3. The Eye Of The Beholder
Mark Gatiss is a horror fiction maven and Crimson Horror is a kind of love letter to both Frankenstein and House of Wax. Matt Smith definitely gets his monster moment as he shuffles after Jenny, gangly arms outstretched, fingers grasping and mouth opened wide in a permanent grimace. If Russell T. Davies era was that of the lonely god, Steven Moffats may well be the age of the lonely monster. In the original story, Frankensteins monster is intelligent and articulate but misunderstood and rejected. It is his abandonment by his father Victor, and isolation from humanity that causes him to give into rage and despair. He had no friends or family to help curb his dangerous impulses. He sees himself only through the fear and loathing in the eyes of others. The idea of monster is a subjective thing. To most of humanity Mrs. Gillyflower would be referred to as monster but to the parasite she was salvation. Was the parasite truly less deserving of life? It could not help its true nature. It was repulsive in the eyes of humans but perhaps not to the universe as a whole.