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After last week's mostly good, but also horribly dreadful episode, it was nice to see Doctor Who right itself a bit this week, even if that meant offering up a story which, whilst fun, was not terribly memorable. It did, however, see a brief return of a plot structure that the show has played with in the past: Doctor Who without The Doctor. In fact, by my reckoning, this is the first use of this particular trope since "Turn Left" way back in 2008, and even though the episode moved away from it by the midway point, it was still interesting to see how Moffat's Doctor Who functioned without the presence of Moffat's Doctor. Turns out that it works surprisingly well, which is testament to what a well-oiled, if workmanlike machine it has become.

The Doctor-less first half begins in Yorkshire in 1893, which got me feeling very nostalgic since I until recently lived in Yorkshire (but not because I've been alive since 1893. Why would you even suggest such a thing? [laughs nervously, tries to hide photos of himself in Victorian garb]). A young man and woman say a quiet goodbye to each other as he goes to investigate something that lies through a red, glowing door. Moments later, Mrs. Gillyflower, an old woman played by the former Mrs. James Bond Diana Rigg, shows up with a cadre of creepy supporters to express their condolences over the death of the woman's husband. The young woman expresses some uncertainty, claiming that her husband is alive, then she hears a blood-curdling scream and is set upon by the group.

Coming from show veteran Mark Gatiss, this was a pretty effective little opener that established a lot with very little, as the best cold opens should. It also set the tone for the whole episode, which was one of creepy intrigue for the most part, much of which got jettisoned in the final third for the usual race against time, save the world nonsense that the show uses a crutch for easy drama. The Problem of Perspective rears its overly grandiose head once again.

The man is found both very dead and bright red, and back in London his brother enlists the help of the Silurian Madame Vastra (Neve McIntosh), her partner Jenny (Catrin Stewart) and the Sontaran Strax (Dan Starkey) in order to figure out what killed him, as well as a host of other people who have shown up bearing signs of the Crimson Horror. They're not terribly interested initially, but as soon as they are presented with photos, known as Octograms, that show the last images the victim saw - an idea most famously used in Wild Wild West, which isn't the best of associations. This particular victim's last image was of The Doctor, which gets everyone excited and on their way to Yorkshire.

I really rather like the trio of Vestra, Jenny and Strax. I like the idea that there is this group of characters who exist separately from The Doctor and have their own adventures. Even if we don't get to see them except for when they cross paths with The Time Lord, I still think it's cool to give this sense of an ongoing, broader universe (one that I assume is probably being explored in some expanded universe fiction). I also like the chemistry between the actors and find the overly militaristic Strax to be a really funny character, so I had a lot of fun with the first half of the episode, which felt like one of those episodes of The Sarah Jane Adventures where The Doctor just happens to be a plot point, rather than the driving force of the narrative.

After arriving, the trio discover that Gillyflower's organisation it is a kind of quasi-religious group who exploit the fear of the Crimson Horror in order to get people to come to their community, known as Sweetville, and presided over by Gillyflower and the unseen Mr. Sweet. Jenny, being the only one of the three who isn't a hideous monster, infiltrates Sweetville and discovers The Doctor, who displays the same red, hardened skin as the dead man. It turns out that The Doctor came to investigate and found that Gillyflower had been preserving people using a strange chemical formula. It didn't work on The Doctor since he is not human, and he was cared for by Gillyflower's blind daughter, Ada (Rigg's real-life daughter Rachael Stirling) who takes to referring to him as "my monster".

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