#13 (2.3): The Well.

Wary soldiers hold Aliss (Rose Alying-Ellis), the sole survivor of a disaster, at gunpoint.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 48 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies, Sharma Angel-Walfall. Directed by: Amanda Brotchie. Produced by: Chris May.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor and Belinda find themselves on a mining planet in the distant future, in the midst of soldiers under the command of Shaya Costallion (Caoilfhionn Dunne). Contact was lost with the miners, and Shaya's mission is to find out why and rescue any survivors.

When they reach the facility, the workers are all dead - half of them shot and the other half physically assaulted. All mirrors have been shattered with deliberate efficiency, and there is only one survivor: Aliss (Rose Ayling-Ellis), the cook. Aliss indicates that the crew went mad, all except for her, and that she was forced to kill her best friend to defend herself.

Belinda does her best to treat Aliss's wounds with guidance from Mo (Bethany Antonia), a compassionate trooper who acts as the team medic. Meanwhile, the Doctor retrieves what he can from the facility's corrupted logs. He hears one of the dead miners moaning, "We don't know what it is!", which jogs his memory.

To his horror, he realizes that he's been on this planet before. He knows exactly what enemy he's facing - and he's not prepared for it...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He behaves seriously and compassionately when they find Aliss - and except for that, he spends the first half at his most arrogant. He calls the second-in-command, Cassio (Christopher Chung), "babes" and, when he objects, switches to "hun." He crouches by the mine shaft and yells, "Hello," into it to hear the echo. Upon entering the facility, he removes his and Belinda's protective gear. Cassio calls this out as a bad idea, but the Doctor shrugs that he's just "not loving the look." This comes back to haunt him, the need to stop and put that gear back on slowing the escape at the end... which I love, because while arrogance is part of the Doctor's character, it should sometimes come with a price.

Belinda: She is the first to see the creature's shadow in the background, before it begins wreaking havoc among the troops, and she makes the mistake of dismissing it as "nothing" a couple of times more than is plausible. She gets the standard companion role of being compassionate toward Aliss, trying to reassure her while the Doctor investigates the base. She still wants to get home, and she wistfully recalls her parents' pleasantly mundane routines, but she's also starting to enjoy the adventure... though one wonders if the events of this episode will knock that right back out of her.

Shaya: The commander of the team, she initially comes across as single-minded and mission focused. She directs the squad to draw weapons on the Doctor and Belinda until they explain themselves, relenting after the Doctor uses his pyschic paper to pass himself off as a high-ranking official. When Mo notes that the lack of lifesigns doesn't mean anything given radiation interference and that there is still hope, Shaya instantly replies, "Hope is irrelevent." She defers to the Doctor's judgment when their enemy is unveiled, however, even when that creates tension with Cassio.

Aliss: The Doctor puts her survival down to her deafness, which saved her from hearing the creature's whispers. She is appropriately traumatized after seeing half of the people she worked with murder the other half. She just wants to get back to her daughter - even if that means concealing information to keep the soldiers from leaving her behind. Rose Ayling-Ellis is very good, managing to convey Aliss's fear without ever threatening to make her one-note. She's neither noble nor pathetic; she's just an ordinary person who desperately wants to go home.


THOUGHTS:

The Well benefits from a very strong script. Things are casually planted early that are remembered and utilized later. The Doctor removing protective gear, a seeming throwaway moment, ends up costing the characters precious time at the end. Elements of Shaya's backstory make her into a more rounded character, but they also figure into the resolution. In terms of sheer construction, this is the best script so far this season.

The episode is extremely well made. The first half focuses on building atmosphere and mystery, and shot choices lean into this. There are striking images: the Doctor and Belinda, surrounded by the squad; the squad shot from above as they approach the mining facility; the Doctor, standing at the edge of the vast mine shaft; and the soldiers gathered around Aliss in a semi-circle, seeming as frightened of this single, small woman as she is of them.

Shots are allowed to linger on screen for a second or two longer than most episodes would allow, which makes them register in the viewer's mind. Also, when cuts don't necessarily occur at the moments we're primed to expect, the extra seconds help to enhance the unsettling vibe of the piece.

Everything speeds up once the enemy is unveiled, and there is an action scene that is memorable in its chaos. As Aliss says of the incident with the mining crew, what happens ends up happening fast - only for it to end just as abruptly, with the characters left to process what just occurred. This is extremely effective, all the more so because it follows a clear logic without ever being overexplained.

I was fortunate enough to remain unspoiled about the episode's major reveal, and that unquestionably enhanced the viewing experience. If anyone's reading this who has yet to watch The Well... don’t read anything else about it before watching, because it is best viewed without extra information.


