#16 (2.6): The Interstellar Song Contest.

A terrorist takes control of the Interstellar Song Contest.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 47 minutes. Written by: Juno Dawson. Directed by: Ben A. Williams. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor needs one last Vindicator reading to break through the barrier to reach May 24, 2025. This  brings him and Belinda come to Harmony Station, a space station in the distant future. It is the site of the Interstellar Song Contest, hosted by a cryogenically preserved Rylan Clark (as himself) - leading the Doctor and Belinda to instantly decide to stay and enjoy the show.

Something is happening in the control room. Hellion terrorist Kid (Freddie Fox) and his accomplice, Wynn (Iona Anderson), have taken over, determined to use the broadcast to take revenge against the corporation that devastated their home planet. They open up the arena's dome, sucking everybody in the main area out into space - including the Doctor!

Belinda manages to get out in time, along with contestant Cora Saint Bavier (Miriam-Teak Lee) and her tech-savvy assistant, Len (Akemnji Ndifomyen). She believes the Doctor is dead. However, thanks to his physiology, he is able to retain consciousness and find a way back onto the station. He connects with two other survivors, engineer Gary (Charlie Condou) and his husband Mike (Kadiff Kirwan), a medic. With their somewhat befuddled assistance, the Doctor sets to work thwarting Kid's plans.

Kid has already moved onto the next stage of his operation - and if he succeeds, it will mean the deaths of every one of the more than 3 trillion people watching!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He's delighted to see Belinda truly enjoying herself at long last. His joy turns to ash when he believes that she's dead. He blames himself, noting that he had taken on the role of her protector. He blames Kid even more. His anger comes to the surface when he finally talks to his adversary over the intercom, with him threatening Kid in a decidedly un-Doctorish fashion. When he's reunited with Belinda, his anger recedes, but it doesn't fully go away, with him warning his vanquished foe: "You have put ice in my heart... I think it'll be there forever now. So you take care."

Belinda: She spends the first part of the episode staring at the show like a wide-eyed little girl, and she shares with the Doctor chidlhood memories of staying up to watch Eurovision with her parents. After the disaster, she melts down, dissolving because she has no idea where she is and she knows that she isn't up to solving this kind of problem. When she hears the Doctor's voice on the intercom, you can see the wave of relief pass through her - replaced by horror at his rage. Her gasp of, "That's not the Doctor," recalls the line from Face the Raven, when a furious Twelfth Doctor shouted, "The Doctor is no longer here, you're stuck with me!"

"Kid": When Nina (Kiruna Stamell), the director of the contest, calls him a monster, he sneers back: "That's what people have said to me my whole life... I'm only doing the things you expect of me." His resentment is valid. We see that Hellions face rampant discrimination, and we learn that their world was devastated by the Evil Corporation (TM) that sponsors the competition. But the Doctor is also right that Kid is a psychopath. The plight of his people gives him an excuse to kill, but he would probably have found a reason for mayhem regardless.

Cora: The singer favored to win the competition, she survives thanks to the surreptitious intervention of Kid's accomplice, Wynn. She is compassionate, doing all she can to help Belinda come to grips with her situation. She also hides a secret, one that's entirely predictable but that does help the plot to fit snugly within its running time.

Mrs. Flood: I mostly haven't mentioned her ongoing appearances, because those amount to Russell T. Davies winking and nudging at the audience that something will eventually be done with her. Over the course of two seasons, I've started to find her quick cameos to be slightly annoying, as RTD's past form guaranteed that no actual information would be forthcoming until just before the finale. This episode is just before the finale, though, so it's now time for the big reveal - which I'm afraid I found to be the worst scene in the episode, though I'm sure many fans were excited by it.


THOUGHTS:

Juno Dawson, who had written the 13th Doctor novel The Good Doctor and the podcast series, Doctor Who: Redacted, graduates to television with this episode. The brief for it was reportedly, "Die Hard meets Eurovision," and it sticks closely to the Die Hard template. This is no bad thing, as it provides a reliable structure to create tension and to keep the pace moving.

This episode moves fast. The setting allows for multiple musical numbers, mostly glimpsed in the background on the broadcast as the characters try to thwart Kid's plans. Dawson's script manages a few effective tonal shifts: Belinda's wide-eyed wonder mixed with nostalgia as she watches the competition while recalling her childhood; then terror during the disaster spectacle of the spectators and contestants being pulled, screaming, into outer space; then a funny set piece involving the Doctor's unique conveyance back to the station; and finally to the Doctor's rage at Kid, which becomes genuinely unsettling. One of the strengths of Doctor Who is its ability to shift on a dime from silly to serious and back again, and this episode does that repeatedly.

For most of its running time, I was planning to give this an "8." It's consistently entertaining, with excellent character scenes for both the Doctor and Belinda and a good use of a reliable story template. There's only one problem: the last Act feels rushed.

