Hmmm, it seems for every good episode of Doctor Who these days there has to be two or three bad (or at the most mediocre) ones. Hide has a lot going for it. It was genuinely scary without becoming an incredibly cliched haunted house story. That's what I like about Doctor Who, stories about the supernatural can be given a sci fi/tech spin appropriate to the show.
In this case, said ghost turns out to be a person displaced in time. Very few shows out there can do that with an episode and not have to make it Halloween themed.
In this case, said ghost turns out to be a person displaced in time. Very few shows out there can do that with an episode and not have to make it Halloween themed.
It works in a very cerebral way as Doctor Who should. The Doctor isn't waving his screwdriver around and then exclaiming "Ahhh, it's that!" For once he doesn't know what the ghost is. For a while we genuinely believe that this may actually be something supernatural, unexplainable. The way the TARDIS is used is quite clever and detective like, the Doctor making stops through time (while staying in the same place) to uncover the truth.
Clara, the Doctor's new companion, says that she is nothing more than a ghost to the Doctor. As a time traveler, everyone he's met is long dead. From his perspective, like the ghost they're chasing, the people he encounters are like fleeting images. It really does cast more light on the Doctor's character as a man destined to travel alone. He may have companions, but they are like passengers on a train, coming and going.
A bit lovey dovey towards the end, but still good.
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