OVERALL:

A couple of moments near the end keep this shy of full marks. There's one moment that would have worked well with just action and music, but it gets slightly overegged with the addition of unnecessary voice-over. There's also an ending sting that I think the episode would have been stronger without. These are minor blemishes, but they're just enough to keep me from awarding a "10."

That said, The Well is an excellent episode: tightly constructed, well-acted, and extremely well made.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: Lux
Next Episode: Lucky Day (not yet reviewed)

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#12 (2.2): Lux.

The Doctor and Belinda meet Mr. Ring-a-Ding (Alan Cumming), a cartoon come to life.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 44 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Amanda Brotchie. Produced by: Chris May.


THE PLOT:

A barrier is preventing the Doctor from returning Belinda to her own time, so he attempts to outmaneuver it with a doohickey and some technobabble. This leads to the TARDIS materializing just outside a movie theater in Miami, Florida, 1952.

It's instantly obvious that something is afoot. The theater isn't just closed; its doors are chained shut, and there is a memorial outside. They learn that three months earlier, 15 people attending a screening disappeared without a trace. After multiple searches, the police have given up, leaving the building empty save for its projectionist/caretaker, Reginald Pye (Linus Roache).

A quick pass of his Sonic Screwdriver is all it takes for the Doctor to access the theater, where he discovers the entity behind the disappearances: Mr. Ring-a-Ding (Alan Cumming), a cartoon brought to life. Mr. Ring-a-Ding is now the embodiment of Lux Imperator, the Chaos God of light. The Doctor resolves to defeat him; but before he and Belinda can do anything, they find themselves trapped in celluloid - and themselves transformed into cartoons!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He's determined to keep his promise to return Belinda to May 24, 2025, not least because of his growing concern that something has gone very wrong. He tries to hide that worry from Belinda by cranking up both energy and charm even beyond his norm. His enthusiasm for materializing in 1952 Florida is tempered when he stretches out his hand to remind himself of his skin color, with him remarking that going unseen "might be wise." When Belinda absorbs those same implications, the Doctor tells her that it's not his role to change human history, not even for the better: "I have toppled worlds. Sometimes I wait for people to topple their world. Until then, I live in it, and I shine."

Belinda: So far, I like Belinda. Unlike Ruby, she's a reluctant traveler, and her willingness to push back against the Doctor rather than just wholeheartedly embrace his enthusiasm adds an extra layer. She doesn't complain about her unwanted travels, and it's clear that she's far from immune to the Doctor's charm. She's a compassionate figure, as shown when her resistance to investigating drops away after she meets the mother of one of the people who vanished. I wouldn't say there's particularly more to her character than there was to Ruby. But I'm feeling connected with the Doctor/Belinda team in a way that I struggled to feel with the Doctor and Ruby for the first third of the previous season.

Mr. Ring-a-Ding/Lux: This episode wouldn't work if its animated "monster" didn't. Mr. Ring-a-Ding's design is perfectly judged. He looks like a 1950s cartoon, with comically exaggerated features that include oversized hands and an impossibly wide grin. Those same exaggerations become menacing when he steps out of the screen. Alan Cumming adopts a nasally voice for the character that's reminiscent of (but not a duplicate of) some of the Looney Tunes voices. He's also able to turn from amiable to sinister with a very slight drop in pitch and the tiniest slowing of vocal pace. The character remains bound by cartoon logic. When his theme is played, he has to stop to sing and dance to it. When he heads to the booth to pursue the Doctor and Belinda, he has to comically pull his rubbery legs up each stair while complaining that he never should have learned perspective.


THOUGHTS:

Lux shares a lot in common with The Devil's Chord from Gatwa's first season. Like that story, this is set in the past, with the Doctor facing off against a threat bound to art - music in that episode, animation and movies in this one. In both cases, the opponent is superficially comical. Both episodes also invoke the Toymaker's giggle to let the Doctor know that these are Gods of Chaos.

I find Lux to be the better of the two. The Devil's Chord had a splendid first half but became more slapdash toward the end, while Lux feels both controlled and unified throughout. The word "lux" directly refers to a unit of light, and the teaser shows moonlight bringing the Chaos God to life in the form of Mr. Ring-a-Ding, an animated celluloid character who is brought to cinematic life through the light of the projector. Lux forces the projectionist to keep playing movies in the empty theater because the light from the projections "feeds" him. Both the manner of his creation and his "feeding" are consistent with the way in which he's ultimately defeated. Not all the rules are explained, but the internal logic holds.

