WHO REVIEW: 15-7 & 15-8 - "Wish World"/"The Reality War"

 

SPOILERS, I guess. But I'd be surprised if you don't know by now.

WHO REVIEW: 15-6 - "The Interstellar Song Contest"

 

It's a tricky one this. It simultaneously tries to do too much and doesn't go far enough. There's so much potential here; the initial pitch of "Eurovision meets Die Hard" is irresistible, while pastiching Eurovision provides the potential to be the most politcially charged episode in years. (Sorry, I forgot, Eurovision is not political. Honest.)

This is Juno Dawson's first contribution to Doctor Who proper, after writing the radio/podcast series Doctor Who Redacted (which I confess I disliked and didn't finish). It's a lot of fun, while also clearly being an allegory for real world atrocities. But which ones exactly? The obvious target is Israel's genocidal assault of Palestine, and the atrocious double-standard of allowing the country to continue to compete in Eurovision, while Russia was suspended for its brutal invasion of Ukraine. It's frankly impossible to read the episode without making this link, and it's genuinely surprising that the BBC allowed this to go out right before Eurovision itself, so obvious is the comparison.

Yet this was filmed over a year ago, possibly in time for last year's controversy over Israel's Eurovision inclusion, and Dawson would have written it months earlier. That said, even if she did write the script before October 7th 2023, it's not as if Israel's abusive rule over Palestine wasn't already well known, and their ongoing involvement was already controversial. There's also a lot of additional material that can be added during filming and post-production, with some elements - the burning poppy fields being the most blatant - that seem to be explicitly calling on the images of Palestine's suffering.

Yet the faceless villain here is "the corporation," with the Hellions being displaced and smeared so that their world can be turned over for a profitable commodity. Yes, this is a factor in Israel's plundering of the land and its backing by the US-led West, but it's not the driving force, nor what anyone would immediately associate with the genocide. This side comes across more as a general attack on global capitalism, having more in common with Nestle than Israel under Netanyahu. 

If this is meant to be about Palestine, then the story is muddled. Kid has a sympathetic background, but his actions are genuinely abbhorent. The attempted murder of 100,000 people is already a vast crime; to then try to kill three trillion is beyond insanity. If he had killed a thousand people and taken hostages, with the corporation then killing thousands of Hellions in retaliation, the allegory would be inarguable. The link is too vague, Kid's actions too extreme, the corporation too bodiless to really work as a story about Palestine, yet there's no way to watch this in May 2025 and take it as anything else.

At the time of writing, we still don't know why Ncuti Gatwa dropped out of presenting the UK's votes on Eurovision at the last minute. We can certainly speculate that he was going to say something that the BBC disapproved of. It almost feels like this is one half of a presentation that was never allowed to finish. 

As with the real Eurovision, "The Interstellar Song Contest" remains a lot of fun, in spite of the politcally-charged controveries that sit beneath the surface. It's still a staggeringly messy episode, though, with way too many elements jostling for attention, which is presumably largely down to RTD using it to set up parts of his ongoing season arc. I think that bullet points are actually the best way to approach it, since it seems like the script was written from a shopping list template:

