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."
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