The episode plays with the divide between reality and fiction. This starts from the teaser, with the fictional cartoon, Mr. Ring-a-Ding, emerging from the screen to the horror of the audience. In the second half, the Doctor and Belinda are trapped on celluloid and transformed into two-dimensional cartoons - a transformation that follows multiple references from them to Scooby Doo, with the Doctor teasing Belinda by identifying himself as Velma and her as Fred. There are a couple of direct fourth wall breaks, including a mid-credits bit that I found amusing.

I quite like how this episode addresses the issue of how certain points in history might not be ideal for a nonwhite Doctor. It isn't dismissed condescendingly, as happened in The Shakespeare Code. The Doctor notes that in this time and place, it might be best for him and Belinda not to be seen, and he fills Belinda in on "the rules" of their interactions with others at a diner - but he also cuts short her outraged reaction, instead focusing her attention on the task at hand. The issue is addressed with suitable directness, but it never threatens to interfere with either the story or its pace.

This aspect is also effectively folded into the narrative. The brief exchange at the diner about breaking "the rules" of segregation to get information effectively parallels the way the Doctor uses "the rules" of the pantheon of Chaos Gods to get information from Lux. The idea of light recurs throughout the story, and that motif is referenced when the Doctor observes that it's as well that he and Belinda have arrived late at night and can go unseen. When the story ends, in the light of morning, he combines both the ideas of light and of rules as he declares that it's time to leave: "According to the laws of the land, babe, sunlight doesn't suit us."


OVERALL:

Lux is a fine episode, with a tightly constructed script that makes full use of both its themes and plot elements. The villain is particularly strong, mixing the comical and the frightening to excellent effect. The live action and animated elements mix seamlessly, and this is one of the few episodes that visibly benefited from the Disney partnership.

Overall, a very good episode, one that raises my hopes for the rest of the season.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

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#11 (2.1): The Robot Revolution.

Nurse Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu) is kidnapped by robots from another world.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Peter Hoar. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

When she was a teenager, Belinda Chandra (Varada Sethu)'s received a bizarre gift from her boyfriend (Jonny Green): a certificate officially naming a star after her. 17 years later, Belinda is now a hospital nurse, living a busy but thoroughly ordinary life.

That is, until a spaceship lands near the house she's renting with several flatmates, and giant robots emerge to kidnap her. The robots insist that they are taking her to "Missbelindachandra One," a planet orbiting the star in her name. She is brought to a world ruled by robots, with the humans serving as little more than slaves, and told that she is to be their queen - and that she must marry their ruler, the AI Generator.

As she struggles to process all this insanity, a man steps forward to explain. This is a "designated historian," who calls himself the Doctor. After detailing the current state of the planet, the Doctor leads a group of rebels in rescuing Belinda.

But why has this planet evolved into this state? How did the robots obtain the same exact star certificate that Belinda carries? And why does the robots' certificate appear to be thousands of years old...?


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: A friend who has helped him on Missbelindachandra One dies early in the episode, during Belinda's rescue. The Doctor processes that death quickly, taking a couple of seconds to feel all the grief at once. He then moves immediately to the task at hand, proclaiming, "She's dead. Right... we have got a world to overthrow." Aside from that scene and the epilogue, he serves as the Designated Deliverer of Exposition, but Ncuti Gatwa mostly makes it work through sheer energy.

Belinda: The first companion in a long time who would really prefer not to be. She has no interest in traveling the stars. Even the teen version of her seems unimpressed with the gift of a star named after her, though she does keep the certificate. In the present, she mainly just wants to get home. She does her best to use her nursing skills to help the wounded at the rebel base, and she feels guilt for those who were hurt or died saving her. But when the Doctor tries to persuade her to join him in his travels, she refuses, labeling him as "dangerous" and insisting, "I am not one of your adventures!"


THOUGHTS:

The first half of The Robot Revolution is rather good. We share in Belinda's disorientation as, in quick succession, she is: whisked away from her life by the robots; declared queen of a planet named after her; and informed that she must join with their AI. The fact of a rebellion is efficiently introduced when she witnesses the robots violently suppressing a distant riot. Then the Doctor steps forward as the "designated historian" to fill in needed backstory and to demonstrate the robots' weakness. At the midpoint, as Belinda hides in a rebel bunker while explosions rock the area, this episode seems on track to be a terrific season opener.

Then the script decides that we don't really need a proper Second Act. There are elements that might have been used. Belinda sees the injured and immediately starts acting as a nurse, but this occupies all of about two minutes. One rebel, Manny (Max Parker), resents her, blaming her for those who died rescuing her. When she protests that none of this is her fault, he sneers: "Is that a royal decree? You're as bad as the robots." Absolutely none of this goes anywhere, save to spur Belinda doing something remarkably stupid that in a more interesting script would likely have backfired spectacularly on all of the characters.

