Doctor Who – Series 12, Episode 8 – “The Haunting of Villa Diodati”

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Another pre-credit sequence – after last week’s, that’s two in a row! 🤔

SYNOPSIS:
Lake Geneva, 1816. Lord Byron and the Shelleys prepare for a night telling ghost stories, but their villa proves to have ghostly presences all its own.
This episode was written by (newcomer to Who) Maxine Alderton.

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

A great story tonight with an unusual mix of light humour and genuine suspense. Structurally, a perfect three-act affair with a nail-biting climax! 😮

For once, the story didn’t feel too preachy, nor the abundance of companions, too many! With an old established foe returning to create havoc, who (without giving too much away with what’s to come) links perfectly with next week’s penultimate two-parter.

If I had just one criticism, the character Mary Shelley’s initial encounter with said foe, could have been dwelled-on a bit longer – it was all a bit underplayed for something that was to shape the future of Shelley, as an author.


VERDICT: A superb episode that set the scene perfectly for the forthcoming final two episodes of this latest series. Good acting all round, with just the right amount of SFX and CGI. There’s a lot to wrap up in what’s to come, but after seeing tonight’s, I’ve got a renewed confidence in that it’ll all come together very nicely. 😁

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