• Rylan Clark: I don't like Rylan much. I find him very irritating. But his inclusion here is a fun joke, and he's actually not in it all that much. It's a bafflingly odd idea that he will be the last surviving representative of the Earth after its destruction.
• Gary and Mike: Charlie Condou and Kadiff Kirwan are lovely as the pseudo-companions of the episode. Are they human? If they are, how many people survived the end of the Earth and spread into space? If they're not, why are they called Gary and Mike? Either way, I like them.
• Cora Saint Bavier: A lovely performance by Miriam Teak Lee, and her song at the climax is surprisingly moving, given that I had no way to understand it. Was it based on a real language? Or was it entirely invented?
• The Hellions are odd in their presentation. Their name and appearance is most evocative of Christian demons, of course, which is another element in the jumble. It's also a bit odd that the all-knowledgable Doctor hasn't heard of them.
• The Doctor's behaviour in this episode is astonishing. He outright tortures Kid and the most we get from him is that he scared himself. I'm not against the Doctor going off the deep end, far from it, but this desperately needed more fallout.
• Including from Belinda, who gets over all this very quickly. There's the potential for a powerful moment here, with Belinda succumbing to the Doctor's charms and lifestyle and declaring him wonderful - and then almost being stranded and seeing him lash out with extreme violence. Yet she goes back to calling him wonderful almost straight away. The drama drops out of it very suddenly.
• Susan. Now that was a lovely surprise, and a genuine one. While I assume we'll see more of her in the finale, this was a remarkably restrained appearance for Carole Ann Ford, the only surviving member of Doctor Who's original cast. While most viewers wouldn't recognise her, there's been enough talk about the Doctor's granddaughter lately for her appearance to have weight. For those of us who do recognise her, there's a frisson of excitement and nostalgia, and a chance to marvel at how good she looks for 84.
• Finally, the Rani. It's another last minute revelation that threatens to overtake the entire episode. Like the Rani, I'm in two minds. On the one hand, Archie Panjabi is perfectly cast as the Rani (finally, someone actually South Asian in the role) and owns it from the second she appears. After years of fan speculation and outright trolling from showrunners, it's great that she is finally back. And the way she is immediately dismissive of her earlier self, who is just as immediately subservient, is a fascinating take on the bi-generation idea.
• On the other hand... bi-generation again? Are they all going to be bi-generations from now on? The scene itself is almost completely bereft of drama. Compare it to "Utopia," which reintroduced the Master back in 2007. That episode was actually about the character of Yana, the secret he was hiding, and the nature of the Doctor's isolation. There was some seeding earlier in the season, but the episode itself did the work, and the escalating revelations - he's a Time Lord, he's the Master, he's regenerating, he's Harold Saxon, PM - felt both powerfully dramatic and earned. Compare that to this: two years of increasingly bizarre cameos from Anita Dobson, a tacked on scene in the credits of an episode that had nothing to do with her character, a regeneration that barely makes her blink and no Doctor present to react, so that there's no indication of why it's important that the Rani is back. 

I'm probably being too harsh on this episode, which is one I suspect I will stick on as a rewatching favourite in years to come. It's a lot of fun, but there's the nagging feeling that it could have been something much more.

Setting: Harmony Space Station, 2925

Future History: This is the 803rd Interstellar Song Contest so, assuming there's been one a year, means the contest started in 2123.

Contestants please: worlds completing in the finale include Alpha Centauri, Grajick Minor, Grimbald, Lizoko, Neptunica, Parallel 5, Piziatora, Trion, and the Zygon New Habitat, along with 31 others. Nice to hear that the Zygons got a new home, although it's a shame that we don't see any of them , or any Alpha Centaurians. Most of the alien extras we do see are either old make-up reuses or, apparently, costumes from a Coldplay video.

Doctor Who and the Earworm: Dugga Doo of Grimbald sings the eponymous "Dugga Doo," which you can listen to in its entirety here.

Links and references:

Trion, represented by Cora, was the home planet of Vislor Turlough, companion to the Fifth Doctor.

There's already been a Eurovision story in Doctor Who: the 2002 Seventh Doctor audio Bang-Bang-a-Boom! where it was called the Intergalactic Song Contest. There's something pleasantly gratifying about the TV series' first trans writer taking over a concept from Gareth Roberts, arch-transphobe.

There's a certain similarity between this and the Ninth Doctor's last story. Gatwa is playing his Doctor quite Eccleston-like in some scenes, and the delta wave being primed by Kid to wipe out the population of the western galactic arm is the same weapon the Ninth Doctor was going to use against the Daleks.

Appropriately, we finally get a Ninth Doctor character returning to the show. I speak, of course, of Graham Norton.

Sadly there was no mention of the Wogan. And he was a fan too.

Shout-Out: The Doctor was at Brighton Pride!

Maketh the Man: another new outfit but very in-keeping with his signature style, with a low-cut orange polo-shirt and brown plaid trousers. It looks fantastic on him.

Flood Warning: Spoilers. She's the Rani.

WHO REVIEW: 15-5 - "The Story & the Engine"

 

It's wonderful that Doctor Who is still willing to take risks and give us new kinds of stories after all this time, even as its future is in the balance and it would be surely tempting to trot out the same sorts of adventures time after time. There's room for an old-fashioned alien invasion story, of course, even in the short seasons we now have, but the show is so much richer for having unique episodes like this.

After taking on most of the writing duties himself last year, RTD has invited far more new writers for this season. They're also writers from varied backgrounds, one of the strengths of the hit-and-miss Chibnall era (although the only writer actually returning from Chibnall's showrunning is Pete McTighe, the one white guy of this year's guest writers). Inua Ellams, a celebrated British-Nigerian playwright, is the first black man to write for Doctor Who and only the fourth black writer at all. This is also, I believe, his first television script, one that reportedly draws on some of the content and themes of his stage work. Apparently, he originally piched a different idea that was too similar to another script in production, although this eventually fell through, so who knows what story this might have been.