But instead of developing any of these pieces, the episode just skims through one quiet scene and then has the Doctor and Belinda captured again so as to rush straight to the confrontation with the AI Generator. Meaning that, yes, it would have been structurally cleaner to have the Doctor's rescue fail, with the exposition being dropped in a prison cell while waiting to be taken to the planet's mechanical ruler.

The big confrontation also feels rushed, though there is one clever conceit that I didn't see coming and that binds stray bits of the story together. Unfortunately, elements that should have remained subtext are rendered into direct text, with Belinda at one point invoking some Internet terminology to make sure "da kids" aren't missing The Moral of the Story.


OVERALL:

The Robot Revolution opens extremely well... which makes it all the more frustrating when the second half squanders that by skimming over what might have been interesting plot and character elements and finished by becoming heavy-handed.

I can't help but wonder if the main episode didn't suffer for needing to accommodate a five minute epilogue that's there to set up the season arc. In fairness, the final moments are intriguing. But after last season, I have zero expectations that I'll be satisfied by the eventual answers, and it's unfortunate that what was on track to be a pretty good episode seems likely to have been compromised for the sake of an arc tease.

Still, while this is flawed, it's at least entertaining, which means that it's a whole lot better than Space Babies.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

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#10 (2.0): Joy to the World.

The Doctor investigates a life form that has taken possession of Joy (Nicola Coughlan).

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 54 minutes. Written by: Steven Moffat. Directed by: Alex Sanjiv Pillai. Produced by: Alison Sterling.


THE PLOT:

The Time Hotel is a very special tourist attraction. Instead of rooms, the hotel has portals that take guests to points throughout Earth's history. This is enough to impress the Doctor, who remarks to hapless hotel employee Trev (Joel Fry) that it's no wonder the rooms are sold out.

The Doctor is about to leave when something catches his eye: a man handcuffed to his briefcase who doesn't react to anything around him. The man is actually being controlled by the case as it "upgrades" from him to other people in the hotel. Each upgrade gets the case closer to its goal - and each switch results in the death of the previous host.

The Doctor follows the suitcase through a time portal to the room of an ordinary London hotel on Christmas, 2024. The room has just been booked by Joy (Nicola Coughlan), an ordinary woman who is spending her holiday both sad and alone. Then the suitcase transfers itself to her, leaving the Doctor racing to stop whatever force is behind all this before it kills her!

Though before he can manage that, he'll first have to wait for access to the Time Hotel to open again. Which won't be until the following Christmas...


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He's still adjusting to being alone again. He stops at the Time Hotel for some milk, and he takes two cups before remembering that he has no one to share with. During his year-long wait, he takes a job at the hotel run by Anita (Steph de Whalley) and befriends her, which results in what I found to be the most heartfelt moments of the episode as they bond - only for him to attempt to quietly slip away when the year is up, seeming relieved to find her desk empty for him to just quietly leave a gift behind.

Joy: As the Doctor observes, Joy (Nicola Coughlan) seems to have been almost ironically named. She presents a cheerful front, but it's entirely unconvincing. The Doctor takes the measure of her hotel room and describes it as "the worst, loneliest, saddest hotel room in the world." She's reluctant to let go of the briefcase because it makes her feel "beautiful." We eventually learn that her sadness is driven by guilt, a feeling that she let her mother down when she was dying.

Anita: The Doctor's companion during his year of normal life. Anita notices him glancing at the telephone and realizes that he's keeping himself from calling someone. When he tells her about Ruby, stating that he won't call because he needs to let her get on with her life, Anita relates: "You and me, letting people get on with their lives." She and the Doctor share "chair time," in which they talk in his room once a week, and they both eventually admit that it's their favorite time of each week. Steph de Walley is very good, and the genuine-seeming friendship between the Doctor and Anita became my favorite part of the episode; I wouldn't have minded one bit if the entire episode had been about that.

Trev: A security guard at the Time Hotel, he meets the Doctor when he's getting milk. Trev tries to stop him, because the refreshments are exclusively intended for guests - and, true to form, the Doctor responds by flashing his psychic paper and enlisting him to follow the man with the suitcase. We never learn much about his life, but he gets a revealing line early on. He promises to help the Doctor and adds, simultaneously amusingly and sadly: "This is going to be the very least I've ever let anybody down."


THOUGHTS:

Joy to the World is a Steven Moffat script, and as with last season's Boom, his era echoes strongly. There's a high concept in the hotel whose doors all open to other time periods. There's the idea of the Doctor not necessarily liking himself, prevalent during Matt Smith's tenure and recycled here in a bit in which the Doctor meets and berates his future self. Oh, and that scene itself is a direct lift from Moffat's Space/Time skit.

