One of the running themes of Series 8 has been “science-y stuff”, in the sense that the episodes tend to rely a lot more on tossing out vaguely scientific-sounding language to justify whatever strange occurrence the characters must resolve or endure.  It’s hardly new to the franchise, considering how often it happened in the Classic Era, but it has been rather egregious in Series 8, to the point of becoming an issue.  It would almost be better if The Doctor didn’t try to explain what’s happening at all.

 

For all intent purposes, The Doctor and his companions have precious little to do with the resolution of the story.  They ultimately warn people not to kill the sudden overgrowth of plant life, which comes and goes rather magically, but there’s a sense that the timing involved is so quick that any exfoliation by the human race would have been miniscule compared to the scale of the plant coverage.  In essence, the story is more about the mystery and the characters.

 

In the middle of the jumbled mess that is the episode is a kinda-sorta callback to Clara’s confrontation with The Doctor in “Kill the Moon”.  The Doctor embraces the notion that Earth is “his” as well, just in time for Clara to more or less come around to his point of view.  Except, like much of the episode, it’s not quite so clear cut as it seems, and it makes the whole Doctor/Clara/Danny pseudo-triangle even more muddled than it was.

 

Considering that Clara is the viewpoint character this season, she gets the most logical through-line.  It makes sense that Series 8 is bringing her to a point where she has to decide if the adventure is worth the cost of becoming more and more like The Doctor, when she’s increasingly reluctant to excuse or agree with his decisions.  She’s ready to let him go, even at threat of imminent demise, in favor of being a caretaker to children instead of caretaker to a Time Lord.

 

The point has been to reconcile Clara’s role as The Impossible Girl with her depiction as someone who takes care of others to the point of self-sacrifice, and that’s largely been accomplished, even if the process hasn’t been smooth.  I also like that Danny hasn’t been a Companion in the traditional sense, but rather, more of a companion for Clara, someone to present an opposing point of view from The Doctor’s without overriding her agency in the process.  If nothing else, if Series 8 is the final stretch for Clara, then it will feel like she had a solid character arc during her tenure.

 

What’s still missing, or at least tenuous, is the sense of where this is taking The Doctor.  I’m not sure he’s really all that much closer to “finding himself”.  Maybe that will all crystallize in the two-part finale beginning with the next episode; if so, it’s about time.  And we’ll soon discover if the very light treatment of the season arc works in the long run, or if Moffat has simply taken a different approach to a multi-series mystery.  Whatever the case, the fans wanted a more character-centric Series 8 after the massive plot arcs of previous years, and that’s what we received, for better or worse.