Doctor Who - Recap: Show Me the Mummy (Or Not)

The trick of these sorts of stories is to take something which, on the surface, appears to be irreducibly complex, only to reveal later that it's something much, much simpler. "Mummy on the Orient Express" centers on...well, a mummy that haunts a space-traveling recreation of the infamous train (a train that just so happens to have "Clarity" singer Foxes doing a jaunty, utterly delightful rendition of Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now"). It's all right there in the title. Well, except for the part about the mummy being invisible to all but those it's about to kill. Passengers are succumbing to the creature, seemingly at random, and with only a 66 second warning. In one of the more interesting visual flourishes of the episode, a clock is placed in the corner of the screen to count down the 66 seconds a person has left to live, starting from the moment they first see the mummy. One cannot run from the monster, nor can it be harmed in any way. However, it can be bargained with: guessing the correct phrase will stop the mummy's attack, and will allow the potential victim to go free. But guessing that phrase is easier said than done, although The Doctor has help in the form of Perkins (Frank Skinner), the train engineer, who has been investigating the murders on his own for some time, implying that this isn't exactly a new threat.

Credit: BBC

Set against this premise is Clara (Jenna Coleman) and The Doctor's "last hurrah". The Doctor has brought her aboard the train for their last adventure together before parting ways, since Clara feels she just can't travel with him anymore, due to his overall dishonesty. And dishonesty is the order of the day here, as it quickly becomes apparent that not only is there something creepy going on aboard this train, but that The Doctor suspected as much long before he brought Clara on-board with him. This is important because it further develops the notion that The Doctor is someone who can't be trusted. The Doctor is a lot of things: a time traveler, a genius, a space adventurer, a goofball, a trickster, a warrior, etc. But he's also a deceiver, telling whatever lies he needs to tell to suit the demands of his situation. In his mind, the lies he tells are necessary, and in service to a greater good. He lies to Clara about the nature of the train before bringing her aboard, because he needs to get her aboard the train one way or another. Granted, we're never directly told that he needed her aboard with him, but the narrative itself sort of bears this out, since Clara is a key component to his process. Clara helps The Doctor every week, in ways both big and small. And this week is no different, as helps him acquire what he needs to solve the mystery: she gets one of the mummy's potential victims, Maisie (Daisy Beaumont), to agree to leave her hiding place to meet The Doctor. Because of this, The Doctor is able to scan Maisie's emotions so that the mummy will attack him instead of her. Only through this act is The Doctor then able to see the mummy, and with this ability, deduce what the mummy is, what it wants, and how to stop it. In short, Clara was necessary for The Doctor. Every bit as necessary as his lies.

Credit: BBC

The solution to the mystery is one that I wouldn't have immediately guessed myself, but it was fun getting to that conclusion. The mummy kills Maisie's wicked grandmother, an innocent chef, mythology expert Professor Moorhouse (Christopher Villiers) and even the conductor himself, Captain Quell (David Bamber), a former soldier resigned to this modest job due to PTSD over having watched his squadmates die in front of him. This contributes in significant ways, since the victims play a role in the development of The Doctor and Clara throughout the episode, albeit indirectly. For instance, as Maisie reflects on her late grandmother, and the guilt she feels over having wished the terrible woman dead over the years, Clara reflects on her fractured relationship with The Doctor, saying that even though they're on bad terms, she came along with him out of a desire not to end it that way. This prompts Maisie to, somewhat sadly, reflect, "Life would be so much simpler if you liked the right people. People you're supposed to like. But then I guess there'd be no fairy tales." And that comment seems to set Clara's mind racing, much like the death of Captain Quell gives The Doctor a key piece to the puzzle. Although he's terrified of the mummy and the inevitability of his own demise, the Captain is proud to die a soldier's death, on his feet with no bullets left in the chamber. He thanks The Doctor for snapping him out of his funk and reminding him of the soldier he once was, and it's not too long after that The Doctor puts it all together: the mummy is a centuries-old soldier incapable of seeking rest until his enemies surrender. So...yeah, not exactly an obvious solution, but it fits within the overall framework of the episode. In addition, the scene in which The Doctor reaches this conclusion is Peter Capaldi's best scene so far, puzzling out a solution in a rambling, frantic, urgent monologue while the 66 seconds count down.

Credit: BBC

Ultimately, The Doctor rescues everyone on-board, not only from the mummy but also from Gus, the sinister on-board A.I. that lured them all onto the train in the first place. The A.I. needed a slew of mythology experts and other scientists to solve the mystery of the mummy, who is one of the ancient "Foretold" of mythology. And so Gus has lured them there and trapped them until they could come up with a solution, or until the Foretold killed them all. Whichever came first. It's a pretty neat little twist, even if I could do without another "evil A.I." story in pop culture. But my issues with that element of the story are mostly offset by the strength of the character arcs here. The Doctor admits that he didn't know if he could save Maisie from the mummy when he told Clara to bring her to him. So he simply allowed Clara to believe he was being heartless and asking her to help him lure Maisie to her death-by-mummy, because it was easier than the alternative of revealing his plan and giving potentially false hope. Clara begins to rethink the way she's considered The Doctor over the past several weeks, calling Danny (Samuel Anderson) and concluding, from the tone in his voice when he tells her he loves her, that he'd be okay with her continuing to travel with The Doctor. Naturally, The Doctor is thrilled, and Clara has apparently regained her enthusiasm for travel. But I'd be shocked if this ended in anything less than disaster.

"Mummy on the Orient Express" is a wonderful little mystery, and it's one of the best Doctor Who episodes this season, in my opinion. Granted, the season isn't over yet, so it should be interesting to see how the show tops itself, since the show tends to have a "go big or go home" philosophy, the deeper we get into a season.