As you'd expect in a setting like "The Time Hotel," games are played with chronology. The teaser shows four different periods, each a vignette featuring characters living in those times, with the final setting being Joy's room. The episode then rewinds, showing the events leading up to this from the Doctor's viewpoint. Lest the opening vignettes be dismissed as just some additional color, the climax and epilogue rope these same characters back in, utilizing elements of each in a way that's clever while building momentum. All that's missing to make this 2010 again is the Eleventh Doctor's theme music.

The story moves fast, with plenty of frantic activity. This makes the roughly ten-minute sequence with the Doctor and Anita stand out all the more, because it's the one point when the episode stops. The Doctor is forced to wait before he can return to the big threat, leading to a mini-episode within the episode. The pace slows, the focus narrows to the quiet friendship between two lonely people, and the writing and acting creates a real sense of attachment. Their final conversation feels all the more authentically emotional for its muted tone, and it moved me more than the "big" moments in the episode's Third Act.

The script offers a recurring theme of characters who feel that they've let others down. Trev promises not to let the Doctor down, alluding to a sense that he feels he's disappointed others in the past. Joy feels that she let her mother down, which makes her particularly vulnerable to the briefcase's effects. When the Doctor leaves Anita, he tries to slip away to avoid dealing with emotional fallout, which disappoints but does not surprise her. When he meets his future self, he takes himself to task for being aloof and secretive: "That's why everyone leaves you, that's why you are always alone!"

The big emotional moment at the end doesn't connect for me, with the emotional manipulations a little too on-the-nose for me. Still, the script puts in the work so that it feels thematically cohesive with the rest of the episode. Because of that, the ending works well enough to avoid a letdown at the end of an entertaining hour. I can appreciate how it fits with the story well enough to forgive that it doesn't actually move me.


OVERALL:

Had I shared that ending emotion, I would easily award Joy to the World a "9." It's a thematically cohesive episode that moves fast and has fun playing with its "time hotel" concept. It also successfully switches both pace and tone for the ten-minute Doctor/Anita sequence, which stands distinct from the main episode and yet still fits with the larger story.

Most of the humor lands, and enough of the emotional moments work that I can't begrudge the couple that didn't. Even though I wasn't moved by the ending, I'd still label this as one of the series' better Christmas episodes.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

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#9 (1.8): Empire of Death.

Ruby presents a gift to Sutekh. Too bad it's not a better script.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 54 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Jamie Donoughue. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

Sutekh has returned to spread his "gift of death" to the entire universe. The centuries that have passed since the 4th Doctor defeated him in 1911 have only made him stronger. He's engulfed the TARDIS, feeding off its energy like a giant tick, and his minions spread his "dust of death" across all of time and space to extinguish all life in the universe.

The Doctor, Ruby, and Mel escape by using the Memory TARDIS in UNIT's Time Window. Now it's up to them to find a way to stop Sutekh and restore the universe. A tall order, since they only have access to a barely functioning "deathtrap" of a time machine, but the Doctor has it in hand. After all, he's able to convince a survivor (Sian Clifford) to let him have her spoon.


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor howling at the dying universe echoes another moment in this season: His cry of frustration and helplessness at the end of Dot and Bubble. But, much like Empire of Death itself, it mainly serves to remind me of a much better episode. His cry in Dot and Bubble felt organic: a raw reaction to an act of self-destruction that was based on pure irrationality. This howl? It's hollow artifice, a good actor doing his level best to try to lend some weight to a CGI apocalypse that we already know will be undone in the next half hour.

Ruby: The "Time Window" image of her birth mother is the key to the plot, such as it is. Just as she and the Doctor are unable to see the image of the woman's face, so is Sutekh, and he becomes obsessed with discovering this stranger's identity. Ruby gets a decent character scene when she refuses to allow the Doctor to blame himself for Sutekh's actions. That scene, and Ruby's brief but well-scripted encounter with Sutekh, allow Millie Gibson to show some of the talent we saw in the midseason, though this episode's Ruby remains more of a plot device than a character.

Mel: She gets a good moment early on, when she hauls the Doctor to her scooter to make an escape and declares that the only thing they can do now is fight. After that... Well, a little too much like in her actual tenure as a regular, she's reduced to a combination of Plot Device and Spare Part. Bonnie Langford continues to make the most of the little bits she gets, such as when an exhausted Mel remarks that her time in the TARDIS was the best time of her life - but for the first time since her return, those moments don't ultimately add up to much.

