He disappears into the TARDIS again, it dematerializes and then materializes again, one second later, now facing the correct way. He exits this time with a much more enthusiastic, “ah!”
K: My head canon states that he tells Rose that they’ve landed in a volcano or something and that’s why they have to move, because telling her the truth would be far too embarrassing. Can travel through all of time and space, can’t land properly.
Mari: Rose is right behind him, sporting a modern-day side-pony. She sees the banner for the 2012 Olympics and gets very excited. The Doctor starts rambling about the Olympics and the last time it was in London, but Rose, bless her, has already noticed that something is off in this neighborhood where they have landed. A man is hanging missing flyers. Rose yells at the Doctor, who has kept on walking and talking, and draws his attention to the collection of flyers. He looks at them and notices that it’s also unusually cold. (K: Code for “we filmed this episode in winter, the Olympics were scheduled for summer, we had to explain why you could see the actors’ breath when they talked.”) Rose wonders what would make a person do something like this. The Doctor asks why Rose would think it’s a person. Rose watches as Nice Neighbor takes the trash out and comments on how scared to death everyone seems to be. When she turns around, though, the Doctor is already running down the street.
He makes it to the yard of Union Flag Shirt Kid and looks around suspiciously, extending his hand toward the grass for who knows what reason.
Behind him on the street, a car stalls and stops. A city worker calls out to the driver and explains that this happens all the time, right in this spot, for no discernible reason. City Worker offers the driver help pushing the car, and Rose joins in to help them too. Once they reach the Olympics banner, the car suddenly starts again and takes off. Rose asks City Worker if this happens often and he says it’s been happening all week. Since the children started going missing.
K: Meanwhile, I have another it’s that guy from that thing moment, because City Worker = Tony in Love Actually. TWO Love Actually actors in one episode of Doctor Who? England really does have 10 actors and 3 sets.
Mari: The Doctor is still holding his hand out over grass and a very suspicious dad comes over to ask WHY.
Rose is walking with the City Worker who is helpfully explaining that city council has been going nuts fixing up the street because the Olympic Torch will being making it’s way down it soon. Everything has to be perfect. Maeve approaches and says that ‘it’ takes them when they are playing. Rose asks what takes them, but Maeve just says they are snatched in the blink of an eye.
The Doctor comes over to them now, half-chased by the Suspicious Dad. The Doctor is fumbling in his pocket for his psychic paper, claiming to be a cop, and pointing to Rose as his colleague. Suspicious Dad says she looks less like a cop than he does. “New recruit,” he replies. “It was either that or hairdressing.” Finally the Doctor fishes out his psychic paper and flashes it at them quickly. Nice Neighbor asks what he’s going to do. Maeve says the police have already knocked on every door and there are no clues and no leads. Suspicious Dad says kids just run off sometimes! Together. In bunches. Maeve says no, though. Union Flag Shirt Kid disappeared before her eyes, so they need to look no further than this street.
K: Plus, small children who attempt to run away generally get no further than a block or two. Then they realise that there’s no wifi or food and they go home again.
Mari: The Doctor starts to speak but he’s cut off by a recently joined neighbor who says they should start by pointing the finger at City Worker. She says there have been his sort all over the place lately, and she means workers, but it’s super icky because she specifically pointed him out and he’s black. There is a white city worker standing just behind who is left out of it completely. This all escalates quickly as the people all start shouting at each other until the Doctor ends it with a shouted, “FINGERS ON LIPS.” Everyone looks a little confused, but fingers go on every lip.
K: I’m going to be really tempted to use that at work when the kids get unruly in the library…
Mari: You might have to be the Doctor for it to work.
Now that everyone is hushed up, the Doctor confirms that three children have been snatched from this neighborhood. Maeve asks permission to speak, though she doesn’t really have anything useful to say. Rose, meanwhile, has spotted Creepy Singing Child in the window. Nice Neighbor sees Rose staring and abruptly heads inside.
We cut to the Doctor literally sniffing around. Rose asks if he needs a hanky but he tells her to take a whiff. She says it smells like metal and they do these cute noises because she’s right. Around back in an alleyway, the Doctor is smelling it again and the hairs on his “manly, hairy hand” are standing up. Back here, Rose can tell it smells more like a burnt fuse plug. There’s residual energy in the spots where the children have been taken. Whatever is taking kids is using a lot of power to do it.
Creepy Singing Child is still upstairs in her room. She spots a cat in the garden and the music gets all, “OH CRAP!” She takes out a paper for kidnapper-coloring time. Nice Neighbor comes in to tell her (Chloe) that she’s gotta come out at some point. Chloe’s like, “no thanks,” because she’s busy making kidnapper-art. Her mom tries to distract her with news of the Olympics and tries to ask her about the nightmares she’s been having, but Chloe won’t respond. Finally, she says she’s busy, unless her mom wants to be drawn next. Her mom leaves instead.
