WHO REVIEW: 14-3 - BOOM

 

We’ve had “Boom Town,” we’ve had “Kerblam!” and now we have “Boom,” which isn’t at all like those two episodes but does form a peculiar little set of titles. I think I prefer the working title, “Don’t Move,” but it’s still neat. Regardless, this is the best episode that Gatwa’s had so far, indeed, the best episode altogether for some time in my humble.

I think we all expected something special from this, the first script from Moffat since 2017 and the first one he’s written outside the showrunner role since 2008. Moffat had a tendency to deliver outstanding and memorable episodes when he was working under Davies, and he does it again here. There are, admittedly, a lot of familiar Moffat tropes here: AI reproductions of the dead; an innocuous repeated phrase taking on a sinister note; technology becoming the threat, Black Mirror style; a small child in need; the power of love and/or memory saving the day. There’s no timey-wimey stuff this time, but otherwise, this is very much Moffat by the books. 

Moffat by the books is, however, at its worst very watchable and at its best excellent. “Boom” really works, in an uncomplicated, tightly scripted way that only “Wild Blue Yonder” has come close to in recent years. The inclusion of the Church army, established early in Moffat’s stewardship, allows him to engage in an unbarred attack on faith. It’s interesting that once the Doctor is no longer in danger, he is more accepting of it; we’re seeing his unmasked anger while he’s ranting at Mundy and scared for his life. More essential, though, is the merciless attack on the capitalist system and war for profit. It was clear early on that there was no enemy, and it was all a massive sales exercise by Villengard (another lovely callback, right back to “The Empty Child) that was perpetuating war purely to generate profit. It’s even nastier than that, though; there’s no conscious decision made here by a rapacious CEO, it’s purely the algorithm that keeps the war ticking over, killing people in just the right numbers to remain saleable and packaging up their remains in neat little packages. The whole of the capitalise world is under fire here, but the United States in particular. The repeated use of “thoughts and prayers” is just biting.

Weirdly, in the resolution, the episode it calls back to most strongly is “Closing Time” – not Moffat, but made on his watch – with its focus on fatherhood and the feel-good, if unlikely, resolution of the evil tech being defeated by a father’s love and determination. That, however, didn’t work terribly well, largely because they had James Corden delivering it. Here we have Joe Anderson, who gives a decent performance even though his eyes are covered for the first scene and he’s playing a stilted AI playback for the rest. He does a lot with very little, and it helps sell the whole episode.

It is, of course, Gatwa’s episode. It’s an absolute gift of a script for a actor, giving him a chance to play the character in close up, constrained circumstances, without the flamboyance that he’s used to characterise him so far. He’s astonishingly good here, giving us palpable fear, determination and resignation in an understated yet powerful way. There are still hints of the gabby, catty Doctor from his previous episodes, naturally, but it’s all downplayed; the Fifteenth Doctor without the frills. It’s interesting that he’s quickly become characterised as “the singing Doctor,” but here it’s, again, understated, and entirely believable in the situation. 

In spite of this episode being inspired by the landmine scene in Genesis of the Daleks, a great example of Tom Baker at his least OTT, it feels like an idea designed explicitly to show off Gatwa’s Doctor. There aren’t that many who it would work for. It’s easy to imagine Capaldi playing this beautifully, but can you imagine Matt Smith? The Eleventh Doctor wouldn’t be able to keep still for ten seconds. Nine and Ten would both get angry too quickly and blow themselves up. Whittaker might have been interesting with this material. But I digress.

There’s some interesting material included for the Doctor here, who seems particularly ready to give away information about himself in this regeneration. He describes himself as “a complex space/time event,” a Moffat-y line but also very New Adventures. Making the mine detonate the target themselves via their own DNA is nonsensical, but clever, and extrapolating this so that the Doctor would become the biggest bomb ever is a great way of ramping up the tension. I wonder if it was entirely necessary, though, rather than keeping the danger limited to the Doctor and those immediately around him. There’s also his murmured poem about the President’s daughter, harking back to stories about him that we heard a little of in “Hell Bent.”

Gibson gets less to do in this episode, what with being dead for a big chunk of it, but what she has she delivers perfectly. There’s a sense in this episode and last that Ruby has already gotten to know the Doctor well and is fiercely loyal to him, which, along with the mention of the present being June 2024 (rather than Christmas) for her last week, suggests they’ve been travelling together for longer than it appears. Then again, everything is still being presented as new: her first alien planet here, her dream historical destination last week. There’s a disjoint there.

Varada Sethu is excellent as Mundy Flynn, a character who is at once infuriatingly rigid and very likeable and compassionate. Bhav Joshi does well with very little as her doomed love interest. Caoilinn Springall gives a solid turn as young Splice, although she does seem a little older than the script calls for. Susan Twist is suitable creepy as the face of the military ambulance. Her manifestation here reminds me of this cover to Grinny, a book I have never actually read because the cover freaked me out way too much as a kid.

This brings us once again to the ongoing mystery of the actors. While Twist makes her fifth appearance, I think, Sethu makes her first. Without fanfare, next year’s new companion arrives and shows us just what she can do with strong material, while Twist also gets by far the most screentime she’s had so far, albeit not so much as a character than a literal plot device. To be honest, I didn’t realise either of these on first watch. I’m not very familiar with Sethu and didn’t recognise her until it was pointed out – in the pictures I’ve seen of her she’s had a whole lot of hair so it just didn’t click. Twist, on the other hand, seems cast almost deliberately to be unremarkable. I wouldn’t have clocked it was the same actress in “Wild Blue Yonder” and “Ruby Road” if it hadn’t been pointed out online, and even now that I’m looking out for her I didn’t realise the ambulance lady was her. We’ll see what all this means in time, of course, but I’m actually glad I didn’t notice it on first watch, as it would have distracted from the story and performances. I’d be perfectly happy if it turned out that Mundy herself was joining the TARDIS though.

“Boom” proves that this latest iteration of Doctor Who can still deliver a tense, serious episode while still feeling part of the same show. It might have been better to run this one after “Space Babies” instead of two camp silly ones together, to give new viewers a better idea of what the series is capable of.

Setting: Kastarion 3, AD 5087.

Maketh the Man: The Doctor wears a snug, purple-black short jacket this week, over a white T-shirt and off-white trousers. Nice and simple, suiting the military setting.

Links and references:

• We first heard about Villengard when the Ninth Doctor noted he'd destroyed the weapons factories there. The Twelfth Doctor visited the planet, in ruins, in Moffat's last script, "Twice Upon a Time."
• That episode also saw snow suspended while falling. I doubt that has anything to do with what's going on with Ruby though.
• The Second Doctor used to play The Skye Boat song on the recorder, but this is the first time we've heard them singing it. The Master sang while in the Doctor's body though.
• The Doctor linked up with the Anglican Marines, along with River Song, in "The Time of Angels."