Sutekh: Gabriel Woolf returns to voice Sutekh, the villain he so memorably brought to life in Pyramids of Mars. Woolf's deep, rich tones are still a perfect fit for the God of Death. The characterization is... less good. Sutekh has been watching all season, and he's apparently gotten really invested in the mystery of Ruby's mother. This leads to him sparing the Doctor and Ruby; his goal may be the death of everything, but he's not about to let things end on a cliffhanger! I'm of two minds about Sutekh's CGI redesign. It does feel like a modernized extrapolation of the original design, and there is something effective about the way he hangs over the TARDIS. On the other hand, "New Sutekh" looks like he should be a Dark Souls boss, which further emphasizes the artificiality pervading this episode.


THOUGHTS:

When basically the entire recurring cast was vaporized within the first five minutes, it was obvious that this was headed for a bright red reset button. This doesn't have to mean disaster. Star Trek: Voyager's Year of Hell was a reset button episode, but it also made good use of that show's regular cast, showing both their vulnerability and their resilience in the face of a horrible situation.

Empire of Death doesn't do this. It pretends to, with the Doctor talking at the end about how much he's learned and Millie Gibson's Ruby trotting out her "holding back a sob" voice a few times too many for it to remain effective. But the attempts at emotion end up feeling like some sort of processed emotion substitute, something to sell in a convenience store in a blue-and-red tin.

The script doesn't so much build to a climax as arrive there after a collection of scenes. There's a callback to the malevolent Prime Minister from 73 Yards, but it seems to exist solely to have a callback. The whole bit just left me wishing I was rewatching that excellent episode instead of this dross.

The Doctor and Ruby ultimately outwit Sutekh by yanking something out of the Memory Nether Regions, which only works because in addition to being the God of Death, Sutekh is also the God of Stupidity. And I'm left reflecting that even though I've yet to listen to the character's audio return with Big Finish, I have no doubt that it was better done than this - largely because it had to be.


ONE GREAT SCENE:

The episode does manage to deliver one great scene. After the first Act, with Sutekh having unleashed his "gift of death" on the universe, there's a quiet exchange between the Doctor and a woman (Sian Clifford) on the remains of her planet. Clifford is excellent in this scene, conveying a certain serene weariness. She cannot remember her name, but she clings to fragments - an infant daughter, a husband whom she remembers was "tall," an opera house. She smiles at the Doctor's "kind face." This scene also sees Ncuti Gatwa's best acting of the episode, his Doctor compassionate and patient in his interactions with her.

This one scene keeps me from giving this episode an absolute rock bottom score - but it also makes the emptiness of the rest of the show stand out all the more. The soft, sad conversation between the Doctor and the nameless woman left me wanting a story centered around this specific situation... and instead we go right back to the CGI Feast of Sutekh.


OVERALL:

An extended epilogue tries to wring some emotion, and I'll be fair and acknowledge that there are a couple of good lines in this part. But writer Russell T. Davies lays it on a bit too thick for a bit too long, until it ends up feeling as hollow as the rest of it. In the end, I think the episode's defining moment is the Doctor's howl at the end of the First Act: a failed attempt at emotional resonance that collides ineffectually into a computer-generated void of nothingness.

In my review of Dot and Bubble, I reflected that after three excellent episodes in a row, this season was on track to be one of the strongest since the show's 2005 return. I think I jinxed it. Empire of Death is dreadful, easily the worst season finale since Doctor Who's 2005 return. Judged only as an episode, the only thing keeping this from being worse than Space Babies is that one excellent scene between the Doctor and the unnamed woman.

If nothing else, this has given me a newfound appreciation for the merits of The Battle of Ranskoor av Kolos.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

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#8 (1.7): The Legend of Ruby Sunday.

The Doctor investigates Ruby's past - and falls right into an old enemy's trap!

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 46 minutes. Written by: Russell T. Davies. Directed by: Jamie Donoughue. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor comes to UNIT for help in identifying two people: the mysterious woman (Susan Twist) who keeps appearing wherever he and Ruby go, and Ruby's mother. The first is no problem. The woman is Susan Triad, head of S. Triad Technology, and she is preparing to unveil a remarkable piece of new, free technology. All of that would have been more than enough to put her on UNIT's radar, even if her company's name wasn't an obvious anagram for "TARDIS."

For the Doctor, there's one more issue involving this woman, aspects of whom keep appearing throughout time and space. Her name is Susan - a common name, yes, but also the name of his granddaughter!

The mystery of Ruby's origins is more complicated, but Ruby does have a copy of the 2005 CCTV footage from outside the church where she was abandoned. As expected from a twenty year old VHS tape, it's extremely grainy, the details impossible to discern. But with UNIT's technology, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart is confident that they can enhance it enough to see the woman's face.

