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| 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 as 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.
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Next Story: Wish World (not yet reviewed)
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