Ellams, along with director Makalla McPherson, create an episode quite unlike anything we've seen on the series before. The most obvious thing is that the main cast is entirely made up of people of colour and, aside from Varada Sethu, entirely black people. If not for the flashback to the hospital (which could have featured only people of colour with no problem, were it not for the necessity of including Anita Dobson for her weekly cameo), and the parade of earlier Doctors, it could have been an episode that only featured actors of colour. It's also one of very few stories set in Africa ("Praxeus" took place largely in Madagascar, and we've had a few quick visits to Egypt over the years). Ncuti Gatwa got his wish for an episode set in Nigeria, written by a writerwith whom he personally wanted to work.

A Nigerian barbershop is both a wonderfully unusual setting for a Doctor Who story and a cultural space that will be new for a large majority of the audience. After "Dot and Bubble" and "Lux" had the Doctor confront racism, "The Story & the Engine" sees him revel in the inclusion his new form can bring. It's only right that the incarnation who appears as the Doctor's memory of Abena surfaces is the Fugitive, with Jo Martin being the only other black actor to play the Doctor (a fantastic and genuinely unexpected cameo). While they all get a look-in (the barberhsop patrons must have been wondering who all those white guys on the screen were), the other regenerations are a footnote in this celebration of the Doctor's busy past.

I was, based on the Barber's mastery of stories and the glimpses of the giant spider in the trailer, fully expecting him to be Anansi, something the script teases us with. We're so primed now for the Doctor to face down gods that we immediately accept that this stranger is one himself (or several, as he claims). That the Doctor laughs this off thanks to having apparently already met most the gods he claims to be suggests a much longer association with them, beyond the Pantheon of Discord, even before we learn that he tangled with Anansi back when he was a woman with dreds. This is the first story to present gods with any positivity, noting their importance, along with stories in general, to the human condition.

There's a certain incoherence to the plot among these many elements. Omo and the Doctor both act like the former tricked the latter into coming, in spite of the Doctor actually going to Lagos of his own accord to piggyback off their comms. Quite why a gigantic spider has made its home on the Barber's worldwide web is unclear, as is pretty much every aspect of how the ship's engine works. The mysterious little girl who helps Belinda - confirmed in the credits to be Poppy from "Space Babies" - is a baffling conclusion that will presumably be explained further down the line. This messiness hardly matters in a story so packed with inventive visuals and ideas. A barbershop that is also a starship, exisitng both in a Nigerian backstreet and the depths of space and imagination (as close to the original concept of the TARDIS that we've ever seen). A heart within a brain within an engine. A man willing to kill the gods and doom humanity because he's angry he wasn't credited for his work. An entire story centred around hair, from the infinitely regenerating haircuts to the story of cornrows (a vital piece of black history that will be news to many watching). 

While Belinda gets short shrift in this episode, it's an absolute showcase for Gatwa's Doctor, allowing him to go all out in a story that would not work for any other version of the character. Sule Rimi and Michelle Asante both give heartfelt performances as Omo and Abena respectively, but it's Ariyon Bakare who impresses the most as the Barber. He gives an unsettling and inscrutable performance, skirting around the scenes to begin with and only slowly becoming a bigger and more emotive presence in the story, until he is fully humanised at the end.

More from Inua Ellams, please, and more episodes from writers from different backgrounds, completely new to Doctor Who.

Setting: Lagos, Nigeria, 2019

Maketh the Man: After a TARDIS scene in which he wears an orange-and-green-striped polo shirt, the Doctor changes into a Nigerian outfit which includes a pale orange kurta-style top, a loose brown waistcoat, a black kufi cap and a necklace. It's a uniue outfit for the Doctor but sticks to this incarnations signature colours.

The God Squad: The Doctor reveals that he knows Dionysus, Saga and Bastet, and we learn of his encounter with Anansi. Yet he doesn't mention the other god the Barber claimed to be, Loki. I was expecting the Doctor to reveal he was Loki himself.

Speculation: A question that arises: how does the Doctor remember an event he experienced as the Fugutive Doctor, a life that was erased from his memory?

There are two possibilites. The first is that it's simply a matter of a memory leaking through, presumably triggered by the presence of Abena. We've seen the Doctor display the occasional bit of knowledge from Gallifrey's distant past, and seen the lost faces in his mind batle with Morbius, so this isn't entirely unheard of.

