NuWho Review: Series 8 Episode 8 "Mummy on the Orient Express"

By: Jamie Mathieson

**Spoilers**
If you have not yet seen this episode, please go and do so before proceeding.

         After last week's utter disappointment and annoyance-fest (where, looking back again, the only redeemable feature was Clara yelling at The Doctor) I went into this episode with low expectations and, as a result, was pleasantly surprised.

       I am also currently battling off the mother-of-all cold viruses, so I apologize if this seems somehow less coherent than usual. Anyway. So this episode sees us finally getting the chance to see the Orient Express in Space as well as dealing with the mystery of a killer, invisible-except-to-the-victim Egyptian mummy. I expected at least one 'Are you my mummy?' joke to crop up somewhere within this episode...and I was not disappointed.

       Because this week was slightly lighter fare than the terrible Kill the Moon, the melodrama and dark humor really worked with the contrasting atmospheres of Orient Express and Laboratory to give us a fun, bizarre romp through space.


Favorite Moments & Random Thoughts:

- The opening to this episode with the zombie-walking mummy and the determinate calm and sophisticated lady freaking out in an utterly British sort of way was just hilarious, though the reveal of the Orient Express in Space called back to mind both The Big Bang where The Doctor mentions a case on that train and Voyage of the Damned where the Space Titanic was revealed in the exact same way.

- The songs Foxes is singing reminds me a bit of 'My Bad Angel' from Daleks in Manhattan.

- Clara and The Doctor were absolutely ADORABLE this week! I'm glad that they let Clara be mad at The Doctor for weeks after the last episode. She didn't just forgive him out of hand.

- "Might be nothing. Old ladies die all the time. It's practically their job description." 

- The Doctor looks so...so old and broken whenever he tells Clara that this will be their last hurrah. He looks twice as sad whenever Clara tells him that he can come around for dinner. I'd bet my boots that he's remembering Jackie and Donna and Amy and Rory right there.

- Y'know? I really like Perkins.

- Miss Pitt looks uncannily like Mary Watson. Jessica agrees with me, so it can't be all my fevered imagination...right?

- And she opened the lock by smashing a high heel into the computer. Yep. Definitely Mary's long-lost sister.

- 66 seconds. I would agree that is terribly specific for an immortal, unstoppable force...but I watch SPN, so I'm quite aware that sometimes these things are specific.

- I love the way The Doctor drops everything and runs whenever Clara says that she is trapped.

- "You mean you can't save me?" "Ah. Well that is implied, isn't it? This is, probably, the end for you. Make it count! Details!" Geeze, doc, don't sugarcoat things.

- The images of the stricken cooking staff floating through space reminds me of The Impossible Planet.

- I really like the way that Gus is just so obscenely cheerful and matter-of-fact about the whole thing. Dark comedy at its best!

- "You know, Doctor. I can't tell if you're a genius or just incredibly arrogant." 

- A vampire mummy? That sounds like a bad SyFy movie. The long-lost brother of Sharknado.

- There is a nice bit of continuity in this episode too where The Doctor mentions how Gus has been trying to lure him to the Orient Express for a while, referencing the TARDIS phone call in The Big Bang that I mentioned earlier. Nicely done, Mathieson!

- Whenever Clara took The Doctor's advice of lying to Miss Pitt, I threw my box of kleenex at the screen. No. NO! We are NOT going there! Nonononono! (But they did.) Fortunately Clara was able to take The Doctor to task and convince him to go ahead and replace Miss Pitt with himself.

- "I'm The Doctor and I will be your victim this evening. Are you my mummy?" HAHAHA! YES! YES! They DID fit one of those jokes in!

- I wish Perkins had gone with The Doctor. He would have made a great companion. And we need someone to travel with The Doctor who isn't from 21st Century Britain.

- "Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones. But you still have to choose."

- I hate the ending with Clara lying to both Danny and The Doctor. I just have a feeling that this is going to end badly for her...

            All in all this was a fun episode. I do think that the reveal and defeat of the mummy might have been a bit weak in terms of tension and resolution, but the rest of the episode holds up extremely well even under multiple viewings. Mummy on the Orient Express is a 4/5.

What did you think? Do you agree with my rating? If not - what would you say differently?