Outside, Rose sees the cat.
K: I ship it, so obviously my head canon dictates that it’s a perfectly normal thing for Rose to say to him. Also, he should ALWAYS experiment with backcombing because his hair is glorious in this episode. I also feel the need to mention that I follow a few people on Tumblr who refer to this episode as “the one with the neck porn”. They’re not wrong. Tieless Doctor is a good Doctor.
Mari: The Doctor eyes the cat suspiciously, saying he isn’t really a cat person. Think back to the Cat Nuns! The cat walks away and into a cardboard box. He disappears in there. Rose calls the Doctor over to take a look and right away notices all of the iron residue. The Doctor wants to find the power source for whatever is kidnapping kids and fluffy animals.
Chloe is telling her kidnapped drawings that they keep moaning and complaining, even though she’s kept them all together. She tells them that they don’t know what it is to be alone. She draws aggressively and the pencil tip breaks. Frustrated, she makes a bunch of scribble scrabbles on the paper.
Rose is walking down the neighborhood street when she hears some clattering and clanking behind a garage door. She approaches and tries to convince herself she isn’t going to open the door, but she can’t resist. Out flies the scribble scrabble Chloe drew. It attacks Rose, but the Doctor rounds the corner and runs toward her, sonic screwdriver drawn. He sonics it and it shrinks down and stops moving. The Doctor has no idea what the scribble scrabble is, but he knows it was being animated by the same energy that’s been kid-snatching.
The Doctor pockets the scribble and takes it the TARDIS for further observation. There, with some science-y parts of the TARDIS, he discovers the scribble scrabble is made of graphite, which he proves by erasing a portion of it. He calls it a Scribble Creature, which okay, fine. So, something can create things and take them away, but why make a Scribble Creature? Rose connects all the dots and figures we’re dealing with a child artist and hey! There is a creepy little girl in the neighborhood.
K: There’s a lot going on with David Tennant’s face here. So yes. Strange is an excellent way to describe it.
Mari: Cut to Nice Neighbor’s house. They ask to see her daughter but she says no. They take that at face value, even throwing in a little, “guess you’ll just have to deal with her alone!” as they leave. Nice Neighbor calls them back and asks if they can help Chloe. The Doctor smiles real big and says that he can.
Inside, Nice Neighbor explains that Chloe spends most of her time in her room. The Doctor wants to go see her, but first Nice Neighbor wants to explain that Chloe is a good girl with nice grades. Rose uses that 100% always successful TV trick of asking to use the bathroom and sneaks upstairs. She sees Chloe about to leave her room and quickly hides in a closet. Once she passes, Rose lets herself into Chloe’s bedroom. She sees all of the drawings, including one of Union Flag Shirt Kid frowning. Something rattles in the closet and Rose startles and knocks over some pencils. When she turns back to the drawings, Union Flag Shirt Kid is now making this emoji face:
So, you know. Whatever that means.
Chloe is in the kitchen getting some milk. The Doctor introduces himself but she says she’s real busy making something. The Doctor tries to prattle on about drawing stick figures and then does the Vulcan salute. Chloe stares at him, dead-eyed, and says that “they” don’t stop moaning.
Upstairs, the closet doors are rattling again. Unable to resist rattling doors today, Rose opens those up and finds a demon-y looking drawing on the back of the closet with glowing eyes.
Back downstairs, Chloe is done with the Doctor and starts walking back towards her room. He just kind of hangs back and yells after her, until he hears Rose call his name from upstairs. Rose is still standing in front of the closet as the Demonic Drawing growls that he’s coming to hurt her. The Doctor runs in and pulls Rose away from the closet and shuts the door. Nice Neighbor wants to see what that was, but Rose won’t let her open the doors again. Chloe says that she drew that thing yesterday. It’s her dad. Nice Neighbor doesn’t get why Chloe would be drawing her dad. Chloe says that she dreams about her dad, staring at her. She goes on that they need to stay together and her mom is like, “yeah!” but Chloe didn’t actually mean her. She meant “we” like the creepy, vague “we.”
Anyway, Nice Neighbor tries to kick Rose and the Doctor out of her house, but they start giving her the, “we know you know your daughter is creepy” speech. It works.
We cut downstairs and after a weird bit with the Doctor eating out of a jar with his fingers (K: If by “weird” you mean “weirdly hot”, then yes), he explains that Chloe is harassing ionic energy to kidnap things into some kind of holding pen.