The second possibility is that the Doctor has opened the watch that contains his stolen memories. This is tempting to believe. Perhaps, during the Fourteenth Doctor's long rehabilitation, he decided to open the watch, meaning the Fifteenth Doctor was born with all his memories intact. This is possibly supported by his openness in discussing his being adopted; perhaps he actually remembers his original childhood now.

Further reading: Inua Ellams has also written a short prequel story to this episode, "What I Did on my Holidays by Omo Esosa."

WHO REVIEW: 15-3 - "The Well"

Well, well, well...

There are going to be spoilers from the outset for this one, although if you'd heard the rumours swirling about before the episode aired then you probably know what's coming. However, you can still back out now if you don't want to know the twist in this one. If you don't mind knowing or you know already, click "read more..."

WHO REVIEW: 15-2 - "Lux"

 

Zoinks!

We're only two episodes into the season, but "Lux" already look like the Fifteenth Doctor's standout story. While it seems to be a bit of a marmite episode, most commenters I've seen really liked it, and I'm with them. This was a barmstormer, an episode that throws everything it can at the screen and manages to pull it off. There a few flaws, mainly with pacing, but this is a story that barely puts a foot wrong.

On the one hand, there's nothing much that's new here. Screaming people trapped on film, threatened with immolation, are straight out of Sapphie & Steel; stepping into black-and-white has been done time and again, from Pleasantville to the most recent season of Black Mirror; even the villain being overwhelmed when they achieve their goal and ascending to the next level of existence has been done before (hell, they even did that on Mighty Max). And, of course, splicing cartoons and live action together has been going on at least as far back as the sixties, with Disney producing a bunch of films that combined the media, with the biggest and most impressive being Who Framed Roger Rabbit, with which this story shares a lot.

Yet it's all put together and realised with such verve and style that the result is exhilirating. Mr. Ring-a-Ding is a technical marvel, beautifully manifested. In the old days cartoons and film would be overlaid by hand and spliced together, whereas now CGI is used. Nonetheless, this is impressive (and the character himself was hand drawn, which makes a real difference). The moment when the Doctor and Belinda circle round Mr. Ring-a-Ding, who stays 2D but appears fully part of the 3D environment, is remarkable. It's even better for it's subtlety, but there are other moments that are just as impressive while being overtly showy: Mr. Ring-a-Ding's gradual evolution into a physical being is almost tangible, as well as utterly hideous, as a cartoon character would be in the flesh.

None of this would mean anything without a strong story held up by strong performances; fortunately, "Lux" is a stunner here too. Alan Cumming gives a suitably manic vocal performance as a godlike being manifested as a cartoon character, becoming genuinely sinister when the story calls for it. Both Gatwa and Sethu give evocative, three-dimensional performances, even when they're reduced to cartoon characters. The script gives them great material to work with, allowing both of them to show sides to their characters that bring them more depth.

We've seen the Doctor faced with racism before, of course, in the equally good (but very different) "Dot and Bubble," but that was a distinctly different situation. Here we see him embedded in a racist culture, albeit fortunate enough to meet understanding and sympathetic individuals. His statement that sometimes he must wait for people to change immoral and corrupt systems is a more mature approach than that seen in "Rosa," although I still believe that episode worked well. It's important to see the series face this again, especially as we have a TARDIS team played entirely by people of colour for the first time. "Dot and Bubble" (and "Rosa," for that matter) warned us against the risk of racism rising again in the future, but the Fifteenth Doctor's trips to the past have sidestepped the issue ("The Devil's Chord" simply ignored it, while "Rogue" was deliberately an unrealistically mixed historical setting). 

"Lux" is a clear follow-up to "The Devil's Chord," with Lux Imperator another member of the Gods of Chaos (aka the Pantheon of Discord). This works far better though, taking the concept of the God of Light and that of a living cartoon character, using them to their full potential. It's fascinating to see how Lux manifests as Mr. Ring-a-Ding, showing us that these supposedly all-powerful gods can be constrained by the limits of how they enter the world. (It also raises the possibility for previously defeated gods to reappear in new forms that are more powerful and harder to defeat.) The script sets up numerous elements so that the viewer can guess at how they'll be resolved (although the repeated mention of "Blink" meant I was going "Have we seen Ring-a-Ding blink?" and wondering if that was what he never does). 

