Doctor Who” fans rejoice – your favorite Time Lord is back. After a nearly seven month hiatus, the Doctor is ready to resume his Season Seven adventures, this time aided by a new companion (Jenna-Louise Coleman) after the departure of the Ponds.
In “The Bells of Saint John,” the Doctor is desperately trying to find Clara Oswald (Coleman), a girl who’s died in two separate time periods yet for some reason is alive in the present day. When she accidentally calls him thinking he’s an Internet service helper, both of them stumble on a plot where people around the globe
are trapped inside the Internet through their Wi-Fi connections.
The Internet-based plot is
a great idea for a “Doctor Who” adventure, but because it’s saddled
with introducing a new companion it’s never realized to its full potential. It does help that we’ve already met Coleman’s Clara twice before, and her chemistry with the Doctor is just as good now as it was then, cementing her place as the new companion. If the episode didn’t spend so much time re-introducing us to her, we might have had a stronger mid- season premiere.
It was very risky to introduce a new companion mid-way through the season, but
to its credit the episode handles it very well. The ongoing mystery of why there are three versions of Clara sets up a strong story for the remainder of the season, and her introduction re-energizes the show after two and a half seasons of traveling with the Ponds.
While the episode could have been better in terms of the
story and threat, the interaction between Clara and the
Doctor made for an entertaining adventure. With Clara
now firmly introduced, get ready for more exciting
adventures to come in the world of Doctor Who.
