Clarissa Tan

Dr Who: there’s something in the wi-fi; How to be a Lady; The Mystery of Mary Magdalene

issue 30 March 2013

It used to be that when an arch-villain wanted to decimate a community, he’d put something in the water. Now, it’s something in the wi-fi. In the new Dr Who, the Time Lord battles a baddie who runs a group called the Spoonheads, whose mission is to upload and download stuff from the wireless internet. A bit like what I do all day, then. But wait — the Spoonheads are uploading people’s minds, to access all of human intelligence. Then they download them again, for their own evil purposes, while their victims languish in a mindless warp.

The episode is called ‘The Bells of Saint John’ (BBC1, Saturday) and plays cleverly on our fascination at and fears about a technology that we cannot touch or see but is all around us. What lurks in the wi-fi, waiting to pounce? These clouds of data swimming around us can’t be good. There are lots of whizz-bang special effects and the storyline swooshes along, with Matt Smith’s Doctor meeting up again with his new companion, the fast-talking Clara Oswald.

But things must needs be speedy, once the internet becomes the centre of a plot.

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