WHO REVIEW: 14-7 - "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" and 14-8 - "Empire of Death"

After all that, it was just a shaggy god story.

It's been an uneven season, with some real high points and a lot of befuddling near-misses, but on the whole it's been solidly entertaining throughout. One thing's for certain: without the sheer magnetism of Ncuti Gatwa's central performance and the depth that Millie Gibson brought to Ruby Sunday, it would have fallen apart. Their performances have made the series, even in episodes where one or both of them were largely absent, holding the rest together.

They almost manage it with the closing two-parter, but can't quite hold together a storyline this careless. A grand finale in the style that Russell T. Davies gave us each year back when he ran the show the first time round, this unfortunately reminds us that those finales gave diminishing returns even then. Where once we had clear character development that was spiced up by a gently seeded mystery - Bad Wolf, Torchwood, Harold Saxon - this time we had a bundle of seemingly unrelated mysteries increasingly brought to the forefront, with little hope of a satisfying payoff. The identities of the One Who Waits, Ruby's birth mother, Mrs Flood and the various characters played by Susan Twist all jostling for attention, with no real clue why they'd all been forced together. Somewhere in there, these two episodes were also meant to have their own story.

There are a lot of elements here that, individually, work beautifully. I adored the time window, and the use of a scratchy old VHS, combined to allow Ruby to step back into her past and witness her own origin story, complete with flickering, rippling frame edges. Not that many people were still using video cassettes in 2004, but CCTV still did, and anyone who's had to review such a tape knows how satisfying it would have been to get close enough to actually see something. The revelation that the Memory TARDIS is born from this - the image of a TARDIS becomes a TARDIS? - ties in Tales of the TARDIS beautifully and is wonderfully poetic.

The visit to the last living survivor on a dead planet, giving us a gently devastating two-hander between Gatwa and Sian Clifford, is genuinely beautiful. It feels like a scene from an entirely different episode, quietly and carefully played against the bombast of the rest of it, while still tying back to the above, with the nameless woman having lost her child as a cruel reflection of the other unnamed woman giving hers away.

Every scene with Bonnie Langford just works, showing us just how wasted she was in Mel's original portrayal in 1986-7. Her embracing the Doctor as he sinks under the weight of the mounting threat, before cajoling him into action. Her gently cradling his earlier selves' costumes, holding onto those old adventures, as she slips away, unseen by the Doctor and Ruby. Just lovely work.

But it's all almost lost in the noise, and the sheer frustration at the story's incoherence. This is RTD's grand finale finally becoming a self-parody. "The Legend of Ruby Sunday" almost works through sheer verve, but it's ultimately less a story than a bunch of stuff that happens. It could have been saved by a second part that contextualised it all, but "Empire of Death" is somehow even less coherent. The missus and I spent the entire episode saying, "that doesn't make sense" and "that's it?" and words of that ilk. 

The moment Kate Stewart dies, the reset button looms over the proceedings, and then - poof! - everyone's dead, Dave. From that moment on, nothing matters, because the sign that says "Push to reset plot" is now lit up in neon orange. This is Doctor Who doing Avengers: Endgame, only with a fraction of the time and none of the logic. 

With his triumphant appearance in the closing moments of "The Legend of Ruby Sunday," Sutekh is reborn as a monster for the CGI age, even though his snarling demon form is somehow less imposing than either immobile mask that represented him back in 1975. Kudos for getting Gabriel Woolf back to voice him - really no one else could have done. While it's not his first time voicing a villain for the revived series - he voiced the Beast for 2006's "The Satan Pit" - nor even his first return to the Sutekh role, what with Big Finish and all - it's still significant to have him return to voice such an iconic character almost fifty years after he first made such an impression. (If you do look at this series as the new Season One, then, barring clips, I think he must be the first actor to appear in all three versions of the programme.)

I was a bit dubious when Sutekh was revealed as the one behind all the sneaky clues and cosmic games, and that he was being described as a literal god, seeing that he was traditionally of the alien astronaut, sufficiently-advanced-technology kind. Yet this is satsifyingly explained as his having evolved and attained true godhood, and while the trickster angle would genuinely have suited Fenric more than the blunt and brutal Sutekh, overall it works. His MO hasn't changed - he still wants to kill everyone and everything in the universe - and now he has the means to do it.

Straight away, though, the script cuts down its own concepts with elements that don't quite work the moment you think about them. So Sutekh has been riding the TARDIS ever since Pyramids of Mars? The sheer number of stories this renders baffling is outweighed only by the number of memes it has already inspired. Given that it was the Doctor's meddling at the edge of the universe that was supposed to have let all these gods and goblins in, why not use this already comfortably established explanation? Have Sutekh be stuck on the outer membrane of space/time until the Doctor pierced it, and then have him surf the TARDIS back to reality. Otherwise why is the Ship only moaning about it now?

Doctor Who never makes complete sense, and some stories make a lot less. Yet there are just so many infuriating choices and illogical conclusions and great flapping loose ends here it becomes aggravating. Off the top of my head: how can the Doctor fetch evidence from the evil Welsh PM's regime in 2046 when Ruby prevented that timeline from happening, and now Sutekh has ended life on Earth in 2024? It double-never-happened. Where does the Memory TARDIS go, aside from into the spin-off series? Why is Rose Noble working for UNIT, as lovely as her immediate friendship as Ruby was? Why waste Lenny Rush on such a briefly used character?  Why did the Doctor need to go to that planet and meet that woman to borrow her spoon? Sutekh killed living beings, he didn't erase all the metal in the cosmos. 

Perhaps most bafflingly, why end your massive relaunch of Doctor Who, intended to kick it into international streaming super-success, with a story so utterly beholden on the programme's ancient history? It's not that bringing back characters and concepts from the past is a bad idea, but to so deeply hold onto the original stories to the point of including clips from Pyramids of Mars and continually referencing Susan is a bizarre move at this stage. If only there'd been an appropriate opportunity for that kind of nostalgic looking back, say last year...

Ah yes, Susan. It takes some balls, I guess, to throw in an anagram so obvious that not only every fan will pick up on it, but even UNIT, who apparently aren't phased by a new recruit named H. Arbinger, and then to throw it out in favour of a vastly more stupid play on words. I mean, "Sue Tech," for goodness' sake (and no, Doctor, that isn't an anagram). It also takes balls to bate the die-hards with the return of Susan, only to have Twist's character revealed as, basically, evil Clara. In a way, I'm relieved. I'm not sure wha I would have disliked more: making Susan into a villain, or missing the opportunity to have Carole Ann Ford, the only surviving actor from the very first story, play her again.

In the end, of course, the indescribably powerful cosmic evil is beaten absurdly easily, because there isn't time for anything more satisfying. Everything's OK again. Except for the Doctor, once again beating himself up for being "a monster," as if killing the literal God of Death who just killed virtually every living thing in the entire universe is in any way morally questionable. Maybe he's just feeling guilty at the sheer cheek of saying he represents life after the shit he pulled when he looked like Jodie Whittaker.

