An Hour of Who a Day

September 2: Spyfall Part Two

Having laid into the Bond theme pretty heavily last time, this episode shifts gears somewhat; it's as if the presence of the revealed Master changes the direction of the story. And while the Doctor has been pulled into the realm of the aliens (the Kasaavin, we subsequently learn), Ryan, Yaz, and Graham are stuck on the crashing airplane. The way out of it for them is fun though, with the instructions ready for Ryan scattered throughout the plane. It's also a relatively clever way to get our heroes out of their jam. (And it made me think of the seventh Doctor story Battlefield and the Doctor's instructions to himself, although "Blink" might be a more likely antecedent.)

Promotional photo for Spyfall Part Two (from BBC One - Doctor Who,
Spyfall: Part Two Gallery ©BBC)

But honestly, although the companions' plotline helps advance the story in certain ways (even if it's a bit reminiscent at times of "The Sound of Drums"), it's the Doctor's side of things that's the more engaging half. Having the Doctor meet Ada Lovelace in the weird realm and then appear in 1834 is really interesting, and it helps give the episode a shot of energy -- especially when the Master shows up, his TARDIS having detected that the Doctor has moved from 2020.²⁹¹ Sacha Dhawan excels at being a gleefully murderous, insane Master -- Missy is probably closest in terms of previous Master characterizations, but even she didn't go as far as the Master does here, essentially killing out of spite. "When I kill them, Doctor, it gives me a little buzz. Right here, in the hearts," he says. The sparks between him and the Doctor just fly -- especially the moment where the Master orders her to kneel and call him "Master"; there's such a charge of energy between the two of them (and I love how Jodie Whittaker gives a little eyeroll before both kneeling and saying "Master").

But it's also nice to see that, while Spyfall has been leaning a bit more RTD/Moffat than anything really in series 11, we still get some of the educational moments that were peppered throughout that season. Here it's information on Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage, a bit (although the episode seems to just assume the audience either already knows about the Difference Engine or will be inclined to look it up), as well as about Noor Inayat Khan, the first female wireless operator to be sent into occupied France during World War II (though they don't mention the part where she's later captured by the Germans and executed at Dachau -- but I suppose there's not time to cover everything). The Doctor's interactions with both Ada and Noor are simply wonderful; you get a sense of the respect and awe the Doctor has for the two of them. There's also the nice little speech the Doctor gives, as Ada looks upon war-ravaged Paris: "These are the dark times. But they don't sustain. Darkness never sustains, even though sometimes it feels like it might." (Good advice for our current times as well.) Really, if there's any complaint, it's that meeting Noor actually continues the spy theme established in Part One, but there's a curious lack of emphasis that makes it a bit difficult to realize this is in fact the case. But that's just a minor quibble in a generally excellent part of the episode.

But it's still ultimately the interactions between the Doctor and the Master in 1943 Paris that basically steal the show. I also personally like the little nods to 20th-century Who, such as the four beats in sequence ("The Sound of Drums", although here it's described as the heartbeat of a Time Lord), "Contact" (The Three Doctors), and the little exchange about the events of Logopolis:

DOCTOR: It's cold up here! It's worse than Jodrell Bank.
MASTER: Did I ever apologise for that?
DOCTOR: No.
MASTER: Good.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - Spyfall part 2)

Watching them spar is so entertaining, and listening to the Master explain his convoluted plan (although I can't decide if there's more or less effort and planning involved than in, say, The Mind of Evil or The Time Monster) is great fun. The way the Doctor escapes from the Master (turning off the perception filter that let him pass as a member of the SS, thus revealing he doesn't look like an Aryan archetype) is perhaps a touch cruel, given the actions of the Nazis, but given he'd thrown his lot in with them and we've seen him murdering lots of people, it feels justified.

Noor, the Doctor, and Ava in the Master's TARDIS. (Spyfall Part Two)
©BBC

Really, the only place this episode falls down is the resolution of the villains' plot. Individually, the pieces all make sense: the Kasaavin are interested in computers, so that's why they're tracking them through Earth's history; they're also being used as spies by the Master to help set up his fiendish trap; Daniel Barton is also a computer person and perhaps one who's tired of humanity (as he says in part one, "We did something great, and it got hijacked. I get to see both sides of humanity in this job")... as I said, the pieces make sense on their own, and you can see the thought processes involving computers. It's only when you try to piece it all together that things start to fall apart. Ok, so human DNA can be used to store computer information instead of "how to be human" information -- fine, I guess (although something still feels slightly unworkable about that that I can't quite put my finger on), but why would the Kassavin care about this in the first place? Why are they interested in computers at all? What do they gain from this? Do they really need hard disk space that badly? It doesn't really make sense. (Potential get-out: the Master hints that this was ultimately his plan and that the Kassavin are just happy to go along with it; if that's the case we can probably file this under the same category of plan that required the Master to stand in a field pretending to be a scarecrow until the Doctor happened to walk by (The Mark of the Rani, if you need to be reminded), or to place an elaborate fictional trap location in the TARDIS databanks even though he expects them all to be killed in Event One (Castrovalva).) The ultimate problem is that it's a very unsatisfying resolution, and the fact that all these events have been hinging on something so mundane means that it all feels rather hollow at the end. (And we don't even see Barton get his comeuppance! Last we see he's leaving out the side door, and that's it.)

