An Hour of Who a Day: August 25: "The Tsuranga Conundrum"

August 25: "The Tsuranga Conundrum"

After getting hit by a sonic mine on a junk planet, the Doctor and company arrive on a hospital ship (although, slightly oddly, the Doctor keeps thinking it's a building rather than a ship -- maybe she's seen hospitals that look like this?) run by an organization called Tsuranga, where their injuries are treated. But while in flight, the ship is intercepted by a dangerous alien that threatens to destroy them all...

I know that a lot of people have been rather down on this episode (it was the least favorite on the recent Doctor Who Magazine season survey, for instance -- although they didn't list the average scores this time around, so we don't know how far down the scale this actually was for people), but it's not clear why. I mean, fine, it's not the most exciting episode ever, but I feel like it does a good job at what it sets out to do.

Continuing the traditional theme a bit, this time around we get a base-under-siege tale, the last one since, well, "The Doctor Falls", I suppose (although you could probably make an argument that last time was also a base-under-siege tale). But this time around, almost uniquely for Doctor Who, the threat isn't a monster trying to kill the people inside or hijack the ship or anything like that. Instead it's just an alien lifeform that was attracted to a food source: a food source that just happens to be keeping everyone alive. The Pting is incredibly dangerous because it has toxic skin and it feeds off of energy, but it has no malicious intent.²⁸⁶ It's a conscious effort to show that, while aliens can be deadly, they're not necessarily evil. (Between this and the spiders last week, it sometimes feels like Chris Chibnall is trying to make up for the rampant xenophobia that characterized much of the two seasons of Torchwood that he showran.) And once again we get some educational content, with the Doctor and Yaz talking about the particle accelerator running the ship and comparing it to CERN. And the design of the ship is pleasingly old-school as well, with gleaming white walls everywhere.

Actually, that leads to something worth bringing up. Chibnall has been making an effort to bring the show back to its roots, with a TARDIS crew of four and more educational bits thrown in. There's also a concerted attempt to make the Doctor seem more like she's clever, working things out as they come up, rather than a know-it-all -- witness how she's never heard of the Pting before, for instance. (Although she has participated in events around this time, as the Book of Celebrants stuff makes clear, so she's not a complete novice in the 67th century.) In some ways this is a welcome change, bringing the Doctor back in line with how he/she's been for the majority of the show. However, because Chibnall needs to take the time to establish everything, to show that things are different from how they were in Russell T Davies' or Steven Moffat's eras, it sometimes comes across almost as playing it safe, as if the fact that the Doctor is now a woman means we need to make everything around her more traditional, as if to make it clear this is indeed the same character and the same show as before. It doesn't intrude hugely on things, and I doubt it's intentional (since in some ways it's more about Chibnall introducing the old way of doing things to a generation of fans who don't know the show can still work like that), but it is lurking in the background a bit.

But honestly, this episode is quite enjoyable. It helps that all the characters are reasonably likable -- even Ronan, the android consort of General Eve Cicero, is all right, and he's the one kind of designed to be unlikable. But David Shields plays against it a bit, so that while Ronan is uptight, it's out of concern for the general rather than because he's a jobsworth. They're all so pleasant, in fact, that it's a genuine surprise that Astos, the more experienced medic, dies fairly early on in the episode, as he'd been building up a genuine rapport with the Doctor. And Jodie Whittaker continues to be great as the Doctor; her enthusiasm at the antimatter drive, or her disappointment after the Pting absorbs the energy in her sonic screwdriver, is so much fun. And again we get the sense that this Doctor is more willing to stop and observe customs, to pause and reflect upon those who've died -- look at how she asks if she can also incant with Ronan and Durkas Cicero in remembrance of Eve and her sacrifice for them all. Or consider how she tries to reassure the inexperienced medic, Mabli, and makes an effort to bolster her confidence. This is a Doctor who truly cares and is willing to demonstrate that.

Now, admittedly, Yoss, the pregnant Gifftan male, is a bit ancillary to the main plot. (Maybe this is what people objected to about this story? And incidentally, why did Chibnall think it was a good idea to name a character Yoss while there's a Yaz around?) He's mainly there to add a little extra stakes/drama to the proceedings. But the benefit of this is that it gives us some opportunities to learn more about Ryan and Graham and their relationship -- particularly as Yoss is planning on giving up his son after he's born, which leads Ryan to reflect about how his own dad left. "He's the same age as me dad must have been when he had me," Ryan tells Yaz. "Same age as I am now. I never really thought about it like that. I wouldn't be able to cope having a kid now. ... He ducked out when I needed him. He's like a... a gap in my life. Even at Nan's funeral..." But as Ryan and Graham help Yoss with his delivery, there's a sense of the two of them starting to bond a bit more, even if Ryan won't return Graham's proffered fist bump.

Of course, this does mean that Yaz fades into the background a bit. This has actually been an ongoing issue this series; it's not that she gets nothing to do (she's not forced to crawl around ductwork for a story while the real plot happens elsewhere, like Tegan and Turlough in Terminus, for instance), and she definitely gets some fun moments with the Doctor in this story, but it frequently feels like she gets ignored a little bit, in favor of the Ryan and Graham relationship. Now part of this might be because Bradley Walsh continually excels as Graham, giving beautifully nuanced performances (watch how he interacts with Ben Bailey-Smith as Durkas, after he catches Durkas trying to hack into his sister's medical records) and being possibly the most relatable of the regulars. It's also the case that they've been giving Walsh lots of character moments for him and Ryan. But Mandip Gill doesn't get paired with Bradley Walsh that much, and so we don't get as much character development from Yaz as we have from Graham and Ryan. It's not an overwhelming concern, at least not yet, but it doesn't really help the argument in favor of having four regulars.

But this isn't meant to be a complaint about this story, just a general observation. I dunno, when I finished watching "The Tsuranga Conundrum" I had a smile on my face. It's not perhaps the most exciting threat, although the Pting itself is well-handled (and I like how they find a way to simply get it off the ship, rather than killing it). But I don't know that I ever felt cheated by the events in the episode; it's not like the neuropilot stuff or even the auto-destruct thing (which is with the "three strikes" thing perhaps the most arbitrary of the problems we're presented with here) comes out of left field, and it always feels like there's a natural reason for things to be there. But ultimately I think it's the relationships and interactions with the characters that really sell it for me; these are people I wouldn't mind spending more time with. I wouldn't be surprised if opinions of this story go up in the future; it's a pleasant, fun tale.

²⁸⁶ Curiously, the credits list the Pting as created by screenwriter Tim Price, rather than Chibnall -- a move usually made when a returning creation is credited, not for a brand-new one.