So, mystery number three: Ruby's mum. The actual discovery of her, the meeting with her, the bringing her back into Ruby's life, is all beautifully done. I love that Ruby completely ignores the Doctor's sage advice about leaving things alone and goes straight into meet her. It's a stunning scene, and Gibson is once again fantastic in it. Unfortunately, we're then fobbed off with the "she's the most important thing in the world - an ordinary woman" reveal, which is such a let down it makes you wonder why we bothered. After all, it makes no sense whatsoever. Why could Sutekh not see this ordinary woman? Why does Ruby have impossible depths and is able to make it snow? I can only hope that the Doctor is hiding something from her, or that her father turns out to be something interesting.

Thankfully, we do get a strong goodbye scene, again sold by the talent and presence of Gatwa and Gibson. It's goodbye to Ruby, except we know she will be back next year. Not sure exactly what the set up will be there, but very pleased we're not losing Millie yet.

That just leaves mystery number four, the quite irritating Mrs Flood. She knows a lot, talks to the audience, and seemingly cosplays as old companions (there's a cohort of fans who are convinced she's Clara because she wears one of her jumper/shirt combos, but she dresses as Romana I in The Ribos Operation at the end). She also starts preaching some very strange portentous language when Sutekh is about to let loose, but then, half the characters start talking like that for some reason. At the end of the day, I can't really muster much interest, when it'll probably be another let down.

Settings: UNIT HQ, London, 2024; Ruby Road, Manchester, 2004 (kind of); somewhere in Britain, 2046; planet Agua Cantina, time unknown.

Maketh the Man: Nice black leather jacket, white T-shirt, jeans and boots combo from the Doctor. A good, practical, stripped down look for a tough mission. I liked his cosy poncho in the Memory TARDIS though.

Throwing back and spinning off: So, the latest Tales of the TARDIS takes place in the middle of "Empire of Death," with the Doctor taking an hour or so off recount an old adventure to Ruby while Mel quietly dies in the corner. As much as I love the cultural appropriation line (in the main episode) and the looting accusation (in the TotT framing), all this really does is highlight how much better Pyramids of Mars was than this.

How's Your Uncle? Pretty funny that while Rose is risking her life, Donna and the Fourteenth Doctor are nowhere to be seen, having nipped off to the Costa Brava or Planet of the Hats or something.

73 Yards: Interesting that this is linked to the TARDIS' perception filter, suggesting that the entire haunting experienced by Ruby and her being pulled back in time was down to the Ship itself.

The Shallow Bit: It's a pity Harriet Arbinger turns into a skull-face and then dies; Genesis Lynea (cool name) is rather gorgeous.

Gods and Monsters: The Pantheon is listed by Harriet, a nice mix of recognisable names and new creations:

• The Toymaker, the God of Games (The Celestial Toymaker, The Giggle)
• The Trickster, the God of Traps (a recurring villain on The Sarah Jane Adventures)
• Maestro, the God of Music, child of the Toymaker ("The Devil's Chord")
• Reprobate, the God of Spite (they're new)
• The Mara, the God of Beasts (Kinda, Snakedance)
• Incensor, the God of Disaster (new)
• Their children, Doubt and Dread (very Sandman)
• The Threefold Deity of Malice, Mischief and Misery (probably new but could maybe be the Gods of Ragnarok from The Greatest Show in the Galaxy)
• Sutekh, the God of Death

Intriguingly, Sutekh is described as "the mother and father and other of them all," in spite of apparently becoming a god later than several of them.

The Problem of Susan: The Doctor apparently hasn't seen Susan since he dumped her in the 22nd century in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, although he doesn't actually confirm this. The Eighth Doctor met her again in his radio series (and also separately in the EDA novels, but you try reconciling those two accounts). Very intriguingly, he suggests that he may not have had children yet, and may have grandchildren before he has children, although he's referred to himself as a dad several times (as recently as "Boom").

Sundry quibbles:

• Repeating a concern from "The Giggle:" what is the Vlinx, and for that matter, what is the point of the Vlinx? It says two words and otherwise just sits there looking stupid and costing money.
• Calufrax has been restored? Bit of a waste of time, it was dead in the first place.
• All of the fan baiting and references in this, and they cut out the scene of Susan Triad meeting the Zarbi? We was robbed.
• Of all the episodes that make you go "Huh?" when you realise Sutekh was sitting on the TARDIS the whole time, surely "The Giggle" is the biggest deal. There are two TARDISes now, so are there two Sutekhs as well?

WHO REVIEW: 14-6 - "Rogue"

 

Tremendous fun. Sure, there were some more serious aspects, but basically, this was fifty minutes of gorgeously realised fun. 

This is, as telegraphed back in the series trailer, the Bridgerton episode. I've never seen an episode of Bridgerton, but this works as a pastiche if you've ever watched or read an Austen-style regency melodrama. I do think that maybe the script labours the point a bit, with Ruby mentioning Bridgerton three times, but it's refreshingly honest for an episode of Doctor Who to wear its influences to brazenly. It's also timed brilliantly; not only is it Pride Month, but it's aired just before the second half of Bridgerton's current season is released. This is an episode that's courting a very specific audience, and if though I'm not exactly in that audience, I can admire the skill there.

The fact that this is the queerest the show's ever got is bound to rub some viewers the wrong way but, frankly, bollocks to them. Doctor Who has been beloved by the queer community since the universe was half its present size. The alleged fans who are bashing out their screaming hatemail in caps were left behind a long time ago and the show doesn't need them. This is Doctor Who for a modern, queer-friendly, emotionally-free audience, and quite rightly, we have a modern, queer, emotionally-free Doctor. As good as Gatwa is when playing the Doctor as anguished, angry or scared - and we get some brilliant work from him there as well this week - he just sings when his Doctor is having fun. Literally.

It's funny to think back to 1996, when we had a handsome young Doctor in a wig and a velvet frock coat, fans were gnashing their teeth at his kissing a woman. Now, we've got another one, and he's throwing caution to the wind, kissing a man and being joyfully scandalous. The Fifteenth Doctor is the sexiest, flirtiest, most passionate Doctor we've ever had, and he's just perfect for this new version of Doctor Who. Still, it seems even more of a shame that we couldn't have Jodie and Mandip kiss in "The Power of the Doctor" in retrospect.

Jonathan Groff is almost as good, but in a very different way. Ahead of broadcast a lot of fans were convinced he was going to be a recast Captain Jack and, while he does display some similarities and could well be another ex-Time Agent, he's a distinctly different character. In keeping with the overall cosplay theme of the episode, Rogue seems like he's playing at being a space adventurer, without the confidence that his character displays. He's got the brooding down pat, but when he has to improvise an entirely new gamepla, he falters. He's a bounty hunter who's completely unprepared for anything but the simplest mission - he didn't even think to bring more than one trap - and he named himself after a D&D class. The poor, sweet geek, no wonder the Doctor likes him so much.