But as the Doctor observes, memory is time - and whatever force is behind this, it clearly can travel or at least project itself through time. And UNIT's newest scientific advisor (Lenny Rush) feels certain that all of this is a trap!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: This incarnation's emotional openness also leaves him feeling guilt more strongly. He confesses to Kate that he feels like he brings disaster everywhere he goes. This really isn't true - It's more that he tends to arrive just in time to reveal and fight the disaster that would have happened anyway. Still, he can get tunnel vision when he feels close to solving a mystery, which in this episode leads to a moment of carelessness.

Ruby: Despite the episode's title, I think this might be Ruby's weakest showing as a character. She's reduced entirely to a plot device, left to react to events rather than actually doing anything. I suspect it's no coincidence that Millie Gibson, who has been quite good for most of the season, is much worse here as well. If you assume she's putting a little squeak into her voice, often while softly crying "Mum? Mum!", then you really won't be too far off. Given some of the excellent material she received in Boom, Dot and Bubble, and particularly 73 Yards, this is a severe disappointment.

Mel: I'll admit to feeling some pleasure in observing that Bonnie Langford, one-time bane of Doctor Who fandom, gives easily the best performance of the episode. As in The Giggle, Mel retains her Classic Series positivity. Even as she investigates Susan Triad, she reports back to UNIT that the woman is not only human, but actually quite nice. She has absolute faith in the Doctor, reassuring Ruby's mother that she is safe with him. She also refuses to let the Doctor paralyze himself with guilt. When he has a moment of despair, she looks down at him and says: "Finished? Now stop grizzling and fix it!" As with Langford's Big Finish audios, her modern-day television appearances reinforce that neither Langford nor the character brief were the problems with Mel at the time; the writing was.

Carla Sunday: When Ruby comes for the tape, Carla decides that she's going to return with her. To the highly secure, top-secret government installation. To the episode's credit, she at least gets stopped by security, with the Doctor having to intervene for her to be allowed in. Once inside, she... doesn't do much of anything, more or less standing around until the Doctor sends her away again. It's still more than Yasmin Finney's Rose Noble gets to do (Rose's role: Present); but given how much of a point the script makes of Carla going to UNIT, it's odd that she contributes almost nothing to the actual story.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: She was raised on her father's stories of the Doctor; and though she's sometimes clashed with him, she argues against his claim that he brings disaster. She does get angry with him later, when his carelessness puts one of her men in harm's way, and Jemma Redgrave delivers a glare that would make a desert cactus wither. But she still defers to him. When he orders Ruby back to UNIT's Time Window, Ruby asks why - at which point Kate snaps, "You do not question. You move!"


THOUGHTS:

My biggest criticism about The Legend of Ruby Sunday is that it feels mechanical. Everything here revolves around two scenes: the scene in which the Doctor, Ruby, and UNIT look at the night Ruby was abandoned through a "Time Window"; and the big reveal at the end. The rest of the episode is designed to get to those two scenes. I was suitably gripped by the Time Window scene. Still, I can't quite escape the feeling that this central piece of the story amounts to the characters studying a blow-up of an old photo.

On the plus side, Davies and director Jamie Donoughue do a good job of filling the time. The episode establishes a sense of urgency early on, and momentum carries the viewer through. The plot amounts to an extended build to the big reveal, but script, performances, and direction do a fine job of making you feel that things are about to go badly wrong.

The reveal itself is a strong scene, particularly for those who watched Doctor Who's original run, and the cliffhanger has me ready for the finale. That said, I've been disappointed with Russell T. Davies's finales more often than not, and that tempers my excitement.


OVERALL:

I'm torn assigning a score, as The Legend of Ruby Sunday is less a story than a lead-in to the next episode. It does a good job with pacing and atmosphere. Ruby, however, is reduced to being little more than a plot device, and the thread involving Carla's visit to UNIT comes to exactly nothing.

The hour goes by quickly, and I wasn't bored. In the end, though, I'm left thinking that my final opinion on this episode is going to very dependent on the success or failure of the next one.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

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#7 (1.6): Rogue.

The Doctor meets - and flirts shamelessly with - a time traveling bounty hunter (Jonathan Groff).

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 44 minutes. Written by: Kate Herron, Briony Redmond. Directed by: Ben Chessell. Produced by: Chris May.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor takes Ruby to 1813 so that they can attend a lavish ball at the Duchess of Pemberton (Indira Varma)'s estate. Ruby enthuses about essentially being in a real-life episode of the TV show Bridgerton, and the pair are having a grand time with the fancy dress and the dances.

