DW: Mummy on the Orient Express - Monster Madness

We're at the eight episode of the eight series of new Doctor Who (or NuWho as it's sometimes called by its fans). We're over halfway through the first series of a brand new Doctor. In the newest episode, "Mummy on the Orient Express" we move both forwards and backwards in "Doctor Who"'s history, but it eventually lands on being an episode better than the average of its series.

"A Mummy on the Orient Express" is about a mummy on the Orient Express, to make it even more interesting the mummy can only be seen by the people it is about to attack, and the Orient Express is in space. This is the Doctor's and Clara's last hurrah. Clara wants to settle down with Danny, and can't quite handle darting off with the Doctor on adventures all the time any more. She wants a more quiet life, a stable life, one where she can know more certainly that she won't die the next time she steps through a pair of blue doors.

This is definitely a step up from last week's episode, and the one before that, and the one before that. It's the best of the series since "Listen", and there aren't many episodes before that's better than "A Mummy on the Orient Express" either. This episodes has almost everything I look for in an episode of "Doctor Who". A wacky premise, a skewed theme, funny one-time characters, and the continuing of a plot larger than any single episode. One of the best things this episode did was keeping the Doctor and Clara separate throughout most of it, we get to really see the new Doctor on his own. See how he deals with things without having his companion constantly by his side.

The episode also limited itself to almost just one set piece, a train car. We do get to see some other sets, but only briefly, and to show the viewer that there is more to the train than just this one cart. It makes the monster-of-the-week all the more scary and intriguing, the characters cannot just escape it. They're stuck on a train in the middle of space. The monster itself it not as much scary as it is interesting. It has some interesting abilities, but not once when I saw it was I scared. It was too much of a monster-monster, it wasn't like the Silence or the Angels who have traits of normality in them, the mummy was just a mummy. Kind of a setback.

Overall this episode was good and exciting. One of the most entertaining episodes of the series, in terms of just entertainment value it might even out-rank "Listen" (which wins on having a lot more value than just being entertaining). It was also fun to see the Doctor acknowledge so many things that's been happening to him before, and who he was before. He seems to be a Doctor who is much more aware of his past selves than he has normally been since the relaunch. It isn't too much, it doesn't come off as too self-referential, but they are nice nods and certainly gets a giggle from a fan who knows just the right amount of trivia to recognise it when it comes.