Even with the focus on the Doctor and Rogue, it's another strong episode for Millie Gibson, who gets to have her own side adventure that plays to her and her character's strengths. The plain-talking Northern girl barging her way into polite society is always a winner, and when you throw in the carelessly futuristic talk and increasing adventure savviness she works brilliantly. The Chekov's earring, letting her take her downloadable choreograpy and swap it for battle mode, is a silly but brilliant way to feasibly allow her to kick alien ass, and her taking the deception of the aliens too far and getting herself almost chucked into a prison dimension by the Doctor is spot on too. 

While Ruby's scam was the obvious get-out, I could have believed she was really dead, and that the closing two-parter would have involved the Doctor fighting to bring her back somehow, so convincing was the Doctor's fury. It's also the first time we've seen this Doctor act like a real bastard, condemning the Chuldur to centuries of solitary misery. This is from the man who pleaded with a bunch of racists who hated him to let him save them, but hurting Ruby is clearly a step too far for him.

The Chuldur themselves are a fun, if fairly throwaway monster of the week. Indira Varma is a joy to watch, as always, both as the Duchess of Pemberton and the Chuldur inhabiting her form, and she's a hoot (sorry) when in full-on bird form. I still kind of wish the Duchess had been the Rani, since Varma would be perfect for the role and it would be the one time it would actually make sense for a female villain to actually turn out to be her, but one-off shapeshifting bird lady is fun. I liked Camilla Aiko evne more, as the wonderfully positive young Emily, who turns out to be one of the aliens cosplaying really well. The fact that the entire dramatic scene witnessed (and crashed) earlier by Ruby between Emily and her suitor is completely fake is hilarious.

This is the first script we've had from someone new to the series since 2020, and we really need some more of that. Getting Kate Herron, fresh from Loki, is a great move - if there's anyone who should be working on Doctor Who, it's the Loki team. I don't know much about her writing partner, Briony Redman, but based on this they're a team to follow. If there's an issue with the script, it's down to the episode's length; there simply isn't time to fully convince us that the Doctor and Rogue have fallen for each other, not with everything else that's going on. There'll be time to work on that later, though (because Rogue is definitely coming back. let's be honest). 

Pretty much everything else works, though. The dialogue, direction, music and costumes are all exceptional. This is campy, OTT, silly, fun Doctor Who that's a step above either of the season's opening episodes. They should have kicked everything off with this.

Setting: Bath, Somerset, 1813.

Maketh the Man: Gatwa looks incredible in a burgundy frock coat and full Regency garb, and Groff doesn't look half bad either in his blue and silver outfit. The flashback to Ruby's home has the Doctor in another bright orange jumper. I'm surprised they didn't just make the frock coat orange.

The Many Faces of Doctor Who:

As always with this series and its midnight streaming, I have to try to avoid spoilers online until I have a chance to watch it. This time, I had no trouble avoiding actual plot points, because everyone was raving about this moment. Gatwa gets his moment with a montage of past Doctors, giving us snapshots of all the previous incarnations - including Jo Martin and both David Tennants - and, out of the blue, Richard E. Grant.

This is a surprise, to say the least. Grant played the "other" Ninth Doctor in the animated webcast Scream of the Shalka in 2003, who was rapidly overwritten by Eccleston's Doctor. Suddenly making him part of visual TV canon is a shock, and it's not clear what this means. Is he a past or future incarnation of our Doctor, now that the Timeless Child reveal has left everything up for grabs? Or is Doctor Who paving its way to get on the Multiverse bandwagon, showing us a variant Doctor, as Herron would no doubt put it?

The most surprising thing is RTD allowing this, given how much he hated Grant's portrayal of the Doctor, and how he very publically said so. Surely it was Herron's idea, what with her having worked with Grant as the "Classic Loki" variant on her own series? 

Of course, it's possible he's meant to represent the Comic Relief Tenth Doctor from The Curse of Fatal Death, but that would be even more of a headscratcher.

Dedication: Some quick work made this episode dedicated to William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton back in the very beginning of Doctor Who, and who died on the 3rd of June aged 99. He last appeared in a brief cameo in "The Power of the Doctor."

Music of the Spheres: Loved the use of "Bad Guy" in the early part of the episode, which I understand is a direct lift from Bridgerton, and "Poker Face" later on. Can't beat a bit of Kylie on the spaceship, either. The best musical moment, though, was the Doctor singing "A World of Pure Imagination" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (and it would be no surprise at all if Gene Wilder's Wonka turned out to be an incarnation of the Doctor too).

WHO REVIEW: 14-4 - "73 Yards"

 

I have to be honest, I don't see what the big deal is about this. It's good, don't get me wrong; a solid, nicely told episode with a palpable sense of mystery, with some excellent performances. What it isn't is the truly powerful horror story some viewers are making it out to be, nor the game-changing twist on the series' format lauded by others. Nor is it the infuriating misfire that a smaller portion of the audience are finding it. 

It's certainly beautifully directed by Dylan Holmes Williams, with the breathtaking Welsh landscape giving way to the claustrophobic confines of the pub, before opening back into mundane yet unsettling everyday life in London. The disjoint here is just lovely; the folk horror we're led to expect is abruptly cancelled, and an entirely different story unfolds, still making the most of the uncanny atmosphere but through a different subgenre or horror.

Of course, it's Millie Gibson who makes the episode, giving an astonishing performance throughout. With Gatwa still in the midst of filming Sex Education and therefore unavailable for the bulk of filming, Gibson carries the episode on her own shoulders to the point where you barely miss the Doctor. It's a real testament to her skill that this is the first episode she filmed. Ruby is fully realised as a character from the outset and throughout her life. That this means she was only seventeen when she filmed it only makes it more impressive. While there's some good use of subtle make-up and Gibson is very skilled at portraying her character at different ages, there's no way that a wig, glasses and a big jacket can make us believe that she's a woman in her early forties. Over a year has passed since this was filmed, and Gibson looks older now than she does in any moment in this episode. Fortunately, her performance is strong enough that this can be overlooked.

Special mention also has to be made of Aneurin Barnard's charming but always uncomfortable and gently threatening performance as Roger ap Gwilliam; Michelle Greenidge's brutally cold performance as Cherry (again showing us just how callous a person she would be without Ruby in her life); and Sophie Ablett's small but powerful role as Marti, clearly subject to abuse by Gwilliam and selling it through her performance with barely any dialogue to back it up.

However, so much here is frustrating. Some of this is little annoyances, but ones that bugged me throughout. How many 18/19/20-year-olds measure in yards? Or indeed say "answerphone" instead of "Voicemail?" The latter is a single line and hardly important, but it highlights that RTD hasn't bothered to focus on how someone born in 2004 would speak beyond a peppering of slang. Following "Boom" with the Doctor once again stepping on something dangerous without looking where he's going is funny, but not deliberately, and feels sloppy. For that matter, giving us a virtually Doctor-free episode, while necessary due to the production schedule, feels like a major mistake in a major relaunch series that's only eight episodes long.