The most notable element of the story is the Doctor and Belinda's being pulled into the film stock and converted into cartoons, a gloriously silly sequence that nonetheless allows the characters to open up about they're hopes and fears, getting to know each other on a more honest footing. Belinda is still a bit too quick to accept the Doctor's lifestyle but never lets go of her determinaion to get home. The next scene is the fan-pleasing one, where we get to see ourselves (or people like us) as characters in the show. This sequence does go on a little too long and slows the otherwise gripping pace. It's another element that's not remotely original; about half the fantasy shows on TV over the last thirty or forty years have had the characters find out they're fictional characters and meet their audiences and/or actors. (Usually they step out onto the set, rather than push themselves out of the TV.) It works well though, largely thanks to strong performances by the fans (particularly Bronte Barbe as Lizzie, who's tremendously likeable). The self-referencing winks at the camera do go on a bit too long, though, and the Doctor and Belinda are a bit too accepting of the idea that they're fictional themselves.

Linus Roache gives a beautifully sympathetic performance as Reginald Pye, the mourning projectionist, while Lucy Thackery gives a lovely monologue as Renee, waiting for her son to return. It's one of those episodes where everyone is bringing their A-game, in front of the camera and behind, and it really raises the episode to something special.

On the negative side, I have been singing "I'm Mr. Ring-a-Ding!" in a loud, annoying voice all weekend.

Settings:  Miami, Dade County, Florida; 1952.

Title Tattle: Missed opportunity to go with "What's Up Doc?" Amazingly, no one says this in the episode.

Alternatively, "Who Framed."

Maketh the Man: The Doctor wears a gorgeous pastel blue suit, with a white shirt and pink bowtie, and two-tone brogues.

The Shallow Bit: Varada Sethu is, of course, very beautiful, but in that yellow dress she is truly stunning.

The Regeneration Game: We might speculate that the regenerative energy Lux drains from the Doctor uses up a life, or maybe even limits his regenerations again. Most likely, though, he's got plenty left for his, apparently, limitless roster of regens.

Flood Warning: Mrs Flood turns up in 1952, the first time we've seen her in another time zone. There's still no clue to her identity. With regards to the overall arc, something to with the Land of Fiction certaily seems feasible, especially with the focus on fictional existences in this story. Impossible to say how, or even if, Mrs Flood or Belinda fit into all this. We might also ask why the Doctor can't just land on May 23rd and take Belinda for coffee until she syncs back up with her own time. Of course, this might lead to him being hit in the face by whatever is waiting on the 24th. It's a fun - and brave - touch to tie this into the end of the series, as right now we don't know if it will be renewed.

Links: This isn't the first time the Doctor has encountered living cartoon characters: the Eighth Doctor arrived in an animated world in the 2002 novel The Crooked World. Neither is it the first time he's crossed over into the "real" world and discovered he's a TV character: both DWM and IDW produced comic stories with this basic idea (the 1999 Eighth Doctor strip "TV Action!" and 2013 Eleventh Doctor special "The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who," respectively).

WHO REVIEW: 15-1 - "The Robot Revolution"

It’s taken twenty years, but RTD has finally given us a story about a space planet in the future with rebels running up and down corridors.*

Introductory episodes are a tricky business, given that they have to devote a large part of their runtime to creating a new companion and introducing the Doctor and their world to them; and, these days, set up a whole new arc or mystery connected to the new companion. RTD’s favoured approach of a new companion and/or Doctor every year makes this a necessity, so each of his seasons tends to start with a fairly thin story, although he’s too good a writer not to add some extra depth to the adventure.

So, “The Robot Revolution” might be a bit of a runaround, but it fulfils its primary objectives, which are to introduce Belinda and to be entertaining for 45 minutes. Cliched and silly it might be, but it’s tremendous fun, and Belinda is never anything less than fantastic throughout. The basic idea of buying and naming a star leading to aliens thinking you’re their queen is obvious but extremely fun, and I don’t actually recall it being used in sci-fi before (feel free to correct me). At least it’s better than in real life, where naming stars through commercial companies is completely meaningless.

Varada Sethu is brilliant as Belinda, giving an entirely believable and likeable performance as someone who is entirely done with this shit, be it work, romance, or space/time adventures with ancient aliens. She sells the character perfectly even when she verges on the unrealistic, as she does occasionally when she’s a little too easily accepting of the bizarre situation she finds herself in. (Although, this is 2025 Britain in Doctor Who, where alien invasions are a regular feature of recent history.) It’s been a long while since we had a companion who doesn’t want to be one, especially on screen. Donna comes close, but only for her first appearance, and after that she’s desperate to join the Doctor. The last companion genuinely in this vein was Tegan, and of course, she came round as well.

