Doctor Who Review: Time Heist - 5 Ways The Check Was Cashed (And Bounced)

WARNING! SPOILERS: This post contains spoilers and speculation for the Doctor Who series eight episode €œTime Heist€. We begin with a mysterious phone call, wiped memories and strangers in a dark room. Our mission impossible is robbing the most secure bank in the universe. The clues we need to accomplish this are doled out by an enigmatic hooded figure called the Architect. A deliberate tongue-in-cheek jaunt down a familiar path, €œTime Heist€ should be great fun. Instead this is an episode that starts with an intriguing if goofy premise and goes everywhere it shouldn€™t. There€™s a beautifully shot sequence near the beginning of €œTime Heist€ where the Doctor and his team enter the bank and wade through a crowd of customers in classic hero style. The moment the security system is deployed brings true tension and horror to the scene. Yet it all goes downhill from there. The build-up is sacrificed to a sloppy plot and cardboard villain. To balance our account let€™s look at five ways €œTime Heist€ slipped up and five ways it saved the day.

10. Debit: Clunky Dialog

It€™s harder to write dialog than one might think. The natural rhythms of speech are difficult to capture on the page and even good dialog can sound forced. There are several cringe-worthy moments in €œTime Heist€ thought the actors do their best to deliver the lines in a believable manner. Stilted speech takes us out of the story. It forces us out of our head space, and leaves us standing outside the scene rather than living within it. Ms. Delphox, for example, is forced to utter the words, €œWe€™ll be fired. Fired with pain.€ The line €œFired with pain,€ is not only clunky it€™s unnecessary. I imagine Keeley Hawes was quite capable of delivering the words €œWe€™ll be fired,€ in such a manner as to connote extreme fear at what might happen in that event. It didn€™t need to be spelled out for us and it reduced the power of the scene.