The Welsh setting of the opening is a chance for RTD to poke fun at the trappings of rural horror and, as the landlady Lowri Palin puts it, racist stereotyping of Welsh culture. This is completely hamstrung, however, by having her character, and most of the people in the pub, be pointlessly hostile and cruelly mocking to Ruby, who is, after all, a young girl who is quite clearly in trouble. The Welsh villagers are painfully stereotyped as creepy bastards who like to fuck with the English. This is only compounded by Maxine Evans play Lowri, bringing her back 18 years after she played the creepy Welsh villager in Torchwood's "Countrycide." Plus the fact that the stereotypically sinister folklore was entirely right, of course.

While it's nice to see Kate Stewart again and she gets some strong and though-provoking dialogue, particularly her understanding that something is wrong with this timeline, her inclusion hurts the story by making it too much about the current run of Doctor Who in general. The same goes for Susan Twist's latest appearance, although it is gratifying that Ruby is beginning to recognise her, and intriguing that she is just as vulnerable to supernatural events as anyone else. This story needs to stand alone to work, but isn't allowed to.

I don't mind at all that so much was left unanswered. This is, in fact, a strength of stories of this type. Much like It Follows, the 2014 horror film that clearly inspired much of this episode, leaving the phenomenon that has derailed Ruby's life unexplained is part of the effect. There does feel, though, to be too much left ambiguous, opaque, and downright incoherent. We don't need to know what "the Woman"/old Ruby said to people that left them so powerless and terrified, or how she had this power, but why would Ruby subject herself to such a brutal experience? Especially since, given the ending, it was all proven to be seemingly unnecessary?

That in itself is enormously frustrating. Once the story shifts and we see the "one year later" caption, it's painfully obvious that everything will be dutifully reset at the end. This can work as a story device but it has its risks. From there on, the story unfolds quite predictably, and while Ruby's defeat of Gwilliam is an extremely effective moment, it's prefigured by a long and predictably scene. The identity of the Woman also becomes immediately obvious as Ruby's future self, in spite of the fact that she and old Ruby are played by visibly different actresses. Are we then, to conclude, that the Woman wasn't Ruby all along? Much of the above makes more sense in this light, but it loses the neatness and dramatic punch, however predictable, of making it Ruby throughout.

For all Barnard's skill in playing the character, Gwilliam is barely sketched in as a character or a threat. He's a lazily written evil politician in the Trump-like populist mold. There's no sense of why he has so much support or how he is able to get so far. There's also the question of his ultimate identity. If he really is the reincarnation of Mad Jack, instead of it just being a nickname that tips Ruby off to what her role is in the story, then his behaviour is even more bizarre. The concepts just don't go together. However, if he's just some ambitious fascist without any link to the fairy circle, then Ruby's undoing of the timeline then leaves him at large, able to take "the world to the brink of nuclear war" (something that pointedly does not happen in the episode itself, but that does exist in the original timeline the Doctor remembers).

I'm very glad this episode exists, once again illustrating just how much the tone and genre of the series can shift from episode to episode (and again how short-sighted it was to stick the two camp OTT episodes together at the beginning). It's easily watchnable and has some bite, and Millie Gibson is genuinely brilliant in it. However, it's nowhere near as creepy as it needs to be to truly succeed, nor anything like as clever as RTD clearly thinks it is.

Setting: London and Wales, 2024 to 2080-ish (timeline negated).

Maketh the man: it's clear that the Fifteenth Doctor's favourite colour is orange, and he's really going for it in this episode, with an orange-yellow duffle coat and a deep orange beanie as part of his Welsh hiking outfit. Gatwa can genuinely wear anything and make it look great.

Foreshadowing: I suspect this will have some kind of callback in the season finale, however oblique, and Ruby's inexplicable experience here may well be somewhat explained after all. Also, Kate mentions that UNIT is in the habit of recruiting ex-companions and is also used to battling witchcraft, all of which is clearly setting up the inevitable UNIT spin-off.

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."

WHO REVIEW: 14-2 - "The Devil's Chord"

Of the two episodes chosen to launch the latest series, "The Devil's Chord" is easily the bigger. Everything about this episode is loud, confident and over-the-top. That doesn't necessarily equate with being better, though, and while "Space Babies" had some hidden depths, "The Devil's Chord," while a lot of fun, is basically shallow.

This is Doctor Who as pure spectacle, and on that basis, it works. 99% of this is down to Jinkx Monsoon. From the second she crawls out of that piano, she owns the episode. The Maestro is a character that starts out at eleven and cranks it up from there. We've had some camp villains in the past on Doctor Who, but nothing compares to Maestro. There's a sheer confidence on display simply in having a drag queen arrive and perform as the villain of the week without ever holding back or reducing her performance. The greatest queens have always had something otherworldly about them, due to their gender fuckery and the oversized nature of the performance. Of course a timeless god would appear as a drag queen and claw their way into the universe so that it's all a little more OTT for the week.

Given that no one has a hope in wrestling the limelight away from Jinkx, the rest of the cast do well. Gatwa continues to give an intense performance as the Doctor, swivelling between emotions at full volume. Gibson is left to play the normal human being, in spite of her apparent hidden depths, and to deal with the standard genre tropes. It's slightly odd to see such wellworn time travel story beats in such an outlandishly fantastical story, but there will be plenty of people coming to this who haven't seen the whole causality discussion. The devastated wilderness is, of course, straight out of Pyramids of Mars, and is a scene that RTD's been trying to fit in the series since "The Unquiet Dead." It's visually spectacular, haunting and for most of the audience, entirely new. Gibson plays her reaction to it beautifully, as much as Ruby's giddy joy to be travelling through time with a full wardrobe to match.

George Caple and Chris Mason are pretty good as Paul McCartney and John Lennon, giving their roles a lot of heart and believability. Physically they seem to have been cast from a perverse desire to have complete non-lookalikes - are the Beatles' likeness rights just as fiendishly complex and expensive as their music rights? At least they can act and sing. The less said about the Cilla Black impersonator the better. Frankly the less said abotu Cilla Black the better, really.

It's quite bizarre though that the episode about music will be remembered mostly for its visuals (saving the song at the end, which is catchy but not nearly good enough to top off the episode). I admire RTD's thinking on the episode: rights to use Beatles' songs are prohibitively expensive, so work from the premise of a world with no Beatles music. The problem is that this leaves us with a period piece about pop music that lacks a soundtrack. What it really needs, more than anything, is for John and Paul to give us a triumphant moment when they find their muse, and for more than a few bars. Doctor Who has Disney money now, surely they could have afforded a few lines of "Penny Lane?"

Frustratingly, in spite of Jinkx's piano attacks, Murray Gold's usual audio histrionics and the genuine brilliance of "I've got a dog," there isn't much to the music here, which guts the episode. Of course, that's the point, with the Maestro leeching music and colour from the world, calling back, in fact, to the Blue Meanies in Yellow Submarine (which also featured unconvincing Beatles stand-ins).

This, though, highlights how the episode's plot doesn't make a lick of sense. Maestro crows that they are music, and they clearly feed upon it, and yet they want to stamp it out across the universe. Yes, we get some guff about wanting to reduce everything to the "pure" music of Aeolian tones, but everything else makes it clear that it's what's in the heart of the composer or player that makes it truly music. Underlining this is Maestro's desperately hungry assault on Ruby as the only human left with music in her heart. Surely they're dooming themself to slow starvation? As Ruby says, where's the win?