(Oh, and long as I'm griping a bit: what's with destroying Gallifrey again? Steven Moffat went to such pains to bring it back (successfully, I thought) that it seems a bit churlish to get rid of it again barely a season after he's left, and it also risks creating a yo-yo effect about the place where it's constantly gone and then back and then gone again. But I'll discuss this further when I get to "The Timeless Children".)

But Spyfall isn't the first overall satisfying Doctor Who story to have a wet squib of an ending, and it probably won't be the last. Overall, this is a great ride, with lots of action and fun and one of the most exciting Doctor/Master pairings we've seen yet. Only at the end does it disappoint, and then only a little.

²⁹¹ Contra to the previous footnote under the last entry, this (and the later reveal about Gallifrey) would seem to be evidence that there actually is a Gallifreyan Mean Time, since these events don't really make sense (or at least are much harder to explain) without the idea of a shared personal "present".

September 1, 2020: Spyfall Part One

And we're back! It's been a full year since the last time Doctor Who has been on our TV screens, but the show is back -- not for a Christmas special, but once again for a special New Year's Day premiere. But this isn't just a one-off: instead, we're kicking off the start of series 12 proper, with Part One of Spyfall.

Now, one of the things that marked series 11 was its seeming push toward an older-school approach, and while we get that a bit here (after all, it's our first explicit Part One since 2009!), in some ways this feels like Chibnall loosening up a bit, as if to say, "Now that I've demonstrated that there are other ways to do Doctor Who, here's something more like what you were used to." Because this feels a lot closer to a Steven Moffat season-opener (complete with a pre-titles sequence, Chibnall's first), with lots of globe-trotting and energetic rushing around.

Of course, part of that might be because what Chibnall's really doing (in case the title didn't clue you in) is a take on James Bond, and that necessarily leads to lots of globe-trotting and rushing around. So we get spies around the world being attacked by strange creatures that come out of the walls, while the head of MI6, C (instead of M, but close enough), brings the Doctor and her companions in to brief them on what's going on. C is played by almost-Doctor-Who-writer Stephen Fry, who fills them in just enough before he too is assassinated -- and so it's off to Australia (in reality South Africa again, filling in for all the exotic locales in this two-parter) to meet former MI6 employee O (instead of Q, perhaps?), who was the only MI6 employee to seriously consider the possibility of aliens -- and as agencies such as UNIT and Torchwood are gone (as the Doctor points out), O is the best option that Earth has.

It's nice how Chibnall really goes all-in on the Bond pastiche (and I really enjoy how Segun Akinola matches the pastiche with the music) while distorting it just enough with aliens such that it goes off in a different direction. We're still sent all over the world, only now it's in service of figuring out what's up with the aliens. This not only splits up the TARDIS fam, giving them more to do, but it also allows them to hit more of the Bond tropes, with Yaz and Ryan going undercover while the Doctor and Graham coordinate with the agent in the field (the aforementioned O), without feeling too jumbled or convoluted. Ryan's kind of cute while pretending to be a photojournalist, and Yaz feels like she's loving every minute of it. They're investigating Daniel Barton (played by Sir Lenny Henry!), a sort of Jeff Bezos character in charge of a company called Vor, who's only 93% human and who seems to know more about the aliens than he's letting on. Henry is great as Barton, giving the character the right amount of charm and malice -- perfectly fitting for a Bond-style mastermind.

The Doctor/Graham/O plot strand is more typical Doctor Who than it is Bond, with aliens attacking O's remote homestead, but it's still handled well, with more hints that these aliens are up to no good. "We are ready," the alien they've managed to capture tells them. "...To take this." "To take this what?" the Doctor wonders. "Hut? Country? Planet?" "Universe," the alien replies. And then it disappears, replacing itself with Yaz, who the aliens captured while Yaz and Ryan were snooping around Daniel Barton's office (and there's something rather wonderfully old-school about how the bizarre, completely alien place that Yaz is transported to in the meantime is made up of what's pretty clearly lots of distressed ducting hanging around). This, of course, brings the two plotlines back together, so that it's clear they have to go investigate Barton more closely -- especially since his servers contain alien code with steganographic images of multiple Earths. "They're alien spies embedded here on Earth!" the Doctor realizes. "OK. If you really think they're spies," O muses, "we should be asking who's the spymaster? Who's running the alien spies? Because that's the person who holds the answers." And that, of course, leads them back to Daniel Barton, which means everyone gets to dress up in tuxedos, just like in a Bond film. (And I like how the Doctor's tux is just a black version of her regular outfit -- although is that flash of red on the inside meant to evoke Peter Capaldi?)

The Master reveals the body of the real O. (Spyfall Part One) ©BBC

I've neglected, by the way, to mention how Sacha Dhawan delights as O, with his happy wonder at the Doctor and his curiosity about the aliens. My wife and I noted while we were watching how it was nice to see him playing a goodie role after having been the villain in Iron Fist (though, of course, he was also Doctor Who's very first director, Waris Hussein, in the Adventure in Space and Time docudrama). He seems so happy and fun that it's a tiny bit sad that we don't get to see more of O. Because, of course, the big twist at the end (that, impressively, they somehow managed to keep secret) is that O isn't O at all; he is, in fact, the Master, returned with no explanation after the events of "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls". Dhawan is definitely having a blast as the Master, playing him with so much evil giddiness mixed with outbursts of sudden rage. It's great to see, even if it's only at the very end here. "I met O," the Doctor says, confused. "I know," the Master replies. "Years ago," she says, still confused. "I know!" he exclaims with glee. "Ambushed him on his way to work for his first day. Shrunk him, took his identity and set myself up in MI6."²⁹⁰ It was an impressively shocking twist at the time, and even with repeated viewings it still holds up -- plus you get to see how the Master pretends to be impressed by things like the TARDIS when he's playing at being O. And if that weren't enough of a cliffhanger, we also get the Master blowing up the cockpit of the plane they're all flying through the air on, while he leaves the Doctor with a cryptic parting shot, one that sets up the rest of series 12: "One last thing. Something you should know in the seconds before you die. Everything that you think you know... is a lie." And then he teleports away, and then the Doctor gets absorbed by the alien creatures, and things look really bleak for the rest of the TARDIS fam...