Back upstairs, Chloe is sitting on her bed. The Doctor puts his hands on either side of Chloe’s head and uses his Jedi mind tricks, or whatever. Her eyes roll into the back of her head and she falls back on bed. A raspy, alien voice says it wants Chloe back. The Doctor demands to speak to the entity using Chloe, in compliance with the Shadow Proclamation. Aw. The Shadow Proclamation. The alien doesn’t care about shadows or proclamations, but it does eventually identify itself: Isolus, a lonely creature who is missing its brothers and sisters. There is this overly long explanation about how the Isolus, like, eject their offspring into space in pods where it takes them thousands of years to grow up, but it’s okay because they are all great artists who make pretend worlds they can play in thanks to their ionic energy. There’s other bits about solar flares but my eyes are glazing over. Point: only this Isolus is on Earth, all alone.
K: Womp womp.
Mari: We get a flashback of the Isolus finding Chloe, feeling drawn to her loneliness. The Doctor says he gets it, but the Isolus cannot stay within Chloe because it’s wrong. Just then, Demon Dad starts rattling the closet doors, saying he’s coming to get Chloe. She starts seizing on the bed and the Doctor asks Nice Neighbor what she does to calm Chloe down when she’s having nightmares. NN sings the kookaburra song. The Demon Dad stops rattling and Chloe calms down.
Downstairs, Nice Neighbor says again that Chloe used to get the brunt of Demon Dad’s temper. She thought they were free once he died. Rose says that maybe Chloe just needs to talk about it and the Doctor repeats the bit about how lonely Chloe and the Isolus are. And we get some footage of the coverage of the Olympics to remind us that is also a thing in this episode.
The Doctor and Rose leave to try and find the pod the Isolus crashed in. Chloe watches them go and then sneaks out behind them. They head to the TARDIS to try and trace the pod signal. As the Doctor puts together a doo-hickey, Rose asks him if he’s taking the Isolus’s side. The Doctor sympathizes with the creature, because he knows how lonely it can be, traveling all on your own. Rose is on team #kidsareevil, I guess, because she thinks the Isolus is just throwing a temper tantrum. And this happens:
Mari: Back at her house, Chloe brings out some pencils she hid from her mother.
In the TARDIS, the Doctor says you need a lot of things to get through space but the number one thing you need is a hand to hold. Rose has her hand extended this whole time, so the Doctor slaps his hand against hers and she giggles that she’s actually pointing. One of the TARDIS screens is beeping because it’s located the pod.
They head out and Rose walks ahead of him as he describes the gull-egg-like pod. Rose delivers a clunker of a line about how the pods need heat and not love at all right? She hears a crash behind her. The doo-hickey the Doctor was assembling is scattered in pieces on the floor. The Doctor and the TARDIS are gone.
Rose twigs pretty quickly and runs to Nice Neighbor’s house. Nice Neighbor is downstairs like an idiot, and not watching her alien possessed daughter because… plot. Upstairs, the Isolus whisper-says that she wants to stay with Chloe Webber. Rose snatches the picture of the Doctor and the TARDIS away from her. Rose vows to the drawing of the Doctor that she’ll get him out of paper jail.
Outside, City Worker is honest to goodness hanging out on the street, admiring his latest pothole patch. For real. Rose runs up to him and asks if there was anything on the street lately giving off a lot of heat, say about six days ago. City Worker is all, “six days? You mean when I first filled in this pothole?” If you don’t see where this is going, are you new to TV? Rose runs over to City Worker’s truck, pulls out a pick axe and destroys the new patch. Somehow, she doesn’t destroy the little pod. She’s got it now.
K: As obvious as this plot point was, I kind of love how sassy Rose gets about it. She tells him to “put it in a BIG book about tarmacking“, and it’s oddly hilarious.
Mari: Chloe is in her bedroom alone again. Because plot. She bars the door with her chair, takes out some contraband pencils and starts drawing the Olympic Stadium she sees on TV. Very crudely, so I’m not even sure how this ionic energy is really distinguishing between people.
Rose runs back to Nice Neighbor’s house. She’s surprised to find NN downstairs and not watching Chloe. Just then, the TV announcer says that all of the people in the stadium have disappeared. City Worker runs in and Rose tells him to shut up and look at the TV screen. Rose realizes that the stadium full of people won’t be enough because the Isolus had four billion brothers and sisters.
Upstairs, the Isolus is saying the same thing about this being not enough people, so she starts drawing the Earth on the wall. There is some mind bending, “but if she traps the Earth, and she’s on the Earth…” thing you could think about, but I just want this episode to be over.