From the outset, there's a sloppiness to the writing here, as if they were all confident they could get by purely on spectacle. Timothy Drake lets Maestro into the universe through his musical genius, but while Maestro bangs on about it there's absolutely no indication of what his genius is. He's just a fairly enthusiastic piano teacher who apparently was too out there for the establishment. Sometimes you can get away with just telling, but this is something that absolutely needs to be shown, or it all rings hollow.

When it comes to the fantasy, the plot works fine. Maestro travels through realities by climbing in and out of pianos, wraps their victims up in musical notes and swallows quavers whole (and they're not even cheese-flavoured). This all works within the specific illogic of their character. The science fiction side mostly works just as well, from the cataclysmic potential future to the brilliant concept of using the sonic screwdriver to cancel out all sound and silence the villain. When it gets down to the actual story, though, nothing adds up. Maestro arrived in 1925 and perverted the course of musical history. Does their defeat undo all of this? Or are we now living in a world with no Elvis greats? Is Buddy Holly still living in obscurity in Texas?

Ultimately, that final song and dance number is the episode in microcosm. It looks fantastic, it's entertaining while it's on the screen, but the music is too mediocre for a story that's about the joy and importance of music. And, no, it doesn't make sense. There isn't a twist at the end of this story, other than the dance. Unless it's little Henry Arbinger hanging around, tipping us off that Maestro will no doubt be back at some point, but frankly that's barely a sharp turn of the head, let alone a twist.

Unless...

This is the first time the modern series has mentioned Susan by name. I loved the Doctor acknowledging that his younger self is living a mile or so away with his granddaughter (although the fact that this means his personal history has been altered as well is glossed over). It seems likely that we're finally going to meet Susan again after all this time. Then we have Susan Twist, who has sneakily appeared in "Wild Blue Yonder" and "The Church on Ruby Road," showing up again as a tea lady. Aside from being far more interesting than the mystery of Mrs Flood, there's the possible suggestion that twist is coming, and it's a Susan twist. I'm unconvinced. Firstly, why would you recast Susan when Carole Ann Ford is still around and acting? Secondly, I wouldn't put it past RTD to have cast an actor with that name purely to troll the fans.

I have a feeling that this episode will play better on the later rewatch once we know where all the foreshadowing is heading. Maestro may be the Toymaker's child, but it's "The One Who Waits" that remains the looming threat, presumably the same as "The Oldest One" they also mention. My money's on Fenric, but I'm probably wrong. As for Ruby's nature, there's a peculiar effect following her around. Since she turned up, characters are winking at the camera, the Doctor is suggesting trips to Star Trek, the composer is playing piano on screen and there's a full blown song-and-dance number to end an episode. The cleverest line of the episode, "I thought that was non-diagetic," could, just like all of these, be bit of fun, but taken together they suggest something strange is happening to nature of the series. Then again, maybe Murray Gold's music is so loud and intrusive that even the characters can hear it.

Setting: London, February 1963 and June 2024.

Maketh the Man: The Fifteenth Doctor is setting out to be the best and most variedly dressed incarnation of all. After wearing a red T-shirt and jeans in the TARDIS he changes into a Mod-ish blue pinstripe suit (it's all very Austin Powers). Given that he mentions the First Doctor living in London in 1963, I kind of wish he'd warn a black frock coat and checked trousers - that was how he dressed in the sixties, after all.

Maketh the Woman: Ruby, meanwhile, switches to a spectacular black and white number and a beehive hairdo. I'm kind of disappointed the TARDIS has a stash of wigs though, and not some kind of miraculous hairstyling system.

Cameos galore: As well as Murray Gold, costume designer June Hudson, who created the Fourth Doctor's burgundy look and the Fifth Doctor's costume, appears as the poor old dear who gets got by Maestro after playing piano. Plus there are some people from Strictly in the final dance off, but I'll be honest, I don't know them from Adam.

Beatlemania: The Eighth Doctor's companion Fitz collected Beatles albums from parallel universes. I hope the Doctor got him a copy of "I've got a dog."

WHO REVIEW: 14-1 - "Space Babies"

Finally, I have time to rewatch and write up the new Doctor Who episodes; I should have "The Devil's Chord" up tomorrow or Thursday. And yes, I'm going with series fourteen, not season one. I understand that this is the big relaunch, but we didn't have a sixteen year gap this time, we had a thirteen month one, and then we had four specials before the season actually started. It actually feels quite comicbook-y: Doctor Who, Volume Three, Season One. Still, I just don't think it'll stick. They tried this with series five back in 2010, and that didn't even last until the DVD release. There's also the weirdness of following the sixtieth anniversary specials with season one. In old money, this is season forty.

Anyway, that's by the by. What's more relevant is that if this is the big relaunch, then "Space Babies" is a very odd choice for the first episode. A quick glance at people's responses online - when you ignore the Telegraph and the Daily Express and individual pearl-clutchers freaking out at the dreaded woke - shows that as many people hated this as loved this. Just from personal friends and acquaintances, I'm seeing long-standing fans and those tuning in for the first time deciding that no, they're not watching this crap. Then again, I'm also seeing some of my hardest of the hardcore fan friends embracing it wholeheartedly.

"Space Babies," then, is a Marmite episode, but then, I've always never had a particular like or dislike for Marmite. I enjoyed it, altough it certainly wasn't among the greats, and I sincerely doubt it will top many fans' best-of lists. I definitely enjoyed it more on second viewing. There's a lot more going on under the hood here than it appears at first, but that doesn't matter if people aren't sticking around to pay that much attention.

For one thing, this is RTD's second go at season one, episode one, and this hits a lot of the same beats as the first couple of episodes of Eccleston's series back in 2005 (and it still seems unreal that that was almost twenty years ago). On the other hand, there's the sense that RTD's learnt a lot from Moffat's stewardship, particularly the late Matt Smith era of series seven, when compressed storytelling reached a truly frenetic pace. This barely stops for breath, but when it does, it hits us with emotional scenes that have a fairytale quality to them. The snowfall in the middle of a space station is pure Moffat, as is the underlying idea that stories are vital to human development, even if that means conjuring up a bogeyman. 

So, while the essentials are there to introduce Doctor Who to a new audience finding it on Disney Plus for the first time, it's all done much faster. Back in the old series one, RTD was almost too cautious about drip-feeding the series' backstory. Ruby's been through Doctor Who 101 by the end of act two, and the Doctor's even namedropped the Rani (the only one of the other Time Lord titles we've actually heard before, so I'm even more convinced the Duchess will turn out to be her in the "Rogue" episode).