What both the script and Sethu’s performance show so well is that Belinda is both supremely capable and used to being underestimated and taken for granted, especially by men. Alan is clearly one in a long line of men who have treated her as less than she is. Her attitude to the Doctor is perfect: we finally have someone who is suitably impressed by the wide universe that has opened up in front of her, but has no time for the Doctor and his posturing. While the Doctor isn’t exactly a man, he usually presents as one, and while his attitude of superiority might come from being a Time Lord it still comes across another arrogant bloke. It works especially well with the Fifteenth Doctor, whose charm is his primary weapon. Belinda simply refuses to be seduced by this. Sethu and Gatwa have fantastic chemistry, but it’s of a completely different sort to Gatwa and Millie Gibson, with an entirely different dynamic.

It's good to finally have someone call the Doctor on his invasive behaviour as well. I don’t think we’ve had anyone pick him up on this sort of thing since Rose was angry at the TARDIS translating her thoughts without her permission back in “The End of the World.” The Doctor does this sort of thing to friends and foes alike, in all their regenerations, but the smile on Fifteen’s face as he does it makes it especially satisfying when Belinda calls him up on it. As for the mystery he’s investigating, I’m tentatively engaged. While I wish that occasionally Doctor Who would just recast an actor they like in a new role without making a big thing of it in-universe, I like that it’s simple enough that Mundy Flynn is just Belinda’s descendant, while also accepting there must be more to it than that because families simply do not produce identical people generation after generation. We’ve clearly also got some kind of time loop situation going on here, even beyond the one that the episode itself centres on. (It might also be significant that we have an episode coming up set in 2008, the year Alan bought Belinda’s star, but then again, it might not.) Oh, and the imminent destruction of the Earth, for a change.

Everything that happens on planet Missbelindachandra One is hewn from purest cliché, which is rather the point, as it’s been warped by evil Alan’s manipulations. That doesn’t make it any less cliched, of course. The sets and CGI mattes are great, the robots are fun (even if they’re essentially just Hydroflax with a Vardy’s face on), and everything chugs along nicely. However, the humans on the planet are paper thin, most notably Sasha 55. While I love the idea of the Doctor spending six months having an adventure off-screen and building relationships that we only come into at the end, there’s nothing in Sasha’s character or Evelyn Miller’s performance to tell us why he cares for her. Yes, she’s got “doomed potential companion” written all over her, and Gatwa’s acting sells the Doctor’s grief beautifully, but there’s nothing there that suggests he should care about her more than any of the other mooks who get vapourised. Polishbot had more character.

Really, though, all this fluff is there to hang Belinda’s story on, and to make a point about controlling and misogynistic men. This is also quite thin on the surface, but there’s more going on under the hood. Alan’s obviously a prick at the beginning, but not necessarily dangerous, which only highlights the slippery slope men can go down in our society. “Planet of the incels” may be glib, but it’s also a pretty good description of our own. As much as Alan’s transformation and his desire to “weld” with Belinda are nods to Superman III, the concept – both the welding and the enforced marriage – are clearly an allegory for rape. There’s very little made of Alan’s apparent plea for death via his every ninth word, but nothing at all made from his subsequent message: “Belinda mine forever.” It’s the only such hidden message that isn’t spelled out for the viewer, and the most important, showing us that whatever suffering he’s gone through, he genuinely feels entitled to Belinda. This is a fun, silly episode, but it could be made as something much more serious in a more adult series without changing that much.

There really is a lot to love here, even if on the surface it’s by-the-numbers Doctor Who. The Blinovitch Limitation Effect – not that it’s called that here, but that’s what it is – is genuinely satisfying for once, giving us a trippy loop through time rather than the usual fizz of sparks. (Although the Doctor explaining how two of the same atoms can’t occupy the same space at the same time should have been dropped, since there won’t be a single atom in common between the two versions of the certificate.) There’s some nice, dark comedy here, best illustrated by the robot casually vapourising the cat. Most importantly, though, solidly good fun.

*Thanks Miles Reid-Lobatto for that one.

Settings: England, 24^th May 2025; planet MissBelindachandra One, around the same time; briefly England in 2008.

Title Tattle: Just a tweak, and "Revolution of the Robots" would be the archetypal Doctor Who title.

Maketh the Man: The Doctor’s outfit at the beginning of the episode, a blue pinstriped kilt with an optional tartan fleece, is absolutely gorgeous. Sadly he has to swap it for beige fatigues for the rest of the episode, although naturally Ncuti Gatwa makes these look amazing as well. Hopefully he’ll be back in the kilt before the season’s out.

