'Doctor Who' Season 12 Episode 8 is an exhilarating ghost story with twists you won't see coming
Contains spoilers for Season 12 Episode 8 — 'The Haunting of Villa Diodati'
It's always fun when 'Doctor Who' does a horror episode and 'The Haunting of Villa Diodati' is no exception. The thrilling story brought together some horror, historical references and the show's characteristic humor to send chills down the spine. It also set up some cataclysmic events to come.
The historical guests for this evening's horror-tainment are none other than Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, better known as Mary Shelley and played by Lili Miller, Lord Byron (Jacob Collins-Levy) and their compatriots. The episode does a pretty good job of showing the literary legends as flawed humans — Byron, for example, is cowardly and sleazy — but that does not take away from their genius.
As for the scares themselves, the ones that land are truly terrifying and the ones that don't aren't too jarring because they are played off for laughs. The introduction of the unfinished Lone Cyberman as the main villain was something we really didn't see coming even though the image of a Cyberman appearing as a glowing ghost while making its way to a particular time period is actually pretty familiar at this point.
In fact, at one point we thought the "ghost" might actually be the Master (Sacha Dhawan) escaping from the Kasavin's dimension but once the Cyberman was revealed, everything made complete sense. Except for the sandwich that Graham O'Brien (Bradley Walsh) eats (you'll know what we mean when you watch).
For a change, the companions all get to do something this episode and all the characters are more than just bystanders spectating while the Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) saves the world. In fact, they even manage to get on the Time Lord's nerves at one point, leading to a truly inspiring speech about the value of literature to the very existence of the human race.
'The Haunting of Villa Diodati' was an exciting story with loads to offer for both fans of the show and fans of the romantic poets in general. And if that wasn't enough, the terrible Cyber War to come that it teases promises to be an exhilarating watch.
'Doctor Who' Season 12 airs new episodes every Sunday at 8/7c on BBC America.