It's certainly one hell of a cliffhanger, and it's an impressive series opener as well. The main thing to know about this episode is how fun it is. Spyfall Part One is pretty much a blast from start to finish, with lots of great setpieces and mysteries being raised. And bring on Part Two! (Which, because this was a New Year's special, fans only had to wait four days for instead of a whole week.)

(And it's rather sweet how the episode is dedicated to the memory of Master co-creator and prolific Doctor Who writer and author Terrance Dicks, who passed away on 29 August 2019.)

²⁹⁰ Of course, the fact that the Doctor met this incarnation of the Master back when the Doctor was a man (assuming O/the Master is telling the truth at that point) means that this is the first real evidence contradicting the idea of Gallifreyan Mean Time (roughly, that all Time Lords meet each other at the same points in their respective time streams). Maybe it doesn't apply if one of the Time Lords chooses to live on another planet and stay within that time zone? This might also explain the concern with Shada that we've largely glossed over.

August 31: "Resolution"

Promotional photo for "Resolution" (from BBC One - Doctor Who,
Resolution Gallery) ©BBC

Another episode without a title sequence! Does Chibnall not actually like the opening titles?

For the first time since Doctor Who came back in 2005, we don't get a Christmas special; instead, it's been delayed a week until New Year's Day 2019. (The cynical part of me thinks that's because, with the announcement that series 12 won't begin until 2020, this way they could still say Doctor Who had aired in 2019.) And so we get a story tied into New Year's instead of Christmas, but in other respects "Resolution" is basically the same thing we've come to expect. It's a longer, bigger episode, with something to entice the casual viewers, and that "something" is the return of the Daleks. Well, a Dalek, at least. But yes, after a season of new threats and planets, Chibnall finally chooses to dip into the show's past and bring back the audience's favorite monster for the "end of series special".

The opening sequence is a bit odd, though; it's like Chibnall wants to create this epic backstory, with pieces of the Kaled mutant being separated across the globe and defended for centuries by a group called the Order of the Custodians, but then he doesn't really do anything with it. The Kaled mutant is able to teleport itself back together once one of the pieces is revived, without any battle or anything, and so we're kind of left wondering what the point of that was. Chibnall could have just had the whole mutant uncovered and revived in Sheffield without any damage to the plot.

But elsewhere we get a pretty solid tale. Chibnall appears to be borrowing from the episode "Dalek" the idea that a lone Dalek is more terrifying than an army of them, but he puts his own spin on it, with the stuff of the mutant being able to latch onto people (kind of like the spiders in Planet of the Spiders, or the time beetle on Donna's back in "Turn Left") and to take over their bodies being an effective and disturbing threat. Plus it gives Charlotte Ritchie, as Lin, the Dalek's victim, a chance to act evil without compromising the sweetness of her character. And hooray! Despite all the changes from the Moffat era that Chibnall has made, we still get Nick Briggs as the voice of the Dalek!

Promotional photo for "Resolution" (from BBC One - Doctor Who,
Resolution Gallery) ©BBC

But in other regards this is a whole new Dalek (described as a special kind of Dalek, a reconnaissance scout, in order to maintain good faith continuity with the older versions of Daleks), with a new look and new weapons, such as missiles behind the giant Dalek "bumps" on the front of the skirt section. (And, in another first, this Dalek was completely radio-operated, with no person inside making it move or anything.) The Dalek looks a little ratty and slightly odd, but that's partly because it's reconstructed its shell from odds and ends. ("What do you call this look, junkyard chic?" the Doctor taunts.) It's a clever way of letting the production team design a new version of a Dalek without having to be married to it, the way the Moffat era was stuck with the iPhone Daleks for a while. And this Dalek is still incredibly dangerous, as shown by the way it takes out a squad of soldiers and a tank without much difficulty, so although the look may be different the danger is just as potent as ever.

So the Dalek storyline proceeds nicely, but we do get some character moments thrown in as well to help sweeten the deal, such as at the beginning, with the Doctor having taken her friends to nineteen New Year's celebrations in a row (and I, like the rest of the world, utterly adore the thirteenth Doctor's scarf here). And Jodie Whittaker has an understated but gorgeous line reading, after she works out that the creature in the sewers is a Kaled mutant: "I always I think I'm rid of them. Never am." But the main character bit is the introduction of Ryan's dad, Aaron, who's been hinted at throughout the season but not actually included until now. What's fascinating about his scenes is that Daniel Adegboyega, playing Aaron, makes him a surprisingly sympathetic character. It's not like when Clyde's dad showed up in The Sarah Jane Adventures; here, it feels like Aaron genuinely has regrets and genuinely wants to make amends as best as he can. This really shines through the scene between Aaron and Graham, where Graham has a box of Aaron's stuff that Grace had kept. "I wish I was better at life, Graham," Aaron says. "Well, there's still time," Graham replies. Aaron comes across as flawed but not irredeemable, and while Ryan's acceptance of his dad at the end feels a bit too easy, it's not the worst thing in the world. And Aaron shows himself to be not completely useless, which is nice; he has some engineering skills that not only allowed him to designed a combination oven and microwave, but also let him come up with the plan to defeat the Dalek, after the Doctor points out that this version has a lot of metal in its shell.