Flood warning: Mrs Flood is back, suddenly living next door to Belinda and talking to the camera again. Her “You haven’t seen me,” when the Doctor shows up is the first time I’ve actually enjoyed the character, so hopefully she’ll grow on me as she crops up throughout the season. I’m still finding it hard to care too much who she is given what a let down all the reveals were last season, although I am tempted by the idea she’s Iris Wildthyme. RTD is a fan of Paul Magrs, after all, and if Beep the Meep can show up on the TV series, anyone can. I haven’t seen Mrs Flood drinking heavily, though, so it seems unlikely.

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: 14-5 - "Dot and Bubble"

 

From the outset, this episode was destined to be compared to Black Mirror. What's surprising is that it compares so favourably. It's not as if Charlie Brooker came up with science fiction as a method of social commentary, or on the focus on technology in general, and social media in particular, as subjects to explore and satirise. Davies reportedly came up with the idea for “Dot and Bubble” in 2010, as a potential guest script for Matt Smith's first season, while Black Mirror didn't air until 2011. Still, the similarity is undeniable, and it's highly unlikely Davies hasn't been influenced by Black Mirror in the intervening years. (He speaks very highly of Brooker's writing – quick, sign him up to do an episode.)

Some of the few people who have outright trashed this episode have called it “Black Mirror for kids,” as if that is in some way a bad thing. Once again we have a sudden shift in genre and Doctor Who pulls it off perfectly. There's a lot here that Black Mirror couldn't, or wouldn't, do: giant slugs are not likely to show up on that show. In some ways, this has the feel of an episode of The Outer Limits, with the juxtaposition of thoughtful, if melodramatic, science fiction with big squidgy monsters. While similarities to the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” are clear, it has far more in common with “The Machine Stops,” which was made into an episode of Out of the Unknown in 1966 (which thankfully survives and is well worth seeing) but was written by E.M. Forster in 1909, and is frighteningly prescient.

There's a risk that Russell T. Davies, now aged 61, would fall into the trap of simply railing against modern technology. Fortunately, this is no “old man yells at the Cloud,” with RTD skillfully lampooning our dependence on technology and social media while making it clear that the technology itself isn't the problem. The Bubble, of course, isn't simply the glowing sphere that surrounds Lindy's head all day, but the social, mental and moral bubble in which we all risk hiding ourselves. There are clear warnings about elitism; the superficiality of fame and shallow relationships; and the slide into selfishness. One of the most powerful moments to me was the casual way Lindy and others in Finetime walked past a fellow citizen being dragged off to their death by one of the monsters, and oblivious to another in pain and danger on the streets that clearly parallels our blind eye to those suffering homelessness.

All this, however, if overshadowed by the electrifying final scene. For the first time, we see the Doctor faced with hatred directed at him because of the colour of his skin, something that we were bound to see eventually but which was so unexpected in a future-set episode. There's a case to be had that it isn't the place for this, that we should have seen the Doctor come up against the very real racism of the 1960s in “The Devil's Chord,” yet having it occur in a future society acts as a stark warning to us.

Ncuti Gatwa is, in his short time on screen, remarkable, no more so than in that final scene. As the Doctor careers from confusion, to incredulity, to frustrated rage, Gatwa is electrifying. This was, remarkably, the first material he shot following his time opposite David Tennant in “The Giggle,” and RTD has said he was very wary of throwing him into this. My god, though, what a way to come in and show how absolutely right he was for the role.

I, to my shame, failed to notice until the critical moment that the rest of the episode's cast is white, displaying exactly the lazy, if unintentional, prejudices that it's still so easy for a white person to fall into. It will, of course, be a very different experience for a viewer of colour, who will have come up against the barriers and micro-aggressions that Lindy throws at the Doctor. In context, it's all so clear, from the “I thought you just looked the same,” to the shock at Ruby and the Doctor actually being in the same room. For me, it simply looked like more evidence of how people in this community were isolated and how unused they were to outsiders. In retrospect, it's stark, and a real eye-opener for me, not noticing these things simply because I was not looking for them, and I have the luxury of not dealing with them day-to-day.

Certainly, I'm interested in how others feel about this episode. Most people I know, like me, think it's the best of the year so far, and the best for some considerable time. However, this is coming from a group of people in their late twenties to early sixties, who are also predominantly white. I've seen some comments from people of colour who thought the race aspect was tacked on and performative, and some from younger viewers who found the episode ineffective and condescending. Still, I've also seen comments from this audience that were extremely positive. One thing that is clear though is that we need more diverse writers for this show, especially if we're going to be tackling race-related issues. The Chibnall era, for all its flaws, made some real headway here, and it's a problem if we're sliding backwards.

