Fear Her

"It came to her because she was lonely."

Writer: Matthew Graham

Format: TV

Broadcast: 24th June 2006

Series: 2.11

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis 

London 2012, and the Doctor and Rose set off to see the Olympics, only to find terror on the most ordinary place. Who, or what, is taking children from a harmless council estate? And why is a mother so scared of her daughter?

Verdict 

Fear Her was not the greatest episode of Doctor Who ever to air. In fact, it actually goes down as my lowest rated episode from the post-2005 revival era which is a real shame. It just doesn't quite work and seems a bit silly and all over the place. I mean, the main enemy is a little girl who likes to draw which is something intriguing and could be done right, but when that girl is petrified of a drawing of her late father that she drew herself is where things annoy me. It just didn't make sense because if a girl is having nightmares and knows the effect her drawings have, why would she draw something that scares her? I just found it difficult to buy into and when that happens I get frustrated when other elements of the story are good. I liked the 2012 setting for a 2006 broadcasted episode and it followed Dalek in travelling to the immediate future. We saw that future a lot more prominently this time with the council estate setting and the Olympic torch run. I found myself laughing a little too much at the poster advertising a greatest hits album for Shayne Ward. If he's a Doctor Who fan and has watched this episode recently I'm sure he'll be wondering where things went wrong. He's not done bad for himself but he certainly won't be having a greatest hits album! The idea of a scribble creature is just rubbish and the way the Doctor just literally rubbed it out with a pencil eraser was ludicrous. Come on now, this is Doctor Who. I know a lot of silliness has occurred over the countless stories that have been produced, but that went too far for me. I found myself shaking my head. One thing I did love about this episode though was the relationship between the Tenth Doctor and Rose. It really was wonderful and it's terrific to see how happy they make each other. Rose clearly loves having the opportunity to travel with the Doctor and he likes having her along with him. The foreshadowing of the events to come in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday were quite daunting but how the Doctor can see an oncoming storm in the sky of 2012 when that storm took place in 2006 is beyond me. Even for a Time Lord, surely that can't be right. Chloe Webber was a good character and the way she was taken over by the Isolus was decent. An episode directly dealing with child abuse and loneliness was a good move even if the quality wasn't great. The scenes between Rose and Kel were the highlight of the episode in my opinion as they really were very humorous. The pod hiding in recently laid tarmac was pretty ridiculous though. I did think that Trish was a good character with the way she was so frightened of her daughter. The Doctor saw that immediately but was soon drawn and taken out of the real world. He would return though to pick up the Olympic torch and light the flame that declares the Olympics open. The addition of the drawing of Chloe's father coming to life and being defeated by song seemed a bit unnecessary but I did like how it showed that Rose could manage on her own. Overall, not the best but still not entirely bad.

Rating: 6/10