While some moments virtually replay key scenes from the Eccleston series - most notably the view of Pacifico del Rio from the space station visually echoing the view of the dying Earth from Satellite Five in "The End of the World" - there are striking differences. There's no evocative but exceptionally cheap "Outside those doors it's the New Roman Empire," this time we're right back in the Jurassic period. It's a visual extravaganza that has no bearing on the immediate plot, but serves the purpose of showing us the TARDIS can take us anywhere and anywhen. Then we have the almost gratuitous butterfly moment, which seemingly exists purely for the visual of Ruby becoming a butterfly-lizard-woman to drop into the trailer. Nonetheless, this all ties into the greater story arc of history suddenly becoming dangerously malleable, which has been running along since "Wild Blue Yonder." The "butterfly compensator" might be a stretch, but there's the sense that the rules are very much in flux now.

Most significant from a character standpoint is the Doctor's attitude to being the Last of the Time Lords again. It's a bizarre situation that RTD killed off the Time Lords, only for Moffat to bring them back and then Chibnall to kill them all again. The use of the word genocide appears significant in light of current, horrific events, but surely this was being filmed too early for that to factor in? Regardless, the Doctor isn't weighed down by centuries of guilt and loneliness anymore. He's revelling in the fact that he's still alive and enjoying the universe. It's a massive difference in characterisation. It's also significant that the Doctor is still referring to himself as a Time Lord, in spite of the revelation that he's adopted. The one doesn't cancel out the other, and I'm glad that RTD included this.

All of that, and I haven't even touched on the Doctor and Ruby as actual characters, or Gatwa and Gibson's performances. I think it would be hard to say that, whatever you think of the episode overall, they are anything less than captivating together onscreen. Gatwa's Doctor is, at once, the Doctor through and through, and completely different to previous incarnations. It's also a totally different kind of difference to how Eccleston did it back then. Gatwa is magnetically charming, unapologetically camp, joyfully alive and exuberant. He's a streak of glorious colour on the screen, embodying a Doctor who is empowered by their compassion and lust for life.

Millie Gibson, meanwhile, is almost as good as Ruby. She can't compete in the charisma stakes with Gatwa, but then, very few people can. She's gives a hugely likeable performance as a character who is convincingly swept up in the excitement of the Doctor's life, while equally terrified by it and haunted by her own questions of her past. The description Gatwa's given of the characters as naughty schoolfriends really comes through in this episode; they're thick with each other but without any romantic or familial side. Linking them by making Ruby a foundling and playing up this new side to the Doctor's backstory is a canny move, one which provides a bond that we've never really seen between the Doctor and their companion. It also doesn't hurt that they have to be the most gorgeous Doctor-companion pair we've ever had.

The Space Babies themselves are the questionable part. It's a choice, certainly, making an opening episode about a bunch of hyper-educated toddlers realised by unconvincingly synced superimposed mouths, something which has never worked convincingly on film or television. It's incredibly twee, and understandably a make or break move for some viewers. On the other hand, this is, we must remind ourselves, essentially a kids' show. Some episodes are skewed more that way. It's the same with the bogeyman, a wonderfully designed creature, but one that becomes a grotty joke when we learn that it's a literal snot monster. Yet I can imagine children in the audience howling at that one. The Slitheen were an arguable misstep back in the old series one, but kids loved them and they didn't do the show any harm. Is the snot monster any different to flatulent aliens? At least the fart jokes are subtler this time.

Where the babies work, once you accept the cloying sweetness of the idea and the visual, is in the emotional impact. How can anyone not feel something when Captain Poppy reveals that she's never been hugged? (I hugged my little girl a lot during this episode.) The faux reveal that the nanny is actually Nan-E, the Nanomatrix Electroform, is then broken by the true reveal that it's a real person after all. Gold Rosheuvel is very good as Jocelyn, and when she speaks about hiding so that she and the babies wouldn't have t watch each other die, it's heartbreaking.

While it's kids' stuff on the surface, RTD's habitual anger and cynicism isn't far below. The fact that the baby-making machine has to be left active by law, churning out children who are then abandoned and left to die, is such a scathing indictment of recent American legislation (not to mention a dozen other countries around the world), that it deserved to be shouted louder. Add in a quick attack at the UK's attitude to refugees and it's clear that the silly stuff is there to sugarcoat some serious themes. Unfortunately, for all its power, the overriding theme of found family overcoming abandonment is lsot on anyone who turns on and sees a toddler in a buggy as captain of a space station and switches right off again. But the kids won't, and the sooner they hear these messages, the better.

It's all wrapped up nicely, leaving us with a hint of things to come. The sneaky bio-scan of Ruby is another thing that recalls Moffat's era, both the confusion around Amy's pregnancy and the "impossible girl" mystery of Clara, while the Doctor's steadfast refusal to take Ruby back to the day of her birth lest she cause a catastrophic paradox shows they haven't forgotten the chaos Rose caused. Doubtless this will all come into play in the final two-parter. 

Setting: 

• Wyoming area, 150 million BC.
• Baby Station Beta, orbit of Pacifico del Rio, AD 21,506.

Observations:

• Brachiosaurus did indeed live around 150 million years ago, and its remains are found in the Morrisson Formation, a region that spans Colorado and Wyoming. So top marks there.
• The bogeyman skulking about the darkened corridors had a hint of Alien about it, and its almost getting sucked out the airlock reminded me strongly of the Newborn suffering that fate in Alien Resurrection.
• The Doctor says that they should go visit Star Trek, a crossover that RTD's been wanting to do since he first brought back Doctor Who.
• With that in mind, having the original crew of the station wear very Starfleet-esque uniforms is a nice touch.
• As well as the Rani, the Doctor mentions Time Lords known as the Bishop, the Conquistador, the Pedant (that'd be me) and the Sagi-Shi.

Nitpicking:

• The Doctor states that there's no one else like them in the entire universe. There's literally two of you, mate.

Best lines:

• "This is the worse thing that has ever happened to anyone!"
• "Most of the universe is knackered, babes."
• "I've met a million ugly bugs - I'm an ugly bug!"
• "No one grows up wrong."

Ncuti Gatwa IS the Doctor!

 

Well, we now know who's playing the Fourteenth Doctor, and I'm absolutely livid.

He's YOUNGER than me!

Well, it had to happen eventually. Ncuti Gatwa (I am advised his first name is pronounced "Shoo-tee") is only twenty-nine, making him the same age as Peter Davison was when he got to the role, and therefore joint second youngest lead Doctor (Matt Smith being the youngest at a mere twenty-six when he signed up).

Of course, time passes, and where Christopher Eccleston was the first Doctor to be born after the original series started, Mr. Gatwa is the first to be born after it ended. 

I'll be honest, I am not familiar with Gatwa. I'm aware that he's in Sex Education, one of those shows that's been on my "I must get round to watching that, I hear it's good" list for some time. A quick look at his profile shows that he hasn't been in much at all, but what he has been in, he's been absolutely lauded for. Baftas and Pal d'Or awards, he's definitely a talented gent.

I'm pleased to see a person of colour in the role, finally. Of course, we've had Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor and various, very brief appearances of actors of colour as the Timeless Children - oh, and Lenny Henry in that sketch - but it's about time we had someone as the series lead who isn't white. I didn't think they'd have the guts to go with a woman of colour as the lead - not yet - so my prediction of a non-white male was correct, but that's the extent of my predictive abilities. Here's my guess though: the Fifteenth Doctor will be female, and they'll alternate for a bit. 