While Gatwa steals the entire episode, making you forget that this is the second Doctor-lite episode in a fortnight (something that could potentially have been a huge misstep), there's some beautiful work from Millie Gibson, particularly in that final scene where Ruby silently supports the Doctor. It's Callie Cooke who carries the episode as Lindy, giving an absolutely brilliant performance as a character who is surely to become one of the most hated in fandom. While she is vapid and at times bafflingly idiotic, for the most part she seems to be simply sheltered and at least trying to help. We're primed to expect Lindy to overcome her limitations, to become a hero and then stand as an almost-companion we wish could have joined the TARDIS.

Instead, Lindy reveals herself to be a hateful and truly selfish person. There's a hint of it when she tells Ricky September (a nice performance by Tom Rhys Harries, who's actually older than Gatwa) that this is the best day of her life, in spite of all the death surrounding her, before she reveals her true colours, condemning him to death to save herself and then lying to save face. Until, finally, that reveal, when it becomes clear just how rotten Lindy and her whole society are. It actually goes even further than the immediate implications in her (and those other two idiots') behaviour towards the Doctor. Talk of taming and then owning the wilderness smacks of manifest destiny, while the “river runs to the sea” can surely not be accidental. (Yes, this was written way before 7^th October 2023. That is irrelevant.)

There are some frustrations. Ricky's sudden appearance is a bit too timely, and I was convinced initially that he was actually a hologram or some other avatar of the Doctor, in a guise Lindy would trust. It's not clear if the Homeworld really has been wiped out, which somewhat improves the target of the story from Gen Z to the entire population, or if it's a fakeout by the Dot. It takes the Doctor an agonisingly long time to realise that the killings are happening in alphabetical order. The slugs, or man-traps as they are apparently to be known, are a bit of a mystery themselves. The Doctor thinks the Dot made them, but how, and why? They might just as likely be animals from “the Wild Woods” or aliens its employed. They also seem a bit unnecessary if Dot can just kill people by smashing through their heads directly, but I suppose the sadism is the point.

A few logistical quibbles have never stopped Doctor Who before, though, and “Dot and Bubble” is, for me, the absolute high point of the series so far. It's certainly been a long time since an episode left me thinking more about how I watched than what I watched.

Setting: Finetime, a colony of what seems to be the moon of a planet known only as Homeworld. As for the time, anyone's guess.

(OK, let's try. First there's the question of whether the colonists are human. They certainly have human, indeed western first names, and their surnames are similarly western or are unusual combinations of English words. They use the Latin alphabet and have a society that appears to be an extension of how our own is developing. However, there's no mention of Earth - which might be the Homeworld but this seems unlikely - and when one of the colonists is dragged off by a slug, they appear to leave a trail of blue blood. It might be slug slime, but it isn't really presented that way.

(So, if they're not human, they have developed in a way that parallels humanity remarkably closely, to the point where they've duplicated "Itsy-Bitsy Teeny-Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini." More likely, they are human, and the blue blood can be explained away by their having mixed with an alien race at some point, something we know is common in the future. This would make their desire for "racial purity" particularly ironic.

(While the social media technology has a near future feel, the overall atmosphere of the story is more like the New Earth era, which might mesh with the mention of a year as Five-Dash-Five. However, both the mingling with other species and the resurgance in racism fit with the 51st to 52nd centuries, the latter being the origin of Krasko in "Rosa.")

Story links: Big Finish released a social media-themed story called Like in 2020 featuring the Sixth Doctor and Peri. Eilidh Loan, who plays Cooper Mercy here, appeared in that release as well.

The Twist (in the middle): Susan Twist played Lindy's mother in this one, and now the Doctor and Ruby have both noticed that they've seen her face before. This is actually quite intrusive in this episode and it would have been better to leave it out for another instalment. As it is, whatever the truth behind Twist's appearances, they surely can't all be the same character - perhaps someone projecting her image through space and time so that it overlays what's really there for the Doctor and Ruby?

Maketh the Man: the Doctor finally spends an episode in the outfit he was originally publicised to wear, with the brown checked coat and trousers and neon orange jumper. The only other time we've seen him in that get-up is very briefly in "The Church on Ruby Road" when he went to see Ruby's band - Susan Twist was there as well...

Like and Subscribe: It's really hard not to think of Gatwa telling us all to subscribe to the official Doctor Who YouTube channel when he's up on the screen.

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."