Of course, because this is a holiday special and they're expecting more casual viewers to tune in, they've decided to include some "jokes" in the episode as well. The one about UNIT isn't terrible, with its implication that UNIT was shut down as a result of Brexit ("All UNIT operations were put on hold following financial disputes and subsequent funding withdrawal by the UK's major international partners") -- and hilariously, some pro-Brexit viewers were apparently really upset by this -- but the one about all the WiFi and internet and phones going down starts with a good joke from Graham and Ryan ("What, on New Year's Day, when everything's shut and everyone's hung over?" Graham asks. "What a monster," Ryan replies), but then it cuts to a pretty cringe-inducing scene with a family worried that they'll have to talk to each other now. Less of this in future, please.

So it's not a perfect story by any means, but there's quite a bit to like about "Resolution". The actual Dalek itself is pretty terrifying, and the majority of the story is focused on the Dalek, so this part comes off well. If the surrounding material lets the side down, that just means that "Resolution" is ultimately more a solid tale than a brilliant one. Not a bad way to start the New Year at all.

And so that wraps it up for this run of Doctor Who stories. I hope to see you here again on September 1, 2020, when I'll cover series 12 (currently rumored to be airing early in 2020 -- so they basically just pushed the start date back by a few months, rather than scrapping a year altogether).

August 30: "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos"

Promotional photo for "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos" (from BBC One
- Doctor Who, The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos) ©BBC

And so we've arrived at the end of (the regular part of) series 11, with the Doctor and company facing a foe they thought they'd dealt with. "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos" is by Chris Chibnall, here to provide the big finale to the series. Chibnall doesn't have the greatest track record when it comes to big epic episodes (recall his Torchwood season 1 closer "End of Days" and quietly despair), and, sad to say, this episode doesn't do much to redress the balance.

That's not to say that it's bad, mind, but basically all the good bits have to do with the characters, not the plot. There are some interesting bits of plot -- the idea of a race of people called the Ux who can build things with their mind is pretty interesting, and the other idea that they've mistaken a returning villain for their god and consequently are doing whatever he says is, while perhaps a bit well-worn, still worth exploring. The problem is that there's not actually much exploration of that idea, or, crucially, any real fallout once the scales fall from the Ux's eyes; they realize he's evil and work against him, and that's about it -- no examination of conscience or even much guilt is expressed.

The other main problem is that that returning villain is Tzim-Sha/Tim Shaw, from the season opener. As I noted in that episode, while he was a nasty piece of work he wasn't exactly a difficult challenge for the Doctor (to put it in fourth Doctor terms, he's more of a Meglos than a Weng-Chiang), so for him to be treated as this super-dangerous foe falls flat rather. It also doesn't help that it feels like bits of this are lifted from The Pirate Planet (planets crushed down and held in stasis) and Babylon 5 (someone plugged into a powerful machine -- that one might be more of a visual lift, but it's still there in the mix), without anything particularly inventive done with the pieces. Tim Shaw's plan is also left frustratingly vague; he wants revenge on the Doctor, so he's going to place a bunch of planets in stasis crystal-thingies, because...that'll learn her? The last planet he threatens is Earth (although all we get is an effect shot from space, so it never feels that urgent or desperate), but that seems more like a whim because the Doctor's there rather than his plan all along. It's like Chibnall had these ideas that he wanted to play with, but because he didn't explore them in much detail they all just kind of awkwardly co-exist, never quite gelling. And the location they use for the planet is even a dreary old quarry, just like Chibnall's predecessors spent most of their time avoiding.

Ryan and Graham defeat Tzim-Sha. ("The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos")
©BBC

So it's not a great story, but where it does succeed is with the characters. Bradley Walsh continues to excel as Graham, and his arc in this story, where he learns that Tim Shaw is still alive and vows to kill him, to avenge Grace, is handled superbly. The moment where the Doctor confronts him, telling him that if he kills Tim Shaw he becomes no better than him, and Graham responds with a sort of sad matter-of-fact attitude, is gorgeously played by Walsh. And while the quick interchange between Graham and Ryan, where Ryan is trying to get through to him ("We're family. And I love you." "What did you just say?" "I'm not saying it twice. Don't pretend you couldn't hear me the first time") is kind of awkwardly played, it's at least a very believable awkwardness, so it works. Then there's the moment where Graham has Tzim-Sha in his sights and decides not to pull the trigger ("I'm the better man"), followed by Ryan and Graham taking him on together ("You shot him!" "Yeah, but just the foot ... just to shut him up"); that's really lovely too. Plus I like the well-earned fist bump that Ryan finally gives Graham at the end of that scene.