The Doctor's confrontation with Kid ranks among Gatwa's best individual scenes in the role. But he gets there too easily. After his intercom conversation with Kid, the Doctor doesn't face any serious threat or obstacle. Kid sends two robots, which the Doctor disables with his Sonic Screwdriver without even looking up from what he's doing, and... that's it. I think the episode needs one last Thing for him to overcome in order to build more tension, and that Thing simply isn't there.

What is there is more "arc stuff" packed in at the end. This is the last standalone episode of the season before the 2-part finale - and as with The Robot Revolution, I'm left wondering whether the individual story was weakened in order to make room for setup. The Doctor defeats Kid with several minutes still remaining. A few of those minutes are devoted to tidying up loose ends. Then we get The Big Reveal, a scene that goes on a bit too long and that is clearly meant to get us excited for the season ender.


AN EXCELLENT SEASON - WITH SOME APPREHENSION FOR THE END:

I liked this episode on its own, and I've been impressed by this season. I've enjoyed 5 of the 6 episodes (I absolutely loved The Story and the Engine). Even the one that underwhelmed me, The Robot Revolution, wasn't so much bad as a bit slapdash. Ncuti Gatwa, whose performance was already good, has been outstanding this season, and I find Verada Sethu's Belinda to be a better foil for his Doctor than Millie Gibson's Ruby (and I liked Ruby).

As of this point, I'd rank this as my favorite of Russell T. Davies' Doctor Who seasons, and I think I'll hold to that regardless of the finale. As for why I'm choosing to make this statement here, just before the ending two-parter... well, that's because my expectations for the finale are lower than the floor of the Grand Canyon at its deepest point.

I was rarely a fan of RTD's finales even in his first go-around, and I thought last season's Empire of Death was abysmal - and that wasn't burdened with unexpected last-minute reshoots. I wish I was excited for the last two episodes. But if I'm honest, I expect a repeat of last year, with the final shows caving in on themselves.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Story: The Story and the Engine
Next Story: Wish World (not yet reviewed)

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#15 (2.5): The Story and the Engine.

The Barber (Ariyon Bakare) goads the Doctor into telling a story.

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 46 minutes. Written by: Inua Ellams. Directed by: Makalla McPherson. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

The Doctor comes to Lagos, Nigeria to visit Omo (Sule Rimi), an old friend who runs a barber shop. Even before he reaches the shop, he can sense that something's wrong. The street outside is deserted, adorned with "Missing Persons" flyers and signs warning people to turn back. Inside the shop, he finds all the missing people and Omo, but none of them can leave. They are prisoners of "The Barber" (Ariyon Bakare), a mysterious figure who has taken control.

The Barber's technology allows them to exist in two places at once, Lagos and outer space, where his engine propels them toward a destination. The engine is powered by stories, the stories that Omo and his customers tell while receiving haircuts. After each cut, their hair instantly grows back so that they can continue feeding the engine.

Omo offers up the Doctor to his captor in hopes of freeing himself and his customers. Because after all, who has more stories than an immortal traveler in time and space?


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: I think this is Ncuti Gatwa's single best performance as the Doctor. He is nothing short of magnetic from start to finish. He stands up to the Barber and tries to rally the others against him, declaring in the style of a defiant protest leader: "We will leave here!" When the Barber declares his power, the Doctor responds by laughing and poking holes in his claims. He reacts with genuine emotional pain at Oma's betrayal of him. He reveals to Belinda that, in this regeneration, people in certain places and times respond very differently to him than to his white predecessors... but not at Oma's shop. "I'm accepted. I'm able to forget. We... laugh, we tell stories." Oma didn't merely use him - he took away a place the Doctor has thought of as a home.

Belinda: "Hurt people hurt people... The difference between good and evil is what we do with that pain." When her story gets told (by the Doctor instead of her, one of the few nitpicks I have), we see her compassion and dedication to helping others, with her sacrificing her grandmother's birthday in order to save an old woman from what would likely have been a fatal misdiagnosis (in a blatant tipoff that this is science fiction, the hospital doctor actually listens to a nurse telling him that he's wrong). She has no time for the Barber's self-justifications, loudly dismissing his actions as motivated by ego.

Omo: Omo is not in any way a bad man. He genuinely cares about the Doctor, and his guilt at betraying his friend is tangible. At his core, he's likable, as are his customers. When the Doctor realizes that he's been used, the entire group gangs up on him to drag him to the barber's chair to fuel the engine... and the scene is all the more effective precisely because these aren't evil people - They're just desperate.

Abena: The Barber's assistant, Abena (Michelle Asante) is devoted to seeing him achieve his ends. Despite her closeness to their captor, the customers see her as a savior, because she treats them nicely while bringing them food from the outside. Abena resents the Doctor, and we eventually learn that in a prior incarnation, the Doctor abandoned her to a life that she hated. She truly believes that she's serving the greater good by helping the Barber, insisting that when he gains power he will rule with wisdom and justice. 