Then the Doctor notices the handsome Rogue (Jonathan Groff), standing on a high balcony and surveying the party. Rogue is a bounty hunter from the distant future, and he has mistaken the Doctor for his prey - a Chuldur, an alien shapeshifter. Chuldur adopt the forms of the people they kill - not for any real purpose, but just to enjoy "the dance, the drama, the emotion... It's cosplay!"

The Doctor convinces Rogue of his true identity, and the two agree to work together to trap the alien. But there's more than one Chuldur at this party, and the time travelers quickly find themselves on the run. Meanwhile, the head Chuldur sets its sights on its next victim: Ruby!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He spends most of the episode flirting with Rogue. This is mostly entertaining, their playful banter leading to a handful of amusing moments. A highlight comes when Rogue, still thinking the Doctor is the shapeshifter, traps him in a force field. It's deadlocked (*drink*), so the sonic screwdriver can't deactivate it... and so he shifts to what he can do, including activating the ship's sound system and dancing in place to Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head. Later, comic misunderstandings cleared up, he and Rogue talk about loss. Rogue lost his partner; the Doctor has lost "everybody."

Ruby: This is very much the Doctor/Rogue show, but she still gets some decent moments. She bonds with bookish young Emily (Camilla Aiko), who is distraught after being used and then rejected by caddish Lord Barton (Paul Forman). Ruby's protectiveness toward Emily and disdain for Barton inadvertently draws the attention of the Chuldur, because Ruby "seems so different."

Rogue: The episode's title character is a handsome, morally ambiguous American who works as an intergalactic, time traveling bounty hunter. His technology is advanced enough to deadlock the Doctor's sonic, and he's quick with both quips and flirtation. Meaning, yes, Rogue is exactly one Barrowman away from being Capt. Jack Harkness. Actor Jonathan Groff helps to counter the familiar characterization by playing it straight. Where Barrowman was happy to lean into a bit of ham and reflect anything emotional with a shield of glibness, Groff deadpans one-liners while showing hints of emotional vulnerability. The character still feels like a Jack stand-in, though, which I think blunted my response to the episode.


THOUGHTS:

Rogue provides a bit of light relief after the string of heavy episodes that preceded it. There are a couple of emotional beats near the end, including one that wants me to feel a lot more than I actually do. For the most part, though, this is a fun adventure that feels like a bit of silliness before the season-ending two-parter.

The script toys around with the notion of cosplay. Early in the episode, a Chuldur who's disguised as a strait-laced lord is taunted by a cad. After some back-and-forth, the Chuldur declares of the cad: "You gamble, have affairs, you're an absolute snake. Meanwhile, I'm all noble and serious... I'd rather be you." The Chuldur proceeds to make good on that, claiming first the cad's life and then his identity - simply because playing him will be a lot more fun.

That's all the Chuldur are there for: Fun. They're at the ball to soak up the atmosphere: "The dance, the drama, the emotion!" This is pretty much the exact same reason that the Doctor and Ruby are there. Ruby spends her first scene giggling about this being like a real-life Bridgerton episode, and she's quick to pass herself off as "Lady Ruby Sunday of the Notting Hill Estates." The Doctor even feels the need to remind her not to do anything to accidentally change history.

The real focus of the episode is not on the monster, but on the interactions between the Doctor and Rogue. Most of this is entertaining. Like most single episode romances, it moves too quickly, but writers Kate Herron and Briony Redmond are careful not to push things past internal credibility. The Doctor and Rogue have fun together and are interested in getting to know each other better, and there's a spark that could lead to something more - but their interactions ultimately amount to a very good (if unconventional) first date.

The episode tries to take a more serious turn near the end - and that's the part that ends up not working for me. When Ruby is put in jeopardy, the Doctor responds with a dark anger that is well-played by Gatwa... but I don't feel it the way I sometimes did with the 11th and 12th Doctors, because these villains don't feel worthy of this response. The Chuldur work when played for laughs, but they don't convey menace. I never believe that Ruby is actually in danger, and so the climactic standoff falls just a bit flat.

The same is true of the ending. The Doctor may be affected by events, but I'm left at a distance. One of Doctor Who's strengths is its ability turn on a dime between silly and serious. But this episode doesn't quite pull that off, at least not for me. As a result, I'm left with a disconnect, unable to make myself feel any of what the episode clearly wants me to.


OVERALL:

Rogue is at its best when it sticks to being lightweight fun. The first two thirds are played as a light period monster piece, and both the bits with the Childur and the flirting between the Doctor and Rogue are enormously enjoyable. But when it tries to shift to something more seriously emotional, I just don't end up feeling it.

It's still a decent entertainment. This is one occasion, though, in which I wish the writers had just stuck to lighthearted fun and left attempts at heavy drama to other episodes.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

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