And Jodie Whittaker continues to shine as the Doctor, ready to face down bullies like Tzim-Sha (and his acolyte, Andinio) with a confidence and verve that serves the character very well. She's also very patient and kind with Paltraki as he tries to remember what's been going on. I also like how she plays improvising a plan; it has a rather tenth Doctor feel to it, but Whittaker makes it feel like a natural part of her Doctor's character. You can tell she's gotten very comfortable in the role, and I look forward to seeing what she does next series.

Sadly, once again it feels like Yaz is sidelined rather, but then that's been par for the course this series; it's rarely felt like we've gotten much development of her. We know she has a family, she's a junior police officer who's had training to remain pretty level-headed in a crisis, she's been the subject of racist comments, and that's about it. We don't have much in the way of knowing what she likes or dislikes, or what her hopes and ambitions are, beyond general stuff like "be the chief of police one day". It's an ongoing disappointment, and one I hope they proactively address in series 12 -- because right now Yaz tends to get lost in the background.

So the character moments (particularly from Graham) are the best thing about this story; everything else feels a bit underdeveloped and uninspired. Again, part of the problem is that Tzim-Sha isn't the threat that Chibnall seems to want him to be, but there's also a sense of just pulling pieces off the shelf and putting them together without enough care or forethought. Things like the Ux are a pretty cool idea, but they just don't get the development that they need, while the main plot just isn't clear enough to be the clear threat that it needs to be; it's almost like the show is just going through the motions, rather than providing something truly new and exciting. This means that "The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos" is a pretty forgettable story, honestly, and decidedly the weakest one of series 11.

We've still got "Resolution" to go, of course (since Chibnall was referring to that as the "end of series special" -- but on the other hand it's not included in the "Complete Eleventh Series" boxset...), but for all intents and purposes this is the conclusion of series 11 -- it's the final episode of the regular run, after all. Series 11 has marked a big shift for the show with its introduction of a female Doctor, but in most other ways this has been the most traditional (i.e., old-school) series of Doctor Who that BBC Wales has produced; there's more of an emphasis on educational bits and the Doctor discovering things alongside the audience and less of an emphasis on gimmicky stuff -- other than Tzim-Sha, who doesn't exactly count, we've gotten no returning foes from the show's past (not counting "Resolution", of course) and no overarching plotline this time around: no equivalent to Bad Wolf or Harold Saxon or the cracks in time or the Hybrid or anything like that. In that regard it's somewhat refreshing; we can get on with the episode at hand without having to worry about things that were said in previous stories, and while in some cases it's almost felt a bit too traditional, as if they need to play things safe with their new female Doctor, it doesn't get in the way that much, and it's certainly provided some excellent storylines. (That said, it remains to be seen whether series 12 will continue in this trad groove or will start to push the boundaries a bit more.)

But make no mistake; the casting of Jodie Whittaker is a huge change, the results of which are still being felt in some (dark) corners of fandom. But smartly, they don't make a big deal of the Doctor being a woman; she just is now, but she carries on just as any other Doctor would do. Jodie Whittaker does a fantastic job in the role, providing us with an incredibly inquisitive Doctor, one who's passionate about her beliefs but one who's also kind. As I've said, her Doctor has a tenth Doctor vibe, partly in the way she reacts to things and seems to be processing stuff out loud on the spot, but also because her Doctor feels very human and relatable. She's not slightly distant or apart from humanity, the way the twelfth Doctor sometimes was (though they definitely softened that aspect of the character in his later seasons -- although it never entirely disappeared); she's instead ready to muck in and help any way she can, and Whittaker makes it all look natural and easy. Jodie Whittaker is the Doctor, just as much as any of her predecessors.

And she's surrounded with a great supporting cast; I'm not sure anyone expected Bradley Walsh to be as good as he is, but he knocks it out of the park every time. It helps that he's incredibly down-to-earth, making sensible decisions (such as packing sandwiches because he knows they go a long while without eating) and responding to the Doctor in a way many of us would respond. (I think the current expression for this is that Graham is a mood.) And Tosin Cole as Ryan does a good job as well of being the slightly bemused teenager who's nevertheless incredibly loyal to his friends, while Mandip Gill does a good job with what she's given as Yaz, making her seem calm and collected. They all work well together, even if Yaz doesn't get enough to do.

So yeah, I think series 11 was a success -- more of a solid set of stories than a triumph, but there's nothing really wrong with that; certainly there aren't any outright disasters in this batch, and there are a couple stories ("Rosa" and "Demons of the Punjab") that in my opinion proudly sit among the best of Who. Now the question is, will this prove to be a foundation that Chibnall will build upon, or will series 12 just be more of the same? That, I think, will prove to be the real test.

August 29: "It Takes You Away"

Promotional photo for "It Takes You Away" (from BBC One - Doctor
Who, It Takes You Away Gallery) ©BBC

The TARDIS arrives in 2018 Norway (ooh, another place the show has never visited before!), where an isolated, boarded-up cabin contains a blind girl who's terrified of a monster that's living in the forest. But things are definitely not what they seem...

Since the show came back in 2005, it's generally been the case that there's been an episode per series that pushes at the restrictions of what Doctor Who can be, whether that's due to scheduling issues (as with "Love & Monsters") or simply to see if it can be done (as with "Heaven Sent"). "It Takes You Away" is the latest entry in these "offbeat" (for lack of a better term) stories.