K: Plus, we should never poke the plot holes. It ends badly.
Mari: The TV announcer says something about the Battle of Torchwood, though, so at least we can have a shot.
Chloe won’t open the door, even when Rose starts banging on it. But Rose is still carrying the axe, so she goes to town on the door and makes her way inside. Demon Dad has started growling and rattling doors again. The Isolus says that if Rose stops Chloe, she’s going to let Demon Dad out of the closet. Rose says she’s got the pod, but the Isolus says it won’t work. Rose knows it needs heat, but apparently it also needs something else. The Isolus won’t tell her what, though. Thankfully, the drawing of the Doctor is nearby and it’s changed. Now, the Doctor is pointing at a drawn picture of the Olympic torch. Rose says to the picture that the pod needs more than heat.
On the TV, the announcer helpfully lets us know where this ridiculous storyline is going: I suppose it’s much more than a torch now, it’s a beacon. It’s a beacon of hope and fortitude and courage. And it’s a beacon of love.
The torch bearer is close so Rose runs outside and tries to get as close as possible, but there’s security there who won’t let her run up to the torch. Inside, Chloe is still drawing Earth and Demon Dad is still rattling.
The pod starts charging a little bit and that makes Rose super excited. She says, “feel the love!” tosses it in the air and it goes flying, attracted to the heat (and the ~*love*~) of the torch. The runner stumbles a little as the pods lands in the fire. Back with Chloe, she stops drawing and the Isolus says she can go home now. She says goodbye to Chloe and flies out of her mouth. Chloe is happy to see her mummy.
K: Totally different circumstances, but it reminded me of the discussion we had in the Supernatural season 3 finale episode about how parents deal with their children after they’ve been possessed and creepy as fuck.
Mari: Outside, all the disappeared children reappear. Rose is wondering where the Doctor is when she realizes that all the drawings have come to life. She runs back toward Nice Neighbor’s house and yells at them to get out, but they can’t because the door is stuck. Nice and Chloe are by the door and they hear Demon Dad saying he’s coming to hurt them. Chloe begs him, “no more.” From outside, Rose tries to coach her through this, saying that this thing is just real because Chloe’s so scared. That doesn’t actually seem right at all, but it’s a nice sentiment, so let’s go with it. Chloe says she can’t get rid of him, but Nice Neighbor grabs her hand and tells her she’ll never be alone again. The start singing the Kookaburra song and the Demon Dad disappears.
Rose is sitting alone, outside of Nice Neighbor’s house. City Worker tells her that maybe the Doctor’s gone somewhere. Rose wonders who is going to hold his hand now. (K: FEELS.)
From inside, they hear the TV announcer saying that all the spectators have returned to the Olympic stadium. The torch bearer is there, but apparently he’s a little woozy or something and collapses. It’s cool though because the Doctor is there to pick up the torch and keep on running. The announcer says no one is going to stop him because the torch is a beacon of hope and courage and love and stuff.
The Doctor lights the Olympic flame and tells the Isolus to fly on home.
K: Meanwhile, I have a small dose of sads over the fact that David Beckham was chosen to light the real Olympic flame in 2012. WRONG DAVID, GUYS. WRONG DAVID.
Mari: Later that night, the Doctor is walking along when Rose finds him and offers him some cake. The kind with the silver sugar ball decorations he was blabbing about earlier. Did I mention that? I don’t think I did. Don’t worry. It’s a thing.
Mari: They have a bit more of flirty banter before Rose says that ‘they’ keep trying to split them apart but they never ever will. The Doctor tells her to never say never ever. She insists that they’ll always be okay, but he’s got that foreshadow-y look in his eyes as he looks at the sky and says a storm is coming.
If you couldn’t guess, this was not my favorite episode. In fact, I didn’t even remember it from my first watch. Sometimes I think I slept through most of season 2. Anyway, this story was just a little bit too ridiculous and then they added domestic violence and child abuse in there just to make everyone feel icky. It was heavy handed and the resolution at the end, from finding the pod to it being fueled by love all the way to the anvilicious, “WE’LL NEVER BE APART!!” at the end.
Its biggest crime however is really just being sort of boring.
K: As with a lot of episodes in series 2, this has some wonderful lines and some totally ship-worthy moments. But it also contains a hell of a lot of mediocre. And a lot of “don’t look now, but this plot point will TOTALLY be relevant later” vibes. So yeah. It’s not the best episode of series 2, that’s for sure.
Next time on Doctor Who: Rose and the Doctor head back to visit Jackie and find ghost-like creates are all around London in S02 E12 – Army of Ghosts.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.