nwhyte's review
informative
slow-paced
3.25
The God Complex is one of my less favourite episodes in one of my less favourite series of New Who, and I didn't write it up at the time, nor did I recommended it in my epic "Which New Who to Watch" post. In case you need your memory refreshed, it's the one where the Doctor, Amy and Rory are stuck in a hotel with a few other characters, of whom the best developed is Rita, played by Amara Karan; but it turns out that the hotel is a prison for a Minotaur. Personally I didn't feel that the plot held together at all, and the scene at the end, where the Doctor basically kicks Amy and Rory out of the Tardis to start their lives without him, was disappointingly underdeveloped. But others differ, and Driscoll is clearly a fan, finding a lot more depth to it than I had imagined was there. The chapters are as follows:
- The symbolism of the Minotaur, and modern treatments of the story in and beyond Doctor Who;
- The roots of the story in Orwell's 1984 (surveillance in particular);
- The roots of the story in The Shining, film rather than book (hotel horror, obviously, though he also blames it for the weakness of the closing scene);
- The roots of the story in previous Who stories about bases under siege and about religion (though I think he misses a couple of interesting examples on religion);
- A rather good chapter on fear and terror as storytelling devices;
- A more confused chapter trying to work out what the story is trying to tell us about faith and religion;
- A long chapter on the Doctor's fallibility as a hero;
- A chapter on the role of the companions in Doctor Who;
- a concluding short chapter wondering what the hell the symbolism of the fishbowl is meant to be?
Driscoll likes the story more than I did, but is not unaware of its flaws.
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