The Doctor Who Review | Season 11 Episode 9

Last updated on 10 December 2018

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WARNING! SPOILER ALERT! Welcome back to the Doctor Who Review, where I recap the week’s episode and give some thoughts and opinions on it. Please do not read if you have not seen this week’s episode. There are major spoilers ahead. You have been warned. Check out the rest of the Doctor Who Reviews here.

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Title: It Takes You Away

Written by: Ed Hime

Welcome to Norway, 2018. Team TARDIS has landed in Scandinavia, and while the Doctor is eating dirt to try and figure our where and when they are (there’s also a sheep in this scene), they notice a cottage down in the valley. It’s wintertime, but there’s no smoke rising from the chimney. Of course, they wouldn’t be Team TARDIS without going to investigate. What they find is blind and motherless teen, Hanne, hiding in a closet, frightened by something in the woods; something that she’s adamant has taken her father, Erik, who has been missing for several days.

As the team splits up to find the monster, Ryan and Yas find traps in a shed, while Graham finds a mirror in the upstairs bedroom; a mirror with no reflection. Turns out the mirror is actually a portal to another world, and off the Doctor, Graham and Yas go to see what they can find. Ryan is made to stay with Hanne to protect her from the monster in the woods. Eventually Hanne knocks out Ryan, and goes through the portal, forcing Ryan to follow her after he’s revived.

What Thirteen, Graham and Yas find first, however, is a sort of middle world, an Anti-Zone, and an Orc-like creature called Ribbons. They try to get Ribbons to tell them about Hanne’s father, and eventually he takes them to where he saw him. But along the way Ribbons is devoured by flesh-eating moths (shiver), and the rest of the team run away and back through what they think is the original portal. But surprise! It’s not! It’s another portal to a world that looks exactly the same as the world they are actually from (i.e. Earth, Norway, 2018) except that Hanne’s mother, Trine, is there with Erik, despite the fact that she’s meant to be dead. Not only that by Ryan’s grandmother and Graham’s wife Grace, whom we witnessed fall to her death in episode one, is there. Of course, it’s not actually Grace and Trine, because that’s not possible. So what’s going on?

Turns out they’ve stepped into an alternative but sentient universe, which has a grudge or wants to revenge or something (?) on Earth. It’s created this replica of Earth, and that’s where Erik has been hanging out – with his not-even-real dead wife rather than looking after his daughter in real Norway. The sentient universe has created Trine and Grace as a way to lure them in, but Graham eventually knows better. The Doctor manages to persuade the universe that actually it can let Erik out of its clutches, and eventually the team all end up in the right universe once more.

A final note on the ridiculously bad parenting of Erik; that monster in the woods? Not a monster, just a sound recording set up around the perimeter to scare Hanne to keep her in the house. The traps in the shed? Literal bear traps for literal bears. It is Norway after all.

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My thoughts on It Takes You Away

Despite the fact that Erik is the worst father ever, I quite enjoyed this episode. Once again we’re lacking in gory, gruesome, eat-your-brains monsters, but the combination of the different aspects in this episode kind of made up for that. While the episode never quite lands on one particular idea, many of which could be fleshed out in full episodes (I want to know more about Ribbons please! Why is he making pretty red lights in a moth-infested cave somewhere between universes?! I have questions!), but there are enjoyable moments along the way, and a few heart-felt ones at that.

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Overall

I quite enjoyed this episode. I like how there was different universes, and doors between them, and a whole other world scenario. Despite it being all fake, if you know what I mean.

The last few episodes for me have been more enjoyable than the beginning of the season, so here’s hoping the final next week will be the best one yet.

What did you think of this It Takes You Away?