There’s a hotel somewhere and in each of the rooms is someone’s worst nightmare. How about that for a central premise, eh? That is pure Doctor Who. Really, as a starting point, it doesn’t get much better than that.

Then you’ve got to justify it in some way that makes it sound reasonably feasible in an outlandish sci-fi kind of way. So the hotel is not a hotel, it’s a disguised spaceship. The spaceship is home to a creature which feeds off fear, and so it kidnaps people, confronts them with their worst nightmare and consumes all that tasty fear. So far, so Doctor Who.

But then it all gets a bit complicated.

It turns out it’s not actually fear that the creature wants to feast on. What happens is that when confronted with their deadliest fear, the victims fall back on their most deeply held faith, and that’s the food for the creature. It’s a faith eater, not a fear eater.

The moment this revelation is revealed is where The God Complex pivots on expectations. Problem is, it’s just a little too tricksy. I think that’s the moment where the audience is meant to go, “oh, of course! It all makes sense now!” In fact, it’s the moment where I suspect they go, “um, come again?”

And that’s a shame because when that happens, it’s stops being a quintessential Doctor Who idea. It suddenly got too complicated. It went a step too far. Before then – you’re trapped in a labyrinthine hotel with a creature that feeds off your terror! – it was easy-to-grasp, creepy stuff. Then it gained an unnecessarily complicated add on.

Perhaps that’s what makes an utterly Who-ish idea. Bizarre and compelling but able to be summed up in a sentence.

*****

Some people’s faiths are easier to comprehend than others. Clever clogs Rita (Amara Karan) is a Muslim, so we get that. Hipster nerd Howie (Dimitri Leonidas) is a conspiracy theorist. Well, I suppose it’s belief system of sorts, if you squint. Tivolian moleman Gibbis (David Walliams) comes from a species with an almost fetishistic desire to be invaded. That’s an amusing character trait, sure, but do we get to call that a faith?

Companion Amy (Karen Gillan) has faith in the Doctor (Matt Smith), to such an extent that a climax will need to be borrowed from The Curse of Fenric to help her break it and defeat the monster of the week. Oddly enough, the Doctor – or rather waiting for him to turn up – is also her greatest fear. Which gives us some insight into how obsessed she’s become with him. Luckily this seems to be something husband Rory (Arthur Darvill) has grown accustomed to, so isn’t too bothered by.

Rory doesn’t get a scary room of his own. As the Doctor points out, this is because he isn’t particularly religious. Which is all well and good, but are we saying Rory doesn’t believe in anything? If we can pass Gibbis’ love for domination off as faith, surely there must be something inside Rory which he might fall back on in a moment of great crisis. One would have thought perhaps his faith in Amy, although after we’ve seen how Doctor obsessed her subconscious is, maybe it’s just as well he doesn’t seem to have any deeply held connection to her. Poor faithless Rory. For such a caring, passionate guy, it just doesn’t seem right that he’s an empty, soulless shell.

*****

David Walliams is some late season stunt casting which is interesting in and of itself. Firstly, it’s a brave decision to cover the story’s major guest star in a mole mask, even if his distinctive profile is recognisable under all that latex. Still, it’s kind of apt given Walliams’ Little Britain pedigree for inhabiting outlandish categories. And since Tom Baker added his cheeky baritone to that series and outed Walliams and co-conspirator Matt Lucas as Who-heads (as if The Web of Caves wasn’t enough), it was probably inevitable that they’d end up on the show. And now Lucas is a regular on the show. Is Walliams envious? Surely a Whoside reunion is inevitable.  Little Gallifrey, perhaps.

Another name which jumps off the cast list is Spencer Wilding. It’s a name tailor made for an actor, so it’s just as well this 6’ 7” man mountain gave up kick boxing. Wilding plays the Minotaur, and is such a giant that when the series employs him, they can do enormous brutish creatures without resorting to CGI. The God Complex is the first of three big badasses he plays for the series (he’s also the Wooden King and Ice Warrior Skaldak) over a short period of time, so that oversize aliens briefly become a series motif. It’s the Spencer Wilding era, as I think we should call it. (Also fact fans, he’s the second actor to play both a minotaur in Doctor Who and be the body of Darth Vader.)

We’re also at the beginning of another mini-tenure, the Nick Hurran era. Hurran’s directorial style – full of inventive, suspenseful shots and rapid cutting between shots – marks him out as a standout talent in this and his other episode this season, The Girl Who Waited. He quickly becomes the go to guy for the series’ showcase episodes and gets the prime gig of directing the 50th anniversary special. This is a director the show’s invested in. Where’s he gone, I wonder? Some shrewd and handsome fellow once asked Steven Moffat in DWM why directors seem not to linger on the show for longer than a few episodes. “Bloody good question,” Moffat replied, so we might surmise that even the Boss doesn’t know where he’s hiding.

*****

There are so many minotaurs already in Doctor Who and so it doesn’t entirely surprise when The God Complex feels obliged to shout out to one them. “Distant cousin of the Nimon,” the Doctor name drops. “They descend on planets and set themselves up as gods to be worshipped.” Despite the fact that The Horns of Nimon is a story the series is rarely in a rush to remember, that does sound like a classic Doctor Who idea.

“Which is fine, until the inhabitants get all secular and advanced enough to build bonkers prisons,” the Doctor goes on. And once again that crystal clear idea gets muddied by over complication. This episode. It just doesn’t know when to stop.

LINK TO Deep Breath: The God Complex  has pictures of Silurians and Sontarans, and Deep Breath  has Vastra and Strax.

NEXT TIME: Anyone for tennis? Failing that, how about The Stones of Blood?