"It Takes You Away" (which is a rubbish title, by the way) is by Ed Hime, writing his first Doctor Who script. (Fun fact: Chris Chibnall is the only writer on series 11 who's written for the show before (although Malorie Blackman wrote a seventh Doctor short story ebook, "The Ripple Effect", for the show's 50th anniversary²⁸⁸) -- by contrast, only one writer for the previous series, Mike Bartlett, wasn't a returning writer.) It starts out with some quirky moments, such as the Doctor tasting the soil to work out when and where they are and then being worried by a sheep ("It's fine. It's only 2018," she declares. "I thought we'd leapt into the Woolly Rebellion"²⁸⁹), before investigating the house. So it starts with a kind of weird, almost horror-film-like tension, with the isolated cabin and the inexplicable boarded-up nature, and having a terrified blind girl named Hanne (played by Ellie Wallwork, who really is blind), a bellowing monster sound coming from outside, and the disappearance of her dad does a good job of ratcheting up that tension. Of course, Ryan is skeptical that there's a monster ("You're not buying that?" he asks Graham. "Her dad's done a runner and she's making this monster stuff up"), which highlights Ryan's feelings about his own father -- but the general impression is that Ryan is too cynical and that the others are ready to believe that Hanne's dad Erik was taken away by a monster.

Er, except it turns out Ryan is right (not that anyone ever points this out); Erik really has done a runner, just into a different universe where his dead wife is still alive instead of to a different town or something, and he's taken these elaborate steps to ensure Hanne doesn't go outside, including boarding up basically every possible window and running a speaker system outside to play scary noises so that Hanne can cower in fear instead of just chilling with some music or something -- and just so that she won't wander off! Couldn't he just tell her he's leaving for a few days, don't go outside? ("He should've just got Wi-Fi," Ryan comments. Either way, Erik isn't going to win any parenting prizes, that's for sure.) But I dunno if they were worried that the episode was underrunning, or that the episode was too cerebral and they needed something exciting for viewers to latch onto, but there's a place between the two universes called the Antizone, full of flesh-eating moths and some weird dude called Ribbons of the Seven Stomachs (played by Kevin Eldon), which seems designed to add some action to the proceedings but also feels completely superfluous to the actual storyline. It's all right enough on the first viewing, but on subsequent viewings you wish they'd just get on with it and get to the other universe.

Because that part of the story is far more compelling. Placing everyone in a literal mirror universe, with all the images flipped, is a nice touch, and the stuff where the universe is an ancient sentient universe called the Solitract that got expelled from our universe for being incompatible is a nice idea, even if it mirrors the Divergent Universe stuff from the eighth Doctor Big Finish audios a bit. (And the "Granny 5" stuff works way better than the Woolly Rebellion thing.) It's also here where it becomes clear just how terrible a father Erik really is -- but that's (partly) justified because Erik is grieving the death of his wife and so isn't thinking straight ("You're not well," Hanne later tells him; "you haven't been since Mum died"), and he's willing to live in this parallel universe and effectively abandon his daughter to get his wife back. And the Solitract tries to do the same thing with Graham by bringing Grace to him, which leads to some very touching scenes between the two of them. It's nice to see Sharon D. Clarke back, and it's heartbreaking the way Graham reacts to her presence. If they'd expanded this part of the story a bit more, they could have probably ditched the Antizone stuff without too much trouble and improved things no end.

Because the ending is delightfully insane. After it becomes clear that this constructed universe is destabilizing, the Doctor offers herself up in exchange for the others, which leads to the Solitract personifying itself as a talking frog. I know fandom has found the talking frog very divisive, but I quite liked the concept. I also liked how they appeared to be using an actual puppet frog -- it felt nicely old-school. (If it turns out it was a CG frog, then disregard this, but it just looks too immobile to be CG.) And there's a nice theme of loneliness present here, which manifested itself with grief for Erik and Graham but is more melancholy here, with the Solitract just wanting a friend -- but even the presence of the Doctor is too much, causing things to destabilize:

DOCTOR: Me being here is going to kill us both. You may want us to be together, but it's not working. It can never work.
SOLITRACT: You're lying to me because you want to leave.
DOCTOR: No. I'm your friend. But friends help each other face up to their problems, not avoid them. This is... You are the maddest, most beautiful thing I've ever experienced, and I haven't even scratched the surface. I wish I could stay. But if either of us are going to survive, you're going to have to let me go and keep on being brilliant by yourself.
SOLITRACT: I miss you. I miss it all so much.
DOCTOR: I know. But if you do this, I promise, you and I will be friends forever. You have to let me go.
SOLITRACT: I will dream of you out there without me.
(The Doctor backs away and blows a kiss.)
DOCTOR: Goodbye.

(from The Doctor Who Transcripts - It Takes You Away)

It's exactly the sort of thing that makes Doctor Who so great; I just wish there had been a bit more of it. If they'd spent more time with the Doctor and the Solitract interacting (or maybe even just intercutting between the relative peace and quiet there with some hustle and bustle from the others (back in our universe, in the version of this story without the Antizone)), this could have potentially been even better.

So in some ways this story works quite well; the reflected universe stuff is nicely done, and the theme of grief and loneliness is handled thoughtfully -- and the way that Ryan calls Graham "Grandad" at the end is not only a nice culmination of their relationship over the previous episodes, but it also contrasts with that theme of grief; Graham may miss Grace still, but he can move forward with Ryan. It's just too bad that they felt it necessary to add the Antizone stuff, or that Erik had such a bizarre scheme to keep Hanne inside that really falls apart when you think about it too much. Those moments hold "It Takes You Away" back from achieving the full potential that it promised; as it is it's only decent instead of marvelous.