I'm fascinated to read about Mr. Gatwa, whose family fled the Rwandan genocide when he was a toddler and settled in Scotland, and who almost gave up on his acting dream before he got the Sex Education role. This is someone who has some stories to tell, and I look forward to seeing what he'll bring to the role.

Russell T. Davies cast both Eccleston and David Tennant, who each revolutionised the role in their own way, so I'm very excited to see where his latest choice will take the character. Very interestingly, though, Davies has said that he'd almost cast someone else as the Doctor when Gatwa auditioned, and I can't help but wonder who almost got the part. We love our what-ifs in Doctor Who.

Looking forward to seeing this young gent taking the TARDIS on new adventures. 

WHO REVIEW: FLUX Chapter Three - Once, Upon Time

SPOILERS! 

Now that was by far the best episode of Doctor Who we've had in a long while. As much as I enjoyed last week's "War of the Sontarans" in the main, I wasn't as blown away with as some fans were. "Once, Upon Time," on the other hand feels like a genuinely new and interesting approach to Doctor Who, a dreamlike wander through the main characters' lives that raises as many questions as it answers. Crucially, though, it feels like we're finally getting somewhere, and there's a resolution coming, even as new elements are still being placed on the board.

While Chibnall's dialogue still includes some clunky exposition, particularly from the Doctor, on the whole the script is more polished, and both stranger and easier to follow than previous installments. Throwing the Doctor and her friends into their timestreams is a clever way to explore them and the ongoing plot, while setting up little hints of the upcoming story. Given the chance to play different roles as they step into other points in each other's lives, the actors are given a chance to really show what they can do. Whittaker and Gill are especially good in this respect, with Whittaker in particular showing just how naturalistic and charismatic she can be when given the right material. 

Jacob Anderson stands out in a different way. We don't really know him as Vinder yet, so having him appear as other characters doesn't have the same impact, especially considering he just poses as other soldiers. However, we finally get some exploration of who Vinder is, what his background is and what drives him. A noble soldier punished for doing the right thing, Vinder is a genuinely strong character, and while it's arguably too late in the day to give him focus like this, at least it's finally happened. Anderson is great given a chance to do more than simply react to things, giving a strong and subtle performance as the morally torn young man. In his flashback we also have some nicely sketched-in worldbuilding, as the Grand Serpent (a wonderfully selfish and grandiloquent Craig Parkinson) manipulates the politics of a distant part of the galaxy. I suspect we'll see more of him, and even after Vinder's story is done he could happily return as a villain for the Doctor to face.

Bishop isn't as good in his various roles, but he brings enough charm to the proceedings to make up for it and he gets more material to make Dan three-dimensional, after the fluff of episode two. He has strong chemistry with Nadia Albina's Diane, and all this hints that there's more going on with his character. Why else would the Ravagers abduct Diane to pressure him, and why is Joseph Williamson's plans on Dan's virtual doorstep so important? Dan seems far to proactive and ready a time traveller to just be some ordinary bloke. Perhaps his mysterious ex-fiance will be revealed as someone significant? Then again, perhaps not. Regardless, I hope this is all careful foreshadowing and not just sloppy writing.

The mystery of the Doctor's timestream is more interesting though. It's clever switching the Doctor in for a different version of her own character, with a genuinely surprising appearance by Jo Martin as the Fugitive Doctor, at a point presumably prior to the events of "Fugitive of the Judoon." We finally get a look at this Doctor working for the Division and being as ruthless as we've been told she is. The planet Time, under siege by the Ravagers, seems too visually similar to Gallifrey for it to be coincidence, and the Mouri too like the old image of the Time Lords as godlike beings ruling over time for it to be unintended. Perhaps the Time Lords usurped the Mouri, and they are now returning since the Time Lords are gone again? It's hard to be sure with all the jumping around time, but clearly there's a link there. More mysterious still is Barbara Flynn's character, seemingly a powerful but uncaring being who is bothered more by the Doctor's conduct than the end of the universe (or rather, "this universe," intriguingly). I'm plumping for the White Guardian, but that's just my fan brain trying to make links. Still, if the universe were ending, the Guardians would be expected to take notice.

Among the best things in the episode is the lovely Thaddea Graham from the sadly cancelled The Irregulars. She's likeable and impressive as the swift, smart and assured Bel, a survivor in the post-Flux universe linked, perhaps a little predictably, to Vinder. Facing down a platoon of Cybermen and sneaking past a phalanx of Daleks, she could give the Doctor a run for her money, and I suspect we'll be seeing an great deal more of her. On the subject of familiar monsters, I liked the use of Daleks and Cybermen as an aside, showing just how dire the situation has become with the universe on the brink and its most ambitious powers fighting over the rubble. Equally, there's some good use of the Weeping Angels, livening up Yaz's otherwise not-terribly-exciting scenes and reminding us of the mystery of Claire and her link to the Doctor. Are the Angels a threat or would they benefit from time being repaired? We'll see their gameplan next week. 

Easily the strongest episode of Doctor Who: Flux so far, "Once, Upon Time" balances the usual Doctor Who timey-wimey nonsense and silliness with an arresting mystery and some gripping scenes. It's a shot in the arm for the series and makes me look forward to episode four.

WHO REVIEW: FLUX Chapter Two - War of the Sontarans

 After the frenetic first episode, Flux settles down into something a little more focused. We're still very much in the "chuck stuff at the screen and see what sticks" stage of the proceedings, but there's more time spent on the individual settings so it actually feels like we have some story here rather than mere set-up. 

Having lost Bob Baker - creator of my two favourite fictional dogs - and enjoyed some online looks back at his Who career, it occurs to me that Chibnall is very like the Baker and Martin duo in his approach. He has excellent ideas and an eye for an arresting visual, but not always a solid idea of how to make a story work around these concepts. Chibnall's weaknesses are largely in dialogue, particularly exposition, and plot logic. Doctor Who has never been particularly big on plot logic, but the better stories have been the ones that can distract you from the lapses with wit and panache. Chibnall... doesn't always display those qualities.

I'm trying to get the negatives out of the way before focusing on the good side of this episode. It's one of the Thirteenth Doctor's best and some people are really raving about it, but when it's good like this the weaknesses just jar more. There's some shocking dialogue here, most notably the crashing exposition bombs from Dan and his parents. Dan actually comes out with a line like, "So she's a real historical character, but these Sontarans aren't?" Nobody speaks like that unless they're watching something like Doctor Who. Unless Dan is going to be revealed as some kind of metafictional viewer stand-in, and if he manages to pull that off then hats off to him, then this is just bad.

Equally there are some huge lapses in plot. The Flux, which apparently destroys everything, dumps the damaged TARDIS in the Crimea in the 19th century and plops her passengers down with it. Fine, no problem, it's not like everyone was going to die anyway and the Flux is still a mysterious and unexplained phenomenon. But then some other wibbly effect shifts Dan back home and Yaz seemingly randomly to the temple where Vinder has also appeared, and the Ravagers are infiltrating. Why send them all to the Crimea in the first place if you're immediately going to scatter them again? And why not at least try to throw in some technobabble and a reason for the coincidences into the script, just to pretend you care about plotting.