The Barber: Ariyon Bakare is a compelling presence, the rage that's simmered for centuries visible in his eyes as he glares. He speaks and moves with slow deliberation, the low pitch of his voice adding weight to each syllable. There's a scene in which the Barber tells his story twice: first a lie, as he moves to center stage and loudly proclaims himself to be gods such as Dionysis, Loki, and Anansi while cutting his own locks and dropping the hair deliberately to the ground. Then, after the Doctor calls out his lie, he slumps against a wall and tells the truth, in a quiet whisper that's every bit as captivating. There are multiple moments, including this one, in which he becomes almost sympathetic, mainly because his anger is understandable, which makes him all the more fearsome as a villain.


THOUGHTS:

"It does not matter what I am called. It matters who I am, what I do... I begin all things. I am the voice in the empty void. I am the spark, the seed, the dark nucleus, the lie that tells the truth... And this, Doctor, this is my domain."
-the Barber traps the Doctor for the power of his stories.

A glance across the web tells me that The Story and the Engine is a divisive story, with no shortage of people both singing its praises and sneering at it as pretentious and dull. I fall firmly on the side of those that loved it. I think it's my favorite of Ncuti Gatwa's run.

Just like the engine, this narrative is carried by the stories the various characters tell, both in and out of the barber's chair. The teaser is arresting, as Oma tells the story of how he first met the Doctor, with stylized images similar to those in a published version of a folk tale appearing on the glass as he speaks. The Doctor's only story when he's in the barber's chair is about Belinda, emphasizing the importance of an ordinary life. When he sits again, it's for Abena's tale, a story of defiance in the face of oppression.

Just as crucial are the stories told away from the chair. Right after the credits, the Doctor tells Belinda about his love for the shop. The Barber first lies about his origins, then tells the truth. Abena and the Doctor shared a past moment in which their separate stories intersected. Oma and his customers relate the parts of their lives they're missing as they remain trapped in the shop, from the athlete who came for a haircut before a relay race to the father who was getting a trim for his child's naming ceremony. These individual little stories are bound together by the setting and the themes, the strong individual moments each forming part of a hypnotic whole.

The episode is also visually beautiful. The illustrations on the glass would be worth publishing in themselves. Not only are they good art, they vary in tone according to each story. Oma's is like the illustrations of a book of folk tales. When the Barber tells his untrue tale, the images are ominous, threatening. The strength of the Doctor's storytelling is reflected by the glass showing moving images rather than static drawings.

Memorable images aren't restricted to "money shots," but also include simple two-shots and close-ups: the Barber urging the Doctor to tell a story while wielding the clippers like a weapon; Oma, sitting in the chair as he tells his story; the Doctor, loudly defying this self-proclaimed god with the others visible in frame behind him; the Barber, glaring balefully in one shot and staring exhaustedly into space in another. Not to mention a close-up of a haircut that is artful both visually and narratively as it transitions to the next scene. It feels as if each moment has been precisely composed to maximize impact.


OVERALL:

I could nitpick a few things. I really wish Belinda sat in the chair to tell her own story, rather than the Doctor telling it for her, and there's some questionable continuity regarding the Doctor's memories of Abena. But these don't lower my score, because I was too swept away.

I loved this episode. I found it a brilliant testament the the power of storytelling, both oral and visual. Time seemed to stop while I was watching, and I was left feeling transported not only by the narrative, but by the multiple smaller stories inside of it.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Story: Lucky Day
Next Story: The Interstellar Song Contest

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#14 (2.4): Lucky Day.

Ruby Sunday has a classic "meet cute" with podcaster Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King).

1 episode. Running Time: Approx. 46 minutes. Written by: Pete McTighe. Directed by: Peter Hoar. Produced by: Vicki Delow.


THE PLOT:

When he was just 8 years old, Conrad Clark (Jonah Hauer-King) had a chance encounter with the Doctor that shaped his life. He later observed the Doctor again, this time alongside his companion Ruby Sunday, as the two stopped a threat from "The Shreek," a creature that marks its prey so that it can hunt it down in the future - and on that occasion, the Shreek marked Conrad.

Now the host of a podcast about extraterrestrials, Conrad arranges an interview with Ruby. She's been struggling to adjust to a normal life after her time with the Doctor, and she's charmed by this awkward but kind young man. After he tells her about the Shreek, she arranged for UNIT to give him an antidote, so that he need never worry about the creatures again.

Conrad and Ruby begin dating, and one weekend he invites her to his hometown to meet his friends. While enjoying drinks at a pub, Ruby notices the lights flickering, which is one of the early warnings of the Shreek's approach. This should be impossible - Not only is the creature in UNIT's custody, they would only be tracking them if Conrad hadn't drunk the antidote.