²⁸⁸ The story itself isn't too bad, about a parallel timeline where Daleks are a force for good, but Blackman weirdly seems to think that the seventh Doctor talks like Jon Pertwee, with lots of phrases such as "My dear Ace" peppering his dialogue, which sound deeply wrong when imagined in Sylvester McCoy's voice.
²⁸⁹ The Woolly Rebellion thing seems really bizarre, even though it's meant to be more a joke than anything else, but since we're in the business of making everything fit here, we have to treat it as a serious event. It's a bit horrifying to think we're killing and eating sheep if they're conscious and sentient (you might argue it's horrifying to eat them in the first place, of course), but it's also weird that it took them so long to rebel. Given that the Woolly Rebellion apparently happens in 2211, aka about fifty years after the Dalek Invasion of Earth, maybe the Daleks did something to the sheep to make them self-aware. Or maybe they liked the way they were treated under the Daleks better than how they were treated by the humans. Or maybe this really is just daft.

August 28: "The Witchfinders"

The Doctor, shooting for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth I, overshoots and arrives in Lancashire in the 1610s, where a local landowner, Becka Savage, is conducting a series of witch trials in order to deal with the presence of Satan that she believes is infesting the village of Bilehurst Cragg. But it seems there may be in fact something alien infesting Bilehurst Cragg...

"The Witchfinders" -- written by Joy Wilkinson -- isn't the first time Doctor Who has covered witch hunts and trials (see, for instance, Steve Lyons' excellent first Doctor PDA The Witch Hunters, which covers the Salem witch trials -- and which is one of a handful to have been reprinted relatively recently, so you should be able to find a copy without too much trouble), but it is the first time televised Who has directly tackled the subject. And this episode feels a lot closer to what we'd come to expect from BBC Wales's trips into history, with a famous historical figure (in this case, King James I, played marvelously by Alan Cumming) and an alien threat, than what we've gotten so far this series.

But what really makes "The Witchfinders" work is that it's the first episode to really take into account the fact that the Doctor is now a woman. Up to this point it's been acknowledged a little bit but then largely ignored, and the previous trips into history have been set up in such a way that the Doctor doesn't really need to justify herself just because of her gender. But here Wilkinson chooses to directly tackle what it means to be a woman in the past, and more importantly what it means for the Doctor to now be ignored just because of that. It starts small, with King James I reading the psychic paper as calling the Doctor the Witchfinder's Assistant, instead of the Witchfinder General as Becka saw, and treating her as second-class as a result. "Hold your tongue, lassie," King James tells the Doctor after she tries to interject into the conversation. "Stick to snooping and leave the strategy to your king." But then things escalate as the Doctor investigates the living mud which has started inhabiting the corpses of the "witches" Becka has already tried: "'Cos this is my problem. I can buy that this is the biggest ever witch hunt in England, or I can buy it's an alien mud invasion. But both on the same day? I can't buy that. ... Unless they're connected. Your witch hunt's been going on a while now, so there's no way that mud has just rocked up today. What do you know, Becka? What's going on here in Bilehurst Cragg? A woman who keeps an axe by her bed. What have you seen?" And since Becka knows that she's been infected (by Satan, she believes) and doesn't want to be found out, she instead accuses the Doctor of being a witch and turns King James against her. "Honestly," the Doctor grumbles, "if I was still a bloke, I could get on with the job and not have to waste time defending myself." But that's the point here; the Doctor now has to deal with the sexism of the time, and even though she's the smartest person in the room (so to speak) because she's a woman she can't get people to listen to her, and it ultimately leads to her being tried as a witch. It's a clear demonstration of the extra barriers that she now has to deal with, and it's handled very well, and in a way that it's difficult to imagine any of the male Doctors having to deal with. (Sure, Becka could accuse the Doctor of being a warlock, but it's honestly very hard to envision a version of this story where, say, the twelfth Doctor was disbelieved and then put on trial.)

So much of the drama here comes from the way the Doctor is constantly on the back foot, where all her skills can't convince people in power that she's not the enemy, and which leads to her being ducked as a witch herself, that everything after this point, where the aliens reveal themselves to be a race called the Morax, imprisoned inside Pendle Hill for war crimes until Becka Savage unwittingly released them by cutting down a tree that was actually the prison lock, feels a bit anticlimactic. We get some green flame (made from the wood of the not-tree) that's toxic to Morax, and then the Doctor does something clever and handwavy to reimprison them, and that's about it.

But yes, Alan Cumming is in this! That feels like a real coup, getting him to play King James here, and you can tell he's having a great time. I suppose one could object to the fact that Cumming plays the King with a constant twinkle, as if this is all just a great laugh, but it does help lighten the otherwise very heavy subject matter, and it also makes his single-mindedness regarding the pursuit of witches more interesting, because here is a person who will happily condemn a person to death if it saves them from Satan. I also like the way he keeps eyeing up Ryan as his "Nubian prince". (There's evidence that King James may have been either gay or bisexual, so this isn't an invention for the episode.) It's a great performance, and while Cumming is spending a lot of time providing this twinkle, he can still bring it when he needs to; the conversation between him and the Doctor when the Doctor has been tied up awaiting her trial is really well handled on both sides. And we also get Siobhan Finneran (who's done loads of stuff, including Coronation Street and Downton Abbey) as Becka Savage, who plays her as so self-righteous and unyielding, even when it's clear she's hiding something, that you just love to hate her. In fact, that's part of why the ending is a bit of a letdown; once she stops being Becka and is instead the Queen of the Morax (as Graham calls her), she's just not as interesting a character, ranting about conquest instead of witches.