Jacob Anderson seems lovely but his character has yet to really do anything to make a mark. Was Vinder always in the mix here or did he replace someone else? Is he occupying Captain Jack's role now that Barrowman's persona non grata? Because his character is so generic right now he could be anyone a bit spacey. I hope he gets some proper material soon. At least Yaz is still benefitting from being the lead hero in her sequence. The temple stuff is pretty fascinating and looks incredible. I don't think I'm alone in assuming the Touri and the Planet Time will tie into the Doctor's secret origins, and I'm at least looking forward to finding out what that's all about.

The big triumph of this episode is the Sontaran intervention in the Crimean War. The visual of the Sontaran army battling the British in Sevastopol is wonderful, just the thing Doctor Who is made for. Sara Powell is rather perfect as Mary Seacole, another in this era's commendable line of female figures from history recreated by a talented actress. As with Nora Khan and Ada Lovelace before her, Seacole doesn't get enough time or exploration to really show why she was such a remarkable individual, but she works well as the latest one-off pseudo-companion. 

The newly-old Sontarans are spot-on. Dan Starkey still gets to play various clones, but it's Jonathan Watson as commanders Skaak and Riskaw who really steals it. A gruff Scotsman is somehow just right for a Sontaran warlord. It's gratifying that, while he's made the Sontarans into a major threat again, Chibnall hasn't forgotten that they're also funny. (The horse line is priceless.) 

On the other side, though, the stuff in contemporary Liverpool is pretty dire. Bishop remains thoroughly watchable, in spite of being lumbered with puns that made even me wince, but the plotting around it is totally sloppy. Sontarans mowing down British soldiers before being destroyed in a desperate act of vengeance? That's one thing. One Scouser taking out an invasion fleet with a wok? Taking things a bit far. Even Donna's "Back of the neck!" triumph didn't take things that far. There's also some massive logistical problems with the Sontarans invasion of time. Having them replace Russia and China in history raises huge questions but works, but when we drop into modern Britain the implication is that they've been ensconced as the rulers of Earth ever since. Yet we then learn they've only been there two days. In which time they've set up a national curfew and already generated a resistance movement. 

There's plenty that doesn't add up yet, but that's fine, we're still learning about the mysteries of the story. Things like this are frustrating though. It's a pity, because this is solidly entertaining, with Whittaker at her most Doctorish and some great moments. Yaz looking at her wrist and silently taking in her WWTDD note is perfect. She doesn't need to read it out and translate it; it's only later that Swarm spells out "What Would the Doctor Do?" for the five people in the audience who didn't get it, and this serves to reinforce how he is familiar with the Doctor and their effect on their companions. Chibnall can do it, so it's doubly frustrating when so much clunky material makes it through.

I'm surprised and delighted

 So, with a few moments to catch up, let's reflect on the big news of the Doctor Who world: Russell T. Davies is coming back as showrunner. I think I can speak for pretty much everyone when I say that this is unexpected. After all, RTD stepped down as showrunner almost twelve years ago, with his involvement in Doctor Who's wider universe continuing just a few years further into the Moffat era, with Torchwood: Miracle Day and an instalment of The Sarah Jane Adventures. He did a few bits of extra material for the lockdown, novelised Rose, and has given Big Finish his earliest script submission for a dust-off, but essentially, it looked like he was done with Who.

And yet, he here is. Quite how the BBC persuaded him to come back is unknown, although I imagine a substantial amount of money was involved, but beyond that, it's not like he's struggling for work. RTD is, if anything, a hotter property now than he was in 2003, when the Beeb basically brought back Doctor Who just to get him on staff. One thing he's said before in interviews is that he'd come back if the series was in trouble, and I think we can probably assume that this is what's going through his mind. 

The degree to which the Chibnall era of Who is failing has been blown out of proportion. Series eleven did rather better than the two before it, and while the twelfth series hasn't fared so well, concerns over ratings dropping over the course of each season aren't so significant considering that this happens with every run, sometimes with an upturn for the finale, but not usually a major one. TV ratings have dropped across the board, with traditional television struggling in the face of high-budget streaming productions on Netflix and Amazon. That said, I think it's hard to argue that the series' writing hasn't gone downhill, or that public and fan perception of the series has deteriorated. Some of this is down to sexism against Whittaker's Doctor and the "anti-woke" backlash, and some of this is down to the fact that the series has been on for a long time now so simply isn't as fresh and interesting as it once was. 

Nonetheless, as much as I've enjoyed the recent series, the standard isn't as high as it once was. Chibnall, although full of excellent ideas (and I, in the main, like the Timeless Child reveal), isn't anywhere near as strong a writer as RTD or Moffat. There were always duff episodes in a season, but with fewer episodes each time, there's less room for filler. The six-part thirteenth series really has no excuse to be anything other than excellent, and it has to be said, bringing RTD back, with a big announcement before S13 has even started, suggests a lack of faith in Chibnall's approach on the BBC's part . 

The programme has become very inward-looking in recent years (with S11 being a noticeable outlier), like the original run did in the eighties, which is potentially alienating for the general audience. What RTD did back in 2005 was relaunch a programme that had largely been forgotten, and that was thought of by those who remembered it with mockery. (Except for us true believers, of course.) RTD made that show relevant again, reinventing it, ditching what didn't work and keeping the essentials, slowly drip-feeding the audience with the more outlandish and geekier elements as they were slowly converted. A new, modernised and streamlined approach is exactly what Doctor Who needs again.

Of course, RTD has done this once. Can he do it again? Series one to four were very of their time and the approach was running out of steam by the time Tennant and RTD left. A redo of this would be just as tired as the current series. However, this is Russell T. Davies we're talking about. In fact, this is his whole team, with Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner as well, both essential to Doctor Who's comeback in 2005. This isn't merely a BBC production now, but a co-production with Bad Wolf, their production studio, named for, of course, the running mystery phrase in that first series. Judging by such recent series including It's a Sin, Years and Years and A Very English Murder, though, RTD's work is better and more daring than ever, and with his own studio involved, he'll have more creative control than ever.

In other interviews, RTD has expressed a frustration at doing Doctor Who before the rise of the streaming TV phenomenon, saying how he'd approach it like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While I don't think we're really going to get spin-offs for Nyssa or Jo Grant (that's what Big Finish is for), a more serialised Doctor Who as part of a larger, interconnected universe could well be the order of the day. That said, RTD has spoken at length about how the workload of Doctor Who alongside its spin-offs (although the first two series of Torchwood were largely run by Chibnall, as it happens) nearly finished him. I hope he isn't taking on too much again out of his love for Who.

I assume the odds of Olly Alexander as the Fourteenth Doctor have been slashed again - although I'd still prefer Lydia West or Omari Douglas if we're going for a Sinner - but really, we have no concrete idea about what Doctor Who will look like when RTD takes back control in 2023. Exciting times again.