Then Conrad reveals that he did not drink the liquid - a mistake that appears to have put him, Ruby, and his friends all in imminent danger!


CHARACTERS:

The Doctor: He makes an indelible impression on young Conrad simply by materializing the TARDIS in front of him. He's kind to the boy, giving him a coin and telling him that it's his lucky day before leaving again as quickly as he came. He has three appearances in the episode, and all of them happen "out of order" from his perspective: He meets young Conrad while taking another Vindicator reading with Belinda; his second scene is, from his perspective, well before that, when he was traveling with Ruby shortly after the events of The Devil's Chord; and his final one is set between seasons, when he was traveling alone.

Ruby Sunday: She's been struggling with PTSD since leaving the Doctor. Conrad appears to be just what she needs: a simple nice guy who's supportive and willing to listen. She's appalled when he reveals that he didn't take the Shreek antidote, and she's quick to take charge when the pub comes under siege. Millie Gibson's last two episodes as a regular were also her worst, with weak scripts that resulted in generic performances. Lucky Day gives her much stronger material, allowing her to show restlessness, fear, happiness, and anger. It's a reminder of how good she can be when she's actually given something to work with.

Belinda: She's present only for the opening scene, in which she's still anxious to return home. The Doctor introduces her to child Conrad, which results in a closed circle when adult Conrad asks the Doctor about Belinda when he hasn't yet met her - which might =be the reason that he was searching for her at the start of The Robot Revolution.

Conrad: Jonah Hauer-King presents Conrad as instantly likable: just nervous and insecure enough to be appealing without seeming clingy or useless. We know early on that he's not telling Ruby everything about himself. He presents his relationship with his dead mother as a positive one, while the opening indicated that his mother was abusive and cruel... though in fairness, that's not something you're likely to bring up on a first date. These tidbits, his insecurity and the past that we glimpse at the episode's start, make it believable that he would engage in an ill-conceived effort to be fearless for Ruby.

Kate Lethbridge-Stewart: When Ruby calls her with her worries about the Shreek, she takes her concerns seriously, running a check both on the power grid and on the Shreek that she has confined. When both come up clean, she gently suggests that Ruby is "constantly on alert" (read: paranoid), and she manages to make the observation sound kind rather than judgment. She expresses concerns that the UK ministers would be only too happy to turn on UNIT, and she worries about the organization's technology leaking out if that happens. Jemma Redgrave gets possibly her series-best scene near the end, when Kate grows grim and angry while dealing with the mess of this situation.


THOUGHTS:

I managed not to be spoiled for The Well, which enhanced my enjoyment of that very good episode. Lucky Day is also a good episode... but unfortunately, this time I was spoiled about the big reveal. Ah, well: Such are the perils of waiting on new episodes until after the full season has dropped.

I enjoyed Lucky Day. It does a good job of playing with expectations. The opening deliberately echoes Love & Monsters, with Conrad - like that episode's Elton - encountering the TARDIS by chance and even stretching out his fingers toward the door before observing the end of an unseen adventure involving the Shreek. Like that episode's Elton, his brief encounters with the Doctor have clearly shaped his life - though Conrad has turned his enthusiasm into a podcast rather than joining a fan group.

All of this, and his amusingly clumsy "meet cute" with Ruby, prime us to like him even before the main story properly gets going. The point-of-view then shifts to Ruby and her difficulties with normal life. This also works, with us seeing her relax and enjoy herself again with Conrad as her family cheers her on. All of which builds effectively to the weekend, with the tone turning darker as the lights flicker and the first glimpses are caught of the monster outside...

The second half makes one more switch in viewpoint, with Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT taking center stage as the story moves toward its conclusion. I could gripe that UNIT's security appears to be poor enough to qualify them for service on the starship Enterprise, but I can handwave that because the story remains engrossing. The climax is effective, as Kate takes actions that she knows and states the Doctor would disapprove of in order to neutralize the threat, and Jemma Redgrave is outstanding when Kate shows her full fury. With the story resolved, I was preparing to award a strong "8."

...And then came the Doctor's third appearance. I like the idea that an offhand remark from Conrad accidentally guides the Doctor to find Belinda, essentially setting the stage for the entire season. I'm less fond of the scene's centerpiece: a heavy-handed speech in which the Doctor lays out The Moral of the Story. I appear to be in the minority in not liking the speech. It's good as a speech, and I agree with almost every word ... but the episode's themes had already been conveyed by Kate and Ruby. This is pure heavy-handedness, hammering it home on the theory that we're too dumb to have gotten the point.

Since I don't particular enjoy being lectured, even when I agree with the lecture, this was enough for me to deduct one point from my final score - leaving Lucky Day still at a solid...


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Story: The Well
Next Story: The Story and the Engine

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#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

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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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