But the ending is really more a minor flaw than a major problem. The real focus of the story is the Doctor, and how she handles being a woman in a time and place where that means being ignored and brushed aside. It was a story that needed to happen, and Joy Wilkinson does an excellent job of bringing it to life. "The Witchfinders", with a good script and some fabulous performances, is a standout of series 11.

August 27: "Kerblam!"

Question: why is this episode called "Kerblam!' and not "Kerb!am"?

This is an odd episode in some respects. The overt influence here is Amazon, with its "ship everything" philosophy and its somewhat notoriously intense working conditions in the warehouses, and while we do get some of that ("Great conversation, guys," one of the robots tells Yaz and fellow warehouse worker Dan, "but unnecessary talking can lead to efficiency reductions. Why not pick up the pace a little?"), this doesn't draw the overt parallels that one might expect. In fact, the people we see working generally seem pretty pleased to be there, doing their jobs happily. Part of the reason is that writer Pete McTighe has also chosen to add in conversations about automation into the mix. "What I don't understand is, why does Kerblam need people as a workforce?" the Doctor wonders. "These are automated and repetitive tasks. Why not get the robots to do it?" "Kandokan labour laws," packing station worker Kira replies. "Ever since the People Power protests, companies have to make sure a minimum ten percent of the workforce are actual people, at all levels. Like the slogan says, real people need real jobs. Work gives us purpose, right?" Maybe this was just so there would be a reason for people to be around instead of just robots, but it leads to an uneasy tension between the automation aspect and the unexplored "exploited employees" aspect.

That's not to say that it isn't fun -- this is definitely a fun episode, with small bits like the Doctor getting a fez ("Still me?" she wonders after putting it on) or the stuff with Graham being sent to Premium Maintenance (after he swaps assignments with the Doctor, which means that originally she was going to be the one doing maintenance work). And I quite adore all the stuff with Twirly, the original delivery bot, even though by rights that should be cringe-worthy -- but somehow they pull it off. Plus those little references to Ryan having worked at a shipping warehouse leads to the payoff here, with his knowing how these places work. The mystery of what's going on is also handled pretty well, with the tension slowly ratcheting up as people are shown to have been inexplicably disappearing. Some of it isn't handled quite as elegantly, however; the scenes of Ryan, Yaz, and maintenance worker Charlie riding the conveyor belts at high speed, jumping from belt to belt, and then dodging anti-contamination laser blasts, feel like pure kids TV, rather than the exciting action set piece they were presumably going for.

But it sometimes feels like McTighe is concerned about people guessing where the story is going, so he's constantly throwing in bits of misdirection to distract us. But occasionally this leads to just weird moments; Warehouse Executive Jarva Slade is shown to be a rude, unpleasant man who keeps a locking filing cabinet full of details of the missing personnel, and he's packing a gun, but it turns out that he's not a villain, he just thinks the Doctor is -- except he's convinced otherwise really quickly. Or the really bizarre idea that the Kerblam system kidnaps Kira -- a completely innocent bystander -- and kills her in order to convince Charlie not to go through with his plan. (Even stranger, the thirteenth Doctor -- a woman who even criticized Karl for pushing Tim Shaw off a crane after Tim Shaw a) tried to kill Karl and b) was dying of DNA bombs he'd detonated himself -- doesn't see fit to take the computer system to task for this, or even mention it in any way, really.) And so the big twist is that it's not an evil computer, it's an evil maintenance worker who wants to convince Kerblam to hire more people by... sending out a bunch of packages that will kill anyone who pops the bubble wrap packaging inside. (Clearly, people named Charlie really are the worst.²⁸⁷) Is the idea to try to frame the computer system? Because it looks like the result of this plan would be to completely shut down Kerblam such that the ten percent of the company that aren't robots won't have a job anymore. And if the computer is the one who sent the initial "Help Me" message to the Doctor, why didn't it put more details on it, like "Help Me Charlie Is Going To Mail Bombs"? And so the actual consequences of Charlie's failed plan, other than shutting Kerblam down for two weeks for repairs, is to give in to Charlie's demands and try and hire more workers, even though they've just seen that it was an "organic" who caused the problems and murdered a bunch of people in the first place? (Oh, and as long as we're complaining, this is our first real look at how the pillars surrounding the TARDIS console move up and down in time with the time rotor, as if they were constantly bowing to it like Wayne and Garth chanting "We're not worthy" to Alice Cooper. It's a pretty stupid look, honestly.)

So it's an episode with some fairly big logical flaws. But that still doesn't take away from the fact that "Kerblam!" is still a pretty fun episode, with generally pleasant characters and lots of fun interactions and moments. It does mean that this is kind of the Doctor Who equivalent of candy, though; enjoyable while it lasts, but ultimately nothing of real substance. Now I know I took "Empress of Mars" to task last series for being basically just candy, but this episode doesn't bother me as much as that one did -- perhaps because here the characters are better realized, rather than just broad caricatures. So maybe the lesson is, if you're going to give us a lightweight Doctor Who episode, give us something to focus on besides the details of the storyline -- and that's something that "Kerblam!" does very well.

²⁸⁷ Shout-out to my best friend Charlie Wallace!